The Toss Of A Lemon Part 34

"Like the family of my dear brother-in-law?" Vairum is not about to permit his mood to be spoiled. "This is not such a family. Much of their wealth, I believe, is tied up in this charitable trust they have the responsibility for running. They are good Brahmins, Amma." He smiles at her, and she looks away from a wicked glint in his gaze. "Surely you appreciate that I have ensured that for your sake."

Sivakami has said all she is capable of saying. Vairum will do what he wants. Marriages, she thinks, are made in heaven.

Vairum, in a rare conciliatory mood, unintentionally echoes Sivakami's thoughts. "It's in G.o.d's hands, Amma. Let's settle it like we did my marriage. First reason, then religion. This is how to make marriages in the new world. Pay attention."

On an auspicious day shortly after, Janaki undertakes a visit to the Rathnagirishwarar hill temple with Vairum and Sivakami. Just as in Vairum's case those many years ago, they have taken a plate full of offerings and two small paper packages of roughly equal size. One contains a white flower, which would signify a bad choice; the other has a red flower, a positive sign. Vairum insisted on organizing the offerings just as he has everything else. Sivakami makes a surrept.i.tious survey of the plate. He doesn't seem to have forgotten anything.

The priest, completing the puja, holds the plate out to them, admirably unconcerned with his words and actions, apart from an appraising look flicked at the girl whose fate clearly hangs in the offerings' balance. Vairum reaches out to choose a flower, but Sivakami clucks, and he pulls back his hand with an evanescent pout as she nods at Janaki. Janaki's hand hovers over the plate a moment as she glances at her uncle and then chooses one of the two packets. The priest hands the plate back to Sivakami. Janaki awaits further instructions.

"Open the packet, Janaki!" Vairum says, awfully jolly. "It's in G.o.d's hands now!"

Janaki unwraps the packet she has chosen and a red ma.s.s of petals unfurls in her palm, covering exactly the dot of henna, now faded to a deep orange, which Kamalam had patted onto her hand for the girl-seeing.

G.o.d must be on Vairum's side. He s.n.a.t.c.hes up the other packet and sets it alight on the nearest oil lamp. Left hand on right wrist, he respectfully offers the flaming packet to the altar, giving it back to G.o.d. None but G.o.d will ever know its contents.

Janaki, her fate decided, begins picturing herself with Baskaran. His height matches hers well. She can't remember his eyes but she thinks they were kind. He spoke five or six words. Each one is burned in her mind-even though she was of two minds that day. He wore scent.

Kamalam awaits her on the roof and they go over every detail without restraint, Kamalam swallowing her sadness in deference to Janaki's hoped-for happiness, even giggling guiltily at Dhoraisamy's manner and the mother-in-law's girth. By the time they get to the topic of the groom, they are a little giddy with anxiety and confidences.

"His skin is very fair," Kamalam judges.

Janaki says slowly, "Yes, he's very fair."

This is suddenly, illogically, very funny. "He's fair!" they say. "He's so fair! Oh, he's so fair," laughing until they are heaving and gasping on the floor, holding their cramping guts, resting their forehead on the shadowed strip along the roof's western edge.

Janaki sits up and leans against the parapet.

"Well, he is," she sniffs.

It's too soon. They're off again, choking tears, aching guts, and the big hot sun gone down.

SOME SIX WEEKS LATER, Sivakami receives her invitation, just like everyone else on the Brahmin quarter-and elsewhere in the presidency, and possibly beyond. Vairum has a.s.sociates everywhere now. He's putting Cholapatti on the map, as empire builders have always done for their hometowns, even if he seems to be doing it more to spite his origins than to commemorate them.

