Tikkipala (33 page)

‘Oh, dear,' said Devi. ‘Has he seen a doctor? This sounds bad.'

‘Well, not yet. No doctor. The doctor situation in this village is not good…' stammered the poor manager.

‘In that case I shall have to see him myself and give him what medical attention I can,' said Devi firmly. ‘Please direct me to the hotel.'

Feebly the manager flapped a hand in a westerly direction. ‘I will come with you,' he said. Perhaps if he was on the spot he would be able to avert disaster.

‘No, thank you,' Devi frowned. ‘You stay here. We don't want you coming down with whatever it is. If you get ill, who will run this business?'

As she went striding off in the direction he had indicated, she heard him mutter over and over, ‘Coming down with whatever it is. Coming down with whatever it is.' When she looked back he was still staring after her, his expression tragic.

Nirmal was lying in the darkened room with the blinds closed tight. It was very hot so he wore no clothes, but lay with his naked body spread out, trying to capture on his skin whatever coolness might trickle down from the slowly rotating overhead fan. On his bedside table lay the nearly empty bottle. He was having a strange half dream that a mighty statue he had made had started walking, when he heard a knocking on his door. He ignored it and tried to recapture the dream, which had been a pleasant one. The knocking came again. Irritated he called, ‘Please go away. I do not want to be disturbed.' By now the dream was lost beyond recall. He was raising himself on one elbow to take a swig from his gin bottle when the door clipped open and he heard someone come in.

Without turning his head he said crossly, ‘Go away. Get out.' But footsteps approached across the room. The bottle still at his lips he twisted his head round, and for a moment thought that he must still be asleep, for the person coming towards him was not, after all, one of the hotel staff, but Devi Bidwar. He recognised her at once.

He swivelled his eyes wildly round trying to see something with which to cover his nakedness. ‘I've got no clothes on,' he said. ‘Go away. I can't talk to you.' His words came out booming and muffled because of the way his lips still gripped the bottle neck.

A moment later Devi was bending over him and snatching the bottle away.

She put her hand against his forehead. His breath stank, his hair was dirty, his chin was sharp with days of stubble. ‘You're not ill at all. You're just drunk,' she said.

Trying to gather up as much dignity as he could, the nude Nirmal put his now freed hands across his groin and rose.

‘Please leave my room,' he said grandly. ‘You are intruding. You have no right to be here and give me back that bottle.' He made a grab for it with his free hand.

Devi swung it away, laughing.

‘Give it back.' He grabbed again. By now she was starting to pour the precious stuff, the last of the bottle, all he could afford till his next pay, straight onto the floor. ‘Don't, don't! How dare you?' He was shouting.

But the bottle was empty. It was too late. ‘Get dressed,' commanded Devi, and going over to the window began to open the blind.

Light came roaring in with eye-wincing agony. Nirmal rushed at her, roaring. ‘Look, woman, get out of here. You are entirely outside your rights. I could have the police on you for intrusion.'

‘I am the company owner's daughter. My father has given me authority. If you continue in this way I shall sack you,' said Devi sternly.

‘Go on then. Sack me,' challenged Nirmal.

‘You are sacked.'

Instantly Nirmal threw himself back down on his bed again and closed his eyes.

‘What are you doing?' Devi came over and peered at him.

‘I am sacked so you are no longer have authority over me so get out,' said Nirmal, his eyes still squeezed shut.

‘I reinstate you. Get up,' said Devi.

‘I refuse to be reinstated. I am applying for another job. Go away,' He felt a touch of disappointment when he heard her footsteps start to recede as though she was obeying him, then moments later he felt a touch of apprehension at the sound of water ringing into the bathroom bucket. He had no time to escape or defend himself before the water sluiced over him, filling his ears, drenching his bed, making him choke as it rushed up his nostrils and into his mouth. Spluttering, dripping, he sat up.

Devi was holding out his trousers. ‘Put them on. I want to talk to you.' She gave them a shake to encourage his legs in.

They glared at each other for a long and silent moment during which Nirmal tried not to giggle. He could see himself reflected in her pupils. He was impressed with how black the irises were.

‘You look disgusting,' Devi said.

‘You look an absolute mess,' said Nirmal.

