The Illicit Happiness of Other People (26 page)

Mariamma is taken to her mother by seven women who have shrouded her in a bedsheet. They walk up the hill. Her mother stands at the top with her hands on her hips, and waits. She has heard the news. Mariamma is happy to see her mother. But the moment she is handed over, her mother slaps her in front of everyone. ‘Why do you strut alone on the banks?’ she says. She takes her in and asks her, ‘What did he do?’ Mariamma does not know how to answer that. She does not say anything. Mother inspects her, and looks relieved. ‘Such things happen when girls are not careful,’ her mother says. ‘Don’t think too much about it.’

The same evening, they sit in the coracle and go to her foster home. Her mother has nothing to say to her, not a word. Mariamma is dropped on the bank. She wades through the shallow water and reaches the steps. When she turns back, the boat and her mother have already gone some distance. Mariamma stands there and watches long after the boat has disappeared. She does not know how long she has been standing there. She is finally surprised by a pall of middle-aged women in white who are returning from a funeral. They look at her as if she is a strange animal.

‘What is wrong with you, Mariammo?’ one of them says.

‘Why do you ask me that?’

‘You were talking to the river.’

This happens several times in the coming weeks. People startling her and telling her that she has been talking to herself. They begin to say, Mariamma is behaving in a funny way. That is what they say. But about Philipose, they still say, ‘the talented young man’.

Unni was furious. ‘Did they punish Philipose? Tell me they did something to him,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Nobody wanted to even talk about it. My mother, especially. Philipose went on living as if nothing had happened.’

Unni took a glass and broke it on the floor. ‘I’ll kill him,’ he said. It was terrifying, to see the rage of such a gentle boy.

When Mariamma opens the hospital ward door and walks into the milk-white room, she finds Ousep sitting on his bed and staring at her as if he has been waiting for the door to open. She drags a chair over and sits by his side, and sets her bag on the floor. ‘I know what you want to know,’ she says. And she tells him what she had, until this moment, told only Unni. Ousep listens without a word. When she finishes, he puts a feeble hand on her lap.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he says.

‘I didn’t want to tell you. You were my happiness, when I married you. I wanted to forget all that was old.’

‘You should have told me,’ he repeats like a fool.

‘I told Unni, I don’t know why. I should not have. He was disturbed for many days. He started talking like me. “He got away, didn’t he? Philipose got away.” One evening, Unni did not return home. I waited but he didn’t return. I called all his friends but nobody knew where he had gone. You came home drunk, did your usual things and went to sleep. But Unni was not home yet. Next morning I got a call from him. He said he
was in Kerala. He said he was going to confront Philipose. I started screaming at him, but he put the phone down. He returned two days later. He told me what had happened. The comic that you have been guarding, Ousep, that is what it is about. It is about Unni’s journey to meet Philipose.’

‘And what happened when he went to meet Philipose?’

‘How did you get that comic?’ she asks.

He tells her.

‘Is that why you started meeting his friends all over again?’ she asks.

‘Yes.’

‘The comic does not explain why he died, Ousep.’

‘I know that now.’

‘What you must search for is what I have told you before. Why Unni did not leave a note behind for me. That is what you must chase.’

‘But what does that mean? If Unni did not explain his death to you, what does that mean, Mariammo?’

‘It’s obvious. I thought you would know. I thought you understood.’

‘No, I don’t understand,’ Ousep says.

‘Unni thought I would come to know why he chose to die.’

‘But you don’t?’

‘I don’t. You go and find out what it is that my child thought I am supposed to know.’

She digs into her coir bag and takes out sheets of paper that have been stapled together. Ousep can see Unni’s extravagant handwriting on the pages. She hands them to him. ‘This is the story Unni wrote about his journey,’ she says. ‘This is the story of the comic. This is exactly what he told me when he returned from Kerala.’

The story that Ousep holds in his hands is not the clue he thought it was. But his hands are not steady as he begins to read the account of Unni Chacko, who is on his way to confront a man he has never met before. The story of a seventeen-year-old boy who is about to meet a man who had molested his mother many years ago, when he was young and she was just a girl. A man called Philipose.

