Thanka and Ponnu were trying very hard to forget Adrian’s last visit. The monsoon had ended early the previous year. The skies had cleared. The August days that should have been dancing to the tune of raindrops were filled with the flames of summer. When the rain clouds started rolling up their mats, the sailors knew that it was time to unfurl their sails. The preparations for the return journey started.
The month of Avani dawned. When the rains quietened down and the light started coming out, the face of the captains who had been in a wine-laden stupor all these days would also brighten. Once the night fell, he would sit near the mast, looking at the sky for the signal from the stars. The first signal of the change of direction of the wind came from a glance from the star that rises at some hour before dawn.
Once he received that sign, the captain, who had refused all these days to step on to the shore and had spent all the days since anchoring in his little cabin, would stretch himself. It was a sight that people waited to catch, that of this big man exercising the muscles that had become stiff from disuse. Some of the older oarsmen would shake their heads in disapproval when they saw this. The Yavanas worshipped the ocean. They admired even pirates as exemplars of bravery. The sailors did not look at the sky for signs. When the wind and the waves did not give the required signs, they would tell the captain: ‘It’s not yet time. Don’t be in a hurry. At the most four or five days.’ Even when he growled angrily, he would listen to them. He had had one bad experience from ignoring their words.
‘He was a peculiar man, the captain,’ said Adrian and the other merchants. He hated the rain and the shores. What he would have liked was never to roll up his sails, but just sail over the surface of the water endlessly. He would tell the oarsmen that the sea had taught him his seamanship. Boundaries existed only on the shore. The sea was infinite.
After a long sea voyage, when they reached the shore, the others would be in a hurry to get away from the sea. Only he would enter his cabin in a sort of hibernation, or sit on the deck when it was sunny. The slave who looked after him would hurry hither and thither, grumbling to himself.
The young sailors said that he was so grouchy because he did not know the taste of the shore. They also joked that once he came to taste it, it would be difficult to get him to go back to the ship. His eagerness to return too would make them laugh. What was the hurry, who was waiting there for his arrival? But, once they said that they would feel bad about it. The captain’s wife had left him years back. That was the curse of the life of a sailor, a life divided between the sea and the shore. When the balance between the wait and the meeting erred a little, the rhythm of life would be lost. That was probably why he had started hating the shores.
The young sailors had nothing much to think about. They celebrated life then and there for four months—eating and drinking and whoring. They never noticed the days passing. As days and nights passed, the captain’s sudden warning that the wind was about to change would come as a stroke of lightning, splitting their nights.
The wind was turning westward. The youngsters noticed that this time, when they announced this, Adrian’s face darkened. Once the sun was seen, huge reed mats were spread on the shore. The pepper that had turned damp in the godowns had to be dried out. Here and there, heaps lay that were already dry.
The sailors were also busy. They had a lot of preparations to make for the journey. The mildewed sails had to be scrubbed clean with coconut husks. Two sailors each to each sail would be sitting with huge needles and thick strings, stitching the bits that had torn. The captain insisted that the dirty mast had to be cleaned and the decks scrubbed. Sometimes the knots that had absorbed moisture and were covered with mildew could not be untied easily. The sails too were sometimes stuck to each other. When they saw that, the sailors would whisper that the ship too seemed reluctant to leave the shore.
When it was almost time for the ships to leave, there would be not be a large crowd on the shore. The only faces to be seen there wore a film of parting; their sobs were controlled. How long would it be…
Once again the season of waiting would start. A wait of months. A wait for seasons to change. It would take days to come out of the ecstatic dreamlike state there were in when they were with the Yavanas.
Once Ponnu asked Thanka, ‘What sort of a life is ours, a life spent waiting for the rains?’
‘The life of moths,’ Thanka thought to herself.
‘Why do we do this?’ Ponnu’s question was directed at her mother.
The mother did not have a reply. She smiled as though to tell her daughter that life, after all, was only this much.
Thanka thought to herself how she had taught herself to go through such situations long back. She consoled herself with the thought that her daughter would also get accustomed to this way of life.
Night fell early on the day the ritual Kritika lamps were lit. Darkness fell by dusk. It was a day when a curtain of mist unbundled and fell on earth, breaking its tie with the skies and enveloped even the hearts of those who sat on the shore of the river. As darkness and mist combined to throw a blanket over memories, small sobs rose.
As she lighted the small clay lamps and arranged them on the veranda, Thanka wondered, for whom she prayed. Those flames were not for anyone in particular, and yet they were for the peace of mind of someone or the other…
Adrian’s face had darkened the last time as he left. It was as though he was losing some of that steely self-control of his.
For a while now, he had been spending most of his time with Ponnu. Once in a while, he would come to Thanka’s room also, so that Thanka would not feel neglected. Thanka knew that it was not just Ponnu’s younger body that drew him to her, it was the innocence in her behaviour. Ponnu had somehow managed to retain the wonder of a man’s first touch even after all these years.
But this time, when the time for departure neared, he spent most of his time with Thanka. Though she knew that this behaviour was hurting her daughter, Thanka could not ask either of them why this was so.
