The Mali

Chapter 1

There was no current, so dinner was served in the dining room accompanied by diyas lit along the table's edges. The letter lay like an unpayable bill from the past, several inches between the silent pair. Minerva stared at the chunks of beef stewing in her soup. Ashok was at war with his lentils, bashing the soft vegetables into a pulp before submitting them to his molars. Outside, the rain threw itself upon Shastri Mansion, as if apologizing profusely for the vagaries of fate.

She wondered when it would begin.

Steadily, the bashing-munching of her brother's ruminations grew by decibels. She kept her gaze focused on the beef broth, waiting for either the cracking of his teeth or the outburst that was steadily building itself to its natural peak. Just as Ashok's plate was empty and she had begun wondering whether they would finish dinner without soiling the air, his palm slammed itself flat on the tabletop.

"Eight years. Eight years, we hear nothing from that one, eating at our table, sucking marrow out of Appa's bones and now she goes and gets herself burnt up with that sonofabitch pimp of hers and leaves a child behind that nobody even knew she had."

Minerva set aside her spoon to gaze steadily at him, saying nothing.

"What? What do you want to say? Do you think it was right? Do you think that it was right, running away, wish you did it too?"

"What's done is done. There are no words for it. Now, the boy is homeless. What do you want to do?"

Ashok's moustache bristled in consternation. Somewhere in the mansion, a window that Giorina couldn't reach was rapping against its frame, echoing its owner's displeasure. Beyond her brother's ire, the landscape faced the sky's deluge with grim determination; wild trees griping helplessly against the inescapable tirade.

Homeless. The word fell like a thunderclap between them, disembodied and regretfully indubitable. She knew that there was no way it wouldn't feed the embers with which he painted his glowing self-portrait, the one he had worked so hard to fashion in Thandavar's eyes. Taking in a homeless orphan was a heaped bhartan of happy tears from the town, measuring up for his cooked up rasam of munificence, never mind that the child was his own nephew. She could almost see the wheels grinding behind his forehead.

"And he has nowhere else to go, they said? The father's family?"

"His father was an orphan. They told you."

Ashok grunted. For some time, the only sound that could be heard was the window beating against its pane and the weeping of the world beyond it. Ashok's fingernail scraped against the table, carving fate into mango wood. Then after what felt like an age for Minerva through which she sat, head tilted away, feigning an insouciance her rioting heart belied, he said, "We'll have him." Somewhere in the distance, Goro slammed the window shut, and the storm was blotted out with an air of finality.

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The mansion stretched across the hill's expanse like a snug spider in a cobweb. Through the darkness, its edges seemed to stretch on interminably, melding into the bones of the earth. The air, Ayappan thought as he pushed one old foot past the other, smelled like old money: stale, yet retaining a tang of grim welcome, as if open to the touch of warm hands. He reached the gate and stood, waiting for a servant to rush to allow him entry, but no one came. He was about to push it forward with his right hand when he remembered the little weight attached to it. He turned to peer down at his temporary appendage.

Varun, he decided, looked as he should: ruffled, empty-eyed and filled with agonized silence. It had been a long day's journey from Mangalore to Thandavar, and he had spent the entirety of it clinging onto his arm. The bus had been full of men, women and children who were living in happy ignorance of the cresting waves that beat again and again at the boy's shores, stopping short somewhere behind his eyeballs. They had seats just above the fourth wheel, and every speed breaker they passed made him fly a foot in the air. His bottom ached and his stomach groaned, but he didn't let go of Ayappan's hand. They flew onward to Thandavar in a bus smelling of sweat, jalebis and metal in silence.

And so they found themselves walking up to the child's new home. As they passed the gate, Ayappan muttered in distaste at the surroundings. Row upon row of barren plants of every stature and kind filled the front yard. The earth was cracked for want of water, and grass and thistles poked between once proud lime, mango and custard apple trees. Squirrels flirted from across the dried barks and through tangled weeds. The old Mangalorean remembered what they always said about earth that housed unattended foliage. "Leaves left brown stamp on Brahma's crown," he muttered. Beside him, his package walked on, uninhibited by the bleak surroundings.

By now, they had come level with the front porch, and the punishing afternoon sun was crisping their necks, vaporizing the sweat that was not fast enough to travel from hair to inner wear. Ancient marble flooring covered the portico, and a still white swing surrounded by moth-eaten armchairs lay baking in the heat. Somewhere in the back garden, an adolescent cricket chirped too early in the day, trying out his wings for the lady crickets who tittered, knowing he wasn't old enough yet. They walked beyond the portico to stand in front of the red stone building for a full two seconds before Ayappan rapped the brass-gold elephant tusk knocker.

Almost immediately, the door swung open, and the child looked up to see a tall woman, dressed in a saree the colour of his old school globe. Her body seemed immune to the heat, radiating a natural coolness that hovered over the dimple of her breasts and beneath her dry armpit under which she had tucked a weathered novel. Varun did not pay attention to the exchange between the adults, instead, choosing to squint at the woman, wondering what was so familiar about her. It was only when Ayappan's greasy palm had broken contact with his own to back away from Shastri Mansion and when she turned to look at him for the first time did he know. As Minerva's eyes met the mirror of themselves in her little nephew's sockets, the storm engulfed him. "Mai," he croaked before crumpling to the ground in front of her.

Somewhere in the not so far distance, the young cricket surrendered its boast for another day.