Fishy Chronicles 90: The Webs We Weave (22) – Uncle Rajan visits

I woke up early wondering what the day would have in store for me. Rita’s news the previous night (FC89) had left me feeling somewhat disturbed.

Sarayumama hovered agitatedly at the end of the corridor, looking into the sitting room at Appa's second-oldest brother Rajanchyan. He sat, happiness on his face, between his brothers and his children leaning over him and his youngest child's arms around his neck. Sarojmama was placing a fresh cup of tea in front of her brother and Pilipochyan smiled at him from across the coffee table.

At this moment I wondered how it would be if I had siblings. Roma, always irritated with her older and younger siblings, had raged on several occasions about being a middle child and being easily forgotten. Something echoed by my best friend Anjali’s older sister – another ‘middle’. I believed Roma when one day, on our way to a wedding in Kerala, her parents forgot her at home and Roma ended up travelling with us – her head out of the window, seething all the way. Stranger still was that though Rajiv and Rita had noticed their sister’s absence, they hadn’t pointed it out to their parents. And when she accused her parents of forgetting her, they shrugged it off. Roma dragged me to a corner of the church and later to a sparsely populated section of the reception hall reserved for vegetarian guests – far away from all the others.

My uncle raised his arm and I went to him, leaning forward for a kiss on my cheek. Rajanchyan was given to such gestures of affection, unlike his siblings. His children continued to chatter over his shoulder or from the coffee table in front of him, and all the while his eyes gleamed with love.

A shout sounded from the dining room and we stilled. It was a rude summons from Ammachi. We reluctantly uncoiled ourselves and moved to the dining room. The blue crockery, part of Ammachi’s long-ago dowry, was laid out. Ammachi was likely paying homage to her rich uncle. It soon became clear why. Rajanchyan kissed her on both cheeks and handed her a bag that clearly held a sari. He said “happy anniversary, Amma” in Malayalam. A gasp went around and people crowded around Ammachi, shaking her hand. I was surprised her daughters hadn’t remembered. They were now grabbing their mother and giving her tight hugs.

I looked at my mother and was taken aback to see a look of amusement on her face. It was quickly masked when someone turned towards her.

I looked around for my grandfather, seated behind his table in the study, watching the scene in front of him with a hard look. I couldn’t remember ever celebrating their anniversary, though in previous years Amma had attributed the occasional perippu (moong) or rice payasam to a birthday or anniversary. Everything here was hush hush, unlike next door. My great uncle Kunjappachan personally supervised the payasam’s cooking in an enormous cauldron in a corner of the backyard with a floating audience comprising his and his brothers’ grandchildren. We helped feed the fire and took turns stirring the mix with an enormous iron ladle that looked like a smaller version of a boat paddle.

Ammachi, in a good mood now, showed her son to a place at the table and people started taking their seats. They slowly began looking at Appachan from the corners of their eyes, waiting.

Ammachi nodded several times in my grandfather’s direction and pulled his chair out, the legs screeching against the floor. Appachan’s nostrils flared and his jaws clenched. He threw down the piece of paper he had in his hands, stood up, walked to the table and sat heavily. He even forgot his cane, which one of his daughters brought over and set down near him. Roma’s foot pressed hard on mine, but I refused to turn. I might laugh and it was time to say grace.

“What brings you here, Rajan?” Appachan said.

“Got a few days of leave, thought I’d see the family, take the kids to see Sisly’s parents – her father had a heart attack last month and wanted to see them.”

At this there was silence. I had heard about this, and Appachan had made a courtesy call to Sislymama’s mother.

“You should come more often.”

Rajanchyan’s lips thinned for an instant and then curved into a smile on one side. He nodded and looked at his four children – all of whom looked uncertain, their glances darting from their grandfather, grandmother and father. The summer holidays every year were no fun and usually Sislymama came exactly a month after they turned up here to take them to her parents’ home.

Pilipochyan broke the silence by asking Rajanchyan about politics in the national capital. To their credit, my uncle and aunt had done extremely well for themselves, with Sislymama becoming a senior bureaucrat and Rajanchyan moving up the ranks in an MNC bank. The once shy and diffident Sislymama had become a star.

