Tikkipala (30 page)

‘Why are you here?' she asked.

‘I live here … now,' said Maw, the words sufficiently comprehensible for even Khan to accept he spoke them.

‘I am going in the car,' Devi told Maw. ‘Do you want to come?'

‘No no, Madam, I beg you,' cried Khan. ‘What will your gracious father say to the arrival of a naked painted madman?'

‘I come,' said Maw.

Devi flung the rear door open. ‘Get in, Maw,' and to Khan, ‘Let's be going.'

Khan was too shaken with horror to move.

‘Why are you standing there with your mouth open?' demanded Devi.

Crushed and despairing, Khan began trying to persuade his heavily pregnant wife in the car and sit next to the madman.

‘He is not dressed,' wept Rehan.

Khan took one of his own lungis from the boot and tried to wrap it round the wild man's genitals, but Maw flipped it off.

In the end Devi had to get out again and cajole Rehan to get in, in spite of Maw's nudity.

At last the doors were shut and they were ready to go. Khan had to change gear several times because he suddenly could not remember which was the right one and his hands were trembling. ‘At least,' he whispered to Rehan, ‘the Animal is not here with us as well.' But Rehan was weeping too loudly to hear him.

As the car drove out of the palace grounds the thags stood in a row and called out mockingly, ‘Madman, tree-man, see you in the city,' and raised their arms in mocking, banana-fingered farewells.

Maw stayed in the car for the whole of the journey, staring straight ahead, his eyes dull as though he was not seeing. At night Devi arranged a mat for him in the forest bungalows where they stopped, but he refused to get out and stayed alone in the car all night, sitting upright. He did not eat. He did not drink though the weather was hot.

‘The fellow will have to urinate. He will have to get out then,' said Khan, and began to be taken with the happy idea of the fellow getting out to pee while Madam was sleeping, and Khan driving swiftly away leaving him on the roadside. But Maw did not urinate either.

Devi tried everything she could to break Maw's silence and to persuade him at least to drink. He seemed not to hear her.

Sometimes when they stopped in villages to buy food or drinks, crowds pressed round the car, peered in, spent a moment delightedly gawping at the Memsahib, then saw the painted madman and went wild with glee. Even when Khan started up the engine and began to drive again, sometimes faces were still pressed against the window as though their fascination was so great they had not noticed the car was moving. Later, at the river, Khan had had to scour away the wavy snot smears.

The further the car took Maw from the high jungle the fainter came the sounds from it, till at last he could hear nothing at all. But it did not matter because his tribe was lost to him until he could make the perfect sacrifice for Tikki.

Around Maw, in the car, the Coarseones talked and laughed. The girl called Rehan, and the driver, Khan, became weary of cringing from him after a while and then ignored him altogether until the only person who paid him any attention at all was Devi.

He had learnt her name during the weeks he have been kept in the palace with his leg broken. He had discovered that her name meant ‘goddess.' Now he sat in the car keeping quite still, not allowing anything to enter or leave his body, till he had followed the trail of complicated thoughts right to their end.

In spite of the fact that they had been travelling for several days and were dirty and tired, Khan insisted on stopping by a river a mile out of town to wash the car down as they approached Bidwar.

Devi begged him to go on. ‘Servants at the palace will clean it when we get there, Khan. Let's just get on with the journey. We will be there in an hour.'

But Khan was firm. ‘All those household fellows will be awaiting our arrival and I do not wish them to see my beloved vehicle arriving in a dirty state.' There was a sentimental quiver in his tone as though he talked of a beloved daughter, or a cow. He felt like a hero returning. He had not only rescued Devi from the deadly dangerous palace in the hills where she was being waited on by thags and threatened by ferocious wild animals, but he was also bringing back his pregnant wife.

There was a certain problem regarding one of the occupants of the car which Khan, in his moment of glory, was determined to ignore. He would not let his mind think about the painted madman in the back. He would pretend the fellow was not there. Apart from that he had ensured that everything about his entrance to the palace ground was impressive. He even stopped at the outskirts of the town to purchase a marigold and tinsel garland to wind round the car's bonnet.

