Monsoon Summer (42 page)

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CHAPTER 63
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M
y knight in shining Amma, I thought unkindly after she'd left and darkness had fallen. She looked too old and frail to have any kind of currency in a place like Viyyur.

But a week later, shortly after breakfast, a package appeared in my cell. Inside it was the blue dress I'd arrived in eight weeks ago, nicely washed and ironed by the prison laundry, a pair of stockings, and my shoes, lying there like messages from another life: both wonderfully familiar and awfully strange.

The guard took me across the F block square to a concrete room with a sign on the door saying Female Ablutions. He gave me a pot of black sticky soap and a strip of cotton fabric to dry myself with. I filled the copper bucket, and I washed my body from head to toe.

My heart was crashing in my chest as I dressed, combed my hair, and later, as I walked into Dr. Zaheer's cramped office on the side of the main ward.

This is a trick, I thought, listening to the piping birds in the tree outside. It won't happen, I told myself, gazing at the prison walls, the brilliant blue skies beyond.

But then Dr. Zaheer, in his grimy lab coat, with bruised eyes, said to me in his I'm-speaking-to-you-from-the-grave voice, “You're leaving today. Not my choice.” No smiling now. He had the look of a man betrayed.

There were, he said, a couple of important strings attached: I was to come back to the hospital and work two days a week at the
clinic for the next six months. Part of this arrangement involved helping the resident midwife.

“If I do that,” I said, “could I please be officially supervised? I'd like to get my final qualifications.”

I watched his eyes flicker thoughtfully while I waited for this penny to drop, then he said in a barking voice, “Prisoner rehabilitation is at the heart of what we do. We have a prison library here. I will order any books. You can be our first midwife graduate.”

* * *

When I saw Anto waiting for me outside the prison walls, I could not speak at first. When I got in the car, we clung to each other.

“Stop it!” Anto said, wiping his tears with his sleeve. “We're bloody idiots! You're free.”

And then I told him about our new baby, and we started again sobbing and laughing and clutching each other for dear life.

“Actually, I'm not quite free,” I said. As we drove away, I told him the agreement I'd made with Doctor Zaheer.

“Do you mind?” He glanced at me and grabbed my hand.

“No,” I said, and then to show off my Malayalam, “
Athu nalla kachavadam tannae
. It seems like a fair exchange.” Which in a queer sort of way it did.

* * *

It took a while for things to feel right again. On my first morning home, the beautifully sliced ripe Alphonso mango laid out on my breakfast plate, the cup of freshly brewed coffee looked as if they had arrived from another planet. There was a note from Anto: “Morning, wife. I hope you slept well.”

The house had rearranged itself in my absence. Raffie kept asking if he could sleep in Kamalam's bed. We let him for a while in order to avoid the explosion of tears detonated on the first night at the thought of going back to his old room.

At the end of my first week back, I sat with him on the veranda, where he was playing listlessly, jumping in and out of a cardboard box. When I tried to join in, he stood in front of the box and folded his arms like a sentry. “I only play this with Kamalam,” he said.

“Give him time,” Anto said, when I told him later. Anto, who was wearing glasses for the first time, had lost weight and was starting to look like Appan. In my absence, our bedroom had been converted into an untidy study covered in papers and legal books. I wanted him to take those bad memories away but didn't dare ask until I felt less of a stranger here.

I knew everything would start to get better when I slept, but I'd been running on adrenaline for so long, my motor wouldn't stop, and one night when I woke and felt Anto's hand on my head, I yelled so loud, I woke Raffie up. “I'm sorry,” I said, “I'm sorry . . .”

Then, one night when Anto came home from work, he put me to bed. When he took off his new wire glasses, I was aware again of the beauty of his eyes, how they opened up in a seam of tortoiseshell and green. He needed a new haircut; his hair was soft and silky when I touched it. He brought me fresh lemon juice in a tall glass. He asked me if I would like to go with him and spend a few days at Mangalath. Not yet, I told him, not ready to face the relatives. Their displeasure, their polite smiles. Not yet.

