Fourteen months pass, and many visits to her husband’s room until at last she misses her monthlies. Then she miscarries. She’s stunned. That possibility hadn’t occurred to her. She’d assumed another child would follow, even if it took time, but never this. It feels as though her body betrayed her. Her husband is crushed even if he doesn’t speak of it. “Take nothing for granted,” God reminds her, “unless you want to feel its loss.” What can one do but go on? She miscarries again. When she recovers, she looks to cast blame: might this be the doing of the spirit in the cellar? Could it be that spiteful? She descends to the cellar and sits on an empty urn, sniffing the air, taking her soundings. To her surprise she feels the spirit commiserate with her. She comes away mollified. God only knows why miscarriages happen. God only knows—but doesn’t choose to explain.
When Baby Mol is five, they almost lose her to whooping cough that follows on the heels of measles. As soon as she recovers, Big Ammachi arranges for the baptism, fearful for the child’s soul. She asks Dolly Kochamma to be godmother. Dolly moves her head in assent, her face lighting up with happiness at the honor but saying nothing. In describing this exchange to her husband at dinner, Big Ammachi says, “You and Dolly are alike. Sparing with your words, and never one to gossip or speak ill of others.” He grunts in response. She says, “Of course Dolly’s co-sister will grumble that I didn’t ask her to be godmother.” In the years since her family’s unannounced arrival in Parambil, Decency Kochamma’s prudery has more than justified her nickname; gluttony, however, is not a sin the woman recognizes, for she has now doubled in size, her face merging into her neck, and her body becoming a shapeless barrel. The big crucifix that once pointed accusingly at whomever she was addressing has risen on her expanding bosom so it faces the heavens. Dolly Kochamma, despite her trials with her impossible co-sister and housemate, preserves her youthful figure, her face still unlined by worry, and her friendly demeanor unchanged, all of which must feel like a violation to Decency Kochamma. Big Ammachi adds, “I’m sure Decency Kochamma thinks she’s the saintlier of the two.” Her husband mutters something she doesn’t digest till he has left the table. “Only if you measure saintliness in tons.” It sinks in that her husband has just made a joke!
During the baptism, Baby Mol delights in having water poured on her head, something JoJo would never have tolerated. Big Ammachi hears the achen intone the baptismal name she has chosen, and Dolly Kochamma dutifully repeats it. But that name sounds jarring to Big Ammachi’s ear, while on her tongue it feels as brittle as uncooked rice.
When they return from church, her husband is waiting. He tosses his daughter into the air and the child lets out a hoarse cry of delight. “So, what’s your name?” he asks.
“Baby Mol!” the little one says. He looks inquiringly at his wife.
“It’s true. I left the other name in the birth register and that’s where it will stay.”
Five years on, she lives with the pain of JoJo’s death the way one lives with vision turned cloudy from a cataract, or the ache of an arthritic hip. But the newly baptized Baby Mol is their salvation; even the little girl’s father, who has long ago renounced God, must see the divine in her ready smile and generous nature. She’s everyone’s favorite. As an infant, she was happy to be carried, and equally happy in her little hammock. Now that she’s older, she’s content to sit for hours on one verandah bench that she has made her own. From there she reveals a strange ability to announce the arrival of visitors before they have come into view. “Here comes Shamuel!” she might say, and they see nobody, but three minutes later, Shamuel will arrive. Her mother finds it remarkable that Baby Mol rarely cries. The only time she recalls her crying was that one terrible day when she keened till she turned blue, the day when Big Ammachi had wished . . . It is best not to recall what she wished. She understands that violent loss begets more violence.
During the monsoon that year they all take ill with fever. The hearth fire stays cold for one whole day because there’s no one to attend to it. Her mother is the last to recover: she’s always tired, sleeping early, and only rising when the sun is high overhead. Rising from her mat is an effort, and her hair is unkempt because her arms fatigue in the act of combing. When her mother does eventually appear in the kitchen, she’s listless, too weak to help. Most alarming is that her mother’s stream of chatter is silenced. They send for the vaidyan, who takes her mother’s pulse and examines her tongue, then prescribes his usual massage oils and tonics, but they don’t help. She’s getting worse. Moreover, her daughter has her hands full, trying to care for her and run the household.
Blessings come in many shapes and sizes, but the one that arrives around the Onam festival happens to be of the bow-legged variety. Baby Mol announces her arrival—“an old lady is coming”—minutes before the bow-legged Odat Kochamma waddles in as if she’s heard a silent summons for help. This gray-haired, hook-nosed woman can stand with her feet together and Baby Mol could still pass between her knees. She’s a distant cousin of “Big Appachen,” as Baby Mol calls her father (a name they gradually all take to using when speaking of him in the third person). Big Ammachi finds out later that the old lady wanders among the homes of her various children, staying for a few months with one, then another before moving on. But Parambil is where she will stay.
“Where do you keep the onions?” Odat Kochamma says, walking into the kitchen, speaking out of the corner of her mouth so her chaw of tobacco doesn’t fall out. “And hand me the knife. In all my years I keep praying for onions to cut themselves and climb into the pot, but you know what?”—and she squints at each of them while looking deadly serious—“So far it has never happened.” Then her deadpan expression cracks, the face breaks into a myriad of wrinkles, and her disarming grin is followed by a cackle so unexpected and lighthearted that it banishes the dark clouds from the kitchen. Baby Mol is thrilled and claps her hands, laughing with her.
“My gracious God,” Odat Kochamma says, spotting the rice boiling over, raising her hands up to the heavens, or trying to, but her stoop lets them get only as far as her face. “Is anyone watching over this kitchen?” The admonishment is offset by the twinkle in her eyes and the tone of her voice. “Who’s in charge—the cat?” She whips her thorthu off her shoulder and uses it to move the pot off the fire, then pokes her head out of the back door, puts two fingers to her compressed lips, and shoots out a jet of tobacco juice. She turns back in time to spot the cat sneaking up on the fried fish. Caught in the act, the cat freezes. Odat Kochamma’s upper lip slowly everts, then crudely carved wooden teeth emerge like muddy fangs as she pushes out a denture. It’s too much for the cat, who turns tail and flees. The dentures retreat and the old lady’s laugh rings out again. “By the way,” she says in a stage whisper, looking around to make sure no strangers are eavesdropping, “these aren’t my teeth. That appooppan left them on a window ledge just now.”
“Which old man?” Big Ammachi asks.
“Hah! My wretched daughter-in-law’s father! Who else? I was leaving that house after she called me an old goat. I saw the teeth and I thought, Aah, if I’m the old goat, then don’t I need this more than him? If he left it there it means he mustn’t want it, illay?” She tries to look innocent but her eyes are full of mischief. Big Ammachi cannot stop laughing. All her worries momentarily vanish.