I took care
to sit in her line of vision, nonchalantly looking out of the window and
offering her a view of my side profile. Sometimes we’d make eye contact and she
would move away quickly, her mouth tightening. After a while I didn’t take it
personally because she refused to talk to any of her cousins, and when she was
free of chores she disappeared.
I was angry with her for humiliating me publicly. I wanted to seek comfort from my parents, but they were likely to tick me off for being party to the girls giving Bobby the hiding of his life – even though I hadn’t touched a hair on his head. The more I thought of it, the more I felt I had asked for it.
In any
case, I had no time to pfaff on narrow windowsills. Ammachi had given Sarah chechi
and me more housework than the others. I was surprised when Sarah chechi
buckled down to work, but some days I could see her blocking her father Georgiechyan’s
path and talking heatedly.
My lack of
clarity was cleared in snatches of my parents’ pre-bed time conversations. They
usually talked and laughed when they thought I was asleep. I breathed evenly
under my sheet, turned away from their bed, watching my parents’ shadows move
against my wall – their shapes and movements difficult to decipher because of
the shadow of a tree’s branches.
“Georgie is
worried Sarah will do something silly,” Appa said of his oldest brother.
“Like
what?” Amma said after a pause.
The bed
creaked. I sensed my father trying to look at my mother in the dark. Appa said,
“What has Annie chetathi* been saying to you?” Anniemama was Sarah chechi’s
mother.
Amma
sighed. “Sarah has been talking to Chetathi’s parents. They are not happy with
her scuttling a marriage proposal, that’s why Sarah is still here.”
My father
was silent. I was shocked. Sarah chechi going to her other grandparents’ home
without informing the family or asking for permission was the ultimate act of
disobedience.
“So, what
are they planning to do?” Appa asked.
“Her
grandparents have asked her to meet the boy, to talk to him. If she doesn’t
like him they won’t press her.”
“Annie said
that?”
“Ye-es.”
“But
Georgie is like a bulldozer! Quiet and all, but won’t take no for an answer.”
“If she
doesn’t like the boy, she can say no.”
“Hah!” Appa
threw off his sheet and paced the floor close to the window. His shadow bobbed
against the grills on my wall and then he stopped. He was leaning his head
against the window’s bars.
Amma slid
off the bed and joined Appa. “I’ve met the boy. We know everything about the
family. They’re not poor – just less affluent than this family… it’s not
going to matter to Sarah.” Amma’s shadow moved suddenly. They were in a
complicated position. It looked like she
had Appa in a headlock – no, their heads were next to each other’s.
“We’re
looking for someone good. Sarah should have a choice – choices that other girls
are getting. A chance to study, work – a say in her life.” My father turned
towards me and stared. I stared back at his shadow, holding my breath. “He may
be just like every other guy – a chauvinist who won’t see how special Sarah is.
A chauvinist who expects only a well-kept home and children.”
“Maybe.”
Their voices
lowered and they whispered furiously. Then they went to bed. I felt frustrated
at the way the conversation ended.
I waited to
sleep, but couldn’t. So, finally, I sneaked out of the room. I sat on the red
rexine sofa in the sitting room after moving it backwards so that it was
hidden in the shadows of the sitting room. I listened to the noises of the night.
There had been a burglary a few houses away a couple of nights ago. No one had
known. What did it feel like to have an intruder creeping in and taking your
things? Everyone had said that the family was lucky that only objects had been
stolen and the family had been unharmed. I shivered and lay back to watch the
moon.
******
I jumped up,
my heart racing. Footsteps moved slowly – they were coming from the corridor. I
slipped off the sofa and crouched next to the book case, gently moving the
curtain over me.
I didn’t
think it was my cousin Mobby. He had not been to visit Sonimol chechi for some
days. I held my breath – it was Sarah chechi. She was in the old kurta she
slept in and came forward hesitantly. I held myself as tightly as I could in a
ball and squeezed my eyes shut. But nothing happened for a long time.
