Tikkipala (13 page)

After that the subtle ones went up regularly to check and sometimes felt afraid in case the Mawa had grown too old to bear a child. But after three months they were happy to discover that she was pregnant.

When they came to take the Coarsechild away, the Mawa protested, telling them, ‘I want this Coarsechild to stay up here in my place from now on.'

The subtle ones were shocked at her suggestion. ‘In all the history of our tribe there has been no husband who has been permitted to stay with the Mawa after her pregnancy has been established and also this creature is a Coarseone and therefore not worthy of the Mawa's place.' And, first removing the princely jewels that the Mawa had placed on the body of the child, they carried it back down the walkway. Water came from the Coarsechild's eyes and splashed onto their hands as they tied it up again and from above the Mawa watched and her face was sorrowful.

And after that the people waited fearfully, wondering if perhaps, problems would come with the pregnancy because of the Mawa's age. But nine months later, to the tribe's delight, Mawa bore a son. So great was the tribal joy that they lost interest in the Coarseone. No one could quite remember at which moment, on which day, or how it got away. Somehow it was noticed one day that it was not there at the end of its tether. When had anyone last fed it, given it water, groomed it? No one could remember.

‘But it does not matter,' said the people. ‘Our Mawa has given us a healthy son and we have no more need of it.'

Over the years that followed, the elders watched this child carefully, looking out for Coarseones' features or behaviour manifesting itself and, at first, it seemed as though all was well. The child appeared, even until toddler stage, as a perfectly normal tribal baby. ‘Our risky venture has succeeded,' sighed the elders, and felt full of a great relief. Some problems did arise as the child grew older. A flickering of the lips, a shouted sound from the throat, a sudden moment of subordination make the elders sometimes wonder whether, after all they had made a mistake and that because of the Coarseones' seed in him, the boy should be done away with. But in the end they always had to admit that these little flaws of feature and errors of voice were ones made even by the most perfect tribal child during the growing stage. The boy seemed to have been kept free of Coarseones' nature by the purification process of passing through the body of their sacred Mawa. And also this boy was all they had, for now the Mawa was of an age when she was well past bearing any more children. Also, no matter how long they waited and hoped, it seemed as though the line of suitable males had died out forever.

This child, even though originally fertilised with Coarseones' seed, was developing, on the whole, in a satisfactory way. His mastery of ancestor music was divine. He could race over the branches of the trees with more agility than a jungle monkey. His balance on the walkways was as perfect as that of a tree top lizard. By the time he was ten he knew wood as well as any adult man and could tell, by only the feel of the bark and the smell of the sap, the age and perfection of the tree and how much it's inner timber would bend and where its cracks were. His features and his body were as still and calm as any other member of the tribe. But most important of all, he could move his mind to direct the Animals as though he was a hunter. For fifteen years the people of the tribe smiled again because their troubles were over and told each other, ‘We
have a perfect Maw here, in this young fellow, and he in his turn will take a mate and breed another Maw or Mawa for us.'

But when the boy was fifteen he suddenly turned upon the elders and defied them, saying, ‘Why shouldn't people let out laughter that can be heard? Why must children be hit for moving their arms and bodies when they speak? There is no purpose in these things. When my mother grows too old and I become the Maw, I shall change the law about such matters, because I think that they are stupid.'

The Mawa begged her son in whispers not to speak like that. ‘You must not even think like that because if you do the people will take your life away.'

The boy let out a laugh that was so loud it made the Mawa flinch and look round wildly, certain that the people must have heard it. But the boy would not listen to her, only saying, ‘How can they take my life away? I am their only Maw.'

When the elders heard about the things the boy was saying, they knew at once what they must do. They did not even need to hold a meeting. ‘He is fifteen years old,' they said. ‘He is ready now to impregnate. The hunter and the Animals must set off to bring a young and perfect female from another tribe for him.'

When the man returned, months later, with a sobbing fourteen year old girl upon his shoulders and the boy was told that she was his, he felt filled with happiness.

