The god of small things in English

C H A P T E R 21

THE COST OF LIVING

When the old house had closed its bleary eyes and settled into

sleep, Ammu, wearing one of Chacko’s old shirts over a long white

petticoat, walked out onto the front verandah. She paced up and

down for awhile. Restless. Feral. Then she sat on the wicker chair

below the moldy, button-eyed bison head and the portraits of the

Little Blessed One and Aleyooty Ammachi that hung on either side

of it. Her twins were sleeping the way they did when they were

exhausted—with their eyes half open, two small monsters. They got

that from their father

C H A P T E R 20

THE MADRAS MAIL

And so, at the Cochin Harbor Terminus, Estha Alone at the barred

train window. Ambassador E. Pelvis. A millstone with a puʃ. And a

greenwavy, thickwatery, lumpy, seaweedy, ɻoaty, bottomless bottomful

feeling. His trunk with his name on it was under his seat. His

tiɽn box with tomato sandwiches and his Eagle ɻask with an eagle

was on the little folding table in front of him

C H A P T E R 19

SAVING AMMU

At the police station, Inspector Thomas Mathew sent for two CocaColas.

With straws. A servile constable brought them on a plastic

tray and oʃered them to the two muddy children sitting across the

table from the Inspector, their heads only a little higher than the

mess of ɹles and papers on it

C H A P T E R 18

THE HISTORY HOUSE

A posse of Touchable Policemen crossed the Meenachal River,

sluggish and swollen with recent rain, and picked their way through

the wet undergrowth, the clink of handcuʃs in someone’s heavy

pocket

C H A P T E R 17

COCHIN HARBOR TERMINUS

In his clean room in the dirty Ayemenem House, Estha (not old, not

young) sat on his bed in the dark. He sat very straight. Shoulders

squared. Hands in his lap. As though he was next in line for some

sort of inspection. Or waiting to be arrested.

The ironing was done. It sat in a neat pile on the ironing board.

He had done Rahel’s clothes as well.

C H A P T E R 16

A FEW HOURS LATER

Three children on the riverbank. A pair of twins and another,

whose mauve corduroy pinafore said Holiday! in a tilting, happy

font

C H A P T E R 15

THE CROSSING

It was past midnight. The river had risen, its water quick and black,

snaking towards the sea, carrying with it cloudy night skies, a whole

palm frond, part of a thatched fence, and other gifts the wind had

given it.

C H A P T E R 14

WORK IS STRUGGLE

Chacko took the shortcut through the tilting rubber trees so that he

would have to walk only a very short stretch down the main road to

Comrade K. N. M. Pillai’s house. He looked faintly absurd, stepping

over the carpet of dry leaves in his tight airport suit, his tie blown

over his shoulder.

Comrade Pillai wasn’t in when Chacko arrived. His wife, Kalyani,

with fresh sandalwood paste on her forehead, made him sit down on

a steel folding chair in their small front room and disappeared

through the bright pink, nylon-lace curtained doorway into a dark

adjoining room, where the small ɻame from a large brass oil lamp

ɻickered. The cloying smell of incense drifted through the doorway,

over which a small wooden placard said Work is Struggle. Struggle is

Work.

Chacko was too big for the room. The blue

C H A P T E R 13

THE PESSIMIST AND THE OPTIMIST

Chacko had moved out of his room and would sleep in Pappachi’s

study so that Sophie Mol and Margaret Kochamma could have his

room. It was a small room, with a window that overlooked the

dwindling, somewhat neglected rubber plantation that Reverend E.

John Ipe had bought from a neighbor. One door connected it to the

main house and another (the separate entrance that Mammachi had

installed for Chacko to pursue his “Men’s Needs” discreetly) led

directly out onto the side mittam

C H A P T E R 12

KOCHU THOMBAN

The sound of the chenda mushroomed over the temple,

accentuating the silence of the encompassing night. The lonely, wet

road. The watching trees. Rahel, breathless, holding a coconut,

stepped into the temple compound through the wooden doorway in

the high white boundary wall.