The Covenant of Water

1950, Gwendolyn Gardens

But he wasn’t prepared to lose her. Not after that night. Not when the letter came, forwarded from the Thetanatt House to the Mylins’ estate and then to his. Digby felt a chill when he saw the envelope. He’d been allowed the most blessed period of his life. Call no man happy before he dies.

When Elsie put the letter away her face was ashen. “It’s Baby Mol. She’s ill. She may be dying.”

“Of what?”

“Of heartbreak, from the sound of it. On top of what ails her lungs. She saw my baby die, and then I left . . . The letter is from my mother-in-law. Ammachi says she refuses to eat. She asks only for me.”

Elsie said no more about the letter, and he didn’t ask. But it was like India ink dropped into the clear reservoir where they swam. It colored her mood. The mist gathered every evening, and it had turned cold with threatening gusts of wind rattling the windows at night. The rooftop was out of the question.

When they began sharing one bed, many a night he’d felt her body silently shaking next to his and he’d gather her in, hold her. On one occasion, after her sobbing subsided, she’d said, “It’s only by being here, Digby, that I’ve felt my anger diminish a bit. My hatred, even. But it’s not gone away. The sorrow will never go away. I know he loved our child. He’s in as much pain as I am. He feels more guilt than I do, if that’s possible. I know that it’s pointless to blame him, or for him to blame me. But knowing doesn’t stop it.” Thinking back later, he wondered if she’d been preparing him for her leaving? There was nothing he could do.

The evening the letter came, as they sat by the fire, he knew she’d come to a decision. “I can’t let Baby Mol die because of me. Not if I’m to go on living.” He said nothing, waited. “Digs, we’ve not talked about the future. We’ve just lived each day. I’ve been able to breathe, to live and want to live, to feel love when I thought I never could again. I know I can’t stay in Parambil. Too many memories, too much anger and blame. I dread going back. Even before Ninan died, even when Philipose’s intentions were good, for some reason his trying to do something good for me would turn out being just the opposite.” She sighs. “Digby, what I’m trying to say is I’m only going to visit. If you’ll have me, I’ll come back. There’s no place else, no one else I’d rather be with.”

He’d wished for such words. He struggled to believe her because he was an expert in disappointment. The only protection was to anticipate it. Trying to hold on to the people you loved was the recipe for disappointment. Being angry with them was just as futile.

He didn’t try to pretty his thoughts, speaking as honestly as he always had with her. “I have no say in what you do, Elsie. If you feel differently when you’re there, if you stay, I’ll accept it. I’ll have to. So the feelings I express now are not to confine you. I . . . well, I love you. There, I said it. I say that not to burden you but so you know. Yes, I want you to come back to Gwendolyn Gardens. I want to see Rome and Florence with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

She covered her face with her hands. The glow from the fire played on the backs of her fingers and reflected off her hair. Had he said the wrong thing? When she took her hands away, he saw it was quite the opposite.

“Digs, I must leave tomorrow before I change my mind. And as soon as Baby Mol’s better, I’ll be back here . . . if you’re sure.”

“If you come back, I might even believe there’s a God.”

“There isn’t, Digs. There are stars. The Milky Way. No God. But I’ll come back. You can believe in that.”

Digby drove her down the ghat road, their ears popping as they descended. Then they headed south through the valley and past Trichur and through Cochin and through village after village, stopping several times to eat, to stretch, until seven hours later he drove past Saint Bridget’s. If it had been some other occasion, he might even have visited after getting Elsie home. But it had been too many years. The flock might be a different flock . . . and his heart was too heavy.

“Drop me just before the gate,” she said as they approached the Thetanatt house; her driver would take her from here to Parambil.

She slid her fingers across the bench seat to meet his, discreetly squeezing them, conscious that they might be observed. He felt he was falling, pitching into darkness, unable to shake the premonition that despite her intention to return, she wouldn’t.

