The Toss of a Lemon

23. No Harm Done 1923-1926

IN 1923, ANOTHER GIRL IS BORN TO THANGAM. She is named Sita, at Sivakami’s request, for Rama’s wife-that most virtuous of women, who, in Sivakami’s opinion, is as much the guardian of their home as her husband. Sivakami admits Sita would be nothing without her husband, but Sivakami’s greatest challenge now is to protect the virtue and reputation of her granddaughters. In this, the goddess alone can guide her.

At her daughter Sita’s birth, Thangam’s second daughter, Visalam, comes to stay with Sivakami. The first one, Saradha, incorporates her younger sister into her schedule. She appears equally pleased with the company and with having someone to boss, demonstrating an officious side that she has not previously had the chance to express.

In this time, Vairum finishes college with high honours. He takes a job in Thiruchi as an accounting supervisor in a paper plant but decides, when Vani comes of age, to quit and live with her in Cholapatti. Sivakami is distressed: she had sent him to school and college precisely so that he would be more than a village Brahmin. Vairum brusquely assures her that his plans encompass much more than she could understand.

“It has been an informative year, Amma, but I’m destined to be more than a wage slave.”

Sivakami has no idea what this means. She asks Muchami, “Where is the slavery in a dependable salary?”

Muchami has no idea either, but Vairum will listen to nothing more from her, so she waits and observes.

The biggest change in the household, though, owes to Vani’s arrival. Her music practice transforms their home. She plays for several hours each morning and afternoon, and sometimes deep into the night. When the moon is full, she rises before the sun, fresh and energetic. If the moon is dark, she drags herself sleepily downstairs after the sun has fully risen. In either case, she bathes immediately, does a brief puja to her veena, and does namaskaram for Sivakami. Sivakami was very pleased to see that a girl raised in so modern a household would perform a daily prostration for her mother-in-law. Perhaps Vani understands that almost no other mother-in-law would be so indulgent: Sivakami expects nothing from her in the way of household assistance. For her part, Vani seems to thrive in the piety and order of the house her mother-in-law runs, and shows her respect and affection, albeit in her own, oddly detached way.

Pervasive as Thangam’s dust, Vani’s music is everywhere there is air, in the house and spilling out onto the street: between two people in a conversation, in all the cooking pots, travelling in through nostrils and out in snores. Sivakami has become accustomed to it, and now, when Vani is not playing, there is silence in all those places where before there was nothing.

One morning, Muchami finishes his milking just as Vani starts her playing, and stands in the courtyard shifting from foot to foot as Sivakami mixes yogourt rice for the little girls’ breakfast. They attend the village school together and need a substantial meal before they go, though the rest of the household adheres to traditional timings: rice meals at 10:30 and 8:00, tiffin at 3:00.

Sivakami takes the milk, the third pot he has given her, and starts skimming it. “Do you need a cup of kanji or milk before you go?”

“Oh, no. Well, all right, yes, but… I need to talk to you.” He squats against a post.

“What is it? Kanji or milk?”

“A mix?

She puts sugar in a cup, pours him some of the water strained from cooked rice, adds milk from the pot already boiling on the stove and puts the third pot on to boil. The second is cooling and almost ready for her to add the yogourt culture.

“Well?”

“It’s good news,” he says, pouring his drink from tumbler to bowl, either to mix in the sugar and cool the milk, or to avoid Sivakami’s eye. “The son-in-law’s next posting will be in Kulithalai. He arrived yesterday to inspect the quarters and meet with his supervisor. I saw him last night in the bazaar.”

“They’re coming here?”

“It seems so.”

Sivakami is not sure what to feel. “That’s wonderful,” she says. Why had Thangam not written to let her know? “Isn’t it?”

“Yes. Certainly. Wonderful,” Muchami echoes.

Despite her gladness at the news, Sivakami feels annoyance with Thangam for the first time she can remember. Wasn’t she raised to have better manners than this?

“I wonder how much he tells Thangam about where they are moving to, each time,” Muchami says.

“You knew what I was thinking.”

“I suspect she doesn’t get much warning or information.”

“You’re probably right.”

“And we can’t count on him to let us know.”