* * *

I didn't want to see anyone for a while, but Saraswati came anyway. Said she'd hired a special rickshaw to take me down to the Moonstone. It was a huge shock to see it again: the soil all churned up, the foundations dug in, but nothing, apart from that, but broken glass and charred beams. Saraswati took my arm to help me over a pile of broken bricks. She wanted to show me the new Durga statue in the one patch of vegetation that had survived. This Durga, huge and pink, had been paid for out of donations by the ever-generous Mr. Namboothiri, the paint manufacturer. She was
sitting on a lion, and to me seemed a fanciful waste of what little money we had left.

“Do you know what she stands for?”

“No.” I closed my eyes and thought, Here we go.

“She has three eyes,” Saraswati said, with the gusto of someone describing a marvelous friend.

“Her left eye is for the moon, or desire; the right eye, the sun, stands for action; the central eye is knowledge. And the lion,” Saraswati ended with a flourish, “determination. Willpower.”

“I had some of that once,” I joked.

“You still do,” said Saraswati. “Shock will go and you'll be back. The three weapons in Durga's hands are a thunderbolt, a sword, and—your mother-in-law's favorite—a lotus in bud but not fully bloomed. That symbolizes certainty of success but not finality.” While she was talking, I saw two huge rats move over the ground.

“I need some of your strength,” I told her.

“Give it time,” she said.

* * *

Mariamma came next, unannounced and unexpected, with a bag of fresh pastries in her hand. She stood at the door, framed in sunlight, motionless for a moment, as if taking the temperature of the room before walking in, and then came towards me and, sinking to her knees, put her arms around me.

“Welcome home, sister,” she said. “I'm so happy to see you.”

She stayed for lunch and in the afternoon washed and braided my hair: the beautiful smell of coconut oil. When I told her I was expecting a baby, her eyes filled with tears, and she hugged me. “You're the first person to know,” I said, “and don't tell anyone else, it's too early.” As a midwife, I was extra superstitious about that.

“I'm so happy for Raffie too.” She dabbed at her eyes. “He was miserable when you were gone.”

We caught up with the family gossip, what Mariamma calls
vayadi
, literally, flapping mouth. Theresa, she said, had graduated top of her class and was becoming a right little madam. Ponnamma was growing more and more nutty. Recently she had bellowed across the table at Amma, “Do you miss sex, daughter? I do!” which had caused Appan to choke on his thoran. “You know what she's like,” Mariamma continued, enjoying my laughter. “She says, ‘Now I am old, I never apologize for being a nuisance, I
am a nuisance
!
'”

I wanted to ask her about Appan and whether he was angry, but I couldn't find the words yet and was grateful to Mariamma for keeping things light.

That night there was a flamboyant sunset—peach and vermilion flames in the sky—and I sat in the courtyard (I never used the veranda anymore) and watched it dumbfounded, thinking of all the things I'd taken for granted. When Anto came home, I made him a gin and tonic the way he likes it, with a slice of lime.

After Kamalam bathed Raffie, he came and of his own accord sat on my knee. His skin was warm, his hair damp. He said, “You were a bad girl, Mummy, for being away for so long.”

He slept in my arms.

* * *

Mariamma came again a couple of days later. She slipped her feet out of her slippers, sat next to me, and we chatted about normal things.

She was up to her neck in preparations for the festival of Onam, the biggest feast of the year in South India and at Mangalath. I'd enjoyed it last year, but this year, with forty-four close relatives invited, I wanted to run for the hills.

“Oh my God, look at all these things I must do now.” Mariamma, indignant and happy, pulled the master list from her handbag. “Banana leaves, chickens, fifty coconuts, rice, pearl fish, yogurt, lentils. New cricket and Ping-Pong bats for the children, new pillowcases, new glasses. Such a carry-on.”

Raffie, who was sucking his thumb while leaning against my knee, was already excited about Onam. When Anto got home from work, they burbled on about playing cricket with his cousins, dressing up as tigers, the usual family boat race.

“Do you think you can make it?” Anto asked me gently.

“Not sure,” I said. “I'll think about it, but you must go,” I added, manufacturing a smile when I was still frightened of every knock on the door.