When we visited them in Delhi there were a couple of live-in servants, which Amma said was the norm in the North. But Sislymama’s home was run smoothly and her kids didn’t have to do any menial jobs. So the washing and cleaning routines here must have come as a shock to my cousins. Still every year, like clock work, they stayed for a month.

A skinny elbow jabbed my side. Rita dropped an egg and curry in my plate. Today’s meal was special – appams, egg stew and chicken stew – we were spoiled for choice. For sure, both dishes were one or the other of her children’s favourites and probably Appachan’s.

Rita’s breath feathered my jaw, “We’ll make that call this afternoon. I’ve got the code (FC89).”

I felt joy – I could use the code to call Anjali in Bombay. I had written her a couple of letters during my vacation and her holiday seemed better than mine so far.

I was curious. “Didn’t your dad ask you why you needed it?”

“Roma had the code. She wants to listen to the call.”

My mouth hung open and after a while Rita pushed my hand holding a bit of egg white into my chin and I closed my mouth feeling ill. Idiot cousins. Idiots all! This entire phone business was a mess. I couldn’t look at Roma, whose smug smile I felt rather than saw. Idiots, idiots, idiots! Rather I was the big idiot. How could I ever think Rita was capable of secrecy. Her older sister was the biggest revealer of secrets I knew, which is why Anjali and I chose what we would share with Roma – something she was aware of and raged at frequently, often resulting in long silences between us. Listening to the call was probably Roma’s idea of one-upmanship.

“Why didn’t you ask your dad? Now nothing will stay a secret!”

“Daddy said no. He said Appachan would get irritated if we kids began using the phone.”

“How come Roma has the code?”

“I don’t know. But she said she knows it.”

“How did she know you wanted it.”

“She…”

“QUIET!” Appachan roared at us from the head of the table. Bobby dropped the ladle into the chicken curry in fright, a large drop splashing onto Appachan’s white banian (sleeveless vest). The room fell silent. Appachan stared at the widening brown patch stunned, then his head shot up, his eyes darting around the room in rage and the entire room held its breath. Only Pilipochyan’s eyes gleamed as he waited to see what my grandfather would do next. But my quick-thinking aunt Elsamama, Rita’s mother, nervously held out a damp towel and after blinking several times Appachan unbent and nodded. She quickly rubbed the spot, and then her sisters-in-law pushed her out of the way and tended to their father.

I glanced at my mother – her nostrils were flared and her cheeks slightly pink and lips clenched. A second later her features eased and there was a bland expression on her face – Amma seemed to be enjoying the whole session. She turned her face and our eyes met, and an eyelid closed in the quickest fraction of a second ever and she leaned to drop an appam in one of the children’s plate.

It was hard to imagine Amma either making fun of or deriving pleasure out of someone’s discomfort, but I got the feeling that this vacation had tried her patience. Unusually my parents had had a few arguments, mostly because of me and how I was being treated. I dreaded the strife between my parents and had started trying to be a model child.

Even though I tried hard, some things were beyond my control.

I returned my concentration to my egg and appams, wondering how to shake off Roma. Maybe I’d have to loosen my purse strings after all. I had to protect Sarah chechi’s privacy at all costs... and thwart Roma.

I felt another poke in my side and continued eating.

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I waited at the guava tree for Rita. But why did I need her at all. I had the money and Johnny’s phone number, and I was most comfortable talking to him and Rita would only go back and tell Roma and worsen matters.

I heard the front door open and heavy footsteps pressed into the gravel. The steps were coming my way quickly and I backed away from the guava tree. It was sometimes a smoking point for some of the men, who didn’t want to smoke in front of Appachan or their fathers.

Only these men were not here to smoke.

From the back of the shed I could see my eldest uncles Georgiechyan and Rajanchyan standing near the tree. Rajanchyan looked around, his gaze settling on Sarayumama’s window.

He pulled his brother further along, closer to where I stood, and I pushed backwards into the damp wall behind me in fright, wondering if they would come behind the shed. They wedged themselves between the shed’s side and the courtyard wall, near the side gate, and stopped moving.

