The Ivory Swing (19 page)

30

Shivaraman Nair stood moodily in his courtyard watching Prabhakaran feed rice mush to the two new calves. The animals were still unsteady on their feet, their velvety flanks trembled, and periodically they would pitch forward onto their knees. Prabhakaran crooned to them and fondled them, coaxing handfuls of mush onto their pink tongues. And they looked up at him out of their huge luminous eyes and licked his hand and sometimes his face. His low laugh of pleasure filled the courtyard.

For some unaccountable reason, Shivaraman Nair found himself growing sexually excited and angry at the same time. Ever since he had seen the boy, eyes dilated as a calf's with excitement, come flitting through the forest from Yashoda's house, he had been tormented by his own imagination. What had happened between the two?

He was unable to block out a vision of his kinswoman, warm and liquid-eyed and vulnerable as a newborn calf, trembling at the touch of the
peon
. The boy would have bewitched her with his flute, of course, and since women are mere petals blown on a wind of passion, since widows in particular are known to be unappeasable in their hunger for a man, she … she would have … It was unthinkable, what she might have done.

He gave a sudden bellow of rage, strode across the courtyard, and savagely kicked the calf from Prabhakaran's arms.

“Go to your work, lazy boy! You waste time. You are too slow with the calves.”

The boy had quailed back in shock and instinctively raised an arm to ward off blows, but his horrified eyes were on the animal.

Mrs Shivaraman Nair and Jati came running into the courtyard in alarm.

Shivaraman Nair's rage mounted. The
peon
had caused him to be guilty of rash and terrible action. He had injured a cow. Never before had he done such a thing. The
peon
was responsible. And that woman, that temptress.

His wife ran to him, whimpering and solicitous. Though she was a good woman and he was fond of her, the sight of her tears trickling through the folds of chin, the heaving of her ponderous body, served only to exacerbate the sense of unbearable wrongs having been done to him. He turned from her in disgust and stalked furiously out through his coconut grove.

The peaceful green of his paddy calmed him. His lands always comforted and sustained him. They reminded him of his power and of his responsibility to direct in proper paths the lives of those who, by the natural ordering of the universe, were subject to his command. Before he had really noticed where he was going he found himself drawn across the terraces towards the tranquil seclusion of his forest.

The shadowy fungus-perfumed retreat seemed imbued with the presence of his kinswoman. He thought of the cascade of her hair, her almond-shaped eyes, the way she walked, the way the taut brown skin of her midriff (she wore her sari scandalously low on her hips) always made him want to brush against her in passing.

It was undeniable that she flaunted her beauty shamelessly. She was indifferent to family honour. And yet after all, she was woman. What could one expect? Can a tiger change its stripes or its hungers? Such a widow drew scandal to herself as inevitably as ivory drew thieves and honeysuckle lured bees. But he would be, as it were, the aristocratic bee, who would keep the honey of her youth pure and free from contamination. He would offer himself to her in a gesture of noblesse oblige, for the sake of her need and the honour of the family name.

He came to the clearing and heard the sound of voices. Western voices. Always that family interfering, he thought with anger. He remembered that Mrs Juliet had been present on the occasion when the
peon
… And there was the younger one, her sister, who knew nothing of moral behaviour. Such women told one another their secrets, wove together their carnal nets.

He backed into the cover of the trees and vines, but his thighs were burning with frustration and he was in physical pain. He leaned against a tree, trembling.

It is the fault of the
peon
and of the foreigners, he told himself. I will not forgive them.

31

Night had fallen and Matthew Thomas was driving out to Krishnapuram with a replacement for the broken flute player. It was the costliest and most intricately carved sandalwood Krishna that Mr Motilal could supply and he was anxious to present it to Mrs Juliet. Also he wished to see them again, not having had a chance since the terrible night of rioting. He felt too that it would be fitting to meet the beautiful young widow again in the legitimate company of others. He would be able to express, by his eyes perhaps, his quite polite and honourable friendship, his concern for her welfare. Without impropriety. He had been unable to stop thinking about her. Because, of course, she reminded him of his daughter.

It was true that the lateness of the hour might present a problem. Because the days were almost unbearably steamy most people did their marketing or browsed through the flare-lit bazaar in the cool evenings. It was quite probable that the family would not be at home. But still the matter of the flute player was urgent. This accounted, he felt, for his considerable restlessness and agitation. The drive would calm him, even if it should prove fruitless.

His headlights lit up the coconut grove as he eased the car along the track towards the house. It seemed to be in darkness.

He clanged the front grille but there was no answer. It was just as he had feared. They have gone to Palayam or the bazaar, he told himself regretfully. He would have to come again the next day.

But it seemed to him that the matter of the statue was pressing. It would be inauspicious to leave with it again when he could give it safely into the hands of the young widow.

She had told him that she lived in the forest beyond the rice paddy. The moon was almost full and by its light he made his way past the house and out onto the levees.