At last they reached the palace. He stopped the car in a spew and scrunch of gravel, and dashed round the side to open the door for Madam. He had always to make this dash because she was a fast mover and otherwise she was already out by the time he got there. But he had another reason for his haste today. It was essential to have Madam out and noticed before the second person on the back seat caught the household's attention.

The Raja was standing on the steps, flanked by servants holding garlands and trays of burning candles for Devi's welcoming. The Raja raced down the steps. With arms
outstretched he cried, ‘My darling, welcome home,' but as Devi scrambled out to hug him, he peered past her, into the rear seat, and asked, amazement in his tone, ‘My God. But who or what is this?'

‘This is Maw,' said Devi cheerily. ‘His home has been chopped down so he has come to live with us.' And out of the car stepped a youth wearing only a waist band and penis sheath of semi-precious stones. His thick hair was so long that it almost brushed the ground.

It was only on arrival at the Bidwar Palace that Maw allowed himself to move again, for his thoughts had done the fullness of their circle and he knew exactly what he must do.

Sangita had been waiting all day for the arrival of Devi. And it was not only for the sake of the minerals. She had missed her granddaughter and looked forward to having Devi back in the household again. Sangita was fond of Devi, though she would never have allowed her granddaughter to know it.

The servant appeared abruptly and told Sangita, ‘The car has arrived.' He looked as though he was trying to prevent himself from laughing.

‘What is funny?' asked Sangita sternly.

‘Devi Madam has brought a naked tribal with her,' said the man, and quickly put his hand across his mouth. ‘No clothes on at all, Thakuma Ranee. There. He is going into the palace now.'

Sangita went over and rubbed a hole in the dust that covered the window glass as the painted naked man went up the steps. She watched, frowning, as Maw, supremely unembarrassed by his gaudy nudity, followed Devi through the great front doors.

She turned away from the window filled with a small anxiety that was like a premonition. ‘I want my granddaughter to come and see me at the first possible moment,' she told the servant.

‘I found all the stones that you asked for except one,' Devi said when she arrived half an hour later.

Silently Sangita inspected the collection then said, ‘But what about the Ama?'

‘I asked people there but no one seemed to have ever seen it. Some people said it didn't exist at all.'

‘Indeed?' Sangita raised her eyebrows. Her expression was stern. ‘I held it.'

‘I know,' said Devi.

‘Do you believe me? Be honest now.'

Devi took a deep breath. Then she said, ‘Yes. I do. And I am going to go on searching till I find it.'

Sangita gave a brisk nod and watched Devi with the expression of someone waiting.

Devi said, ‘I know what you are thinking, Thakuma, and why you have called me here.'

Sangita bowed her head and waited.

‘It's about Maw, isn't it? The tribal boy I have brought back with me?'

‘He brings trouble,' said Sangita. ‘I hope you will survive him.'

Devi felt a little shocked. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I think a person like that would not be coming here, even with clothes on their body, unless it was for some devious purpose.'

‘What sort of devious purpose?'

‘Oh, don't keep questioning me, you silly girl,' cried Sangita with a wave of a spoon. ‘Revenge most likely. That is what that kind of person usually wants.'

Devi smiled. ‘He's not like that at all. He's sweet. I hope you will come to our part of the palace some time and then you can meet him and see what he's really like.'

‘That I shall certainly not do,' said Sangita sternly. ‘And please don't bring him here. I do not wish to have unreliable people entering my premises. By the way, I hope you have not fallen in love with some man or other.'

‘Of course not,' said Devi going scarlet. ‘Why ever should you say such a thing?'

‘I see something new in your eyes. Go, go, what are you hanging about for and wasting my time. Leave the stuff here and go. I haven't time to sit around gossiping all day.'

