My heart beat loudly in my ears and throat. When Rita began to squirm I realised I was holding her too tightly. My arms loosened and she stepped back a little. We stayed quiet, listening for noises in the corridor.
I put my finger to my lips, mostly to stall Rita’s questions and to think of an excuse. I had serious thinking to do.
A phone call to Johnny was out of the question now, not that I agreed that Sarah’s engagement needed to be broken. Johnny was a prick for making Sarah fall in love with him and letting her go – a maha prick.
But Sarah… maybe we had to leave her alone now. That was what everyone else was doing. She had more or less hidden herself since the news broke. For a while things at home had been subdued. I wondered often if Sarayumama had had a hand in it, but I didn’t think her intelligence stretched so far.
But how would she have known about Rebecca and Roy. Whenever I could, I watched my aunt. When her gaze settled on Sarah she sometimes smirked, but as the days passed her joy too diminished.
A door opened and we heard footsteps, they approached the store room and Rita and I crouched behind the table in the store room. It was Rita’s mom Elsamama. I put my finger on Rita’s lips and shook my head. Aunty was going to start working on tea and snacks. Soon a couple of other footsteps followed. The low murmurs were hard to decipher, but I heard Sarah mentioned, and when they paused by us in the storeroom my mother’s arm was around Anniemama’s shoulder. In a few minutes, Anniemama straightened, wiped her face with the pallu of her sari and they walked into the kitchen. We tiptoed to the doorway and looked out carefully into the corridor.
We touched our palms in a silent high five and disappeared in different directions. But at my door I found Mobby and Bobby in their room’s doorway. They gave me filthy looks and Bobby kicked the door shut.
I sighed in relief. It saved me some explanations. My father was fast asleep on his side and I lay gently on my mother’s part of the bed.
“Where did you go?” Appa asked, turning onto his back. I shot up, fright coursing through me.
“Appa!”
“Where did you go?”
“O-out in-in the-the compound,” I stuttered, my heart in my throat.
“Where were you planning to go?” my father was on his side now, facing me, his expression guarded.
“Er, er, nowhere.”
“You don’t know or don’t want to say?” My father’s look was uncompromising. There was no way I could lie. I looked ahead, at the ancient faded calendar on the wall. It had a picture of Jesus on it and so the calendar stayed on the wall, turning more yellow over the years.
“Mol… what do I keep telling you?”
“Er,” my mind raced. Appa gave me all sorts of advice all the time. “Er, not to lie or steal or cheat?”
His nostrils flared and his hard look relaxed somewhat. He shook his head. I tried again. “Er, not to eat other people’s food without asking?”
This time Appa chuckled. “Have you been eating other people’s food without asking?”
“No!”
“Do you know who visited me just before you came into the room?” (FC90)
The air emptied out of my chest and heat suffused my face, but I could only stare at Appa helplessly. I closed my mouth and straightened my back.
“Well, mol?”
“I think I did all the errands Ammachi wanted me to do today…” I looked at my hands.
“That is not what I asked.”
“No… I… don’t know who came to meet you.” Maybe one of the two men who came in through the front door about 20 minutes ago. In all probability my two eldest uncles, whom I would try hard to avoid today and until they lost interest in me.
“Rajanoopapan said you were spy…er… listening to their conversation from behind the shed.”
“I did not spy on them!”
“Then what were you doing behind the shed.”
“I was waiting for Rita and I saw Georgiechyan and Rajanchyan coming towards my spot near the tree and so I ran behind the shed because I didn’t want them to ask me about why I was there.”
“Why were you there?”
I gritted my teeth and glared at my dad. I was fed up of this bullshit cloak-and-dagger stuff. “I was waiting for Rita.”
“You just told me that. What were you going to do?”
“We were going to the junction to make a phone call…”
Appa looked irritated. “How many times have I told you not to leave the compound without us knowing, and taking Rita too! She’s only eight years old!”
“Ten, Appa, 10! And we did not leave the compound.”
“But you have before!”
“Er, not really. Never alone, Appa. But I do go to Kunjappachan’s house alone, which you know about because I always tell you.”
“But you have stepped out of the compound without telling us.”
“Mostly with Sarahchechi.”
“Mol, just tell me the truth about why you were roaming about the courtyard when you were supposed to be in the house.”
“I-I wanted to call Johnnychyan and ask him why he broke the engagement.”
My father’s brow knotted, his mouth tightened and he inhaled very slowly. “What did I tell you about interfering in things that do not concern you.”
“I know Appa, but they are in love. They spoke every night after the engagement, for a-a long time.” Hours really, but Appa didn’t have to know.
“What?”
“Er, how can you just break an engagement?”
“One can, all the time. But you don’t need to go and set things right because you think you have a stake in it?”
Stake? What did he mean? “Appa, Sarahchechi didn’t know why Johnnychyan wouldn’t call her. I just wanted to know why. Doesn’t she deserve the truth?”
