The Toss Of A Lemon Part 17

"Oh, it's respect, is it?" As Vairum's eyes adjust, he sees Thangam, the children huddled against her, sitting in a corner of the main hall as though trapped there by unseen forces. She doesn't look up. "What kind of respect are you showing for my sister and our family by selling, you are selling her dust?"

Goli looks uncertain. "Thangam is part of my family now, and this is family business, Vairum. b.u.t.t out."

"Let me tell you what happens now. One, you stop this venture. Two, you never try it again." Vairum is a little surprised at the menace in his tone. He has never had to threaten someone and although he hopes he doesn't have to again, it's good to know he can.

"Oh, come, Vairum," Goli wheedles. "Rumour has it you're interested in business. Can you really see pa.s.sing this up? You can have a part in it, as long as we can be clear on ..."

"Don't you ever dare suggest I would make money by using my sister..."

"All right-I'm through negotiating with you. Get out of my house." Goli opens the door and sees Muchami standing at the bottom of the front steps with Vairum's friends and several of their neighbours: strapping, athletic youth, their arms crossed as they wait. Vairum sees them, too.

"This is the final word: stop, " he says, standing a little too close to Goli, who looks away. "I'll see you at home tomorrow, Akka," he says to Thangam. "Good night."

Vairum joins his friends, who pat him on the shoulder as he hears the door slam behind him.

Muchami a.s.sures him, in the weeks following, that Goli has made no more mention of that scheme. Thangam resumes her daily visits with the children. When Muchami drops her at their house the Friday after the confrontation, a puzzled crowd of would-be customers is milling outside. They raise a happy buzz at Thangam's appearance, but she smiles at them vaguely and goes inside. Muchami lingers for nearly two hours in the neighbourhood, but when dark begins to fall and Goli has not returned, he leaves, along with the remnants of the crowd, who have wiped up on their index fingers any traces of Thangam's dust from the veranda.

Several more months pa.s.s before they hear again of Goli advertising one of his ideas. This time, he has persuaded a local importer to loan him one of two vitrines, where he has arranged a display of three stuffed deer's heads, a blackbuck antelope in the centre, its ringed and undulating horns crossing the ramified tines of two barasinghas' antlers. Before long, Vairum sees these heads appear above the doorways to the homes of a local lawyer and a prosperous compounder, as well as over the entryway to the import shop itself. Goli replaces them, adding an axis deer with magnificent horns. These, too, sell as soon as they arrive.

"He's. .h.i.t on a trend," Vairum remarks, when Muchami tells him Goli has bragged he can't keep up with demand. "Or created one."

"Yes, if anyone can do that, he can. He says he mounted one of the heads above his own doorway, but was convinced to sell it, too!"

The next s.h.i.+pment comes in three weeks later, nine heads; the next, three weeks after, is twelve. Goli no longer bothers to display them in the import-shop window but just sells them out of his main hall. They never remain longer than a day, so his higher-ups do not appear to catch wind of it.

Thangam shows up for her visit to Sivakami's one day in a rich-looking cotton-silk sari in coral, orange and pink. Her daughters finger it admiringly, and Sivakami asks, "New?"

Thangam nods, looking down and smiling. A couple of days later, wearing yet another new sari, she gives each of the little girls a small carved ivory box and presents Sivakami with a large, sandalwood representation of Rama for her puja corner.

"What is all this?" Sivakami asks.

"Gifts," Thangam replies shyly. "From my husband."

Sivakami is surprised, but when Gayatri comes for her daily coffee, she hears about the source of the riches.

"We finally came up on the waiting list for one of your son-in-law's heads, Sivakamikka!" Gayatri sighs as she seats herself against a pillar in the main hall, smiling at Thangam, who smiles back before looking away and swallowing.

Sivakami is staring at Thangam's sari, as opulent as the last one, if less gaudy, checked in three tones of violet. She can't tell why it looks strange, apart from the fact that she has so rarely seen Thangam in new clothes since she left home, and suddenly realizes: the only gold she sees on the sari is in the jeri-work threads outlining the checks. Thangam's shedding has significantly abated in the last month. That can only be good, she thinks, and then realizes what Gayatri has said.

"One of his heads?"

"We just had it mounted! A blackbuck, I guess it's called."

"I'm sorry." She gives Gayatri her coffee, the tumbler inverted in the bowl. "I don't know what you mean."

"Has no one told you about your son-in-law's runaway success?" Gayatri asks.

Sivakami, feeling slightly humiliated, says nothing.

"Well, it's very fas.h.i.+onable," Gayatri tells her cautiously. "Deer heads, wall decorations."

A Brahmin selling the heads of dead animals? Sivakami returns to the kitchen. It sounds barbaric, but she can't very well say that to Gayatri if she and her husband bought one. Sivakami returns to the kitchen. It sounds barbaric, but she can't very well say that to Gayatri if she and her husband bought one.

"My parents have, you know, just the horns," Gayatri goes on, chattering a little to cover Sivakami's obvious silence, "but Goli says this is a new thing, with this advanced science, taxi-something."

