by Anita Nair
Muthassi caught sight of me and said, ‘If there’s palm jaggery, make him a glass of something to drink. He’s not had anything after his kanji this morning.’
Meenakshi Edathi pretended that she had not heard.
I went to the front of the house. Cheriamma was seated near the pillar at the western end of the veranda with her legs stretched out, teasing out the knots in her hair.
‘Where’s Chandran?’
‘They’ve both gone to Perassannoor.’
Chandran’s and Kamalam’s father’s family house was in Perassannoor. He had died three years ago. He had given up his claims to his own family property in favour of his sisters and moved to our house. And he had died here.
‘I asked them to go there for a visit. Let them have a break, even if it’s only for three or four days.’
I heard Muthassi’s racking cough from the northern room. She called out, ‘Meenakshi—’
Meenakshi Edathi did not hear.
‘If anyone is going to the bathing tank, tell them to take my towel and wash it.’
Cheriamma heard that.
‘Couldn’t the old woman have told us earlier? But no, she must wait till everyone has finished washing their clothes, bathing and all. Then she can start on her refrain to anyone who drops in : not a soul here to even wash a towel for me.’
Cheriamma said the last sentence in a voice that imitated Muthassi’s hoarse one.
I sat on the front steps smouldering with anger against everyone. And saw Amma walking in from the southern courtyard. Which meant that she had not gone next door, to Thekkethu. She must have gone somewhere a little farther.
I did not look up. I kept doodling on the ground with a broomstick. I waited for her to say something so that I could explode.
‘Couldn’t you take off your wet trousers and wrap a towel around you?’
I did not say anything.
‘Meenakshi—’
Amma sat in front of me, dangling her legs over the courtyard. When Meenakshi Edathi came in response to her call, she asked, ‘Is there any coffee powder left?’
‘I shook out the last of it to make coffee this afternoon.’
‘Nothing will go right till we stop buying provisions from that Mappilla’s shop,’ Amma muttered.
It was just two days since Abdu had declared, when I went to his shop, that he could not give us any more credit until the accounts were settled.
‘Has Achuthan come?’
Achuthan was my uncle, my mother’s younger brother.
‘I haven’t seen him.’
‘Um … so long as they get credit at the tea shop, men don’t bother to find out how the house runs. Ask Kalyani from Vadakkethu to come here, Meenakshi.’
‘What did Kunhathol of the illam say, Edathi?’
‘She said she would try and give me something the day after tomorrow. I’m sure she will.’
‘The woman is a miserly wretch.’
‘Still, she’s always been good to me. Imagine her not giving me a sack of rice when I ask for it. What an idea!’
Meenakshi Edathi prodded her, ‘What about today? Shall I send someone to Gopalettan?’
‘Phoo!’ Amma waved her arms angrily, ‘Gopalettan, indeed! It’s better not to eat, then. When did people like him grow so big? Those women there think no end of themselves. After all, they were washing soiled clothes at Palakkal Menon’s until yesterday, weren’t they?’
Amma calmed down and repeated, ‘Call Kalyani.’
Meenakshi Edathi left. I thought Amma would ask now if I had had my kanji. But she paid me no attention. Her eyes were fixed on Cheriamma, who was seated with her back to us on the western veranda. She was combing out the tangles in her hair and winding the broken strands around her fingers.
‘Once women start to behave like her, only ruin will follow. Just look at her, every evening at dusk she sits in the front veranda to pull out the knots in her hair. And bits of hair fly all over the yard.’
As usual, Cheriamma did not seem to have heard.
I waited, ready for Amma to turn on me next.
‘Haven’t you had a bath?’ Amma lowered her voice involuntarily. ‘We didn’t cook lunch today, child. It isn’t that we forgot to keep something aside for you. The rice will be ready for dinner by the time you have your bath.’
When I did not move, Amma said, ‘Run off now.’
The resentment and hunger that had been blazing inside me had already died down. I went in to look for a towel. Amma said, ‘What’s the use of his father struggling in some faraway place—‘
The tank was in our neighbour’s garden. It had filled completely in the Edavam rains and started to overflow into the fields. It had grown bigger because the earth at the sides had crumbled. The clump of thecchi that used to be on the bank was now in the water.
