“Ammu, my sister,” Chacko said.
Ammu said a grown-up’s Hello to Margaret Kochamma and a children’s Hell-oh to Sophie Mol. Rahel watched hawk-eyed to try and gauge how much Ammu loved Sophie Mol, but couldn’t.
Laughter rambled through the Arrivals Lounge like a sudden breeze. Adoor Basi, the most popular, best- loved comedian in Malayalam cinema, had just arrived (Bombay-Cochin). Burdened with a number of small unmanageable packages and unabashed public adulation, he felt obliged to perform. He kept dropping his packages and saying, “
Estha laughed a high, delighted laugh.
“Ammu look! Adoor Basi’s dropping his things!” Estha said. “He can’t even carry his things!”
“He’s doing it deliberately,” Baby Kochamma said in a strange new British accent. “Just ignore him.”
“He’s a filmactor,” she explained to Margaret Kochamma and Sophie Mol, making Adoor Basi sound like a Mactor who did occasionally Fil.
“Just trying to attract attention,” Baby Kochamma said and resolutely refused to have her attention attracted.
But Baby Kochamma was wrong. Adoor Basi wasn’t trying to attract attention. He was only trying to deserve the attention that he had already attracted.
“My aunt, Baby,” Chacko said.
Sophie Mol was puzzled. She regarded Baby Kochamma with a beady-eyed interest. She knew of cow babies and dog babies. Bear babies-yes. (She would soon point out to Rahel a bat baby.) But aunt babies confounded her.
Baby Kochamma said, “Hello, Margaret,” and “Hello, Sophie Mol.” She said Sophie Mol was so beautiful that she reminded her of a wood-sprite. Of Ariel.
“D’you know who Ariel was?” Baby Kochamma asked Sophie Mol. “Ariel in The Tempest?”
Sophie Mol said she didn’t.
“Where the bee sucks there suck I’?” Baby Kochamma said. Sophie Mol said she didn’t.
“In a cowslip’s bell I lie’?’ Sophie Mol said she didn’t.
“Shakespeare’s The Tempest?” Baby Kochamma persisted.
All this was of course primarily to announce her credentials to Margaret Kochamma. To set herself apart from the Sweeper Class.
“She’s trying to boast;” Ambassador E. Pelvis whispered in Ambassador S. Insect’s ear. Ambassador Rahel’s giggle escaped in a bluegreen bubble (the color of a jackfruit fly) and burst in the hot airport air. Pffot! was the sound it made.
Baby Kochamma saw it, and knew that it was Estha who had started it.
“And now for the VIPs,” Chacko said (still using his Reading Aloud voice).
“My nephew, Esthappen.”
“Elvis Presley,” Baby Kochamma said for revenge. “I’m afraid we’re a little behind the times here.” Everyone looked at Estha and laughed.
From the soles of Ambassador Estha’s beige and pointy shoes an angry feeling rose and stopped around his heart
“How d’you do, Esthappen?” Margaret Kochamma said.
“Finethankyou,” Estha’s voice was sullen.
“Estha,” Ammu said affectionately, “when someone says How d’you do? You’re supposed to say How d’you do? back. Not `Fine, thank you.’ Come on, say How do YOU do?”
Ambassador Estha looked at Ammu.
“Go on,” Ammu said to Estha. “How do YOU do?”
Estha’s sleepy eyes were stubborn.
In Malayalam Ammu said, `Did you hear what I said?”
Ambassador Estha felt bluegrayblue eyes on him, and an Imperial Entomologist’s nose. He didn’t have a
“Esthappen!” Ammu said. And an angry feeling rose in her and stopped around her heart A Far More Angry Than Necessary feeling. She felt somehow humiliated by this public revolt in her area of jurisdiction. She had wanted a smooth performance. A prize for her children in the Indo-British Behavior Competition.
Chacko said to Ammu in Malayalam, “Please. Later. Not now.”
And Ammu’s angry eyes on Estha said: All right. Later.
And Later became a horrible, menacing, goose-bumpy word.
Lay. Ter.
Like a deep-sounding bell in a mossy well. Shivery, and furred. Like moth’s feet.
The Play had gone bad. Like pickle in the monsoon.
“And my niece,” Chacko said. `Where’s Rahel?” He looked around and couldn’t find her. Ambassador Rahel, unable to cope with seesawing changes in her life, had raveled herself like a sausage into the dirty airport curtain, and wouldn’t unravel. A sausage with Bata sandals.
“Just ignore her,” Ammu said. “She’s just trying to attract attention.”
Ammu too was wrong. Rahel was trying to not attract the attention that she deserved.
“Hello, Rahel,” Margaret Kochamma said to the dirty airport curtain.
“How do YOU do?” The dirty curtain replied in a mumble.
“Aren’t you going to come out and say Hello?” Margaret Kochamma said in a kind-schoolteacher voice. (Like Miss Mitten’s before she saw Satan in their eyes.)
Ambassador Rahel wouldn’t come out of the curtain because she couldn’t She couldn’t because she couldn’t Because Everything was wrong. And soon there would be a Lay Ter for both her and Estha.
Full of furred moths and icy butterflies. And deep-sounding bells. And moss.
And a Nowl.
The dirty airport curtain was a great comfort and a darkness and a shield.
“Just ignore her,” Ammu said and smiled tightly.
Rahel’s mind was full of millstones with bluegrayblue eyes.
Ammu loved her even less now. And it had come down to Brass Tacks with Chacko.
“Here comes the baggage” Chacko said brightly. Glad to get away. “Come, Sophiekins, let’s get your bags.”
Estha watched as they walked along the railing, pulling through the crowds that moved aside, intimidated by Chacko’s suit and sideways tie and his generally bursty demeanor. Because of the size of his stomach, Chacko carried himself in a way that made him appear to be walking uphill all the time. Negotiating optimistically the steep, slippery slopes of life. He walked on this side of the railing, Margaret Kochamma and Sophie Mol on that.
The Sitting Man with the cap and epaulettes, also intimidated by Chacko’s suit and sideways tie, allowed him into the baggage claim section.
When there was no railing left between them, Chacko kissed Margaret Kochamma, and then picked Sophie Mol up.
“The last time I did this I got a wet shirt for my pains,” Chacko said and laughed. He hugged her and hugged her and hugged her. He kissed her bluegrayblue eyes, her Entomologist’s nose, her hatted redbrown hair.
Then Sophie Mol said to Chacko, “Ummm… excuse me? D’you think you could put me down now? I’m