Printed in Madras on pumpkin-coloured paper so thick and soft one could sew clothes from it, in royal purple ink with a stylized Ganesha stamped in gilt, the invitation includes both a Tamil and an English version, confirming that there must be foreigners on the guest list. Anyone would be pleased to receive it, and indeed, almost every family that does receive one saves it. What it says is this: C. H. Vairum has the pleasure of inviting you to the wedding of Sowbhagyavati N. Janaki, daughter of Sri I. M. Nagarajan, called Goli (Indian Revenue Service, Indrapuram) and (late) Srimathi N. Thangam with Chiranjeevi P.D. Baskaran son of Sri P.P. Dhoraisamy (Landholder, Pandiyoor. and Srimathi N. Kalpagam Sivakami is disappointed though unsurprised that Vairum has issued the invitations in his name instead of Goli's. They have heard from Goli only once since Thangam's death, when he came to Sivakami's house for an hour and made noise about how it was time for Laddu to come and work for him. Goli did not look well. He had lost weight, so that his eyes and jaw seemed overly prominent and his clothes, old and expensive, were a bit big to flatter him the way they did when he was younger. It was midday and Laddu was out at the oil processing plant. He grew impatient and left. Sivakami never told Laddu and Goli never returned. Laddu has done well at the plant, against all expectations. Vairum has promoted him to overseer and Laddu would have been very ill-advised to leave.

"Perhaps," Sivakami speculates aloud, to Muchami, showing him the invitation, "perhaps Vairum didn't even know how to contact Goli?"

"Not likely, Amma." Muchami shakes his head. "Vairum could probably find anyone in the presidency. Didn't you say the invitation says your son-in-law is now in Indrapuram?" Muchami pauses, either to decide how plainly he should speak or to let his words sink in. "In fact, I'm sure Vairum might even have sent Goli an invitation, if only to provoke him. He didn't make the invitation in Goli's name because this is his show."

"People in our Brahmin quarter are going to think Vairum is trying to slap Goli in the face," Sivakami says, rueful.

"He is, but I think that's only a side benefit."

Sivakami looks at him.

"I don't mean to make a bad joke." He holds his hands up, conciliatory. "Amma, Vairum is doing something good for Thangam's daughter. Accept this. He is doing as much for Janaki as if she were his own daughter."

Sivakami wishes she could not see the wisdom in what he says, but he is right: Vairum is doing more for Thangam's children than her own brothers ever did for him and Thangam. He is a better man He is a better man, she thinks.

"Amma," Muchami goes on slowly, "I have a concern." He has never talked to her in much detail about Goli's deal-making and is nervous to do so now, but feels he must. "I suspect that, as soon as Goli receives the invitation, he will be in Pandiyoor, trying to raise support for some investments. I'm sure Janaki's future in-laws are cautious people. But they may feel shy to say no, and then..." He has speeded up and pauses. "There's nothing like money matters to cause familial discord. I would hate for them to take a financial loss out on the girl. They think very highly of her, as highly as she deserves."

Sivakami is flummoxed. She never would have thought of this. She feels slow and he waits, giving her time to think through what he has said. "I absolutely do not want them to think that investing with him is a condition of the marriage," she says after some minutes.

"Yes, that's exactly one of my fears," Muchami responds.

"Vairum is so explosive when it comes to his brother-in-law," she continues. "I would rather we not go to him about this."

"Okay. Perhaps it won't be necessary." Muchami scratches his chin and his scalp. "What about this? Can we somehow inform the son-in-law that while Janaki's future family appears well-off, we have just learned that they are in fact in a very bad position financially? That they may well say they want to invest with him, but that he should beware, because they are wily-lawyers, after all-and will take him for all he is worth? That they are going down and he should be careful not to be dragged down with them?"

"We cannot say that ourselves," Sivakami objects. "He will ask why we are marrying his daughter to these people."

"Good, quite right-so who would he believe?" Muchami asks, like a schoolteacher, as if he knows the answer. He gives a hint. "Who would be only too happy to believe and pa.s.s on such a story, but be unlikely to pa.s.s it on to anyone else?" He pauses to give Sivakami a chance to respond, but she is silent. "Your brothers, Amma."

Sivakami frowns, impressed, as he goes on.

