Fishy Chronicles 92: The Webs We Weave (24) – Rebecca

People shoved each other trying to push through the narrow dining room doorway. Others ran to the one opening into the study and out into the sitting room – I was one of them. Through the sitting room window we watched Thomaskuttychyan, Roy’s dad, slowly get out of the front seat of the car. His father Kunjappachyan was walking up from the road with his youngest son Mathaichyan and my other great uncle Eapachyan from opposite the road, their wives following at a modest distance.

Despite the crowd at the windows there was pin drop silence and I began to feel tense. I could see Roy… and Rebecca… in the back seat of the newish-looking red Maruti Esteem, wedged in with Roy’s mother Meenamama. The car had gauzy gold bows on its handles and small bunches of roses stuck to its body. The air was somewhat cool because it had just rained heavily and the fragrance of wet earth, mixed with that of Appachan’s roses and a neighbour’s chicken curry, was in the air. 

I had not expected Rebecca to come bride-like with Roy or with reinforcements and this seemed to change everything. The elders in the house stood at a distance from the windows staring out uncertainly, while there was a terse exchange between my grandmother and her two daughters. Pilipochyan looked coldly at his wife, almost as if he was exasperated with her. Sarojmama stopped talking and looked away.

Someone opened the front door, but there was an incoherent bark from the back of the room and everyone stilled. Appachan shuffled over to the door, but made no move to step out.

“Rebecca chechi is here!” Rita said happily, looking at the crowd puzzled. Had no one told her? Didn’t everyone know that our first cousin Rebecca had married our second cousin Roy from next door. That just couldn’t be… everyone was standing frozen to their spots, expectantly, almost as if they feared the worst. Georgiechyan and Anniemama hovered beside the door looking stressed, and shooting glances at Appachan.

By now Appachan’s brothers and their wives were at the doorstep, waiting to be invited in. It looked like a standoff. Appachan’s face was thunderous. Years later I would overhear a conversation between my father and his two oldest brothers about how Appachan was determined not to bend, especially suspecting his brothers of trying to force him to give his blessings to this unholy union.

Only Rita had had enough and with an exclamation she was out of the door and at the car tugging the door handle. When it finally wrenched open, she crawled in.

A gasp resounded across the room, and all the younger children were now wedged in the main door, trying to reach the car before the other, despite their parents hollering at them to stay in the room. You must know that Rita is Sarah and Rebecca’s favourite cousin – always following them and, surprisingly, being allowed to tag along. I imagined it was because she was quiet and sensible, and had a charm that overrode elder-cousin concerns (Rita handled them), while the rest of the girls were noisy and stupid. Despite Roma’s smartness and intelligence the George sisters didn’t care much for her, and that stung. I suspect they saw in her an equal – brilliant, and smug about it. I turned to look at Roma, she tilted her head sharply in the direction of the car and we raced out even though I heard my mother calling out to me. I was already in deep shit, some more, especially in the company of my cousins, couldn’t hurt.

We swarmed around the car and our cousins came out and were hugged and patted on the back. Rebecca was in a fuchsia pink silk sari and jewellery, sweat on her brow and looking flushed. “How did she get all that?” I whispered in Roma’s ear, eyeing Rebecca’s heavy-duty gold furnishings.

“Thomaskuttychyan would have paid for everything.”

We heard a roar from inside the house and stood still for a minute, but the chatter continued unabated. We saw our grandfather stand in the doorway watching us, first in astonished silence and then he almost fell trying to hasten down the three steps of the house. We hushed and flattened ourselves against the car, while some of the kids moved behind it. Would he use his walking stick to thrash us, but if he did how would he keep his balance?

He tottered towards us and stood for an eternity in front of Roy, who towered over him, while Appachan’s gaze roamed silently over the renegade couple. Roy looked nervous but Rebecca met my grandfather’s gaze head on. Finally he raised one of his arms and she walked into his embrace, while with his other he held Roy’s hand, ostensibly shaking hands with him, thereby cleverly balancing upright. There were shouts and my family laughed, pushing and shoving and trying to share the joy of the moment. The group moved itself up the house steps and into the sitting room, floating just above the ground like the swarms of ducks that frequently navigate Kerala’s farmlands. In the end, there was only standing space in the room. My aunts made several rounds of tea, while the couple were forced into the dining room. People hovered over them, dropping snacks into their plates, some hands pushing food into Rebecca’s mouth and tears, of joy, running down Anniemama’s face. Georgiechyan, with Sarah’s arms around his waist, looked overwhelmed, but happy, his eyes and Sarah’s focused on Rebecca.

And Ammachi? She stood at the side of the dining room, seething but intimidated by the adulating boisterous crowd. She tried to push through to the couple, but it was impossible.

I watched a hand shove an etheka appam into Roy’s cheek. An elbow shoved the hand aside and another hand with a handkerchief pressed against Roy’s nose, trying to wipe away the food. Clearly no one could see what they were doing to him. I was surprised Roy didn’t get up and run.

“Is this handfeeding business normal?” I asked Roma.

“No. Hugely abnormal. But what here is normal – not even our cousins!” she said in a super low whisper.

“Do you think any of them have washed their hands?”

“No.”

“Where’s Sarayumama?” Sarojmama and Pilipochyan were watching the couple from the side, the former’s mouth pursed and the latter leaning over a chair and smiling.

Roma turned around to look. Our older aunt was missing, but her husband and sons were in the dining room. “Well, she can’t put a stop to anything. Appachan will fix her if she says anything silly,” Roma said fiercely in my ear.

“Where do you think she is?”

After a long pause, “Probably checking if there’s a dowry to be given and how much.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “But these two had a love marriage. They eloped! The deed is done, how can you get a dowry after?”

“Sab hote hai* (everything goes).”

“Bullshit!”

A few seconds later, I began to move away from the dining room because my aunt’s absence had piqued my interest.

As Roma had said, Sarayumama was hanging on to every word being said by her father’s brothers and their families in the sitting room. There was not a mention of a dowry. I watched Sarayumama clandestinely – while her face smiled, her eyes were narrowed and it seemed an effort for her to look affable.

I remembered what my uncle Rajanchyan told me at tea time (FC91) just a little earlier – there was nothing anyone could do about Rebecca and Roy’s marriage. They were a done deed. And Sarah looked happy even though her younger sister had married before her. Probably there was no pressure for Sarah to marry now. No Johnny either.

I crept nearer Amma and slipped my arms around her waist and murmured, “Does this mean all is forgiven?”

“We don’t know, mol. For the time being, yes,” she murmured back.

“You think Ammachi has forgiven them?” My grandmother was in the sitting room, looking defeated, trying not to look glum and failing. One of her nieces got up and gave her her seat. Everyone was trying to avoid the elephant in the room, and only concentrating on positive topics. The conversation seemed forced.

My mother stayed silent. Some silences say a lot… and some nothing.

The phone in the study rang. Appachan was listening raptly to Thomaskuttychyan and so I picked up the phone.

“Sarah?”

“Er, no. Who’s speaking?”

The person cut the line.

******

* translated from Hindi

This series is fictional and follows the narrator recalling a childhood vacation with extended family in Kerala. The narrator’s cousins who eloped appear at her ancestral home and there’s a standoff.

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 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.

                                                     ******

*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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