‘I am patient only for one reason,’ Marayi was saying. ‘I don’t want any harm to come to him. He has started talking back to me now! He used to be such an obedient boy; she has changed him. I have controlled myself all these days only for his sake. Otherwise, I’d have cut her throat with the sharp edge of the palm frond and ended it all long ago.’

The sound of another voice startled Saroja. ‘We’ll take care of it. Don’t worry!’ it said. ‘He will come to no harm. We can make sure it is all done within an hour. The village headman is our man. He will take care of it. When the entire village is on our side, what’s there to fear?’

Try as she might, she could not recognize that male voice. No matter how much she thought about it, she just could not place it.

FIFTEEN

FIFTEEN

Saroja could not tell which direction the sounds were coming from. But she instinctively cautioned herself against revealing her presence in any way. She was rooted to the spot, like a dark statue in the bushes, as she tried to listen to every word. Marayi spoke loudly, while the other voice reached her in fragmented whispers. Therefore, she had to make sense of the conversation based on what her mother-in-law was saying.

‘Where did you find Bhai Anna?’ asked Marayi.

The man responded, ‘Bhai Anna hasn’t been here since Nōndi returned with this girl. It looked like he had decided to go to different villages. But we waited patiently. After all, he had to come here at some point, didn’t he?’

‘Bhai Anna is a good man. He only wanted to help us. How could he have known where our dog went about lifting his leg?’

‘It wouldn’t have mattered if he had found a girl from one of our castes. Now this has become such a dishonourable affair.’

‘Was it true what Bhai Anna said?’

‘We took him with us straight to Tholur and made our own inquiries. Her father and brother work in a leather factory. They live in a one-room house that is as small as a sparrow’s nest. Because it is the town, the people who live nearby belong to different castes.’

‘Do they all talk and mix with each other?’

‘They might talk to each other, but do you think they will actually mix? No.’

‘What did you ask them?’

‘We just said that we were looking for the boy who went there to work. The family doesn’t know that they’ve come here. They thought the two had run away. So we told them that they haven’t come here. Apparently, the father and son said, “Let her get lost, we can’t be looking for her.” They must have known about the boy, and decided to keep quiet because they know our boy is from a good family.’