"Send them a letter in confidence, saying Vairum heard this from a reliable source after the arrangements had been made, but decided to go through with the wedding, because it's a good family otherwise, and that he pledged that he will not permit anything bad to happen to his niece. You don't need to say what they will recognize, that this is exactly what they did for Thangam. But say you are worried about Goli, and want them to talk to him, because it would not be appropriate for you or Vairum to do so. They will be only too glad to have this authority, and even if they spread rumours, those won't amount to anything more than all the usual rumours that are always in the air about rich families."

Sivakami has to admit it is an excellent scheme, and as it turns out, Sivakami's brothers are happy to do their sister this favour. She and Muchami are satisfied that they have done something to ensure harmony for Janaki in her marital home.

Sivakami has insisted that all the basic costs of the wedding be paid for from her money, the manjakkani, which has grown substantially owing to Vairum's efforts. He agreed but has insisted on paying for extras himself-this is to be a sumptuous celebration, far showier than Sivakami thinks advisable.

The wedding will be not only ostentatious by Sivakami's lights, but also, paradoxically, short. Efficiency is the hallmark of the new age, even in matters nuptial. A celebration that would have lasted a week in Janaki's mother's time will now be completed in three days. People have jobs.

Cholapatti is done up in style. An enormous canopy is erected, covering the entire length of the Brahmin quarter, which will be closed to traffic, from the witch's house to the temple. All Cholapatti's Brahmins are invited, as well as a number of wealthy non-Brahmins. They will be sufficiently deferential not to take cooked food in Sivakami's presence, but the Brahmins are abuzz at Vairum's urban bad manners nonetheless. Relatives of both sides will descend from all over the Madras Presidency, as well as a number of Vairum's a.s.sociates from Madras, including foreigners with whom he does business. Vani will play a recital on the second evening, reprising the program, a little old-fas.h.i.+oned but still charming, of the concert where Vairum first saw her.

Baskaran's family, as has become the custom in certain circles, has not asked for a dowry, and Vairum has not offered one. Still, Baskaran's siblings and his parents will receive gifts of clothes and jewellery and Janaki will go to her in-laws with a substantial trousseau of high-quality pots, gold and silver jewellery, silk and blended saris, and other items modern and traditional, representing considerable expense. Sivakami is not sure how she feels about this advance on the old system. On the one hand, she recognizes their lack of demands as a sign of their graciousness. On the other, traditions offer protection. A girl is an a.s.set to her in-laws-a cosmetic, material and moral a.s.set-and a dowry is one way of a.s.suring she is seen as such. If the bride's side keeps up its end of the bargain, so must the groom's. Sivakami fears that the loosening of certain controls may lead to the loosening of others, that families who don't receive dowries may not protect girls as they have been obliged to do in the past.

When she raised this question with Vairum, though, he told her that her knowledge of history and human nature is flawed and incomplete, and that people who take dowries these days are opportunists and not to be trusted. And, as Sivakami observes Baskaran and his family, she finds herself, a little grudgingly, coming to believe that the family is honourable and the match a good one.

Which makes her feel all the odder when Vairum confronts her, late in the afternoon of the third day. The main hall is full of relatives and guests, napping and gossiping, pa.s.sing the time between meals and major ceremonies. She herself is lying down, in the pantry, her head on her wooden pillow. She hasn't the energy she once had, and the effort of making the sweets, which she insisted on, has tired her, as has the stream of people coming to pay their respects, and the instructions she has sent out with Janaki, Kamalam and Gayatri, each time the bride has come in to change her clothes and eat.

She feels she has just closed her eyes, when she senses a presence, breathing above her. Her mind flashes briefly-is it a dream?-to the semi-opaque figure she used to see by the river. The last time she saw it was the day she got the news of Thangam's illness. Then she opens her eyes: Vairum stands over her, black-diamond eyes snapping, nostrils flared. His hair fans like a dark halo around his mottled face, as much white now as brown.

He thunders softly at her, "You asked your brothers to warn Goli off from Dhoraisamy's family? You are spreading rumours about this family?"

Sivakami sits up, feeling frail and uncertain. She had felt so competent when she wrote the letter.

"You will go to any lengths to protect that man, won't you?" Vairum is in a fury.

