Paruthy Uncle was a schoolteacher, just like Appa, but that was where the similarity between them ended, because Appa’s brother was not kind but very cruel. That’s how it seemed to me, anyway. Paruthy Uncle lived on the other side of Gingee. His was a much smaller house than ours, and we could not possibly all move there, so that is why he brought his whole family and moved into our big house. He did that the day after Amma and Appa died, because there were children in the house he had to look after. Even though my big brothers were looking after us quite well and said they could carry on doing so.
I think he would have liked the house very much if it weren’t for its contents, which were us; but he had to take both the house and its contents. I think there was some law about that, or some duty he had to fulfil towards his brother. So now we all lived together with Paruthy Uncle, Paruthy Uncle’s wife, Udhaya Aunty, Paruthy Uncle’s three daughters and Paruthy Uncle’s old mother. And all of a sudden our big house seemed much smaller, though it was the same size, just much fuller now, especially because Paruthy Uncle’s three daughters were all quite young and very noisy and took up a lot of space for themselves. In fact, Paruthy Uncle and his family took over most of the house for themselves, and left the five of us – four brothers and me – to live all in one room, all together.
I never liked Paruthy Uncle. Not even before all the terrible things happened I’m going to tell you about. I suppose that’s only natural, because he also did not like me. He didn’t like any of us but he didn’t like me most of all, because he said I was an extra mouth to feed, and not his flesh and blood, and a useless girl, and such things. There was a lot of talk about money in those days, but I didn’t understand it. How could I? I was so innocent. Only now I understand the meaning of money, and how a human life and human happiness weigh nothing against money. I only remember things that were repeated often, like the two words ‘ten mouths’, which seemed to my eleven-year-old mind to be the axis upon which our whole life turned: ‘ten mouths to feed,’ Paruthy Uncle would complain all of the time.
‘I have to cook for ten mouths!’ Udhaya Aunty nagged. Or almost as often as the ‘ten mouths’ there were the ‘five extra mouths’, meaning us: my four brothers and me. Janiki and my eldest brother Rohan had moved out by now; Janiki lived in America and Rohan was studying in Madras. So that left four brothers and me as the five extra mouths. I even used to dream about those five extra mouths, gaping open and floating by without heads and bodies while Udhaya Aunty placed a tiny spoonful of food in each one, after which the mouth would snap shut. That is what we were for them: open mouths they were supposed to fill.
Janiki flew back from America the moment she heard of the accident and stayed for a week. She was very angry when she saw that we were all in one room, and they lived in all the other rooms, each daughter with her own room. I didn’t really listen to all the quarrels on the matter; all I remember is that Janiki was both angry and sad, sometimes weeping, and often when we were supposed to be asleep I would hear her shouting at Uncle and Aunty, and they shouting back. And Janiki took me in her arms often and held me close and wept, but still I did not know what was going to happen.
‘You must write to her parents! Give me their addresses and I will write them! Let her go to them at least!’
And my heart raced and I grew excited, because it sounded as if Janiki was trying to get me away from Aunty and Uncle, who hated me the most of all of us, and sometimes struck me if I was bad. They said I was only a girl. The boys were useful because they had no sons of their own and one day the boys would look after them, when they were old. But a girl is only a burden and how would they ever find a husband for me? If I had had even an inkling of what was to come, you can be sure I would have run away, though where could I have gone, eleven years of age and no knowledge of the world? That was when I wrote letters to Mom in America and Daddy in Dubai, and gave Paruthy Uncle the letters to post, but they never came for me. While I was waiting for them to reply, though, Janiki said I should move out and live somewhere else. So Janiki tried to rescue me.
One night she woke me up and pressed a finger to my lips, wrapped me in a blanket and guided me through the darkness of the garden and out into the street. It must have been very late at night because the street was quite empty. Janiki had both hands on my shoulders and almost pushed me along, and though I was not fully awake and though she did not speak I felt the urgency in her manner and hurried as best I could, sometimes tripping on the edge of
the blanket dangling around my hastening feet, sometimes stumbling on one of the many potholes we crossed.
We walked for a long time but soon I had an idea where we were going to, and I was right – she was taking me to Amma’s sister’s home. Saasna Aunty. Saasna Aunty seemed to know we were coming because the moment Janiki touched her shoulder – she was sleeping on the back veranda – she sprang to her feet like an uncoiling spring, and ushered me into the house. It was all so stealthy, so secret!
‘You are safe here,’ Janiki whispered to me and kissed me on my forehead. ‘I will find your daddy and he will come and get you. Saasna Aunty will be kind to you. I have to go back to America now but I will find your daddy for you. Paruthy Uncle is not telling me his address but I will find it.’
I felt so scared because I knew that Janiki was scared, though I couldn’t tell what of. Nobody had yet told me anything of what was really going on, though I knew it was all about money. Now that I am older I know that Janiki should not have taken me to Saasna Aunty, because of course that was the first place Paruthy Uncle looked for me next day when he found I was gone. And early in the morning he appeared, and there was a big quarrel. I didn’t know what it was really about at the time, I was so confused, but I heard bits and pieces of the things they shouted at each other: Saasna Aunty pleading with Appa’s brother to let me stay with her, it wouldn’t cost anything, and then Paruthy Uncle’s nasty remark, that neither would I earn anything. That last remark I remember most of all because of the nasty way he said it. Nasty things stay in a person’s mind as well as kind things; they are like thorns sticking in there and even if you try to pull them out they edge themselves in deeper. So I never forgot those words of Paruthy Uncle, that I would not earn anything, and that was the first time I realised that I had to earn my living from now on. And Paruthy Uncle took me back home, but not for long. And Janiki could not help because she had already gone back to America.