The Toss Of A Lemon Part 10

Sivakami strokes her head. What else has Thangam seen, been changed by, fallen in love with without her mother noticing? "Maybe next year you can get a couple more for our golu."

"Puppets." Thangam has clearly thought this through. "Not the big ones, the small ones."

In contrast with his sister, Vairum's joys and sorrows are all too evident : she sometimes wishes she could notice his unhappiness less, along with the way he blames her, for his exclusion, for his nostalgia, for noticing his skin problems. She knows she is to blame. She didn't bring him back here so that he could be happy; she brought him so that he would be fulfilled. She just wishes she weren't reminded of this every time she looks at him.

Now IT IS EARLY NOVEMBER and time for the next festival: Deepavali, the festival of lights, when oil lamps are lit and fireworks shot off, perhaps to celebrate Rama's triumphant return from defeating the demon king of Lanka, perhaps to celebrate one of Krishna's many victories, perhaps to celebrate a victory of the G.o.d Vishnu, of whom both Rama and Krishna are earthly incarnations. Regardless, it's a chance to celebrate, and why should any G.o.d or incarnation be excluded?

This Deepavali is the first of Thangam's life as a wife, Sivakami's first great act as a mother-in-law. Custom dictates it should be half as grand as the wedding, but many make it grander than that, hoping attendees will double it in their heads and be even more impressed with the wedding in retrospect.

Sivakami's preparations are anxious and exacting. In-laws have been known to make demands on the spot-for extra dowry items, saris or jewellery. Thangam's in-laws don't seem the type, but maybe she should hold something in reserve, just in case? Like what? No, she will give what is appropriate; she has never done less, nor more. If they make demands, she will meet them.

Murthy travels to the in-laws' village to extend the invitation, thrilled to be the family envoy. He thinks of himself as fastidious and preaches this almost as a kind of morality, but he always overlooks some detail of his grooming. The day he embarks, for instance, bright with the honour of his mission, Sivakami notices a line of red betel-stained spittle marking a trail down his chin. She works hard to overlook his flaws, which are almost endearing: he is quite genuine in his affection for her family, as he was in his fondness for Hanumarathnam, and he sincerely desires to help.

Murthy returns home three days before the Deepavali celebration, gus.h.i.+ng over Thangam's husband's beauty, of which he had, sadly, only a glimpse toward the end of his trip. It's a shame, Goli's parents had said, he must have mistaken the time. They sent someone to fetch him, but he'd been unavoidably detained. Guess Murthy would have to greet him at Deepavali in Cholapatti, with the rest of the Brahmin quarter. When Murthy was being taken to the station, the driver pointed to a tall boy crossing the street, and Murthy recognized him from the wedding-high colour, immaculate clothes. But Goli disappeared before they could catch him. "As with our Thangam," Murthy says, "just a sight of him is enough to fill a heart with peace and gladness. What a couple they will make!"

Sivakami thinks, But that's inexcusable! and wonders if Murthy is being honest or trying to make her feel better about her son-in-law's rudeness. Surely guileless Murthy is not capable of dissembling?

The day before the festival, Muchami takes Vairum, Murthy and a cotillion of garland-bearers to greet the in-laws. Sivakami is so hoping that this meeting between the brothers-in-law might go better than the last. It would be so nice for Vairum to have a friend in the family. Thirty minutes later, Vairum tears into their vestibule, kicks off his shoes so hard they hit the ceiling, ducks out of the way of their descent and shoots into the farthest corner of the cowshed. Sivakami guesses he still has no such friend.

The rest of the party is half an hour behind him, slowed by the many who come out to greet them. Goli's parents look wan and wary, but Goli is fresher, s.h.i.+nier and handsomer even than before. Sivakami wonders again why she cannot see his charms and resolves to try harder, if only for Thangam's sake.

The next day, the house is crowded with feasters and gawkers who come to see the new son-in-law. Hanumarathnam's sisters come. They ask nothing about matters related to the house. Sivakami's brothers come. They ask nothing about matters related to the children. Sivakami greets them with affection and respect, enhanced by the feeling that she is, truly, mistress of this home.

Happily, Thangam's in-laws make no extra demands. They meekly, mutely receive their gifts and, in turn, present Thangam with a sari. Various matrons rub it between their fingers and p.r.o.nounce it, among themselves, not gorgeous, but respectable. Goli is as pleased as a child with the diamond ring he receives from Sivakami, the ring her father had presented to his own son-in-law. As Goli leaps about the room displaying it, Sivakami squints to blur the crowd and see, for a moment, only the light of the jewel, as though it were still winking from her husband's hand.

