She was a lush, beautiful woman with golden-brown skin and huge eyes. Her long frizzy hair was damp and hung loose down her back, plaited only at the very end. It had wet the back of her tight, deep-red blouse and stained it a tighter, deeper red. From where the sleeves ended, her soft arm-flesh swelled and dropped over her dimpled elbows in a sumptuous bulge. Her white mundu and kavath were crisp and ironed. She smelled of sandalwood and the crushed green gram that she used instead of soap. For the first time in years, Chacko watched her without the faintest stirring of sexual desire. He had a wife (Ex-wife, Chacko!) at home. With arm freckles and back freckles. With a blue dress and legs underneath.

Young Lenin appeared at the door in red Stretchlon shorts. He stood on one thin leg like a stork and twisted the pink lace curtain into a pole, staring at Chacko with his mother’s eyes. He was six now, long past the age of pushing things up his nose.

“Mon, go and call Latha,” Mrs. Pillai said to him.

Lenin remained where he was, and, still staring at Chacko, screeched effortlessly, in the way only children can.

“Latha! Latha! You’re wanted!”

“Our niece from Kottayam. His elder brother’s daughter,” Mrs. Pillai explained. “She won the First Prize for Elocution at the Youth Festival in Trivandrum last week.”

A combative-looking young girl of about twelve or thirteen appeared through the lace curtain. She wore a long, printed skirt that reached all the way down to her ankles and a short, waist-length white blouse with darts that made room for future breasts. Her oiled hair was parted into two halves. Each of her tight, shining plaits was looped over and tied with ribbons so that they hung down on either side of her face like the outlines of large, drooping ears that hadn’t been colored in yet.

“D’you know who this is?” Mrs. Pillai asked Latha.

Latha shook her head.

“Chacko saar. Our factory Modalali.”

Latha stared at him with a composure and a lack of curiosity unusual in a thirteen-year-old.

“He studied in London Oxford,” Mrs. Pillai said. “Will you do your recitation for him?” -

Latha complied without hesitation. She planted her feet slightly apart.

“Respected Chairman”-she bowed to Chacko-”mydearjudges and”-she looked around at the imaginary audience crowded into the small, hot room-”beloved friends.” She paused theatrically.

“Today I would like to recite to you a poem by Sir Walter Scott entitled `Lochinvar.’” She clasped her hands behind her back. A film fell over her eyes. Her gaze was fixed unseeingly just above Chacko’s head. She swayed slightly as she spoke. At first Chacko thought it was a Malayalam translation of “Lochinvar.” The words ran into each other. Like in Malayalam, the last syllable of one word attached itself to the first syllable of the next. It was rendered at remarkable speed:

“O, young Loch in varbas scum oat of the vest

Through wall the vide Border his teed was the be:

sTand savissgood broadsod he weapon sadnun,

He rod all unarmed, and he rod al lalone…

The poem was interspersed with grunts from the old lady on the bed, which no one except Chacko seemed to notice.

Whe swam the Eske river where fird there was none;

Buitair he alighted at Netherby Gate,-

The bride had cansended, the galla ntcame late.”

Comrade Pillai arrived mid-poem; a sheen of sweat glazed his skin, his mundu was folded up over his knees, dark sweatstains spread under his Terylene armpits. In his late thirties, he was an unathietic, sallow little man. His legs were already spindly and his taut, distended belly, like his tiny mother’s goiter, was completely at odds with the rest of his thin, narrow body and alert face. As though something in their family genes had bestowed on them compulsory bumps that appeared randomly on different parts of their bodies.

His neat pencil mustache divided his upper lip horizontally into half and ended exactly in line with the ends of his mouth. His hairline had begun to recede and he made no attempt to hide it His hair was oiled and combed back off his forehead. Clearly youth was not what he was after. He had the easy authority of the Man of the House. He smiled and nodded a greeting to Chacko, but did not acknowledge the presence of his wife or his mother.

Latha’s eyes flicked towards him for permission to continue, with the poem. It was granted. Comrade Pillai took off his shirt, rolled it into a ball and wiped his armpits with it. When he finished, Kalyani took it from him and held it as though it was a gift. A bouquet of flowers. Comrade Pillai, in his sleeveless vest, sat on a folding chair and pulled his left foot up onto his right thigh. Through the rest of his niece’s recitation, he sat staring meditatively down at the floor, his chin cupped in the palm of his hand, tapping his right foot in time with the meter and cadence of the poem. With his other hand he massaged the exquisitely arched instep of his left foot.

When Latha finished, Chacko applauded with genuine kindness. She did not acknowledge his applause with even a flicker of a smile. She was like an East German swimmer at a local competition. Her eyes were firmly fixed on Olympic Gold. Any lesser achievement she took as her due. She looked at her uncle for permission to leave the room. Comrade Pillai beckoned to her and whispered in her ear.

“Go and tell Pothachen and Mathukutty that if they want to see me, they should come immediately.”

“No comrade, really… I won’t have anything more,” Chacko said, assuming that Comrade Pillai was sending Latha off for more snacks. Comrade Pillai, grateful for the misunderstanding, perpetuated it.

“No no no. Hah! What is this? Edi Kalyani, bring a plate of those avalose oondas.”

As an aspiring politician, it was essential for Comrade Pillai to be seen in his chosen constituency as a man of influence. He wanted to use Chacko’s visit to impress local supplicants and Party Workers. Pothachen and Mathukutty. the men he had sent for, were villagers who had asked him to use his connections at the Kottayam hospital to secure nursing jobs for their daughters. Comrade Pillai was keen that they be seen waiting outside his house for their appointment with him. The more people that were seen waiting to meet him, the busier he would appear, the better the impression he would make. And if the waiting people saw that the factory Modalali himself had come to see him, on his turf, he knew it would give off all sorts of useful signals.

“So! comrade!” Comrade Pillai said, after Latha had been dispatched and the avalose oondas had arrived. “What is the news? How is your daughter adjusting?” Hc insisted on speaking to Chacko in English.

“Oh fine. She’s fast asleep right now.”

“Oho. Jet lag, I suppose,” Comrade Pillai said, pleased with himself for knowing a thing or two about international travel.

“What’s happening in Olassa? A Party meeting?” Chacko asked.

“Oh, nothing like that. My sister Sudha met with fracture sometime back,” Comrade Pillai said, as though Fracture were a visiting dignitary. “So I took her to Olassa Moos for some medications. Some oils and all that. Her husband is in Patna, so she is alone at inlaws’ place.”

Lenin gave up his post at the doorway, placed himself between his father’s knees and picked his nose.

“What about a poem from you, young man?” Chacko said to him. `Doesn’t your father teach you any?”

Lenin stared at Chacko, giving no indication that he had either heard or understood what Chacko said.

“He knows everything,” Comrade PilIai said. “He is genius. In front of visitors only he’s quiet.”

Comrade Pillai jiggled Lenin with his knees.

“Lenin Mon, tell Comrade Uncle the one Pappa taught you. Friends Romans countrymen…”

Lenin continued his nasal treasure hunt.

“Come on, Mon, it’s only our Comrade Uncle-”