The Toss of a Lemon (23 page)

Sivakami comes to the door of the main hall with an optimistic look at Gayatri and says, so that she can be overheard, “Please, Gayatri, make them sit. The poor boy has just gone to the
chattram
to lie down. Some stomach problem, it seems. Not my cooking—at least I know that! Your husband sent Muchami to tell us.” Sivakami emits a brittle laugh. Minister’s schedule is strict, including tea and a constitutional in late afternoon, and a snifter of brandy before bed, and he had departed following the first seating.

Several men look confused and protest hesitantly, “But we asked at the chattram.”

Muchami now offers the definitive version from the garden entrance. “Bah! They didn’t know anything. We asked, too, and they told us he had not returned, but luckily Minister Sahr bade them move aside so he could have a look in the room.” They can almost hear Minister’s commanding tone as Muchami continues. “He even insisted that I come too.”

This is pushing credulity, but all are too interested in the story’s outcome to challenge the servant on whether he would have been invited into this Brahmin bastion. Muchami waves his arms. “There he was, curled up in a ball, holding his... his stomach?”

Sivakami blinks confirmation, and Muchami goes on. “Holding his stomach. Don’t know how he got in without them noticing.”

“Just the way he left here without anyone noticing, I guess,” Gayatri offers, and she and Muchami look just as mystified and impressed as the gathering. Gayatri continues, encouraged, “Strange that such an eye-catching young man...” She fades out at Sivakami’s disapproving look—Gayatri is too young to be commenting on the attractiveness of others’ husbands—but the party, bewildered at its own blindness, is meekly seating itself for food.

Muchami takes two steps back into the garden where Vairum has just completed a celebratory dance, kicking his heels out and punching his fists in the air. With a fiercely cheerful grin for Muchami, he goes in search of flowers to offer Lord Krishna, child hero and perpetrator of mischief, to whom he has been praying all day for the disappearance of his brother-in-law.

Goli’s parents return at two in the morning, the prescribed hour, when Thangam’s mother-in-law is to pour oil on the bride’s and groom’s heads before they take their baths. But Goli is not with his parents. Sivakami does not ask after him. Muchami and Mari do not ask after him. Thangam bows her head for the oil. She goes to her bath, while her mother- and father-in-law stand, their heads bowed, unmoving. Gayatri runs in, breathless and excited. She’s hastily taken her own oil bath and wants to be the first to offer congratulations to the couple. Not seeing them, she waits. Thangam emerges from the bath. Gayatri’s body settles, particle by particle, in understanding, and it is she who addresses Goli’s parents in their attitudes of shame.

“Oh. I’m sorry that it seems your son’s stomach is still troubling him.” Her voice sounds as though cooled over blocks of ice, the kind one sees now in Thiruchi, glowing mysteriously beneath layers of sawdust and straw.

But what’s that sound? The ice cart, drawn by a pony? No, it’s little Vairum. He had gone to sleep content—thrilled, in fact—at his brother-in-law’s absence. Now he trots in, making pony-hoof clicking noises with his tongue, and pulls up short at the sight of Thangam’s mother-in-law and father-in-law. A quick glance around assures him that Goli has not come, and he restarts his pony with a whoop and trots into the bathroom, wide awake and wriggling with excitement at the thought of his fireworks. Two days ago, he laid them out on the roof to dry. Today, on Vairum’s command, Muchami will light them in the street. Vairum has invited his schoolyard bodyguards to come and watch from just beyond the Brahmin quarter.

Thangam sits with her back to Rukmini, Murthy’s wife, to have her hair plaited. Rukmini and Murthy have not yet had children of their own, but Rukmini, a good-natured innocent, is full of affection and care for Sivakami’s kids and Thangam goes to her daily for this small, intimate chore, which Sivakami can no longer do because she is madi.

Rukmini’s own hair is, by general agreement, the worst kind: so kinky it never grows past her shoulders. Puffs of it gather in front of each ear; a halo of frizz rises from her rectangular forehead. Her memories of daily tears, owing to her mother’s vigorous efforts to tame her curls, make her gentle with Thangam.

Sivakami remembers that Vairum should have put some oil in his hair, also. She takes the bottle of oil to the bathroom and persuades him to wrap his six-year-old modesty in a towel. Finally, he opens the door and she dribbles oil into his hair. He massages his scalp distractedly with one hand, the other clutching his towel. He closes the door and begins again to splash.

