Fishy Chronicles 89: The Webs We Weave (21) – Late night caller

“How are you?”

I froze. It wasn’t a question. Just a statement. I had more than a hundred questions to ask but couldn’t get a single one out.

Rita grabbed the phone from me and said, “Why did you break up with Sarah chechi!”

I gawked, and tried to pull the phone from her, but it was clamped vice-like against her ear, the streetlight illuminating her frowning face. I bent and put my ear to the phone to listen to what he had to say.

There was more silence and a little while later, he cut the line.

Rita’s eyes were round. “We should call Johnnycha back. Let me get his phone number (FC88). But I don’t have the code!” she said in distress.

I grabbed her shoulder and took a deep breath. “It wasn’t Johnnychyan.”

“What?”

“Not him.”

“But-but you said he calls this time of the night.”

“Earlier, I mean, before – a little after 12.30. But this wasn’t Johnnychyan.”

“How do you know?”

What an annoying kid. Why couldn’t she take my word for it. “I know his voice. I’ve talked to Johnnychyan a few times,” I said unnecessarily. But this man’s voice sounded familiar. There was some intimacy in his tone too. Rita looked like she would burst. She looked agitated and wrung her hands.

I put my hand on hers and she stilled. “Maybe a wrong number,” I tried to sound reassuring.

“So there’s not going to be a wedding?” she asked faintly.

“Shall we try to call him?”

“How? I don’t know the code to the phone.”

“Does your dad know?” Joychyan was more forthcoming with his kids. He bent rules for them. My parents didn’t and I’d face an inquisition.

“Daddy knows the code. I’ve seen him making phone calls. I’ll get the number tomorrow.”

“Worse comes to worst we can go to the junction and call him.”

“But… I don’t have money.”

“I have… some.” Long distance calls cost lots of money. Why had I offered? I thought of the money I had saved. I had received some gifts from my mother’s family and my stash was now a princely 1,107 rupees and 75 paise. It was stored in a tattered wallet that used to be Appa’s. Amma had given me a coin purse, but even she had no idea of how much I had accumulated. In my earlier years my parents had relieved me of any money gifts I got from family, but after I turned 10, my mother’s father suggested that I learn to keep the money and spend it. He had then sat me down, and explained about our promise to help the poor and that a tenth of all earnings, including gifts, needed to be kept aside. I goggled at this bit of information. When I tried to protest to my parents, separately, they became stern. And so I kept my thoughts about the tithe to myself. My granddad also taught me how to calculate percentages that day – how to calculate a tenth of what I got.

Rita poked me hard in the navel, dislodging me from the memory. “Let’s try tomorrow, when everyone goes to sleep in the afternoon.”

Shit. Rita was going to make me spend my money. “Er, don’t you want to try to get the phone code first?”

“Too many people around. And we may get caught. You’re already in trouble. If I get caught too, everyone will think you had something to do with it.”

I gritted my teeth. It was hard to fault Rita’s logic. She was clever – I would have said cunning, but never mind.

We sat on the settee. “Should we tell Sarah chechi about the call?” Rita asked during a slow part of the serial.

“No. I don’t think the call was for her.”

“You mean it was a wrong number?”

Unlikely. “Yes.”

“Oh. But… isn’t it too late for one?”

Not if you live in another time zone – the ring of the phone had been different. Why had I thought Johnnychyan was travelling. “Yes.” I really wanted Rita to stop talking and suddenly I was not enjoying this ‘alone’ time.

“So why dial at all?”

I wanted to rage at Rita and turned suddenly. Rita tilted her head and looked at me, her eyes narrowing speculatively. I had a sudden memory of Roma and Rajiv arguing wildly yesterday near their bedroom, then Roma pinning Rajiv to the nearest wall, ramming a single punch into his stomach and disappearing. Joychyan had found his only son, his most favoured child, bent double and asked him numerous questions but had been unable to elicit an answer.

I spent anxious moments at dinner yesterday because Uncle had given me a couple of cold looks, but then his eyes had settled on his nephews Mobby and Bobby and then on his daughters – lingering on them for an eternity.

I shook my head and changed tack. “Some poor soul was trying to call someone else, I imagine. I wish I had a boyfriend who’d call me in the middle of the night.”