When I did peep
around the curtain, the phone was in Sarah chechi’s lap and her hand on the
receiver. After much thought, she lifted the receiver and began to press
the buttons.
She seemed
to know the number code Appachan (grandfather) used to lock the phone from
unnecessary use – and to control his phone bills. The dial tone sounded in the
clear silent night, but no one picked up. I felt suffocated by the dusty
curtain, but my heartbeat pounded hard in my ears as I watched Chechi. She cut
the line and tried again. And again. And again. Finally, she put the phone on
the side table, crumpled over and began to cry.
When she
had composed herself, she tapped the locking code into the phone and walked
back to her parents room, dejection showing in every line of her body.
******
Roma was sitting
on a low stool in the shade of a tree, sifting through a large quantity of raw rice
on a rattan tray. Most of the girls were weeding or sweeping the area around
the house that did not constitute the fields – almost two-thirds of a football
field.
The girls were
angry because Roma and Rita had escaped punishment, while the rest of us were
given more chores – apparently to sear the gravity of our crimes into our souls
for eternity. We believed their roles in Bobby’s hiding were ignored because Joychayan,
their father, was our grandfather’s favourite son, and, hence, Joychayan’s children
were Appachan’s favourite grandchildren.
It was what
the adults felt too. If Appachan had to go to the market and choose between his
grandsons, it was a given that Rajiv would be chosen. In a way, it assuaged
some of my bitterness – at least, Mobby and Bobby weren’t Appachan’s favourites.
It also meant Rajiv spent most of his time with his sisters and female cousins
because the guys teased him mercilessly and left him out of their activities.
Today, Nina
and Shyla were washing several buckets of clothing. Normally the clothes were
washed by the servants. Over our last few vacations, Ammachi had begun to make
the girls wash their own clothes. We had to know the A-Z of housekeeping and our mothers weren't teaching us enough, she
told us often. But this week, we had been made to wash the entire household’s clothes
in turns, despite our bitter protests. Roma and Rita were given light chores.
Yesterday they disappeared for much of the day. When they appeared, Appachan
asked them how the movie was and we realised Joychayan had taken his family out
to watch a movie.
It stunned
the rest of the family and there was a sudden silence in the room. This was
unusual behaviour and there seemed to be a malaise seeping into the household. For
once, I had nothing to say. My best friend Roma was a treacherous traitor. I
fumed silently, but my cousins vented to their parents.
“You got
away with murder,” Nina raged at Roma (see why here).
Roma
flicked a small stone out of the rattan tray with her index finger, ignoring Nina.
I was pulling out weeds in a corner of the yard and stopped to watch my cousins. Both Nina and Shyla threw the
washing into the buckets and stood over Roma, shouting at the top of her head.
Rita fled into the house. But there was no response from Roma and the finger continued to flick
out impurities in the rice at a steady pace.
All of us
stood dumb. The silence was broken when Ammachi came to the kitchen window and
yelled at us to get back to work. When Ammachi disappeared, Nina began to pull out
soapy clothes from one bucket and threw them into an empty bucket. She kicked
the bucket under the tap and watched the water gush.
“What are
you doing?” Shyla said.
“I’m rinsing
them.”
“You
haven’t scrubbed the clothes.”
“Who cares.
I’m not going to wear them.”
“But, but,
but… the dirt will show!”
“Not
immediately.”
Shyla moved
closer, whispered in Nina’s ear and glanced at Roma. Nina shrugged her
shoulders, punched the soapy clothes a few times – ostensibly an effort at
rinsing them – and let the water run out of the bucket. She looked up and summoned
me with her index finger. She eyed the clothes and her gaze turned to the
clothesline across the back yard. She wanted me to hang up the clothes. I took
one shirt and squeezed. Suds oozed like a white waterfall. I looked up at Nina
chechi, but she smiled and pointed at the clothesline.
