Tikkipala (38 page)

Getting the shattered goddess into the palace caused problems. She was too tall for the doors and an arm fell off in the hall.

‘Come and choose a room,' cried Devi and led him through the palace, flinging open doors. ‘Will this be high enough?' and ‘Try this one.'

That night Devi lay awake listening and wondered if she could hear sounds of Nirmal repairing his statue. She was not sure what such a noise would be. A sloppy sound of clay smacked on perhaps? Or a chipping of a chisel into marble? Or the creaking of clay limbs that were coming alive?

Nirmal's statue sagged under the tall ceiling. Even new bamboo scaffolding could not keep such destruction properly upright. He wondered how he could have allowed himself to be persuaded to come here. The whole thing was a ridiculous mistake and as for mending the statue, it had walked and clenched its fists. What more could any artist ask of it? After this all else would be anticlimax, for Nirmal felt sure that no matter what was done to it now, it would never move again. Life and movement were magic things which required purity and innocence.

Some people watch all their lives, thought Nirmal, and when they turn away for a moment, their statue blinks. He had been blessed to have observed a statue-moving moment and now was there any point in putting together the broken bits that were stuck with muck from the rubbish heap? The stench of it was terrible. He had to keep all the doors and windows open. The statue's centre armature had melted, the straw stuffing turned to powder, its clay cracked like a field during drought. The mineral stones and crystals that had once sparkled and twinkled, had gone dull or exploded. The statue had become shrunk and bent like someone old. The fierce grand face had crumpled and now it looked pathetic. The mighty feet that, for a short time, had tramped flaming over the ground, were chipped and battered.

It was very hot. The overhead fan turned slowly and seemed to stir the air without cooling it. Exhausted, Nirmal pulled off his clothes and, flinging them onto the floor,
lay on the ornate bed which was spread with satin and swagged with velvet. A shining crown was fixed to the ceiling from which poured great swathes of heavy cloth. On each corner of the bed were great knobs that looked as though they were made of pure gold.

When Devi had heard nothing for a long time, she knocked on Nirmal's door.

‘You can't come in. I'm not dressed,' he called.

Devi opened the door and marched in saying, ‘I've already seen you without anything on. I don't expect it'll be any different this time.'

Nirmal, wildly pulling his bedspread round him, shouted, ‘You really are the bloody rudest and most annoying woman.'

‘There's gratitude,' said Devi. ‘I bring you into my home because you have made a complete mess of your life and haven't anywhere to live and you shout insults at me. I only came to ask if you are alright. Will you be able to work here?'

Nirmal, rolling himself into a heavy piece of antique tapestry, said, ‘I don't know and I wish you'd go away and leave me alone.'

‘OK. I will,' shouted Devi and turning on her heel, went marching towards the door.

‘No, come back,' called Nirmal.

‘What?' she swung round, looking hopeful.

‘I need another light. I can't work with this one.'

‘Oh, you!' Shouted Devi and went out slamming the door on him.

The thags could not wait to get their brothel back in order. The moment Madam Devi left, out of the sheds came the vats of arrak, the women were ferried back again, the mats and mattresses put in place, the workshop machinery reinstalled.

‘It is a shame,' said one ‘that we didn't get a chance to use the tree virgins for we would have made a good profit with popping them the first time.'

‘Perhaps, when we stop travellers, instead of only relieving them of their valuable items, we can take their virgins also,' suggested another.

The idea was taken up with enthusiasm though all could see that there would be some problems attached to the venture, not the least being how to tell at first sight if the female was a virgin. ‘Also we will have to make certain that females captured on the road do not escape for they will have seen our faces and therefore put us in danger with the police and other trouble makers.'

