The House of Blue Mangoes (7 page)

Arriving at a decision, she waited for the house to quieten and retreat into its afternoon somnolence before slipping out into the heat of the day. Solomon would not be pleased with what she was planning to do, but then he need never know. Drawing her sari pallu over her head to protect it from the sun and also to disguise herself, she made her way to the Andavar quarter.

At the entrance to the lane of low-standing shacks of mud and thatch, she realized that she had no idea where Valli’s house was. She couldn’t remember when she had last been in the Andavar quarter, perhaps five years, maybe even a decade ago. There were very few people about. Flies, stunned and oppressed by the sun, crawled in the gutters and coated the dirt- and snot-stained faces of a small knot of children who sat, drained of all energy, in the meagre shade of a coconut palm. Upon seeing the headman’s wife, they came to life. As they swarmed around her, she spotted a woman she knew quite well squatting in the doorway of her hut, languidly picking lice out of her daughter’s hair. The woman jumped up when she saw Charity. She walked her over to Valli’s hut, barely a couple of doors away. ‘The girl is sleeping, the vaidyan gave her a potion. But it’s no use, amma. When she wakes up she’ll be just as damaged as before. It’s useless . . .’ Charity thanked the woman, and stooped to enter the hut.

Inside the sweltering windowless space she could just make out the dim form of Valli lying on a mat, an old sari draping her. She slept heavily, her breath rasping. Near the doorway sat the girl’s mother feeding her baby. Two other women, neighbours, gossiped quietly a little further into the room, bending over from time to time to brush away the flies that moiled around the girl’s mouth.

When they saw Charity, the neighbours immediately grew animated, vying with each other to greet her and give her the latest news. Valli’s mother said nothing, but continued to stare vacantly at Charity. Under that terrible gaze, drained of tears, emotion, hope, Charity grew anxious again. The full horror of what this mother, this family had gone through broke over her, and yet, and yet, could she really know what they had suffered? She felt guilty and ashamed that in her concern for her own, she had forgotten the trauma of those most affected by the attack. She was glad she had come, although she doubted that she could do much for this woman, who seemed to have gone beyond sorrow to some bleaker place where no one could reach her.

‘I’m here on the thalaivar’s behalf,’ she said, slipping easily into the lie. ‘He wondered if there was anything that could be done to help.’

The girl’s mother made no response. Charity was about to try again when one of the other women spoke: ‘There’s nothing to be done. What has happened has happened, no one can alter her fate. We can only hope that her suffering is eased quickly.’ Charity half turned to look at her, and the woman inclined her head slightly and continued to speak. The girl was born under a bad star, she was paying for sins committed in a past life, things would be better for her in the next . . . the words flowed without pause in the oppressive dark. The woman stopped after a while, and then there was only the harsh breathing of the sedated girl, drawn it seemed from some deep chamber by only the force of will, and the noisy snuffling of the infant at his mother’s breast.

There’s nothing I can do, Charity thought. These women have already begun to move on; they would be able to help the girl and her mother better than she could. There was no terrible spill of anger here, none of the fury that drove the mythical Kannagi to burn up her tormentors. This way was different, more practical, perhaps the only way left to the women of the village. There was good and evil, and both were necessary to keep the world in balance – you raged against Fate only when you didn’t understand. It was best to accept and go on. Charity knew this too, of course, but she had forgotten it in her concern for Rachel. Quickly getting up, murmuring words of condolence, she fumbled in the knot of her sari for some coins, pressed them into the hands of the woman nearest to the girl and rose to go. As she stooped to leave the hut, the breeze of her passing disturbed the flies crawling over the baby. They stirred sluggishly, then settled once more.

