The God of Small Things (19 page)

And the airport itself! More like the local bus depot! The bird-shit on the building! Oh the spitstains on the kangaroos!

Oho! Going to the dogs India is.

When long bus journeys, and overnight stays at the airport, were met by love and a lick of shame, small cracks appeared, which would grow and grow, and before they knew it, the Foreign Returnees would be trapped outside the History House, and have their dreams re-dreamed.

Then, there, among the wash’n’wear suits and shiny suitcases, Sophie Mol.

Thimble-drinker.

Coffin-cartwheeler.

She walked down the runway, the smell of London in her hair. Yellow bottoms of bells flapped backwards around her ankles. Long
hair floated out from under her straw hat. One hand in her mother’s. The other swinging like a soldier’s (lef, lef, lefrightlef).

Margaret Kochamma told her to Stoppit.

So she Stoppited.

  Ammu said, “Can you see her, Rahel?”

She turned around to find her crisp-knickered daughter communing with cement marsupials. She went and fetched her, scoldingly. Chacko said he couldn’t take Rahel on his shoulders because he was already carrying something. Two roses red.

Fatly.

Fondly.

When Sophie Mol walked into the Arrivals Lounge, Rahel, over-come by excitement and resentment, pinched Estha hard. His skin between her nails. Estha gave her a Chinese Bangle, twisting the skin on her wrist different ways with each of his hands. Her skin became a welt and hurt. When she licked it, it tasted of salt. The spit on her wrist was cool and comfortable.

Ammu never noticed.

Across the tall iron railing that separated Meeters from the Met, and Greeters from the Gret, Chacko, beaming, bursting through his suit and sideways tie, bowed to his new daughter and ex-wife.

In his mind, Estha said, “Bow.”

“Hello, Ladies,” Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice (last night’s voice in which he said,
Love. Madness. Hope. Infinnate Joy
). “And how was your journey?”

And the Air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside.

“Say Hello and How d’you do?” Margaret Kochamma said to Sophie Mol.

“Hello and How d’you do?” Sophie Mol said through the iron railing, to everyone in particular.

“One for you and one for you,” Chacko said with his roses.

“And Thank you?” Margaret Kochamma said to Sophie Mol.

“And Thank you?” Sophie Mol said to Chacko, mimicking her mother’s question mark. Margaret Kochamma shook her a little for her impertinence.

“You’re welcome,” Chacko said. “Now let me introduce everybody.” Then, more for the benefit of onlookers and eavesdroppers, because Margaret Kochamma needed no introduction really: “My wife, Margaret.”

Margaret Kochamma smiled and wagged her rose at him.
Ex-wife, Chacko!
Her lips formed the words, though her voice never spoke them.

Anybody could see that Chacko was a proud and happy man to have had a wife like Margaret. White. In a flowered, printed frock with legs underneath. And brown back-freckles on her back. And arm-freckles on her arms.

But around her, the Air was sad, somehow. And behind the smile in her eyes, the Grief was a fresh, shining blue. Because of a calamitous car crash. Because of a Joe-shaped Hole in the Universe.

“Hello, all,” she said. “I feel I’ve known you for years.”

Hello wall.

“My daughter, Sophie,” Chacko said, and laughed a small, nervous laugh that was worried, in case Margaret Kochamma said “ex-daughter.” But she didn’t. It was an easy-to-understand laugh. Not like the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man’s laugh that Estha hadn’t understood.

“‘llo,” Sophie Mol said.

She was taller than Estha. And bigger. Her eyes were bluegrayblue. Her pale skin was the color of beach sand. But her hatted hair was beautiful, deep red-brown. And yes (oh yes!) she had Pappachi’s nose waiting inside hers. An Imperial Entomologist’s nose-within-a-nose. A moth-lover’s nose. She carried her Made-in-England go-go bag that she loved.

“Ammu, my sister,” Chacko said.

Ammu said a grown-up’s Hello to Margaret Kochamma and a children’s Hell-oh to Sophie Mol. Rahel watched hawk-eyed to try and gauge how much Ammu loved Sophie Mol, but couldn’t.

Laughter rambled through the Arrivals Lounge like a sudden breeze. Adoor Basi, the most popular, best-loved comedian in Malayalam cinema, had just arrived (Bombay-Cochin). Burdened with a number of small unmanageable packages and unabashed public adulation, he felt obliged to perform. He kept dropping his packages and saying,
“Ende Deivomay! Eee sadhanangal!”

