They came for Gopalan, Indu’s father, a few days later. The
police jeep arrived early in the morning as the maids turned up to sweep the
front yards and draw water for the kitchens of the middle-class houses on the
road. On that morning the roads were quiet except for the bicycle bell of the
milkman and the creaks of the wheels of the shit carts.
The two policemen in
the jeep were in mufti, and looked left and right furtively as they
closed the doors of the jeep. They walked towards the house, throwing away
their half-smoked beedies.
Gopalan, sleepless
and weary, and Indu, saw them from the upstairs window and was ready for them,
but when they took the handcuffs out, he blanched.
The policemen
looked at each other, then at Gopalan’s bony wrists and his sparse body.
‘See, my bag is packed and I am going with you,’ Gopalan
said. His voice trembled a little on the last phrase.
‘It’s not you we
are worried about,’ they said, but they put the handcuffs away.
Gopalan picked up
his suitcase and went down the stairs in front of the men.
At the foot of the
stairs was his mother’s room; he stooped under the low wooden lintel of the
door. He had not thought of the words for this moment, he who had words for all
occasions.
‘Ammey, I'm
going,’ he said.
She was curled up
on her bed in her dark cave of a room and he could just see her white face and
the rough grey blanket pulled up to her shoulders. The room smelled faintly of
the ripe bananas and rice for the household stored under her bed, and her
medicines.
Ammini struggled
up and let her legs dangle over the side of the bed. As she did so she took in
the two men standing grimly behind him.
‘Who are they? And
where are you going?’
Gopalan put his
case down and bent to touch her feet for her blessing, but she turned away from
him and lay down again on her bed, turning her face to the wall.
‘Ammey,’ he
pleaded, but she did not move.
Devi and Shinnu
came out of the kitchen with Mani and looked at the scene in front of Ammini’s
doorway. They clutched each other, and
the two girls stared, terrified.
'Time to
go,’Gopalan said looking at Devi's frantic face. ‘Don’t upset the children.’ He
picked up his suitcase again.
‘No,’ Indu
screamed as she hurled herself on her father, sobbing. ‘No-o-o. Tell them to go
away, Acha, tell them.’
Mani ran to him
then. ‘Elayacha. If you go…‘ She was sobbing too.
Gopalan bent down
and gathered the girls in his arms.
‘Listen, Mani.
You've got to look after both of you. And help Devi Ammamma. You mustn't cry.
They’ll all start crying and what will I do then?’
The two men stared
woodenly as Gopalan turned to leave. They followed him out of the house and
through the front gate. When they reached the jeep they bundled him into the
back and got clumsily into the front, hurrying to get away.
As the car
started, it became apparent why they had come so early and silently: a small
crowd of men and boys walked towards the car. They looked belligerent and some
of them had stones or sticks in their hands.
As the first stone
hit the windscreen, the policeman at the wheel
revved up the engine and accelerated away.
Indu and Mani ran
to the gate.
‘Come inside,’
Devi called out, but there was too much noise and excitement and the girls
pretended they had not heard. After the car drove away and the crowd dispersed
they stood at the gate, watching the few loiterers.
‘When will
Elayachan come back?’ Mani asked. She seemed more disturbed than Indu, who had
not quite understood that this was an arrest, and her father was going to jail.
‘In the evening,’
Indu answered, a little contemptuously. Achan always came back in the evening.
Mani started crying. Indu watched perplexed as this was a truly unusual thing,
Mani normally bit her lip and shut her eyes tight against the world when she
was upset, but refused to be seen crying.
Mani picked up
Indu’s hand and started walking towards the house. She did this also rarely;
she was not given to demonstrations of affection.
When Achan did not
come back in the evening, Indu slept in Devi’s bed.
‘Ammammey, wake me up when
Achan comes,’ she said to Devi. Both girls called her ‘Ammamma’ – mother’s
mother, as though to compensate for the fact that she was childless.
‘Yes, soon as he comes,’ Devi murmured, and
for once she put her arms round the child and drew her close.