For the first week, and the second, then through the best part of the endless monsoon, he held out hope. The telegraph lines were down and parts of the ghat road washed away by landslides. Even if she had summoned him, he couldn’t get to her. But he felt she was trying to reach him. She called out to him at night. The destruction all over Travancore, Cochin, and Malabar was of biblical proportions. But it couldn’t last forever. And it didn’t. One day, the sun shone, and the telegraph lines were restored. They bypassed the landslides. At last, the mail trickled in. The monsoon was over. Weeks, and then months, went by. She isn’t coming back. Didn’t I give her my blessing to do just that? Still, he sank into a black abyss, a profound sadness. He was alive, but life felt over. He reminded himself that these mountains had saved him once before. Outwardly he was himself, even going to the club now and then. But new scars constricted his heart. The nature of the happiness that came from love was that it was fleeting, evanescent. Nothing lasted but the land—the soil—and it would outlast them all.

Eight months and three days after Elsie’s departure, Cromwell came trotting out on his horse to seek Digby in the coffee fields, a letter in his hand. Cromwell, who couldn’t read English, somehow knew that this letter, unlike all the others in the pile, was the long-awaited one even if Digby was no longer waiting. Digby by then was certain he’d never hear from her again. He was even thankful to her for the surgical amputation, for an ending without explanations, pleadings, or fraught correspondence that would only prolong the torture. It made him angry to see her handwriting. Why would she shatter the equilibrium he’d painfully found? A better man might have tossed away her letter, since that train had long ago left the station. He could not.

Dear Digs,

I’m sorry that I did not write. It will be clear to you why when I see you. If I see you. I’m writing in haste. Could not get a letter to you early on as you know because we were cut off by floods. Digby, the reason I stayed even after the monsoon is also why I must now leave. I just had a child, Digby. I want more than anything in the world to feed, and hold, and raise, and love my daughter. For her sake I must leave now. I will tell you all in person. She is in danger if I stay. She will be better off with her grandmother and those here who will love her, even though I love her more than all of them. But my staying endangers her.

Digby had to reach out a hand and lean on Cromwell, who stood before him. That’s my child, our daughter! It must be. But how was the child in danger if Elsie stayed? It meant Elsie herself was in danger. He wanted to jump in the car and race to her. He read on, still leaning on Cromwell, who stood there pillarlike, patient.

Don’t try to come here or write back. Please I beg you to trust me. Will explain when I see you. I plan to walk out of the house on March 8 at 7 p.m., around dusk. I will get into the river and float downstream to the Chalakura junction just outside the town. You can see it on a map. It’s about three miles from the house. There is a bridge leading out of that junction. Wait at the north side of the bridge. There are no shops or houses there and it should be deserted at night. I will walk across that bridge by 8 p.m. at the latest. I can only hope I will see your car. Please bring dry clothes. If you come, I will explain all. If you are not there, I’ll understand. You owe me nothing.

With love,

Elsie

March 8 was the following day. He left within the hour, driving alone, over Cromwell’s strenuous objections. He had told Cromwell everything.

A child. His child. The first time they made love they had been too caught up to think of pregnancy. After that, they’d tried to be cautious. But they were also lulled into a complacency, as though in the magical bubble of their being together at Gwendolyn Gardens, nothing could happen that they did not wish to happen.

But why hadn’t Elsie come away as soon as the roads were passable? A delay of two, even three months was understandable, but why eight? Was she a captive? Why would she not bring the baby? Why such a hazardous escape? The whys kept running through his mind. Surely at some point they must return for their child. Please trust me. He had to.

He reached the bridge late that night, stopped, and took a quick look around. Then he checked into a government traveler’s bungalow five miles away and tried to sleep. He returned to the bridge the next day at dusk. On one side of the bridge the town of Chalakura was buttoned down, its lights extinguished, just as it had been the previous night. The far side of the bridge was unlit, deserted. The river rode high, moving slowly, majestically, a full-figured goddess. He edged the car as close to the brush and reeds as he could. A laborer, head down, straining to pull an overloaded cart, came down the road, so focused on his effort that he never saw the black car or Digby in the shadow of the abutment.