“No,” she agrees.

“You have her most recent address, right? I was thinking. Could you spare me for a week or two? Vairum is more than capable of handling the tenants now, and I could get a couple of my nephews to cover the milking, driving, whatever, heavy chores. I’d like you to write to Thangam-kutti and ask if she needs help with moving here. The baby is only one, and the boy is rowdy, I’m sure, a boy.”

Sivakami feels moved at his use of the diminutive in reference to Thangam-Muchami doesn’t have children of his own. He should, she thinks with sudden fervour.

“Yes, yes. You must go. I won’t ask, I will tell her you are coming. Good?”

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN INEVITABLE that Goli would eventually get a posting in Kulithalai; Sivakami has no way of telling what the likelihood was. Thangam and Goli, put up so nearby, with the youngest grandchildren! For two years. And with Vairum and Vani home-what a luxury, in these modern times, to have her family gathered about her. These years will be happy ones. Who knows: they might even see another grandchild born to this household, a son of her son.

Goli eventually manages to visit his mother-in-law and drink a cup of coffee, at which time Sivakami lets him know that they will have Muchami’s assistance with the move. Goli receives the news as though it is a confirmation of something they had already arranged.

Now Muchami brings Thangam and the babies from the train station to Sivakami’s house. Thangam greets her mother, as well as Vairum and Vani and her elder daughters, who act shy for a moment then grab their little brother by his hands and drag him into the courtyard, promising to show him a couple of crickets they have trapped with Muchami’s help. Thangam looks wan and worn, and Vairum asks his mother for a glass of water as he tells Thangam to sit.

“I hope the journey was not too taxing, Akka,” he says, and takes the water from Sivakami to give to Thangam himself.

“No, no,” his sister assures him, drinking the water and smiling as though to show she’s drinking only because he told her to.

He has been squatting and looking at her. Rising, he says, “I’ll go with Muchami to unload your things. Where’s your husband? Leaving his work to others as always?” He exits the front door.

The littlest girl, Sita, lying in her lap, yanks violently on her mother’s thirumangalyam. It has to hurt, but Thangam, mortified, sits as though frozen, the water a lump in her throat.

Vairum and Muchami ride in silence on the front seat of the cart, while Mari and one of Muchami’s nephews ride in back with the trunks. During Vairum’s years at college, his relationship with Muchami has changed in ways now cemented by his return. As a child, he took Muchami almost as much for granted as he would a parent, and Muchami filled a number of parental functions, including those of play-mate, protector and-when Vairum acquired some responsibilities for the family lands-educator. With the latter shift, Vairum began to act wary around the servant: he needed Muchami, but he, after all, was the owner of the lands they were discussing. Still, it was evident to Muchami (who never made this explicit) what Vairum knew and what he didn’t.

Since his return from Thiruchi, Vairum has set the tone clearly: he is the employer, Muchami answers to him, not his mother, and acts on his behalf, not hers. Vairum asks questions; Muchami answers them. He is to bring information to Vairum first.

Now he gives Muchami his orders. “Keep a close watch on my brother-in-law.”

Muchami wags his head sagely, his eyes on the bullock’s back.

“No one else is going to tell me what all he’s up to. I know he’s going to get into trouble and I want to know exactly how, when and what kind, preferably before he’s in too deep.”

Muchami raises his eyebrows, impressed. He has eavesdropped on conversations between college-educated men: they often seem incapable of learning anything except from books. Vairum, by contrast, may turn out to be a man he can respect. Muchami is comfortable with their dynamic, as it has settled out: though he never would have predicted it exactly, it feels natural and right. Even Sivakami appears to agree: she has taken care of these lands for her son, but they never belonged to her. She has to be glad that Vairum is willing to accept responsibility for what is his.

Muchami doesn’t even feel his relationship with Sivakami has much changed as a result: he still reports to her in matters of concern to family life, provided they aren’t of the sort he simply looks after on his own. In such matters-none have arisen in the months since Vairum’s return, but surely they will-he still might trust his own judgment above Vairum’s. Vairum is, after all, a young man, hot-headed and condemnatory, without, perhaps, the necessary subtlety and feeling for tradition that Muchami and Sivakami share.