9

Towards late evening, having completed the chapter he was working on and feeling calmer, Father Ashworth decided to take a walk on the beach. Chevathar’s sunset was as dramatic as its dawn, and this evening the show was as good as it had ever been. As the sun subsided into the sea, a marvellous play of light and colour opened up. Shimmering bolts of orange, red, gold and a delicate lilac spread out in every direction. The fishing catamarans were coming in, further up the shore, slim black projectiles spearing through the bronzed surf. One of the fishermen would paddle and direct the nose of the craft, the other would stand and brace its passage through the waves, precise rhythmic movements as timeless and graceful as the world that lay about them. The return of the boats under the waning sun filled Father Ashworth with a deep melancholy, which had nothing to do with the recent events – it was something he often felt at this hour. Curiously enough, it was not a depressing feeling, more a sense of things closing down as night took over, putting an end to the day, its triumphs and its evils, its pain and its pleasure. This was the defining moment between light and dark. Its power and majesty came from its agelessness. It had been so when the spirit of God had moved upon the waters and it would be so a hundred years hence. Verses from Ecclesiastes came to him:

He walked to where the Chevathar broke away from the estuary and cut through the tinted sands to merge with the quiet thunder of the Gulf of Mannar. More verses from his favourite book of the Bible rose in his mind:

There was a verse he could never remember, and then the terrible beauty of the next:

The boats were almost all in now, the sun reddening the passage of the stragglers. The frail craft, the trim, work-hardened bodies of the fishermen, the great echoing power of the beach, none of this had been changed by time. This could be the Sea of Galilee; these the humble workers the master called to be fishers of men. Jesus would have been at home here, the priest thought. His followers were carpenters and peasants, not very different from the tenant farmers of Chevathar. They lived and worked under the blazing sun, suffered under the colonial yoke, were tormented by devils and disputes, rape and murder . . . As he watched the fishermen haul their catamarans up the beach he wondered what the message of Jesus would have been, had He lived and preached in India. Essentially the same, that was evident, but the parables would have changed. Instead of the vine and the fig tree there would have been rice and the mango tree, toddy would have replaced wine, and the Good Samaritan would probably have been the Good Marudar. But the basic truths that lay at the heart of the teaching would not have changed, could not have changed, for the Son of God had been fashioned by much the same circumstances as obtained in Chevathar.

A long way up the beach, he spotted a lone figure facing the westering sun. The speck of saffron that was wrapped around his indistinct body was all Father Ashworth needed to see to know who it was. It was the elderly poojari from the Murugan temple, and if it had been dawn and not dusk it was quite likely that he would be chanting rhythmically one of the most powerful mantrams the Gods had ever deigned to pass on to man, the Gayatri mantram, which the old man had taught the Christian priest before he had begun withdrawing from his duties and the world.

A disturbing image troubled Father Ashworth for an instant. He had heard it said that untouchables and the lowest of the low were forbidden from even hearing the holy chant and if they did, molten lead was poured into their ears. Will I ever come to terms with this country that is now my home, he thought. Will I ever understand it enough to be a truly effective vessel of Your will, Lord?

It was time to go to the headman’s house. As he began making his way there, the question posed so exquisitely in Psalm 137 occurred to him: How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

The light was failing by the time he reached the house. There was no one about on the veranda. He slipped around to the back, hoping to meet Charity and Kamalambal. A frequent visitor to the house, his arrival didn’t elicit more than a few half-hearted barks from the unsecured dogs in the backyard before they went back to more interesting pursuits. Only Daniel was outside. The boy was playing with something on the earthen stoop. As the priest approached, he looked up, frowned, then smiled.

‘Look what I found this morning, Father, on my way home. From the big tank near the river.’

Father Ashworth looked down to see two little tortoises the size of his thumb, with a sunburst pattern on their black backs, moving creakily across the packed earth.

‘Enchanting. We should try and find out what kind they are.’

‘Will they grow any bigger?’

‘I doubt it, they are not like turtles, though I have heard of land tortoises somewhere that grow to an enormous size.’

‘Appa is in a terrible temper today,’ Daniel said, changing the subject abruptly.

‘I know, and with reason.’

‘You’re here for the meeting, then.’