“Yes. But if Johnny doesn’t want to level with her, after… he talked to her, every night you say?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
I hesitated.
“Your TV business?” Appa said, with sudden clarity.
“Yes, Appa, I wanted to watch TV. I walked in on Sarahchechi soon after the engagement and I thought my ear would come off my head.”
“Serves you right. If Johnny doesn’t want to talk to Sarahmol then that is what she will have to accept.”
“But that’s cruel!”
“Yes.”
"How can that be okay!”
“It isn’t, but that is the way things are.”
“Aren’t we going to ask his family?”
“And lose our dignity over it? No.”
“But why not!”
“They are not worth the effort.”
“If it was my daughter I’d go over there and beat the shit out of them!”
Appa grinned, his teeth showing, and just as quickly the smile disappeared. He held out his arms, and I crawled across the bed and we leaned back against the headboard. A thought struck me. “If someone broke his engagement with me would you stay quiet?”
Appa stiffened, “I’d want to know why this boy didn’t want my beautiful, brilliant daughter. But then I’d think it was probably for the best – perhaps you were better off without him.” Appa looked at me, “What do you think, Mol?”
“If I fell in love with him, I’d want to break his legs for ending things with me.” Appa laughed. “But I hope someone never does that.”
Appa body moved when he nodded. “You know that listening to a conversation is bad manners, right?”
“I’m sorry, Appa.”
“You will have to apologise to your uncles.”
“No! No, Appa, please don’t make me! I will die of shame.”
“Good. It will teach you something I haven’t been able to. And whatever you heard, stays with you.”
I remained silent, feeling glum and embarrassed. When he threw off his bedsheet and started getting up, I held his shoulder. “Mol, I cannot let it go, you have to tell Rajan and Georgie that you are sorry.”
“Er, no, Appa. I wanted to ask.. did you know about Roychyan and Rebecca chechi?”
Appa let out a sigh. “Not until Rajan told me this morning.”
“What will happen now?”
“Nothing.”
“Er, I meant about Roychyan and Rebecca chechi?”
“Nothing.”
“But, but will Georgiechyan and Anniemama be angry? Will they force them to divorce?”
Appa turned and held my hands. “No, Mol. We cannot divorce for such silly reasons. I imagine Georgie will be talking to the two, but there’s nothing both sets of parents can do about it. Georgiecha and Anniemama and the rest of the family will have to make peace with it.”
“Er, what about Kunjappachan and Ammachi?” I asked about Roy’s grandparents.
“Maybe they will be just as angry as your Appachan and Ammachi. We’ll have to wait and see. Don’t share any opinions, be quiet at all times.”
I glared at Appa, it didn’t sound polite. He saw my angry look. “It’s not our business, and all of the family will be under tremendous stress. So, stay out of everyone’s line of vision. Don’t offer an opinion, don’t resurrect broken engagements, leave Sarah and Johnny alone. If Johnny thinks he can get better, he is welcome to. Now come on, that smell is wonderful.”
“You eat etheka appams almost every afternoon!”
“Yes, but today it smells especially good. I want your apology out of the way by tonight.
“Okay,” I said feeling very small.
******
In the dining room, I was less than thrilled to see my eldest uncles seated together. They looked up, Georgiechyan’s eyes instantly narrowing and Rajanchyan’s crinkling in a smile. I couldn't understand why. He waved at my father and Appa’s hand pulled my elbow along. Did he want me to humiliate myself in full view of the family?
Appa made me sit next to Rajanchyan and he sat at my other side.
Uncle smiled and put a faded quarter plate in front of me and two etheka appams on it and asked me if I wanted tea. I nodded, looking at him from the corner of my eyes. I needed to be on my guard. Plus, I had to fit in an apology somewhere. The sooner I could slide it in the better.
“I believe you are in the company of adults now, Mol,” the etheka appam was too hot and I unceremoniously spat out the large bite, dropping the appam in a hurry into my plate. There was a gasp from my grandmother, followed by her and her eldest daughter screwing up their faces in my direction. I put the piece of appam back in my mouth, after making sure it had cooled. That elicited another few murmurs of disgust from the ladies, but no one else seemed to have noticed.
“What do you mean, Rajanchyan?” Why did these adults talk in circles? Pilipochyan always wanted me to glean a moral out of whatever he said, so too Appa, and if I was slow in understanding any of what Ammachi said, I was sure to understand better with a beating – even if I didn’t understand. There had to be an expiry date for beatings. I looked at Appa, he was looking at me oddly. So I looked back at Rajanchyan, rather my eyes veered away from his to his ears which seemed pointy at their topmost tips like Mr Spock’s.
“What you heard was only meant for the adults, ok, yes?” I felt shocked, but nodded vigorously.
“I-I’m sorry, I d-didn’t mean to listen to what you were saying… but I was waiting for Rita a-and didn’t want to be found by anyone else. So I hid behind the shed.”
