The Covenant of Water

1945, Parambil

After six years of war, it is just about over. Two and a half million Indian soldiers will be demobilized, including, for the first time, hundreds of Indian officers. During the Great War, the British never appointed any Indian officers, worried that they’d be training future rebel leaders. They were right. Now the returning Indian officers are men decorated for their valor; men who witnessed soldiers under their command die to free Abyssinians, to free the French, to free Europe of Hitler’s yoke. They won’t abide anything less than freedom for India. The British stupidly announce that those Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese and then forced to join Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army or else have their heads cut off are to be tried as “traitors.” The fury of every Indian soldier and the Indian public terrifies the British. If a single garrison mutinies, nothing will stop the dominoes from falling. Two hundred thousand British civilians in India could be slaughtered overnight by three hundred million natives.

In Travancore, a groom-to-be rides the airwaves night after night, witnessing from Parambil P.O. the liberations of Leningrad and Rome, of Rangoon and Paris. He adds fresh sheets to extend his wall map, but the Pacific war is impossible to draw on any kind of scale. He prints the names next to dots: Guadalcanal, Makin Atoll, Morotai, Peleliu. Men have died in droves on those tiny islands. It’s all senseless. And personal: one of the potter’s grandsons enlisted for no other reason than for the sign-on bonus and the salary. The poor fellow died in North Africa.

He and Uplift Master decide to close the Feeding Center because the food supply has steadily improved. Philipose can’t help feeling that the changing tide of war, the optimism in India about imminent freedom, is linked to the change in his own fortunes.

They wed in the church where Big Ammachi was married and where Philipose was baptized. When Elsie enters, she draws the pallu of her sari over her hair, her eyes down as prescribed, right foot first over the threshold. There’s a collective gasp at the beautiful bride, perhaps the first to marry in a sari in this church. Philipose thinks a golden aura surrounds her like a dusting of cinnamon. Instead of weighing herself down with her mother’s jewelry, she has a solitary bangle on each wrist, a thin gold chain with a pendant, and gold earrings. At nineteen she has the poise, the sureness, of a woman who has lived twice as long. When Philipose studied himself in the mirror one last time before church, he had the opposite impression of himself: a twelve-year-old boy trying to pass for twenty-two.

Joppan, in his finest mundu and juba, stands proudly with Uplift Master and the Parambil relatives on the men’s side at the very front. But despite all Philipose’s entreaties, Shamuel refuses to step into the church. He watches through a window.

Chandy’s long, sleek, finned Ford, decked with roses, carries the couple home. They approach Parambil on the newly widened driveway, on one side of which the huge white pandal is filled with seated guests. On the other side is the hulking form of Damodaran, who understands the significance of the occasion. When they emerge from the car, Damo nuzzles Big Ammachi, who reaches up to stroke him. Then Damo hooks Philipose roughly to him and musses his hair as the Thetanatt party gasp. Damo places the jasmine garland that Unni hands him over the bride’s head. His trunk lingers, sniffing her cheeks and neck as Elsie laughs in delight. She reciprocates with the bucket of jaggery-sweetened rice that Big Ammachi hands her.

Bearers tear around the tent with steaming platters of Sultan Pattar’s delectable mutton biryani. There’s the shocking sound of Decency Kochamma’s uninhibited laughter, a beautiful high-pitched peal that no one knew she possessed. Chandy’s “estate punch,” a plum wine named for a saint, is a hit on the women’s side.

On the elevated platform, Philipose and Elsie receive a dizzying line of guests, including Chandy’s estate friends, several white couples among them. Philipose spots Shamuel outside the pandal, looking regal in the bright, mustard-colored silk juba that Philipose bought for him and a dazzling white mundu. He scowls and doesn’t budge when Philipose waves him over. His expression says the thamb’ran ought to know better. So Philipose drags Elsie outside, putting his arm around Shamuel to hug the old man, not just out of love, but because he was about to flee.

