She was supposed to leave five minutes after him. Afraid that she would break down while walking past her father sleeping on the cot near the entrance, she hurried out of the house without even turning to look at him. None of the neighbours saw her. Not that it would have mattered even if someone had. When she joined Kumaresan, who was waiting with his bicycle, all that she had bottled up inside broke free, and she wept. Standing beside a thorny bush in a dark spot, he held her tear-streaked face in both his hands and kissed her on her lips. That was his first kiss, and she had felt it with the intensity of a lightning bolt. He had said to her, ‘Don’t worry about anything. I’ll always be by your side.’ All her fears had melted away at those words and she sat on the bicycle. That bicycle had brought her to a new life in this foreign land. She could not expect a comforting word here from anyone other than her husband. How would she handle these people in his absence?

Suddenly, for some reason, she was reminded of her brother. Everyone called her ‘Saro’; he alone called her ‘Roja’, a rose. ‘I will find you a husband who is willing to live with us in our house,’ her brother used to say. ‘That way you will always be with us, and if he treats you badly, I can slap him around.’ Perhaps, she thought, I should not have left such a brother and run away overnight. She shivered, as though she was coming down with a fever. It would be so much better if Kumaresan came back to her side.

Everyone was asking him about her. When one of them said, ‘I don’t think people of our caste live in that town,’ Kumaresan replied, ‘There are one or two people. You would know if you went there.’

‘All right. What is her caste?’

‘Same as ours.’

‘You can’t fool us like this, mapillai. There will definitely be a village meeting in a few days. We don’t know what the village is going to say. Just be careful. Or . . . like I suggested, take her back and leave her there. You can go once a month and give her some money for expenses.’

‘We will see about it, maama,’ said Kumaresan.

Would he listen to them? Would he actually take her back and leave her there? She was fine with going back as long as he stayed there with her. Her father and brother wouldn’t mind. But would he do it? He had told her that she was the only thing in Tholur he was attached to. ‘Had I not met you, I wouldn’t have stayed here for so long. You are the reason I have remained in this stinky town.’ Hearing that had made her happy then, but now she thought it would have been better if he had liked her town.

She heard one of the men ask Kumaresan, ‘How many siblings does she have?’ It was only by the voices that she could tell that it was different people talking to him.