Joppan sighs. “He and Amma want me to marry, can you believe? I barely support myself!” He laughs. “I may do it to make them happy. Nothing else I do pleases them.”
They talk just like old times till past midnight when Joppan rises to leave, glowing from the toddy of which he’s had the lion’s share. “About the Feeding Center. I meant it, Philipose—I’m proud of you. You’re saving lives. But think about this, Philipose: if nothing changes, if the people have no way to escape poverty, if the pulayar can never own land or pass on wealth to their children, then the next time there’s a famine, it’ll be the same people standing in line. And it will take people like you to feed them.”
That thought makes it harder for Philipose to fall asleep.
A few weeks later, Big Ammachi announces that Joppan is to be married the next day.
“What? It can’t be! He never told me. Did he invite us?”
“It’s not for Joppan to invite. Shamuel invited us today. And now I’m telling you.” Seeing his crestfallen face she says, “Look, it’s not some alliance they spent months planning. It must have just happened.”
“Where’s the wedding? At their CSI church? I’m going.”
“Don’t be silly. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I’m going anyway,” he says peevishly. “Joppan will be glad to see me.”
“No, you are not,” his mother says firmly. “That family means too much to us. Don’t embarrass them just because you don’t understand your place.”
After the wedding, the new couple and the groom’s parents come calling, bearing jaggery sweets. Joppan grins sheepishly as he squeezes Philipose’s hand. He murmurs, “I told you I would.”
“You said you might!”
His bride, Ammini, is shy, and keeps her head covered so Philipose never gets a good look at her. Shamuel beams as if all his worries are over and he holds his son’s hand affectionately. Big Ammachi presents the couple with three bolts of cotton, a shiny new set of brass vessels, and a fat envelope. Joppan brings his palms together and bends to touch her feet, but she stops him. Shamuel and Sara run their hands over the gifts like excited children. Philipose marvels at his mother’s foresight. After they leave, she tells him that she’s given Shamuel a rectangular house plot behind his own for him to build a separate dwelling for Joppan and his new daughter-in-law if he wants to, or to give to the couple outright.
One year and four months from the time Uplift Master first began his petition campaign, electricity comes to Parambil P.O. from a substation two miles away. Only four families were willing to share the cost for the extension. Uplift Master says, “When the others decide they want electricity, they’ll have to pay a share of our initial costs adjusted for price increases. We might even get our investment back.”
In the glow of twenty-watt bulbs, the electrified households celebrate while their neighbors grumble. For Philipose, the expression on Baby Mol’s face as she switches on the “small sun” makes it all worthwhile. Insects swoop in from the dark and swarm around the bulb as though the invertebrate Messiah has arrived. Philipose fires up the radio that has sat idle for so long. A man’s voice fills the room, reading the news in English, and at that moment, Philipose, his hand on the cabinet, feels vindicated. He has brought the world to his doorstep. Odat Kochamma, hearing the disembodied foreign voice, comes at once, grabbing the first thing she finds on the clothesline to cover her head—it happens to be Baby Mol’s underwear. Philipose sees her in the doorway, making the sign of the cross, with the strange cloth hanging over her forehead. “Stand up, monay!” she says sternly. “A voice from nowhere is the voice of God!” She’s not entirely convinced by his explanations. He dials in music, and Baby Mol dances till she has to go to bed. Hours later, he’s still bent over the radio, feeling like he is Odysseus steering his galley over crackly shortwave oceans. He stumbles onto a theater performance and is transported from Parambil to a distant stage, echoing words he has by-hearted. “If it be now, ’tis not to come: if it be not to come, it will be now: if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.”
Big Ammachi declines an electric bulb in her bedroom, or in the kitchen. Her oil lamp, her old, faithful friend, its base worn and shaped to her palm and fingers, suffices; she takes comfort in its golden halo, the liquid shadows it throws on the floors and walls, and the smell of the burning wick. These swimming elements of her night she’d rather leave just as they are.
Before she goes to bed, Big Ammachi brings hot jeera water to her son. The ethereal glow from the dial illuminates his face. The world deserves his curiosity, his good heart, and his writing, she thinks. He once sought a larger world than she could ever imagine. Instead, he has settled for his books and his radio. She hopes it suffices. Lord, she prays, tell me this was where my son was meant to be.
Philipose senses her, turns, and says, “Ammachio!” He waves her in and turns off the radio for the first time in many hours. His face is flushed with excitement, and he looks a little nervous. She braces herself for what his new passion might be.
“Ammachi,” he says. “I want you to send for Broker Aniyan. I’m ready.”
CHAPTER 45
The Engagement
1944, Parambil
Broker Aniyan is a dignified man, his steel-black hair shooting back at the temples, giving him a sleek, aerodynamic look, his manner unhurried. Aniyan means “younger brother”; the pet or baptismal names he carried have long vanished. He neither smiles nor acts surprised when Philipose recounts the story of meeting Elsie on the train, though he does look over at Big Ammachi.
To Philipose’s surprise, Aniyan knows exactly who Elsie is, and that she isn’t married, “as of day before yesterday.” The Saint Thomas community is tiny by comparison with the Hindus or Muslims in Travancore and Cochin, but it’s still in the hundreds of thousands and scattered over the world. Brokers like Aniyan must be walking repositories of house names and family trees, dating back to the original converts.
“Well,” Aniyan says, “I’ll approach the Thetanatt side—Chandy, that is. If he’s interested, and since you’ve seen the girl already, no need for pennu kaanal.” He’s referring to the “viewing of the girl” by the prospective in-laws, an event the boy doesn’t always attend.
“I still want a pennu kaanal,” Philipose says.
Aniyan’s expression doesn’t change. In his line of work his face must reveal nothing, no matter the provocation.
“If Chandy is under the impression that you are yet to see her, then . . . it’s possible.”
“And I wish to talk to her,” Philipose adds.
“Not possible.”
“I insist.”
There’s a slight distention of the serpentine veins on Aniyan’s temples. He smiles faintly, rising. “Let me present the proposal to Chandy. That’s the first step.”
“Look, Anichayan. I’m going to marry her. Think of it as being both the pennu kaanal plus the engagement. Then surely it’s all right to say a few words.”
“The engagement is to fix the marriage. Not for talking with the girl.”
Aniyan reports back by the end of the week: Chandy is interested. They can proceed to the pennu kaanal.
But Big Ammachi has a question. “Did they ask about JoJo? Or Baby Mol? About water—”
Aniyan raises an eyebrow. “What’s to ask? A tragic accident causing a drowning. That’s not like lunacy in the family. Or fits. That I’ll never hide. And Ammachi, believe it or not, there are more Baby Mols in our community than you might imagine. It’s not an impediment to a matrimonial alliance.”
Big Ammachi turns to Philipose. “If this marriage comes about, you’re to tell Elsie everything, you hear? No secrets.”
Aniyan watches this exchange, waiting. He says, “So . . . Ammachi, you and one or two senior relatives will come to the Thetanatt house. Aah, and you may come too, monay,” he adds as an afterthought. “Barring any obstacles, that day can be the engagement, and we’ll fix wedding date and dowry—”