As Thangam and Goli get settled in the government housing complex at Kulithalai, Muchami makes a point of dropping in daily. He almost always finds Thangam on the veranda, alone with the children, and offers to bring her back to her mother’s for a visit and a meal. She always accepts, and he returns her at dusk to a dark and empty house. Sivakami sends food back with her, which she always accepts, looking as vacant as her house does even months after they have moved in.

She has been shedding gold since her arrival, and people from Kulithalai and even from Cholapatti have taken to passing by their veranda with little squares of paper into which they scoop or brush these holiest of ashes, as Thangam sits there, alone or with the children. Sivakami had wondered if Thangam might ask to have the older girls come and live with her, or if they might ask, now that their parents are so close. But the girls take for granted that their home is with their grandmother, and Thangam and Goli don’t press for any changes to their arrangement.

She certainly didn’t feel as though Thangam could have handled having any more children at home with her. She has had few such chances to observe Thangam at length since she left to live with her husband, apart from times immediately before or after childbirth, when it’s not too surprising that a woman might be listless. Sivakami herself never was, but she knows such behaviour is not entirely abnormal. She does feel there is something not quite natural in the way Thangam relates to her children, though. Where is the adoration she herself felt? She remembers surprise at her abject fascination: is this how it was for her mother? Her mother said it was for the first two kids; with the third and fourth, she had less time to think about it. Maybe Thangam is overwhelmed by numbers: when her children crowd around her, competing for her attention, she gives it politely, but with a slight hesitation. Sivakami would even think distaste if that weren’t such a horrible notion. Thangam seems slightly afraid of her children, and far from enthralled.

They are all very good-looking children: fair, some with their father’s high, square forehead, some with Thangam’s shapely nose. Sivakami herself would have been proud to have borne them. I thought my fate was to have a small family, but I have a large one after all. Now all that remains is for Vairum to complete it, with children of his own.

GOLI’S PRIMARY ACTIVITY ON ARRIVAL appears to be that of using his position as a revenue inspector, which gives him access to the exact income levels and amenability to corruption of all of Kulithalai’s prominent citizens, as a springboard for his business schemes. For the first few months, he attempts to revive his proposal for a cigar and cigarette plant, and nearly succeeds, but one important backer with political ambitions withdraws late, and the idea falls through. Goli’s spirits are briefly dampened, but he rebounds with an imagined line of bottled cream sodas in innovative flavours. He convinces the would-be politician to invest-“No political liability in soda!”-and pays a dissolute young Britisher for market research and suggestions. The consultant advises Goli that for bestselling “Top Flavours!” drinks (a name Goli paid him a handsome bonus to invent), he can’t fail with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Goli pays another huge sum to have essences imported from Italy and tries them, at an exclusive event, on half a dozen interested parties, all of whom concur that these exotic tastes are, if not repulsive, not exactly sure bets. No wonder newly arrived Britishers never like our food, if this is the kind of thing their tongues are trained on! They always come around, though, with time. A few of the men say they might consider going in on a line of coconut, mango and lime-flavoured drinks, but isn’t the market saturated?

“No one wants to turn him down flat,” Muchami reports to Vairum as they walk the fields together one morning, “because he’s the revenue inspector. It doesn’t do to get him mad: he might tax them at full percentages. Apart from which, there’s something about him people like. Even when they don’t give him money-and it’s amazing how often they do-they want to stay friends with him.”

Vairum listens in silence. Nearly every meeting he has had with Goli (always accidental, never planned) has ended in a row. These have been quick but unmistakable, and usually concerned Goli’s not living up to his responsibilities. There is something about the very sight of his brother-in-law that is, to Vairum, like a torch held to his tail.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t asked you to go in with him on something,” Muchami remarks to him, a surprisingly personal incursion.

“He has no access to my finances,” Vairum responds curtly, poking a fallen bunch of banana leaves out of a canal. “I told his supervisor right away that he cannot be impartial with me, and that I will show my books only to the higher-up. My brother-in-law has no idea what I might have to give, not that he would get a paisa out of me.”

Muchami nods and they walk on.

