The House of Blue Mangoes (15 page)

It required a great deal of ability and immense courage to attempt any well more than twelve feet wide, especially those with masonry retaining walls over two feet high. Often you had only one attempt at the big wells, for if you failed you were lucky to have a clear fall into the murky waters below. Sometimes a jumper broke a leg or an arm or suffered a concussion. Or he could knock himself unconscious on the far side of the well and drop like a stone into the deep shaft, and his companions might not be swift enough to rescue him.

The year 1896 had been a bad one for well-jumpers. Eleven had died in the district, and a couple of dozen had injured themselves badly. At the urging of several panchayats and thalaivars, Hall’s predecessor had banned well-jumping. But it grew and thrived in secret, now that the headiness of breaking the law was added to its thrills. In 1897, sixteen young men were killed. In 1898, this figure inexplicably fell to a mere three, and in 1899, two young men had died so far. All the authorities and their representatives could do was watch and attempt to be as vigilant as possible.

Solomon Dorai’s younger son Aaron was one of the best well-jumpers ever. He had cleared most of the major wells in Chevathar and the surrounding villages, including a fifteen-footer in Panakadu village, which he had jumped about a year ago, easily the most thrilling and satisfying event of his life. By clearing the monster, he had surpassed virtually every existing record. Only the man he admired most, his uncle Joshua Dorai, had done better, clearing a sixteen-footer in his prime.

For a long time now, the well that served the Andavar quarter in Chevathar had been a challenge to well-jumpers, but no one could quite bring themselves to tackle its seventeen-foot span and three-foot retaining walls. Every so often a brash young man would declare that he was attempting the well, in order to crown himself the best well-jumper in Kilanad, in the world, but his nerves would always let him down.

The well was perfectly situated. It stood in the open and there was nothing to prevent the jumper getting a good run at it. The ground around it was hard, offering purchase and boost, especially during the all-important run-up and take-off. Scarcely a week passed but dirt lines scratched in the ground near the well testified that someone had intended to try but had lost their nerve in the run-up.

Aaron decided that he would have to attempt the Andavar well immediately. He might break a leg or an arm in the hostilities they all knew were coming and never be able to jump a big well again.

On the morning chosen for the jump, he was at the well early, along with three friends. He had practised for weeks now, and knew every inch of the terrain. He decided that he would make two practice jumps and one dummy run. He perched on the parapet wall, feeling the deliciously cool stone and mortar under his thighs, relaxing, letting his body go slack, then gradually focusing, until he had the concentration he was looking for. As dawn came crowding through the night, he slid off the parapet and, digging his toes into the gritty red laterite, paced out his run-up in great, hopping long-jumper’s strides, from the strip of white chunam that marked the take-off line to the point at which he would begin his run. He crouched for a moment at the mark, then moved sideways to begin the practice jumps. The ground for these had been prepared by his friends, making allowance for the extra distance he would have to cover to clear the parapet on both sides. For a moment he thought about Joshua-chithappa. He was nervous, more nervous than he felt he could ever be, although he had done many difficult jumps and understood how to take advantage of the feeling, part excitement, part fear, that overcame him at such moments. What a boost his hero’s presence would give him. He put Joshua out of his mind, did a few cursory knee bends, then began his run-up, going slowly at first, and then racing towards his take-off point with the stiff, steel-springed, bounding steps that were particular to well-jumpers. Well short of the take-off line, he soared into the air, legs tucked tightly under him, body hunched forward. As his momentum slowed, he splayed his feet and landed. Perfectly, except that his feet were squarely athwart the far line. If he had jumped the well, he’d have fractured both legs on the parapet. He remained where he crouched, eyes shut, and suddenly began to shake uncontrollably.

A hand on his shoulder, strong fingers pressing down painfully on his bare upper body. He looked up and thought at first that he was dreaming.

‘Joshua-chithappa! When did you arrive?’

‘Yesterday. One of your friends told me about this morning, but I told him not to tell you, didn’t want to spoil your concentration.’

‘Appa . . .’

‘He doesn’t know I’m here, I want it to be a surprise. And don’t worry, I won’t tell him . . .’

