That night she puts off prayers and putters around with other things. At last, when she’s sleepy, she covers her head and stands facing the crucifix on the east wall of her bedroom, following tradition, because the Messiah would approach Jerusalem from the east. No prayers, no words will come to her mouth. Does God not feel her disappointment? Eventually she says, “Lord, I’m not going to keep asking. You see the obstacles in my path. If you want me in church, then you must help. That’s all I’ll say. Amen.”
Thankamma had said that the secret to getting what you wanted from your husband was to make a wish as you prepared jackfruit halwa. But it isn’t halwa that opens the door, it’s her erechi olarthiyathu. She prepares it in the morning by roasting and then powdering coriander and fennel seeds, pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and star anise in a mortar and rubbing this dry mix into the cubes of mutton to marinate. In the afternoon she browns onions along with fresh coconut slivers, mustard seeds, ginger, garlic, green chilies, turmeric, and curry leaves and more of the dry spice mix, then adds the meat. She flattens the fire to embers, uncovering the pot so the gravy thickens and covers each cube of meat with a heavy, dark coating. That night, once she sends JoJo to say to his father “choru vilambi”—rice is served—she finishes the dish by refrying the meat in coconut oil with fresh curry leaves and diced coconut. She brings it out sizzling, the oil still spitting on the blackened meat’s surface. Before she’s done ladling it on his banana leaf, he’s popped a piece in his mouth. He can’t resist.
She stands quietly to one side as he eats, but closer than usual. She’s already read the newspaper to him in the past few nights and must await the new edition. God suddenly gives her the nerve to speak.
“Is the meat all right?” she asks. She knows it has never tasted better.
The words have left her mouth like water from the long spout of a kindi and she watches them arrive at the cup of his ears. It’s as though another human being has spoken, not she.
Just when she thinks he’s annoyed at her boldness, the big head sways from side to side, signaling his approval. The surge of pleasure she feels makes her want to clap, to dance. For once, he sits after he finishes, not rising to rinse off his hands from the kindi.
Can he hear the hammering of her heart?
JoJo, who peeks at them from behind a pillar, is astonished to hear her speak to his father. He whispers much too loud, “Ammachi, don’t tell him! Tomorrow I promise I’ll bathe.”
She clamps her hand to her mouth, but not before a giggle escapes.
There’s a terrible pause and then a strange explosion; an impossibly loud and unexpected laugh emanates from her husband. JoJo emerges into the light, puzzled. When he realizes that they are laughing at him, he races up and smacks her on the thigh, crying and furious, running away before she can grab him. This only renews her husband’s guffaws, and he throws himself against the back of his chair. The laughter transforms him, revealing a side of him she has not seen.
He wipes his eyes with his left hand, still smiling.
And words come tumbling out of her mouth. She tells him that when it was time for JoJo’s bath that afternoon, she’d looked everywhere for him, eventually finding him high up in the jackfruit tree, stuck there on the plavu. Her husband’s bright smile is still there. She goes on: JoJo is learning his letters and his numbers, but only if she bribes him with a treat of raw mango dotted with chili powder. She herself prefers the varietal of plantain that Shamuel brought today . . . She hears herself prattling and stops. The crickets fill the void, and now a bullfrog joins the chorus.
Then her husband asks her a question that he might have asked a long, long time ago: “Sughamano?” Is everything good for you? He looks directly at her. It’s the first time he’s studied her so intently since he stood before her in church almost three years ago.
She tries to meet his gaze; in his eyes is a force as powerful as that of the altar in the church where they married. She recalls the line in her wedding service: As Christ is the head of the church so also the husband is the head of the house.
Suddenly she understands why he has kept his distance since the day of their marriage, saying little, but from afar ensuring her needs and comfort; it isn’t indifference but the opposite. He recognizes that he’s someone who can so easily make her fearful.
She drops her gaze. Her ability to speak has flown away. But she’s been asked a question. He’s waiting.
Her legs feel unsteady. She has a strange impulse to go to him, to brush that knotted forearm with her fingers. It’s an urge for affection, for human touch. At home she had daily hugs and kisses, her mother’s body to warm her at night. Here, but for JoJo, she’d wither to nothing.
She hears his chair scrape back because he has given up on a response. She says softly, “I miss my mother.”
He raises his eyebrows, perhaps unsure whether he imagined the sound.
“And it would be nice to go to church,” she says in a voice that is unnaturally loud.
He seems to turn this thought over. Then he rinses his hands with the kindi, steps down to the muttam, and is gone. Her heart contracts. Foolish, foolish to have asked for so much!
Later that night, once JoJo is asleep, she goes back to the kitchen to clean up, and to cover the embers with a coconut husk, allowing them to survive till morning. Then she returns to the room where she sleeps with JoJo, her heart heavy.
She’s startled to see an open metal trunk on the floor. The stack of folded white clothing inside must belong to JoJo’s mother. All she brought with her to Parambil was her wedding chatta and mundu and three extra sets, all the same bright white, the traditional Saint Thomas Christian woman’s garb. She left behind the colorful half-saris and skirts of childhood. Her chattas are tight at the shoulders and they faintly outline her budding breasts, when the formless garment is meant to suggest that there’s nothing there at all. She’d taken to wearing an oversized and threadbare chatta and mundu that Thankamma left behind. The chattas in the trunk, which must belong to JoJo’s mother, fit perfectly. She studies herself in the mirror. Her body is changing; she’s taller and has put on weight. Over a year ago, she bled for the first time. It scared her, even though her mother had warned her it would happen. She brewed ginger tea for the cramping and she fashioned menstrual cloths, calling on her memory of seeing them hanging on the line. When she put her laundered menstrual cloth out to dry, she camouflaged it with towels and linen. For four days she felt ill at ease, so distracted while trying to carry on. There was no one she could commiserate with, or celebrate with, for that matter. Even now, those four or five days are a great trial.
At the very bottom of the trunk, she finds a Bible. You had a Bible all these days and never told me? She’s too excited by this find to be annoyed for very long, but she resolves to mention it the next time she visits the cellar.
When Sunday comes she’s surprised to find her husband in his white juba and mundu—his wedding clothes. She’s so accustomed to seeing him bare-chested, his mundu half hitched, and a thorthu over his left shoulder, indistinguishable from the pulayar who work for him. Only his height and breadth set him apart, a sign that he grew up in a house where there was ample food. He calls out to Shamuel: “Ask Sara to come stay with JoJo till we come back from church.”
She races to get dressed. “Lord, I’ll thank You properly once I’m in Your house.”