The voice that finally emerges says, “Digby . . . I can’t tell you yet.”
She recalls Broker Aniyan’s words. Every family has secrets, but not all secrets are meant to deceive. The Parambil family secret, which was hardly a secret, was the Condition. Her father kept another secret: that his beloved daughter was not his. If Big Ammachi knew, she kept it a secret. Elsie and Digby’s shared secret was that she lived, she never drowned, but she lived with leprosy. These secret covenants kept by the adults in Mariamma’s life were meant to protect her. Broker Aniyan also said, What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share. Secrets that can bind them together or bring them to their knees when revealed. And now she, Mariamma, who had been privy to no secrets, knows everything; they are one big, bloody, happy family.
Elsie, mother of Mariamma, gathers herself and slowly rises. Her stance is wide, her head tilted up like a visionary’s and making tiny arcs as the sightless will do. She turns with small, stiff steps like a child learning to walk, until she’s facing the French windows. With her palms and her finger remnants, she painstakingly adjusts the pallu of the white sari over her left shoulder and takes her first step, counting.
Mariamma feels her short life on earth compressed into this moment, this one moment that’s weightier than the sum of all those that came before. Her heart pounds.
Her mother raises her hands before her to shoulder height, those strange, diminished implements held out like offerings. She approaches with her wrists cocked, palms facing forward, a heartbreaking, childlike attitude in those outstretched arms as they anticipate the French windows. Her brave, tragic advance transforms Digby’s features; a loving, indulgent smile breaks out on his face as he watches her. Her mother comes closer, even closer, until at last both her palms touch the clear windowpane, arresting her progress. They rest there. Digby is about to place his hands on the inside of the pane, overlapping hers . . . but he stops and looks at his daughter, his eyebrows raised questioningly.
Without thinking, without having to think, Mariamma feels herself drawn forward. She puts both her palms on the glass pane, pressing and overlapping her mother’s hands, so that at that moment, all is one, and nothing separates their two worlds.
Acknowledgments In 1998 my young niece Deia Mariam Verghese asked her grandmother, “Ammachi, what was it like when you were a girl?” Any verbal answer would have fallen short, so my mother—Mariam Verghese—filled 157 pages of a spiral notebook with memories of her childhood, written in assured and elegant cursive. Mom was a talented artist, and so she interspersed quick sketches alongside her text. The fable-like anecdotes she recorded were very familiar to her three sons, though the details changed with every telling.
Mom passed away in 2016 at the age of ninety-three, but even in her last months, as I was writing this book, she would call me with some memory that had just surfaced—such as how her cousin, who kept being held back in the same grade in elementary school, was finally promoted only because his weight collapsed the bench on which he was seated, sending him tumbling into the next grade of the one-room schoolhouse. I have used several of Mom’s anecdotes in The Covenant of Water, but more precious to me were the mood and voice that came through in her words, which I supplemented with my own recollections of summer holidays with my grandparents in Kerala, and my later visits when I was in medical school. My cousin Thomas Varghese is a talented artist (and engineer), and a favorite of Mom’s. I am grateful and proud that his evocative drawings in the book have captured its atmosphere so well; Mom would be pleased.
For a story that involves three generations, two continents, and several geographic locations, I drew on many relatives, friends, experts, and resources. To anyone I have failed to acknowledge, please know that this was inadvertent.
Kerala: I am deeply indebted to the writer Lathika George (author of The Kerala Kitchen, Hippocrene Books, 2023), who showed me around Cochin, so generously shared priceless stories from her childhood, and was a resource for anything related to food; Mary Ganguli’s long, insightful emails reflect her second calling (after psychiatry) as a writer, and were a treasure trove of Kerala tidbits, medical lore, and psychological insight; my cousin Susan Duraisamy recalled stunning details of my paternal grandmother’s house and the people in its orbit; my soulmate Eliamma Rao took me to meet Soukya’s amazing founders, Isaac and Suja Mathai, who gave me a new understanding of healing; Eliam also took me to Sanjay and Anjali Cherian’s home in Calicut and their property in Wayanad where Sanjay generously introduced me to the workings of an estate. Jacob Mathew, my contemporary at Madras Christian College, is the managing editor of the Malayala Manorama; he and Ammu generously welcomed me into their home and put every resource at my disposal. I hope he will forgive the liberty I’ve taken by having the “Ordinary Man” write for the Manorama; I trust he will see in these pages my admiration for his storied newspaper. Susan Visvanathan’s books and writings (especially The Christians of Kerala: History, Belief and Ritual among the Yakoba, Oxford University Press, 1993) were invaluable. My thanks to the Taj Malabar Resort & Spa, which made my stay in Cochin so memorable; I am grateful to Premi and Roy John; my college friend, Cherian K. George; Arun and Poornima Kumar; C. Balagopal and Vinita; and the gifted architect, Tony Joseph. Catherine Thankamma, a noted Malayalam-to-English translator, pored over my manuscript and had many suggestions. Among many relatives who shared generously I thank Jacob (Rajan) and Laila Mathew; Meenu Jacob and George (Figie) Jacob; Thomas Kailath and Anuradha Maitra; and especially my godparents, Pan and Anna Varghese. My father, George Verghese, who is a great ninety-five at the time of this writing and gets on a treadmill twice a day, answered my many questions and called on his memories when asked. All errors pertaining to Kerala are my responsibility entirely.
Medical school: My Madras Medical College classmates who were enormously helpful include C.V. Kannaki Utharaj, a skilled gynecologist, whose long, hilarious, and insightful emails about labor and delivery were polished jewels and quite priceless—I owe you so much, CVK; Anand and Madhu Karnad shared hostel, classroom, clinic, and urban Madras memories and responded to countless text messages—the two of them have housed me, fed and nourished me so many times, and are my oldest and dearest friends; thanks also to Christian Medical College Vellore grads Nissi and Ajit Varki, Samson and Anita Jesudass, Arjun and Renu Mohandas, Bobby Cherayil, and my Stanford colleague Rishi Raj. David Yohannan (Johny) and his wife, Betty, hosted me, and Johny shared detailed memories of Calicut and his medical practice in Kerala and promptly responded to many subsequent queries.
Surgical matters: I thank Moshe Schein, Matt Oliver, John Thanakumar, Robert Jackler, Yasser El-Sayed, Jayant Menon, Richard Holt, Serena Hu, Rick Hodes, and Amy Ladd. Sunil Pandya’s generous neurosurgical instruction was so helpful. James Chang, my distinguished Stanford colleague and hand surgeon extraordinaire, gave generously of his time, read many versions, and educated me about the nuances of hand surgery.