The other children have collected in a wide circle around them. Janaki is slap-scratching anything within reach but replies reasonably, because she knows the answer. “He goes to the club.”
Bharati tosses her to the packed-earth floor and hisses, “Where does he go after the club?”
Janaki is weeping. Bharati walks away. As the teachers hurry over, Janaki yells, “I don’t even know where your house is.”
Bharati spits back over her shoulder, “Follow him tonight. You’ll find it soon enough.”
She pushes her way past teachers and students, to wash her face and clothes at the school pump. Neither girl is permitted to walk home unescorted, so, abject, stony, dishevelled, they finish out the afternoon on their shared bench.
As Janaki is learning things about her father that she doesn’t want to hear and claims not to believe, the man himself mounts the steps of Sivakami’s veranda. Vairum, having spent the morning inspecting the oil processing plant he is to open that afternoon, is lying down for a few minutes before leaving to drop in at Minister’s salon.
“Hullo!” Goli yells from the door. “Hullo! Vairum! Big chances afoot-come on out.”
Vairum slowly descends the spiral staircase into the main hall, as Sivakami, having her own meal in the kitchen, stands hurriedly and goes to wash her hands.
“Well, well!” Goli rubs his own hands together. “You are looking prosperous these days-filling out!” Vairum puts his hands on his hips as Goli continues, “So-I have a proposal.”
“Want to sell me another tract of your family land, eh?” Vairum stands on the last step, looking down at Goli. “Must be getting down to the last few parcels now. I sent for the registrar first thing this morning to make sure this wouldn’t take any longer than necessary.”
The young official, who had been sitting in the vestibule between the front door and the entrance to the main hall, unfolds his gaunt frame and pokes his head in hopefully.
Goli looks at him stupidly and then points at Vairum. “You hang on-don’t you assume anything, little man. We’ve got some bargaining to do.”
“I pay better than anyone else in the presidency, Athimbere, in part so I don’t have to waste time bargaining. Your father knew that better than anyone, and I know you know it, too, which is why you’re coming to me.”
“How dare you mention my late father,” Goli snarls, advancing on Vairum.
The lands in question passed into Goli’s possession the year prior, with his father’s death. Before that, Vairum had twice made similar transactions with the older man, who had fallen into the same troubles as so many Brahmins, his need for cash outpacing his ability to coax income from crops, forcing him to sell off.
“Either sit down and do what you came here to do, you fool, or get out,” Vairum tosses back. “We’re not doing each other any favours.”
Sivakami tries to intervene from the kitchen entrance with a civility. “Please, Vairum, offer the son-in-law coffee. It’s almost ready.”
“Fool? Fool? As if I need your stinking cash.” Goli reaches into a document case he carries and flings a set of papers at the registrar. “Who is the fool here?”
Vairum indicates to the young official that he may begin. “I would say it’s the one who fathers children he can’t support. Ah-” He holds up a finger as Goli winds up with a retort. “One word out of you and this deal is off-I defy you to find anyone else who will buy these lands for as much money as you need. And you and I both know you need it now.”
Goli makes a noise of strangulation and goes out into the garden. What, Sivakami is wondering, does he need the money for? It must be some debt. She knows he gambles-but surely he can’t have lost this much money on cards? Another business scheme gone awry, she supposes.
As Vairum begins counting the stamp papers and checking the description of the property against the deed, he instructs the official to put the property in Thangam’s name, carrying on the tradition Sivakami’s brothers started.
“You may be willing to rob your children of their inheritance, Athimbere,” Vairum comments loudly, “but I am not.”
“Vairum!” Sivakami says again from the kitchen, and he looks at her sharply. She wants to say what he already knows, that he is the better man and that he need not remind Goli of that, but she cannot say that with Goli and Thangam present, even though Thangam has lain with her eyes closed, on a reed mat cushioned with homemade quilts, in one corner of the main hall, throughout this exchange, which she gave no indication of hearing. Sivakami’s thought makes her feel slightly as if she is betraying her daughter. Regardless, Vairum already knows it, so she need not say it. Instead, she remonstrates, “The neighbours might hear.”
Vairum’s lip curls. He turns back to the paperwork, finishing it off with a flourish. “Your turn to sign, Athimbere,” he says, rising. “Take it to my bank in Kulithalai. The manager is expecting you.” He puts on his shoes at the door and leaves before Goli re-enters.
That day after school, Janaki makes a point of telling Sivakami that she is going to study up on the roof. Her books in their strap, slung over her shoulder, she treads the stairs with leaden feet, matching each step with a hand slap against the wall in the narrow stairwell. The fresh whitewash makes the pads of her hands chalky, and when she arrives in the sunlight, she claps her hands to make little dust clouds. She walks slowly around the edge of the roof as Vani plays. The sun is already slanting low enough to make two feet of shade along the western side.
Looking down into the next yard to the east, she sees Dharnakarna, the witch, feeding idli to her sister-in-law. Their tiffin hour is often amusing, the witch patiently timing the mouthfuls so they don’t get slapped across the courtyard. The sister-in-law won’t bite the hand that feeds her, but she snaps at it sometimes. Janaki moves across the back and looks down into her own courtyard and the woods behind. A brief breeze parts the lingering stillness of the afternoon air. Parrots are beginning to fly among the trees. She can’t see if Bharati is in her regular spot behind the house: she’s pretty sure Bharati won’t have come but will not go down to check, in case she has.
She circles, coming up the western side of the house, from which she can see into Rukmini and Murthy’s courtyard. Rukmini has fetched Krishnan to play with her, and Janaki hears his laughter. She moves again toward the front of the house, unable for once to sit still and listen to her aunt play. The sounds of the street dissolve as day thins into dusk.
Kamalam arrives from downstairs as Vairum comes to carry Vani’s veena to their quarters. Vani follows. Kamalam and Janaki stand in silence at the front of the roof until the moment when-you can almost miss it-outlines of shapes disappear and become one with the dusky blue air. Then Janaki says to Kamalam, “I’m going out and I’ll be back before suppertime. If I’m not, though, just say I have fallen asleep up here and don’t feel like eating. Say I’m being cranky if you are sent to wake me up.”
Kamalam is frowning. “Why…?”
But Janaki just shakes her head and waggles her finger as she walks back to the stairs. She descends cautiously into the main hall, which is empty apart from their mother, who sits thin and pregnant against the back wall. Where is Sita? Talking with one of her friends out on the veranda. Janaki cannot leave the house, by front or back, while Sita is out there-she will be visible from the veranda as she takes the cart path out of the Brahmin quarter. She hides behind the stairs and calls out, “Sitakka! Sitakka!”
Sita shouts back, “What?”
“Come back and help me with this, just for a second.” Janaki pops her head out to yell, and then hides again.