“So what did you want to tell me in such great secrecy?” Georgiechyan joked. “Are we going to see you here only when you want to share something?”

“You know how it is Georgie. Amma makes it very difficult for Sisly, and the kids are very unhappy when they stay here. But I want them to get to know Appa and Amma, and their cousins, and to have some good memories.”

“I’ve been trying, you know. I’ve talked to Appachan, Ammachi and the others about involving the kids more. Sarayu has been difficult but the rest have been making an effort. We all want to be close to the children, they are ours after all.”

I imagined Rajanchyan’s head nodding in a measured way. He was a thoughtful man, who chose to speak less and observe more. But he was talkative to those he was close to, like my father and Georgiechyan, but not so much to Joychyan and his sisters.

“So what did you want to tell me, Rajan?”

“It is not good news.”

“Ok-ay.”

“It is about Rebecca.”

There was silence.

“Do you want to hear?” Rajanchyan said.

The silence stretched unbearably and I wondered if they were still there. I was making a move towards where they stood, when Georgiechyan grunted. “Well?"

“Rebecca got married in the US.” I pressed my hand on my mouth to stifle the shock.

“What?”

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible.” Georgiechyan spluttered. Rajanchyan stayed silent. I tried to slow my breathing. “Come on… what nonsense!”

“I heard this from a trusted person.”

“What are you saying! How is it possible. She can’t get married before Sarah. And if she wanted to marry someone, we would have considered it.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“YES, I WOULD HAVE!”

“Shhh, Georgie, shh!”  There were sounds of jostling. Then there was silence and only of heavy breathing.

“Are you done?” Georgiechyan said coldly.

“No.”

“What do you mean? How much worse can it be?”

“Johnny’s side cancelled the engagement because they got to know.”

Georgiechyan snarled incoherently and there was a scuffling noise and feet dragging in the mud and finally Rajanchyan said angrily, “If you want to find out the hard way, I will stop now. You can find out on your own and it will be worse to hear it from someone else!”

“Who is this person spreading rumours about us!”

“Georgie, I’m not going to tell you who, but it is someone we know well and has our interests at heart. Plus I checked. I couldn’t believe what I heard either. So I called Rebecca to ask.”

“How dare you talk to her before I do!”

“You would have called her and shouted at her. She needs to know that we are on her side or you will lose all connection with her.”

From the distance, I could hear Rita calling out to me and the sound of faint footsteps nearing the guava tree. It stopped.

“She’s not here, mol,” Rajanchyan said, a smile sounding in his voice.

“Okay, Rajan ooppapa*.” The footsteps moved away.

“I want to know who told you,” Georgiechyan said angrily when Rita’s footsteps receded.

“And then what? Is it going to sort out things?”

“But what couldn’t Rebecca have told us?” Georgiechyan’s voice turned shrill, “Has she married a black man? A hindu? A muslim?” Not sharing any of this with a prospective suitor’s family was grounds for Sarah’s engagement to break.

“She’s married Roy# (FC86).”

I let out a gasp. Suddenly there were footsteps rushing towards me, and I started squeezing through the gap between the walls of the shed and courtyard and running as fast as I could towards the kitchen. I heard a shout behind me and tried to run faster. I turned the corner and rammed into Rita and we both fell. I rolled off her, pulled up my stunned cousin and made her run with me towards the front of the house. She started to cry, but I dragged her along until we made our way into the house through the front door, and stepped into the store room and closed the door gently.

“I’m so sorry, Rita, where does it hurt,” I whispered into her ear.

“SSSs-ok” she said, her sobs subsiding. I rubbed her legs, arms and back in the dim light, trying to imagine where she was hurting the most. Finally, I just held her close and stood still. When I heard the front door open, I moved into the darkest corner, clasping Rita, and we held our breaths. One set of footsteps stopped in the living room and the other went down the corridor. It hurried back in a few seconds and both sets of feet went out, closing the front door loudly.

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* Ooppapan is father’s brother in Malayalam.

