The Toss of a Lemon (58 page)

At the end of the commercial thoroughfare, Goli strikes east along the curving road that rings the town. Janaki is not so scared now. The velvet dust between her toes is like the dust behind their house when she relieves herself at midnight, and the shadows cast by moonlight are steady and sedate. She permits herself to imagine Bharati’s house and her mother.

In her mind, Chellamma is slatternly. Lumpy mounds of flesh, conniving eyes ringed in thick kohl, scheming lips reddened by betel, layers of powder over a dark and uneven complexion. Janaki really cannot understand what her father would see in such a woman, when he has the most beautiful wife anyone’s ever seen. Janaki gasps aloud: witchcraft ! Bharati’s mother captivates men with spells. That must be it!

She is walking faster and faster, working herself into a fury of indignation, and nearly overtakes her father but catches herself in time and drops back. Finally he steps onto a small path leading to a mud house with thatched roof. It is lit within by kerosene lamps, proof of their prosperity. Janaki, though hardened by anger at Chellamma’s nerve, doesn’t fail to note the tidiness of the swept path, the walls as freshly whitewashed and decorated for Pongal as any Brahmin’s.

She sees her father stoop and enter the dwelling. Janaki paces the periphery clockwise until she comes to a window. She approaches it and startles.

Bharati’s knowing smile matches Janaki’s frightened face as though the window were a magic mirror. Bharati makes no noise, but, giving Janaki a sly nod, seats herself to allow Janaki an unobstructed view.

Bharati’s younger brother and three sisters are clustered in a corner around their grandmother. Her mother, Chellamma, matches her house: she is a small, tidy woman with wrinkles around her eyes that seem to Janaki oddly familiar. She is not fat and slovenly; she is just... plain. And tough-looking. Her mouth is set in a hard line as she tells Goli, “Hand it over.”

Goli hands her a packet of rupee notes. Janaki thinks of the day before, when she saw her first of the new five-rupee notes that have just come out, with a portrait of George VI. She wonders how much her father has paid.

“You could have had all the income from that land,” he jeers, “but you had to make me sell it, didn’t you?”

Chellamma turns away from Goli, and Janaki sees the hardness drop away for a moment. In its place is an expression tired and sad, and Janaki recognizes the lines around her eyes: they’re like her own mother’s. As Chellamma crouches and pours a tumbler full of water flavoured with palm sugar and ginger, Bharati’s grandmother speaks from a corner, where she is assembling betel nut and leaves from a rosewood box.

“Oh, and how was she supposed to manage that land from here? If it was any good, you would have been able to keep it and pay us from the income.”

Goli suddenly explodes, his hand chopping against his palm. “You have no proof! Why should I pay at all?”

The grandmother coolly looks down at the spade-shaped leaves in her palm, a winning hand of cards.

“What proof do we need, beyond your bragging of the strength of your seed?” the old woman says as she streaks the leaves with calcium paste and rose-petal gel. “Everyone knows you were the man my daughter was receiving at that time.”

“Pah!” Goli appears at a loss for words.

Chellamma, the hardness returned to her face, turns back and holds out a plate to him, on which sits the cup of flavoured water.

“Look at Bharati’s forehead, her eyebrows, her hair,” Chellamma says. “Do they not look familiar?”

Janaki watches the old woman sprinkle the leaves with areca nut, cardamom and rock sugar, roll them into three-sided packets and pin them shut with cloves.

Chellamma places the betel packets on another plate and, pulling her sari over her shoulder, offers it to Goli.

Janaki waits for her father to slap the plate away and send the odious packages flying. Instead, he puts one in his mouth, then puts another in Chellamma’s. The gesture has the ceremony of a pact-sealing and the intimacy of lovers’ service. Janaki starts to cry.

“So our business is concluded?” Goli asks Chellamma in a low voice.

Chellamma inclines her head, lowering her eyes and lifting them again. Goli touches her cheek. “I’ll be around a few more days,” he murmurs.

Bharati’s head pops up in the window and Janaki, unable to face her, turns her back to the house and sits on the ground. When she sees her father leaving, she follows him home.