Then Sivakami instructs Thangam to lay banana leaves for the feast. But in the brief interval between diamond and dinner, Goli vanishes. His wife and parents dine without him. Everyone is uneasy, but they proceed. He is not back for the second seating. Several packs of youngsters and a posse of men volunteer to look for him. He remains unlocated. His parents remain mum. Sivakami begs everyone to sit for the third seating, but no one will. She walks to the back of the kitchen and leans in the doorway facing the courtyard, where Mari and Muchami are nervously conferring, and Vairum, who insisted on taking his supper out back and alone, is playing palanguzhi against himself. Sivakami beckons Muchami, and after hearing what she has to say, he goes, quick and solemn, through the cowshed to the northernmost garden door.

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 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 const.i.tutional in late afternoon, and a snifter of brandy before bed, and he had departed following the first seating. 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 const.i.tutional 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 att.i.tudes 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 a.s.sures 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 ch.o.r.e, 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 ma.s.sages 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 sc.r.a.ping 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 ma.s.sage. 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 extinguis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 prost.i.tutes. 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 pa.s.ses 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 a.s.sembles 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 pa.s.ses, 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. .h.i.tched 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 b.u.t.tock. 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.

This episode is the end of the all-important first Deepavali. Thangam spends the rest of the day on the veranda, refusing lunch, rising only at Sivakami's insistence, around half past four. When she rises, gold falls from her paavaadai as though all its forget-me-nots were shedding their petals.

A few minutes after Thangam vacates the veranda, Vairum arrives home from school, removing his shoes before dragging his satchel over the threshold. It gathers a thin gold line of dust along the broad bricks. Muchami departs for his late-afternoon tour of the fields; Mari sorts rice; Sivakami organizes snacks for her children.

Thus, she does not see a neighbour's disappointment at just missing a chance for Thangam's blessing, she doesn't see him pa.s.s close by their veranda on his way home and be arrested in his pa.s.sage by the thin dusting of gold on the spot Thangam just vacated. She doesn't see him take a pinch and stroke it across his forehead, the way he did with a pinch of ash given him once or twice a week by Sivakami's late husband when he held his healing court on the very spot where Thangam sits daily.

Sivakami doesn't see one or two neighbours note the glisten across this man's forehead as he proceeds home, she doesn't hear his wife exclaim over it, she doesn't even hear the crackling up and down the lines of gossip as the news spreads like fires in the dry season. What she does hear is the sound of squabbling, maybe an hour after the original incident. What she sees, when she goes to investigate, is three of her neighbours trying to sc.r.a.pe their own small mounds of Thangam into small paper cones, while a crowd of ten or twelve others try to get a glimpse of the substance, on the veranda, or the road, or the steps, before it is all gone.

In the days following, whenever Thangam is out on the veranda, adults come one by one to receive her blessing. As before, she does nothing to offer it. Those who need must simply take. They lean across the veranda and pinch a pinch of dust from the sprinkling around her or from the small drift against the wall where she sometimes leans. Small babies have the dust rubbed on their tummies for their perpetual ailments. Some is given, folded in a bit of paper, to a servant whom caste does not permit to walk on the Brahmin quarter. Old people receive a pinch on the tongue, just as they take a daily dose of holy ash brought home from favourite temples to ease their undiagnosable internal malfunctions. The villagers remind one another that once upon a time it was said a morsel of pounded gold taken internally had great medicinal value. It was the vitamin pill of n.o.bility. All in the village swear that they feel its invigorating effects. Their good health gains renown, and people come from elsewhere, too, just as they did for Hanumarathnam, to pay respects and receive some holy ash toward prevention or cure, just as Sivakami's parents did all those years ago.

At first, Sivakami feels a vague indignation at her neighbours' greed and opportunism. She can't bring herself to think of Thangam's dust as a gift; to her it feels like a symptom of some malady, the root of which she tells herself she cannot yet fathom.

She eschews the auric dust. The village presumes this is because of her widowhood: widows do not wear gold-her forehead should be marked by nothing but ash, the leavings after a flame goes cold. But this does not explain why neither Muchami nor Mari applies Thangam's dust to their furrowed brows or tired limbs. Gayatri queries them. Muchami doesn't say that he, too, is widowed, though this is how he has felt since Hanumarathnam's death. He replies as he and Sivakami determined together in advance. He tells their young neighbour, "All who are frequently in Thangam's presence are coated with her blessed presence at all times." He holds out his hands for inspection ; the glints beneath his purplish fingernails and in the creases of his velvet-dark knuckles prove his claim.

Vairum has overheard, though, and pipes boldly his own explanation, "I'll never take gold from my sister. I'll only give her gold, I will never, never take it."