# Roy is Kunjappachan’s grandson

                                                                ******

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 decide to call Johnny and confront him about breaking his engagement with Sarah. An uncle visits, but has some disturbing news.

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, 91, 92, 93, 94

#roy #rajan #uncle #beloveduncle #engagement #brokenengagement #siblings #middlechild #marriage #love #youngadultfiction #dowry #bluechina #crockery #keralachristians #syrianchristians #malayali #malayalichristians #kerala #bombaymalayalis #family #familydrama #john #sarah #rebecca #lovemarriage #blackman #hindu #muslim #johnnyandsarah #rebeccaandroy #familyvacation #fishychronicles #youngadult #keralafamily #Bombay #Mumbai #phone #phonecode #rumour #unitedstates #fiction #payasam #vacation #anniversary #weddinganniversary #cauldron #cousins #grandchildren #grandparents

 

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

#Ammachi #Appachan #money #tithe #kerala #keralafiction #bombaymalayalis #bombay #TV #marriage #elope #love #PhD #chemistry #timezone #gyaan #grandchildren #professor #bangalore #fiction #telephone #phonecode #code #brokenengagements #intimacy #brokenengagement #ambition #extracurricularactivities #malayalam #syrianchristians #punch #gift #tablecloth #embroideredtablecloth #US #unitedstates #college #education #wrongnumber #womb #egg #wallet #percentage  #% #earnings #coinpurse #telegram #matriach #patriarch #grandchildren #grandparents #family #career #job #rupee #paise #tone #rules #inquisition #navel #rules #logic #cunning #expensiveairplanetickets #airplane #airplanetickets #ancestralhome #rebellion #actofrebellion #sarahandrebecca #sarah  #rebecca #sisly #sislyandrajan #gettogethers #affection #peckingorder #junction 

Fishy Chronicles 88: The Webs We Weave (20) – Hunt for a phone number

Photo credit: A. Peter

How hard could it be to get a phone number?

After our sugiyan-eating-crimewatching-spree the previous night, we spent the next day plotting how to get Johnny's phone number. First, we went over everything we planned to say to him, practiced and changed dialogue and went over and over and over it.

When we did decide to look for Johnny's phone number, it seemed even harder than plotting our still unfinessed conversation with him.

First, we cased the George family's room, I from my bedroom’s doorway, and Rita from outside the house. For some reason, Sarah and her mother wouldn't get out of the room. Frustrated and finally discovered by Ammachi, I was made to scrape a couple of coconuts on the quick – while Rita continued to watch the Georges from the backyard.

She returned nearer lunch, a shade darker than before her surveillance activities, looking dejected, with a strong odour of sweat emanating. She used the small once-white dish cloth, tucked into the handle of the fridge, to wipe her neck and face, while I looked on in disbelief… and disgust. I was going to have to remind myself never to touch them or wipe my plate with any of the dishtowels. 

She took out a bottle of cold water from the fridge and put it to her mouth. From nowhere, Ammachi appeared, launching into an angry lecture.

When Ammachi advanced menacingly with a raised ladle, Rita screwed the cap back on the bottle, skipped into the study, and threw her arms around our surprised grandfather’s neck. His smile twisted into shock momentarily as her body odour hit his senses.

His face righted instantly, his arm coming around her shoulder and she sat on his lap. Ammachi watched from the doorway, her lips tightly squeezed over each other, and then marched back to the kitchen. After a while, Rita got off Appachan’s lap, opened all the drawers of his table, which were now unlocked, and picked up a ten rupee note and waved it into his face excitedly. Appachan laughed at something she said and waved his hand at her. She kissed his cheek, and skipped back towards me. She grabbed my arm and we disappeared out of the house.

I took the note from her and examined it. This was a so-so sum – it could get us a packet of chips, a bar of Amul chocolate or a smaller bar of Cadbury chocolate. Alternatively, we could get two veg puffs, but who wanted to eat veg puffs. We could split one meat puff instead. In the middle of my thoughts Rita plucked the note out of my hand, folded it into a thin length and put it into her pocket. She put her arm in mine and we stood under my guava tree.