Rita sniggered and we turned back to the TV.

It was while we were surfing channels a few minutes later that she dropped a bombshell. “You know, Rebecca chechi (FC81) is coming tomorrow.” Rebecca was Sarah’s sister, younger by a year.

Rita nodded at my incredulous expression. Despite the light streaming in through the open windows, we had to sit really close to see and hear each other. “Mummy said she had a few days off and decided to visit.”

I didn’t know what to make of it. Rebecca had left for the US a few months ago, saying she wouldn’t visit for a couple of years until her course ended and she got a job – all of which had not gone down well with Appachan and Ammachi who felt Sarah and Rebecca were unnecessarily focussed on studies and careers instead of getting married. This was strange because their mother Anniemama had a PhD in Chemistry and was a professor in a college in Bangalore.

“But why?” I hissed at Rita’s ear.

“What do you mean why?” she hissed back.

“I mean it doesn’t make sense. Airplane tickets are very, very expensive. And now Sarah chechi isn’t getting married.”

“Maybe she feels bad about Sarah chechi and is coming to make her feel better.”

“A phone call would have been cheaper.”

Rita looked doubtful. “Mummy said Rebecca chechi is being a good sister.”

The snort escaped before I could control myself. Rita’s head whipped around. How could I tell Rita that two sisters couldn’t be more similar in outlook and ambition than the George sisters – they were joined at the hip, or probably shared the same egg but one just dropped out of her mother’s womb a year later. Appachan and Ammachi grumbled about them to all their children over and over and over – especially Ammachi who took it as a personal failing. In recent years the sisters had avoided visiting, using college and extracurricular activities as excuses. But it was getting harder for their parents to arrive at the ancestral home without their children.

“Oh, and Rajanchyan is also going to visit.”

“Oh.” I felt intense shock. Rajanchyan was my oldest uncle after Georgiechyan. He was something of a black sheep, unable to see eye to eye with Appachan and rarely visited. It had to do with the ultimate act of rebellion, and once unthinkable among Syrian Christians – that of eloping.

Rajanchyan had fallen in love with his wife Sislymama in college. When he broached the subject, his parents were against their union even though Sislymama was from our community. There was no particular reason they could offer, though family status may have been one. He soon got a job and moved to Delhi and some years passed that way. When Ammachi began to press Rajanchyan to marry a family friend’s daughter, he quickly married Sislymama, letting his family know via a telegram. It led to years of strife, with my grandmother making no effort to accept Sislymama. Even now.

Family get-togethers with Sislymama and Rajanchyan and their four children – Shyla, Nina, Joey and Tomo – were fraught with silences and awkwardness, with everyone looking for cues from the patriarch and matriarch. Eventually only Rajanchyan’s children stayed over during the holidays. Even that proved awkward for everyone because my grandparents didn’t make an effort to be close to these grandchildren, forcing their children to make the effort. In the pecking order, Ammachi favoured her daughters’ children. Her sons’ children vied for whatever affection was left over.

“What happened? Why is Rajanchyan visiting?” I said as normally as possible.

“I don’t know.”

“You know that he’s coming here, but you don’t know why. Why aren’t you saying?”

“I don’t know, Chechi. I only tell you what I hear Daddy and Mummy say.”

“Ok.”

“Let’s try and make that phone call tomorrow.”

“What phonecall?”

“The one to Johnnychyan.”

“You still want to ask him why?” I had hoped she would forget our mission.

“Yes. We need to know.”

“No. We don’t.”

Rita’s head whipped around and she gave me a filthy look. Despite the white streetlight dulling my view of Rita and, in turn, every emotion of hers, I moved back a bit.

“I m-mean only Sarah chechi needs to know and Johnnychyan may not bother talking to us,” I was having second thoughts big time. We were poking our noses into things that were best left alone. Who knew what would happen.

“Oh, like that. We’ll see.” She shoved the coffee table away with her feet and mine hit the ground – pain radiating upwards through my heels. The idiot got up, switched off the TV and went back to her room.

I surveyed the settee and floor. For all her previous gyaan* about Ammachi spotting the crumbs and them leading to us, the floor and settee were littered with food particles. I wanted to watch some more TV, but it was past 2am and someone was bound to get out of their room for a leak.