Gayatri feels inexplicably shamed by their answers and determines from that moment not to take the dust by pinches, but to feel content with whatever traces drift upon her by accident during her daily visits.

A week after Deepavali, however, it is clear that the quant.i.ty of gold Thangam is shedding is somewhat reduced. Within a month production has ceased. Thangam has returned to her previous magnetic, but not magical, self. The village resigns itself to taking her blessing as before, with a hand on her head. Straggling pilgrims who come seeking the girl who makes gold must content themselves with a sight of her. As the locals point out, and the religious travellers must agree, that sight is reasonably miraculous in and of itself. The pilgrims depart protesting their perfect contentment. And when, inevitably, a few visitors come with glints in their eyes more entrepreneurial than spiritual, all rumours are hotly denied, and the would-be capitalists turn away shrugging.

SOME MONTHS LATER, the seasons turn, and crops mature. It is Pongal time. This harvest, the big harvest, is the busiest time in Muchami's work year. Accounting suddenly becomes more complicated. There are three growing seasons, not to mention year-round income sources such as coconuts or bananas, but in this time when every possible crop can be reaped, bushels can be lost or disguised. This year, Muchami's sixth in this household's employ, will be exceptionally stressful for him because he, together with Gayatri, Murthy, and Rukmini, will escort Thangam to her in-laws' house for the holiday. There, Thangam will initiate the festival by placing the pongal pot on her in-laws' stove to symbolize the bounty she brings them as a bride. Her escorts know that, given her in-laws' straits, their charge is a fortune both literal and figurative.

Muchami has become silent and tense. This is not due to the stress of his work. Normally, he thrives under this kind of strain, becoming more authoritative and authoritarian with each additional demand. He is proud to be taking Thangam, and will be fiercely watchful.

It's just that he wishes he could take her by bullock cart: he is scared of the train. He doesn't find it difficult to meet trains at the station. He displays a good deal of confidence when putting people on and taking them off, certain that the train is stationary while he does so. None of this leaping on and off while it is in motion, no sir. To ride on one himself? It seems an unnecessary risk.

Mari and Sivakami rea.s.sure him that frail women and little children ride them all the time. Yes, he agrees, but those pa.s.sengers are literate, high caste. He is the toughest guy around when it comes to market and merchant. He can hold his own in the rowdiest toddy shop in the deepest forest. But this great big roar of metal and smoke... He hopes he can keep his dhoti clean, within and without.

Mari accompanies them to the station, counting baggage, ensuring the gifts are always in her husband's hands. Even if he's gripping them numbly with fear, at least he's got them. A clutch of dishevelled children, including a couple of Vairum's bodyguards, stand with her on the platform. They run around, chattering, helping her settle Thangam, Murthy, Rukmini and Gayatri. Finally, a couple of minutes before the 3 p.m. departure, Muchami must mount, ashen beneath his mahogany complexion. The children imitate his knees shaking and laugh until they choke. He stands to yell at them, but the train gives a preliminary lurch and his voice fails him. He sits down and feels the floor shudder up to speed.

Two hours later, it is a suave and cosmopolitan gent who swaggers from the train with his party. They have befriended a number of fellow travellers, exchanged news and opinions, and addresses. There had been, in their own compartment, a range of caste such as you would never run across in such close proximity anywhere else. Muchami is not really sure this part is such a good thing. He has heard of agitations to promote such mixing. One of the men in their compartment seemed to lean that way. Muchami is not persuaded, not at all. He knows his place and so should everyone. Else how would anyone know anything ? What would be one's occupation, one's realm of expertise? But the conversation was lively and two hours couldn't really harm anything. Best of all, he no longer fears the iron horse, and his compartment companions concur: it is initially harrowing, but ultimately a very agreeable and efficient way to travel.

The in-laws' servant brings them by bullock cart to the chattram where they will be accommodated. Muchami will sleep in the courtyard out back, since the building is Brahmin-only. They tidy themselves, organize the gifts and go to take their evening meal at the in-laws' home. Murthy, in a kurta neatly pressed except for one wrinkled sleeve, is being insufferably knowledgeable, having travelled here once before. Gayatri is so curious that she can't get too irritated with him; Rukmini, also curious, is naturally deferential to her husband; Thangam shows no curiosity. Just before they enter the house, Gayatri inspects the girl, and absentmindedly, with her thumb, wipes a little sparkle of sweat off the child's upper lip. But the lip is not moist, and now Gayatri's thumb s.h.i.+nes with a faint gold, the sort that Cholapatti has not seen in months.