One day, when Muchami pays his call to Thangam, he finds Goli at home. This has happened only once before: it was a Sunday, Goli had just finished his mid-morning meal and went to take a nap, so Thangam clambered onto the cart with the children, as usual.

Today, however, is a Wednesday, and Muchami dares not ask why Goli is neither at the office nor out on calls.

“What do you want?” Goli asks him, from the door. Baby Sita, learning to walk, clings to her father’s legs, the only one of the children Muchami has seen take such a liberty with their father.

Muchami has removed his shoulder towel to bare his chest, as is proper for men of lower castes with Brahmins, and holds it at his waist as he speaks. “I was out on business and wondered if Thangam Amma would like to come to visit her mother.” He has never used the honorific for Thangam, who is more like a daughter than a mistress to him, but it would feel equally strange not to use it with Goli, and risk offending him.

“She’s there all the time,” Goli says. “She’s going to be staying home a little more from now on.”

Muchami is not sure how Goli knows Thangam’s whereabouts, since he is never at home when she leaves and returns. It’s hard to imagine him asking about her day or her volunteering the information. But he respectfully takes his leave, and drives away. He returns at four-thirty that afternoon, in case Thangam is alone by then and wants to come home briefly, but she is not on the veranda. He comes every morning for the next week. The door is always shut, the veranda vacant.

Sivakami is worried; Vairum demands that Muchami tell him what is happening, but Muchami can give them nothing, other than saying that Goli bragged to his wealthier friends that he was about to embark on an unprecedented scheme: guaranteed success, no overhead. He was sorry they could have no part in it, but it might have spinoff ventures, he had mused; they would just have to wait and see.

The following Friday evening, nine days after Goli secluded his wife, Muchami hears a rumour in the bazaar that makes him go to Thangam and Goli’s house. It’s true: Goli is selling packets of Thangam’s dust in little printed paper packets. Muchami accosts one customer who has just left the line, having purchased three packets, and asks him to read what they say.

“‘Ash of Gold! Most powerful and holy cure from daughter of famous healer! Siddhic power alchemized with Brahmin wisdom! Use sparingly-only small amount needed.’”

Thangam is nowhere to be seen as Goli hawks the virtues of her dust from his veranda. “Once a week only, folks! Step up, step up! It’s exclusive, it’s rare, it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced.”

“We had heard of it,” says the man who so obligingly went over the packet’s text with Muchami. “Twice we came to Cholapatti to see if we could get some. But when we would come here sometimes, there were only traces on the veranda. We had to content ourselves with that. Now we will be first in line weekly, and buy also for our relatives!”

Muchami feels sick to his stomach during the whole journey to Sivakami’s but knows he has to tell Vairum, and immediately, not because Vairum would expect it, though he would, but for Thangam’s sake. Poor child, he repeats to himself with pity and dread as he nears Sivakami’s house. Poor child.

He would prefer to leave Sivakami entirely out of it but has to ask her to call Vairum, who is upstairs with Vani.

Out in the courtyard, Muchami tells Vairum in low tones what is happening. Sivakami stays in the kitchen, looking more frightened than curious.

Vairum explodes. “That no-good, exploitative lazy bum of a half-man…” and so on, exactly as Muchami predicted. The servant makes eye contact with Sivakami: she doesn’t need details; she knows who this is about. Within minutes, Muchami has hitched the cart again and he and Vairum depart.

They arrive along with a couple of hopeful customers, who clap at the still-open doorway and call out to Goli just as Muchami and Vairum dismount the cart. Goli comes to the entrance, looking tired and sounding cranky.

“Wish I could help you, folks, but supplies are limited. I ran out in ten minutes. Come back next…”

He trails off as Vairum bounds up the steps, making as if to close the door.

“Get in the house, you…” Vairum pushes his brother-in-law in the chest and into the gloom of the main hall.

Goli pushes Vairum back and the door shuts as he falls against it. Muchami decides against trying to listen and instead flicks his switch at the bullock’s rump, going to fetch a couple of Vairum’s friends, sons of a Kulithalai moneylender, who live just outside the government housing complex.