“Do you know why we celebrate Onam every year?” Anto asked. Raffie was sitting on his knee now. “It marks the ancient King Mahabali's return from Patala, the underworld. The story goes that he loved Cochin so much, he had to come back.”

Raffie took his thumb out of his mouth, “I'm going to be a tiger!” He barred his milk teeth.

“Noooo!”
Anto shrank back in mock terror, then put him back on his knee. “But do you really know why we're going to Mangalath?”

“Sweets,” shouted Raffie. “Cricket?”

“Harvest, home, family ties.” Anto flicked his eyes towards me.

“Here endeth the lesson,” I said, and even to me my voice sounded bitchy. I walked out of the room and sat on a bench in the courtyard, trying not to cry.

* * *

“Appan and Amma had a wee ding-dong about the Onam food last week.” Mariamma was back again with more Mangalath snippets. “As you know, the veggie dish is traditional, but Appan wants to offer chicken and prawn dishes as well. “ ‘Come on, woman!'” Mariamma's voice deepened. “'Times change. Guests don't want to eat food like cattle.'”

“Amma got very huffy,” Mariamma continued in the same semidelighted whisper. “ ‘
Mundan!
Idiot,' she said quite audibly. Appan rushed out out of his study. ‘Sorry, did you say something?' Amma smiled like this,” Mariamma mimicked her rictus smile, “and said,
‘No, husband, nothing at all.' She said she would be going into the garden and might be gone for some time.”

Mariamma took a bite of her pastry, still chuckling. After a silence I said, “It's been kind of you to come every day like this.”

“You are my sister.” She brushed the crumbs from her skirt. “I missed you badly while you were away. I thought about you every single day; my heart was breaking.”

She got down on her knees and clasped both her hands around my knees.

“Come back for the feast. Please. Appan and Amma really want it.”

“They do?” I could hardly hide my surprise. “I thought it would be less awkward if I stayed here.”

Before she'd left me that night, Amma had stabbed her finger in my direction and said, with her fiercest look, “You must never tell anyone about this!” meaning the bribe, meaning her intervention. Since my release, I'd imagined I'd become her guilty secret.

“No!” Mariamma said vigorously, big brown eyes trained on mine. “They want you home.”

Mariamma dropped a parcel into my lap. “You may wear it, if you decide to come,” she wheedled, her head on one side.

Later, I opened the parcel. Inside was a brand-new beautiful white-and-gold sari. The perfect symbol of a spotless Indian wife. I gazed at it, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

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CHAPTER 64
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I
n the end I went, reluctantly, and mostly to please Anto, secretly dreading the ten days of enforced jollity ahead. After a few tries, and some help from Kamalam, I managed to put on the new sari Mariamma had so thoughtfully provided, feeling inside that sackcloth and ashes might be more the ticket.

Mangalath was in its party clothes when we arrived: the sky almost artificially blue, the courtyard covered in the
pookalum
: a giant, brilliantly colored carpet of roses and marigolds, orchids and lotus blossoms, bursting with color and light—the everyday miracles I was still too battered to appreciate.

When he saw all the flowers, Raffie shouted, “Zippity-doo-dah!” his favorite new word. He struggled to get out of the car and raced towards the house.

“Are you all right?” Anto touched my hand.

“Fine,” I said, taking a deep breath. “The jailbird returns.”

“Stop it.” He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ears. “Half of them won't know, the other half will, in great Anglophile tradition, never mention it again, so stick with me, kid. You look beautiful, by the way. Really beautiful. How do you feel?”

“Physically fine,” I said. In the past few weeks I'd felt that midterm-pregnancy energy starting to flow into my bones, my hair, my skin, which had lost its pallor. “Mentally, a bit like the wrong sort of prodigal daughter.”

“You'll be fine,” he whispered. “It's our baby's first trip here.”

Walking towards the house, I saw Amma, standing where she'd been on the first day I met her, between the gold lions, wearing an almost identical white-and-gold sari. My heart began to thump. Given all that we knew about each other now, it felt presumptuous to be wearing the same uniform. She took both my hands in hers, looked at me for several fraught seconds, and then talked over my head to Anto, as she probably always would.