I felt deflated – my cousin was not going to share. I was surprised Appachan gave in so easily and handed over a higher low-denomination note. I swallowed the saliva that had gathered in my mouth in anticipation of a meat puff.

One more time.

“Er, maybe we can get a meat puff with that.”

Rita’s thin shoulders lifted and sagged, and she clicked her tongue to signal a negative.

“What are you going to do with the money?”

“Hmmm… I’m going to put it in my piggy bank.”

“The church box one?”

Children sometimes got a coin box in our church. Our church in Mumbai gave out wooden ones, with a small inscription indicating the purpose of the boxes. But our village church in Kerala gave out nice tin boxes with either Jesus staring into the heavens or St George spearing a dragon or Mother Mary holding baby Jesus painted on them in vivid blues and reds. At some point Roma and I realised the key to the hatch at the bottom of the conical tin box would stay with our parents and the money was meant to be handed to the church, eventually finding its way to the poor. Then we began to drop only low-denomination coins into the tins and hid the cash. Of course, we never spoke about it – we were acting sinfully. Our thoughts about money showed greed. Clandestine greedy thoughts were still a sin. Cash was meant for other things – sinfully ‘good’ things. One needed to be adroit in managing sin and ourselves.

Rita shook her head.

“Then what?”

“I want to buy some hair bands.”

My eyes roamed over her sparse head. We girls had to keep our hair long. It was a family thing. Something about femininity and knowing our place etc, etc, etc. Despite begging her parents for a boycut, like her best friend’s, Rita was not allowed one. A month ago, while visiting her mother’s brother’s family – recently visiting from the US – Rita had found her uncle’s shaver. After watching him use it for a while, she used it on herself.

She sobbed at the inroads she had made on her head and a local barber was called in to rectify the hairy issue. As Roma told me, it was extremely funny and the family had had a hard time keeping straight faces. While she didn’t quite get the chic pixie haircut she wanted, the sailor’s crew cut was now growing out charmingly.

“You don’t have long hair,” I said, trying to be patient.

“Yes, but it will grow soon.”

“Are you sure?”

Rita looked alarmed. “Yes!”

“What if you want to keep it short again?”

“No. Want it long,” she said, her outer lip jutting and a fierce look creeping into her face. I was suddenly nervous of her.

“How are we going to get Johnnycha’s phone number? I don’t think we can enter Georgiechyan’s room – where would we look?” I gave up hopes of eating 10 rupees worth of anything.

“Maybe Appachan has the number in his phone book. I can check later, when no one is looking.”

***

It was while Rita and I were standing near the tall long-suffering mango tree, that we spotted the Mathan sisters – Eenya and Tara. “Let’s see if we can get it from Thomachan,” I said.

Rita frowned. She didn’t like Thomachan – he was an oily character and it was surprising he was friends with Johnny. But I knew they weren’t as thick as Rasool and Johnny. For sure Rasool would have Johnny’s phone number, but where did he live?

“Let’s go to Thomachan’s house and see if he’s got a phone book,” I said.

“What if we get caught?”

“We’ll have to take that risk.”

“He doesn’t like people entering his room,” Rita said.

“We don’t have a choice. Maybe we could ask him for Rasool’s number.” Even as I said it, I knew such a request would send a shock wave around the family – Thomachan’s and ours –why was I asking for an older man’s phone number, someone no one quite knew except for the fact that Johhny was great friends with him. The few times I had met Johnny, Rasool had been around – either buying cigarettes, reading a newspaper or sitting some way off and watching us with narrowed eyes and no expression.

I shivered. I didn’t have a good feeling about all this. What was I doing getting into more mischief. I had to accept that Sarah and Johnny were not going to get together. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“Okay.”

I looked at Rita in surprise. I hadn’t expected it. “You’re okay with it?”

“No. But if you want to give up, it is fine. I’ll get his number.”

“H-how?”

Her shoulders moved up a fraction and she turned towards the mango tree. “Can you get that one?” She pointed at a ripe mango, that couldn’t be reached with the pole.

