Saroja could not recollect what the old woman said after that or when exactly she left. Just the idea of going back into the hut terrified her. Involuntarily, her eyes looked up at the roof of the hut. She wondered if it had been a mistake to come all this way, to place her trust in Kumaresan. So far, she had not distrusted Kumaresan even a little bit. But though he was a good man, how could she trust his people?

The time for lunch had passed, but still she could not bring herself to eat anything. As she sat leaning against the neem tree like a statue, the ants that were climbing the tree also wandered on to her body. Fearful thoughts engulfed her. Human faces ambushed her from all directions and fluttered about very close to her. She could not free herself from them, and she curled into herself in disgust. Several hands reached out and scratched her face. She ran about, screaming, blood streaming down her face. Then, abruptly, she was drowning in something. Her imagination kept expanding its range of nightmares.

She sat there for a long while until the sound of a bicycle intruded upon her thoughts. It wasn’t Kumaresan. But it was someone his age. The man rode the bicycle straight up to her, as though intent on running into her, and then stopped suddenly, uncomfortably close. The bicycle was rusted, and the seat was torn and in complete disrepair. Though he wore his dhoti around his waist, the loose end of his loincloth could be seen hanging on the outside. A towel encircled his head. He grinned at her, the glint in his eyes suggesting that he wanted to swallow her whole; he was salivating just looking at her. Saroja tried to move away and run back into the hut, but she was trapped.

Still leering at her, he said, ‘I am a distant relative of Kumaresan’s. I am like his younger brother.’

She did not know how to respond to that. She smiled hesitantly at him.

‘I am the grandson of his granduncle,’ he continued. ‘Look at me carefully. You can see that I resemble your husband,’ he said. Saroja couldn’t find any likeness. In fact, he didn’t even deserve to stand beside Kumaresan. ‘The only difference is that he ended up seeing you before I did,’ the man muttered, as though talking to himself.

But Saroja understood that she was meant to hear that.

Turning his face eastwards, he added, ‘There, do you see a house with a tiled roof and a cowshed? That’s our house. If Kumaresan is not here, just call out to me, “Vellapayya!” I will come straight away. You are my older brother’s wife. He is a month older than me.’

All this while, he did not get off his bicycle. Trapped between the tree and the bicycle, Saroja hoped he would go away soon.

‘They say that I was fair-skinned when I was born,’ he continued. ‘That’s why they named me Vellapayyan. Roaming around in the fields in the sun has made me darker. But I have the same complexion as Kumaresan, perhaps even fairer—a good match to your skin tone.’ He looked intently at her face.