They’re both silent. Then, and for the first time since she arrived, her composure wavers. Her lip quivers. “Doctor, will my baby be all right?”
He regards the lovely face that looks at him so earnestly. His thoughts are interrupted by another wild yell from her husband outside. In that moment Digby has a glimpse into her future, a disturbing premonition of doom, something he has never experienced. “Baby will be fine,” he says to her reassuringly. Relief washes over her features. “Just fine.” He hopes that’s true. “Your baby has great reflexes—that we know. He had his fist out there like Lenin,” he says, trying to lighten the mood. He extends his hand over her belly, his palm down in pastoral blessing. He leans over to speak directly to the baby: “I proclaim you Lenin, evermore. If you’re a boy, that is.” He grins, though his scar still gives a slight snarl to that expression.
“Lenin Evermore,” the beautiful Lizzi repeats, her head moving from side to side, emphasizing each syllable as though she’s memorizing it. “Yes, Doctor.”
CHAPTER 51
The Willingness to Be Wounded
1950, Parambil
Ninan has been dead six months, and Elsie gone from Parambil for just as long, husband and wife having turned on each other, when Big Ammachi and Uplift Master travel to the Thetanatt house in their somber finest. The last time Big Ammachi was in Chandy’s house was six years ago for the engagement. On that visit, the room had echoed with Chandy’s booming laughter. Now, the poor man is in a coffin in the center of the room, wreaths of jasmine and gardenia around him. His earlobes and the tip of his nose are turning dusky. If he were alive, he’d object to the cloying scents of the flowers and to being discreetly splashed with eau de cologne to mask the odors. Big Ammachi finds herself once again seated on the long white sofa in Chandy’s house, her feet dangling awkwardly off the floor, wishing Odat Kochamma were seated beside her as she had been the last time.
Lord, in just six months how many funerals have you had me attend? If there’s to be one more, make it mine. First, you took Baby Ninan. Let’s not talk about that. Then Odat Kochamma. Yes she was old. Either sixty-nine or ninety-six. “You pick,” she’d say. “It’s one or the other. Why do I need to know?” But did she have to die on a visit to her son’s house? We prayed and slept in the same room more nights than I’ve slept with any soul other than Baby Mol. You should have let her be with me when you took her. After that you came for Shamuel’s wife, clutching her belly one day and dead before we could get her to a hospital. Enough, Lord. You’re all-powerful, almighty, we know. Why don’t you sit down and do nothing? Pretend it’s the seventh day for the next few years.
Oh, it’s pure blasphemy, but she doesn’t care. She’s like an aged rubber tree that no longer oozes in the wake of the tapper’s blade, emptied of tears though not of feelings—or so she thinks. But tears come anyway when she hears the women singing “Samayamaam Radhathil.” On the Chariot of Time. That dirge is entwined with the memory of her father’s death—the worst day of her life—and reinforced by every loss that has followed. The chariot’s wheels are always turning, bringing us closer to the journey’s end, to our sweet home, to the Lord’s arms . . . But Lord, some, like JoJo and Ninan, just got on board. What’s your hurry?
Earlier, when she arrived at the Thetanatt house, Elsie flew into her arms, her body shaking with sobs that would not stop. All she could do was wipe the young woman’s tears away and kiss her and hold her. “Molay, molay, Ammachi feels your pain.” It had been six months since Big Ammachi had seen her daughter-in-law—Elsie had left right after the funeral. Big Ammachi was shocked to see how thin she had become, her hair suddenly white at the temples; it was such a troubling sight in one so young.
Big Ammachi had desperately wanted to say, Where have you been, molay? Do you know how much Baby Mol and I ached for you? There was so much to tell her daughter-in-law, things Elsie might have wanted to know, such as that Lizzi had finally written, but without a return address, to say she has had a baby boy . . . but of course this wasn’t the occasion. Instead, Big Ammachi had held Elsie, and sat with her on this sofa for the last two hours because Elsie wouldn’t let go of her hand; the poor girl looked like a haunted child that was trying to find a place where life could not inflict more pain. And so Big Ammachi offered herself; she offered her arms, her hands, her kisses . . . and her willingness to be wounded. Isn’t that what mothers did for their children? What else was a parent to do?
In the cemetery, as soon as the casket is lowered, Uplift Master says, “We must leave, Ammachi, if we’re to get back tonight.” Elsie clutches her mother-in-law’s hand, weeping, not wanting her to go. Big Ammachi says, “Molay, I’d stay but for Baby Mol . . .” She wants to add, Won’t you come back with me? Parambil is your home. Let your Ammachi care for you there . . . But of course, with so many guests at the Thetanatt home, Elsie has to remain, and it would be an unkindness to ask. Moreover, the rift between Elsie and her son is so great, it’s unlikely her pleading will make any difference.
On the bus ride home she gazes in wonder at endless paddy fields, at a leper sitting on a culvert, and into houses in whose dim interiors she sees an old man reading, two girls playing, women cooking . . . Families living their lives, no one spared the pain. All these people will one day be shades, just as she too will be buried and forgotten. So rarely does she travel away from Parambil that she forgets that she’s the tiniest speck in God’s universe. Life comes from God and life is precious precisely because it is brief. God’s gift is time. However much or however little one has of it, it comes from him. Forgive me, Lord, for what I said. What do I know? Forgive me for thinking that my little world is all that matters.
After a short boat ride, they walk home from the jetty. She thanks Uplift Master. She sees Parambil ahead, a faint silhouette against the sky, just as she saw it as a bride half a century ago. No lamp has been lit, and no bulb turned on, which only deepens her annoyance with Philipose.
When the messenger arrived with the news that Chandy had suddenly passed away at his estate, she’d hurried to tell Philipose. “You must go. Be with your wife,” she had said. “Then maybe, after a few days, you can bring her home.” He’d been reading in bed, his pupils tiny pinpricks. He’d laughed. “Go? Go how? I can’t stand up for long, let alone walk any distance. And why should I go with my crutches and sit there like a pimple on her forehead that she doesn’t want? She blames me. I am to blame.” He was now so guilt-ridden that whenever she scolded him, he welcomed it. She’d given up and asked Uplift Master to accompany her. “My son has become a knife that can’t slice, a fire that can’t warm a pot of coffee.”
Baby Mol has divined already that her mother is back without Elsie. She retreats from her bench to her mat. Big Ammachi hears her sniffles. Baby Mol so rarely cries.