I came back from my bath and went to the kitchen on the pretext of finding out where to put away the worn bit of soap. A fire was burning in the hearth. Water was boiling in the big cooking pot. Meenakshi Edathi was cleaning the rice in the kitchen veranda, with Kalyanikutty next to her.
‘This sack-rice has such a stench,’ said Kalyanikutty. My heart filled with joy as Meenakshi Edathi washed the rice and transferred it to a small copper vessel.
‘That’s tonight’s problem solved,’ said Meenakshi Edathi. ‘What about tomorrow?’
I stuck the morsel of soap in a crevice in the unplastered wall, from where it hung out like a dog’s tongue, and went into the courtyard. Rain water had stagnated here and there. The calf lay in front of the cowshed, chewing cud. Flies hovered round a wound under its eyes. Its mother had fallen into a ditch during the rains last year and died. Meenakshi Edathi had gone to look for it first, then Achu Ammaman. Chakkan had been sent for in the morning. Chakkan plucked medicinal herbs for a living and there was no spot he did not know on the hillside. When he brought the news home that evening, everyone, including Muthassi, had wailed loudly. None of us at home had ever felt so sad, not even on the day that Cheriachan had died in the vadikkini.
I wandered around for quite some time, throwing stones into the banana grove behind the cowshed. Then I went to the veranda. Amma was still there. Kanakkrayi stood at the edge of the courtyard, his hand resting on the mouldy wall.
‘We’ve lost this year’s crop as well. If it continues to rain like this, we’ll have nothing but chaff.’
‘I’ve forgotten the time when we used to harvest enough paddy to last us for four full months.’
‘That’s how it is when times are bad.’
Kanakkrayi put on his umbrella-hat and was about to leave by the western gate when Cheriamma asked, ‘Kanakkrayi, do you have betel leaves in your house? I couldn’t get hold of anyone to send to the shop.’
I looked at Amma. It made Amma furious when Cheriamma asked someone from a lower caste for betel leaves or tobacco.
Kanakkrayi examined the bundle at his waist, took out a torn betel leaf and placed it on the edge of the veranda.
‘I have only this withered piece.’
Cheriamma picked it up and went in. Cheriamma could manage without food but not without betel leaves. If there were no areca nuts, she managed with coconut palm roots. I had seen her give away paddy stealthily at harvest time, without telling Amma, in exchange for betel leaves and tobacco.
Kalyanikutty came out and sat down by Amma.
‘How much did you get?’
‘Three nazhis.’
‘M … m … How will people who live off their daily rations have anything to spare?’
‘Why don’t you send someone to Kothalangatel, Malu Edathi? I heard they had bought four sacks of rice.’
‘They’ll give us some if we ask. And then proclaim it to the whole world the next day. Even if they starve, I want my children to be able to hold up their heads proudly before everyone.’
Amma started as usual on her figures.
Achan sent forty rupees a month. Most months, Ettan sent ten rupees.
‘I get exactly fifty rupees on the first of every month. And I have to feed all these wretches on that.’
The wretches Amma spoke of included Achu Ammaman, Cheriamma, Cheriamma’s children and Meenakshi Edathi.
‘Didn’t the children from across the river come this year?’
She meant Achu Ammaman’s children, who lived on the other side of the river. In the month of Karkitakam, they made frequent visits to our house. They would stay for about a week each time, and when they left, Muthassi would invite them to come back soon, in a day or two.
Muthassi often talked about how difficult things were for Achu Ammaman’s children. As soon as she began, Cheriamma would scold her, ‘No one can be as partial as this old woman. She’s always telling us about the problems those children have, the ones who live across the river. I have two children of my own, don’t I? And Edathi has a twelve-year-old son. Does she ever call them to her, talk to them? But when those children are here, the old woman has no rheumatic aches or pains, no wheezing. She spends all her time giving them baths, washing their clothes, putting them to bed.’
What Cheriamma said was not completely true. Muthassi always called me to her if she heard me cough. She would rub the powder she stored in an earthenware pot into my scalp and ask me to hold my finger to my nose and breathe deeply.