Finally, unexpectedly, he told Thanka, ‘Somehow, I am more at peace when I am with you.’
Thanka did not ask him why it was so. She knew that such relationships did not allow space for questions.
He was muttering to himself. ‘Peace. Peace again.’ Or, at least, Thanka thought that was what he was saying.
After a while, he continued, ‘It feels as though bad times are coming…’
When she heard that, Thanka thought of what Kichan had said. Kichan had asked on a recent visit, ‘What is troubling him?’
‘Is he ill?’ Thanka had asked anxiously. She was worried that some disease had taken its abode in Adrian’s body.
‘No Amma, it’s not that,’ Kichan was sure.
Kichan had some other doubts. Though Adrian had not said anything clearly, he had heard some murmurs from the middlemen. Trade was not doing too well there. After all they were only traders, the prime users were elsewhere. There had been complaints in Rome that the price of spices from Malabar was too high. Some said that our ‘curry’ was emptying their treasury. The main customers for the expensive pepper were the rich men. When their money bags lightened, one of the first things they gave up would be the merchandise from the distant lands.
Thanka could not really understand. Still, Kichan who had entry to all places knew most things. One could trust what he said.
How could the Yavana, who ruled the waves and the shores become weak? Thanka found it difficult to believe that. It had been years since the stories of the wealth of these lands had entered the songs of the place. Poets had written songs about the greatness of the Yavanas, singers had sung them and dancing girls had created new dances for those songs. But little did they know these white-skinned men whom they called Yavanas were not from a single land. They were a mix of many bloods.
Kichan did not say anything further. He too did not know anything more. Adrian did not say anything clearly either.
Adrian was speaking as t
hough his throat was dry. Thanka could not follow the complexities of the Yavana tongue. She could understand what his face said, though. He seemed wearier than ever. There was a certain hesitation in his movements. When the rain raged outside, when the wind roared, he would clutch her and then stare into the dark as though something there scared him.
The young and adventurous navigator, who had dared to enter the uncharted seas was now scared of the wind and the sea, Thanka realised. She remembered what he had said once. Kichan had also repeated it. His first memory was of the sea. To a boy who grew up near the Mussiel port, the sea with its secrets was an ever-present wonder. His dream had been to captain a ship that would cut through the waves. The young Yavana, who had sought the truth of the sea, had to go back to the family business when his father died. He managed to combine the two with the long voyages, seeking merchandise and selling them. He remembered the dolphin who had shown him the path in his early trips through the Persian Gulf. He had called him Luke or sometimes Looook.
Ponnu was trying to hear from the next room what Adrian was telling Thanka. She could hear no noise at all from the other side of the wall. Thanka too was silent. When Ponnu placed her ear against the wall, she could hear Adrian’s murmurs. Ponnu could not understand what he was saying.
‘Nothing is working out, something or the other is going wrong. It must be a curse.’ Ponnu thought that was what he had said in a slightly louder voice than earlier.
After a while, when he got up unsteadily, Thanka tried to help him. He gestured her away.
‘I won’t be coming the next monsoon.’ That was what she thought he said. Ponnu had also come out of her room. ‘Orion will come. Let him look after things.’
The mother and daughter looked at each other. Was he serious? They were sure of one thing, though. His face showed a weariness that they had never seen before. Thanka was sure that this was not just due to age.
Orion. Was he old enough? Had he brought him so that he could hand over the business to him? He had mentioned this son of his only three or four years ago. He had also made a joke that day. One should learn the first lessons of commerce from a woman’s body. The market place yields easily to a man who has made a woman yield.
The gifts had arrived the previous day itself. This was unusual. Normally it was only on the day before Adrian left that the servants would come, led by Kichan, bearing the bundles. Besides the gold and money that Adrian himself gave, there would be jars of wine that were left over, expensive silk clothes, strings of pearls, other jewellery…This time there was also a tunic belonging to Adrian. A long red silk tunic that would cover him up to the knees, with silken embroidery. Thanka picked it up and put her face against it. It held Adrian’s smell, the familiar smell of rain-wet nights. She felt disturbed.
When Thanka saw that her daughter’s eyes were fixed on the red gown, she said in an insistent voice, ‘I want this. I won’t give it to anyone.’ Ponnu did not say anything in reply.
After a night of thunder and rain, the next morning, the sky suddenly cleared. Adrian’s face too held the same clearness when he came to say goodbye. It was as though he had forgotten what had happened the previous day.
As he copulated with mother and daughter in turn with exceptional vigour, he seemed to be trying hard to recapture his youth. Thanka realised that the pleasant expression on his face was just a mask. He was pretending that nothing had changed and that he was as virile as ever.
She had to struggle hard to hide her sadness. Adrian seemed to understand the effort she was making. He murmured, ‘I’ll come. I’ll come again and again. As long as the sea lasts. As long as the shore lasts.’
Thanka did not believe him. So, when he got up to go to the next room, she did not let him go. She felt that she was losing something precious. She controlled her tears, held him closer and kissed him again and again.