Estha laughed a high, delighted laugh.

“Ammu look! Adoor Basi’s dropping his things!” Estha said. “He can’t even carry his things!”

“He’s doing it deliberately,” Baby Kochamma said in a strange new British accent. “Just
ignore
him.”

“He’s a filmactor,” she explained to Margaret Kochamma and Sophie Mol, making Adoor Basi sound like a Mactor who did occasionally Fil.

“Just trying to attract attention,” Baby Kochamma said and resolutely refused to have her attention attracted.

But Baby Kochamma was wrong. Adoor Basi
wasn’t
trying to attract attention. He was only trying to deserve the attention that he had already attracted.

“My aunt, Baby,” Chacko said.

Sophie Mol was puzzled. She regarded Baby Kochamma with a beady-eyed interest. She knew of cow babies and dog babies. Bear babies—yes. (She would soon point out to Rahel a bat baby.) But
aunt
babies confounded her.

Baby Kochamma said, “Hello, Margaret,” and “Hello, Sophie
Mol.” She said Sophie Mol was so beautiful that she reminded her of a wood-sprite. Of Ariel.

“D’you know who Ariel was?” Baby Kochamma asked Sophie Mol. “Ariel in
The Tempest)”

Sophie Mol said she didn’t.

“‘Where the bee sucks there suck I’?” Baby Kochamma said.

Sophie Mol said she didn’t.

“‘In a cowslip’s bell I lie’?”

Sophie Mol said she didn’t.

“Shakespeare’s
The Tempest?”
Baby Kochamma persisted.

All this was of course primarily to announce her credentials to Margaret Kochamma. To set herself apart from the Sweeper Class.

“She’s trying to boast,” Ambassador E. Pelvis whispered in Ambassador S. Insect’s ear. Ambassador Rahel’s giggle escaped in a bluegreen bubble (the color of a jackfruit fly) and burst in the hot airport air.
Pffft!
was the sound it made.

Baby Kochamma saw it, and knew that it was Estha who had started it.

“And now for the VIPs,” Chacko said (still using his Reading Aloud voice).

“My nephew, Esthappen.”

“Elvis Presley,” Baby Kochamma said for revenge. “I’m afraid we’re a little behind the times here.” Everyone looked at Estha and laughed.

From the soles of Ambassador Estha’s beige and pointy shoes an angry feeling rose and stopped around his heart.

“How d’you do, Esthappen?” Margaret Kochamma said.

“Finethankyou,” Estha’s voice was sullen.

“Estha,” Ammu said affectionately, “when someone says How d’you do? You’re supposed to say How d’you do? back. Not ‘Fine, thank you.’ Come on, say How do YOU do?”

Ambassador Estha looked at Ammu.

“Go on,” Ammu said to Estha. “How do YOU do?”

Estha’s sleepy eyes were stubborn.

In Malayalam Ammu said, “Did you hear what I said?”

Ambassador Estha felt bluegrayblue eyes on him, and an Imperial Entomologist’s nose. He didn’t have a How do YOU do? in him.

“Esthappen!” Ammu said. And an angry feeling rose in her and stopped around her heart. A Far More Angry Than Necessary feeling. She felt somehow humiliated by this public revolt in her area of jurisdiction. She had wanted a smooth performance. A prize for her children in the Indo-British Behavior Competition.

Chacko said to Ammu in Malayalam, “Please. Later. Not now.”

And Ammu’s angry eyes on Estha said
All right. Later.

And Later became a horrible, menacing, goose-bumpy word.

Lay. Ter.

Like a deep-sounding bell in a mossy well. Shivery, and furred. Like moth’s feet.

The Play had gone bad. Like pickle in the monsoon.

“And my niece,” Chacko said. “Where’s Rahel?” He looked around and couldn’t find her. Ambassador Rahel, unable to cope with seesawing changes in her life, had raveled herself like a sausage into the dirty airport curtain, and wouldn’t unravel. A sausage with Bata sandals.

“Just ignore her,” Ammu said. “She’s just trying to attract attention.”

  Ammu too was wrong. Rahel was trying to not attract the attention that she deserved.

  “Hello, Rahel,” Margaret Kochamma said to the dirty airport curtain.

“How do YOU do?” The dirty curtain replied in a mumble.

“Aren’t you going to come out and say Hello?” Margaret Kochamma said in a kind-schoolteacher voice. (Like Miss Mitten’s before she saw Satan in their eyes.)