Amma would rebuke Cheriamma, ‘At least we harvest a nazhi of grain now and then. Don’t you know that those people have to buy rice three hundred and fifty days a year?’
Chandran and Kamalam made frequent visits to Perassanur in Karkitakam. And Achu Ammaman’s children came and stayed here often. Only I never went anywhere, because Achan’s house was too far away, in Andathode. You had to go twenty-five miles by bus. And then by boat.
Kalyanikutty began to recount bits and pieces of village gossip. Amma ordered her to sweep the yard.
We went to Andathode only when Achan came home. Not that Amma liked to go even then. She did not like Achamma, my father’s mother. Evidently, Achamma told people that Achan was so busy looking after his wife’s family that he neglected his mother and sisters and their families.
Kalyanikutty looked very pretty when she tucked the end of her mundu into her waist and swept the yard. Her hair, tied in a knot at the end, would fall over her shoulder and almost trail on the ground, and her red glass bangles would tinkle.
It was only three years later, though, that I realized that Kalyanikutty was beautiful.
As I sat there, leaning against the pillar, trying to calculate how long it would take for the rice to be cooked, and listening to the tinkle of glass bangles, Kalyanikutty suddenly stopped sweeping, looked towards the gate and said, ‘Who’s that, Malu Edathi? I think he’s coming here.’
I looked in that direction. Yes, he was coming here. It was someone wearing a shirt. Amma moved over to peer at him.
He came in though the gate and climbed the front steps to the veranda. I recognized him …
‘Amme, it’s Sankunni Ettan.’
‘Which Sankunni Ettan?’
‘Sankunni Ettan from Andathode.’
‘Oh, God!’ said Amma agitatedly to Kalyanikutty, ‘run to the kitchen and ask them to drain whatever rice there is.’
Sankunni Ettan smiled, showing his big rotten teeth. He folded his umbrella and asked in his woman’s voice, ‘So, Ammayi, do you recognize me?’
‘Sankunni? What a rare visitor! Come in. Unni, bring him some water.’
‘I’ll get it myself.’
Just as well, I thought, when Sankunni Ettan went to the end of the veranda and washed his feet with the water kept there. Imagine me, studying in the seventh class in school, bringing him water to wash his feet!
‘Spread the fine grass mat for him, Unni.’
‘I’ll sit here, Ammayi.’
‘No, you mustn’t sit there.’
Sankunni Ettan hung his old umbrella with the bamboo handle on the rafter and sat down on the wooden ledge of the veranda.
‘You’re coming from Andathode?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything the matter?’
‘Oh, no. I’ve been wanting to come and see you and the children for a long time, Ammayi. I couldn’t manage it earlier.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way.’
Amma asked about Achamma and Achan’s sisters. And about everyone in Sankunni Ettan’s house.
‘Which class is Unni in now?’
I said without looking at his face, ‘The seventh.’
I had never liked looking him in the face. His face was pockmarked. He grinned all the time, for no reason, showing his rotten, disgusting teeth. He was a distant nephew of Achan’s. We used to meet him when we went to Achan’s house, that was all. He appeared there only when Achan or his younger brother were home on leave. Ammini Oppu and Lakshmi Oppu, Achan’s sisters, used to remark in his hearing that he always hung around when Achan was there and was never seen afterwards.
He used to perform tasks like pounding rice, drawing water from the well and buying provisions from the bazaar.
I slipped into the house. Meenakshi Edathi was draining the rice. Kalyanikutty had left.
‘Who’s come, Unni?’
‘Sankunni Ettan. You know, the one from Andathode.’
‘I ran to hundreds of places to get three nazhis of rice. And then someone turns up to be fed!’
Meenakshi Edathi spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. Amma came in and said angrily, ‘Shut your mouth, you wretch. We don’t have to let everyone know how hard up we are.’
Meenakshi Edathi straightened the cooking pot and scraped the rice grains stuck to the lid back into it.
