But she now realized that none of those tactics would work with this crowd. In fact, it would be best if no one came near her or asked her anything. Anyway, Kumaresan would not allow anyone to talk to her today. But she was afraid that he might go out and pick a fight with someone. So, keeping her ears pricked, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. She could hear them making fun of her fainting, the news of which had reached everyone in the village. ‘She must have passed out at the sight of this thatched-hut palace,’ they were saying. She lay there, listening to everything.

Earlier, she had seen five or six men in loincloths sitting outside. One of them now said, ‘Did you go crazy at the sight of her fair skin, my boy?’ She could not hear Kumaresan’s response. Perhaps he just smiled, like he did all the time. No matter what situation, his lips always widened in a smile. He could handle everyone with just his smile.

She heard a woman say, ‘You are accusing Nōndi, but all you men have wandering eyes.’

The women’s chatter had not ended.

Another woman chimed in, ‘Since all of you just lie about here in your loincloths, we women aren’t worried. If you went out of town to work, who knows what all you’d do?’

‘Oh, is that why you don’t want to send your husband anywhere?’

‘All right,’ said one of the men. ‘So something happened between the two of you when you were there. That’s okay; it’s not a mistake. But why didn’t you leave her there? You could have gone back once in a while for a few days to enjoy her company. And we could have got you respectably married to a girl from our caste, mapillai. In what way are our women inferior? They may not be as fair as she is, but they are not very dark either.’ He said all this without bothering to lower his voice. It made Saroja cry even more.

‘Are you asking him to find a fair one and a darker one and ride a double bullock cart?’

‘What is wrong with that? Instead of a cart drawn by a single bullock, he could travel in comfort, pulled by two. If he were to twist their tails, they’d carry him around like in a sedan, wouldn’t they?’

Even though she could not fully understand the conversation, everything that was being said made Saroja panic. She could sense that they were trying to make Kumaresan reconsider his decision by saying insulting things about her. Could all this talk actually change his mind, she wondered.

She had come placing all her trust in him. What would happen to her? She tried to remind herself of his words to her. The night she walked out of her house, she had been terrified. The day before, she had packed a bag of clothes and given it to him. He had hidden it somewhere. Since his job was to distribute soda bottles to shops, he knew a lot of shops near the bus stop. By the time her older brother came back home it would be past ten at night. Her father, who had returned home drunk and then gone to sleep after eating, had not stirred at all. There was no one to stop her, but she was still gripped by fear. Whenever she looked at her father, she could not control her tears. Nobody from the other houses in their row seemed to be out and about. She heard Kumaresan taking his bicycle out into the street. He would wait for her at the street corner as planned.