Sivakami opens her mouth to respond-she wasn't protecting Goli, she was protecting Janaki. "What if Dhoraisamy broke it off, when they learned..."

"You think I didn't know Goli would try to milk them? I briefed them as soon as they agreed. They contracted with you and me, who are beyond reproach as far as they are concerned. They would never hold Janaki's father against her. And you spread rumours. About them. Which reflects badly on me. You can't just tell the truth about him, can you? That would be a blow to your pride." He looks ugly. "If only your pride extended to me." He thumps his chest with what sounds like a sob, and runs, so like a little boy, upstairs.

Sivakami can't follow him-the main hall is full of relatives-and she doesn't even know how to answer. She must talk to him, as soon as the wedding is done. She couldn't be prouder of him. Isn't that obvious ? He is what she always wanted him to be. And she is ashamed of Goli-that's why she took this step. Has she made the mistake she feared others would make, all those many years ago, thinking Vairum too hard to be hurt?

Janaki thought the costume changes were fun, as were the ceremonies, which felt a little like play-acting. She is a bit embarra.s.sed by the grandeur and finery, but also excited: these are harbingers of her new life. And she is mature enough to appreciate her in-laws' cla.s.siness. They didn't even ask for a dowry They didn't even ask for a dowry, she thinks with pleasure-they were happy to get her and didn't need a bribe.

As the ceremonies wind to a close on the third night, Janaki sits with Baskaran on the dais at the end of the Brahmin quarter nearest the temple and wonders, not for the first time this weekend, where her father is. She thinks back to the last time she saw him, the only time since her mother's death. He looked like a wraith, she thought-his hair nearly white, his eyes red, his clothes baggy and ghostlike.

As the sun begins to set, a chaotic figure runs hopping and gliding through the attendees of the wedding, from the other end of the Brahmin quarter-Padmavati, the witch's sister-in-law. She streaks past the dais, and toward the temple, her clothes creased and bunched, food on her chin, trailing a yeasty smell of confinement in her wake. A moment later, the witch's husband dashes frantically along the same path. When he reaches the dais, he asks Vairum, "Did you see her? My sister. Which way did she go?"

He points toward the temple, where Padmavati has achieved the top and begun shouting. First children, then other curious parties, crane and creep out to see what is happening. She has begun to tell a familiar story: the Tale of an Anklet, a Tamil cla.s.sic. At least a third of the wedding's guests move out to listen to her. Her brother figures out how to get onto the temple roof and tries to apprehend her. She runs to the opposite side, lifts her rumpled sari and starts masturbating for the crowd, shouting at her brother to keep away. He chases her and pushes her hands and sari down, but she slips out of his grasp and shoves him over the edge of the roof. The temple is only about nine feet high, but the wind is knocked out of him and he gives up.

Padmavati returns to her tale: "I," she declaims, "am Kannagi, the innocent daughter of a Thiruchi merchant, married to Kovalan, the handsome son of another merchant. At a festival some time back, Kovalan met Madhavi, a fish-eyed courtesan, and forgetting his faithful wife, went to live with her. Then they fought and he returned, but he had spent our entire fortune and I offered up to him my ankle bracelets, the thickest and best of my ornaments. 'Come,' I said, 'let us go to Madurai and make our fortune anew.' So now we go," Padmavati grins evilly and marches around the perimeter of the temple. "But when we arrive in Madurai, new misfortunes are afoot. One of the queen's ankle bracelets has been stolen and my husband, trying to sell one of mine, is accused. He is brought before the inattentive king and killed for a thief. I am waiting," Padmavati sinks sideways to her knees, batting her lashes caricaturedly. "Where is my husband? I go and follow and hear of my husband's destiny. I have fought and scratched my way into the king's court: 'What did your wife's anklet contain?' I challenged him. 'Pearls,' the queen tells me. 'A city ruled by an unjust king is doomed to misery,' I tell the king, and break mine open, from which gems roll and scatter. The queen faints; the king faints, too. 'May Madurai burn!' I scream. 'My happiness is ended!' "

From within her sari, the witch's sister-in-law withdraws a scythe and a bottle of kerosene. She douses herself while the crowd watches, still confused as to what she intends.

