eyebrows angled like a soaring seagull’s wings, a small straight nose and luminous, nut-brown skin. On that skyblue December day, her wild, curly hair had escaped in wisps in the car wind. Her shoulders in her sleeveless sari blouse shone as though they had been polished with a high-wax shoulder polish. Sometimes she was the most beautiful woman that Estha and Rahel had ever seen. And sometimes she wasn’t.
On the backseat of the Plymouth, between Estha and Rahel, sat Baby Kochamma. Ex-nun, and incumbent baby grandaunt. In the way that the unfortunate sometimes dislike the co-unfortunate, Baby Kochamma disliked the twins, for she considered them doomed, fatherless waifs. Worse still, they were Half-Hindu Hybrids whom no self-respecting Syrian Christian would ever marry. She was keen for them to realize that they (like herself) lived on sufferance in the Ayemenem House, their maternal grandmother’s house, where they really had no right to be. Baby Kochamma resented Ammu, because she saw her quarreling with a fate that she, Baby Kochamma herself, felt she had graciously accepted. The fateof the wretched Man-less woman. The sad, Father Mulligan—less Baby Kochamma. She had managed to persuade herself over the years that her unconsummated love for Father Mulligan had been entirely due to
her
restraint and
her
determination to do the right thing.
She subscribed wholeheartedly to the commonly held view that a married daughter had no position in her parents’ home. As for a
divorced
daughter—according to Baby Kochamma, she had no position anywhere at all. And as for a
divorced
daughter from a
love
marriage, well, words could not describe Baby Kochamma’s outrage. As for a
divorced
daughter from a
intercommunity love
marriage—Baby Kochamma chose to remain quiveringly silent on the subject.
The twins were too young to understand all this, so Baby Kochamma grudged them their moments of high happiness when a dragonfly they’d caught lifted a small stone off their palms with its legs, or when they had permission to bathe the pigs, or they found an egg hot from a hen. But most of all, she grudged them the comfort they drew from each other. She expected from them some token unhappiness. At the very least.
On the way back from the airport, Margaret Kochamma would sit in front with Chacko because she used to be his wife. Sophie Mol would sit between them. Ammu would move to the back.
There would be two flasks of water. Boiled water for Margaret Kochamma and Sophie Mol, tap water for everybody else.
The luggage would be in the boot.
Rahel thought that
boot
was a lovely word. A much better word, at any rate, than
sturdy. Sturdy
was a terrible word. Like a dwarf’s name.
Sturdy Koshy Oommen
—a pleasant, middle-class, God-fearing dwarf with low knees and a side parting.
On the Plymouth roof rack there was a four-sided, tin-lined, plywood billboard that said, on all four sides, in elaborate writing,
Paradise Pickles & Preserves.
Below the writing there were painted bottles of mixed-fruit jam and hot-lime pickle in edible oil, with labels that said, in elaborate writing,
Paradise Pickles & Preserves.
Next to the bottles there was a list of all the Paradise products and a kathakali dancer with his face green and skirts swirling. Along the bottom of the
S
-shaped swirl of his billowing skirt, it said, in an
S
-shaped swirl,
Emperors of the Realm of Taste
—which was Comrade K. N. M. Pillai’s unsolicited contribution. It was a literal translation of
Ruchi lokathinde Rajavu
, which sounded a little less ludicrous than
Emperors of the Realm of Taste.
But since Comrade Pillai had already printed them, no one had the heart to ask him to redo the whole print order. So, unhappily,
Emperors of the Realm of Taste
became a permanent feature on the Paradise Pickle labels.
Ammu said that the kathakali dancer was a Red Herring and had nothing to do with anything. Chacko said that it gave the products a Regional Flavor and would
On the backseat of the Plymouth, between Estha and Rahel, sat Baby Kochamma. Ex-nun, and incumbent baby grandaunt. In the way that the unfortunate sometimes dislike the co-unfortunate, Baby Kochamma disliked the twins, for she considered them doomed, fatherless waifs. Worse still, they were Half-Hindu Hybrids whom no self-respecting Syrian Christian would ever marry. She was keen for them to realize that they (like herself) lived on sufferance in the Ayemenem House, their maternal grandmother’s house, where they really had no right to be. Baby Kochamma resented Ammu, because she saw her quarreling with a fate that she, Baby Kochamma herself, felt she had graciously accepted. The fateof the wretched Man-less woman. The sad, Father Mulligan—less Baby Kochamma. She had managed to persuade herself over the years that her unconsummated love for Father Mulligan had been entirely due to
her
restraint and
her
determination to do the right thing.
She subscribed wholeheartedly to the commonly held view that a married daughter had no position in her parents’ home. As for a
divorced
daughter—according to Baby Kochamma, she had no position anywhere at all. And as for a
divorced
daughter from a
love
marriage, well, words could not describe Baby Kochamma’s outrage. As for a
divorced
daughter from a
intercommunity love
marriage—Baby Kochamma chose to remain quiveringly silent on the subject.
The twins were too young to understand all this, so Baby Kochamma grudged them their moments of high happiness when a dragonfly they’d caught lifted a small stone off their palms with its legs, or when they had permission to bathe the pigs, or they found an egg hot from a hen. But most of all, she grudged them the comfort they drew from each other. She expected from them some token unhappiness. At the very least.
On the way back from the airport, Margaret Kochamma would sit in front with Chacko because she used to be his wife. Sophie Mol would sit between them. Ammu would move to the back.
There would be two flasks of water. Boiled water for Margaret Kochamma and Sophie Mol, tap water for everybody else.
The luggage would be in the boot.
Rahel thought that
boot
was a lovely word. A much better word, at any rate, than
sturdy. Sturdy
was a terrible word. Like a dwarf’s name.
Sturdy Koshy Oommen
—a pleasant, middle-class, God-fearing dwarf with low knees and a side parting.
On the Plymouth roof rack there was a four-sided, tin-lined, plywood billboard that said, on all four sides, in elaborate writing,
Paradise Pickles & Preserves.
Below the writing there were painted bottles of mixed-fruit jam and hot-lime pickle in edible oil, with labels that said, in elaborate writing,
Paradise Pickles & Preserves.
Next to the bottles there was a list of all the Paradise products and a kathakali dancer with his face green and skirts swirling. Along the bottom of the
S
-shaped swirl of his billowing skirt, it said, in an
S
-shaped swirl,
Emperors of the Realm of Taste
—which was Comrade K. N. M. Pillai’s unsolicited contribution. It was a literal translation of
Ruchi lokathinde Rajavu
, which sounded a little less ludicrous than
Emperors of the Realm of Taste.
But since Comrade Pillai had already printed them, no one had the heart to ask him to redo the whole print order. So, unhappily,
Emperors of the Realm of Taste
became a permanent feature on the Paradise Pickle labels.
Ammu said that the kathakali dancer was a Red Herring and had nothing to do with anything. Chacko said that it gave the products a Regional Flavor and would
Similar Books
