They set off over land, heading the opposite direction to the boat jetty. She clutches the Bible, scurrying to keep up, taking two steps for each of his. She’s so excited that her feet barely touch the ground. After a bit they come to the rivulet with its single-log bridge, slippery with moss. “You go first,” he says, and she scampers over. He follows, feet planted carefully, his jaws clenched. Once across, he rests a hand on the burden stone, gathering himself before they head on. Their walk to church is much longer than if they had gone by boat; eventually they cross the river on a bridge wide enough for carts.
The sight of people streaming into church thrills her, though she knows no one. “I’ll be waiting there,” he says, pointing to a spreading peepal with aerial roots hanging down like whiskers over the church’s graveyard. She’s too excited to do anything but go on into the church, pulling her kavani over her head. She’s forgotten what it’s like to see so many at worship, to feel bodies all around, to be part of the fabric instead of a thread torn from the whole.
The men are on the left, women on the right, an imaginary line separating them. She relishes the familiar phrases of the Eucharist. When the achen raises the veil and shivers it in his hands, she feels God’s presence, feels the Holy Spirit wash over her, wave after wave, lifting her off her feet. Joyful tears blur her sight. “I’m here, Lord! I am here!” she cries silently.
When the service is over, she comes outside and spots her husband emerging from the graveyard, his expression brooding. Excited conversation and laughter from the jetty and in the ferryboats reach their ears. They head back in silence.
“It’s five years ago that she died . . .” he says suddenly, his voice laden with emotion.
JoJo’s mother. It’s strange to hear him speak of her with such feeling. Is it envy she feels? Is she hoping that he might speak about her one day with the same passion? She’s silent, fearful that anything she says will stop the flow of words.
“How can you forgive a God,” he says, “who takes a mother from her child?”
The spaces between his sentences feel as wide as a river. This time when they ford the log bridge, he goes first. He waits on the other side, studying his young wife who wears the clothes of his late wife, as though seeing her for the first time.
“I wish she could see us,” he says, standing still. “I wish she could see how well you care for JoJo. How much love he has for you. That would make her happy. I wish she could see that.”
She feels dizzy from the praise, clutching the Bible that once belonged to the woman he just invoked. She is standing close to him and cranes up to see his face, feeling she might topple back.
“I know she can see us,” she says with conviction. She could tell him why, but he doesn’t need explanations, just the truth. “She watches over us in everything. She stays my hand when I want to add more salt. She reminds me when the rice boils over.”
His eyebrows go up and then his face relaxes. He sighs. “JoJo has no memory of his mother.”
“That’s all right,” she says. “With her blessing, I’m his mother now. There’s no need for him to remember or to grieve.”
They haven’t moved. He peers down at her with his intense gaze. She doesn’t flinch. She sees something giving way in him, as though the door to the locked ara, to the fortress of his body, has swung open. His expression turns to one of contentment. The trace of a smile seems to signal the end of a long torment. When he resumes walking, it’s at an easier pace, husband and wife in step.
The following Sunday, he suggests she go alone to church by boat—since he’s not coming, she doesn’t need to make the long walk. He escorts her to the jetty, where a few other women and couples are gathered. As the boatmen pole the boat off the bank, she looks back and sees her husband standing in a cluster of areca nut trees, their narrow, pale trunks a contrast with his thick, dark one. He’s rooted to the ground more firmly than any tree. Not even Damodaran could dislodge him.
Their eyes lock. As the boat pulls away, she registers his expression: sadness and envy. She aches for him, a man who won’t travel by water, who perhaps has never heard the sound of water parting before the prow, never felt the exhilaration of being carried by the current, or the spray as the boatman’s pole clears the water. He’ll never know the bracing sensation of diving headfirst into the river, the roar of entry followed by enveloping silence. All water is connected, and her world is limitless. He stands at the limits of his.
On her sixteenth birthday, she hears a commotion outside the kitchen and the excited voices of children. The ducks clustered around the back steps squawk and struggle to take flight, forgetting their clipped wings. She knows who it is even before she hears the clink of a heavy chain and before she turns to see the ancient eye that somehow peers in through the kitchen window. She laughs. “Damo! How did you know?” This is a new sensation: to gaze at that eye without the distraction of the immense body. She marvels at his tangled eyelashes, the delicately patterned, cinnamon-colored iris. Suddenly she’s gazing into Damo’s soul . . . and he into hers. She feels his love, his concern, just as when he greeted her on her first night as a bride.
“Give me a moment. I have a treat for you.” She’s at a delicate phase in making meen vevichathu. She lowers the seer-fish fillets into the fiery red gravy that simmers in the clay pot. It owes its vibrant color to chili powder, and its muddy consistency to the cooked-down shallots, ginger, and spices. But the key to its signature flavor is kokum, or Malabar tamarind. She must taste it repeatedly, balancing tart with salt, adding kokum water if the curry isn’t sour enough, and removing kokum pieces if it’s too sour.
The impatient giant stamps his foot, shaking dust from the rafters.
“Stop! If my curry turns out badly, I’ll tell the thamb’ran who’s responsible.”
She emerges with a hastily mixed bucket of rice and ghee. Damo’s grin reminds her of JoJo at his naughtiest. Caesar, the pariah dog, dances excitedly but is careful to stay clear of the giant’s feet. Damodaran pinches the lip of the bucket, lifts it from her hands, and inverts its contents into his mouth as if it were a thimble. He sweeps its edge with his tongue, then puts it down and probes with his trunk for anything he has missed.
Unni, perched on Damo’s neck, his bare feet hooked behind the huge ears, looks like a cat stranded up a tree. The mahout’s frown is hard to see on his dark, pockmarked face, but his thick eyebrows are crossing in the middle.
“Look!” Unni says, pointing to the mess on the muttam. “I tried to steer him to his spot by the tree, but no, he had to come by the kitchen first.”
She leans her hand on Damo’s trunk. “He came for my birthday. No one here knows, but somehow he does. God bless you for coming, my Damo.” Suddenly she feels shy—she doesn’t speak to her husband in such loving tones. Damo curls his trunk into a salute.
When she finishes in the kitchen, she goes to Damo at his usual spot by the oldest palm. Unni has chained Damo’s back leg to a stump, but it’s more reminder than restraint. Damo can snap it as easily as a child breaks a twig, and he often does. As usual, every child around Parambil has come running, word having spread that Damo is home. The toddlers wear just the shiny aranjanam around the waist, not the least self-conscious about their nakedness, though wary of Damo as they hide behind the older children. She spots JoJo, one arm around the shoulder of the blacksmith’s son, who is also six years old, but JoJo is a head taller. She stands back observing, as intrigued by the children as by the elephant.
Damo dips his trunk in the bucket of water and sprays his spectators. The little ones scatter, shrieking happily. When they regroup, he does it again.
Damo is fastidious. Unlike a cow or goat, he won’t eat if his excrement is lying around. If Unni wants him to stay in one spot, he must keep shoveling away whatever pushes out of Damodaran’s rear end. It’s a never-ending task for Unni, and endlessly fascinating to the young audience.
“What’s that?” the blacksmith’s daughter says, pointing to the thick, crooked club hanging down from Damo’s belly, its blunt end a mossy green. She’s seven years old. “Is that another trunk?”
“No, silly,” her brother says, speaking with authority despite being a year younger than her. “It’s his Little-Thoma.”