The Covenant of Water

1943, Parambil

In Philipose’s absence, Parambil tilts into disorder. Shamuel falls while climbing a palm that he has no business climbing; his ankle is the size of a coconut. The graying ghost in the cellar knocks over an urn and makes groaning noises. Big Ammachi, already in an irritable mood, goes down prepared to do battle if needed. But now, in that airless space full of cobwebs, she sees no damage done: the urn was empty, and it remains intact. It comes to her strongly that the spirit is simply lonely. She sits down on the inverted urn and chats, sounding like the fishmonger as she describes the rash of recent calamities. “Ever since he came back from Cochin, Uplift Master is his reliable self in the daytime, but when the sun sets he drinks himself into a stupor. And our Decency Kochamma slipped in the kitchen and broke her wrist, blaming Dolly Kochamma for grease on their shared floor. Dolly said in her calm, peaceful way, ‘Next time, God willing, you might break your neck.’ ” Big Ammachi leaves, but not before promising to visit more often.

In the afternoons, out of habit, she finds herself expecting to hear Philipose shout out “Ammachio!” as he returns from school. “Ammachio!” means new ideas swim in his head like tadpoles in puddles. How much she’s learned of the world from her son! His hand-drawn map covers a wall of his room, charting where Indian forces are fighting and dying. Tripoli, El Alamein—even the names are fascinating. She, Baby Mol, and Odat Kochamma miss his nightly reading as the three of them sat on the rope cot like mynah birds on a clothesline, eyes glued on him as he paced. That year he performed two Malayalam short stories by M. R. Bhattathiripad. And an unforgettable English drama, taking on every part: the murdered king, his brother who married the king’s wife, the late king’s ghost. When the beautiful Ophelia went mad, making wreaths to hang on branches, then falling into the stream, the Parambil women clutched each other. Her dress, spread out over the water like a sari, trapping air, keeping her afloat for a while. Then, despite desperate prayers from Parambil, she drowned. After Philipose left, Odat Kochamma announced, “I’m going to visit my son’s house. It’s dull here without our boy.” She doesn’t last more than a week.

On a bright, sunny morning, not even a month after Philipose’s departure, she sits down with the Manorama.

JAPANESE PLANE BOMBS MADRAS. MASS EXODUS FROM CITY.

The headline scratches at her eyes; her throat suddenly feels as if she’s swallowed lye. She stands, wanting to run to her son.

Baby Mol stands too, saying, “Our baby is coming!”

The paper says the bombing happened three days ago. A lone Japanese “scout” plane flew over a city already darkened by a power outage, the result of rains. It dropped three bombs near the beach. Air raid sirens never sounded, and the explosions were unexplained: for two days, the citizens didn’t know of the bombing because radio stations had no electricity, and the military didn’t want to provoke panic. When word got out, fear of a Japanese invasion caused a frenzied exodus from the city.

God help me, how do I find my son?

Baby Mol bounces up and down excitedly, distracting and annoying Big Ammachi. To add to that, a bullock cart rattles up to the house. What now? The beaten expression of the animals mirrors that of the lone passenger who steps out and says a subdued “Ammachio . . .”

She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. Is she hallucinating? Then she and Baby Mol run out and cling to him as if to keep him from leaving again. He has lost weight and looks gaunt.

Philipose is relieved but bewildered. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m back?”

Big Ammachi, newspaper still in her hand, slaps it against his chest, as though to measure reality against the newsprint. “I saw this and I almost died. God brought you home to save you and to spare me.” He reads. He had no idea.

That night, after Baby Mol and Odat Kochamma are asleep, Big Ammachi carries hot jeera water in two glasses to his room. They sit on his bed as was their custom. Without any preamble he tells her that he was dismissed from college. It all comes out: his encounter with his professor in Central Station—an omen. Then failing to hear his name in class. She bleeds for him, wishes she could have spared him such misery. “Ammachi,” he says. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“Monay, you can never disappoint me. I am so glad you are home. God heard you. You weren’t meant to be there.”

Hesitantly, he shows her the contents of his two trunks full of books, unable to conceal his excitement. And then the radio, now unpacked and sitting in the corner. He is anxious to justify the purchases. “Radio waves are all around, Ammachi, and now we have the machine to catch them, to bring the world right to us. We just need electricity.”

“It’s all right, monay. You put the money to good use.”

They sit quietly in the soft glow of the lamp. She holds his hand, a hand so different from her husband’s, his fingers elongated, more like hers. It’s as though he never left.

“Ammachi, there’s something else.”

My God, what now? But his expression is of wondrous excitement, just like the day he came home with Moby-Dick, calling out, “Ammachio!”

He tells her of the young woman traveling in his cubicle.

“Chandy’s daughter?” she says. “My goodness! I remember her as a little girl, drawing with Baby Mol. What a coincidence. How is she?”

“Ammachi, she’s beautiful!” he says with great feeling, looking directly at his mother, his pupils widening. He recounts every detail of their meeting as though he’s reciting a mythical tale, from the time he boarded to when she put that drawing in his hand. He shows her the portrait. It breaks her heart: her son retreating home, full of worry, his boxes around him.

“Ammachi, I’m going to marry her one day,” he says quietly. “God willing. Yes, I know. Now that I won’t be a college graduate my prospects are not great. Not to mention my hearing, and the Condition.” He waves off her protests. “But I’ll make something of myself. I won’t fail. I just pray she’s not married off before I have that chance.”

Her heart is full of worry. “You didn’t say any such thing to her, did you? About marriage?”

He shakes his head.

After his mother goes to bed, Philipose is wide awake. He had had no idea who the beguiling Young Miss was and had missed his chance to ask. It could have all ended there. But Elsie ensured he knew. His fantasy, his hope, his prayer is that he lingers in her consciousness tonight as she lives in his.

Perhaps she’s thinking of him now, wondering what his return home was like, just as he’s trying to picture how her father received her. If two people at the very same moment hold visions of each other, perhaps atoms coalesce into invisible forms, like radio waves, and connect them. Her beautiful face is before him as he falls into a peaceful slumber, the kind of sleep that can only happen in his own bed, in his house, on Parambil soil and in God’s Own Country.