Big Ammachi twists the crucifix on her necklace and glares at Philipose; he ignores her and puts a coin in one of the squares. He doesn’t know why his mother is annoyed; isn’t this the man she entrusted to teach him his letters? Now she acts as though his Vedic future-telling is nonsense, yet moments before she invoked inauspicious times. Shamuel, heading out, a folded sack on his head, squats to watch.
The kaniyan singsongs the parents’ names, recites their stars and birth dates from memory, and then asks indirectly about Elsie’s last monthly. She’s taken aback. Undeterred by her lack of response, he mutters in Sanskrit, counting on his digits and casting a glance at Elsie’s stomach; his finger wanders over his astrological charts, then he scribbles with a metal stylus on a tiny strip of papyrus leaf. He lets it curl back into a tight cylinder, ties it with red thread, and recites a slokum before handing it to Philipose, who all but rips it open in his impatience. It reads:
THE ISSUE WILL BE A BOY
“I knew it! What did I tell you? Your Lord be praised,” Philipose says, in a voice that even he realizes is unnaturally loud. “Our Ninan reborn!”
Five pairs of eyes look aghast at him. Elsie gasps. Big Ammachi says, “Deivame!” God Almighty! and crosses herself. Shamuel pats his head to confirm the sack is still there and leaves. Baby Mol glares at Baby God. “Come,” Big Ammachi says to Elsie. “Let’s leave this foolishness.”
Philipose’s elation is dampened by the women’s discourtesy. Don’t they see they just witnessed prophecy at its best? His conviction is unshaken: the child in Elsie’s womb is Baby Ninan reincarnated. This is vindication for the torment he’s been through, for the recurring nightmare in which he lifts a lifeless body off the branch, and runs on broken ankles, runs nowhere. The oblivion of opium cannot stop the hounds of memory from pursuing him. Oh, but now those hounds must flee with their tails between their legs. Baby Ninan is coming back!
The weeks and months pass, and Elsie labors steadily on her great stone. She leaves its widest and heaviest end untouched, but just behind it a neck emerges, then the rosary of the spine flanked by shoulder blades. By and by, Philipose understands that it’s a woman on her hands and knees. She may be turning to glance over her shoulder, although he can’t be sure because the face is hidden in the broad end of the stone. Her full breasts hang down and her belly is gently convex to the earth. One hand is planted on the ground. The other arm disappears into the rock just beyond the shoulder. Is the arm signaling defiance? Surrender? Is it reaching for something?
On a night that he will later wish he could erase, while the household sleeps, he goes to Elsie’s studio to examine the Stone Woman, running his hand over her. This has been his practice for countless nights. His mind picks at her like a riddle. The previous week he used a tape measure and confirmed his suspicion: she is one-fourth larger than life. Surely a deliberate choice. The four-to-five ratio paradoxically makes her more lifelike. Is she kneeling over a mat and sifting rice for pebbles? He’s seen Elsie on all fours in such a pose, playing with Ninan, teasing him by letting her hair fall over his face. He’s seen Ammini, Joppan’s wife, play with their new daughter the same way. Yet the torque of the Stone Woman’s neck, the position of what is surely her emerging chin implies she might be looking back. An invitation? Might the still-hidden arm that reaches forward be clutching the headboard, bracing her body as her lover enters her? When will Elsie finish the face? The waiting is unbearable and making him anxious.
He returns to his room, takes his pen out, but first rolls a pearl to settle himself. Only after he swallows it does he recall he just dosed himself minutes earlier.
Elsie, I circled your Stone Woman tonight, just like the achen circling the altar. Three is his limit, but his rituals of witchcraft don’t constrain me. Elsie, please, who is this Goddess crawling backward out of a stone womb? Is it you? Also, if this is a birth, nature agrees that headfirst is best. Tell me she’s coming out, not going back in. What truth will her face reveal about you, my darling, or about us? I’ve waited weeks for you to finish that face! Every night I go in hoping this is the night. In the old days, when our minds were as connected as our bodies, I could just ask you. Elsie, Ninan is coming. Ninan returns. As parents we really should be closer . . .
He closes his eyes to think, pen in hand. He dozes off, head on the desk, oblivious to the thunder shower outside. This is neither the small rains nor the monsoon, just capricious weather. Half an hour later he’s suddenly awake and terribly agitated. He had the most vivid dream! Such a luscious, brilliant, and meaningful dream. He looks down and he’s aroused! In the dream the Stone Woman turned her head to him. She beckoned him. He saw her face clearly! Her expression revealed a profound truth about . . . about . . . he slaps the side of his head. Truth about what? It hovers, there just beyond recall. He groans and scrapes another pearl.
His legs carry him to Elsie’s studio, but he’s forgotten his slippers. Sharp shards of sandstone prick his feet. He confronts the sculpture. “Listen, I saw your face already in my dream. I’m asking for just once more . . . why hide? Are you frightened? What is it?”
The Stone Woman is silent. A bolt of lightning illuminates her. The spray of rain that blows in from outside makes her skin look moist and alive. More flashes of light animate her arms and legs. She’s writhing, fighting to extricate her head! Could he still be dreaming? That stone vice imprisons her in a cowl of rock. Is Elsie her cruel jailer? Or is the Stone Woman none other than Elsie?
The next flash followed by thunder makes her terror unmistakable. He must act! Hold on, my darling! I’ll free you. I’m coming! The next thing he knows, the biggest mallet is in his hand and raised high. It’s heftier than he imagined, unbalanced and head-heavy. It descends with much more force than he’d intended, bouncing off the stone, sparks chasing it, and a shock wave surging up his elbow. On its rebound, as though with a mind of its own, the mallet strikes his collarbone, and he hears the crunching of bone. He screams as pain blankets his neck and shoulder. The mallet clatters on the floor. His left hand instinctively grabs his right and presses it to his chest, because the slightest movement of his arm or shoulder causes excruciating pain in his collarbone. He squirms in agony. His thudding heart is louder than the rain. I am, he thinks through the fog of pain, quite certainly awake. He’s certain his screams and the falling mallet have woken the household. A minute passes. No one comes.
He’s horrified to see that he’s not only failed to free the Stone Woman, but he’s ensured that no face will ever emerge. The wedge he struck loose has left a crater where eyes, forehead, nose, and upper lip could have been.
He staggers to his room, his collarbone throbbing and sending out bolts of pain with any movement of his right arm, even a wiggle of his fingers. The only way he can minimize the pain is with his right arm pressed to his chest, by his left hand. In the mirror he sees the angry swelling and the irregularity in the contour of the bone. One can go through life with no awareness of the collarbones other than they sit above the chest like a coat hanger. Then an act of stupidity brings them acutely to one’s attention. With great difficulty he fashions a sling. The effort leaves him drenched in sweat.