“I'm very glad you came,” she said. “We were worried you wouldn't.” As we walked up the petal-strewn path towards the house, she rested her hand on the small of my back.

“Should I speak to Appan before joining in?” I said. A trip to the headmaster's study felt like the least I could do.

“Only if he wants to speak to you,” she whispered quickly. An army of small children were racing down the steps to claim their youngest cousin. “And don't worry too much. He's forgiven me for taking the money. A beautiful bunch of orchids came today.” She squeezed my arm. “We did what was necessary; it's over now,” she added firmly.

* * *

Anto was right: no one, on that first day, said a word about prison, although I held myself in readiness and felt stiff with nervous tension at the end of it, and very much aware of Appan: elegant, gracious, commanding, circulating, checking drinks, patting children's heads, roaring with laughter at jokes. When he saw me, he dipped his head in my direction and said, “Welcome.”

But on our fourth day there, I got up in the middle of night, jangled and unhappy and unable to sleep. Not wanting to wake Anto, I walked downstairs barefoot and went into the family prayer room, where a candle burning in a rose-colored glass jar shed a dim warm light over the Virgin Mary. When my eyes had adjusted, I saw a man huddled in the corner of the room praying. He was wearing loose pajamas and was barefoot.

“Appan.” I started to back away. “I'm so sorry . . . I . . .”

“Kit.” He looked at me. “Are you all right?”

“I didn't mean to disturb you; I'm going back to bed.”

“Don't go.” He hauled himself onto the pew with some difficulty. “I've been thinking about you all day.”

“You have?” I sat tensely at the end of the pew, waiting for the recitation of my sins I was sure would follow. He was staring at me.

“You were brave to come back like this. I mean to Mangalath with the whole tribe here.” I watched the candle flame flicker.

I told him it had been Anto's idea.

“And do you always do everything your husband wants?”

“In this instance, yes. He's been amazing.”

I heard a sad snort. “In what way?” He shifted on the pew, making it creak like a ship's bows.

“Loyal,” I said at last. “Kind. I feel like the truest version of myself with him.”

I saw his head bow. “I let him down,” he muttered. He glanced at me quickly. “Do you think he will ever forgive me?”

It was quiet enough in the chapel to hear the faint sizzle of the candle burning, his bare feet brushing against stone.

“He loves his family,” I stalled, reluctant to talk for Anto. “And,” I went on after a long pause, “I think we all get it wrong differently. Look at me.”

He gave me a strained, considering look, the look I imagined had terrorized many prisoners in the dock.

“You erred on the side of wanting to help,” he said at last. “Amma has explained your work to me, the good things your patients said about you. She says that you're going to finish your qualification. When you do, I'm going to send some money to the Home. A penance maybe.”

“A penance!” I gaped at him and shook my head. “I wasn't even sure I could come back here.”

“You were punished harshly,” he said. “I knew that all along, and
all I'm giving is a few rupees, too late, probably. If I'd been another kind of lawyer, I would have got you off, but I couldn't. I've lived my whole life with certain rules and I found I couldn't break them, so what I've decided to do is donate the same money as the bribe, and then we must never talk about it again.”

He shivered as if he had reached the end of some long ordeal, and then he looked up at the window.

“This is a creepy time of night, no?” He wrapped his shawl around himself. “The veils are at their thinnest. I can almost imagine King Mahabali, creeping back from the underworld.”

It took awhile for his words to sink in. I was still experiencing a kind of flooding relief.

“What a discovery the world must have been,” Appan murmured. I followed his gaze towards the window. The candle had gone out but a soft streak of light was brightening the stained-glass window; I could hear the clucking of birds.

“Thank you for talking to me,” I said. “I was so frightened of coming back.”

“Families are frightening. They mean too much. You look tired, daughter. You need rest.”

“I am,” I said. “I'm going to go upstairs now and get some sleep.”

