The Faith of Ashish (17 page)

The fortune-teller was a slight man with a bent back and a mop of unruly black hair. With gnarled hands, he prepared a
jatak
for Sethu. A horoscope. Carefully he laid out the position of the twelve zodiac signs and printed them. He did the same for the positions of all the planets. After that he added the seven
chakras.
For a long time, he gazed at his notations and chanted
mantras
over them. He sought to determine the present effects of all the influences on Sethu. That done, he set about making calculations for the future. Finally the fortune-teller laid down his pen and gazed at Sethu.

"Well?" Sethu demanded.

"You ask about your baby," the fortune-teller said. "It will be a girl."

"No!" Sethu cried. "It cannot be!"

"It is so. The
jatak
does not lie." Sethu, her face set like stone, stood up abruptly and prepared to leave.

"But it does not
have
to be so," the fortune-teller added.

"What do you mean?"

"The planets are like gods. To change the future, you must do
pujas
and chant
mantras
in order to pacify them. Also, I can sell you charms with the power to ward off the curse under which you are currently living."

Sethu sat back down. The fortune-teller eyed the carved bracelet on her arm, her last possession of any value. Sethu slipped it off and handed it to him. In return, the fortune-teller gave her two charms: a bag of dried herbs—"Wear it around your neck day and night"— and a bracelet woven of human hair—"This you are to wear on the wrist of your right hand, also day and night."

"Now my baby will be a boy?"

"It will be a boy," the fortune-teller assured her. "I have removed the curse of the girl child from you."

In her elation, Sethu pointed to Latha and exclaimed, "My friend here already has a son. She needs your help too."

"It it your own fortune you want read or your son's fortune?" the fortune-teller asked Latha.

Latha shot quick glances around her. She leaned in close and whispered, "I need to know one thing only. My son, Ashish. What will happen to him if we stay here?"

The fortune-teller didn't bother to prepare a
jatak
for Latha. He simply asked the date and place of her son's birth, and nothing more. "Why did you give him the name Ashish?" he asked. "Why didn't you name him for a god? Shiva, who could conquer evil demons, or Ganesh, who removes all obstacles, perhaps?"

Latha stared into the blank eyes of the fortune-teller and said nothing.

"Your son has a bad planet in his place of work and wealth," the fortune-teller said. "He cannot learn. He will not prosper in life."

Latha gasped.

"Your son is not a blessing," the fortune-teller said. "He is of no worth at all. Stay where you are and work, for if you leave you will all die. Your family is under a very strong curse and I can do nothing to lift it."

21

I
n the soft stillness of the early morning, Mammen Samuel Varghese turned over on his bed and listened. Only bells tinkled in the distance, calling awakening families to their house altars to tend to the deities. Only the call of a bird from the mango tree outside the east window. Nothing more. Mammen Samuel stretched his arms wide and his legs long and listened hard. It took him several minutes to realize what was missing. The toddy cat! No clawing or scratching or screaming this morning. No unpleasant sound at all. For the first time in more than a week, quiet reigned.

Then an entirely different shriek—the scream of a furious little boy.

"It's gone!" Saji Stephen yelled. "My pet is gone! Look, his cage is empty!"

Mammen Samuel sighed and hefted himself from his bed. It would be a long, hot day.

"The cage door is wide open!" Saji Stephen wailed.

"Now, now, little one," Parmar Ruth cooed. "
Appa
will get you another pet. He will get you a better one."

"I don't want another pet!" Saji Stephen shrieked. "I want my toddy cat!"

"Shall I play a song for you on the sitar?" Sunita Lois asked. "I can make up words about the adventure of a runaway toddy cat. Would you like that?"

"No, no, no, no, no! I don't want anything except my pet back!"

Mammen Samuel sighed as he opened the door to face another day. Boban Joseph strolled past him, in from the veranda, his sleeping mat under his arm. The boy spoke no words of comfort to his brother. In fact, when Saji Stephen shrieked and stamped his feet, traces of a smirk crossed Boban Joseph's lips.

So. Mammen Samuel sat back down and folded his hands across his middle.

In time, Saji Stephen's screams quieted into incessant whines, but he still refused to be comforted. Finally, at the far edge of what he could bear, Mammen Samuel picked up his young son and set him on his knee. "The toddy cat never truly was your pet," he said. "You wanted that, but the toddy cat is a wild animal, just like the tiger was wild. The toddy cat would have bitten off your finger. It is the will of God that it has gone back to live in the wild."

"No,
Appa,
I—"

"Listen to me. You have cried and fussed long enough. Now I am going to give you a new pet. A real plaything."

For the first time that morning, Saji Stephen stopped wailing. "What is it,
Appa?
What will you give me?"

"A little boy to play with. A little boy all your own."

Saji Stephen's eyes opened wide and a smile crossed his tear-streaked face.

"The little boy in the settlement who gave the wooden top to you," Mammen Samuel said. "I will bring him here to play with you. But only if you promise me you will say no more about the toddy cat."

"Can you bring the boy right now?"

"Soon," Mammen Samuel promised. "Very soon."

"Perhaps you do have the makings of a landlord after all," Mammen Samuel told Boban Joseph.

"You are not angry with me, Father?"