At that point in the story, the legendary Kannagi, that paragon of faith and chast.i.ty, cuts off her left breast and the city of Madurai bursts spontaneously into a cleansing flame, but Padmavati strikes a match on her scythe and sets herself on fire instead.

The crowd bursts into shouts and runs, but by the time they have fetched water and medics to the rooftop, the witch's miserable sister-in-law is dead.

This doesn't seem like a very good omen for a wedding, but Janaki is determined not to think that way. What has shaken her more than anything was the mention of the seductress who lured away a husband and made him spend on her the money he should have lavished, if judiciously, on his faithful wife. I hate stories like that I hate stories like that. She is unable, however, to keep herself from wondering what becomes of the courtesan.

Madras, the City by the Sea 1942.

SEVERAL MONTHS LATER, Vairum comes to fetch Janaki and Kamalam to Madras for a holiday. It is his final wedding gift to Janaki. Though she is well brought up, he wants to encourage Janaki to be more worldly, not only in her habits and tastes, but in her comportment.

Vairum's driver loads their luggage and the two sisters climb into the car, a Ford woodie wagon with a royal blue nose and tan upholstery, cool to the touch. Janaki faces forward; Kamalam faces her on the jump seat. Vairum says little on the twelve-hour drive, and the girls are absorbed in watching the countryside. It's their first time in a car, and the scenery is so much closer than in a train. Twice, Vairum stops for business. Before each meeting, he extracts a dossier from a pocket in the door on his side, flips down a desk from the seatback in front of him and double-checks the doc.u.ments. The driver courteously inquires if the girls would like "cooldrinks" and they refuse. At the first stop, they eat, on their uncle's direction, the rice meals that Sivakami has packed for them, was.h.i.+ng their hands with water the driver brings them. At the second stop, they accept a tiffin of dosai and idlis Vairum buys them at a small hotel.

They arrive at Vairum's house in the city a little after dark. Janaki and Kamalam are breathless at the activity between periphery and centre, the cars, buses, carts and cows competing with people for s.p.a.ce on the roads, the blocky houses, apartment buildings, churches, mosques, temples and shops. Vairum lives in the thick of it, just off Cathedral Road, but in a neighbourhood of three-storey detached houses where tall, leafy trees m.u.f.fle the urban noise. A peon pulls open the gate and they roll into a carport.

The driver opens their doors then extracts their things from the back of the car, a storage area Vairum calls the d.i.c.kie. He runs up a curving outside staircase while they wait for Vairum, who has stopped to have a word with someone inside a large door on the ground floor, his home office, he explains briskly to the girls: reception room, guest quarters, small study and skeletal staff. A couple of staff members bow to the girls, palms together, as they stand in the carport, bleary-eyed from the drive. They follow Vairum up the stairs, polished granite, by appearance, but glittering with something like mother-of-pearl, and onto a narrow balcony edged with a plaster bal.u.s.trade. The walkway widens into an outdoor reception area, furnished with bamboo sofas, in front of a pair of monumental carved wood doors. Vani rises, smiling, from a divan in the salon within, and waves them in to show them the room where they will sleep, off the dining area, opposite the puja room. Their things have been deposited there.

"Well, then, girls," Vairum says, clapping his hands softly. "Wash up and we'll have a bite to eat. I hope you're ready to have some fun here!"

Janaki and Kamalam murmur happy agreement.

The next morning, Janaki parks herself in front of Vani to listen to her morning recital. She feels shy, but not shy enough to keep away. Vairum, leaving for his office, bids her sit on the divan-"That's what it's for! Go, sit, relax!"-and stands at the door until she obeys, tipping awkwardly on its edge. Kamalam, who had sat behind her on the floor, follows. "If you don't learn anything else while you're here, please at least figure out how to look at ease without plopping yourself on the floor."

