The women laugh hard, startling toddlers silent and babies awake. A smile even breaks through the anxiety cobwebbing Sivakami’s face. Meenu laughs hardest of all. “They had to run pretty fast, or they would have got a nice whack. They came home crying and yelling, ‘What’s her problem? She’s a widow anyway, what does she care if she lives or dies? We’re not going to arrange this marriage any more!’ ”
“What happened?”
“Another widow. She had been a second wife, she didn’t mind.
The marriage was for her youngest son, the last of her responsibilities.
“The marriage took place, oh, twenty, twenty-five years ago, and the old lady is still going strong. Sweet, mild-mannered lady, but strong as a plow-ox.”
The women wipe the laughing tears from the corners of their eyes-imagine their husbands being chased by widows with big sticks! They go back to absentmindedly joggling babies and mending clothes. “Marriages are made in heaven, that’s what. No one can say how one will turn out.”
Their chatter is cut off by the tiffin hour. Sivakami’s father wanders past in a cloud of his musings, moving toward the dining area. Sivakami and Ecchu rise to serve him his meal.
+9 The stories of wrong horoscopes serve as distraction but certainly not as consolation. Her husband’s own horoscope was accurate, and he did Thangam’s horoscope himself. Sivakami feels sick but all too confident that he got it right.
The brothers return from a day of searching with an unexpected proposition.
They have called on three families-enough, in their opinion, to take a decision. This is the report, which Sambu, the eldest brother, delivers in a slow, sonorous monologue, regularly interrupted by the impatient Venketu. Subbu, the youngest, doesn’t try to contribute but smiles comfortingly at his little sister. She smiles warily back.
“The first family asked us if we were kidding,” Sambu relates. “They have only one son, they have waited so long to marry him, until their duty was done by all his sisters. Will they marry him to a woman who is just going to kill him off? No. The second family: they hesitated because they have been searching for a long time for a bride. Their son is an ascetic, a renunciant. He has been so since a very early age and has said he can only marry a woman who accepts this lifestyle. Since he wants nothing so much as to be taken to the next world, his family thought he might take our option, but after some discussion, they finally said no, they could not be party to this union. Although any wife of his would have a more austere life during marriage than during widowhood, they need to find a girl who is already inclined to a spiritual life. We said Thangam is a very undemanding girl, but they were not sure. So we went to a third house. They were recommended to us as a great landowning family, but it was clear when we arrived that they are very much in debt. I’m sure that’s why they are having trouble finding a match for their son. We saw him-extraordinarily handsome, talkative, smiling face.”
Here Sambu pauses for even longer than usual. He normally speaks so slowly as to make it seem he is choosing each sentence from a dwindling supply. Sivakami’s face, which had been frowning in concentration, now smoothes into wariness. She looks around at her sisters-in-law, who look back inquiringly to their husbands. Their husbands look down at their food, and Sambu continues. “This is the best option. There is a catch, but this is still the best option.”
They each eat a mouthful.
“The catch is,” Sambu drones, “that the son has something in his horoscope that suggests…”
Venketu breaks in, “Well, suggests strongly…”
“Yes,” Sambu reasserts. “Strongly suggests his wife will… die married.” Here he takes one of his customary pauses, permitting Sivakami’s shock to jell. “Far preferable to being a widow, certainly.”
“Of course,” Venketu yelps, “it suggests this will happen after many, many years.”
“Yes, many years,” Sambu eventually adds.
“Yes, many,” Subbu chimes in at the last.
Sivakami waits a long time, but Sambu has nothing else to say. They resume eating, nervously.
This is a choice between frying pan and fire-and the women know, as men do not, the consequences of such choices. Sivakami’s mouth is dry and she feels a bit dizzy with tension but decides to plunge forward.
“How old a married woman?” she asks her eldest brother. “How many years will she have?”
“Many years, many years,” Sambu replies without looking up.
“How many?” Sivakami insists, feeling close to tears while knowing she will not cry.
“Well, let’s see…” Sambu frowns.
Venketu helps him. “She’s seven now, so that would make thirty-three more years. Practically a lifetime.”
“And ‘strongly suggests,’” Sivakami presses them, surprised that her voice is not shaking. “What does that mean? How ‘strongly’ does it ‘suggest’ his wife will die married?” She can’t bring herself to use “Thangam” and “die” in the same sentences.
“Hm. Well,” Sambu begins, and Venketu finishes, “More strongly than Thangam’s suggests its opposite.”
Sambu glares.
There is silence as each woman in the room compares her own lifespan with the one Thangam’s uncles want her to accept. It is a little less than twice Sivakami’s current age. More time than she wants but not nearly enough for her daughter. Venketu offers Sivakami the courtesy of a little consolation, and she sees that, despite his early proclamations, he has put all the effort he intends to into this match. “Anyway, when she has children, remember, chances are very good that their horoscopes will change all this. Children give all women a new lease on life, isn’t that right, ladies?”
The ladies pretend they haven’t heard. Sivakami does not let herself reflect on whether children are a reliable method of altering one’s destiny. She thinks instead that her brothers will not be so hasty in selecting mates for their own children: good children, but ordinary. Plain, some of them very plain, and not exactly brilliant either. Her brothers will have to work double-time to pair them off and they will too. Without looking up from his slurping-burping, Sambu concludes, “They want a girl-seeing next week.”
Sivakami retreats to the kitchen in disgust. It will be concluded at the girl-seeing. No one has ever laid eyes on Thangam without tumbling headfirst into the well of love where she dwells, a little golden frog. She is a delicacy not to be resisted, the sweetest of sweets laid over with pure, pounded gold. Thangam melts on the tongue.
She hears her father calling from the far end of the house for his bedroll. He has concerned himself with nothing about the marriage since making the demand that his sons do their duty by their niece. That was his duty, to make the demand.
If only horoscopes were less impartial, Sivakami thinks, feeling sorry for herself, since to feel sorry for her daughter, already, would break her heart. The stars strike without pity. And they collude through generations. She, her husband and Vairum were all victimized by Hanumarathnam’s and Vairum’s star charts, and now, because of Hanumarathnam’s death, Thangam’s stars have shredded her life in advance. The stars’ effects can be altered in combination-look, Thangam’s destiny was reversed by this match. Surely her father, had he lived, would have found a way to turn hers to advantage.
Had he lived. Her brothers had asked her to come here so they could look after her: a woman alone is vulnerable, they said. They are right. Clearly, no one will protect her and her children now that her husband is gone.
As Sivakami predicted (see: she, too, has such powers), the boy’s family comes, sees, consents. The groom, called Goli, is eighteen, handsome, with the sort of creamy complexion customarily called red. (A tinge of aristocracy? Romance and good fortune?) He’s all charm and dash, glib compliments and a restless eye. Sivakami’s sisters-in-law are a-titter.