“Just hang
it up, mol,” Nina said. Don’t bother to squeeze out the water. Let’s see how
long it takes to dry, she mouthed and grinned, pointing at Roma’s
downturned head and giving me a thumbs up. Though her head was still down, Roma’s
body was stiff. Her index finger had stopped moving.
At first I was
bothered, but then I thought it was diabolical. Unless Roma squealed, it would
take the family some time to realise how little cleaning their clothes got. I began
to hang up the dripping clothes. During Kerala’s monsoon, and in our closed airless
home, clothes usually took two days to dry in the store room. This was going to
be longer now.
In about 10
minutes, Nina, Shyla and I put all the clothes on the clotheslines. One line
broke a couple of times with the weight of the wet clothes and finally we draped
some of the clothes on the sides of the well, weighing the clothes down with
large rather muddy rocks.
******
Over the
next few days, the girls practiced covert disobedience. We did all our chores
quickly and, inevitably, badly. If reprimanded, we stayed quiet or admitted to
our mistakes. At first, Ammachi looked at us suspiciously and our mothers gaped
in disbelief, but as time went on Ammachi began to forget what she was angry at
us for. But she got tired of the shoddy work, and the extra chores stopped. It
amused our mothers, who watched but didn’t give inputs.
I did get lectures
about insolence and how I would get my just desserts one day, but finally Amma
let it go.
Sarah chechi
didn’t start talking, but as the day of the meeting with her prospective suitor
approached she fought with her parents. Everyone chose to stay silent and kept
out of the way. She didn’t give me a look and it troubled me, because now my
embarrassment had worn off and I really wanted to be in my cousin’s good books
again.
After my
parents went to bed, I lay awake. I looked at the clock on the table – 12.35am
– I heard a door open. There was one very large room abutting both our and the
Mathans room – Georgiechyan’s. These several weeks I had never heard anyone from
that room come out at night, except for my uncle and aunt.
I waited
until the footsteps fell silent and as gently as possible opened my door. I
nearly died of fright, closing the door immediately. I saw Sarah chechi pass,
taking very slow steps. I had shut the door while she was turning around to
look and stayed pressed against the wall near the hinges.
I almost
pissed when the door started to inch open. It was too late to dive under my
sheet, under which I had arranged two cushions. I held my breath, squeezing my
eyes shut in terror. Just then my father coughed hard and turned on to his side,
and the door jerked shut. I threw myself onto my bed and scampered under my
sheet, curling and staying still. Sarah chechi ran back towards her room and
the footsteps stopped. My father’s shadow sat up and refused to lie back down.
After an eternity he did, and in a couple of minutes began to snore.
Sarah chechi
began to move along the corridor again. When the footsteps passed, I lunged for
the door and peeped out. Sarah chechi disappeared from view at the end of the
corridor. I ran towards the street light coming through the sitting room’s windows. She slid back the bolts of the front door without a sound – the results of my earlier diligent
efforts (FC 70).
Sarah
chechi was carrying a knapsack over one shoulder and walking quickly to the
gate. I watched numbly as she opened the gate. When she was on the road, I
grabbed a pair of slippers strewn near the front door and tried to walk lightly
over the gravel. Despite this, it sounded like someone was crushing glass
in the still night air. Sarah chechi was now near the sagging portion of the
barbed wire fence, further along Appachan’s property.
She slipped
into the field and disappeared behind a tree. In a few minutes she reappeared and
started hurrying back – minus her knapsack. Once on the road, she looked around
and broke into a run towards the house. I removed my slippers and raced back
into the house to my bedroom door and waited. I heard the crunch of the gravel
outside and then Sarah chechi’s shadow rushed into view through the sitting room’s open
doorway. She closed the front door, slipped the bolts back into place,
and tiptoed back to her room.
* Chetathi
means older brother’s wife in Malayalam.
– Stay tuned for more of Sarah
in the next episode.
******
This fictional series follows the narrator who is remembering events that occurred during a family vacation in Kerala, India, in her childhood. The Webs We Weave series begins with episodes FC 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94