BY UNNI CHACKO

Philipose, Philipose.

I have heard your name many times. I have heard your name from the time I was a child. I have heard it from my mother. This is what my mother says, ‘Philipose, you got away, Philipose.’ You know my mother. I hope you are human enough to remember her.

For most of my life I did not know who you were. I thought you must be just another relative. But now I know who you are. I am coming to get you, Philipose. Finally, I am coming to get you.

I know the name of your village, I know your family name, I know your house name. I will find you. I know you are still in your village because my mother says men like you never leave. You have your land, a hill full of rubber trees that you got in dowry, and you are semi-literate. There is no respect for you outside your land, Philipose. In the big world outside your village, men like you have no respect, so you live there in your old homes all your lives, eating jackfruits and mangoes and river fish and red boiled rice.

You will see me soon. You will see me from your window, a strong athletic boy walking down the mud path to your house. You will narrow your eyes, you will get up from your armchair, and you will step out of your door and wait for me. You will ask me, ‘Who are you, my boy?’

I will not tell you anything, Philipose. I will first punch you on the
nose. And you will begin to see Mariamma Chacko in me. And you will run. But you won’t go too far. I will hold your neck and drag you through your land and take you to the state highway outside your farm. I will beat you up until all the villagers gather around us and then I will tell them. I will tell them what you did to my mother when she was just a twelve-year-old girl. I will tell them, ‘I am the son of Mariamma Chacko and I have come for justice.’ I will tell them what you did.

I say this to all the men who commit such crimes. You may think you can get away, but a time will come when the girls will become mothers and they may tell their sons about what you did to them. And their sons, if they are sons like me, will come to get you, will come and beat you up and shame you in front of your own people.

I am seventeen years old, Philipose. You must be over sixty now. You are probably a strong man. I know you work in the fields with the labourers. I know you have big bones and you probably have big muscles. You may have strong sons and strong friends. But I am strong, too. You won’t believe it when you see me but there is something inside me, Philipose. But it is possible that you and your sons and your village people will defeat me. There is a chance that you will hold me in your hundred arms, put me on the ground and stand with your foot on my head. But before that happens, I will have told everybody what you did three decades ago to a little girl on the banks of the white stream. I will tell all the women of your village. If you have daughters I will tell them what you did.

I am on my way. I have borrowed money from my friend for the journey. I left home without telling my mother. She would have tried to stop me because she thinks I am a child. But I am not a child. I was never a child.

I am inside Egmore station. I am waiting on the platform, in front of me is the Quilon Express. I am getting into the unreserved compartment, it is packed with men and women and children. I will sit on the floor and travel this way through the night and all of next morning. I smell piss and shit in this compartment, I smell filth. But I can sit absolutely still for many hours and when I sit that way I am not affected by anything. I am indestructible.

Many people who were sitting on the floor got off in the middle of the night and there is a place for me in the doorway. The thick iron door is fully open and I am sitting on the edge with my legs hanging in the air. The breeze is so strong that I have to turn away to breathe. I see dark forests and villages and mountains pass. The night becomes day and I see Kerala. Entire villages are rushing past me. I see green hills and wide rivers and narrow black roads. I see red roofs and there is this smell of steam. The women here, their hair is always wet. And all the men have moustaches. Do you have a moustache, Philipose? Do you feel like a man, Philipose? Like a man-man? Do you have a thick bushy moustache, which you rub fondly when you see little girls?

I have reached Kollam. I am here. From the station I call home because I know Mother will be worried. She is hysterical when she hears my voice. I tell her calmly where I am and why I am here. She screams at me. ‘Those are bad men, Unni,’ she says. I tell her, ‘I am no saint, myself,’ and I put the phone down.

I am sitting in a packed bus. We are close now, very close to each other. I am in Patazhi, Philipose. Can you believe that? The boy who was born years after your crime has arrived in your village for justice.