I saw one of my aunts’ super-starched cross-stitched table cloths on a small table and used it to dust the settee and mop up the crumbs from the floor. I emptied the table cloth out of an open window. There were oil stains on the rexine seat where we sat, but someone’s bum would rub it clean tomorrow.

I draped the embroidered cover over the TV, looked out of the window one last time and went to bed.

Tomorrow I was going to make certain we got the code and didn’t go to the junction.

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*Gyaan – Hindi colloquial word. Means unwanted advice

*Chechi – Older sister in Malayalam

 

This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related
to a family vacation in a rural part of Kerala. 

Rita and the narrator receive a late night phone call but the caller disconnects without speaking. The girls believe it is Johnny and decide they need to speak to him and find out why he's decided to end his engagement to their cousin Sarah.

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

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Fishy Chronicles 86: The Webs We Weave (18) – An ending

I watched the shadow move. I had stopped being afraid of the shapes that danced on my wall at night, because I knew now that it was the tree’s branches moving gently – illuminated by the weak streetlight. I had conquered my fear of the shadows outside, but I stayed awake at night consumed by the shadows within.

I had remained in our bedroom every night since Romeo had been cut up and cooked into a curry (FC84). It was brutal and I couldn’t stop thinking of it. I missed my little feathered friend and avoided going to the guava tree now. I missed his kinship and the way he seemed to speak to me. 

In the day, I spent time next door with my grandfather’s brother Kunjappachan. But I had developed a nagging distrust, which I tried consciously to shrug off every time I understood what was happening. Appachan had been loving, a larger-than-life presence always. His sweet treats, taking his grandchildren out to the local market – we took turns as his car could only fit some of us at a time – bringing us flowers and cashew seeds from his morning rounds of his fields, his stories about his long-dead parents and other family. But in one swoop all that had changed for me, and watching things unfold – for some of my cousins too.

In a few weeks I had witnessed all of this family turn from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde. It was something I couldn’t wrap my head around. I felt myself hold back from simple interactions, wondering if the person I was talking to was secretly plotting evil against me. I couldn’t share my thoughts, I had to debate everything I wanted to say, how it would be construed, consider the backstories... eventually it felt easier to nod and keep quiet. It was all confusing and frightening. I clung to my parents, following Appa to the farm and drifting into the fields, much to Appachan’s irritation. I wanted to avoid the house, Ammachi, her daughters and my cousins at all cost. When I spotted my great uncle, I stayed close to him.

Every morning I swallowed my breakfast, doing my best to avoid eye contact with the others and then, while my grandmother was mid-sentence listing out my chores, I was out the door and at the gate next door. The day I was cornered, my father reluctantly blocking my path, Ammachi gave me an earful about being ungrateful and bad mannered and it being a sure-fire route to the gates of Satan’s vile quarters. It was tedious listening.

Just the previous night my father had given me a restrained lecture about good manners, and having to accept what had happened and moving on. We had had a bitter argument and I had demanded going to my mother’s parents’ home. When there was no let up, I burst into tears and the matter ended.

I looked at my parents – they were snoring. Their ritual night-time chats and light laughter had stopped – not that I had noticed. But I did notice that I had not heard any family gossip in a long time.

                                          ******

There was news at Kunjappachan’s house though. His eldest grandson was visiting from the US. He’d just got a job and his parents had insisted he meet his grandparents before he returned. I had met my cousin occasionally over the years, but we had little in common because of our age difference – except for being able to speak in English.

My great aunt and her daughters in law fussed over him – partly because he was so handsome and mostly because he enjoyed their attentions – and luckily his pants had elastic at the waist because his gaunt look had disappeared quickly. Every relative of ours that lived abroad usually returned to India ‘healthy’, a polite way of saying fat in Kerala, but in Roy’s case this was the reverse.

He was the brilliant cousin, who had studied at a tony university in Delhi and soon after gone off to do a PhD in the US. He was hot, according to my cousins. I had to agree, he looked chiseled and did not have a potbelly. And he was nice too. His face was mostly buried in the newspapers, his grandfather ordered some English magazines and newspapers just for him, and when he wasn’t reading he was either at our house or roaming around the village and fields.