I sighed and looked around. Many people didn’t know about my new slingshot (FC75, FC72, FC73). Every time I used it I had an illicit feeling, a high, like I was using contraband. My eyes focused on the windows along the side of the house facing us. Sarayumama and Mathanchyan were watching us from their window. I waved to them and they turned around and disappeared. I waited a while to see if they would return. Then I looked at our neighbours’ houses. It took several tries to bring down the mango with the slighshot – bruised, with some pulp hanging out. Sweet success.

I had a thought. “Do you know who moved my old slingshot to Sarayumama’s room (FC73)?” Rita hesitated. “You know?!” 

“Er, no. No, I don’t.”

“You’re lying!”

“No. No. I don’t know!”

I stared at Rita in disbelief. All this time she knew, but now she wasn’t going to tell. What was going on? “How would you know? You were with me the whole time that day.”

A shrug and bland expression. I grabbed her. “Tell me!”

“I don’t know!” She pinched my upper arm viciously and I let her go. She began running to the house, and I watched feeling confused. And I wondered whether she was still interested in getting Johnychyan’s number.

***

I needn’t have worried.

While everyone was having their afternoon siesta, I saw Miss Pincher rummaging through Appachan’s address book on his desk – a fat book that Appachan sometimes forgot to lock up. She saw me watching from across the dining room and shook her head.

I pointed at my chest with my thumb and my head with my forefinger and mouthed ‘I have a plan’. I was not sure what, but it would come to me.

Rita had located Johnny’s parents’ home number, but Johnny’s wasn’t there. “How can we ask his parents for Johnnycha’s number? They’ll want to know who we are and why we want it,” Rita voiced my concern.

When we were sure no one was watching, we left the house. First we went over to Kunjappachan’s house. We decided that asking our great uncle for the phone number might be easier than asking our grandfather. But when we entered the house, the side door was always unlocked for relatives, friends or workers, we found Kunjappachan snoring on his bed. We looked at his table, but lost our nerve. Unlike our grandfather’s table, this was piled high with newspapers, magazines, papers, official looking papers in Malayalam, files, etc. There was even a bowl of something edible resting precariously on one corner of the table, and ants climbing the sides of the table to reach it. My great aunt was fast asleep on a settee in the sitting room, all the curtains drawn.

We left Kunjappachan’s house without rifling through anything. In hindsight, he would have asked us a lot of questions.

We crossed the road and went to Thomachan’s house. A quick look through his window indicated my cousin was asleep. We scanned his room but saw nothing that resembled a phone book.

“What if he hasn’t written it down anywhere?” Rita said. We hadn’t ever had the need to be in Thomachan’s room. It looked dirty, and his table rivalled Kunjappachyan’s. Fat books pinned down loose long note paper. A brown banana peel rotted away on the edge of the plastic dust bin – not quite in or out. “Maybe he remembers the phone number and doesn’t need to write it down,” Rita whispered hoarsely in my ear. I shivered. That whisper tickled.

“Don’t think so. He’s failing in college.”

“Whattt? Who told you?”

“I heard Eapachyan tell Roychyan.” Eapachyan was Thomachan’s father and my father’s first cousin and Roy was Kunjappachan’s brilliant grandson. “He wanted Roychyan to give Thomachan a pep talk on studying harder.”

“B-But Thomachan is studying engineering!”

“I know.” To get into an engineering course one had to be good in maths and science and thus had to have a brain. Thomachan had also got into a good college. My grandmother suspected college girls were ruining Thomachan’s concentration. Of course, I didn’t tell Rita that. The only person ruining Thomachan was Thomachan.

The longer we kept our faces pressed into the bars of the window, watching Thomachan scratch his crotch, cough and roll around his bed, the more it dawned on us how futile it was to get Johnny’s phone number. He was out of bounds to us – out of bounds to Sarah – the family didn’t want anything to do with him, they had stopped talking about his family altogether, and here we two girls were trying to keep a wound open. We weren’t letting Sarah heal.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Rita said.

“I don’t either.”

