In the morning, she asks Hanumarathnam if he recalls his dreams of the night before.
“I never dream,” he replies without looking up from his newspaper.
“You were talking in your sleep last night,” she says.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” He is already impatient with the conversation, and she reciprocates, “Why should I?”
He sighs. “Did it frighten you?”
“No.” The subject is dropped, and Sivakami goes about the morning’s chores, mystified and suspicious.
That afternoon, she is attending to the children, praying under her breath continuously. Like all the women in the village whose children are sick, Sivakami has offered a deal to Mariamman, that her children will participate in the village goddess’s annual festival if only she will remove the scourge. It has been five days, without sign of recovery, but Sivakami has faith yet.
Hanumarathnam is napping on the other side of the main hall. Sivakami starts as his lips begin moving and realizes she has been staring at him for a long time. She rises to move closer and in doing so happens to catches a glimpse beyond the open front door.
The siddhas have come.
The eldest nods as she catches his eye. She is, as always, unhappy to see them. She crosses to her husband, who is muttering softly, intense emotion working his brow, his breath fighting in his nostrils. She takes his shoulder and he startles, panting, sweating, looking around wildly.
“What, dear, what is it?” Sivakami asks. She feels she knows; she feels she is about to cry; she feels a little feverish herself, hot and cold at once.
“I dreamt…” Hanumarathnam is calming. “I dreamt… that you and the children will lead long, healthy lives.” He backs away from her to lean against the wall. “And that I will not recover from this fever.”
Sivakami stares at him. “You are not even afflicted with the fever.”
“I will not recover from it.”
“You are not stricken.” She is aware of her damp palms, twisting the folds of her sari at her waist. “It doesn’t affect adults.” In fact, two adults have contracted the pox and have suffered even more than the children did.
Hanumarathnam rises and joins the shadows blocking the light from the door. Sivakami sinks to the floor, still protesting. “You are hale and strong. You never dream. Why should I wake you just because you talk in your sleep?”
He has gone.
In the evening, Muchami comes in through the back. Seeing the main hall empty, he retreats through the rooms to the courtyard. He addresses Sivakami from outside the kitchen door.
“Where is he?”
“Out,” she says without looking up, slicing vegetables with alarming speed. The children are asleep in the pantry, where she can watch them.
“Out?” Muchami asks.
“He’s out.” She sounds as angry as she feels and feels no need to hide this from Muchami. “I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“Oh…” Muchami nods. “Oh. The siddhas?”
“What else?” She leans out the door to toss some peels into the courtyard. Her face is puffy.
Muchami’s eyes narrow. “You aren’t crying over this?”
In some other servant, some other household, Muchami’s manner might be considered audacious, even insolent, but his are the liberties of those lifelong servants who become closer than family, and more trusted.
“Stupid.” Sivakami sniffs wetly, wipes her face on the end of her cotton sari and starts to sob. “I just can’t stop. I’m making onion sambar, that’s why. When we stop eating onions, I’ll stop crying.”
“Onions never make you cry,” Muchami reminds her gently.
“So I’m crying because it’s about time he gave them up!” She rises, slams the blade down into the block and dumps the vegetables into the blackened iron pot on the fire. “After all, he says he’s going to die anytime, he should start getting ready for it…”
“You angry?”
“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.” She pokes another dung chip into the fire and fans it. “Can’t he do as he likes?”
“Sure, he’s the husband.” Muchami wags his head. “But he shouldn’t be taking off and leaving us alone like this.”
Sivakami cries harder.
When Hanumarathnam returns, two mornings later, he faces identical resentful glares from both of these souls who adore him.
That night, Hanumarathnam drops a pinch of veeboothi on the small gold tongue of his daughter and the small pale tongue of his son. He places his hand on the head of each. His touch on Thangam is lingering. His touch on Vairum is brief, but the little boy glows rapturous under his hand, and Hanumarathnam’s eyes become tender for a second. Then that is over.
Before going to bed, Hanumarathnam gives Sivakami a large packet of veeboothi and instructs her to distribute it among the parents of the village, for all of their children, sick and healthy.
“That should do it,” he says. She accepts the packet silently and he lies down to sleep. Siddha medicine, she thinks, and shudders, but still, she hopes it works.
That night, when he begins mumbling, she puts her hand on his arm to wake him. The arm is very warm, and she feels his forehead and stomach. A fever has taken hold of him, and there are pustules forming on his neck and arms.
5. Buried Treasure 1904
A WEEK PASSES, during which Hanumarathnam never once completely awakens. Word spreads. People drop in constantly, whispering words of pity that wear on Sivakami. Each of the visitors brings some remedy, Ayurvedic compounds from famous practitioners or family recipes, steeped green leaves or pounded buds, bitter barks or shaven twigs, the resulting broths sweetened with sugar or softened with butter. Sivakami dutifully pours them all down Hanumarathnam’s throat. The guests quarrel over their remedies, disagreeing on which is best. Each argues that the other remedies are interfering with the effectiveness of her own. They make a lot of noise and bustle in the house, whose occupants are unaccustomed to such cacophony. Sivakami summons silent endurance. Muchami enjoys the spectacle, until he recalls its cause.
Murthy is particularly aggressive with some veeboothi from the Palani temple; Sivakami lets him administer it to Hanumarathnam himself, in light of their relationship. Hanumarathnam’s sisters arrive with accusing eyes and suggestions that Sivakami try all the remedies she has already tried. She does her best not to disagree and to avoid them. She has to believe she has tried everything. She had retained a small amount of the veeboothi Hanumarathnam brought back with him from the forest and administers that too.
It certainly has been effective on the children. Thangam and Vairum are no longer ill. They have returned to their old activities: Thangam sitting out front and being fawned over, Vairum giving orders to Muchami, but they are unsettled by the crowds.
Vairum has a set of rocks he has named for their family: Appa, father, a long thin grey rock; Amma, mother, a slim oval of smooth black rock; Akka, big sister, soft, golden sandstone; Vairum, a small slab of unpolished quartz (it glints in places); Muchami, a great chunk of unfired brick. The rock family spends all its time exploring, usually places a little boy is too small to be permitted or too big to fit. They crouch in the fire under the bathwater. They take daily flights through the air to roll off the roof. Vairum, the smallest family member, once navigated a cow’s entire digestive tract. Today, they will explore a small soft spot in the foundation of the house, on the side of the garden.
“Dig,” he says to Muchami, handing him a stick. The overworked servant looks at him blankly, pretending, this time, not to understand. Comprehension is a subjective and fleeting art.
Vairum points and stamps his foot, repeating, “Dig! Dig.”