Sivakami smiles at her and helps her to change the subject.

"All the best homes have to have them," Muchami tells Vairum. "He has taken advance orders from some thirty more people. I think his supply has maybe slowed a little, though: he has said for the last few weeks that he'll be getting more in, but they haven't shown up yet."

They are in the bullock cart, returning from looking at a rice mill that Vairum is considering buying, on the far side of Kulithalai.

"What do people love so much about them?" Vairum snorts, and Muchami shrugs, but then realizes Vairum was not asking him. "Fascinating thing, fas.h.i.+on. He sold so many so fast, and they have to be hunted, stuffed, sent. I'm not sure the trend will persist, but if it settles down and becomes a fixture, maybe someone should consider domesticating, starting a farm or something."

"Now there's an idea." Muchami guides the bullock around a pothole.

"So what's he doing with his winnings? Putting them into some other crazy scheme?"

"Um, no." Muchami is quiet.

"What?" Vairum asks eventually.

Muchami would really rather not have to tell him, though there is no saying how Vairum will react. "He seems to be interested in acquiring ... trophies, of a sort." What Goli is doing is not technically wrong, but Muchami has a feeling that Vairum will not like it.

"What sort?"

If Muchami doesn't tell him, someone else will. "He seems to have his eye on Ch.e.l.lamma. You know who she is?"

Vairum shakes his head.

Muchami keeps his eyes on the road. "Devadasi." "Devadasi."

A temple dancer-"servant of the G.o.ds"-a courtesan. Women of this caste are trained in the finer arts, given to a G.o.d in a ceremonial marriage but dependent on liaisons with wealthy men, preferably in an exclusive relations.h.i.+p. It's a man of rare refinements who keeps a devadasi: he may father a line of dancers, a great contribution to the native arts.

"A devadasi?" Vairum asks. "I didn't even know there were any around here."

"Just one, in fact. Long story. Her mother was brought here from Madurai-side, by her patron, Ch.e.l.lamma's father. She came of age some five years ago but has only had one patron, for a couple of years. No one is supporting her now, and there was no issue from the previous union."

"He is such a fool," Vairum says.

"Yes," Muchami agrees.

Vairum sighs. "He can barely support his own family, and now he wants to take on another one? Besides which, he leaves in less than a year. Thank G.o.d."

"Status," Muchami says simply. "He's been buying gifts for Thangam and the babies, and new furniture."

"He'll go into debt," Vairum says. "Big trouble ahead."

"Yes." Muchami looks over. "Don't get involved."

"I don't need your advice."

Muchami, stung even though he should have expected this, falls silent.

The next morning, Sivakami draws him aside. "What's this about the son-in-law's business venture?"

"Yes, Amma. I didn't think you'd like it, and haven't told you about most of his business dealings since he arrived in Kulithalai. He has had a new one every few months. Who knew this one would be so successful?"

"Animal heads?"

Muchami shrugs, grinning a little.

Sivakami is quiet a moment. "I suppose there's nothing wrong with him trying to supplement his income, though I wish he would live more quietly. All this flas.h.!.+"

"Yes, Amma," Muchami says.

Sivakami looks at him suspiciously and waits, but he says nothing more and she doesn't ask.

It is two weeks before Navaratri, and Thangam comes in glowing. "Amma," she tells her mother. "Look."

Muchami is unloading boxes from the bullock cart, and Thangam opens them to show her mother: dolls, every size and style, perhaps two dozen of them.

"He brought them from Thiruchi!" Thangam picks each one up in turn, caressing it and setting it back in its wrapper.

Sivakami turns away from her, feeling discomfited. It is very strange. She knows Thangam loves dolls, but she's looking at them as Sivakami feels she should her own babies.

Vairum comes in and sees the boxes. "What's all this?"

"Dolls," Thangam whispers. "For Navaratri."

"You deserve to be spoiled, Akka, but surely he would be better off saving his money? Investing it in something safe?"

Thangam looks away.

"I can't talk to him," Vairum sighs. "Don't know if anyone can. Can you?"

Thangam keeps her silence.

"I didn't think so," he says. "All this is going to blow up in his face."

The end to Goli's fast fortune arrives in a near-literal fulfillment of Vairum's prediction. A rush s.h.i.+pment of four deer heads arrives within a month, but as he is taking the last out of its crate to hand it over to a customer, the animal's forehead ruptures, one gla.s.s eye pops out, and maggots spill forth all over Goli, the customer and Goli's veranda. The customer runs out screaming, and that's the end of trade.

The customers from whom Goli accepted advance payment cancel their orders and demand refunds, and a number of people even try to return heads they had already bought and taken home, even though Goli a.s.sures them the maggot incident was an unfortunate but isolated chemical slip-up.

"I've been pus.h.i.+ng the supplier too hard. They got hasty. If you will only be patient..."

He permits the others to cancel their orders but tells them that it may be some time before he receives a refund from the supplier.

Muchami believes Goli only ever paid on receipt of s.h.i.+pments, spending all the advance cash on frivolities and counting on future orders to pay for those already in. Vairum believes the same, but Muchami has been more laconic with him since the conversation about the devadasi and, apart from brief reports, has confined conversation to their own immediate business concerns.