We jumped off the ledge and walked slowly towards our house. At the gate, we hesitated. The sun seemed to be in a hurry to leave and it was cool, the sounds of silence enticing. Rita said it first. “We don’t need to go home… no one will notice.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Let’s go to the junction.”

“Okay.”

We moved to the opposite side of the road so that our cousins would not see us. We had second, third and fourth cousins living in the houses dotting both sides of the road to the junction about a kilometre away. Most were likely to be asleep now, but there was always the stray relative who liked the afternoon quiet as much as we did. Rita and I enjoyed the sight of the river gushing under the bridge, slowly letting our spit fall into the spray below us. We walked towards the junction, but everything was closed, including the bakery shop. I glanced at Rita and felt glad. She was looking at the closed shutters glumly. 

We walked past shuttered shops, only the medical store was open, which we ran past because an uncle ran the place. But then we spotted Rasool’s Padmini Premier parked on the road further along the road. He was wiping the windshield.

Rita started running towards him. “Achacha, can I have Johnnychyan’s phone number?” Rita poked Rasool in the midriff, causing the cigarette in his mouth to fall. Rita picked it up and held it up to him. He reached for it and wiped the butt against his white shirt, all the while looking at us speculatively.

“Why?”

“I want to talk to him.”

“About what?”

“Er, about stuff.”

“He may not want to talk to you.”

That stumped us. Why had we assumed Rasool would give us Johnny’s phone number or that Johnny would want to talk to us.

“He told you that?” Rita’s voice squeaked.

“Eh…”

Rita’s back straightened and she gave Rasool the coldest look I have ever seen her give anyone. She wasn’t a bit intimidated by Rasool, who was a beefy six-footer. Rasool’s jaw slackened and he moved back slightly.

“Did he tell you he didn’t want to speak to me?” Rita repeated.

“No. No. Er. Who are you?”

“I want his number.”

Rasool’s jaw clenched. He took a deep puff of his cigarette, threw it and crushed it into the ground, both Rita and he eye duelling.

“You have a pen?”

“No.”

He located a piece of paper and a pen in the glove compartment of his car and wrote down a number. “There are only seven numbers here. Bombay phone numbers have eight numbers.” Rita waved the piece of paper at his chest. Rasool took it and scanned the numbers. He leaned the paper against the car’s window, struck out the old number and wrote it afresh. He was trying hard not to laugh, which was easy to hide considering his enormous moustache.

Rita grabbed the paper, counted the numbers one more time, her eyes moving from the first set of numbers to the next.

“Thank you, Uncle,” Rita smiled sweetly, though Rasool’s smile suddenly died for some reason. Rita tugged my skirt and turned. We ran all the way back, just in time for tea, getting in through the back.

***

When I went to the sitting room at 12.50am, Rita was already there, happily waving a packet of chips.

“How did you get this?”

“The 10 rupees Appachan gave me.”

“You mean the 10 rupees you took.”

She shrugged. “Do you want some?”

“Let’s wait till the serial starts.”

A door opened. “Hide behind that curtain. Quick! Quiiiickkk!” I lunged at the TV, switched it off and ran to the curtain nearest the door. I held my breath. I could feel Rita panting beside me. I bent towards her ear, “Shhhh.” She put her hand on her mouth and held her breath.

Through the curtain we saw a light growing brighter. It flashed around the sitting room and then disappeared. I counted to five and then tiptoed to the corridor, and saw the light disappear into Sarayumama’s room. Damn. Was Mobby lurking again? I went into the storeroom and stood near Sonimol chechi’s room. Not a noise. There was no light coming through the cracks in the wooden door.

I went back to find Rita. The phone started to ring. I shushed it involuntarily and then picked it up to silence it.

I held it to my ear nervously, not speaking. Rita got out from behind the curtain and stood next to me, listening.

We held our breath and waited for what seemed an eternity. Finally, the person on the other side said, “How are you?”

****** 

This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related
to a family vacation gone wrong in Kerala. 

In this episode Rita and the narrator look for a way to contact Johnny, Sarah's fiancé, to ask him why he's decided to end his engagement to their cousin. But getting his phone number isn't as easy as the girls think.    

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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