All the same they were reluctant to abandon what they now called ‘the virgin business.' There was even a silly young man who suggested there might be some kind of government grant for such a business, ‘for I have heard you can gain a grant to rear poultry…'

Two weeks later, Devi was asked to give a talk in the Bidwar club. She was putting a photo into the overhead projector. She was just about to tell them where this mineral had been found, when suddenly the screen blurred and her head became filled with a roaring sound. She gripped the table edge and struggled not to fall. Beyond her, in the dark she could see the sea of faces first waiting, then stirring with a little impatience. Devi managed to get her fingers round the glass of water and after she had taken a sip she felt better. She shook her head and vision began to clear. After a few deep breaths she managed to go on.

She thought no more about the episode till the following morning. She woke feeling horrible. Her stomach was pierced with pain and she felt sick. She got up slowly, feeling groggy, and realised she must have caught some dreadful illness when she went to the high jungle. She felt annoyed and also worried because the tour of lectures that lay ahead had been booked long before. It would be very expensive to cancel them if she was too ill to go on.

But by mid morning she began to recover and by lunchtime was perfectly all right.

Maw, Nirmal and her father were already at the table, Nirmal looking even more untidy than usual and her father looking grumpy.

They both looked towards Devi when she came in, as though she was a rescuer. Nirmal's expression was pleading and her father's scowling, but Maw smiled at her.

‘I was telling Nirmal that he may have one of the outer buildings for his work, but there is no way he can keep that filthy thing into my house,' the Raja told Devi. ‘And also I have explained to Maw that he cannot expect to go on hanging around, doing nothing. If he is not prepared to take up my offer of a job then I think he should go to university.'

‘I do not have time,' said Maw.

The Raja exploded with annoyance. ‘What is this “I do not have time” refrain? You are a young man with a life ahead of you. Do something about it, my boy, before it is too late.' He scowled from one young man to the other and decided that after all he was glad that he only had the single daughter. Males, he saw, were nothing but mess and trouble.

Devi sat down, indifferent to her father and Nirmal's problems because of her surprise at Maw's smile. She could not remember him smiling properly before. She spread her napkin on her lap and glanced at him. He was still looking at her and his eyes were filled with warmth. It was true then, the thing she had thought before. Maw loved her. He was in love with her. That's why that thing had happened between them a month ago. She felt her cheeks flame.

During that meal the conversation, her father grumbling and Maw and Nirmal trying to make polite conversation, wafted over her, as the realisation took hold in her mind.

‘What's the matter?' her father asked. ‘You aren't eating.'

Hastily Devi ripped off some chapatti, wrapped it round a piece of mutton and, half way to her mouth, forgot to eat it.

Afterwards Maw, Devi and her father went onto the veranda and the bearer brought in coffee on the tall silver coffee jug that had gone down generations of the Bidwar family.

As Devi brought the fragile cup to her lips, the smell of coffee brought on the dreadful nausea of the morning. She had to leap to her feet and rush to the lavatory where she vomited into the bowl.

When she got back, white, shaky and embarrassed, the Raja was looking worried. ‘Darling, I'll call the doctor. You look dreadful.'

The doctor examined Devi in the afternoon.

‘Just as the tribal people have no immunity to our diseases, I suppose we have none to theirs,' said Devi. ‘I have just come down from the high jungle at Parwal, and went to see the patients in the hospital.'

He looked flustered and muttered, ‘It doesn't work like that.'

‘What do you think is wrong with me then? I have never felt like this before,' she said.

‘If the symptoms persist come and see me in two weeks,' he said. ‘But I think there is nothing serious.'

Devi left, relieved.

When the symptoms persisted, the Raja decided to get a second opinion. ‘He is a good fellow, but all the same even the best doctors can make mistakes.'

The second doctor examined Devi, then told her, ‘Your husband will be happy.'

‘I am not married,' said Devi.

The doctor, who was an old and conventional Hindu man, looked panic stricken.

Devi returned to the palace in a daze, telling herself, ‘He has made a mistake because he is so old.' Then feeling sorry for her father and wondering how he would cope with the shame. She felt a touch of panic at the thought of what her aunts, Mala and Srila, or her grandmother would say. She put her hands across her stomach that seemed as flat as ever and told herself again, ‘It's not true. It can't be true.'