He leaves, and the girls remain rigid on the divan. Janaki doesn't really mind sitting on it, especially after Vairum is gone and there is no one left to see them, but wishes she were closer to Vani, the better to observe her fret work. At one point, Kamalam rests a hand on one of the bolsters, which are covered in woven Hyderabadi cloth, black and white to match the floor tiles, with cross-hatched embroidery in primary colours.

Vairum returns to take his mid-morning meal at home. Beforehand, he beckons the girls to sit with him in the salon a moment and shows them a small picture book.

"I had a meeting a few doors down from Higginbotham's this morning." He looks at their faces. "The big bookstore. You know of it." They are not sure they do. "I got this for you both. I imagine your English is as bad as mine was when I was at school, before I started going to Minister Mama's salons, yes? Let's give this a try."

Janaki sounds out the t.i.tle and author: Madras, the City by the Sea. Sea. C. A. Parkhurst. C. A. Parkhurst.

"Not bad," Vairum says. Turning the page, he holds the book in front of Kamalam, who stares at it, her hands at her sides. Janaki recalls having seen Kamalam through the window of her primary-grades cla.s.s, when the teacher, Miss Mathanghi, was giving them Sanskrit lessons. When she pointed at Kamalam, the little girl simply didn't respond. The teacher berated her, but Kamalam kept her silence, looking straight ahead, her lower lip trembling.

Vairum sighs and moves the book back to Janaki. She takes it and haltingly reads a few lines of the text below the pictures of white children and catamarans. "Well, children, let us go on a visit to Madras. It is a city by the sea. I wonder how many of you have seen the sea."

"Right," Vairum says, standing. "That was painful, but I know you like a project, Janaki. Work on it, and work on your sister. I'll expect both of you to read it to me in turns, in a way that doesn't grate like a file on cement, next week sometime. Done?"

Janaki would love to learn English. She's sure she can help Kamalam, who still has not moved or spoken.

Vairum had told them that they should be freshened up and dressed for 3 p.m.: they are invited out for tiffin today. They are seated on the divan, their hair identically oiled and coiled, their faces powdered with Pond's Rose Talc, Janaki in the nine-yard sari of a married woman, Kamalam in the maiden's half-sari, when they hear the car roll up downstairs. They stand and wait, some ten minutes, before they hear the soft clatter of Vairum's feet on the stairs. "Vani!" he calls, and she comes out, putting on a ring.

He stops in the doorway to watch her, and she smiles knowingly. She wears a silvery blue silk with a wide black border, very simple, utterly elegant. Janaki, who had felt so sophisticated powdering her own face and her sister's, shrinks again, frowsy, hopeless. She watches the look on Vairum's face. He adores her. He adores her.

Vani walks past him. He notices the girls and beckons them impatiently to the door.

They go to the Theosophical Society headquarters in Adyar, where a woman Vairum introduces as Rukmini Arundale tours them aggressively around the grounds. Janaki read an article about her in a women's magazine: a Brahmin, married to a British man, she has learned and is marketing the devadasis' dance-drama in a new, respectable form. It was called sadir, but she has renamed it. Now it is "Bharata Natyam," the dance of India, and it carries, she says, a message of national liberation and uplift.

She is trying to get Vairum to sponsor a performance, in which she will star. "I know your politics are progressive, Anna," she presses flirtatiously, though Vani is standing close by his side, no expression but an air of hauteur. "And, being as you're married to such an ill.u.s.trious artist, you know better than anyone the importance of preserving and promoting our cla.s.sical arts."

Vairum looks amused. They have paused beneath the Society's famous banyan tree, beside the main trunk, surrounded and shaded by a grove of aerial roots. The sun through the large leaves dapples Vairum's already blotchy face as he smooths his moustache.

"I'm just not entirely convinced that what you're doing is progressive, my good lady," he says, sounding mildly jocular. "Stealing those poor devadasis' livelihood!"

"No one says they can't dance any more," Arundale responds tetchily. "Though certainly our performances demonstrate much greater scholars.h.i.+p and grace. But don't you agree they should find"-her voice drops-"that is, be encouraged into, more respectable means of supporting themselves? Think of their virtue," she insists, leaning into him and speaking as though not to offend the ears of the ladies.