Digby had no idea exactly where she would enter the water on leaving Parambil. He couldn’t imagine being in the river in the dark. He’d been standing there for fifteen minutes, his eyes glued on the water, when he spotted a floating object, a resurrected ­Ophelia, in the middle of the river, then a flash of arm as she angled for the shore. Then nothing. Minutes passed. At last, on the far side, a silhouette separated itself from the hulking, menacing mass of the bridge. In outline it appeared to be a peasant woman in a blouse and skirt. When she came closer, he could see she was dripping wet, the clothes clinging to her. He rushed forward and wrapped her in a large towel and guided her to the passenger side of his car. She was white with cold, her teeth chattering, her body shaking, her hair bedraggled, and the scent of the river still on her. Leaning on the car she peeled off her wet skirt and blouse and dried off hastily, then slipped into the shirt and mundu he’d brought her. He settled her in the front passenger seat and covered her in a blanket, shocked at her appearance under the car’s interior light: a pale ghost framed by black seat covers. Her face was incredibly weary, as though eight years and not eight months had passed. “Thank you for being here, Digs. Let’s go, please. Quick.”

As he pulled away, he saw no one in the rearview mirror. Elsie drank greedily from the bottle of water. He passed her a thermos of the hot whisky-chai they used to drink on the roof of his bungalow. Her feet were bleeding from her scramble out of the river.

“Are they looking for you?” he said.

She shook her head, biting her lower lip. “Not yet. I left my slippers and my towel by the river.” She looked across at him. “They’ll find it eventually. Then they’ll be looking. But a body can be carried for miles.” Her words chilled him. He was imagining the other reality in which she had drowned and wasn’t seated here because her corpse was on its way to sea.

“And the baby?”

She closed her eyes, curling into her seat like a kitten burrowing into the blankets, a portrait of fatigue, grief, and loss. “Please? I beg you, Digby, please let me tell you everything when we get home.” He reached under the blanket for her hand; her fingers felt stiff and rough with cold, waterlogged from her long immersion. He squeezed but she did not squeeze back. He heard a muffled “Digby,” as though he’d hurt her and she was cautioning him. All too soon she was in the deep slumber of someone who had not slept for days.

At three in the morning, he negotiated the last stretch, completing the harrowing drive up the ghat road in the dark—something he’d never done before because of the real danger of wild elephants. Only when he pulled up in front of his bungalow in Gwendolyn Gardens did he register the shrieking in his shoulders and the cramp in his neck and note his fingers clamped to the wheel like limpets. He switched off the engine; the profound silence didn’t wake her.

A figure peeled off from the shadows of the house. Cromwell. He’d been seated outside, wrapped in a blanket. He helped a stiff Digby out of the car, propping him up, and then shaking his shoulders, shoving him against the car as though picking a fight. “Much worrying, boss. Too much.” His eyes were red and heavy with sleep.

Digby put his hands on Cromwell’s forearms. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Cromwell took in the sleeping form of Elsie, concealing his shock at her appearance. “Missy is all right.” It was both a question and an aspirational statement.

“I don’t know. She’s been through hell.” A hell he didn’t quite understand.

Elsie came awake when he opened the passenger door. When she saw where they were, she turned to Digby with an expression of such relief that for the first time he sensed the depths of whatever horror she’d suffered. “Oh, Digby, the air feels so thin up here,” she said, taking a deep breath then shivering.

She could do no more than smile wearily at Cromwell; she stumbled when she tried to walk, so Digby lifted her in his arms. She clung to his neck as he carried her inside. Digby said to Cromwell, “Thank you, my friend, for waiting. Go home, please. Your family won’t forgive me for keeping you out like this.”

He brought in a thermos of hot tea and chicken sandwiches that the cook had prepared. While she ate, he filled the bathtub with steaming water. He helped her out of her clothes and into the bath. Her arms were splotchy, with patches of pale discoloration like an old map. He registered her collapsed and wrinkled stomach, a contrast to her swollen breasts, the areolas stretched into dark saucers. He sat on the stool beside her. She placed her ankles on the edge of the tub and let her body sink deeper, vanishing completely under the water, save for her feet. Digby saw blood trickling from the base of her right toe; he moved closer. Her feet were studded with blisters. She emerged. He stroked her hand, which felt knobby and leathery. He studied her fingers: they had fissures, as if she’d been working with fence wire. She pulled her hand away.

