Hanumarathnam can see how he feels. He feels rather the same. He touches his father-in-law’s feet. This makes the older man feel worse, even as he twinges with pride, a vestige of the wedding. Hanumarathnam proceeds into the house and finds himself ushered straight out the other end. He walks into the garden and along the side of the house, until he finds a window in the vicinity of the birthing room. He calls out, “Ayah! Ho, ayah!”
The exasperated barber’s wife finally appears at the window and asks, “What do you want?”
“How is she?”
“You have ears.”
“Here.” He holds out a lemon.
She stares at it and grunts distractedly, “Huh.”
“You must throw it out the window the second the child’s head appears.”
“Okay.”
“The exact moment, you…”
She has caught the lemon and vanished back into the birthing room. He imagines her tucking it into one of the hundreds of secret pockets created by the random wrapping of the saris their class wears and finding it three days later. He gives himself over to fate. He sits and paces and prays for his little wife and baby.
But she is good, the barber’s wife, a very cool head, and the second the golden orb makes an appearance, she extracts the lemon with a flick of her hand in the region of her waist and tosses it to a niece who is seated on the threshold of the birthing room, a little girl whose curiosity far outweighs the smack and reiterated forbiddance whenever someone notices that she is still there. There is one in every household. “Run, run. Throw this out the window to that ayya. I have seen his baby’s head.”
The ecstatic child (who loves work as only children can) runs and hurls the lemon as hard as she can out the window, which is far above her height. So intent is Hanumarathnam on watching his hourglass and repeating a mantra that he doesn’t see the fruit’s flight, and only looks up when he hears a slap. He sees the lemon rolling toward him from the roots of the coconut tree it hit. Fortunately, he noted the time, the moment he heard the sound. He has a figure he can use to make his calculations.
Sivakami is up on her elbows, panting and sweating. The barber’s wife, though intent on her task, wordlessly conveys her boredom at this act that never was and never will be new.
Finally, it’s a push and a rush, a new mother nearly lifting off the cot with relief, and a baby girl sliding into the midwife’s hands, nearly pulling her to the floor because this is one heavy baby. Small to average size, but heavier than an iron skillet. As they gently wipe her with a warm, damp cloth, like a cow’s tongue on its calf, they notice this child is exceptionally beautiful.
“Jaundice,” says the barber’s wife at the child’s colour. But Sivakami, who doesn’t have the age or experience to question the ayah aloud, knows she is wrong. Though the baby will formally be given her paternal grandmother’s name, she will be called Thangam-gold.
Six weeks later, the small family returns home. Sivakami is relieved to see how her husband dotes on the little girl. Everyone prefers a boy, but this is just the first child. You can still hope.
Sivakami cannot lift the baby. Her middle is still a little weak and the baby heavy as a sack of bricks. Hanumarathnam lifts Thangam to the breast or lays her in her little cloth hammock so Sivakami can rock her. He even regularly puts his daughter in the crossed legs of his own lap to dandle her, something Sivakami has rarely seen fathers do. But Thangam is unusually good and calm. Everyone says so. Everyone loves to hold her. They need to hold her, even if their arms fall asleep and they stagger and sway and give themselves backaches. The baby doesn’t cry or even coo. Sometimes she smiles a faraway smile, and all around her are transported, stroking her golden skin, looking into her golden eyes.
2. Vairum 1902
THANGAM GROWS INTO A SOLEMN, obedient child. Even if she were not so heavy, one would have to say gravity is her chief characteristic. Sivakami recalls the feisty, fightingish child she was herself, battling three elder brothers and winning. It was hard for her as a girclass="underline" she was required to grow out of this and even now she is not sure she succeeded in leaving this part of herself behind. She is glad to see her daughter is not like her.
Sivakami is pregnant, again, four months along. But this new life is not heavy, neither is it soft. When Sivakami, curious, palpates her tummy, she feels a hard centre, like a coin, or a marble, or a gem.
One morning finds her in the kitchen, as usual, grinding rice and lentils into idli batter. Her left hand rotates the huge black obelisk of the pestle into the pit of the black stone mortar, polishing the pestle with her palm. As each rotation swings away, her right hand guides escaping batter back into the black stone pit. Thangam watches. Sivakami herself finds the motion mesmerizing and enjoys even more seeing her child engrossed.
Suddenly Thangam looks to the front of the house, where her father is holding his healer’s court on the veranda. She pushes herself to her feet and toddles forward with intent. Her weight grounds her. It enabled her to balance early, so walking soon followed. Sivakami calls her name, but Thangam doesn’t stop. Sivakami quickly wipes her hands and follows, but she is fearful of running, and so doesn’t catch Thangam before the little girl exits the front hall to the vestibule. She is confident, though, that her watchful father will keep her from leaving the veranda. When Sivakami arrives at the doorway, she sees Thangam framed in sunlight and, beyond her, three siddhas. The men return Thangam’s gaze, neither stare the more innocent or knowing, each curious and mildly calculating.
The trio is led by a tall man whose grey hair, yellowing at the temples, winds into smoothly matted locks that hit the backs of his knees. He has sharp, sculpted features and an imperious bearing. The others are younger and shorter. One appears to be in his forties, his wide face filled with sunny-looking, upturned features. The third, in his early twenties, has a surly, rebellious manner. He projects active defiance, while the others give off an air of amused inevitability about their Brahmin-quarter invasion.
Sivakami tries to lift Thangam into her arms, but of course the little girl is too heavy. She does succeed in turning her damply glowing child around and hustling her into the house, where she kneels and clutches her to her breast. She is furious: Hanumarathnam is telling the crowd of supplicants to come back another time, which means that, once more, with no notice, no thought for her feelings or preferences, he is off. He looks around the door at her and-without even a note of apology in his voice!-says he will not be away long.
The next day, they are to attend a wedding in Kulithalai, twenty minutes from Cholapatti by bullock cart. All Cholapatti Brahmins of stature are invited; the groom is one of their own. When Hanumarathnam’s aunt, Annam, calls from the road that they are ready to depart, Sivakami bustles out sullenly and pretends she will be able to lift Thangam onto the bullock cart alone, until Murthy is signalled by his mother to help. Rukmini, innocent and unobservant, asks after Hanumarathnam. Sivakami responds with a shrug, then feels shame at her own rudeness, which in turn prods her to cheer up and pretend to enjoy the day
At the bride’s house, a sea of primped matrons seethe round and among the festivities, cords of jasmine and roses tucked in their hair. Their husbands hover or sit, contented or nervous; their children race around. Girls twirl and squat, so their stiff silk paavaadais pouf out in bells that they pop like inflated cheeks; the boys twist and tweak the girls’ plaits and upper arms. In one corner is a sacred fire and around it are gathered the parties required to be relatively attentive-bride and groom, parents, bride’s brother, groom’s sister, priest. To satisfy a need for spectacle, puffed rice and ghee are sacrificed to the fire; any kind of animal sacrifice would admittedly command more attention, but at some point, for some reason, this came to be shunned in favour of things that don’t squeal or bleed. Once in a while, the priest intones the Sanskritic phrase that signals those gathered in witness to hurl rice or flowers to bless the union, which they do while hardly pausing for breath from their chattling-prattling.