‘Tell us, Thambichetta, what’s your secret?’

‘What secret? I don’t have any secret,’ Thambi said, surprised. ‘I’ve never gone after women. Guess it’s too late for that now . . .’

‘Not that, Thambichetta. About what happened on the night you turned your life around.’

‘Oh, that. That’s not a secret,’ Thambi said, topping up his glass. ‘That night Eesho came to me.’

‘Eesho? You mean the man who puts up marquees for weddings and such?’

‘Piss off, boys. I meant Eesho Mishiha, our Lord Jesus Christ.’

He had spent that fateful day in Kaliyaar town, he told them, where he had sat in the attic of the grocery shop, and played cards and lost. Nursing that anger, he had set out in search of Baby who lived in a hut by the canal side and whiled away his time smoking ganja. He had been on Thambi’s radar for a while. As soon as he came up on him, Thambi grabbed the child in Baby’s arms and chucked him into the canal. His wife, an emaciated woman who looked like dried fish, began wailing, and Thambi withdrew without doing further damage. He did not feel like going to the toddy shop that evening, and as darkness spread, he walked along the lane through the rubber estate. Rain fell, but only in the forest of rubber trees.

‘I felt as though I was dead,’ Thambi said. Patting the waist-fold of his mundu, he realized he had lost the little parcel of snacks he had bought for his mother somewhere along the way.

‘I walked on and finally reached the culvert. You know the spot where Kuttappanasari died a long time ago? I saw someone, just a shadow, standing there in the rain. He clapped his hands and beckoned me.’

Thambi walked up to the man and lit a matchstick. The man’s hair and beard were long and wild. As he peered into the stranger’s face, Thambi realized he also had terribly bad breath.

‘I’m really hungry,’ the bearded man said. ‘Could you give me something to eat?’

‘You know what I’m like,’ Thambi said to his listeners, poking the first man’s elbow with his finger. ‘I knew immediately who that was. There were so many Pentecostals and preachers in the High Range, and yet he had chosen me, a complete low life, to test. He must be up to something, I thought.’

So Thambi invited the man home, and as they walked along, they vied with each other not to break the silence.

When they got home, Thambi’s mother scolded him. ‘I’ve told you a million times not to drag these strays home,’ she said. But Thambi gave the man his supper, rice and salted mango chammanthi.

‘Anyone else would have asked, “Have you eaten?” Not this guy. He just sat there and ate the entire meal.’

Thambi gave up his bed to the man and spent the night on the floor. When morning broke, the stranger was gone.

‘You see now?’ he told his mother. ‘If it were anyone else, would they have gone off so early in the freezing cold of the morning?’