  Ambassador Rahel wouldn’t come out of the curtain because she couldn’t. She couldn’t because she couldn’t. Because Everything
was wrong. And soon there would be a LayTer for both her and Estha.

Full of furred moths and icy butterflies. And deep-sounding bells. And moss.

And a Nowl.

The dirty airport curtain was a great comfort and a darkness and a shield.

“Just ignore her,” Ammu said and smiled tightly.

Rahel’s mind was full of millstones with bluegrayblue eyes.

Ammu loved her even less now. And it had come down to Brass Tacks with Chacko.

  “Here comes the baggage!” Chacko said brightly. Glad to get away. “Come, Sophiekins, let’s get your bags.”

Sophiekins.

Estha watched as they walked along the railing, pushing through the crowds that moved aside, intimidated by Chacko’s suit and sideways tie and his generally bursty demeanor. Because of the size of his stomach, Chacko carried himself in a way that made him appear to be walking uphill all the time. Negotiating optimistically the steep, slippery slopes of life. He walked on this side of the railing, Margaret Kochamma and Sophie Mol on that.

Sophiekins.

The Sitting Man with the cap and epaulettes, also intimidated by Chacko’s suit and sideways tie, allowed him into the baggage claim section.

When there was no railing left between them, Chacko kissed Margaret Kochamma, and then picked Sophie Mol up.

“The last time I did this I got a wet shirt for my pains,” Chacko said and laughed. He hugged her and hugged her and hugged her. He kissed her bluegrayblue eyes, her Entomologist’s nose, her hatted redbrown hair.

Then Sophie Mol said to Chacko, “Ummm … excuse me? D’you think you could put me down now? I’m ummm … not really used to being carried.”

So Chacko put her down.

Ambassador Estha saw (with stubborn eyes) that Chacko’s suit was suddenly looser, less bursty.

And while Chacko got the bags, at the dirty-curtained window LayTer became Now.

Estha saw how Baby Kochamma’s neckmole licked its chops and throbbed with delicious anticipation.
Der-Dhoom, Der-Dhoom.
It changed color like a chameleon. Der-green, der-blueblack, dermustardyellow.

“All right,” Ammu said. “That’s enough. Both of you. Come
out
of there, Rahel!”

Inside the curtain, Rahel closed her eyes and thought of the green river, of the quiet deep-swimming fish, and the gossamer wings of the dragonflies (that could see behind them) in the sun. She thought of her luckiest fishing rod that Velutha had made for her. Yellow bamboo with a float that dipped every time a foolish fish enquired. She thought of Velutha and wished she was with him.

Then Estha unraveled her. The cement kangaroos were watching.

Ammu looked at them. The Air was quiet except for the sound of Baby Kochamma’s throbbing neckmole.

“So,” Ammu said.

And it was really a question. So?

And it hadn’t an answer.

Ambassador Estha looked down, and saw that his shoes (from where the angry feelings rose) were beige and pointy. Ambassador Rahel looked down and saw that in her Bata sandals her toes were trying to disconnect themselves. Twitching to join someone else’s feet. And that she couldn’t stop them. Soon she’d be without toes and have a bandage like the leper at the level crossing.

“If you ever,” Ammu said, “and I
mean
this, EVER, ever again disobey me in Public, I will see to it that you are sent away to somewhere where you will jolly well learn to behave. Is that clear?”

When Ammu was really angry, she said Jolly Well. Jolly Well was a deeply well with larfing dead people in it.

“Is. That Clear?” Ammu said again.

Frightened eyes and a fountain looked back at Ammu.

Sleepy eyes and a surprised puff looked back at Ammu.

Two heads nodded three times.

Yes. It’s. Clear.

But Baby Kochamma was dissatisfied with the fizzling out of a situation that had been so full of potential. She tossed her head.

“As if!” she said.

As if!

Ammu turned to her, and the turn of her head was a question.

“It’s useless,” Baby Kochamma said. “They’re sly. They’re uncouth. Deceitful. They’re growing wild. You can’t manage them.”

Ammu turned back to Estha and Rahel and her eyes were blurred jewels.

“Everybody says that children need a Baba. And I say no. Not
my
children. D’you know why?”

Two heads nodded.

“Why. Tell me,” Ammu said.

And not together, but almost, Esthappen and Rahel said:

“Because you’re our Ammu and our Baba and you love us Double.”

“More than Double,” Ammu said. “So remember what I told you. People’s feelings are precious. And when you disobey me in Public,
everybody
gets the wrong impression.”