‘Put her down and undo the ligaments,' he ordered the hunter.

‘But she will run away,' objected the hunter.

The boy reached out and caressed the girl around her dirty face. He ran his fingers through her hair and with gentle fingers took out leaves and twigs from it. He picked up her hand and stroked it with his own, then told the hunter, ‘No, she will not.'

Reluctantly the man untied the girl. The boy took her by the hand and led her up the climbing walkway, to his place. She did not struggle at all, but went quietly with him
as though she was one of the Animals and was being obedient for the hunt. When they reached his place, the boy poured the oil of tea tree on his hands and, putting them round the face of the sorrowful girl, wiped away her tears. Removing her tattered clothes he stroked her naked body with his oily hands till it shone again and all the dust and dirt was gone from her, then he filled his mouth with wild honey and buck milk and fed it into her mouth. He combed her hair with a rose wood instrument and polished it with more perfumed oil. Then he dressed her in one of his own coverings and, reaching out of the opening, he picked a flower from his wild tree orchid and fixed it against her breast. When she was looking beautiful and clean he took her to his mother, the Mawa. ‘See what the elders have given me,' he said. ‘All your worries were for nothing. They have rewarded me for my behaviour instead of punishing me.'

At first, in the weeks that followed, the Mawa went on feeling worried. However, gradually her fears subsided. The elders ceased to reprimand her son for his Coarseones' behaviour and tolerated acts from him that would have been allowed by no other member of the tribe, ever. ‘Perhaps they see the sense of the things you were saying,' she said to her son and was proud because he had had such an influence on his people even before he became their Maw.

The boy treated the girl as though she was his child as well as lover. When she became homesick for her mother, he sang songs to her to comfort her. All night long he kept his arms round her so that her dreams would be beautiful. And when he learnt that she was pregnant, he carried her food for her, to save her climbing up the walk ways and disturbing the child in her belly.

Perhaps it was this disappointment that killed the Raja of Bidwar, the certainty that his son, his replacement for his perfect Anwar, was destined to become a wastrel and a drunk. He was dining with the Collector. The Ranee had, as usual, refused to come. The Raja was in the middle of telling the story of how he had shot the man eating tiger at Parwal. Because one side of his mouth was paralysed, it took him a long time to tell a story these days. He stopped short at the moment when, though the bullet had got the tiger between the eyes, the creature was still rushing on towards him. The Raja's mouth stayed open with no sound coming out while everyone waited. The pause became too long and people began to shift in their chairs. The Raja's eyes took on a wild look as though something had grabbed him by the throat. Then, slowly, like a large tree felled, he crashed to the floor.

The Collector realised it was his duty to break the news of her husband's death to the Ranee of Bidwar. He felt a little nervous as he set off for, though he had never met the Ranee of Bidwar before, everyone talked of her strangeness and eccentricity. He had heard stories about her scandalous past and the tragic loss of her oldest son when he was only four. Thirteen years ago, he had been told, she had run away with the previous Collector's son. She had held a hot iron to prove her innocence to her husband but all the same her husband had banished her. People in Bidwar said that suffering had made her mad.

‘This way,' said the bearer. The young Collector followed, feeling shocked at the shabbiness of the bearer's uniform. His white coat was soiled, his pugree un-starched and drooping, his cummerbund faded and tattered. Had the palace of Bidwar lost its money or was it merely that the Ranee did not care what her home or servants looked
like. Pigeons rushed out from the corners, scattering dust and droppings. A multitude of sparrows perched, twittering, near the ceiling and above them the Collector could see the sky through a ragged hole in the roof. Wall hangings and curtains were ripped and faded. The paintwork was chipped. The chandlers dangled crookedly with pendants thick with dust or missing altogether. Even the marble floors and pillars were scuffed and damaged. Panes in the fine tall windows were either cracked or altogether lacking and birds and insects passed in and out the gaps.

The bearer led the Collector swiftly on, and now they seemed to be passing out of the grand part of the palace and into what could only be the servants quarters.