It was not difficult to see the track that went into the forest, though once he entered the dark tangle of trees and vines he became a little nervous, almost turned back. He wished he had thought of bringing the flashlight from his car. He stood irresolutely at the shadowy line between the paddy and the curtain of creepers and leaves that swayed and whispered over his head. Then, with his arms stretched out to the sides, he began to feel his way along the cleared space, helped every now and then by spills and splashes of moonlight that leaked through the leaves.

In the quietness he could hear the sounds of insects and the soft stirring of ferns and then the gentle lapping and swishing of water. He came to the edge of the clearing where the moonlight fell golden and unchecked and stepped quietly out from the trees. But then he stopped, hypnotized, as though bound by the invisible threads of an enchantment. Afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

The water lapped the edges of his vision, the pond lilies swayed in his veins. And slowly as a swimmer in a dream a woman moved among the lotuses. He could see the soft shimmer of her skin disturbing the water, the leisurely arc of her arm as it cut cleanly down between the lily pads, the dark trailing seaweed hair. She was pure and naked as Eve.

No thought jarred the bewitched sleep of his mind. He was his five senses. Time stopped. She swam in slow circles, and then she turned languidly and floated on her back, motionless except as the water rocked her lightly, offering herself to the moon and the stars, solitary as the first woman in the universe. He could see the dull gleam on the delicate gold chains around her throat and waist and ankles.

He had no concept of how many minutes passed before she slowly raised one hand in a silver shower of spray and began to caress herself. Lightly as moonbeams her fingers stroked her breasts, her stomach, the little tuft of wet hair through which the water gurgled softly as rainwater through mosses.

Thought returned to him then. And desire and anguish. Lord God, he prayed desperately, lead me not into temptation. Deliver me from impure thoughts. But he could not turn back into the forest. He could not move.

He stood there until she came slowly up out of the pond, water glistening and falling from her body in careless splendour, the tiny gold bells on her waist and ankle chains chiming and sighing. She saw him and gave a small startled cry, her hands hovering like frightened moths to cover the triangle of hair between her legs.

They stood looking at each other. Nothing moved.

And gradually he became aware that her eyes were filled not with shame but with a shy and steadfast entreaty. It seemed to him that it would be cruel, even sinful, to turn away from that plea. So he placed the sandalwood flute player gently on the grass and went to her, moving as in a dream, and took her gently in his arms and stroked her long wet hair.

Then, as the night rains began, she led him into the little house.

32

The rains had begun again in earnest. It was the season of the second monsoon, though the gap between monsoons had scarcely been noticeable to the Westerners. It had been raining almost every night since the first monsoon officially ended in mid-July. But now the skies flooded and thundered into the days as well.

The roof of their house, with its tiled parapet, was a catchment area, a veritable lake, and water gushed in torrents from the outlet holes in the eaves so that they seemed to be living in a grotto under a waterfall. Now it was impossible to keep the shoes from moulding and the books from swelling and warping. Clothes and sheets were spread across chair backs like tents in an attempt to dry them under the ceiling fans — during the brief spasms when these worked. Unfortunately power failures were even more frequent during the rains.

Several times an hour dead palm branches came crashing down under their own soggy weight, sending earth tremors through the house.

One night, battered by rain and banked-up flooding, a levee burst in the paddy. The unprotected section emptied its water in a cataract onto the next terrace. Five-inch stalks of young green rice on the drained terrace faced the morning's sun as naked and bedraggled as newborn babies still sticky with birth fluid. Out of their rightful element, like fish out of water, the fledgling plants gasped in agony. Incredibly, in the blazing space between showers, as the ground hissed and steamed and fogged sunwards, as it fissured and cracked in the grip of that ruthless solar magnet, in those few disastrous hours while the monsoon paused coquet-tishly, a whole terrace was ruined.

It was considered a catastrophe of more than economic proportions. Such an inauspicious event must have a cause. Someone had broken
dharma.

Somewhere in Palghat district a child died, a grandson of one of the Nair uncles who were visiting Trivandrum for the impending
arat
festival. They were staying with Shivaraman Nair. When they heard of the broken levee it was apparent to them that the two events were linked. There was a disturbance in the cosmic ordering of things. Unless the disorder was rectified, unless propitiation was made, the full chaos of the
KaliYnga
, that last age of dissolution and decline, would come upon them.

It was not difficult to ascertain the source of the trouble. The Nair uncles had seen for themselves that scandalous young woman flaunting her jewellery. The men of the extended Nair family convened in solemn assembly.

Item after item of evidence against the widow was considered. There could be on question of extreme guilt. Anand requested permission to speak to his elders. He reminded them that his cousin had been led astray by a young Canadian student of whom no propriety could be expected. His kinswoman had not appeared in public beyond the estate since she had been rebuked for her wrong actions. And on the matter of her refusal to dress as a widow, he pleaded, since she had been in part educated by Westerners (which was not her own sin, but that of her father), since she had suffered the misfortune of a mother's death early in her life, since she had been raised by a father who himself strayed from right actions, since she was so young and beautiful, and since her jewellery could no longer be seen by anyone outside the estate, might she not be forgiven? Might it not be concluded that no further harm would affect the family or the harvest?

