The House of Blue Mangoes (60 page)

‘Some peoples to see aiyah, this fellow is saying.’ Manickam spoke in English. This was something he did when other servants or guests were present, a trait Kannan found amusing but did not discourage; he knew the butler would be offended.

‘Can’t they come to the office?’ Kannan asked.

‘I’m saying, aiyah, but these peoples they’re saying that they are having some urgent things to be saying to aiyah just now only.’

Kannan was exasperated. But there was nothing to be done about it. When he stepped out on to the veranda, a babble of sound rose from the small knot of labourers who stood in the driveway. His kitchen boy shouted at them to be quiet, but Kannan signalled him to silence and asked the men what the problem was. They began talking at the same time and he told them sternly that only one of them should speak. They fell silent and stood there shivering in their lungis and cumblies, scant protection against the evening cold. Finally, the kangani, whom he took to be the leader of the deputation, found his voice. The man could be disrespectful and sly, but today he seemed genuinely upset: ‘Aiyah,’ he said slowly, ‘a man was killed near the coolie lines tonight. A tiger, big as three jutka ponies, did it . . .’

A tiger. A man-eating tiger. Everything else that clogged Kannan’s mind blasted clear. An image rose behind his eyes of the dead panther that Freddie had spoken about, its lips drawn back. Stray passages from Jim Corbett’s
Man-Eaters of Kumaon
came back to him. How thrilling it would be to stalk a savage beast through the jungle at night! Where would he put the head once the animal had been shot and mounted? Perhaps he could replace that indifferent painting of the gulmohar tree that Helen had put up in the living room. It would dominate the room. But the kangani hadn’t stopped talking and Kannan forced himself to listen. ‘I saw the monster as clearly as I see you, aiyah. Not more than ten feet away. One leap and poor Mayilandi was no more. His wife is a widow and his six children have no father. We beg you to get rid of it, aiyah, before it kills us all.’

Bidding the men to wait, Kannan hurried into the house, and made straight for the bedroom where he kept his Mannlicher .275 rifle. He had bought it in Mundakayam from a planter who was going to war, and thus far had used it only twice, against boar.

The coolies were squatting on the ground where he had left them. The sight of Kannan with his rifle seemed to infuse them with a new spirit, and they jumped to their feet, chattering excitedly. Somewhat self-consciously, Kannan walked down the steps. The coolies led the way, their weak lamp throwing a fitful glow into the night. As he walked, his eyes glued to the feet dwindling into the mist ahead of him, his initial thrill began to fade, and Kannan began to worry. The realization that he didn’t know the first thing about shooting tigers, had never seen anything more threatening than a wild pig in the jungle, took hold of him, and he began to doubt the wisdom of what he was doing. He tried to recall what the great Corbett had written in his book about man-eaters and how they were to be dispatched. If he survived tonight, he would make haste to borrow Michael’s copy again and acquire a tip or two on how to deal with rogue tigers. Meanwhile, he would have to make do with whatever his memory threw up. He hefted the rifle and drew some strength from its weight and feel. What did Corbett say about the best place to plant a bullet – the head, behind the shoulder, in the belly? Perhaps the head, no, no, it was probably the shoulder, or was that for elephants . . .?

He should have sent a runner to Freddie’s place. His friend had a monstrously powerful rifle: a .400/450 Winchester that could stop a rhino in its tracks. And it would have been reassuring to have someone else who could sit up over the kill with him, even if Freddie was as inexperienced as he was. Or perhaps he should have just waited until the morning? The man was dead, after all. There was nothing to be done for him. And if there was indeed a man-eating tiger about, it wasn’t going to go away in a hurry. The thought didn’t reassure him at all and he cursed his foolhardiness. He was an idiot! He shouldn’t have been so precipitate. What was he trying to do? Commit suicide? But these men trusted him. He was the boss, after all.

‘We’re almost there, aiyah,’ the kangani said, out of the night, and Kannan started nervously. The man had dropped back until he was almost level with Kannan. If a man could creep up on him without warning, what about a tiger! Concentrate on the job, he told himself sternly, and pushed his doubts aside. The decision had been taken, he was the man in charge now, and he would simply have to do the best he could.