‘I am the Collector of Bidwar,' the young man said.

‘You told me,' said the bearer.

The young man flushed at such cheek but had no option except to keep following the fellow.

At last at the end of one long dark passage they reached a door which the bearer threw open.

‘Collector sahib has come,' he announced and ushered the young man into the room.

At first he halted, feeling a little dazzled by the sudden brightness and for a moment thought there was no one in the room. The entire room was looped, slung and stacked with a complicated tangle of glass pipes, small boilers and bubbling pots out of which tiny drops of strangely bright and luminous fluids oozed with a hissing sound. The Collector stood gazing round him, and did not know what to make of it.

A voice at his elbow said, ‘You want to see me?'

He looked down. A tiny woman wearing a tattered sari that was streaked with every colour of the rainbow stood at his elbow.

‘I have come to see the Ranee of Bidwar,' said the Collector.

‘I am she,' said the woman. Her grey eyes, behind her glasses, sparkled like the crystals that stood on every surface.

‘I have something to tell you.' One of the bubbling urns began letting out loud hoots and he had to shout. At once the Ranee, giving him a waving signal, grabbed up a metal scoop, went running to it and, jerking down a switch, silenced it. Then, pulling up a chair she scrambled on, plunged her scoop into the vat, drew out some luminous fluid then called the bearer who had been waiting by the door. ‘Raj, come and hold me while I get down.'

The Collector watched, shocked, as the Ranee of Bidwar allowed one of her servants to put his hands round her waist and steady her as she climbed down, with her brimming scoop. The man, he had to admit, balanced his mistress with respectful and even loving hands and when she had reached the floor, smiled at her with the affection of a father who had helped his child.

Sangita examined the contents of the scoop, sniffed it, dipped her finger in, and then took it over to a table where various test tubes and a little lit bunsen burner stood. Carefully she poured some of the liquid into a test tube and held it up the light. The Collector saw that her hands were streaked with colours like her sari.

‘I have come to tell you something,' the young man repeated. The Ranee, still holding the tube in the air, turned and gazed at the Collector. She seemed annoyed by the sight of him. Had she forgotten he was there? ‘It is of a tragic nature,' he added.

‘I am in the middle of an important experiment,' she said, ‘And I cannot be interrupted.'

‘This is very important.'

‘Well, go ahead. Tell me.' Still holding the tube in one hand, she sat at a table and began to jot down notes on a nearby pad with the other.

‘I need to speak to you privately,' said the Collector.

‘We are private. Do hurry up. The next one will be ready at any moment and then we won't be able to hear a thing again,' she said without looking up.

The Collector sighed and looked from the Ranee to the bearer. The bearer grinned shyly and shifted from one foot to the other. He was not even wearing shoes, the Collector saw.

The Ranee, apparently catching the glance, said without looking up, ‘Oh. Raj? You can say anything in front of Raj.'

‘The Raja of Bidwar is dead. He was dining in my house when it happened,' cried the Collector. The bearer flinched and began to gaze at the floor. The young man went on, bravely, ‘I am sorry.'

Very slowly the Ranee lowered the test tube and stopped writing. She sat there for a long moment without moving. Then said, ‘Raj, turn all the machines off, please.'

The bearer began to run round the room, throwing switches, as though, like this, he could save the situation. The hissing bubbling died away.

‘Is there something I can do?' the young man asked. ‘Is there someone I can call? To be with you?' He hoped she would ask him for the details but she did not.

The Ranee let out a sound like a laugh without humour and said, ‘No. It is over, then.'

The young man wondered if he should call a doctor. He said quickly, ‘At least you have your son.'

‘Yes. I call him Anoo which is short for Anwar.' When the Collector looked confused, she explained, ‘My son was born twice though my husband never would
admit it. That is why the Raja insisted we call him Anoo. Though, now I suppose, unless it's too late, we can go back to Anwar again.' She paused, then said, ‘I love him very much, you know.'