Janaki, who had had doubts about this enterprise-a Brahmin woman, a married woman, dancing in front of an audience? How could it possibly be modest?-finds herself won over, despite being put off by Arundale's coquettishness. She's not sure whether the devadasis' self-respect is besmirched by all the arts and wiles they use to attract men to support them, but think of all the corollary damage they cause! Mrs. Arundale is right: it's a question of public morality.

Vairum remains non-committal and Arundale somewhat grudgingly escorts them to the guest suite, where an elegant tiffin awaits them in the company of her husband, George. While Janaki eats with appet.i.te, drinking in the room's European-looking appointments, she notices Kamalam just picks at her food.

After tiffin, Vairum tells the driver to take them to Adyar Beach. Janaki and Kamalam have never seen the ocean and they wriggle in excitement, exclaiming when it comes into view. Vani shows some hesitation about disembarking, but Vairum persuades her to join them for a stroll. Janaki and Kamalam have to hold themselves back a little to stay within a decorous distance of their aunt and uncle. Janaki sniffs the salt air, feeling the breeze stick and sting on her cheeks.

A few family groups are out for a promenade. A father and son kick a striped ball back and forth. The boy must be about four, fair-skinned with curly hair in a high quiff that tosses as he runs and laughs. Vani slows to a stop, watching the pair, as Janaki and Kamalam go on a little ahead, looking for sh.e.l.ls. At a certain point, the little boy misses the ball and it rolls up into a patch of beach gra.s.s. Vani scurries after it, with Vairum looking a little alarmed and starting as if to get it himself. She plunges through the high gra.s.s and emerges with the ball, squatting and holding it so that the little boy comes to her. She speaks to him momentarily and Vairum moves toward them as she suddenly hugs the child, who looks uncomfortable, and then starts squirming and pus.h.i.+ng against her. Vani doesn't let go, however, until Vairum arrives and releases her arms.

The little boy runs to his father, looking panicked and close to tears. The father had looked as though he weren't sure what to do: Vairum and Vani are obviously prosperous and respectable. He might have thought, until Vairum freed his child, that Vani was just enthusiastic and affectionate, but now, as he pats the boy and they walk away together down the beach, he looks back and shakes his head.

Janaki and Kamalam raise their eyebrows at each other furtively as they collect sh.e.l.ls, flat and white with regular red zigzags on the back. Vairum and Vani stay crouched together, where the boy left them. Vairum is talking to her, a hand lightly on her arm; she is rocking back and forth slightly. As the girls return to them, Vairum stands, telling Vani gently and repeatedly to do the same, until she does.

They return to the car, walking past catamarans beached for the evening, long logs lashed together so they look exactly like giant cupped hands, upturned to receive some offering.

As they get ready for bed, alone in their room, Janaki asks Kamalam, "Didn't you like the tiffin today?"

"Not much. It tasted funny," Kamalam says.

"Are you feeling all right?" Janaki asks.

Kamalam had eaten well at supper, but the cooks are people they know vaguely, from Cholapatti, where they had lived down the street. The husband had been a cook-for-hire there, and Vairum brought them to Madras, saying that they would prepare food with the flavours of home, besides which they were two other Brahmins, like him, whom the people of the agraharam agraharam didn't respect. didn't respect.

"I guess," says Kamalam, lying down with a sigh, her arm over her eyes. Janaki turns down the lamp and joins her.

"Tired?" Janaki asks. She herself feels lit up from everything they've seen and done.

"Yes," says Kamalam.

After a pause, Janaki asks, unsure if she should, "Why do you think Vairum Mama reacted that way to Vani Mami when she hugged that little boy? She wasn't hurting him."

Kamalam answers without hesitation. "She wants babies too badly, Akka. It's tearing her up."

Janaki is startled but knows Kamalam is right. She, too, had sensed something like this behind the scene they saw, but never would have been able to put it in words so clearly.

"Yes," she says. "They should have babies."