There was considerable disagreement and anger voiced among Anand's elders in response to this plea for clemency. During the noisy debate one of the servants entered to inform Shivaraman Nair that his daughter Jati wished to speak with him urgently.

A short time later Shivaraman Nair returned to the family council, his face pale and ominous as that of an astrologer who has dire things to reveal.

His daughter, he announced in a low and savage voice, had seen things which were unforgivable. She had seen a car driven by a stranger, a man not of the Nair caste, enter the estate. At that time, as she well knew, the Canadians were not in the house. She had seen them leave early in the evening on their way to the taxis at Shasta Junction. Nevertheless nearly two hours had elapsed before she heard the stranger's car pass again through the gates of the estate.

Perhaps, Anand suggested, the man had simply been waiting for the return of the Canadians.

To his elders, however, the situation was clear. It was as the ancient Law of Manu warned: A woman not in the custody of a man is an abomination. Degradations will multiply in her courtyard as rankly as weeds. If she is widowed, she must be placed in the custody of her son; if she has no son she must revert to the custody of her father or father-in-law. This had not been done, and now the bitter fruit was being harvested.

The infamous young widow had become a common harlot, receiving men of low caste indiscriminately, desecrating the estate, jeopardizing its fertility, bringing calumny and divine wrath upon the family. She had placed herself outside the rights and privileges of a Nair woman, she was out-caste. It was no longer a question of tutelary discipline. The evil had to be cauterized before its infection spread throughout society and the natural world.

Prem had begun frequenting the toddy shop that stood beside the road between Krishnapuram and Shasta Junction. His ostensible reason was political. All the low-caste labourers from the surrounding Nair estates gathered there in the evenings to squander their few
paise
on the heady sap of the palmyra palm. The institution of the toddy shop was cohesive, warm and rollicking, a community of the kind of abandoned and drunken revelry that only the truly despairing of the world indulge in. It was an opportunity for Prem to talk easily with the men, a forum for sowing political seeds.

It was also a calming and numbing foil to the tumult of his relationship with Annie, and he would call in there on his way back to the university after visiting her on the Nair estate. He did not know how to handle the possessive passion, jealousies, doubts, ecstasies, humiliations that buffeted him like an endless surf with a deadly undertow. She was bewildering, cavalier in her attentions. Sometimes she slept with him inside the ring of banana palms. Sometimes she disappeared for a day or so, sightseeing. Sometimes, without explanation, she left him abruptly and stayed at her sister's house. And so he had come to value the instant anaesthesia, the prompt camaraderie of palmyra toddy.

One evening shortly before the
arat
festival he was listening to the talk that flowed around him warm and blurred as a canal spilling over its banks in monsoon time. There was much bawdy joking and lecherous guffawing about a woman who had been seen bathing naked in the forest. One of the workers had seen her by accident when he had crept back at night to retrieve a cache of rice, an illegal bonus that he had hidden on an estate during harvest. At first he had thought that the woman was
maya,
illusion, that he was under the enchantment of some demon of the forest. He was still not sure. Because who had ever known of a human woman who would do such a thing? Perhaps she was a
yakshi.

He had gone again with friends to investigate. It was not a place to be alone. On several nights they had hidden in the forest, waiting. On some nights nothing happened; on other nights she would be there, silently bathing, naked. She appeared and disappeared like a spirit. Who could say where she came from? Undoubtedly she was a
yakshi
.

Might she not be the cause of the local troubles? An evil spirit ruining the rice? The harvest had been poor — did they not all know it from the distended bellies of their children? Contrary to nature the rains had never stopped properly for the harvesting. And now the second monsoon was excessive. Levees had broken on a number of estates. There would be suffering for all.

Perhaps the
yakshi
should be killed? No, killing was an unlawful act, one which, according to the Brahmin priests, would condemn the murderer to many more lives of suffering and destitution. But if the woman were evil, if she were in fact not a woman but a
yakshi
, then the killing would be an act of deliverance, as when Krishna had killed Kamsa. It would mean salvation. One might leap along the ladder of rebirth to higher rungs.

It was decided that at the very least the matter should be reported to the owner of the estate and his advice sought.

“The Nair landlords are your enemies,” Prem told them angrily. “Do not tell them anything you have seen. Perhaps it is only some poor servant girl who will be destitute if the landlord is informed.”

The Nair landlords are also our protectors, they told him. Who else will give us work and food? Also they have read the Vedas. They are better able to judge in the matter of demons. They can make decisions. We will tell Shivaraman Nair.

Prem was alarmed. Some woman was in danger. Could it possibly be the widow? Perhaps it is not merely a question of jewellery, he thought. Perhaps there are other dangers besides poverty, other wrongs besides hunger.

He went to visit Annie on the Nair estate.