Kiran Desai - Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

Dark as a monsoon cloud, the Brigadier spat out orders for the cavalcade to back out of the road they had come on and to take another and, for that matter, much longer route out of town. By the time they finally reached the orchard, no doubt the monkeys would have disappeared and they would have to repeat this ridiculous charade another day.

They turned the corner on to the new road and, no sooner had they proceeded a short way down its pot-hole-ridden length than, there in front of them, they spotted the dumpy shape and brightly painted sides of the Hungry Hop van.

‘Pinky or Miss Pudding and Cake …’

A black stream of dirty exhaust billowed and puffed into the army men’s faces.

In the orchard, meanwhile, things were remarkably quiet. In a corner, something in a big pot steamed and simmered with a gentle bubbling sound. It had been bubbling all night already, in preparation for the monkey catchers’ arrival. Kulfi slept near it. As the men absorbed themselves in catching the monkeys, she had thought she would somehow, by hook or by crook, direct the fall of one of the animals right into the cooking pot. Then she would drown it immediately away from attention into a delicious gravy. This was the plan. How exactly it would work, she was not quite certain, but she knew that in the midst of the ensuing confusion she would manage it. The scent of herbs and fruit, of spices and seasonings, filled the air and consequently everyone who slept on the hillside that night dreamt of food, from the watchman’s shed at the top of the road, all the way down into the valley where the police superintendent was still wrapped cosily in his blanket. They dreamt of magnificent banquets, of ladles and spoons so big that battalions of cooks had to be employed in carrying them through vast fogs of steam to simmering cauldrons that spluttered and glowed …

‘A bushel, a drachm, a pint,’ muttered Kulfi in her sleep. ‘A peck, a coomb, a sack, a hogshead, a scruple, a ton. Sandal, madder, cassia, orris root.’ She turned restlessly. ‘Gall nut, cinnabar, mace. Senna, asafoetida, quail eggs, snail eggs, liver of a wild boar, tail of a wild cat …’ She turned around again. ‘Nasturtium leaves, rhododendron flowers, cicada orchids!’ She sat bolt upright. The delicate white and wood-green flowers of the cicada orchid. What would her dish be without them? A tasteless dish, not even half what it should be, a failure, a disappointment. An utter disaster.

She would have to go and fetch this flower, wouldn’t she? She must have it, this exquisitely flavoured, graceful, transparent flower that hinted of moss and forest. She must have it and she must have it immediately! She looked around to see how the night was thinning … It was almost dawn. There was just enough time for her to go up the hillside and back before the monkey catchers arrived. Hurriedly dressing, she took up her spade, her sickle and a coil of rope and disappeared into the shadows, passing as she did so, the spy, who was already hiding in the bushes awaiting the morning’s drama.

Running a high temperature because of the excitement and nervousness he was experiencing, he awaited the dawning of this day that would, he was determined, in the midst of chaos, deliver to him the opportunity he had been waiting for so long: the opportunity to discover exactly what stewed in those cauldrons of Kulfi. ‘If you have a monkey, you will not get lice. To make curd, don’t unsettle the milk. Does a pond clean the mud at its bottom? Does the rain wash the sky? As is the wood, is the meat cooked upon it.’ The past few months had turned him into a man tormented. The lines in his head were like jungle vines entangling him, smothering him. He would have to break free, prove his character to the world. And to himself.

As Kulfi passed by on her way to the forest, she walked so near to where he was squatting, the edge of her sickle knife tickled his nose, but she went on without noticing him.

She did not stop to check on Sampath either, or the rest of the family, which was all for the best, since otherwise she might have noticed the absence of Pinky, who was already waiting under the tamarind tree for Hungry Hop, dressed and ready, just as planned, although she was in an extremely bad temper for some reason she was not able to determine. Yes, who knows why, but she was feeling exceptionally irritable, dissatisfied and angry. Maybe it was just a lack of sleep. As she waited, she hit against the side of the road with a stick. If only Sampath had come along, she would have had somebody to talk to …

But Sampath sat in the guava tree, encased in absolute stillness like a fossil captured within a quiet moment of amber. The watchmen had been dismissed for once, so the monkeys might not be disturbed on this, their last night in the orchard; that they might be in the tree, barely awake, when the monkey catchers arrived.

Sampath had been sitting still a long while. He had watched as the last of the sun disappeared the evening before, as the hills turned soft and blue like woodsmoke and as the bushes, gathering shadow since late afternoon, merged with the darkening air. He had felt the breeze against his cheek, heard the sound of the crickets start up, the first frog’s awkward inquiry into the evening, its rising, ginger croak growing stronger with the night that leaked from the soil and ran from the dark shapes about him. It had seeped from the black bellies of the underground tubers, from the hidden pods of seeds and flowers, from the inky beetles and the hollow-hearted bamboo. He saw the white petals of the night flowers unfold, a speckling of bright stars appear above him; smelled the jasmine his mother had planted and the poisonous datura, watched the wan moths ford the blackness to hover lovelorn over a tobacco flower. Lifting his finger, he traced the magical shapes of constellations, creating them at whim, then let his hand drop back into his lap again.

The night wore on. Down below, all was silent. Still Sampath sat and watched. Once he felt a flutter of terror about his heart, but he did not follow it to its source, did not think ahead to what was to happen the next day, and the flutter died down as quickly as it had started. Hour upon hour went by. The hour of midnight passed. It was Monday, the last day of April, and all was quiet in the orchard. The family slept and the monkeys were silent in the guava tree.

There were ways of thinking about darkness. He could steel himself against it, Sampath thought, close his eyes tight, wrap himself up in his quilt. Or he could let all its whisperings, all its shades of violet, float into him. This impersonal darkness could be comforting as no human attention ever was. He felt the muscle in him relax, and as time drew on he felt strangely calm, felt his thoughts drop away and a strange strength enter into him, a numbness seeping into his limbs. From exhaustion, or resignation, or faith in some new inspiration, who knows? He could not feel the trunk of his body any more, but his senses were not numbed. They grew sharper and he was acutely aware of every tiny sound, every scent and rustle in the night: the stirrings of a mouse in the grass, the wings of a faraway bat, the beckoning scent that drew the insects to hover and buzz somewhere beyond the orchard. Underground, he could hear water gurgling, could hear it being drawn into the trees about him; he heard the breathing of the leaves and the movements of the sleeping monkeys.

Here and there in the branches near him, the season’s last guavas loomed from amidst the moonlit leaves. One, two, three of them … so ripe, so heavy, the slightest touch could make them fall from the tree.

He picked one. Perfect Buddha shape. Mulling on its insides, unconcerned with the world … Beautiful, distant fruit, growing softer as the days went by, as the nights passed on; beautiful fruit filled with an undiscovered constellation of young stars.