* * *

I slept for twelve hours straight. It was like a tight hat coming off my head. And later, when night was falling and the prawns and the chickens were sending out tantalizing messages from the kitchen, forty-three members of the Thekkeden family played cricket on the lawn behind the house. I could hear Raffie's excited voice breaking through the hubble-bubble of sound. The game lasted until it was too dark to see, and then the batsmen played with Davy lamps on their heads, with fireflies flitting in the dark, shouts and laughter. Appan (two whiskies to the wind) was an erratic fielder, his Tibetan mastiff barking and leaping for stray
balls. Mariamma ran stoutly between the trees. Anto bowled athletically, doing his Sunil Gavaskar impersonation. I stayed on the dark fringes of the fielding, where the lawn dissolved into darkening trees, and beyond I saw birds skimming down across the silver backwater.

When it got too dark to play, Amma, proud and mocking, stood framed in light on the veranda watching us. She rang the bell.

“Dinner everyone. Don't let it get cold!”

After dinner, the youngest cousins got into their nightclothes and lay in piles on charpoys on the veranda. Boxes of old cinema film were unpacked. Mariamma, bossy older sister, told Anto to help put the screen up: “Not there! There, higher! No, lower than that.” It was time, she said, in a bad attempt at a Barnum and Bailey accent, for “The Thekkeden Motion Picture Showee.”

The film began with a few babies toddling drunkenly onto the screen, herded by a jolly-looking mother, who waved at the camera.

“That's me,” shouted Ponnamma, who had drunk more than her fair share of ginger wine and whom I had avoided all day. “What a minx I was!”

Then Appan, mustached and dapper in his plus fours, and Amma, his radiant bride, on a honeymoon holiday in Madras.

“Don't you dare go to sleep.” Mariamma shook Raffie awake. “Wait for your Daddy.”

Raffie's hair was still damp from his bath. He put my arm around him.

Anto, who'd disappeared into the kitchen for drinks, came back and sat beside me. He was barefoot and carrying a bowl of golden banana chips. He handed me a weak whisky and soda.

A few seconds later, a jerky black-and-white image of him bloomed into life on the screen. He was about fifteen, messing around and doing pretend cricket shots for the camera. In the next shot he was wearing the same tweed jacket I'd met him in, the one
with leather patches on the elbows, and he looked so young and sweet and skinny and undefended, my heart leapt with sorrow for him. Behind him was the ocean liner that would shortly take him away from all this, and the whole of the wild sea ahead.

There were wolf whistles, catcalls. Ponnamma pinched him. “Handsome devil!”

“Spiffing suit, what, Uncle Anto?” Thaddeus, one of the younger cousins, said. “The Playboy of the Western World.”

I was thinking as I joined in the laughter what a lot he had made of his life: how resilient he'd been, and brave. I felt the blaze of the new baby inside me. I'd started to talk to it now, to feel sure of its heart beating. I made up my mind to tell Amma tomorrow, which of course meant everyone—assuming Mariamma hadn't already. “In the strictest confidence of course!”

Appan, staring at the screen, groaned and sank down in his chair. Amma patted his hand. And then, to my surprise, there was me. I hadn't been aware of being filmed at the time. Me in the blue dress, smiling and shaking Amma's hand, looking scared out of my wits, as well I might, faced with the great roiling mass of contradictions, horrors, and wonders ahead.

After the film, Mariamma and I helped to push sleepy children upstairs. One of the toddlers was spark out, draped like a shawl over Mariamma's shoulder. Raffie said he wanted to sleep in the cousins' room; otherwise he would dream about black spiders.

It was late by the time we'd left the cousins in a murmuring bundle in the spare room. Anto said, “Let's go for a walk in the garden.”

We went down the steps towards the summerhouse and sat on a bench overlooking the water. The air was warm on my face. It was spicy and sweet from the flowers. I told him about my conversation with Appan, and as I watched his face change and grow hopeful as he absorbed the news, I felt the pure flame of my love for him again.

The water, lightly touched with gold from an almost full moon, grew black and crinkly towards the distant shore. From the temple across the lake, where Onam was in full swing, we could hear the pulsing of drums, the sound echoed and added to in villages for miles around. The priests had lit a bonfire. Its flames made a million sparks in the sky, in all-night celebration for the crops that didn't fail.