Rukmini holds Thangam’s hair in her left hand while she strokes the comb through with her right, careful to scratch the scalp healthily with each pull. Reflexively, she tilts Thangam’s head to inspect for lice; Thangam spends her days surrounded by children with their heads inclined toward her. Sivakami leans forward for a look.

They see no bugs, though there is dandruff nestling in the little girl’s part. Not much, but Thangam is a bit young for this problem. Probably Rukmini has not been scraping the scalp properly each day. Sivakami chastises herself for not monitoring Thangam’s toilet more carefully. Perhaps it’s the change in seasons. At Thangam’s next oil bath, she will have Rukmini rub extra coconut oil into her knees and elbows, with vigour for heat, and give her scalp a healthy massage. She now notices a sparkle of dust inching along the drain from the bathroom with the water from Thangam’s bath, as Vairum splashes within.

Rukmini tilts Thangam’s head toward the lamp, and the flakes glint as she extends the part down the back of Thangam’s head and makes three smooth ropes on each side. Thangam’s plaits are looped back up on themselves in the fashion of little girls from then to now, and tied behind each ear with a purple ribbon, just as the Deepavali dawn bends through a sulphur haze kicked up by the fireworks circling, shooting and trailing through the early light.

After the formalities of the bath are concluded, Thangam sits to witness the festival fun from her usual spot on the veranda, but without her crowd, because all the children who dare are busy running from their own verandas into the centre of the street with exploding devices to scatter and impress the others. Vairum makes a satisfying morning of it, watching his stash go up in smoke. Not permitted to handle fireworks himself, he stands with his group, just outside the Brahmin quarter, while Muchami juggles the sparkling, flaming or smoking cylinders and cubes.

Only one small mishap mars the morning—it wouldn’t be Deepavali without some trifling injury. Some naughty boys tie a string of crackers to a sow’s tail, intending to watch the fun from the fence post, but panic pushes the big pig over the bar and out of her pen. She tramples two of the pranksters before escaping through a paddy field and extinguishing hopes of further entertainment.

Sadly, Goli misses all the fun. No one fails to inquire after him, and each is told his stomach is keeping him indoors. All day, his parents mope from chattram to house and back again, no son and no explanation. Sivakami is not clear on how long they intend to stay, and cannot ask.

The day after Deepavali, Thangam wears royal-blue ribbons to match the borders of her silk paavaadai, which is, in the main, a salmon pink worked in gold thread with a tasteful density of flowers. Sivakami instructs Rukmini to comb Thangam’s scalp harder. The tender-hearted woman reluctantly complies, but when Thangam winces and blinks back tears, Rukmini starts crying herself. The flaking is getting worse, and not only from Thangam’s head. As the child rises, her hair pulled into braids so tight her eyebrows have lengthened, sprinkles fall from her elbows, sliding down the slippery silk paavaadai to shine in a half-sun against the courtyard bricks. She pads out to the veranda, leaving a faintly glistening trail of footprints.

Mari arrives to sweep and swab the floor, as she does daily. When she pours out the wash water, Sivakami can’t help but check the court-yard drain. This has been the worst Deepavali she has ever experienced, waiting for this boy who doesn’t seem to think any of the rules of propriety apply to him. It probably bears no relation, but, appearing when it has, she can’t help feeling as if this dust is evidence of Thangam’s humiliation. She hauls and pour bucket after bucket of water along the gutter, but the golden specks must be heavier than dirt, than skin, than flesh and blood, because they settle again to taunt her from the trough.

Goli’s parents linger for two nights after Deepavali and then take their leave. When Muchami returns from seeing them off at the train station, he reports the puzzled inquiries of a dozen townsfolk, wondering why Goli wasn’t there with them.

“I told them he had gone already and asked them, Didn’t they see him go? I said he had said goodbye to as many people as he could, and that I didn’t know how they had managed to miss him. They asked if he was recovered and I said, Well, no, but... and then I waited, but his parents didn’t say a thing, not a thing, just stood there, the mother looking at the ground and father looking at the sky. So I said he was called away on family business, that he had to go and look after some things, things to do with their land. Okay?”