‘Will you put these on or not?' demanded Devi,

‘Turn your back then,' he told her, at last, with a sigh. ‘Also,' he added, ‘Where are my underpants?'

Later, the two of them were sitting on the wood bench outside the coffee shop and drinking a yard of tea and smoking beedis.

‘What is the matter?' Devi asked.

Nirmal said. ‘I hate this whole fertiliser thing.'

‘Why do you do it, then? I wouldn't do anything I didn't like.'

‘You haven't got my family,' said Nirmal.

‘What do you want to do?' she asked.

‘The only thing I ever wanted to be was a sculptor.'

‘In that case that is what you must do,' said Devi.

‘How?'

‘Durga.'

‘Durga? The goddess? What about her?'

‘This is a Bengali village and every year they make these huge images of the goddess Durga, and after she is worshipped, they immerse her in the river. There must be someone in this village who makes them. Let's go and find him.'

The manager, who had been filled with hope after the daughter had succeeded in getting Mr Nirmal out of his bed, got worried all over again when she began to inquire about the god-maker.

‘Why do you wish to see this fellow, who is well known for his heavy consumption of arrak?'

‘I think he will be of assistance to Mr Nirmal,' smiled Devi.

‘The god-maker is also prone to certain robbings and stealings of company property, including saws, hammers and emulsion paints, all things for which I have responsibility,' persisted the manager. ‘And when we face the fellow with
accusations, he says these items are required by the Godess Durga for the manufacture of her image, and that it at her command that he has taken them.‘

‘If he makes good statues,' said Devi. ‘the company should encourage him.'

‘But Madam, this is not the point,' wailed the manager. ‘A man who makes gods should not behave in such a manner.'

‘Why does no one stop him then?'

‘This is the problem. If the local people beat him up, which was the usual way of dealing with a thief, he might become damaged physically and become unable to create statues. Also his relationship with the goddess gives him a certain status, and also there are those who fear she will defend him.'

During the weeks that followed Devi toured the farms, questioning and encouraging the farmers. She inspected the go downs where the fertiliser was being kept and make arrangements them to be repaired. With the manager to advise her, she sorted the great, muddled piles of papers on Nirmal's desk and paid and sent outstanding bills. The manager felt his soul being soothed and reflected that, after all, he might be able to survive Mr. Nirmal's employment.

In the meantime, Nirmal settled in happily with the god-maker and the spent whole days, and sometimes nights as well, weaving bamboo strips and smearing mud. When Devi had time she came and joined them. Sometimes Nirmal would hold her wrist and guide her hand gently up the side of Durga's nostril, or take one of her fingers between two of his, and teach her how to groove an eyebrow.

Nirmal began to anticipate Devi's visit. If a day passed and he did not see her, the same kind of nagging longing would grow in him that two weeks before he had felt for gin. The god-maker said, laughing, ‘You should tell her, Mr Nirmal, otherwise how will she know?'

‘Know what?' said Nirmal grumpily and bent down low over the toe nail he was carving so that the man could not see his expression.

The god-maker shrugged. ‘You wish her to marry you?' he suggested.

‘You old fool,' snapped Nirmal. ‘That shows how little you know about city people. Ranee Devi is a woman who has sworn she will never marry.'

‘Really?' said the god-maker, raising his eyebrows in amazement. ‘To think that there should be such women anywhere in the world.'

Nirmal became cross and silent for the rest of the day.

The manager was much heartened at the way Devi was establishing order and was sorry, when, three weeks later, she left.

After that Nirmal ceased to work with fertiliser at all, but spent all his time with the god-maker, creating the biggest Durga in the whole of Bengal.

The manager began to watch with increasing anxiety as Mr Nirmal went back to his bad old ways and even worse. In the end he wrote a letter to Raja Bidwar. Things had reached such a stage that he had no choice, ‘In spite of the intervention of your honoured daughter, the activities of Mr Nirmal cohorting with persons of lower caste and also drinking arrak and smoking ganga with these untouchable persons is giving our company a bad name.' It took him several days to pluck up the courage to actually send the letter, by which time Mr Nirmal Rao had reverted entirely and, even when statue making, was mostly fully drunk.

