He ponders this. “Molay, are you able to do something once you find others with the Condition?”
He has homed in on the weakest link in her argument. “No . . . Not yet. For now we can only justify surgery for those with severe symptoms because it’s a dangerous operation. But soon we’ll be able to perform a safer one through a tiny hole above the ear. By taking the tumor out earlier, we might keep those children affected from becoming deaf, or even from drowning. Also, if we understand how it’s inherited, we might for example ensure that a boy and a girl who are both unknowingly carrying this trait don’t get married. Too many have suffered and died from the Condition. It’s the reason I’m going to specialize in neurosurgery. To prevent it, or else to treat it earlier. This is my life’s mission.”
He studies her warily. Then he surprises her. “Why not? I plan to retire end of this year, so why not? It’s a worthy cause. But not till then.” He gathers his matchbox and cigarettes. “Two things I want to tell you before I go. Firstly, my job is to make alliances, to reduce impediments. I always know more than I choose to reveal about both parties. Don’t misunderstand. I’ll never suggest a match that is detrimental. I won’t hide madness or mental retardation or epilepsy. But molay, remember this—another rule, if you like, though I’m only telling you: Every family has secrets, but not all secrets are meant to deceive. What defines a family is not blood, molay, but the secrets they share. So, your task won’t be easy.”
He has his foot on the pedal when Mariamma says, “Wait, you said two things. What’s the second?”
“Set a date, Mariamma,” he says, smiling. “Even if it’s five years from now. Set a date.”
The next evening, Mariamma returns home from Triple Yem after an exceptionally long day. Under the pedestrian bridge, the water moves lazily. The hibiscus and oleander are aflame. Two water buffalo, unyoked from the plow, stand silhouetted against the horizon, facing each other like bookends. The crickets pick up volume, sounding delirious, and soon they’ll rouse the frog chorale. These everyday, unremarkable noises of her youth are now, with the passing of her cherished loved ones, an ode to memory, bearing the past into the present. It is the hour for gracious ghosts.
Her route takes her past the Stone Woman, and she never fails to acknowledge the sculptor. Elsie married into the Condition, but she didn’t have it; what cruel irony that she should drown. Mariamma passes the barn on whose roof Lenin tried to channel lightning. Set a date. If only I could.
After her bath, she and Anna Chedethi eat in the kitchen, forgoing the new dining table and chairs for the blackened, cinnamon-scented walls, which carry the living memory of Big Ammachi. Joppan comes by to go over drawings and costs for a new building with adjoining smoke shed dedicated to their rubber trees. Here the latex will be poured into trays, mixed with acid till it hardens. Then a new manual press will turn the hardened latex into thin rubber sheets that are then hung in the smoke shed to cure before they are stacked and sold. Anna Chedethi ignores Joppan’s protests that he’s eaten, and serves him. So, just as on many other evenings, all of them are seated on the four-inch high stools, bending over their plates, which rest on the ground. Shamuel would’ve been scandalized to see his son inside the house and eating from a dish that wasn’t earmarked for his use alone. Parambil has changed. The three of them are family and all one caste.
CHAPTER 74
A Mind Observed
1976, Parambil
The Ordinary Man’s former editor is one of the many dignitaries at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new hospital. To Mariamma’s surprise, he comes over to the house after the event. Other than greeting him at her father’s funeral, this is her first conversation with him. He’s a handsome, elegant man, older than her father. He reminisces with obvious affection about his late columnist. But he has no idea what made her father leave abruptly for Madras. “He was in Cochin writing a story about the saline contamination of our backwaters. But he barely got there before he asked our Cochin office to get him a ticket to Madras. I only found out he’d gone to Madras after the accident.
“For the longest time I was after your father to write something from Dubai, or Qatar, about all our people there. You know, when oil was discovered in the Gulf in the fifties, many daring young men went by kalla kappal—illegal country boats hammered together by the side of the river—or by the dhows that still go back and forth. They had no papers, nothing. But guess what? People still go the same way, because they can’t afford the No Objection Certificates or plane tickets. They’re dropped offshore and must wade or swim to the beach. If they’re caught, they sit in jail. I wanted your father to travel on a dhow—legally of course—and write about the journey. Then I said I’d put him up in a fancy hotel for a week and he could write about our people laboring in the hot sun and sleeping packed together like fish to save every paisa to send home. I even promised to fly him back first-class. It was a perfect subject for the Ordinary Man. He always resisted and I never understood why.”
“You mean you didn’t know about my father’s feud with water?” He doesn’t. He’s dumbfounded when Mariamma describes the Condition and shows him the genealogy. He looks queasy when he hears the details of her father’s brain autopsy. “In death, my father solved the mystery.”
He’s speechless. “My goodness,” he says. “I had no idea! You know our readers—his fans—would have loved to hear this story. Of course, my lips are sealed. Rest assured, I won’t breathe a word or write about this.”
“Actually, I’d be very happy if you wrote about it. The secrecy around the Condition for generations hasn’t helped. Secrets kill. How do we tackle this disease if we don’t know how many are affected, or how it’s inherited? My relatives may not like it, but my father’s story and everything I know I will happily share. The Condition is my mission. It’s why I’m going to Vellore to train as a neurosurgeon.”
Dear Uma,