“I believe you, Mol.” I didn’t believe him, but bobbed my head some more. Nobody believed me. My stock was at an all-time low here. I felt relief quarrel with suspicion. “Can’t tell anyone though.”
What did he think I was! “Of course. Er, but… but isn’t everyone going to know soon?”
Appa tapped my shoulder and Georgiechyan looked at me menacingly. He always seemed a pussycat in front of his daughters. I looked down at my appams, which were fast losing their charm.
But Rajanchyan chuckled and despite myself I looked up at him. “Yes. Very soon. But it’s best you leave any news breaks to the adults.”
“Okay.”
“Any questions?”
“Eh?”
“Aren’t there anymore questions.”
“Yes, but you said I can’t ask.”
“I did not say that.”
“Okay. Appa or someone else must have.”
“What do you want to ask me?”
“What’s going to happen?”
“What’s going to happen where?”
I took a deep breath. Rajanchyan’s eyes were laughing and Georgiechyan’s face was hardening. Appa was listening raptly.
I pulled Rajanchyan’s face nearer mine and said, “What’s going to happen to Rebecca chechi?” I turned my ear towards his mouth for his answer.
“Nothing really. There will be a lot of drama here, crying, threats, some blackmail, mostly from the elders and Sarayu. But no one here can break the marriage.”
“So then, what’s the problem?”
“They are second cousins, things will be uncomfortable for the immediate family for some time. But things will blow over after a while.”
“Will we be forced to stop talking to Rebecca?” That had happened to one of Appa’s cousins. My aunt had eloped with a Hindu man and only a few years later did the family allow her to visit. One year, Ammachi would not open the front door, despite the visitors knowing we were at home. Kunjappachan had never had any such issues.
“Will Kunjappachan have a problem? And Thomaskuttychyan?” Thomaskutty was Kunjappachan’s second son and Roy’s dad.
“Probably. But we’ll have to wait and see. Anything else?”
“If there can’t be anything done about it, why the fuss?”
Rajanchyan threw back his head and let out a bark of laugher. His arm squeezed my neck and I started tapping it for him to loosen his grip. He loosened his arm and pulled me closer to him and laughed some more. His children looked surprised. When he had composed himself, he said only so I could hear, “I agree, Mol. Why the fuss. It will be a novelty only for a few days. They are not exactly siblings, though if it were a marriage between outsiders, it would be an excellent match.”
That was true. Both Roy and Rebecca had beauty, brains and ambition. And from the little I understood of family connections, they were well placed.
“And after I heard the stories about you, I thought this family was missing its black sheep and keen to find a replacement.” He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned.
Me, a black sheep? I shook my head several times. They had it wrong. Black sheepery was for more serious crimes.
“Do you know what a black sheep is?” Rajanchyan asked softly, placing another snack on my plate, and pushing my tea closer.
“Er, yes, sort of.”
“Do you consider yourself one?”
“No!”
“Good. Don’t bother about what other people think or say. Just be yourself.” He paused, “Do you think I’m one?”
I hesitated. All the stories I had heard pointed to him being one in his youth. He had been a rabble rouser – part of the student union, disappearing from home without notice for days due to local political campaigns, his activeness in church, and he was very handsome in his early pictures. Plus, he failed a year in college. But all that changed when he met Sisly Aunty. His family had made peace with all this, but his parents couldn’t forgive him for following his heart. “No. I don’t think you are one.”
“Anyone here look like one?”
I looked around the table. My family ate noisily and bantered loudly, while the kids ate with their mouths open and spilled tea on and around the plastic place mats that Ammachi insisted we use. Most of them were undiluted idiots, including Rajanchyan’s kids, but how to be impolite and say so. And how could a sheep be wicked because its fleece was black. He was just being a normal sheep. Clearly his colouring was due to his genes – a black daddy or mummy. When my father and Uncle started laughing, I realised I had said it aloud. I was also thinking of the black cat that people were afraid of in the village. My neighbours considered it evil. What was wrong with its black fur? The villagers and even people in my neighbourhood in Bombay took torturous routes around the black cats they encountered or threw stones at them. But Kunjappachyan next door loved the black cat and it often lolled under the shade of a jackfruit tree near the window of his room or on his window sill.
I watched my family looking at us with interest and my grandmother frowned, her eyes on me, for sure assuming I was the villain. Rajanchyan continued to murmur in my ear, “Well, for now, you and I have been displaced by dear Rebecca.”
I heard a car pull up outside the gate. It squeaked steadily as it was opened and the tyres of a car churned the gravel in the courtyard, slowly and heavily. We heard car doors shut and about a minute later the doorbell rang. A sudden silence fell on the group in the dining room. And then as one, chairs scraped backwards and people began to scramble towards the main door.
******
This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related to a family vacation in Kerala.
Mol's father confronts her about eavesdropping on her uncles' conversation.
Read the entire The Webs We Weave series here FC69, 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