He felt himself sinking.

Her hands, her blistered feet, the pale patches on her arms—he knew. He’d been with Rune at Saint Bridget’s too long not to know. He wanted to scream, to shatter glass, to rail at the unfairness of a life that gave with one hand only to take away in bigger measure with the other.

She looked on, wide eyed, watched as understanding came to him, saw him clutch the edge of the tub and sway. She dared not say a word. Gradually, he composed himself. He reached in the water for her hand once more, then brought her fingers to his lips.

“Don’t!” she cried, pulling away, but he wouldn’t let go.

“It’s too late for that,” he said in a choked voice, pressing her palm to his cheek, because the love he felt was separate from the dreadful knowledge he now possessed.

“I forbid you,” she said, withdrawing her feet into the tub, water sloshing over the edge.

“I forbid you to forbid me,” he said, slipping to his knees, plunging his arms into the water to encircle her body, to pull her to him, this woman without whom he had no reason to go on. “There’s nothing you can do to lose me,” he sobbed, clutching her wet body to his. He chased her mouth as she dodged him, but he found it at last, tasting her lips and their mingled tears as she gave in, sobbing, letting him kiss her, kissing him back. Clinging to his wet clothed body, she wept, letting out what she had stifled for so long, sharing at last the terrible burden she had carried alone.

He held her tight. What did humans have in their arsenal for these moments? Nothing but pathetic moans and tears and sobs that did nothing, changed nothing. Water sloshed over the tiles: precious water, abundant water, water that could wash away blister fluid and blood, wash away tears, wash away sins if you believed, but would never wash away the stigmata of leprosy, not in their lifetime, because they had no Elisha to say, “Wash seven times in the Jordan and be cured,” no son of God to touch the leprous sores and make them go away.

Elsie’s letter made sense. He understood why she’d left their daughter. The reason stared at him in the curling of her fingers, the beginning of a claw hand. He knew all too well that pregnancy weakened the body’s defenses, allowed a few diseases that were already in the body, like leprosy or tuberculosis, to explode. Elsie knew it too, having grown up with Rune as a neighbor and friend; she knew what laypeople would not: a newborn baby was in grave danger of contracting leprosy from the mother.

“You understand?” He nodded. Tears streamed down their faces. “I was never meant to have children, Digby.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I wanted our baby, Digs! As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I wanted to come to you. But I was stuck there. I couldn’t get a letter to you. And during the horrible, endless rains, my hands and feet . . . It happened so quickly. I didn’t know what it was. But then I couldn’t hold a pen. I knew.” She stared at her cracked fingertips. “I almost died giving birth to her, Digby. Maybe that would have been better. I had a convulsion, after which, mercifully, I remember nothing. The baby was upside down. I had a severe hemorrhage. But somehow we both survived. Mariamma. That’s her name, after my mother-in-law. A beautiful baby. It was days before I could even lift my head and look at our daughter. I wanted to hold her, but I could not. Rune had told me why they never allowed babies at Saint Bridget’s. I knew.”

Digby tried to picture his child, their child, their daughter. Mariamma. He longed for her. “I can raise her here, Elsie. I’ll take care of you separately. And . . .”

“No, Digby, we can’t. You can’t. She’s better off motherless than being the daughter of a leper.” It was the first time that word had been uttered since Digby picked Elsie up. The word lingered; it would not go away. She watched Digby’s face. “Yes, a leper, Digby. That’s who I am. No one keeps a leper in their house. No one can keep that a secret.” She leaned forward. “Believe me, she couldn’t be raised in a better home than with my mother-in-law. Big Ammachi is love itself. And she’ll have Baby Mol and Anna Chedethi.”

“And your husband?”

She shook her head. “He’s in bad shape. He took opium for his broken ankles, but he couldn’t stop. Now it’s his whole world.” She took a deep breath and looked squarely at Digby. “He thinks the child is his, Digby. He has reason to. Just one reason, one time. He was full of opium. I didn’t fight him. I could have, but I didn’t. Once he knew I was pregnant, he convinced himself that it was Ninan born again. That it was God asking for forgiveness. When it was a girl, he sank deeper into the opium.”

