His ankles buckle and they catch him; the strong arms of Parambil lower their brother down, ease him to the earth, to his knees, while he still clutches the terrible load in his arms. Philipose, face upturned to the heavens, screams, beseeches his God, any god. God is silent. Rain is the best that heaven can do.
It is Shamuel, the eldest and the noblest of these men, squatting tenderly next to Philipose, who alone has the courage and the authority to gently disengage the father’s bloody hands. Shamuel covers the little boy with his own unfurled thorthu, and somehow this faded, utilitarian cloth transforms into a sacred shroud, the embodiment of the old man’s love. Shamuel gathers the little thamb’ran’s body into his arms, cradles him carefully, lovingly, his old bones creaking as he rises; Ranjan, Georgie, Uplift Master, Yohannan, and ten other hands help old Shamuel rise, brothers one and all, every barrier of caste and custom erased in the terrible solidarity imposed by death, while Joppan alone tends to the shattered father, lifts him to his feet, ducks his head under Philipose’s arm, encircles his waist, and supports him, half carries him as he limps on what are clearly broken ankles.
The wailing women have retreated to the Parambil verandah, crying, keening, or quietly weeping, cloths clutched to their mouths. Elsie is on her knees, her hands held to her chest, while Big Ammachi clutches a pillar and Odat Kochamma silently, rhythmically, strikes one fist, then the other to her breast, groaning, her face upturned, and they all wait. They’d last seen Philipose staggering down the road on feet that were grotesquely turned, his son’s limp form in his arms; the women had hoped against all hope that somehow once he was out of sight, the father, or God, or both, could work some miracle, make the broken boy whole, make what was crooked straight.
Then all hope is shattered for the women as they see the phalanx of fathers and sons returning, a wall of mustached, fierce men, arms over each other’s shoulders, brothers in heartbreak, walking as one, sobbing or clear-eyed, but every face distorted by pain, contorted with grief and anger and shock and rage. With them is the broken father, a madman, one arm over the shoulder of Joppan, held up by his childhood friend, whose muscles bulge and strain under the load until Yohannan slips under Philipose’s other arm.
In the center of the phalanx is Shamuel, all but naked, wearing only his mud-colored loincloth, his mundu lost on that cursed tree; Shamuel, walking with great dignity, his eyes straight ahead, his the only face that is composed, his bare torso squared to the unloveliness of what he carries in his arms, which his thorthu cannot fully conceal; Shamuel, slowly approaching the waiting women, his pace measured, as if every minute of his toil over his lifetime, clearing this land with his thamb’ran, the never-ending labor that shaped the sinewy biceps and plate-like pectorals, was leading to this moment, to this sorrowful duty: to bear in his arms with great solemnity his late thamb’ran’s last-born’s firstborn, who now joins his ancestors in the blessed hereafter.
After the burial, Philipose leans heavy on crutches, looking out the window to where the plavu once stood. Without asking anyone, Shamuel has cut down the remnant of the plavu. Shamuel vented his fury and his grief, savaging the tree with his axe, and Philipose only wishes he could have been there to take the place of the tree, so the old man’s axe might have torn into his own flesh. Joppan came uninvited to join his father, to help him—indeed, to take the axe from him as Shamuel’s blows became increasingly wild and reckless, and soon Yohannan was there too with others, and this time they spared none of it, attacking it viciously, digging out every last root and then filling the crater so that not even the scar of its existence showed, a brutal execution for a cursed tree. Philipose wishes they had finished him too, buried him in that spot, in that muddy soil where already the moss fed by blood and monsoon rain grows to conceal any trace of where a tree once stood in Parambil.
Shamuel tells Philipose later that they found a piece of Ninan’s shirt on the penultimate branch, twice as high as where his body was impaled. He says nothing more, but both men picture the little fellow getting his shirt caught on that high branch, dangling there momentarily before the fabric tore and he plunged down onto the pointed, upturned spear of the branch eight feet below. Philipose was in his study, working. He never heard the fall, only the mother’s subsequent scream.
There is far too much light in this bedroom now—obscene, hateful light. Philipose seethes with anger at himself. For not seeing Ninan begin his climb. For not hearing his son cry out. For not cutting down the tree altogether. Or leaving it be. This is all his fault. But . . . if Elsie had never bothered about the tree, his tree, if she’d respected his work as he had hers, then his Ninan, his firstborn, would still be alive. When Elsie stated her wish so many moons ago, if only he’d said “No!” Or said a true “Yes.” In a life, it is the in-betweens that are fatal; indecisiveness killed his son. But in his grief, in his bitterness, at this moment he thinks it all began with Elsie’s fateful wish: “You can cut down that tree.”
Why was it all so difficult? All he ever wanted to do was love her. Since the moment of his betrothal has he not been endlessly accommodating? Changing his practices so that hers can flourish? That is what has killed little Ninan—her stubbornness. Some part of him must know this is unreasonable even as he thinks it. But his mind can’t accept the alternative. If it’s all his fault, what earthly excuse does he have to be still breathing?
He hears footsteps behind him, and he knows without turning that she’s walked into the room. He and Elsie have not been alone with each other since the death. He turns to face her, hobbling on his crutches, ignoring the pain, his anger barely concealed.
He meets an anger that matches and exceeds his. Her eyes show rage, and something worse that he cannot abide: blame. Her face is as hard as the iron bars in the window and furrowed by dried tears that salt the skin.
The air between them is thick with the bile of recrimination and contempt. She dares him to accuse her, and he dares her to give words to what she’s thinking.
Then she looks over his shoulder and registers that the lethal, murderous remnant of the tree is gone . . . but it is much too late. Her eyes come back to him. He won’t forget her expression as long as he lives. Hers is the face of a vengeful god.
He senses her primal urge to launch herself at him, strike him, claw at his eyes, flay his cheeks with her nails. He can see the trajectory of this assault in his mind’s eye, and his own feral leap to block the charge with his hands, to shove her away, curse her for wanting what she should never have wanted, accuse her of killing his son, condemn her for coming into his life and bringing nothing but tragedy.
In the next instant she looks right through him, just as for years she looked through that plavu, pretended that its ugliness wasn’t there and that her view was unobstructed. At that moment she has made him vanish, wiped him off her canvas, so that what’s left is a smeared surface that holds the false lines, the figure that did not come out right, the erroneous strokes of a marriage, and a world botched beyond repair and not what she ever imagined. She brushes past him, bumping him aside with her shoulder—the hollow, invisible, less-than-ordinary man, the husband who isn’t there—as she gathers a few things.
He hears drawers opening and closing. Then he hears her say to someone, “Let’s go.”
Part Six
CHAPTER 50
Hazards in the Hills
1950, Gwendolyn Gardens
The scrape of Cromwell’s knuckles on the kitchen door and the wet smack of gumboots being shed begin their nightly ritual. Digby’s trusted comrade pads barefoot into the study, always in khaki shorts and short sleeves. And always smiling.