The Raja was reluctant, at first, to include Maw in his household. ‘I think you should send him back where he came from, darling. No good ever comes of meddling with such matters and also I would prefer to spend my money and time on a child that might benefit from it. I think education will be wasted on this naked savage.' But since he always gave into Devi in the end, and since she was so positive and confident about Maw, the boy stayed on.

Even after Maw had been living in the Bidwar palace for six months, no one there was certain what his situation was. To the Raja, Maw was a nuisance. To the palace servants, Maw was something less than one of them and even after he began to sleep on a bed, wear normal clothes and attend school, they still persisted in looking on him as socially inferior. To Devi he was her foster child.

Maw had to learn a lot and forget a lot.

Devi told him, ‘People think there is something spooky about the way you stay so still when you are talking and how you never smile. Usually people wave their arms about and nod their heads when conversing.'

He had to force himself to stretch his mouth and master body language.

‘Also try not to look so intently into people's eyes,' Devi told Maw. ‘It is unnerving. Just look a bit then turn a way… like this,' she gave him a demonstration. At first this seemed terrible to Maw but because of what he had to do, he forced himself to do that too.

Each day he sat in a class of five-year-olds learning, among other things, to read and write. A school inspector came and asked the children which was their favourite lesson and Maw told the woman, ‘Science.'

Delighted, the inspector asked the boy, ‘Why?'

‘I need to learn how your people do killing,' said Maw.

The teacher intervened quickly, telling the inspector, ‘Maw is a good boy and not at all violent, but he is a little simple, Madam. He was brought up by apes, you see, and his brain is not properly developed.' Then to the children, ‘Stop laughing, boys and girls. It is not Maw's fault if he has not had the advantages of the rest of you.'

Later the teacher drew Maw aside and told him, ‘Don't feel sad because they laughed at you. Just keep steadily on with learning to read and write, and one day, Maw, who knows, you might be able to get a job as a clerk or something. Don't despair, for you are getting on as well as can be expected.'

Maw began to excel in the gym. Pupils and teachers would stop to watch, open mouthed and amazed as Maw soared from beam to beam, his fantastic hair flying loose behind him, doing turns and air somersaults that would have won him an Olympic gold.

‘But then,' the headmaster pointed out, ‘you would expect that since he was brought up in the trees.'

After a very few lessons he became a skilled tennis player and won the junior plate. And in the craft lessons he carved the most minute and intricate work the handicraft mistress had ever seen.

But quite soon it became clear that Maw's real talent was for science.

‘The boy has not yet properly mastered the three R's,' the teacher told the headmaster. ‘But his grasp of science is amazing.' The science teacher had been in fact shaken by Maw's prowess, for again and again Maw was able to predict the outcome of some scientific experiment before it was completed. The boy was moved into the top class, but still, even before the teacher had time to finish describing the quantum state, Maw had not only understood but asked some further question of such subtle complexity that the teacher could not answer. ‘It is unbelievable that he has been brought up the trees without any schooling at all. It is as though the boy knows things about the universe that our civilisation has not yet discovered,' the teacher told the headmaster.

‘Tosh,' the headmaster said lightly. ‘He is autistic. Have you never heard of these children who are utterly withdrawn and cannot communicate with other people, but have a marvellous aptitude for music, drawing, maths, or some such thing?'

‘Maw is not like that,' the master tried to explain. ‘He seems to be able to communicate pretty well considering he did not learn to speak until he was fifteen years old.'

But the head master was not listening.

Maw was surprised at how impressed these people were by his talents, which, by the standards of his tribe, were mediocre. All the children of the tribe were expected to
know the theory of extracting and dividing cells and atoms though only the subtle ones actually practised it. Pitying the ignorance of the children in his class, Maw had, at first, tried to explain these things to them, but had been unable to get them to understand. Now he had decided only to learn what he could from the Coarseones until he had created the thing he needed to avenge Pala.

Devi was thrilled when Maw's report came and did not see anything sinister in it at all. ‘You see, Papa, how right I was to rescue him and bring him to you? One day he will become great. I feel sure of it.'