“Elsie, this is Shamuel, the only father I’ve really known.” Shamuel’s shock at their approach changes to consternation at the little thamb’ran’s blasphemy. He can hardly look Elsie in the eyes, as his palms come together by his chin. She reciprocates, then bends to touch his feet. With a shriek, Shamuel is forced to grab her hands to stop her. She holds onto his hands, bows her head, and murmurs, “Give us your blessing.” Wordlessly, unable to deny her, his lips quivering, his trembling weathered hands hover over both their heads. Philipose tries to hug him, but Shamuel pushes him away roughly, feigning anger. He points to the dais to say they must go back, turning his head so they might not see his tears.

It’s nearly midnight before the two of them are finally alone in Philipose’s room. In the letters they’d exchanged before the wedding, he mentioned Odat Kochamma’s edict that his map must come down to ready the room for his new bride. That triggered a cable from Elsie, a first at Parambil P.O.

KEEP MAPS STOP DONT CHANGE ANYTHING STOP WANT TO SEE YOU AS YOU ARE STOP

Elsie smiles when she sees her cable pinned to and now part of the rich annotated tapestry of nations, armies, navies, and mankind’s folly. With Elsie’s trunks in the room, it feels smaller. There’s a newly built bathroom adjoining their bedroom; a large tank of water outside must be filled from the well every morning for it to pour out of the faucets, though Philipose plans to get an electric pump soon. Elsie heads off with her toiletries as if she’s been doing this at Parambil for years. Thank goodness she doesn’t have to walk to the outhouse or the bathing enclosure; Philipose bathes in the latter and hurries back.

He has the oil lamp lit when she returns, its soft glow less jarring than the naked bulb on the wall. Elsie has changed into a white nightdress dotted with faint pink roses, while he’s in just his mundu, his chest bare. They lie next to each other, looking up at the ceiling. All through the ceremony, every time their hands brushed together, he felt a shock up his arm. As they were driven home, they’d leaned against each other and grinned like little children, as if to say, We did it!

He lowers the wick. They lie still for a long time, listening to the wind stir the palm canopy, a pigeon cooing, the distant clink of the chain on Damo’s leg. The room is dark, but gradually two pale rectangles of the window emerge on the far wall, the curtain covering only the bottom half, while the high branches of the plavu outside are silhouetted against the sky. The three developing fruits dangling at the forks look like young children playing in the tree.

He turns to her, and she rolls to him, as if she had been waiting. Their knees bump awkwardly. He puts his leg over hers, and she slides hers between his; their feet find each other. He can just see her face, feel her breath on his cheeks, and register the scents of toothpaste and soap, and the natural smell of her skin. Gingerly, her fingers trace his temple, his jaw, his neck—a sculptor measuring. His fingers run through her hair. Their bodies are pressed together, her chest soft against his. She cannot suppress a yawn, and he yawns before she finishes hers. They suppress their laughter. She sighs and burrows toward him. Her head rests in the cove formed by his shoulder and trunk while her long fingers are splayed out over his chest.

His shameful retreat from Madras left him feeling incomplete, the threads of his being tangled and with sections missing. But now, with Elsie docked next to him, he is whole. Her stomach pushes against him, then retreats with each breath, her breathing slowing. He observes this miracle. Then, despite the heart-pounding excitement of holding this beautiful woman—his wife—against his body, he falls asleep too.

When he awakes past midnight, they’re still entwined at the legs, but her nightgown and his mundu have shifted so that the bare skin of her thigh is against his. He’s suddenly as alert as if he’d been splashed with water. The places where his skin touches hers burn. He presses gently against her and, astonishingly, she responds. Her eyes open. He’s uncertain as to how, precisely, to proceed. His head drifts closer. She presses against this new hardness of his that wasn’t there in the tender embrace before sleep.

Their lips meet, an awkward brushing—exciting, but dry. Not what he had imagined. They try again, a more determined exploration, and now their tongues touch, an electric sensation, and an intimacy so profound that his body tingles. He fumbles with her gown, and suddenly her breasts are exposed. Nothing, but nothing in his life will surpass that first moment of seeing them, of touching them, of feeling her respond. His hand moves diffidently down, while the back of her hand and then her fingers gingerly touch that part of him that cannot be ignored. Their shared uncertainty and clumsiness are as erotic as all that preceded it. He props himself up and over her. He is like a blind man who has stumbled into a corner and probes with his cane, but she guides him with one hand, the other on his chest as a brake. Ever so slowly, she eases him in. She winces, but still holds him. Only when he feels her relax does he move very gently. Lord, he thinks, once you discover this, how is it possible to do anything else? He has melted into the body of his new bride, their breath, their sap and sinew all one. No self-experimentation and nothing in Fanny Hill or Tom Jones prepared him for the thrill and the tenderness of what has just happened.