"Angry! Quite the contrary. A successful master does not strive to make everyone under his care happy. He strives to do what is beneficial for the majority. And he does it in a manner that will stir up the least criticism while bringing the greatest advantage to himself."

"I could not bear to hear that animal crashing about one more night! I opened the cage door and let the toddy cat escape. And I did it for
me."

"You learned an important lesson, my son," Mammen Samuel said. "Most often, what is good for you is good for everyone."

Devi hurried into the settlement calling, "Ashish! Ashish! You are to come to the master landlord's house with me now!"

Before she could see him, the boy ran and hid in a hole under Hilmi's palm frond hut. He thought Devi would grow tired and go away, but she did not.

"Ashish! Ashish, where are you? Ashish, you must come with me!"

Little Girl, who knew all Ashish's hiding places, headed for the hole and peeked in. "Why are you hiding from my sister?" she asked.

"Because I don't want to go with her!"

But Devi had followed Little Girl. She grabbed hold of Ashish's arm and pulled him out of his hiding place. "I don't want to drag you all the way to the master landlord's house. Please, come along like a good boy."

"My
amma
and my
appa
will be angry with me."

"It doesn't matter what they say," Devi told the boy. "The master landlord says you are to go his house now. He is the one you must obey."

Although he cried and protested the entire way, Devi half led, half dragged Ashish to the garden where Babu waited for him with a bucket of water and clean clothes.

"Here he is! My own little boy!" Saji Stephen squealed when he saw Devi and Ashish coming up the road.

Ashish was much shorter and thinner than Saji Stephen, and almost two years younger, all of which pleased Saji Stephen greatly. Even if this boy had a mind to fight back, Saji Stephen could be sure to win every time.

When Latha came back to her hut for the afternoon break, Ashish wasn't waiting for her as usual. The ground burned like a rock in the fire, so Latha couldn't bear to stand in one place very long. Even so she threw a couple of twigs into the fire pit and lit it hot enough to stir up a quick pot of porridge, flavored with chilies from her own chili plant. Still Ashish did not come.

"I cannot find Ashish," Latha said when Virat got back from the paddy.

"He's probably somewhere with Little Girl," Virat said.

Yes, of course! Latha scooped out porridge for Virat, then she ran to Sethu's hut to get her son.

But Little Girl told her sadly, "Ashish is gone."

"What do you mean, he is gone?"

"Gone to the master landlord's house. Devi came to get him and she took him away with her."

Latha stared at the child as though she couldn't understand her words. Then she ran from the hut, yelling for Virat.

"I disobeyed you, Husband." Latha's trembling words tumbled from her mouth. "You told me not to go to the fortuneteller, but I went anyway. I asked him Ashish's future if we stayed here or if we ran away."

Virat's face went pale. "Come, we will talk inside."

Inside the hut Latha waited and waited for Virat to speak, but for the longest time he said nothing.

"If you were Ranjun and I was Pooni, you would beat me until I couldn't stand up," Latha said softly.

"Do you not understand what you have done, Wife? That fortune-teller was in the landlord's employ. Did you not consider that he would repeat to Master Landlord every word you said?"

The idea had never occurred to Latha. Her eyes filled with tears. "Is that why the master landlord took Ashish away?"

Virat shrugged his shoulders. What did he know? What could he understand about anything?

Latha covered her face and wept. "The fortune-teller said Ashish is not a blessing. He told me our child is of no worth at all. The fortune-teller said it made no difference whether we stayed here and worked or left to die, because our family is under a terrible curse that cannot be lifted."

Virat reached out and touched Latha's weather-scorched arm. "Now I must confess something to you. Before the harvest, when Anup took me out to test the ripeness of the wheat heads, he suddenly jumped on me and pushed me to the ground. I thought I had done something to make him angry with me, that he might even kill me. But he saw what I did not see—a great cobra swaying high with its hood spread wide. All across that snake's hood were the footprints of Krishna. And I knew what Anup did not know. Evil spirits sent that snake. As a sign of the curse from Brahmin Keshavan. The Brahmin put the curse on us, and he can lift it off."

"But he won't. Oh, Virat, what if he won't?"

"Then we must get away from here," Virat said. "We must get far away!"

The landlord's usually quiet house buzzed with the excited talk of an upcoming wedding. Years before, an appropriate groom had been chosen for Sunita Lois, and now that she approached her twelfth year, the marriage would finally take place. The girl had not yet seen her husband-to-be, of course. That wouldn't happen until her wedding day. But Boban Joseph whispered to her, "Your new husband is in his twentyfifth year . . . maybe. Or twenty-sixth. He lives in the next village. He is from a Christian family, and very wealthy." Sunita Lois asked if he might be handsome, too, but Boban Joseph just wrinkled up his nose and made a face.

"That fallow field beyond the garden," Parmar Ruth said to her husband. "It should be cleaned up and leveled for the wedding tents. And make certain it is packed hard."

"I'll send to the settlement for a couple of workers," Mammen Samuel said.

"Good ones," Parmar Ruth insisted. "And from as high a caste as possible so as not to unduly upset the Brahmins."

From a higher caste? No, no. Mammen Samuel would choose two men from the lowest caste. The savage tribal and the
chamar,
thoroughly polluted through and through. They would do perfectly. Since the field beyond the garden lay in plain sight of the road, Brahmin Keshavan could not help but see them there.