No time to wonder, though, because here are Goli and his parents, and neighbours who have come to greet them, and Thangam's maternal uncles who have come also, and there are gifts to be distributed and inquiries to be made and the evening meal to be taken, and... Goli is gone again. His parents appear utterly unsurprised and offer no explanation. Half the guests want to take the same approach, the other half are more inclined to wild speculation, until Gayatri pipes up, "Why is everyone so mystified? He had to go look after business. He's a very responsible boy. Too responsible," she gently chastises his parents. "He should learn to take it easy sometimes. He would be forgiven on a night like this."

Muchami overhears her and is so grateful, because from his place in a foreign courtyard, in a foreign land, he can do nothing.

Anyway, Goli returns at noon the next day, plainly exhausted, for a meal and a nap. He is gone again by late afternoon. Thangam pathetically, exquisitely, performs her functions, stirring the pongal pot on the first day of the festival; on the second, she makes rows of seven b.a.l.l.s each of sugared rice, yellow rice, red rice and yogourt rice. These are left as an offering for the crows, who are models for familial behaviour since the common wisdom is that they never eat without calling their fellow crows to eat with them. This is also the day women pray for the welfare of their brothers; when brothers give gifts to their sisters. Thangam is given a cash token by proxy, from Vairum, and Sivakami's brothers give her a few rupees to take home to her mother.

Rukmini and Murthy eat and talk heartily and Muchami and Gayatri silently collude in their relief: if Rukmini and Murthy don't find Goli's absence suspicious, neither will anyone else. Besides, the village is distracted by a miracle: Thangam is shedding again.

When the party returns to Cholapatti after an absence of almost seventy-two hours, they are all coated in a dusting of gold. It is in the corners of their eyes and in their hair, it speckles Murthy's s.h.i.+ny bald forehead so he resembles a new species of egg. As they disembark the train, all their compartment companions compete for a fingerful to smear on the foreheads of near and dear.

Rukmini and Murthy are flushed with celebrity as they arrive back on the Brahmin quarter. They excitedly relate the events of Pongal to Sivakami while Gayatri listens in uncharacteristic silence. The in-laws' village had been so impressed to see Thangam in the full bloom of her powers. She just started a little the night before Pongal, but by the following evening, there were puffs of gold jetting from her heels with every step. The house streamed with people all wanting a bit, and Thangam satisfied them all. Oh, how Sivakami's brothers had been amazed!

That evening and the day following, chattering hordes mill about Sivakami's veranda, replenis.h.i.+ng their supplies. "Thangam does look happy to be home," Sivakami says to Muchami, who agrees. He has told her that, in those seventy-two hours, they saw Goli for perhaps two, one and a half of which he spent asleep.

Sivakami shakes her head. She is about to ask, rhetorically, "Where does he go?" but then it occurs to her that Muchami might know, and she is not ready to be told. Men disappear from time to time, and women must cope. Knowing where they go and why sometimes just makes that harder.

Three days later, the village is restive. Thangam's glut of gold is receding once more. Where does the miracle come from? Where does it go? How to make it stay? Murthy, who likes to spend his days pacing and pondering questions of import, hits upon a theory: marriage completes a woman, does it not? It was only when Thangam found her other half that she became fully what she was meant to be, is it not so? Naturally, her capacity for magic waxes when she is near her husband, and wanes when he is far away.

The explanation is readily received by the village. But what to do? The child cannot live close to her husband until she comes of age. They would not want to lose her any sooner than necessary. When she goes, oh, that will be a sad day! Murthy's scientific and deductive clarity has helped the townsfolk to understand what they can expect. They resolve to be satisfied with what they receive.

Sivakami hears s.n.a.t.c.hes of the debates skirling in the wind down the street. She doesn't partic.i.p.ate. She has a strong feeling that the gold dust is a product of the marriage, and her orthodoxy compels her to believe that marriage completes the girl, but every fibre of her understanding strains against the idea that Thangam is becoming more what she was meant to be. As the gold drains from her child, Sivakami despairs that Thangam is becoming not more, but less and less and less.

A Coming of Age 1914.

AT FOURTEEN, THANGAM SHEDS FIRST BLOOD. "Ah," the village sighs, "how sweet that she's survived to come of age, and how bitter, that she will now leave us!"

In the style of her mother, the celebration will be thorough but not grandiose. Sivakami believes feasts should please the tongues of the G.o.ds, not the gossips.

