That night she sleeps in Anna Chedethi’s bed in the old bedroom near the ara, taking comfort in snuggling next to this woman who breastfed her, who was as much a mother to her as she was to Hannah. Anna Chedethi confides that Joppan has had a rough time. Iqbal had wanted to retire from the barge business. Joppan bought him out by taking out a bank loan, but to pay it off he had to work twice as hard, expanding his routes, taking on as much business as he could. Anna Chedethi says he paid his workers generously—he was one of them, after all. But he drove them hard. Before Onam, at his busiest time, his boatmen and loaders went on strike. They wanted part ownership of the company. Joppan tried to reason with them. Did they want a share of his debt as well? They weren’t listening. He felt betrayed. “You remember that Party fellow he campaigned for and helped to get elected from that district?” Anna Chedethi says. “Well, he and the Party took the workers’ side. Better to sacrifice Joppan’s one vote than lose all the workers’ votes. Joppan locked his workers out and tried to hire others. His workers sunk one barge and tried to set fire to his warehouse. Instead of giving in to their demands, Joppan closed the business. He let the bank take it. I don’t know how much money he has managed to save, but I worry.” Mariamma thinks at the very least they won’t starve; Ammini makes an income selling her thatch panels. And they have their property. And perhaps Podi can help since she has joined her husband in Sharjah. But this isn’t how Joppan had imagined his life would be. She’s surprised her father didn’t mention this. Perhaps he felt protective of his friend.
In the morning, she grabs a thorthu and heads out. She wants to see the hospital construction, but first she stops by the nest. She breathes in its dry, woody scent. Trumpet vines romp over the sunny side. Is this what her mother intended? That nature should renew and alter the nest every year and in every season? The two tiny stools are still there, and she sits down, her knees bumping her chin, remembering Podi, who would sit opposite her. They’d play checkers or take turns sharing Can-I-Tell-You-Somethings, secrets that the adults around them didn’t want them to know. Sometimes she would come by herself and pretend that her mother sat on the other stool. They’d have tea together and talk about life.
The Stone Woman is on the way to the canal. She and Podi had discovered her quite by accident when they were young, all but hidden by pepper vine and goatweed. Mariamma had been struck at once by her power, her faceless presence. She dwarfed them. She still does. Her father said it was a sculpture her mother had abandoned. She and Podi freed her, cleared the ground around her, and planted marigolds. She used to think of the Stone Woman as another incarnation of her mother, different from the one smiling at her in the photograph in Mariamma’s room. As a child, she’d lie down on the Stone Woman’s back and imagine her mother’s strength seeping into her flesh, like sap rising in a tree. Now, she just runs her hands over the Stone Woman in silent greeting.
Across the canal, the concrete for the foundation for the hospital has been poured. Already the bamboo scaffolding lashed together with rope suggests a much bigger structure than she could’ve imagined. She tries to picture what the completed building will look like. It pleases her to think that the gold bracelet she peeled off at the Maramon Convention is embedded in there in some fashion, part of the hospital’s bones.
The canal is newly widened and dredged all the way to its confluence with the river. The water surface is a kaleidoscope of green and brown; floating leaves move along more quickly than she recalls. She finds a spot that’s secluded and strips to her underclothes. Then she scrambles down the stone incline, her soles sliding and skating on the moss, before she pushes off and dives in headfirst. The sensation of sudden transition is exhilarating, familiar, nostalgic . . . and sad. She’d hoped to slip back in time by plunging in. But there’s no going back; time and water move on relentlessly. She surfaces much farther downstream than she expected. The confluence of the waters announces itself noisily ahead of her, and the current is surprisingly strong. She cuts to the side, finds a handhold, and scrambles out. No, it’s no longer the same canal, and she’s not the same Mariamma.
At the end of her short break, her father splurges on a tourist taxi, not to take them to the bus station but to drive them all the way to the train station in Punalur, a two-and-a-half-hour ride. They sit like royalty in the back. Her father confides to her that the task of running Parambil lands has worn him down. “I was never good at it. If I had Shamuel’s or my father’s passion, then we’d cultivate a lot more land and make more money.” He looks sheepishly at her. “The truth is your father prefers the pen to the plow.”
Mariamma thinks he’s being modest. He’s well known for his Unfictions. Once or twice a year he writes long investigative pieces that appear in the weekend magazine section of the Manorama.
“So, I’ve been talking to Joppan about managing all of Parambil for us. I made him an offer. I’m hopeful. He’s getting out of the barge business. Too many headaches. Years ago, after Shamuel died, we made Joppan a good offer. He said so himself. It would’ve given him his own land, more than any of our relatives around here, and a share of the harvest in exchange for being our manager. But he had dreams of conquering the earth. Or at least the waterways. He turned it down. Also, he didn’t want to be thought of as ‘Joppan pulayan’ taking Shamuel’s place.”
“So did you offer him something different this time?”
“You should ask. After my time, this will be yours, so it’s good to know. I offered him ten acres that will be his outright. In return he manages our lands for ten years and takes ten percent of all our yield. Then, as he develops his land and earns money, if he wants, he can buy more land from me.”
“It’s generous,” Mariamma says.
Her father looks pleased. “I hope he thinks so too. The offer I made long ago was much better, but so much has changed. I feel bad for him.” He looks out, silent for a while. “Molay, Joppan was our hero, our Saint George when we were children, do you know? Destiny is a funny thing. Look at me. I finished school, had ambitions to go to college, to see the world. Instead, here I am, where I started, while Joppan is the well-traveled one. Parambil is where I feel complete. Joppan may well find that the very thing he ran away from is what will save him and make him happy. You resist fate, but the hound finds you anyway. Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!”
Parting from him on the platform is wrenching. She feels a rush of guilt for all that she’s held back from her father. Her secrets. Secrets that are damning. She can’t imagine her father having secrets, but perhaps even he does.
Their long embrace is different from past embraces. They’ve reversed roles. She’s the parent leaving her child to fend for itself, but the child clings to her. As the train pulls away, her father stands there waving, smiling bravely, a lone and forlorn figure.
CHAPTER 69
Seeing What You Imagine
1974, Madras
Near the end of Mariamma’s internal medicine rotation, a khaki-clad peon summons her to see Dr. Uma Ramasamy, in the Department of Pathology. Mariamma’s first reaction is to worry that she’s done something wrong. But her pathology course is long over. Her next reaction is excitement. Uma Ramasamy is a divorcée just over thirty, a sensational teacher. Mariamma’s male classmates have a crush on the professor. Chinnah says, “She’s got subject,” a phrase that in med school jargon signals mastery of a field. “Chinnah, are you sure it’s ‘subject’ and not something else that attracts you?” “What, ma? You mean Madam’s Premier Padmini?” he says innocently. “Chaa! Not at all!”