‘Yes, my son. Do you know where your mother is?’

‘In the kitchen. Would you like me to tell her you’re here?’

‘No, no, I’ll just walk around. The meeting is supposed to start soon.’

10

It was dark by the time the meeting began. Pinna-oil torches were lit, throwing a flickering light on the gathering. The courtyard in front of the house was covered with the colourful sedge mats indigenous to the region. There were more mats on the veranda. When Father Ashworth took his place at the back, he noticed the headman deep in conversation with Subramania Sastrigal, the poojari of the Murugan temple. He was sure Solomon was urging the priest to keep the peace among the Vedhars. Father Ashworth’s joints creaked as he lowered himself to the ground. It had taken him months to get used to sitting on the ground when he had first arrived in Chevathar but then it had become more familiar to him than sitting on furniture. Of late, however, age had crept into his joints and sometimes he felt himself wishing for a comfortable chair. He looked around at the faces that rose out of the twilight. Vakeel Perumal, dressed as always in spotless white; Muthu Vedhar, the tall, imposing leader of the Vedhar community, whose wealth and prestige were next only to Solomon’s; Swaminathan, the priest’s son, who had virtually taken over the running of the Murugan temple; a scattering of village officials and tenant farmers, among them Kuppan, the father of the girl who was attacked; Chokkalingam, the grain merchant, who now lived across the bridge in town; a small deputation of Paraiyans; and four or five others.

There was a brief eruption of noise as the deputy tahsildar walked into the courtyard. Solomon stopped talking to the poojari and came forward to greet him with folded hands. The young official returned the thalaivar’s greetings, acknowledged everyone else with a sweeping namaskaram and sat down facing the gathering, Solomon next to him.

Servants emerged from the house bearing palm-leaf plates holding coocoos, the famous honeycomb-shaped local sweet, black-wheat halwa, oompudi and banana chips, fat, yellow and crackly. Father Ashworth noted that the Brahmin priests were not served and that the chief of the Paraiyans, who sat some distance away from the main gathering, was served last. The buttermilk that was served in earthen cups to everyone else was served to him and his caste fellows in palm-leaf cups. Solomon, always the meticulous observer of caste rules!

After they had eaten and drunk, and the minimal courtesies and formalities were dispensed with, Solomon began to speak. ‘Friends, brothers, people sprung from the earth of Chevathar,’ he said, ‘it is with great sadness on this holy Pangunni Uthiram day that I say that the disease of caste and religious violence has struck at the heart of our community. You all know some of the facts, but I would like to share with you everything I know, because together we must keep this demon from our village.’

Solomon’s voice carried clear and crisp to his audience, who listened without sound or movement, the wavering light of the torches washing across their faces like gold. ‘Last week on Ram Navami, two members of the Andavar community were caught by Swaminathan entering the inner precincts of the Murugan temple to offer prayers. They were beaten up by the other worshippers and although I condemn the beating I condemn too the actions of those who went against time-tested traditions and customs.’

‘Tradition and custom are the handiwork of puny little men and perverted priests,’ Vakeel Perumal roared. Solomon glared angrily at him. A voice behind the lawyer murmured, ‘The polluting castes should know their place.’ It was Swaminathan, the young Brahmin priest, who had spoken. Quickly twisting around, Vakeel Perumal said, ‘And what would you know, you illiterate fool? Anyone who is acquainted with the shastras knows that the greatest seers were not Brahmins but belonged to other castes, who by their deeds proclaimed their superiority. Lord Krishna said this to Arjuna, every holy work says this: it is by your deeds that you are known, not by your birth.’

‘And everyone knows you were misbegotten,’ the young priest sneered. Vakeel Perumal scrambled to his feet and had taken a step towards the man, when he was arrested in his tracks by Solomon’s incensed voice. ‘If none of you can behave with the dignity of elders, is it any wonder that this village is being consumed by pisasus? Be quiet now, unless you would rather face my wrath.’