‘What if it’s only Sankunni, he’s a man and he’s come from Andathode. He’ll go back and tell hundreds of people how he visited his aunt’s house. You’re a heartless creature. I tell you, so long as it’s someone from Andathode, I don’t care even if he’s a low-caste Parayan, we have to show him courtesy. I have my own dignity to think of when I visit them.’
Meenakshi Edathi of the long tongue kept quiet.
Amma always scolded everyone, including Achu Ammaman. No one found fault with her, since it was Achan who had cleared all the debts after the family property was divided. It was because Achan sent money regularly that these wretches were able to survive.
‘Unni, go and get an anna’s worth of pappadam from the Chettichi’s house. Tell them I’ll send the money tomorrow. On your way, ask Kanakkrayi’s boy to come here quickly. Meenakshi, tell him to pluck a good, mature coconut from the tree when he comes. We’ll make a coconut chutney. How can we give someone from Andathode just a plantain bulb curry? Ask Kalyani to give us a drop of coconut oil.’
In the midst of all her commands and instructions, Amma remembered to say, ‘Don’t break the pappadams into bits. Fry them whole, otherwise it will look miserly.’
I stood there looking at the drained rice in the cooking pot and the vessel below it, full of pale yellow, steaming hot kanji from which rose an unpleasant odour.
Had Meenakshi Edathi forgotten that I had not had any kanji? What if I told her I was thirsty? Pride would not allow me to say I was hungry.
I thought to myself as I walked to the Chettichi’s house, it’s good that Sankunni Ettan is here. There would be pappadams and coconut chutney for dinner. I imagined the flavour of rice mixed with a little salt and the oil in which the pappadams had been fried, and my mouth watered. I would have to coax Meenakshi Edathi to give me some of the oil secretly.
When I got back, Sankunni Ettan had taken off his shirt and folded it. Amma was talking to him.
She would have to wait until the rains were over to dismantle the thatched roof and lay tiles. Two jackfruit trees had been set apart for the wood for the frame. ‘After all, the money we would use to thatch the house for four successive years will be enough to tile it. Govindankutty always writes and tells me that.’
Obviously Amma had Achan’s house in mind. It was big and new and had a tiled roof.
‘This house is not as small as it looks from outside. There’s such a lot of space inside. It’s like a palace, we need to employ someone just to sweep and mop the floors. That Meenakshi keeps it free of cobwebs and termites. How can I manage all this by myself?’
Sankunni Ettan grunted assent at regular intervals in his woman’s voice.
Amma continued to talk about Ettan’s job, Achan’s monthly moneyorder, my great intelligence and how much she would spend on the feast on the day the roof was laid. Outside, the sky had darkened again. Dusk had fallen early.
‘Don’t you want a bath, Sankunni?’
‘Yes.’
‘Unni, ask Meenakshi to bring a towel and some vaka powder from that new earthen pot in the storeroom. And get Sankunni a little sesame-seed oil in a bowl … You’ll find some in a jar in the southern room.’
Cheriamma was busy spreading a mattress on the floor of the vadikkini. She wanted to lie down all the time. She said her body smarted as if chillies had been ground and smeared over it. Every evening she would shake out her mattress and spread it afresh.
Muthassi’s bedroom was very dark. The jar of oil was under her bed.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘The oil.’
‘For whom?’
‘Sankunni Ettan is here. From Andathode.’
‘From Andathode?’ Muthassi’s voice was full of respect. It was no small event, someone coming from Andathode. Anyone even remotely related to Achan was described as belonging to Andathode.
The lid of the jar was covered with a cloth. Another piece of cloth dipped in kerosene had been wound around the neck of the jar to prevent ants from getting into it. I lifted the jar, took it to the door and opened it. There was very little oil in it.
We bought a nazhi of oil from the mappilla oil man who came every month. On Sundays, I was given a small spoonful to have an oil bath. I had to smear the oil over my body without spilling a single drop. Amma did not like to use coconut oil for her hair, that is why she bought sesame oil. The nazhi of oil she bought was meant to last a whole month.
I realized I had poured out too much. Only the lees remained in the jar.
When I came into the veranda with the oil, Amma’s eyes were full of reproach.