I am walking down the narrow roads of the village and everybody is looking at me. They can see I am a city boy. They have so much time to stare. I ask a man who is passing by, ‘Where is Valolikal, the house of Philipose K. John?’

He tells me, ‘Go down this road, son, and when you see the stream to your right, walk down the bank until you reach a big yellow house. That is where you want to go. But who are you?’

‘I am the son of an old friend of Philipose,’ I say.

I walk down the long road. People who are standing outside their homes stare at me. People who pass me by look at me as if I am a creature they want to know. They probably know my mother. Her village is not far away. Her stupid old mother still lives but I do not wish to meet her.

I must have walked over two kilometres when I see a gushing white stream. I walk down the bank and I wonder where it happened, where exactly did the crime happen. When my mother was just a little girl and she was walking along the stream. I have walked for over forty
minutes by the stream but I don’t see any houses here. Where are you, Philipose?

I see it now. A big yellow house on top of a small hillock at the end of the bank. What a place to live, Philipose. A forest of rubber in front and a white stream as your backyard. I walk up the steep path towards the front of the house. Do you see me, Philipose, do you see me coming? Come out, Philipose, step out right now. The door is open but there is no sign of people. I say in Malayalam, ‘Is there anybody home?’

Nothing happens for nearly a minute. I wonder if I must go in. Then a middle-aged woman appears. She looks at me and goes and fetches her glasses. And she looks at me as if she needs more glasses. I say, ‘Is this the house of Philipose K. John?’

She giggles. ‘That’s his name but nobody says it like that.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Who are you, son?’ she says. ‘Are you from the city?’

‘I am the son of an old friend of your man. Can I meet him?’

‘What is the name of this friend?’

‘Mathew.’

‘Which Mathew? The world is full of Mathews. There are more Mathews than Anthonys. I wonder why.’

‘Mathew from Kottarakara.’

‘I did not know he had such a friend,’ she says. ‘What is your name?’ ‘I am Unni.’

‘So, Unni, son of Mathew, why is your Malayalam so terrible?’

‘I was in Madras for too long.’

‘And what does Unni want?’

‘Are you the wife of Philipose K. John?’

I use your full name, Philipose, because I cannot bear to use any word that would grant you a hint of respect.

‘Yes, I am his wife.’

‘Can I meet him?’

‘What business do you have with him?’

‘My father used to be with the Rubber Board and he used to talk about Philipose K. John. They had some good times together. My father is dead and he told me on his deathbed that I must inform his friends of his death personally.’

‘In that case, son, Philipose K. John already knows. He is in heaven with Mathew of Kottarakara. My husband died eight months ago.’

I am stunned, Philipose. What do I do now? I don’t know what to say, what to do. I just stand there. I came all the way to get you but you’ve escaped.

Your wife asks me to come in and have a cup of tea. Your wife, she has big sagging boobs. She must wear a suspension bridge as a bra.

She takes me into the house, then into a room, then another room. I don’t know where she is taking me. Finally, we enter a dark storeroom. I can see a lot of plantains hanging from the ceiling as if they have been sentenced to death. The floor is filled with jackfruits.

She says, ‘I’ve been waiting for days for a tall young man to come by and change the bulb.’ She takes out a bulb from a box and hands it to me. ‘Unni, my angel, will you stand on that stool there and change the bulb for an old widow?’

I drag the stool over and stand on it and change the bulb.

‘How did he die?’ I ask.

‘He came home one night in the rains. He had a fever. He had some tea and went to sleep. In the morning I found him dead in his bed. It was a peaceful death. That is how we must go. Peacefully, in our sleep. His face looked so serene.’

So, that’s how you went, Philipose. Peacefully, in your sleep.

After what you did to my mother, that is how you went. And I am now changing the bulb in your house.

She takes me into the kitchen, she is looking carefully around the house as if she is searching for something for me to fix before I leave. Cunning old woman. She gives me tea, which has a lot of dead red ants in it. We sit at a table in the kitchen and drink tea. She talks about you with great affection.