The only sound was water dripping from the tap.

Elsie said, “The only way out for me was for them to think I died. Why burden them with this knowledge of this disease? If I’d told Big Ammachi, she’d have insisted I stay. She’d have embraced me no matter what. Just like you. But I’d just drag the whole family down. Ruin their name. Ruin life for my daughter. It broke my heart that I couldn’t tell Big Ammachi the truth. Better she thinks I drowned.”

“But if my Mariamma lives here with us, but separate—”

“No, Digby!” she said sharply, sitting up. “Listen to me! Do you know how many nights I stayed awake to think this through? I died last night so that my daughter might live a normal life. Do you understand? That means I need to go where I can never be found. Ever! I must be where no one thinks to look, no one runs into me, no one hears rumors about me. My daughter can never learn of my existence. Elsie drowned. Do you understand? Gwendolyn Gardens isn’t that place.” Her agitation and the resolve on her face silenced him. “The only other choice I have is to walk off the edge of that Chair of the Goddess. But I’m not ready to do that. Not as long as I can still work. I want to create till I can’t anymore. I can do that at Saint Bridget’s.”

He helped her out, dried her off. She folded a towel lengthwise and passed it between her thighs and tied a mundu to keep the towel in place. Once she was in bed, he brought his kit, to unroof and bandage her blisters. She tried to pull her feet away.

He remembered the blister after their first hike. She’d felt no pain. Was that an early sign he’d missed? There had been blisters on her hands when she sculpted, but that was normal—other than the fact that she hardly noticed them. Now she could step on a carpet or on a nail and the two would feel the same.

“I just wish you wouldn’t touch them,” she said, watching him work on her feet.

“You can’t get it that way.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s what Rune used to say. But Digs, I got it. How? From growing up beside the leprosarium? From visiting Rune? How?”

“We’re all exposed, at one time or another. Some of us are susceptible.”

“What if you’re susceptible?” she said.

He made no answer and resumed his bandaging. “Elsie, what would you have done if I hadn’t received the letter? If I hadn’t come?”

“I was going to walk to Saint Bridget’s,” she said without hesitation. “If you came, I’d planned to have you take me straight to Saint Bridget’s. But I was so very tired. And I knew we needed time to talk. I had to explain. I owed you that.”

He peeled off his clothes, rinsed off, and came to her, his tiredness catching up with him. As he lowered himself to the bed, she tried to push him away. “You can’t sleep with me. Why are you doing this, Digby?”

He didn’t answer, pulling the sheet over his naked body and hers, snuggling against her. Her eyelids were heavy from her tears, from her ordeal, from relief, albeit temporary. He heard a mumbled, “I forbid you.” Then she was out. He looked at her sleeping form, her face as white as the pillowcase. Tired as he was, his thoughts were still racing, and sleep eluded him.

An hour later, he was still awake, his arm numb under the weight of her head. He didn’t care if it fell off. He could no longer separate himself from her suffering. The disease that afflicted her was now his, too. He couldn’t linger on an estate that didn’t need him, knowing that the great love of his life was elsewhere. Elsie had died to the world for the sake of their child. She couldn’t make this sacrifice alone. It was now clear to him what he must do. This is the end of one life. And the beginning of another that I could never have imagined. I have no choice, which is the best kind of choice.

She awoke as light streamed in through the window, disoriented, unsure where she was. Then she realized she was in his arms. Digby’s eyes were open, staring at her with tenderness. Outside she could hear the chatter of workmen going past, a foreman shouting orders. The noises of Gwendolyn Gardens. Just another day. She raised her head to look around. Digby moved his arm from under her. She studied him. He looked peaceful. Then tears came, clouding her eyes again.

“Digby. I can’t stay. Not even for a night.”

“I know.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“If Saint Bridget’s is the one place where no one will find you, then my fate has been decided. Wherever you go, whatever happens to you, it happens to me. No, don’t argue, Elsie. It’s clear to me. It couldn’t be simpler. I’ll always, always be with you. Till the end.”