The dead man lay at the edge of a dense patch of scrub jungle that grew along the path to the coolie lines. As they approached the body, one of the men in the group puckered his lips and called out in the peculiar way practised by the hill people. The sound would carry for miles. Learned at birth, it was impossible to emulate, no matter how much Kannan and the other planters tried. Presently, a group of men came up the path from the lines. When they noticed Kannan, they began vying with each other to tell him about the tragedy. After several minutes of incoherent babbling, it transpired that no one had actually seen the man struck down. Finally, a factory worker, with some experience of tiger kills because he poached, said that he was certain that this was one. He had seen the way the beasts dispatched their victims, and he had no doubt at all. He reconstructed the scene for Kannan: the tiger had waited for the man behind that clump of bamboo, it had sprung and caught him by the arm, which its teeth had severed cleanly, before it had got a better grip on his chest; then, even as the terrified coolie had screamed for help, it had closed its jaws around his throat. Kannan had noticed a village pye dog worrying at something that lay on the ground close to the body and suddenly he felt sick. Once again, he became uncomfortably aware of his boundless ignorance, but he was reluctant to press the poacher for more information. It would only diminish him in the eyes of the workers if they knew how inadequate their manager was to carry out the task at hand. He tried to act professional. First, he would need to select a place to sit up over the kill. Was it tigers that were active during the day, and leopards at night? Did tigers ever return to kills they had been disturbed at? There was nothing he could do about his inexperience now; he would just have to use his insufficient stock of information as best he could.

After rejecting a number of locations, he finally chose an enormous rock that fisted out of the tea. It was about twenty-five feet high, and from its summit Kannan had a good view of the kill. He instructed the men to leave and clambered up the rock alone. The sounds of the departing workers ceased quickly, too quickly, Kannan thought, as he sat on the rock. There was a fair-sized moon in the sky, but it was cloudy, and from time to time the world would grow very dark, increasing his edginess. He started at a rustle in the tea and ground the rifle into his shoulder, straining to align the foresight in the direction of the noise. Just then the moon was released from the cloud and he saw that there was nothing. He grinned, embarrassed, and lowered the rifle. Would the tiger return? He wished he had swallowed his pride and got more information from the poacher. Perhaps he should have asked the man to sit up with him. There was a steady breeze and the leaves of the shade trees stirred and rustled. He wondered if the tiger was out there, watching him, weighing its chances. He remembered reading about the fabled sixth sense that came into play whenever real hunters were threatened by a man-eater. He hoped he possessed it.

He recalled the numerous times Freddie and he had moaned about the lack of adventure on the estates. He’d got what he’d wished for all right, but it wasn’t how he’d expected it to be. A nightjar drifted silently out of the bushes and Kannan almost toppled off the rock in fright. Easy, he told himself, nothing can happen to you, you are armed with an accurate rifle, the light’s good, and besides, no tiger can reach you, you’re well out of reach. As soon as he thought this, new doubts assailed him. How long was a tiger at full stretch? Ten feet long? Twelve? Weren’t they able to spring twice their own length? He shivered and began to regret anew his foolish decision to sit up alone. If it attacked him, he was sure he’d freeze, giving it time to dispatch him at its leisure. How Helen would laugh if she could see him now. The thought shamed him and he scanned the country around him again. Nothing stirred.

The clouds had almost lifted and the corpse was clearly visible in the moonlight. He looked away, pushing it from his mind. All about him, the creaking of cicadas filled the air and the tea, silvery-black with night, was pricked by the brightness of fireflies. Gradually Kannan relaxed.

At a quarter to four, he decided the tiger wasn’t coming and began to ease his stiff and aching body down from the rock. Halfway down, another vaguely remembered fact from his stock of shikar stories popped into his head. Sometimes tigers returned to feed in the early hours of the morning. He quickly scrambled back up the rock.