“You can get out of this house if you don’t know how to show respect,” Goli screams. “I have had more than enough of your-”

“Oh, it’s respect, is it?” As Vairum’s eyes adjust, he sees Thangam, the children huddled against her, sitting in a corner of the main hall as though trapped there by unseen forces. She doesn’t look up. “What kind of respect are you showing for my sister and our family by selling, you are selling her dust?”

Goli looks uncertain. “Thangam is part of my family now, and this is family business, Vairum. Butt out.”

“Let me tell you what happens now. One, you stop this venture. Two, you never try it again.” Vairum is a little surprised at the menace in his tone. He has never had to threaten someone and although he hopes he doesn’t have to again, it’s good to know he can.

“Oh, come, Vairum,” Goli wheedles. “Rumour has it you’re interested in business. Can you really see passing this up? You can have a part in it, as long as we can be clear on…”

“Don’t you ever dare suggest I would make money by using my sister…”

“All right-I’m through negotiating with you. Get out of my house.” Goli opens the door and sees Muchami standing at the bottom of the front steps with Vairum’s friends and several of their neighbours: strapping, athletic youth, their arms crossed as they wait. Vairum sees them, too.

“This is the final word: stop, ” he says, standing a little too close to Goli, who looks away. “I’ll see you at home tomorrow, Akka,” he says to Thangam. “Good night.”

Vairum joins his friends, who pat him on the shoulder as he hears the door slam behind him.

Muchami assures him, in the weeks following, that Goli has made no more mention of that scheme. Thangam resumes her daily visits with the children. When Muchami drops her at their house the Friday after the confrontation, a puzzled crowd of would-be customers is milling outside. They raise a happy buzz at Thangam’s appearance, but she smiles at them vaguely and goes inside. Muchami lingers for nearly two hours in the neighbourhood, but when dark begins to fall and Goli has not returned, he leaves, along with the remnants of the crowd, who have wiped up on their index fingers any traces of Thangam’s dust from the veranda.

Several more months pass before they hear again of Goli advertising one of his ideas. This time, he has persuaded a local importer to loan him one of two vitrines, where he has arranged a display of three stuffed deer’s heads, a blackbuck antelope in the centre, its ringed and undulating horns crossing the ramified tines of two barasinghas’ antlers. Before long, Vairum sees these heads appear above the doorways to the homes of a local lawyer and a prosperous compounder, as well as over the entryway to the import shop itself. Goli replaces them, adding an axis deer with magnificent horns. These, too, sell as soon as they arrive.

“He’s hit on a trend,” Vairum remarks, when Muchami tells him Goli has bragged he can’t keep up with demand. “Or created one.”

“Yes, if anyone can do that, he can. He says he mounted one of the heads above his own doorway, but was convinced to sell it, too!”

The next shipment comes in three weeks later, nine heads; the next, three weeks after, is twelve. Goli no longer bothers to display them in the import-shop window but just sells them out of his main hall. They never remain longer than a day, so his higher-ups do not appear to catch wind of it.

Thangam shows up for her visit to Sivakami’s one day in a rich-looking cotton-silk sari in coral, orange and pink. Her daughters finger it admiringly, and Sivakami asks, “New?”

Thangam nods, looking down and smiling. A couple of days later, wearing yet another new sari, she gives each of the little girls a small carved ivory box and presents Sivakami with a large, sandalwood representation of Rama for her puja corner.

“What is all this?” Sivakami asks.

“Gifts,” Thangam replies shyly. “From my husband.”

Sivakami is surprised, but when Gayatri comes for her daily coffee, she hears about the source of the riches.

“We finally came up on the waiting list for one of your son-in-law’s heads, Sivakamikka!” Gayatri sighs as she seats herself against a pillar in the main hall, smiling at Thangam, who smiles back before looking away and swallowing.

Sivakami is staring at Thangam’s sari, as opulent as the last one, if less gaudy, checked in three tones of violet. She can’t tell why it looks strange, apart from the fact that she has so rarely seen Thangam in new clothes since she left home, and suddenly realizes: the only gold she sees on the sari is in the jeri-work threads outlining the checks. Thangam’s shedding has significantly abated in the last month. That can only be good, she thinks, and then realizes what Gayatri has said.