Devi had had to leave on a lecture tour, otherwise the Raja would have talked to her first about the problem. He went to see Queenie instead. After all she was the boy's grandmother and it had been she who had persuaded him to employ Nirmal.

‘Ah, my dear Raja, you have come to tell me that, at last, that my grandson is to be made manager,' cried Queenie. Clapping her hands she called out, ‘Bearer, bring drinks for my friend the Raja, quick quick quick, for we must celebrate.'

The Raja took a deep breath, felt very nervous and wished that he had approached Nirmal's furious father with the problem. Even Nirmal's suicidal mother would have
been preferable, thought the Raja, as he cleared his throat ready to begin. ‘The trouble is, Queenie, that Nirmal is really not at all suited to the job.'

‘Not suited, what on earth can you mean?' cried Queenie.

‘We are not able to give him the post of manager.'

‘What is the matter with him?' Queenie's eyes were wide with angry incredulity.

‘Queenie dear, he drinks too much.'

‘Of course he does,' snapped Queenie. ‘He comes from a long line of drunks, but who cares about that?'

‘He drinks so much that he is hardly able to do the job at all.'

‘I have never heard of such a thing,' gasped Queenie. ‘All the men of our family are heavy drinkers but it does not mean they can't do their work.'

‘They never had to work, though, did they? They lived the life of Maharajas. Poor Nirmal is the first generation who has been expected to hold down a job.'

‘How can a bit of drunkenness possibly be a problem with a job in fertiliser?' said Queenie, spitting out the last word with such contempt that bearers coming in with salvers of paneer kebabs and french fries winced and dodged as though from a blow.

‘It is for the young man's own sake as well as for our company's,' said the Raja piteously. ‘He is not cut out for a career in fertiliser. Apparently he wants to be an artist. Why don't you let him?'

‘An artist?' snapped Queenie. ‘You want my grandson to spend his life dabbling with mud and stones? I should have thought, Anoo, that you would have had a greater respect for my family.' She turned her back as though the Raja was no longer there, and for the rest of the evening refused to speak a word to him. She even refused to
make up a four at bridge when she understood that the Raja was to be one of the players.

The Raja sighed and reflected that at least his daughter had not married the fellow. How fortunate it was that she had not been attracted to Queenie's grandson when they two had met at the Parwal club. Then things would really have been difficult.

The subtle ones and the elders set off, cautious and apprehensive, into the highest of high jungle, hoping to find a place up there where the people could start to create their lives again. The parents refused to go with them, saying their children would starve on the way and that at least by living near the clearing, they were getting food. The young people refused to go also, saying that all their lives they had listened to these old people, the elders and the subtle ones, and look where it had brought them. They too would stay and eat the food of the Coarseones, for everyone knew that, without hunting animals and weapons, there was no way of surviving up in the highest jungle.

In the end the only ones who went were the elders and the subtle ones, who said they preferred to die than live in the clearing and eat the food of the Coarseones.

Maw, in Bidwar, walked alone in the late evenings and in the morning he got up early and walked again. He needed to be far away from Coarseones and the roar of their machinery to build his soul up. It would take him an hour or two to go beyond the town. Then he would stand among the rough fields of peasant farmers and become soothed with quiet. He would breathe in the smell of buffalo dung and goat milk and, after a while, peace would grow in him again. He would sit on the ground, feeling the sting and scratch of ants and stones, and let his ears drink in the sound of leaves
clattering and owls calling. He would watch the fire flies weave their sparkling decoration round the mango trees and against his tongue he would press a piece of bark, the coldness of a stone, a fallen leaf, so that all his senses should get some regeneration.

Sometimes he would start to feel whole again and then he would become infinite and everything. Through the trickle of his body would run the rivers of the world, his hair and skin and bones and muscles would become united with the universe. Everybody would be part of him. Pala would become blended into his body in the subtlest of ways. It had taken him a long time to realise that Coarseones stayed all their lives bobbing on the top of consciousness and these days he wondered how they could endure a life that was so tiring and lacked blissful rest. But later, when he rose and his senses shrank again, his ache of longing for Pala, and his people, and life that was lost to him, would grow once more, and the pain would seem unbearable.