“Yes, yes. What else could you say?”

Muchami responds, even more indignant than when he had started, “Right, what else could I say? Certainly not the truth.”

He is deeply alarmed and insulted by Goli’s behavior, though he chose not to share this with Sivakami until now. He made his own inquiries—he needed to know what they were in for, and planned to decide later how much Sivakami had to be told. He had found and followed Goli, who patronized several local haunts, including the relatively respectable Kulithalai Club, where, after dark, men played cards, as well as establishments of lesser repute, including one “house of gaiety” in the street of prostitutes. Muchami had ferreted out one man who appeared slightly less infatuated with Goli than others in his crowd (for Goli already had a small gang of “friends,” most of whom he met only in the course of this short festival), and learned that this man was a relative of Goli’s and that they grew up on the same Brahmin quarter in a village two hours away.

Yes, Goli is a careless person, the man said, when Muchami skilfully isolated him at the edge of the village square one morning. He is egotistical and spoiled. This Muchami could tell—but what of his parents? His parents, said the man, are melancholy, deeply melancholy; they had enough money so Goli had whatever he wanted, but they never disciplined their son and never paid him much attention. Then, in his youth, Goli fell in with a gang of petty criminals. The relative hastened to say that he didn’t think Goli had ever committed a crime, but he liked being liked by those small toughies, and they liked him for his money.

“He’s a dreamer, though,” said the man, in a tone that sounded appreciative. “Goli always has a scheme up his sleeve. One day, one of them has to come to something. I think he’ll do well.” Muchami hoped he was right. He told Sivakami none of what he had learned.

Sivakami narrows her eyes, raises her brows and replies, “That is the truth. He is a little better, though still in some pain. Where is he? He is off on family affairs.”

They fall silent for a moment as Thangam walks through the hall from the front to the back, on her way to the washroom, or to get a drink of water, or some other ordinary task for an eight-year-old who perhaps shouldn’t be worrying about the whereabouts of her vagabond husband. She passes through a shaft of sunlight and puffs of gold dust dance off her shoulders and toes.

Sivakami whispers to Muchami, “That is the truth. The end.”

They look toward the door. From without, there is a sound of celebration, some kind of parade. Goli is entering the Brahmin quarter with a small and cheerful collection of villagers in a hip-hip-hooray mood of celebration. He gives a jaunty salute, less to his mother-in-law than to the neighbourhood, calling out, “Namaskarams! My train leaves in ninety minutes.” There’s no train in the direction of his home village until dusk: apparently, he’s going somewhere else.

“You must not go without eating something,” Sivakami says from the kitchen, disconcerted at his band of friends, half a dozen Brahmin men, some of whom she knows from the Brahmin quarter, some of whom must be from Kulithalai. Clearly others had been able to find him. “You’ve eaten nothing in our house since your arrival. Come in, please, come in.”

Goli puts his arms round his new friends and extends invitations. “Come in! Have a small bite of something, but you’d better get me to the station before the nine-thirty!”

Sivakami runs to the kitchen and assembles small silver plates with a sweet and a savoury snack on each as Goli and company enter the main hall. Vairum pushes past them to the door. He needs to put on his shoes and go to school. Goli smiles hugely at his little brother-in-law, and extends a hand to ruffle his hair. Vairum ducks and scowls, which makes Goli laugh and shrug. As Vairum passes, Goli slaps the back of his head.

Thangam carries out a silver tray with seven tumblers of water while Sivakami makes polite, formal inquiries. “I trust your health has improved? And your business has gone on well?” Goli doesn’t answer, busy as he is, working the room, making sure everyone’s looked after. He receives a plate and pays attention just long enough to lift the sweet toward his mouth. A moment before it goes in, though, he exclaims, “The train! The train!” He drops his plate and dashes for the door.

Muchami has hitched the bullock cart and driven it around to the front of the house. Goli tosses his valise in the back, climbs up after it, reaches over and whacks the bullock’s buttock. It starts to trot. Muchami gives an exasperated look back at Sivakami as Goli bids his cronies farewell.

“So long! Don’t forget what we discussed—I’ll be in touch. This idea is really going to take off. Don’t tell anyone else. Just between us!” he shouts, as the cart rounds the corner to exit the Brahmin quarter.