‘You might as well, I don’t think I can do it. Did you see my practice jump? I would have crashed into the wall.’

‘Yes, very painful I can tell you,’ Joshua said calmly. He walked with a limp, the result of the fracture that had ended his own well-jumping career.

‘It’s too huge, chithappa, I can’t do it,’ Aaron said, shaking his head and rising to his feet. The boy was almost as tall as his uncle. Though they didn’t look alike, they were built the same way – tall, with strong features, and the lean, high-hipped bodies of long-jumpers.

‘Aaron,’ his uncle said slowly, ‘you can clear the well. You took off three feet before the take-off line, and yet you almost did it.’

‘I know, but this one’s too big for me. It scares me . . .’

‘If you walk away from here, Aaron, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering about what might have been. We have a very, very short time in which to make the best use of the gifts we’ve got. You could be the greatest well-jumper this place has ever seen, and I’ve seen the best. Now, you can walk away . . .’

‘Will you watch . . .’

‘Only if it doesn’t spoil your concentration.’

‘No, chithappa, I want you to, it’ll help me.’

‘Fine, I’ll be here. Remember, there is just one thing you need to hold in your mind. Empty it of everything else. Me, the practice jump, the well, your friends. The only thing that you need to focus on is the take-off line. You’ll need to hit it perfectly, you’ll already know by the time you get to it if your stride is right, and then you’ll just need to relax and enjoy the perfection of your jump.’

‘And if I don’t get it right?’

‘You will,’ Joshua said imperturbably. ‘Remember, the take-off point, then you’re lifting into the air, you’re a bird, you’re Hanuman crossing the oceans in one mighty bound.’

His second practice jump was perfect. Timing his take-off precisely, he made the best jump of his life, clearing the far line by about a foot and a half. Joshua nodded his appreciation. When Aaron came up to him, he suggested casually that he dispense with the dummy run-up to the well and take the actual jump immediately.

Aaron agreed and walked to the beginning of his run-up. He could feel the breeze on his back, his shoulders. He focused on the white band of chunam in the middle distance until his eyes strained with the effort, then relaxed, jogging in place for a few seconds, letting his body go slack, his mind go blank. Then, gradually, he began to focus again on the line of white chunam. Its faraway presence in the mud of Chevathar grew defined and strong, crossing over, as his concentration deepened, from its reality on the ground into his consciousness. He began moving then, arms swinging in time to his pumping legs, his body perfectly poised. The line grew in magnitude, a broad white band of crumbling little particles of calcified stone, growing wider with each passing stride. It was a sea now, a bright white sea, drawing him closer and closer, so enormous he could vanish into it if he overbalanced. At its very lip, at the point the white would have engulfed him if he had gone any further, he took off smoothly, not checking his stride, soaring up, up, up into the sword-bright band of sky above. His passage was very quiet. Into the enormous silence and milky light, a whirr of glittering blue. Automatically a hand closed over the object, and then he had landed, no longer some fabulous creature of the empyrean, but a strong, handsome sixteen-year-old boy coming to earth effortlessly, without fear, the very best well-jumper in the world.

Joshua hastened up with his awkward stumbling gait, the boys following him, strangely quiet. Aaron, still bent in his landing position, looked up at his uncle. They did not speak. Slowly, the boy brought up his clenched left hand. A bright splatter of blue leaked out of his locked fingers. With great deliberation he opened his fist. In the palm of his hand, a tiny kingfisher lay blinded in the light, dazed by the crashing open of its prison. A moment, two, then its feathers flicked into place, its knobbly feet found purchase on the soft flesh of the boy’s palm, and it launched itself into space, blue on blue, conferring as it dwindled into the distance the perfect burnish to a morning that would pass into legend.

23

Despite his disability, Joshua Dorai was one of those men who walked lightly upon the earth, seemingly without care. Indeed, his limp seemed the only thing that kept him rooted to the earth. Without it, he would have become one of those dark, weightless shadows that race along the earth every time clouds slide across the sun. He was still in good shape, and middle age had left few marks on him: a slight slackening of the skin around his eyes and mouth, the faintest trimming of grey around the edges of his thick black hair.