Six months later, no one has received a refund. Goli has spent this time trying to convince those few remaining men who have not yet invested with him to back him in setting up a sesame oil refinery, but without success. A little jealousy may have entered their relations, and now, in the wake of his failure, a little schadenfreude. Goli's odour of indebtedness also means his charm isn't quite as effective as once it was.

Muchami hears things are getting rocky between Goli and his devadasi but withholds this information from Vairum, who doesn't ask but a.s.sumes as much.

Thangam has started to shed again, copiously, and is starting to show: she is pregnant once more.

For some reason, Sivakami doesn't dare tell Vairum about the pregnancy, but, one day, he notices.

"Ah, great," he says, clasping his hands, glittering ill will from his diamond-black eyes as Thangam appears to shrink. "That's just what you and your profligate husband need. Well, it doesn't matter-you'll pack another off to live with us. The boy is first in line, now, isn't that right?"

"Vairum!" Sivakami says from the kitchen.

He leaves, with a dismissive gesture at his mother. Sivakami stands watching Thangam, who is curved around her stomach as though trying to make it disappear. Could that be the problem? Thangam is ashamed ashamed of her husband, of her husband, ashamed ashamed of her children. Vairum should be ashamed of himself. She wonders if she should say something to him later. How can she, though, when he has been so generous toward his sister and her children, and wants children of his own so badly? Who can blame him for being a little resentful? of her children. Vairum should be ashamed of himself. She wonders if she should say something to him later. How can she, though, when he has been so generous toward his sister and her children, and wants children of his own so badly? Who can blame him for being a little resentful?

And now, Muchami tells Sivakami, "I understand the house is vacated." Goli sold the furniture; all that remains are the few trunks of pots and saris with which they arrived. These will be sent along after him. Thangam will stay in Cholapatti through her delivery.

"It's G.o.d's will that they move on. I can't question."

Muchami nods.

"Are you feeling all right?" Sivakami quizzes him.

He tries to look a little more lively. He feels like he has spent two years putting out fires. It was wonderful having Thangam nearby, but he's not sorry to see Goli go.

Sivakami's feelings are even more mixed. She's not sure it has even been beneficial to Saradha and Visalam to have their mother near: they seemed more confused than enriched, and always looked scared of their father. Muchami looks exhausted. She's not sure why-surely the extra trips back and forth were not so great a strain? Vairum will certainly be more relaxed, and she will, too: she was always dreading the prospect of a confrontation between them.

But now the two years are over, and no harm done, she thinks with resolute cheer. Another grandchild on the way.

Two Ramayanas 1929.

SIVAKAMI CONTINUES TO OBSERVE VAIRUM, without asking questions, which he does not welcome. Her tension about his professional prospects has ebbed with his increasing success. He not only managed their own lands very effectively, but purchased other parcels not thought to be productive and turned them around, quickly saving enough to buy a rice mill, whose output he has also increased, Muchami tells her, by 40 per cent. She has stopped worrying about him in this regard, but he still has no child, and it wears on him, especially as Thangam's children continue steadily to fill their house.

Thangam has given birth to two more daughters. The manjakkani money has been put to ample use for Laddu's poonal, and Saradha's wedding, which was contracted four years prior, her first Deepavali and trips to her husband's home, and her coming-of-age ceremony and departure last year. She married into a stable family in Thiruchi, distant relatives, and it is deeply satisfying to Sivakami to know she is so well settled. The relentlessly jolly Visalam has married but not yet gone to her husband's house. Laddu is nine, a resolutely unambitious boy; Sivakami would be tearing her hair out if she had any. Vairum tutors him in math and science, and she has just hired a tutor in Sanskrit, but none of it seems to help. Sita, who came to stay late last year, is six years old and already has the black tongue of a harridan, a curse or insult always at the ready. Thangam's first two children didn't prepare Sivakami for the second two, and she prays daily for energy and cunning enough to raise them as she must.

It is to this that her thoughts always turn as she does her ch.o.r.es, as today, when she is slicing a turnip and muttering a mantra in wors.h.i.+p of Rama. Rama Ramaya Namaha. Rama Ramaya Namaha Rama Ramaya Namaha. Rama Ramaya Namaha...

"Mundai !"

The ugly word jumps like a toad across her thoughts and she hollers, "Sita!" She considers rising and finding her foul-mouthed granddaughter but decides it's better the child learn to obey a summons. "Sita! Come here!" Sivakami is shocked by the tone of her own voice. Guiding Thangam's first two through the maze of manners and comportment never required any but the lightest touch. Where on earth would the child have heard a word like that? What could cause her to think she could use it?

The little girl sidles into the doorway, eyes cast down.

"That word has never been spoken in this house before. You are responsible for bringing this ugliness into our home."

Sita pouts. It's clear she feels bad, but only because she has upset her grandmother. That she has called her older sister a shaven-headed widow-for this, she is not repentant.

"Go study and not a peep."