Long flatfeet
Airport garbage in their baby bins.
The smallest one stretched its neck like people in English films who loosen their ties after office. The middle one rummaged in her pouch for a long cigarette stub to smoke. She found an old cashew nut in a dim plastic bag. She gnawed it with her front teeth like a rodent. The large one wobbled the standing up sign that said Kerala Tourism Development Corporation Welcomes You with a kathakali dancer doing a namaste. Another sign, unwobbled by a kangaroo, said:
Urgently, Ambassador Rahel burrowed through the press of people to her brother and co- Ambassador.
Estha look! Look Estha look!
Ambassador Estha wouldn’t. Didn’t want to. He watched the bumpy landing with his tap-water Eagle flask slung around him, and a bottomless-bottomful feeling: The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man knew where to find him. In the factory in Ayemenem. On the banks of the Meenachal.
Ammu watched with her handbag.
Chacko with his roses.
Baby Kochamma with her sticking-out neckmole.
Then the Bombay-Cochin people came out. From the cool air into the hot air. Crumpled people uncrumpled on their way to the Arrivals Lounge.
And there they were, the Foreign Returnees, in wash’n’wear suits and rainbow sunglasses. With an end to grinding poverty in their Aristocrat suitcases. With cement roofs for their thatched houses, and geysers for their parents’ bathrooms. With sewage systems and septic tanks. Maxis and high heels. Puff sleeves and lipstick. Mixygrinders and automatic flashes for their cameras. With keys to count, and cupboards to lock. With a hunger for kappa and meen vevichathu that they hadn’t eaten for so long. With love and a lick of shame that their families who had come to meet them were so… so… gawkish. Look at the way they dressed! Surely they had more suitable airport wear! Why did Malayalees have such awful teeth?
And the airport itself! More like the local bus depot! The birdshit on the building! Oh the spitstains on the kangaroos!
Oho! Going to the dogs India is.
When long bus journeys, and overnight stays at the airport, were met by love and a lick of shame, small cracks appeared, which would grow and grow, and before they knew it, the Foreign Returnees would be trapped outside the History House, and have their dreams re-dreamed.
Then, there, among the wash’n’wear suits and shiny suitcases, Sophie Mol.
Thimble-drinker.
Coffin-Cartwheeler.
She walked down the runway, the smell of London in her hair. Yellow bottoms of bells flapped backwards around her ankles. Long hair floated out from under her straw hat. One hand in her mother’s. The other swinging like a soldier’s (left left lefrightleft).
There was
A girl,
Tall and
Thin and
Fair.
Her hair—
Her hair
Was the delicate colorriv
Gin-nnn-ger (left-lef-right)
There was
A girl—
Margaret Kochamma told her to Stoppit.
So she Stoppited.
Ammu said, “Can you see her, Rahel?”
She turned around to find her crisp-knickered daughter communing with cement marsupials. She went and fetched her, scoldingly. Chacko said he couldn’t take Rahel on his shoulders because he was already carrying something. Two roses red.
Fatly.
Fondly.
When Sophie Mol walked into the Arrivals Lounge, Rahel, overcome by excitement and resentment, pinched Estha hard. His skin between her nails. Estha gave her a Chinese Bangle, twisting the skin on her wrist different ways with each of his hands. Her skin became a welt and hurt. When she licked it, it tasted of salt. The spit on her wrist was cool and comfortable.
Ammu never noticed.
Across the tall iron railing that separated Meeters from the Met, and Greeters from the Gret, Chacko, beaming, bursting through his suit and sideways tie, bowed to his new daughter and ex-wife.
In his mind, Estha said, “Bow.”
“Hello, Ladies,” Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice (last night’s voice in which he said, Love. Madness. Hope. Infinnate joy). “And how was your journey?”
And the Air was full Of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside.
“Say Hello and How d’you do?” Margaret Kochamma said to Sophie Mol.
“Hello and How d’you do?” Sophie Mol said through the iron railing, to everyone in particular.
“One for you and one for you,” Chacko said with his roses.
“And Thank you?” Margaret Kochamma said to Sophie Mol.
“And Thank you?” Sophie Mol said to Chacko, mimicking her mother’s question mark. Margaret Kochamma shook her a little for her impertinence.
“You’re welcome,” Chacko said. “Now let me introduce everybody.” Then, more for the benefit of onlookers and eavesdroppers, because Margaret Kochamma needed no introduction really: “My wife— Margaret”
Margaret Kochamma smiled and wagged her rose at him. “Ex-wife, Chacko!” Her lips formed the words, though her voice never spoke them.
Anybody could see that Chacko was a proud and happy man to have had a wife like Margaret. White. In a flowered, printed frock with legs underneath. And brown back-freckles on her back. And arm-freckles on her arms.
But around her, the Air was sad, somehow. And behind the smile in her eyes, the was a fresh, shining blue. Because of a calamitous car crash. Because of a Joe-shaped Hole in the Universe.
“Hello, all,” she said. “I feel I’ve known you for years.”
“My daughter, Sophie,” Chacko said, and laughed a small, nervous laugh that was worried, in case Margaret Kochamma said “exdaughter.” But she didn’t. It was an easy-to-understand laugh. Not like the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man’s laugh that Estha hadn’t understood.
“`ho,” Sophie. Mol said.
She was taller than Estha. And bigger. Her eyes were bluegrayblue. Her pale skin was the color of beach sand. But her hatted hair was beautiful, deep red-brown. And yes (oh yes!) she had Pappachi’s nose waiting inside hers. An Imperial Entomologist’s nose-within-a-nose. A moth-lover’s nose. She carried her Made-in-England go-go bag that she loved.
