They are quiet.
“You’ll be all right,” Janaki says after a few moments. Bharati looks at her. “I just know, things will turn out good for you.”
Bharati smiles at her and shyly looks away. “You’ve never had a half-sister before, huh?”
“No,” Janaki says and politely returns the smile. She feels strange, aware that she no longer feels the urgent need to gain Bharati’s favour.
When Janaki returns from school that afternoon, her father is sitting on the veranda, chatting with several neighbours, Brahmin men she knows slightly, not well enough to have recognized their voices at the club the night prior. Hearing them now, as she passes on her way into the house, the night scent and nervousness of her vigil come back to her. Her father doesn’t acknowledge her.
She has a snack and changes her clothes. She is about to start up the stairs to listen to Vani, who has already begun playing, when she hears shouting from the front. Her uncle has come home.
“I don’t want anything from you, you peasant-lover!” Goli screams.
“That’s a nice change, then,” Vairum spits back as he mounts the stairs. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“Sooner help a non-Brahmin than anyone from your own caste!”
Vairum doesn’t turn. “Keep your epithets to yourself.” He shucks his shoes in the vestibule and enters the main hall. “Hypocrite.”
Goli runs in after Vairum and, picking up Vairum’s shoes, throws them. One hits his back. Vairum turns and seems to watch the other hit his front, not even lifting a hand to bat away this insult, the erasure of caste.
“You love untouchables so much, now you can be one,” Goli sneers. He backs out of the vestibule, through the crowd, and disappears.
Vairum walks slowly out to the veranda and faces the Brahmin-quarter denizens staring from his stoop, fair, flabby men, fingering their holy threads and shoulder towels.
“Here-I stand before you, uncasted,” Vairum softly proclaims. “Has he acted on your behalf?” he asks, gesturing over them as though to clear a small cloud. “A low and unscrupulous scoundrel, who has left his children for me to raise. He has thrust me beneath caste?”
He looks at them and they look away; one man clears his throat. They are thinking, variously, that Vairum is the scoundrel; that Sivakami, and not he, is raising the children; that Vairum may be in the right but it is best not to get involved in a family fight. But none speaks, and Vairum closes the door on their faces.
“You see, Amma, why I care so little for what the neighbours hear.” Vairum turns to face his mother, who comes out now from the pantry, where she stood and watched the exchange.
“Oh, my child.” She holds her arms out toward him and he looks at her incredulously.
“You understand you are party to this, yes? The man hangs around my front stoop waiting to insult me, Amma. Why do you protect him?”
“I never wanted, I…” I would have done anything to save you from this. “For your sister.” What can she say-is it not obvious that she would give her life for him?
She looks around at Thangam sitting in the corner where she has lain since her arrival, her body rigid, her neck stiffly bowed to hide her face. Kamalam and Janaki watch from the corner by the kitchen, and Sivakami sees Muchami watching Janaki from the garden door, all of her feelings mirrored in his face: how to keep children from harm? She has done all she can to protect all of them-hasn’t she?
“You have never done what is best for my sister,” Vairum thunders. “The Brahmins on this street have never accepted me, and now your son-in-law has uncasted me like those ruffians uncasted your Rama. There is no reason for me to live here. You can have your precious neighbours, and your reputation. Vani and I are moving to Madras.”
“Don’t do that, my son,” Sivakami says, confused.
He calls Vani.
They need take nothing: they each have a full wardrobe in their house in the city, and Vani a better veena, though she has gone there only twice a year till now. They take leave of Sivakami, doing a prostration for her. Sivakami doesn’t know if Vairum means to force his mother to give them her blessings, or if Vani insisted on their paying Sivakami their respects. When they rise, Sivakami hugs them, though only Vani returns her embrace. Vairum keeps his arms stiffly at his side. She is crying, though from her right eye only.
She calls Janaki to offer Vani a plate of turmeric, betel and vermilion.
Sivakami doesn’t know what “hypocrite” means, and doesn’t know why Goli was accusing her son of loving non-Brahmins, but she knows Vairum has not shown nearly the sort of allegiance with his own caste that the times seem to demand. She feels small and old, and frightened.
It has been years since Janaki has helped Muchami with the cows, and she feels awkward and guilty as she goes to the cowshed the next morning. She feels she is being babyish. She can’t even wholly admit to herself her motivation: she wants desperately to talk about what she learned about Bharati. She presumes her mother and grandmother don’t know, and she can’t be the one to tell them. What if they do know? It would be horrible to talk about it, especially now that Goli is responsible for Vairum’s leaving. Kamalam is too tender; her eldest sisters are too far away. Sita would call her a liar, and Janaki would never talk to her about anything important or painful anyway.
She thinks Goli has done something wrong, but has he, and what, exactly? The man Bharati thought was her father sounds honourable, and Bharati made it sound as though his second family might not even be a secret from his first. Sivakami must not know about it. But maybe the only thing Goli did wrong was not paying. Janaki feels as though she is banging weak fists against her own unyielding head. Who can help her to understand this?
Once she sees Muchami at work in the shed, however, she is unable to talk to him either. He is a servant, she tells herself, even as she feels an ancient urge to climb into his lap and put her arms around his neck. He is not part of the family. If he doesn’t know, I can’t be the one to tell him, and if he does know, it would be improper for me to discuss it with him. She backs out of the shed without saying anything, and goes slowly toward the house. She doesn’t feel like crying; she feels as though a black wind whirls dryly at her centre, obscuring something essential from her view.
Muchami had heard her come in. He turns and sees the hem of her paavaadai disappearing into the house. He guesses she wanted to talk. Perhaps it’s about Goli, perhaps…
Of course: her school friend. She must have said something to Janaki about Goli owing her mother money. Nothing can be proven; he hopes neither girl has heard the rumours that the devadasi’s daughter is his. It’s not a subject he can raise with Janaki, though. Hopefully, she’ll just let it go.
FIVE MONTHS LATER, Thangam gives birth to another baby boy. The child is lusty and red, and when his sisters see him, they gasp at his beauty: he alone among them has inherited Thangam’s golden eyes. Thangam, though, is exhausted, and lies with her eyes closed, until Sivakami says, “Thangam? Thangam, kanna, do you want anything?”
Thangam raises her head and Sivakami freezes: Thangam’s eyes are now stone cold blue. She shakes her head, no, and lies back down to sleep.
30. Rainy Season 1940
IT’s THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL. Janaki and Bharati hold hands up to the schoolyard gate, then uncouple while their servants, Mari and Draupadi, wait to escort each of them, and their younger sisters, home. They are both nearly five feet, and wear uniforms of a half-sari-a long cotton paavaadai in navy blue, with white blouse and white davani, a cloth piece wrapped once about the hips, across the chest, and over the shoulder-indicating they are now more women than girls. They both came of age this year-Janaki is nearly fifteen, Bharati has commenced her sixteenth year-and will not continue in school, since all higher levels are coeducational.