When I did get over my awe of him, we chatted, played chess, and because I always lost we ended up playing draughts, Snakes and Ladders or cards. And after a while, I became aware that my older cousins would be there too.

One day, I pushed through the crush that had formed around Roy. I petted Petty the goat and then saw the glistening deep purple jamuns on the ground a little further on. Many had been trod on by the visitors, but some were in good condition nearer the bushes bordering the courtyard. I moved forward, picking up a coconut shell from near the cow shed to hold the jamuns.

From the low wall separating the two properties, I could see the men in my grandfather’s study, and an argument in progress. So what was new – my relatives only knew how to fight. When I asked Appa about this trait, he said they discussed politics. The snatches I had heard confirmed it, but once in a while they got heated and shouted their heads off about other things. One day it was about an old friend and some money. Another day one of the uncles was denying a smoking habit, and another day it was about one of their wives being treated rudely. But this seemed unlike any other argument. Anniemama, Sarah’s mother, was standing in the doorway of the study, her face pressed into her open palms.

Georgiechyan was looking down at someone and screaming blue murder and Appa and Joychyan were pulling him away. Suddenly Ammachi appeared at the windows, grabbing two shutters at a time and slamming them shut.

                                       ******

Georgiechyan and his family did not appear for lunch. I wondered what they were doing for food. They did not appear for evening tea either, even though the youngest kids were sent to knock at their bedroom door.

I was surprised Ammachi could spare a daughter in law, chores might be heaping up. Ammachi looked disturbed. Her daughters sat on either side and the only noises were of my cousins eating their food and bantering.

Inhaling the aroma of the etheka appams, I gave thanks for the extra snacks on my plate. The George family didn’t know what they were missing. 

                                         ******

I wiped the sweat off my neck with my hand. Ugh. The fan was spinning slowly over my parents and the air didn’t quite disperse into my corner of the room. The fluorescent dial of the clock on the bedside table showed 12.53am.

I debated getting up. Usually Sarah had her call with Johnny about now (FC80). It had become a prolonged nightly ritual, and was a pain because it coincided with a murder serial I had started watching. They were still not allowed to talk to each other, unless supervised, till their marriage some months away. As the family didn’t know that the two were speaking to each other, Sarah had sworn me to secrecy. The understanding was that I would not listen in on the call, and no one would know that I was watching TV on the sly.

For some reason Mobby had stayed firmly in his room since our night-time episode (FC81, FC82) … or else he was visiting Sonimol chechi later at night – after Sarah’s call and my serial.

What could I do this time of night? No movie and no night-time snacking – Ammachi had changed the padlock on her goodies cupboard. She still hadn’t figured out who had been making inroads into the snacks or that there were a few copies of the same key floating around. Sometimes we watched her open the cupboard to see her reaction. She thought someone was taking the key from under her pillow at night and couldn’t understand how she didn’t wake up.

I remembered the magazine Roy had given me. It was a political one but had a gossip column of sorts in the back. Plus, there was a Bollywood special in this issue – the only reason I had wanted to read it. I found a torch in the dressing table drawer, but it didn’t work. There were no batteries to be found either. The bedside clock yielded only the narrow pencil variety. I snuck out of our room and stood still in the corridor until my eyes got used to the darkness, and then followed the faint light from the street coming through the sitting room windows. 

I crept forward, the memory of Mobby’s thrashing coming to mind and I was mindful that I would get the same treatment were Sarah to catch sight of me. I still felt bitter at the thought of me being punished and Sarah getting away scot-free. For sure, Mobby and his parents were afraid of Sarah, else she would have been court martialed or locked up in the store room for a few days.

There was no noise coming from the sitting room. The call must have ended early. This was strange because lovers talked for an inordinately long time – as did Sarah and Johnny. I held back. Sarah was seated on the red sofa, staring into the distance. I leaned forward to see what she was looking at and could spot nothing in particular. The phone was next to her on the sofa. I hesitated, but then cleared my throat. It would be worse if I was caught spying.