Khan glanced at her now and again through the rear mirror. For a long time he had sensed there was something changed about her and now he felt sure. He remembered that evening when he had taken Madam and Maw to the club for squash and how he had felt anxious for her because her behaviour had been so shrill and strange. Right from the start Khan had known that bringing Maw into the palace was a mistake. Once a tiger, always a tiger, as the saying goes. Maw might look just like any other civilised boy, but underneath he was still dangerous. He was still a magic person from the jungle. He must have done a spell on Madam, otherwise how could she have done such a thing, he thought.

Once he and the Raja had talked about the differences between Islam and Hinduism and Khan had said that, for women, Islam was better because girls were protected from puberty till marriage and therefore it was difficult for them to make mistakes that would ruin their lives.

‘But is this fair to women?' the Raja had said. ‘Should they not be allowed to make their own choices just like men?' Now, when he found out, perhaps the Raja would wish that he had given his Hindu daughter the protection that was the right of every Muslim girl. Khan's hands were shaking a little as he steered the car into the palace grounds. What would happen next? Where would it lead?

Maw was dismayed that Nirmal's statue was destroyed, for now he would never know if the experiment would have worked and did not know if another opportunity would ever come. He had known from the start that, without the subtle ones, their tools and their knowledge, as well as lacking the juices and the crystals of the high jungle, it might be impossible to give life to Nirmal's statue, even with the Ama stone.
He felt shocked with Nirmal's easy satisfaction. Shocked that a few stumbling steps was all he required of a statue. But gradually Maw began to think that perhaps it was the scale that was at fault. He had been advising Nirmal to go in a wrong direction and that it was smallness that was required. Something as small as a particle at the quantum level. Maw imagined Nirmal's statue wreaking vengeance on the quantum level. He described his idea to Nirmal.

Nirmal nodded. ‘Yes. Inside this great mess of stuff is the soul that made her move so now I can strip her down till I get to it. You should be an artist, Maw. You understand these things.'

‘Reduce it, till it becomes the size of the universe in its first moments,' said Maw. The source of life lies in the very small, not the very large.'

Nirmal laughed. ‘What a shame that such a thing is impossible.'

The statue had shrunk a lot already.

‘The atom bomb was very small compared to the damage it did,' said Maw. ‘Even a hand grenade is. You can kill a lot of people with a hand grenade.'

‘I'm producing art, not weapons,' laughed Nirmal. ‘I don't want my statue to kill anyone.'

‘Why not?' asked Maw.

Devi became silent, sad and wouldn't tell anyone what the matter was.

‘You are ill?' said her father, thoroughly worried. ‘What did the doctor say?'

‘No, I'm all right. You don't have to worry.' But even her tone made him worried. She did not seem like Devi any more, but like someone who was involved in a
catastrophe. Panic seized him. The doctor had told her she had some fatal illness, that she only had a short time to live and she was not telling him because it would make him unhappy. He became filled with dread and thought that he was going to lose her as he had lost his wife.

Nirmal was at a critical moment with his statue when Devi burst in.

‘Can you stop for a minute? I need to talk to you,' she said.

‘I am a bit busy,' he said. ‘Can't you see?'

‘This is important,' said Devi. She began to lower herself onto a moist looking box.

‘Hey, don't sit there,' he cried. 'That's my new clay. It will get impacted if you put weight on it.'

‘I'm not as heavy as all that, yet,' she said stiffly. She rose with a scornful sniff and asked, ‘Where do you suggest I sit then?'

‘I don't,' said Nirmal. ‘This is a studio, not a drawing room. If you want to sit you will have to go somewhere else.'

Remaining standing Devi said, ‘Look Nirmal, when you have had problems I have helped, haven't I?'

‘Yes, you have been helpful,' he said, his back to her, doing something invisible to his almost invisible statue.

‘So now I am coming to you for assistance,' she told him.

He continued to concentrate on the tiny feature.

‘Can't you stop that for a minute and listen to me,' she demanded.