Thangam, dressed in red, sits in the back room, on a mat laid over grains of raw rice. Brahmin-quarter girls, those who used to cl.u.s.ter at the veranda, now cl.u.s.ter at the doors so that she won't feel alone in her isolation. When the villagers come, they greet Sivakami, "Congratulations on your grandson!"-antic.i.p.ating the required fruit of of the union to come. The married women sing songs about the games of love to make Thangam blush and the girlfriends giggle. All the women dance k.u.mmi, k.u.mmi, circling and clapping hands before the Ramar statue, and sing a song congratulating curvaceous Sita on her n.o.ble, attentive husband. Every marriage starts out as perfect as Rama and Sita's, the matrons imply. Every marriage, like theirs, faces trials. But today we'll sing not of battles or hards.h.i.+ps but of rose petal beds and curtains of jasmine and milky moonlight veils concealing nothing. circling and clapping hands before the Ramar statue, and sing a song congratulating curvaceous Sita on her n.o.ble, attentive husband. Every marriage starts out as perfect as Rama and Sita's, the matrons imply. Every marriage, like theirs, faces trials. But today we'll sing not of battles or hards.h.i.+ps but of rose petal beds and curtains of jasmine and milky moonlight veils concealing nothing.

For three days, Thangam languishes in peaceful isolation and the village dances around her. For the fourth-day ceremonies, Rukmini will perform the part Sivakami would have had were it not for her widowhood. On that morning, Thangam's in-laws appear before dawn, while she is out back, bathing for the first time since her first menses began. They stand in the hall beside an immense kolam while Rukmini, blus.h.i.+ng with the pleasure of her office, gives Thangam a dhavni, dhavni, and maternal instructions for womanly comportment. Under silver vessels at strategic points on the kolam are hidden a small conch dripping milk, some cowries, a little doll and some seeds. These are whisked into Thangam's dhavni and tied at her waist, and then she is seated at the kolam's centre. and maternal instructions for womanly comportment. Under silver vessels at strategic points on the kolam are hidden a small conch dripping milk, some cowries, a little doll and some seeds. These are whisked into Thangam's dhavni and tied at her waist, and then she is seated at the kolam's centre.

The matrons try to place the ritual silver pieces on Thangam's head, shoulders, palms and feet, but the coins slip and fall. Is she trembling ? Why would she be? The ladies laugh at this difficulty which in any other girl would seem ill-omened in the extreme. "Why even try? Who piles silver upon gold?" They dance more k.u.mmi and sing more songs and feast, and when the gaiety is finished and the celebrants depart, nothing is left but the wait until Thangam, too, must go.

Where will she go? Sivakami wonders. To her in-laws', at the start, but after that? Goli, now twenty-five, has charmed his way into a revenue inspectors.h.i.+p and will be required to change districts every two years for the rest of his career, lest he become attached to locals and tempted into lenience and corruption. Thangam will leave a trail like a small golden snail criss-crossing the presidency. None of them, not Sivakami, not Muchami, none will be able to follow.

A few months later, when Thangam's new family is due to come again to take her home, Sivakami takes it upon herself to explain to Thangam whatever she can imagine of what her life might be like.

"Do you know, Thangam, that your husband has secured a job?" she asks as she serves both children their supper.

Vairum breaks in. "He's a revenue inspector."

Thangam looks at him.

"Big deal," he says, bent over his meal. Thangam quickly turns her head back to her own food.

"It's a very good job," Sivakami says, feeling obliged to sound positive, for Thangam's sake, even while she abhors the sound of her brothers' voices in her own, instructing Vairum on how to feel. Neither child looks up. "It will place very interesting demands on you, Thangam, as his wife. You will move to a new district every two years!" Her voice sounds brittle to her. Thangam is looking at her now, clearly alarmed. "Won't that be interesting?"

"It will be terrible, Amma!" shouts Vairum, and Sivakami jumps. "Will her in-laws travel with her, at least? Is she going to be all alone, in a new place, every two years?"

"Well, she will be with her husband," she says defensively.

"You can't count on him! When he comes here, he's never here. When Thangam Akka goes to his home, he's never home!"

"Vairum, we need to help your sister prepare, to feel confident and ready." She watches as he folds his banana leaf and storms to the back of the house. She looks back at Thangam, who has stopped eating and started to cry. "Oh, no, kuttima. kuttima. Please, dear, everything will be fine." It is after dark, so she reaches to stroke Thangam's hair. She looks up to see Vairum has returned and is standing over them. Please, dear, everything will be fine." It is after dark, so she reaches to stroke Thangam's hair. She looks up to see Vairum has returned and is standing over them.

"Thangam Akka, you have to write to us and tell us if you need anything. Okay? I will come and see you." He squats beside her. "I will make sure everything is all right." She nods a little.

Sivakami looks at Vairum to express her grat.i.tude, but he rises without acknowledging his mother's presence and goes upstairs to his attic room.