Sarah didn’t seem to have heard. I went closer. She was holding herself stiffly, her hands by her side, her back straight but leaning forward and bathed in white streetlight. And then I saw a tear roll slowly down her face, with another dropping from her jaw. I began to move forward, but then remembered our pact and moved back into the corridor. I watched for a while, but she didn’t move or stop crying.

Finally I stood next to her and waited. She sat back against the sofa.

“What happened, Sarahchechi?”

There was a long sniff. And a shrug. But she still didn’t turn to look at me.

“Did… er… Johnnychacha call?”

She looked down at her hands.

“Er, chechi, did you guys have a fight?” I couldn’t remember ever seeing her cry.

She looked up and one side of her lips rose in a false smile. “No. We didn’t fight.”

“So?”

“His family called yesterday and ended the engagement. He hasn’t called me for several days.”

My breath stopped. “What?”

She stood up and brushed down her kurta, swaying. I caught her arm to steady her. “You’re joking, right, chechi?”

“Wrong, mol. I’m not joking,” she said with some force. “His uncle called up and said they did not want to proceed, th-that… Johnny had had second thoughts.”

I was stunned. My perfect brother in law. Now a never-brother. It was unbelievable. “But why? What’s wrong with you?”

It seemed a source of mirth for my cousin, and her lips thinned.

“You think it is funny?” I asked.

“You think I’m perfect?”

“Yes!”

“Even after pinching your ears and shouting at you?”

“… I think a guy would think you’re perfect.”

She snorted and sat, bending over, with her elbows on her knees and her face in her palms. I babbled, “I mean, you’re pretty, fair, and thin,” and you have brains, “and guys like that.” Guys didn't like brainy girls – beautiful yes, clever no. And after several weeks of Ammachi’s training and her grand plans for her granddaughters, Sarah knew how to keep house. That made her perfect.

I was putting my hand on her shoulder when I heard the savage swear word. I quickly pulled it away. “What now, chechi? … Er… The announcement was made in church… What will happen now?”

She shrugged.

I didn’t know what to make of it. But I did know most of my cousins had had ultra-short engagements, and been raced to the altar. Was this why our weddings occurred so quickly after an engagement – to kill the possibility of the union not happening? “Have you tried calling Johnnychyan?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He hasn’t picked up his phone for a few days. Since Wednesday.”

I felt horror seep through my being. It was the day before Romeo’s life was brutally snuffed out. “Y-y-you think it’s related?”

“What?”

“Feels like a coincidence.”

“What?”

“Romeo’s death and your engagement ending.”

“Don’t be silly, mol! There is no connection.”

“Or the same person who wanted Romeo dead, spread stories about you, enough to end your engagement?”

“What stories?”

“I don’t know.”

“Romeo and ‘this’ are not related.”

“How can you be sure. And why now, why not before your engagement?”

“I can’t be sure, but I don’t think anyone would break my engagement just because they were angry with me for something. It is too cruel.”

I could believe it. Anything was possible in this house filled with insane people. My cousin looked up, searching my face, “You don’t think so?” her voice broke and tears started falling again.

“Sorry, chechi, just me being paranoid.” I sat next to her and squeezed her hand. “Maybe Johnnycha will change his mind… and-and want to get back with you…” I wished I had a hanky because now my cousin’s face was twisted and red, and she was sobbing.

I held onto her for an eternity, begging God to ease my chechi’s misery. In that fell swoop, I realised that it wasn’t the engagement that mattered to my cousin – she had lost her heart to Johnny too. When she stopped crying, a long time later, we held hands and watched the street outside until the sky started turning pink and the streetlights were switched off. Then we went back to our rooms.

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This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related
to a family vacation in Kerala during her childhood. 

She is traumatized by the demise of her pet rooster, but it seems the malevolent force prevailing in her household isn't done with her and Sarah yet.   

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

#fiction #keralachristians #keralastories #kerala #keralavacation #keralafamilies #love #loss #brokenengagements #marriage #food #satan #clock #mobby #sarah #fishychronicles86 #grandparents #goat #rooster #Romeo #websweweaveseries #swearwords #beautifulwomen #mumbaimalayalis #malayalistories #chess #boardgames #snakesandladders #draughts #johnnyandsarah #spying #beautifulwomen #cleverwomen #prettywomen #savage

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