Kamalam looks as though she has been holding her breath since Janaki left. She doesn’t ask questions. When Janaki starts to cry again, Kamalam kisses her hand and strokes her hair, but Janaki only cries for a minute or two.

At lunch hour the next day, when their friends begin cautiously to pull up their benches, Janaki and Bharati say, “Go away,” almost in unison. During the morning’s lessons, they have been civil but serious—cooperating in maths, participating in history. Now they incline toward one another.

“I’m sorry,” Janaki says.

“Me, too,” Bharati quickly responds.

They are quiet for a few moments.

“Is your mother saving for your marriage?” Janaki asks. She’s not sure why she put her question this way, other than that she doesn’t know how else to ask what she wants to know.

Bharati smiles a little, wearily. “You don’t know much about us, do you?” she asks.

Janaki shakes her head quickly, holding her breath.

“I’m married already,” Bharati begins.

“You are?” Janaki is amazed. She had no idea. “Did your mom take you to Pondicherry?”

“Uh-uh. Madurai.”

But that’s the city closest to Pandiyoor, Vani’s hometown, Janaki thinks. It’s within the Madras Presidency.

“I didn’t marry a man,” Bharati continues. “We... in my caste, we marry a god. There aren’t too many of us around here—my grandmother came from Madurai—so she took us back there for my wedding ceremony.”

“How did—you married a god?” Janaki frowns.

“It’s just like a wedding, you know. Except the groom is a god statue, dressed up. You even have a pretend wedding night, where you sleep with a sword, in a bed. I don’t really get that part,” Bharati admits, blushing. “But, anyway.”

“What’s ...” Janaki begins, realizing she can’t tell Bharati’s caste from her name. “What’s your caste called?”

Now Bharati looks at her sharply. “We’re devadasis, Janaki. You didn’t know that?”

Janaki’s eyes widen but she tries to stop herself from looking too shocked. She is pretty sure she has heard the word “devadasi” whispered as though it is something scandalous. After a moment, though, she admits, “I don’t really know what that means.”

Bharati looks as though she’s trying to decide whether Janaki is telling the truth.

“Well,” she starts, cautious and a bit didactic, “you know we really believe in education, especially for girls. That’s why I learn music, and I’m in school, and I have a dancing master, too, who comes to my home. My mother and grandmother had live-in instructors.” She warms to her story, starting to sound more assured, and older. “My grandmother was quite famous in Madurai, so much so she got a big patron, a Kulithalai Brahmin, who brought her here. So that was my grandfather.”

“Oh...” Janaki’s trying to absorb all this. “You learn dancing?” This is probably the most incredible aspect of the story so far.

“Yes—
sadir.
You should come and watch me dance sometime,” Bharati offers warmly.

“Sure,” Janaki says, thinking she might have gone to Bharati’s house before, but now she doesn’t think she can face Bharati’s mother. “So your father and grandfather were Brahmins? But you’re not.”

“Uh-uh.” Bharati is emphatic. “Devadasis don’t marry the men,” she clarifies. “You got that, right?”

“I guess.”

“We’re artistes.” She pauses, then elaborates, sounding now as though she’s making an argument, to Janaki or herself. “And we’re good omens because we’re
nityasumangalis
—‘forever married’—because a god never dies.”

Janaki wonders what it’s like to be a good omen. Her grandmother hardly ever goes out, in part because widows are a bad omen and she doesn’t want to do that to anyone. Does Bharati always want attention because she’s a good omen? But she still can’t walk on the Brahmin quarter.

“It was funny when the census came,” Bharati goes on. “My mother had herself put down as married, and me as unmarried. The census taker did it, but you should have seen how they looked at us—so self-righteous.” She smirks, before growing reflective. “My amma is worried-people are talking about abolishing the devadasi system. There’s a lady minister, a doctor, who’s been pushing for it. Then what are we supposed to do?”

“You could marry, like everyone else,” Janaki suggests, not meaning to sound derisive.

“First of all, there aren’t many boys of our caste,” Bharati says, looking at Janaki like she is slow. “No devadasi keeps more than one son. Not like Brahmins, where all they want are boys.” Now Janaki does feel stupid. “Devadasi boys aren’t educated much; they don’t earn. All they can do is maybe play drums or something. Who would want one of those?”

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.