“One of his heads?”

“We just had it mounted! A blackbuck, I guess it’s called.”

“I’m sorry.” She gives Gayatri her coffee, the tumbler inverted in the bowl. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Has no one told you about your son-in-law’s runaway success?” Gayatri asks.

Sivakami, feeling slightly humiliated, says nothing.

“Well, it’s very fashionable,” Gayatri tells her cautiously. “Deer heads, wall decorations.”

A Brahmin selling the heads of dead animals? Sivakami returns to the kitchen. It sounds barbaric, but she can’t very well say that to Gayatri if she and her husband bought one.

“My parents have, you know, just the horns,” Gayatri goes on, chattering a little to cover Sivakami’s obvious silence, “but Goli says this is a new thing, with this advanced science, taxi-something.”

Sivakami smiles at her and helps her to change the subject.

“All the best homes have to have them,” Muchami tells Vairum. “He has taken advance orders from some thirty more people. I think his supply has maybe slowed a little, though: he has said for the last few weeks that he’ll be getting more in, but they haven’t shown up yet.”

They are in the bullock cart, returning from looking at a rice mill that Vairum is considering buying, on the far side of Kulithalai.

“What do people love so much about them?” Vairum snorts, and Muchami shrugs, but then realizes Vairum was not asking him. “Fascinating thing, fashion. He sold so many so fast, and they have to be hunted, stuffed, sent. I’m not sure the trend will persist, but if it settles down and becomes a fixture, maybe someone should consider domesticating, starting a farm or something.”

“Now there’s an idea.” Muchami guides the bullock around a pothole.

“So what’s he doing with his winnings? Putting them into some other crazy scheme?”

“Um, no.” Muchami is quiet.

“What?” Vairum asks eventually.

Muchami would really rather not have to tell him, though there is no saying how Vairum will react. “He seems to be interested in acquiring… trophies, of a sort.” What Goli is doing is not technically wrong, but Muchami has a feeling that Vairum will not like it.

“What sort?”

If Muchami doesn’t tell him, someone else will. “He seems to have his eye on Chellamma. You know who she is?”

Vairum shakes his head.

Muchami keeps his eyes on the road. “Devadasi.”

A temple dancer-“servant of the gods”-a courtesan. Women of this caste are trained in the finer arts, given to a god in a ceremonial marriage but dependent on liaisons with wealthy men, preferably in an exclusive relationship. It’s a man of rare refinements who keeps a devadasi: he may father a line of dancers, a great contribution to the native arts.

“A devadasi?” Vairum asks. “I didn’t even know there were any around here.”

“Just one, in fact. Long story. Her mother was brought here from Madurai-side, by her patron, Chellamma’s father. She came of age some five years ago but has only had one patron, for a couple of years. No one is supporting her now, and there was no issue from the previous union.”

“He is such a fool,” Vairum says.

“Yes,” Muchami agrees.

Vairum sighs. “He can barely support his own family, and now he wants to take on another one? Besides which, he leaves in less than a year. Thank God.”

“Status,” Muchami says simply. “He’s been buying gifts for Thangam and the babies, and new furniture.”

“He’ll go into debt,” Vairum says. “Big trouble ahead.”

“Yes.” Muchami looks over. “Don’t get involved.”

“I don’t need your advice.”

Muchami, stung even though he should have expected this, falls silent.

The next morning, Sivakami draws him aside. “What’s this about the son-in-law’s business venture?”

“Yes, Amma. I didn’t think you’d like it, and haven’t told you about most of his business dealings since he arrived in Kulithalai. He has had a new one every few months. Who knew this one would be so successful?”

“Animal heads?”

Muchami shrugs, grinning a little.

Sivakami is quiet a moment. “I suppose there’s nothing wrong with him trying to supplement his income, though I wish he would live more quietly. All this flash!”

“Yes, Amma,” Muchami says.

Sivakami looks at him suspiciously and waits, but he says nothing more and she doesn’t ask.

It is two weeks before Navaratri, and Thangam comes in glowing. “Amma,” she tells her mother. “Look.”

Muchami is unloading boxes from the bullock cart, and Thangam opens them to show her mother: dolls, every size and style, perhaps two dozen of them.

