They are all very good-looking children: fair, some with their father’s high, square forehead, some with Thangam’s shapely nose. Sivakami herself would have been proud to have borne them. I thought my fate was to have a small family, but I have a large one after all. Now all that remains is for Vairum to complete it, with children of his own.

GOLI’S PRIMARY ACTIVITY ON ARRIVAL appears to be that of using his position as a revenue inspector, which gives him access to the exact income levels and amenability to corruption of all of Kulithalai’s prominent citizens, as a springboard for his business schemes. For the first few months, he attempts to revive his proposal for a cigar and cigarette plant, and nearly succeeds, but one important backer with political ambitions withdraws late, and the idea falls through. Goli’s spirits are briefly dampened, but he rebounds with an imagined line of bottled cream sodas in innovative flavours. He convinces the would-be politician to invest-“No political liability in soda!”-and pays a dissolute young Britisher for market research and suggestions. The consultant advises Goli that for bestselling “Top Flavours!” drinks (a name Goli paid him a handsome bonus to invent), he can’t fail with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Goli pays another huge sum to have essences imported from Italy and tries them, at an exclusive event, on half a dozen interested parties, all of whom concur that these exotic tastes are, if not repulsive, not exactly sure bets. No wonder newly arrived Britishers never like our food, if this is the kind of thing their tongues are trained on! They always come around, though, with time. A few of the men say they might consider going in on a line of coconut, mango and lime-flavoured drinks, but isn’t the market saturated?

“No one wants to turn him down flat,” Muchami reports to Vairum as they walk the fields together one morning, “because he’s the revenue inspector. It doesn’t do to get him mad: he might tax them at full percentages. Apart from which, there’s something about him people like. Even when they don’t give him money-and it’s amazing how often they do-they want to stay friends with him.”

Vairum listens in silence. Nearly every meeting he has had with Goli (always accidental, never planned) has ended in a row. These have been quick but unmistakable, and usually concerned Goli’s not living up to his responsibilities. There is something about the very sight of his brother-in-law that is, to Vairum, like a torch held to his tail.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t asked you to go in with him on something,” Muchami remarks to him, a surprisingly personal incursion.

“He has no access to my finances,” Vairum responds curtly, poking a fallen bunch of banana leaves out of a canal. “I told his supervisor right away that he cannot be impartial with me, and that I will show my books only to the higher-up. My brother-in-law has no idea what I might have to give, not that he would get a paisa out of me.”

Muchami nods and they walk on.

One day, when Muchami pays his call to Thangam, he finds Goli at home. This has happened only once before: it was a Sunday, Goli had just finished his mid-morning meal and went to take a nap, so Thangam clambered onto the cart with the children, as usual.

Today, however, is a Wednesday, and Muchami dares not ask why Goli is neither at the office nor out on calls.

“What do you want?” Goli asks him, from the door. Baby Sita, learning to walk, clings to her father’s legs, the only one of the children Muchami has seen take such a liberty with their father.

Muchami has removed his shoulder towel to bare his chest, as is proper for men of lower castes with Brahmins, and holds it at his waist as he speaks. “I was out on business and wondered if Thangam Amma would like to come to visit her mother.” He has never used the honorific for Thangam, who is more like a daughter than a mistress to him, but it would feel equally strange not to use it with Goli, and risk offending him.

“She’s there all the time,” Goli says. “She’s going to be staying home a little more from now on.”

Muchami is not sure how Goli knows Thangam’s whereabouts, since he is never at home when she leaves and returns. It’s hard to imagine him asking about her day or her volunteering the information. But he respectfully takes his leave, and drives away. He returns at four-thirty that afternoon, in case Thangam is alone by then and wants to come home briefly, but she is not on the veranda. He comes every morning for the next week. The door is always shut, the veranda vacant.

Sivakami is worried; Vairum demands that Muchami tell him what is happening, but Muchami can give them nothing, other than saying that Goli bragged to his wealthier friends that he was about to embark on an unprecedented scheme: guaranteed success, no overhead. He was sorry they could have no part in it, but it might have spinoff ventures, he had mused; they would just have to wait and see.

The following Friday evening, nine days after Goli secluded his wife, Muchami hears a rumour in the bazaar that makes him go to Thangam and Goli’s house. It’s true: Goli is selling packets of Thangam’s dust in little printed paper packets. Muchami accosts one customer who has just left the line, having purchased three packets, and asks him to read what they say.

“‘Ash of Gold! Most powerful and holy cure from daughter of famous healer! Siddhic power alchemized with Brahmin wisdom! Use sparingly-only small amount needed.’”

Thangam is nowhere to be seen as Goli hawks the virtues of her dust from his veranda. “Once a week only, folks! Step up, step up! It’s exclusive, it’s rare, it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced.”

“We had heard of it,” says the man who so obligingly went over the packet’s text with Muchami. “Twice we came to Cholapatti to see if we could get some. But when we would come here sometimes, there were only traces on the veranda. We had to content ourselves with that. Now we will be first in line weekly, and buy also for our relatives!”

Muchami feels sick to his stomach during the whole journey to Sivakami’s but knows he has to tell Vairum, and immediately, not because Vairum would expect it, though he would, but for Thangam’s sake. Poor child, he repeats to himself with pity and dread as he nears Sivakami’s house. Poor child.

He would prefer to leave Sivakami entirely out of it but has to ask her to call Vairum, who is upstairs with Vani.

Out in the courtyard, Muchami tells Vairum in low tones what is happening. Sivakami stays in the kitchen, looking more frightened than curious.

Vairum explodes. “That no-good, exploitative lazy bum of a half-man…” and so on, exactly as Muchami predicted. The servant makes eye contact with Sivakami: she doesn’t need details; she knows who this is about. Within minutes, Muchami has hitched the cart again and he and Vairum depart.

They arrive along with a couple of hopeful customers, who clap at the still-open doorway and call out to Goli just as Muchami and Vairum dismount the cart. Goli comes to the entrance, looking tired and sounding cranky.

“Wish I could help you, folks, but supplies are limited. I ran out in ten minutes. Come back next…”

He trails off as Vairum bounds up the steps, making as if to close the door.

“Get in the house, you…” Vairum pushes his brother-in-law in the chest and into the gloom of the main hall.

Goli pushes Vairum back and the door shuts as he falls against it. Muchami decides against trying to listen and instead flicks his switch at the bullock’s rump, going to fetch a couple of Vairum’s friends, sons of a Kulithalai moneylender, who live just outside the government housing complex.

“You can get out of this house if you don’t know how to show respect,” Goli screams. “I have had more than enough of your-”