Joshua and Solomon had been inseparable as children, and the day his cousin left Chevathar Solomon had felt more alone than he would have thought possible. Joshua was the only one he would listen to or confide in, the only boy who could occasionally beat him at stick-fighting, the only one who could mock his natural solemnity without fear of retribution . . . He had been so much a part of Solomon’s youth that his departure had abruptly signalled the end of the boy within him. Joshua had returned to Chevathar only once before, a dozen years after he had left, and had seemed much as before, neither rich nor poor, neither exultant nor unhappy in the life he had made for himself in the humid rubber plantations of Malaya. He showed no interest in settling down, although Solomon had urged him to stay. A few months and the familiar restlessness had taken hold of him again, and he was gone. That was a decade ago, and now he was back. There were gifts for the children, exquisite wooden toys carved from the hardwoods of the rain forest, lengths of shimmering silk, green as the sea at noontime, for Charity and the girls, and an ornate batik shirt for his cousin.

Solomon monopolized him for most of the day. The two of them sat out on the veranda, revisiting their youth. Joshua asked about Father Ashworth. The two had liked each other well enough, though Joshua’s lack of interest in the Church had often frustrated and irritated the priest. ‘How’s the old man’s Tamil? He used to sound so funny, as though he had pebbles in his mouth!’

‘Oh, his Tamil is excellent now. He’s quite an authority on local customs and traditions. Knows more than most of us here.’

‘Yes, he was very diligent.’ Joshua paused, then said with a laugh, ‘I still remember Aaron telling me that he thought the padre’s face looked like a monkey’s bottom. He asked me if his eyes were made of blue glass and wondered if he took them out when he slept. In fact, he was planning to steal them.’

Solomon laughed. Inside the house Charity heard the laughter and was glad. It was the first time in many days that her husband had sounded at ease.

After a while Solomon said, ‘The padre is not very happy with me these days.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he thinks I should make peace.’

‘Do you want to?’

‘I don’t know, I keep thinking of the pain and destruction that a battle would bring. Perhaps I should go and talk to Muthu.’

‘He won’t listen to you. He won’t rest until he has driven you from Chevathar.’

‘I know.’

They sat without speaking for a while, their mood suddenly sombre. Then Solomon asked his cousin, ‘What do you think I should do?’

Joshua didn’t reply immediately. Then he said quietly: ‘I think you must fight this battle. You must cut off Muthu’s head or your grandchildren will suffer.’

‘Rather a drastic solution. But that’s always been your way,’ Solomon said drily.

‘As it should be yours. I’m sure you’ve tried everything to keep the peace, but that’s no longer an option, anna, you know that just as much as I do!’

‘Tell me, Joshua, why do you think Muthu hates us? His sole purpose in life seems to be to erase us from the face of the earth.’

‘I can’t think of any other reason except what we just spoke about. He must rule Chevathar or die trying. Whatever his faults, he’s as proud and stubborn as us, anna . . .’

He paused for a moment, then went on: ‘You know, there is something I promised not to reveal to you, but I’m going to say it anyway and hope you will forget I said it. This morning Aaron jumped that big well in front of the Andavar quarter.’

‘The big well,’ Solomon said wonderingly. Then, a little angrily, he added, ‘And you didn’t stop him! You know it’s illegal.’

‘Oh, who cares about that, anna. But your son, he was glorious. The greatest well-jumper in the world, but it wasn’t that that was important. At the moment of his triumph, he had escaped the world, the hundreds of little things we say and do to ourselves to bind us down, make us helpless little worms, who on their deathbeds only remember and lament what they always wanted to do, but never had the courage for. Think about it, anna. What a waste of a life, no matter how pitiful or earnest or triumphant it has been. Do you honestly want to die, and in your last moment go into the dark thinking only of what might have been? You will fight, anna, you must fight, for if you die without fighting, if you capitulate to Muthu, you will repent it all your next life. We do not bow to anyone, Solomon-anna, you and I, we do not cave in quietly.’

‘True enough,’ Solomon said, ‘but I wish there was some way of resolving this matter without bloodshed. You know, Joshua, sometimes I wish appa hadn’t died so young, I feel I would have been so much more prepared if he’d been able to give me just a little more of his strength, a little more wisdom.’