Janaki begins to explain, and Sivakami goes to close the courtyard door, glancing quizzically at the girl standing just beyond the threshold, a girl she doesn’t know. What luck she was passing! she thinks, though she doesn’t say anything to her, just nods a little. Perhaps a child of one of the Brahmin-quarter servants, though awfully well-dressed for that. Bharati doesn’t move, but stands looking at Sivakami, her chin raised, while Sivakami closes and bolts the courtyard door.

As soon as Sivakami hears the Chettiar’s demand, she dispatches Janaki to get some holy ash from the people three houses down who just got back from the Palani hills day before yesterday. And to get the priest from the temple. Vani resumes her playing, which calms Sita once more. They induce her to sit on a mat in the courtyard, since she has been multiply polluted: by Bharati’s touch, by Muchami’s, and of course by inhabitation by the spirit of a dead Chettiar. Janaki pictures Bharati sitting out back and realizes they shut the door in a panic without saying bye or thanks. But for Bharati, Sita could have been God knows where right now. I’ll apologize tomorrow, Janaki thinks.

The neighbour insists on bringing the holy ash herself, after changing her sari and refreshing her hair. She can sniff out a gossip opportunity anywhere within a ten-mile radius. By the time Janaki returns home with the priest, there are no fewer than ten people sitting and clicking their tongues in the front hall and occasionally going through the kitchen to peep at the now prone girl. The priest administers the ash externally, on the forehead and throat, and internally, a pinch on the tongue, then everyone sits around and waits.

After about two hours of muttering and twitching, Sita’s skinny frame leaps to its feet. She goose-steps to the well and draws a bucket of water. Face skyward, she dumps the bucket of water unceremoniously over her head. Three seconds later, her body gives a great heave and a shudder and collapses to the ground.

A cry goes up among the watchers, and they pick her up and carry her into the hall. She is feverish and barely conscious, but restored to herself.

They are settling her in the hall and congratulating one another on the success of the treatment-Janaki thinks they are acting a bit too much as if they thought of it, forgetting it was in fact the dead man’s own suggestion-when Goli bursts through the door like unwelcome relief. He has a wild look in his eye, and today is extra dandy, with bowler hat and cane.

“My brother-in-law has called me!” Goli announces. “Such an honour!”

What he says is true; Vairum awaits him on the roof. Goli sweeps through the hordes of gigglers and gossipers and general hangers-on in a single noisy motion. Sivakami and Gayatri join Muchami in the garden, where they can hear the conversation beginning above. Gayatri and Muchami, in whom Sivakami has confided, look at each other with conspiratorial hope and then turn their attention inward and upward.

“I’m interested in the cinema, Goli Athimbere.” Vairum must not even have given Goli time to sit. Sivakami winces, wishing Vairum were better about observing niceties. He is standing, and they can see his hands and head for a second at the balustrade; then he walks away.

“The cinema is an enormously interesting proposition,” Goli agrees. “Do you know-”

“I know, I know,” Vairum interrupts. “Look-”

“Oh, I’m looking, Vairum,” Goli says, clearly annoyed at the interruption. “I’m looking.”

Sivakami shakes her head.

“Okay,” Vairum goes on. “I don’t know what you know, but you do know that these are tricky times for investment, which is the whole reason all these possibilities are…” Vairum is uncharacteristically searching for words.

“Possible? That’s only a part of it. Naturally, a part of it, but a person needs a nose for these things. It’s not everyone who can get on board.” Goli’s voice sounds as if he is marching pompously back and forth across the roof.

“It’s a good bet, the cinema, Athimbere.” Vairum is no longer hesitating. “The only aspect of the proposal that makes me nervous is the fact that you are in charge.”

Sivakami, Muchami and Gayatri simultaneously lower their foreheads onto their palms.

“But the amount of investment you need takes the project largely out of your hands,” Vairum proceeds, reasonable and direct. “I will front the rest of the money-because it gives me the controlling interest. You must admit, it’s safer, for you and for everyone else involved.”

Incredibly, Goli has said nothing through this speech, but now he sounds as though he is orbiting madly, an electron around Vairum’s nucleus.

“I spit on your money, you cheap-nosed freak of a not-quite-man! How dare you insult me with your generosity! Don’t you think for a second you are getting any part of this so let that be a lesson to you with your swell-headed individualistic ambitions and attitudes! I ought to-”

Vairum bellows, “You cannot for a second speak of what it is to be a man, you who leave your children to be raised by others.”

Sivakami prays the children did not hear that. (They did.) She knows Vairum doesn’t mind the children’s presence, not at all. It is Goli he resents. Oh, why did she suggest this?

Goli’s voice circles as he charges down the spiral staircase. He pitches into the hall from the stairwell, chopping the side of his right hand against his left palm.

“Pack your bags. We are leaving.” He flies around the room, shoving each child in the direction of Thangam’s baggage, which stands ready in the corner of the hall. “No objections, children! You will not insist any longer on living in this house. Time and again I have tried to make you all come and live with me. You always refuse: my Vairum Mama says this, my Sivakami Patti says that!”

What he is saying is untrue, but this is immaterial.

Sita is hauled to her feet, unprotesting but also largely unconscious. Laddu, Janaki and Kamalam mill into one another, bumping, confused. Radhai, the toddler, howls and shoves her mother’s sari into her mouth as Thangam moves toward the door. Visalam has stealthily backed out into the garden with her baby. Chances are Goli won’t notice her, but Sivakami closes the garden door just in case.

“No more!” Goli hollers. “This time, I will not take no for an answer. Go, pack!”

The children have no idea what this means as far as they are concerned.

“PACK^!”

Sivakami indicates that Muchami should fetch a trunk from upstairs.

They all get on the 92:35 train that night. By morning, they will reach the Karnatak country, where Goli is stationed at present, the farthest they have ever been from home.

28. In the Karnatak Country 1934

THEY ARRIVE AT TEN IN THE MORNING, by which time Cholapatti would have been sweltering and still. In Cholapatti, the packed air is so hot and moist that every villager feels a privileged proximity to Goddess Earth-each person feels her sweat.

In the Karnatak country, the air swirls and rustles round, cool as the children have known only water to be, water dippered from the big clay pot in the darkest corner of the pantry. The house is like theirs in Cholapatti; the same brick floors and clay-shingled roof, but smaller. It is a government-issue house and comes with a government-issue houseboy who bobs ingratiatingly as they arrive and then disappears.

The children watch their father take soap and a towel and stride toward the back of the house. He returns ten minutes later, shaved and washed. They are still in the front hall, mostly still standing and very quiet. The one or two who sat scramble to their feet. Goli looks at them with indignant expectation. He shouts, “Not clean yet? Move!”

Laddu and Sita rush to the back, grabbing towels where they saw Goli do so. There must be more than one bathroom, they think, if they were supposed to be bathing while Goli was. But no, there is only one bathroom. One by one, then, they bathe in cold water and then sit in the hall, uncomfortable.