“What do people love so much about them?” Vairum snorts, and Muchami shrugs, but then realizes Vairum was not asking him. “Fascinating thing, fashion. He sold so many so fast, and they have to be hunted, stuffed, sent. I’m not sure the trend will persist, but if it settles down and becomes a fixture, maybe someone should consider domesticating, starting a farm or something.”
“Now there’s an idea.” Muchami guides the bullock around a pothole.
“So what’s he doing with his winnings? Putting them into some other crazy scheme?”
“Um, no.” Muchami is quiet.
“What?” Vairum asks eventually.
Muchami would really rather not have to tell him, though there is no saying how Vairum will react. “He seems to be interested in acquiring… trophies, of a sort.” What Goli is doing is not technically wrong, but Muchami has a feeling that Vairum will not like it.
“What sort?”
If Muchami doesn’t tell him, someone else will. “He seems to have his eye on Chellamma. You know who she is?”
Vairum shakes his head.
Muchami keeps his eyes on the road. “Devadasi.”
A temple dancer-“servant of the gods”-a courtesan. Women of this caste are trained in the finer arts, given to a god in a ceremonial marriage but dependent on liaisons with wealthy men, preferably in an exclusive relationship. It’s a man of rare refinements who keeps a devadasi: he may father a line of dancers, a great contribution to the native arts.
“A devadasi?” Vairum asks. “I didn’t even know there were any around here.”
“Just one, in fact. Long story. Her mother was brought here from Madurai-side, by her patron, Chellamma’s father. She came of age some five years ago but has only had one patron, for a couple of years. No one is supporting her now, and there was no issue from the previous union.”
“He is such a fool,” Vairum says.
“Yes,” Muchami agrees.
Vairum sighs. “He can barely support his own family, and now he wants to take on another one? Besides which, he leaves in less than a year. Thank God.”
“Status,” Muchami says simply. “He’s been buying gifts for Thangam and the babies, and new furniture.”
“He’ll go into debt,” Vairum says. “Big trouble ahead.”
“Yes.” Muchami looks over. “Don’t get involved.”
“I don’t need your advice.”
Muchami, stung even though he should have expected this, falls silent.
The next morning, Sivakami draws him aside. “What’s this about the son-in-law’s business venture?”
“Yes, Amma. I didn’t think you’d like it, and haven’t told you about most of his business dealings since he arrived in Kulithalai. He has had a new one every few months. Who knew this one would be so successful?”
“Animal heads?”
Muchami shrugs, grinning a little.
Sivakami is quiet a moment. “I suppose there’s nothing wrong with him trying to supplement his income, though I wish he would live more quietly. All this flash!”
“Yes, Amma,” Muchami says.
Sivakami looks at him suspiciously and waits, but he says nothing more and she doesn’t ask.
It is two weeks before Navaratri, and Thangam comes in glowing. “Amma,” she tells her mother. “Look.”
Muchami is unloading boxes from the bullock cart, and Thangam opens them to show her mother: dolls, every size and style, perhaps two dozen of them.
“He brought them from Thiruchi!” Thangam picks each one up in turn, caressing it and setting it back in its wrapper.
Sivakami turns away from her, feeling discomfited. It is very strange. She knows Thangam loves dolls, but she’s looking at them as Sivakami feels she should her own babies.
Vairum comes in and sees the boxes. “What’s all this?”
“Dolls,” Thangam whispers. “For Navaratri.”
“You deserve to be spoiled, Akka, but surely he would be better off saving his money? Investing it in something safe?”
Thangam looks away.
“I can’t talk to him,” Vairum sighs. “Don’t know if anyone can. Can you?”
Thangam keeps her silence.
“I didn’t think so,” he says. “All this is going to blow up in his face.”
The end to Goli’s fast fortune arrives in a near-literal fulfillment of Vairum’s prediction. A rush shipment of four deer heads arrives within a month, but as he is taking the last out of its crate to hand it over to a customer, the animal’s forehead ruptures, one glass eye pops out, and maggots spill forth all over Goli, the customer and Goli’s veranda. The customer runs out screaming, and that’s the end of trade.
The customers from whom Goli accepted advance payment cancel their orders and demand refunds, and a number of people even try to return heads they had already bought and taken home, even though Goli assures them the maggot incident was an unfortunate but isolated chemical slip-up.
“I’ve been pushing the supplier too hard. They got hasty. If you will only be patient…”
He permits the others to cancel their orders but tells them that it may be some time before he receives a refund from the supplier.
Muchami believes Goli only ever paid on receipt of shipments, spending all the advance cash on frivolities and counting on future orders to pay for those already in. Vairum believes the same, but Muchami has been more laconic with him since the conversation about the devadasi and, apart from brief reports, has confined conversation to their own immediate business concerns.
Six months later, no one has received a refund. Goli has spent this time trying to convince those few remaining men who have not yet invested with him to back him in setting up a sesame oil refinery, but without success. A little jealousy may have entered their relations, and now, in the wake of his failure, a little schadenfreude. Goli’s odour of indebtedness also means his charm isn’t quite as effective as once it was.
Muchami hears things are getting rocky between Goli and his devadasi but withholds this information from Vairum, who doesn’t ask but assumes as much.
Thangam has started to shed again, copiously, and is starting to show: she is pregnant once more.
For some reason, Sivakami doesn’t dare tell Vairum about the pregnancy, but, one day, he notices.
“Ah, great,” he says, clasping his hands, glittering ill will from his diamond-black eyes as Thangam appears to shrink. “That’s just what you and your profligate husband need. Well, it doesn’t matter-you’ll pack another off to live with us. The boy is first in line, now, isn’t that right?”
“Vairum!” Sivakami says from the kitchen.
He leaves, with a dismissive gesture at his mother. Sivakami stands watching Thangam, who is curved around her stomach as though trying to make it disappear. Could that be the problem? Thangam is ashamed of her husband, ashamed of her children. Vairum should be ashamed of himself. She wonders if she should say something to him later. How can she, though, when he has been so generous toward his sister and her children, and wants children of his own so badly? Who can blame him for being a little resentful?
And now, Muchami tells Sivakami, “I understand the house is vacated.” Goli sold the furniture; all that remains are the few trunks of pots and saris with which they arrived. These will be sent along after him. Thangam will stay in Cholapatti through her delivery.
“It’s God’s will that they move on. I can’t question.”
Muchami nods.
“Are you feeling all right?” Sivakami quizzes him.
He tries to look a little more lively. He feels like he has spent two years putting out fires. It was wonderful having Thangam nearby, but he’s not sorry to see Goli go.
Sivakami’s feelings are even more mixed. She’s not sure it has even been beneficial to Saradha and Visalam to have their mother near: they seemed more confused than enriched, and always looked scared of their father. Muchami looks exhausted. She’s not sure why-surely the extra trips back and forth were not so great a strain? Vairum will certainly be more relaxed, and she will, too: she was always dreading the prospect of a confrontation between them.