“He brought them from Thiruchi!” Thangam picks each one up in turn, caressing it and setting it back in its wrapper.

Sivakami turns away from her, feeling discomfited. It is very strange. She knows Thangam loves dolls, but she’s looking at them as Sivakami feels she should her own babies.

Vairum comes in and sees the boxes. “What’s all this?”

“Dolls,” Thangam whispers. “For Navaratri.”

“You deserve to be spoiled, Akka, but surely he would be better off saving his money? Investing it in something safe?”

Thangam looks away.

“I can’t talk to him,” Vairum sighs. “Don’t know if anyone can. Can you?”

Thangam keeps her silence.

“I didn’t think so,” he says. “All this is going to blow up in his face.”

The end to Goli’s fast fortune arrives in a near-literal fulfillment of Vairum’s prediction. A rush shipment of four deer heads arrives within a month, but as he is taking the last out of its crate to hand it over to a customer, the animal’s forehead ruptures, one glass eye pops out, and maggots spill forth all over Goli, the customer and Goli’s veranda. The customer runs out screaming, and that’s the end of trade.

The customers from whom Goli accepted advance payment cancel their orders and demand refunds, and a number of people even try to return heads they had already bought and taken home, even though Goli assures them the maggot incident was an unfortunate but isolated chemical slip-up.

“I’ve been pushing the supplier too hard. They got hasty. If you will only be patient…”

He permits the others to cancel their orders but tells them that it may be some time before he receives a refund from the supplier.

Muchami believes Goli only ever paid on receipt of shipments, spending all the advance cash on frivolities and counting on future orders to pay for those already in. Vairum believes the same, but Muchami has been more laconic with him since the conversation about the devadasi and, apart from brief reports, has confined conversation to their own immediate business concerns.

Six months later, no one has received a refund. Goli has spent this time trying to convince those few remaining men who have not yet invested with him to back him in setting up a sesame oil refinery, but without success. A little jealousy may have entered their relations, and now, in the wake of his failure, a little schadenfreude. Goli’s odour of indebtedness also means his charm isn’t quite as effective as once it was.

Muchami hears things are getting rocky between Goli and his devadasi but withholds this information from Vairum, who doesn’t ask but assumes as much.

Thangam has started to shed again, copiously, and is starting to show: she is pregnant once more.

For some reason, Sivakami doesn’t dare tell Vairum about the pregnancy, but, one day, he notices.

“Ah, great,” he says, clasping his hands, glittering ill will from his diamond-black eyes as Thangam appears to shrink. “That’s just what you and your profligate husband need. Well, it doesn’t matter-you’ll pack another off to live with us. The boy is first in line, now, isn’t that right?”

“Vairum!” Sivakami says from the kitchen.

He leaves, with a dismissive gesture at his mother. Sivakami stands watching Thangam, who is curved around her stomach as though trying to make it disappear. Could that be the problem? Thangam is ashamed of her husband, ashamed of her children. Vairum should be ashamed of himself. She wonders if she should say something to him later. How can she, though, when he has been so generous toward his sister and her children, and wants children of his own so badly? Who can blame him for being a little resentful?

And now, Muchami tells Sivakami, “I understand the house is vacated.” Goli sold the furniture; all that remains are the few trunks of pots and saris with which they arrived. These will be sent along after him. Thangam will stay in Cholapatti through her delivery.

“It’s God’s will that they move on. I can’t question.”

Muchami nods.

“Are you feeling all right?” Sivakami quizzes him.

He tries to look a little more lively. He feels like he has spent two years putting out fires. It was wonderful having Thangam nearby, but he’s not sorry to see Goli go.

Sivakami’s feelings are even more mixed. She’s not sure it has even been beneficial to Saradha and Visalam to have their mother near: they seemed more confused than enriched, and always looked scared of their father. Muchami looks exhausted. She’s not sure why-surely the extra trips back and forth were not so great a strain? Vairum will certainly be more relaxed, and she will, too: she was always dreading the prospect of a confrontation between them.

But now the two years are over, and no harm done, she thinks with resolute cheer. Another grandchild on the way.