Sarah and I waited on either side of Sonimol’s door (FC81). My cousin Mobby was hiding inside the room with the servant because we had surprised him in the middle of a night-time rendezvous.
We had to wait a long time because there were no noises
coming from the room. Sometimes I thought I heard whispers.
After about half an hour, though it seemed longer,
Sarah wiggled her fingers at me, gesturing for me to go to her. I walked the three
steps to her reluctantly. She cupped her hands around my ear and whispered, “Get
me the cricket bat. Behind table… storeroom.” She pointed at the storeroom’s
doorway.
I walked a few paces towards the doorway, but stopped.
This could be a ploy to get me away from the servant’s room – Sarah could latch
the door behind me once I was in the storeroom. I returned to my post by Sonimol’s
door. Sarah looked like she was going to explode. Her outstretched arm and
forefinger jabbed the air furiously in the direction of the storeroom’s
doorway, her eyes bulging with rage. I shook my head slowly, watching her
nervously.
“Why not!” she hissed from across me.
I put my fingers to my lips and hopped, praying the
couple inside the room weren’t able to hear us. “Shhh!” I rounded my mouth.
She came to me and grabbed the neck of my t-shirt,
trying to strangle me. “Listen, you!” she spat into my face, “You do what I say
or get out of here.”
“You go back to your room. I’ll stay here and sort
matters.”
She dragged me a little away from the door and spat again,
this time into my ear and on my cheek, “And how do you plan to do that?”
“I’ll think of something…” I regretted suggesting we
follow Mobby to see what he was doing (FC81).
She opened her mouth, but I jammed my palm against her
mouth, trying to shush her. A furious look shot into her face and she started
to shake me. I pinched her upper arm hard and she yelped in pain, letting me go.
She went back to her side of the door, rubbed the tender fleshy area of her
upper arm and looked daggers at me.
A few minutes later, she went to the storeroom and got
the cricket bat. Shock coursed through me. Was she going to beat me with it?
She leaned the bat against the door and then got a
small nest table from the sitting room and sat on it carefully.
It was old, carved and delicate and I wondered if it
would break under her weight. But I was quite sure this family would brave a
broken heirloom rather than bear down heavily on Sarah.
I was surprised Mobby Dick was so quiet inside the servant’s
room. I darted over to Sarah and cupped her ear, “Do you think he’s still in
the room?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a window in there.”
“He’s too wide to squeeze through the bars,” she
whispered hoarsely into my ear.
I’d forgotten the window bars. “We can’t stay here all
night.”
“You can’t, for sure.”
I glared at Sarah, who grinned and puckered her lips to
kiss the air in front of her mouth. I walked back to my post and put my ear to
the door. How was it possible that Mobby the Dick was so silent in there? Why
did Herman Melville give his whale two names. Could Mr Melville have foreseen
one of those names becoming a popular swear word 200 years on? And why did Sarayumama
put two bs in Mobby’s name. Had she ever read Moby Dick?
I went back to Sarah. “How are we going to get Mobby out?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long do you plan to stick around?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I wanted to hit Sarah on her head with the bat
leaning against the wall. “What are you planning to do with the cricket bat?”
“I’ll figure it out soon.”
“So why did you get it?”
“Chumma (Just like that).”
“Idiot!”
“What! What did you say?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear myself,” I said, rushing
back to my spot, suddenly scared.
Sarah was furious. She got up from the spindly stool and
charged at me. She caught my ear and wrenched hard.
“You’re just bloody evil! All of Ammachi’s* horrible
genes in you,” I shouted, giving Sarah a mighty shove. She tottered backwards
and fell, landing on the nest stool. It flattened out with a disturbing crunch.
Sarah lay still on the ground in shock, her hands
clutching her mouth to stifle her scream. “Run, Chechi, run!” I whispered as
loudly as I dared and started running back to my bedroom through the storeroom
and into the corridor.
I was suddenly afraid my grandfather, sleeping in the
room opposite the storeroom’s other door, would wake up with the sound of the nest
stool smashing and catch us. I was even more worried my demon cousin would rise
from where she had fallen beside Sonimol’s door and catch and strangle me with
her ferociously strong hands.
I turned to look and saw Sarah close on my heels with
the bat tucked into her armpit. As I neared the corridor, sweating now and
tense that my grandfather’s door would open any moment, we heard Sonimol’s door
open and a pair of slippered feet slapping the ground in hot pursuit.
I waited further along the corridor for Sarah, terrified
Mobby would be upon us soon. But she was pulling a starched embroidered table
cloth – an unholy reminder that Sarayumama was once young – off a tiny corner
table near the sitting room’s entrance. My heart thundered in my chest and ears
as I waited near my door, willing my cousin to give up her tomfoolery and run to
her door. Being older didn’t necessarily mean wiser!
But in an instant, I understood her interest in our aunt’s
stiff muslin endeavour. Sarah grabbed Mobby from behind, her arm looped around
Mobby’s neck jerking his head back, and with her other hand shoved the cloth deep
into his mouth. My cousin gagged and bent over, scratching at his mouth.
Sarah picked up the cricket bat she had rested against
the wall and watched him roll on the floor. There was a cold calculating look
on her face. I hugged the wall near my bedroom, watching in shock as Sarah raised
the bat and slammed it on Mobby’s back and legs and every body part he was unable
to roll over and protect. I ran into my room unable to watch anymore, and threw
myself under my sheet, trembling.
In a while I heard Sarah’s door close and after a very
long time Mobby’s.
I wiped the sweat off my face and neck and continued
to shiver with tension, trying to calm down.
When the sky started to lighten, and my mother woke up and left the room to begin her chores, I crawled into her side of the bed, curled up and continued the prayer I had spent the whole night repeating – I begged God to take me away from this awful place.
******
* grandmother in Malayalam
Sarayumama is the narrator’s father’s older sister.
******
This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related to a family vacation in Kerala during her childhood.
Her cousin Sarah and she have discovered their cousin Mobby attempting a rendezvous with a servant in the middle of the night.
Read the entire The Webs We Weave series here
******
#fiction #keralasyrianchristians #lifeinakeralavillage #FishyChronicles #mumbaimalayalis #malayalam #nesttable #heirloom #cricketbat #embroideredtablecoth #servant #servantquarters #clandestinelove #love #forbiddenlove