His recent activity brought him wide awake. He scanned the tea bushes alertly for a while, then his mind began to wander. He considered Murthy’s brief visit. It had raised so many questions, challenged him so much that he wondered if he’d ever be wholly at ease in the estates again. He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or unhappy at the state his friend had left him in. At any rate, it had got him eating dosais with his fingers again. He wasn’t sure Manickam approved. Managers should behave like managers. From there his thoughts drifted to Helen. Was it only a few months ago that they had been so in love? It was all too late now, but what a life they could have made together. The first Indian couple to ascend to high station in the Pulimed Tea Company. Although, after Murthy’s visit, he wasn’t sure that that was quite the distinction he had once felt it was. Did he love her still? It was a question he had asked himself innumberable times since she’d left. Yes, he did love her, although his love was now tempered with wariness and wisdom . . . But wouldn’t it be grand if he could shoot the tiger! He could already see the admiration in the eyes of his fellow planters, the love in Helen’s eyes . . . This would be much better than winning a stupid tennis match. Even Murthy would approve! He hoped the tiger would show up. He’d drop it with a perfect shot. He threw up the rifle, pointed it at the pathetic remains of the worker, and pulled the trigger in his imagination . . . Phataak . . . Phataak. Then, feeling exceedingly foolish, he lowered the rifle.

The first grey light was seeping over the clarity of the stars. Kannan gave it a few more minutes and then clambered down the rock and started for home.

95

The Pulimed Tiger, as the shadowy killer was instantly christened, was cause for no little excitement in the district. In the past decade only seven tigers had been shot throughout these hills, and none in the Pulimed area. This was a source of much discontent among white sportsmen considering that, as late as 1924, seventeen tigers had been shot in a single month in the district. In the adjacent hills, forty-four tigers had met their end and the Periyar region had acquired a reputation as one of the best places in the whole country to bag the animal. Unfortunately for everyone, the tiger didn’t reproduce fast enough to be massacred at will, and by the 1940s, it was rare for anyone to see, let alone get a shot at one. Now every able-bodied man who possessed a gun had a real tiger to sit up for. And a man-eater at that. No persuasion was needed. All over Pulimed, rifles and shotguns were lifted off racks and pulled from cupboards as enthusiasts prepared to meet the killer. Their weapons ranged from peashooters like .22 rifles to elephant guns. Kannan sat up over the kill again the next night, but this time the rock was crowded. There was Freddie, who had his powerful rifle with him, and Driscoll, who made do with a double-barrelled shotgun loaded with buckshot. The tiger did not show up. Freddie and Kannan attempted to track the animal down with the help of the poacher, but there was little the man could do to decipher the two-day-old trail. The dead man’s remains, which his relatives had been clamouring for, were cremated and the hills waited for the tiger to show its presence once more.

It did so with a vengeance. Over the next month and a half it killed six times – a postman; a plucking writer; two clerks making their way home from work, discovered with the backs of their heads stove in, and no other signs of violence (for a while, the police suspected that they had been murdered, but when they couldn’t find a motive or a culprit, their deaths were attributed to the tiger, although no one could quite say why the backs of their heads had been bashed in and no part of them had been eaten); a kangani; and the tea-maker of Vayalaru factory, who met his end when he left his house at night to walk the short distance to the outdoor privy.

Fear slid through the area, twinned with excitement. Fifty-three sportsmen, all white with the exception of Kannan, sat up over the various kills. Although not one of them even glimpsed the beast, seven bullets were fired, dispatching quite needlessly three goats that were tied up as bait. It had been a long time since anyone had shot a tiger, and the inexperience was showing.

As the luckless sportsmen abandoned their vigils, the shadowy killer became the dominant topic of conversations everywhere – at the club, at work, at home – easily displacing the war, the agitation for independence, and even the incipient romance between Ralph Beattie and Margaret, the niece of Mrs Wilkins, who was visiting from Calcutta. Theories and rumours thickened and proliferated. People remarked on the fact that no native shikari had taken part in the tiger hunt, though they would, in the normal course, have taken near-suicidal risks to bag the animal, which now had a cash reward of five hundred rupees on its head. The talk was that no local poacher would take on the animal because they believed it wasn’t a tiger at all but rather the spirit of an old vaidyan, who had been driven from the district by the planters for engaging in the black arts. This theory was dismissed by the planters, who put it down to ridiculous native superstition, but Kannan had no convincing answers for his butler who asked him one morning why, if the tiger was a normal flesh-and-blood creature, it killed only people in positions of authority under the planters (with the exception of the first victim), when the easiest thing in the world would be to kill pluckers or coolies who had no protection whatsoever; and why none of the victims, with the exception of the first, had been eaten (what tiger, even a man-eater, would kill purely to kill)? The theory of the ghost-tiger, it was evident, could not easily be wished away or dismissed. The only way forward would be to actually catch sight of the beast, and bury a bullet in its heart.