As he struggled to loosen her arms and go into the next room, Adrian was panting. He had not expected this. It was the first time that he was experiencing the intensity of the East’s ties. He decided that he would be a little more careful in Ponnu’s room.
Ponnu believed everything he told her. Therefore, when Adrian stepped out of the house sometime after midnight, walking drunkenly, leaning heavily on Orion’s shoulder, she did not feel there was anything different. These arrivals and departures were things she had got used to from girlhood.
She touched Thanka’s shoulder as she stood there, trying to control her sobs and said, ‘He’ll come. He’ll come again next year. He has promised.’
Thanka, who was half-frozen, nodded. Let her have some peace. She herself knew that this was the last time that she would see Adrian. Another rainy monsoon would not be theirs.
Perhaps, Orion would come. He would come with his tender face where hair was just starting to show, his warm body and a thin money bag. He would come in search of Kunkamma. He would be able to see the two of them only in the place of his mother. And to them he would be the son that they did not bear.
A sigh rose from Thanka’s breast. Something stirred, something flowed. It was milk she had stored for Ponnu, for Kunkamma, for Orion.
Thanka did not go to the river bank as she usually did. She could not bear to see the boats go in a row towards the ship anchored in the deeper sea. Normally both of them would stand on the bank of the river and wave as though performing a ritual, though they knew that there would be no one on the deck when the ship set out. This time they did not go. Why go through the ritual with no one to see it?
Someone was seeing it though, from the veranda. Kunkamma. Pictures that had had no place in her mind were opening out. Orion. Orion, with his rosy colour and red cheeks and lips like a girl’s…
That evening, Thanka wandered for a long time on the bank of the river. The shore was empty. Behind a thin coconut tree, stray dogs battled over a piece of bone that had been flung there. She wanted to say something to the river waters that flowed without ripples.
The banks of the river held so many memories. Of arrivals and departures. Its water-edge bore the footprints of time itself.
As she stood and looked, mist covered a part of the water. The mats of darkness that had been rolled up unfurled and fell, one by one.
Thanka walked back with a bent head.
Thanka was immersed in thought.
‘What is it, mother?’ When her daughter nudged her and asked, she came down from that magical world she had been in.
She had not realised that she had so much wealth. It was not sensible to keep so much wealth in a house that was not all that well-protected. Times were getting worse by the day.
Ponnu was surprised. It was the first time that her mother was talking like this. She had heard of pirates and their atrocities. She had heard that all of Muchiri’s shore was dangerous. The merchants went in caravans when they went to the hills to buy pepper and other hill products. Yavana guards, picked for their size, accompanied the merchants when they went. There would be robbers and maravars hiding in the areas. A whole company of Yavana soldiers had been encamped for the protection of the godowns on the seashore. The pepper and other hill produce had to be collected when the crops matured and stored in the godowns, awaiting the arrival of the ships. Other goods too came from the eastern shores and had to be sorted. The number of godowns on the seashore and the banks of the river were increasing.
It looked as though Thanka was also thinking on those lines.
‘I sometimes think that there is not much point in keeping all this gold as ornaments,’ Thanka said suddenly.
‘Is it because of robbers?’
‘That is one reason. Now there are not just pirates, but robbers on the shore too. Households with no men to protect them have to be extra careful. Besides….’ Thanka looked around, lowered her voice and said softly, ‘I’ve been thinking that it’s time to engage in some trade.’
‘Trade?’ Ponnu sat stunned for a while. What trade was her mother speaking of ? What did they know of trade? Anyway, th
at was meant for the vaniks or traders. The uzhavars or farmers, cultivated the land; meenavars or fishermen, fished and sold their fish. All this was just hearsay to the people of Vadakkoth. And was it permitted for true purayas to enter into these fields?
Ponnu felt her mother’s mind was traversing some dark lands. Her eyes glittered at some sights she had not seen before. It was as though she was possessed by some spirit. It was the possession that showed in the glitter of the eyes.
‘The time to come will be that of godowns…’ Thanka’s thoughts found expression.
‘Who said that?’ her daughter asked.
‘That Kuppan from Perumthura. There are excellent godowns lying vacant on the shore. They are looking for people who can lease them.’
Ponnu realised it was the cross-eyed Kuppan, who had gained possession of her mother’s body. Kuppan was one of the more successful brokers of the seashore. One of his eyes was smaller than the other and the bigger eye slanted, so that no one could easily make out what he was looking at. The slanted eye and the crooked look on the face had landed him with the sobriquet ‘Chukra’, or crooked, but no one dared call him that to his face. He had once managed to get on to a ship and gone to Greece long ago. He still boasted about it. He knew a few Yavana words that he had learnt then. When you heard him speak of Bernike and Alexandria, it was as though he had a long acquaintance with the places.
One of the big lies he had come up with had caused much laughter for a long time: A Yavana queen had planned to send her son to Muchiri for protection from their enemies. She trusted the people of Muchiri so much! When he grew up it wasn’t a lie after all. He would have been referring to Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt.
The Saga of Muziris Page 23