They succumb to a mysterious anesthetic veil that settles over them, thick with their mingled scents. He wakes, remembering what just transpired, and the memory leaves him fully aroused once more, achingly so, wanting it all over again. He wills her to open her eyes, and out of the fog of sleep soon she does, momentarily trying to figure out where she is. She looks suddenly vulnerable, waking up in this new house. Recognizing her state, he gently gathers her in his arms and holds her. He wonders if she is in pain. The way she snuggles against him makes him think that he did the right thing to hold her. After a long while, she pulls her head back, looks at him, and kisses him, her breath tasting of him and of sleep. She whispers something, but he can’t quite make out her lips. “Elsie, I struggle hearing the whispered voice. I’m sorry.” She brings her lips close to his ear. “I said, ‘I don’t think if I had married anyone else, I would feel as safe as I do with you.’ That’s what I said.” She nestles back against him, and they fall asleep once more.

They wake in unison. Light streams in through the cruciate vents and windows. The lazy rooster crows, The-Sun-Has-Risen-Before-Me-Ayo-ayo-adoo. A distant clang of a bucket against the side of a well, the creak and whirr of rope and pulley. The household rousing itself.

Sweat glistens in the hollow behind her collarbone. Their mingled scent is so rich, so carnal. He wants to tell her how stunning last night’s congress was, how . . . But words might only diminish it. Instead, he kisses her eyelids, her brow, and every inch of her face. “I want you to be happy here, Elsie,” he whispers. “Any wish that I can fulfill, just say . . . Anything.”

The words sound grand even to him. They ennoble him. Benevolent, besotted sovereign, he gazes lovingly at his queen, her straight nose, the eyes so long and narrow, echoing the shape of her face. In the many months after their train ride, he remembered her eyes as close-set, but that was because of the way they sloped down to her nose, his Nefertiti. And memory never sufficiently recorded the delicate Cupid’s bow of her upper lip. He’s drunk, so drunk on his beautiful bride, his being bursting with generosity, like Emperor Shah Jahan offering to build a palace for his beloved.

“Anything?” she says dreamily, her arms stretched out beside her like wings, her lips barely moving, her eyes half open. “Like the genie in Aladdin’s lamp? Are you sure?”

“Yes, anything,” he says.

She raises up on one hand, turning to him, her breasts on his chest, a sight so astonishing in daylight that if she asked him to cut off his head in order to keep feasting on the sight, he’d agree. She’s amused and pleased by his attention, not self-conscious, remaining just as she is so he may keep gazing. The skin is unnaturally smooth, creamy, and paler than the rest of her before abruptly transitioning to the darker areola. Their passion for each other’s bodies, so recently discovered, overtakes shyness. The schoolgirl in the car, the Young Miss who took snuff with him on a train, is now his bride, and her eyes say, Go ahead, look, kiss, touch . . .

“Anything,” he says, his words slurring with love and sated lust. “And I don’t mean building a studio. That, we’ll do. I’ve drawn a plan—extend that south verandah, put a roof over it. It’ll have good light, but it’s for you to decide. No, I mean anything else. Recapture the Holy Land? Slay the dragon?” He strokes her face.

She studies him, smiling, hesitating. Then she looks to the window—no hesitation there. He follows her gaze, trying to see his familiar world through her eyes.

“I love morning light. That plavu,” she says, pointing to the tree where the closest jackfruit, the size of a child’s head, stares back at them. “It keeps this room dark. You can cut it down. That’s my wish.”

Cut down the plavu? The tree that has watched over him in his sleep ever since he was a boy?

She says, “Beyond it there must be a lovely view.”