Pyre

Also by Perumal Murugan

One Part Woman

The Story of a Goat

Translated from the Tamil by

ANIRUDDHAN VASUDEVAN

Black Cat

New York

Copyright © 2013 by Perumal Murugan

English translation copyright © 2016 by Aniruddhan Vasudevan

Cover design by Becca Fox Design

Landscape painting © Prashant Prabhu, Mumbai, India (prashantprabhu.com)

Courtesy of SaatchiArt; bicycle drawing © Allen Shaw

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

First published in Tamil as Pookkuzhi by Kalachuvadu Publications Pvt. Ltd, Nagercoil in 2013

First published in English by Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Books India in 2016

Published by Penguin Books, Penguin Random House India in 2017

Michigan Tamil Sangam literature translation grant

An initiative to bring the best of Tamil literature to the world.

சிறந்த தமிழ் இலக்கியங்கள் உலகளாவிய ஏற்பிசைவு பெறுவதற்கான முன்னெடுப்பு.

Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

First Grove Atlantic paperback edition: February 2022

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

ISBN 978-0-8021-5933-5

eISBN 978-0-8021-5934-2

Black Cat

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

ONE

The sun was blazing overhead when Saroja and Kumaresan stepped off the bus.

Beyond the tamarind trees that lined the road, all they could see were vast expanses of arid land. There were no houses anywhere in sight. With each searing gust of wind, the white summer heat spread over everything as if white saris had been flung across the sky. There was not a soul on the road. Even the birds were silent. Just an ashen dryness, singed by the heat, hung in the air. Saroja hesitated to venture into that inhospitable space.

‘Step down with your right foot first,’ Kumaresan had said to her. She was now unsure whether he had said this in jest or if he had meant it. By habit, anyway, she had descended from the bus with her right foot first, but she was not sure he had noticed that. The courage she had gathered until then suddenly vanished, leaving her feeling uneasy. When her feet touched the ground, she had prayed within her heart, ‘May everything go well.’ She could not think of a specific god. She only knew the name of Kumaresan’s family deity, Goddess Kali, but she would not have been able to confidently recognize the goddess’s idol in the temple. The only Kali she knew was a goddess with widened eyes, terrifying teeth and her tongue sticking out. She could not pray to that Kali, who only inspired fear.

Kumaresan had already walked quite some distance. ­Saroja quickly found her bearings and trotted ahead to join him. Shifting the heavy bag to his other hand, he looked at her. Nothing here appeared new to him. He was used to navigating this place even in the dark. He always walked with a spring in his step when he was here, and he felt the same way now. But she was new. She seemed like a lush crop of corn—perhaps a little withered and dull right now, but easily refreshed with just a drop of rain. He noticed her struggling to keep pace with him, so he slowed down, conscious of how briskly he’d been marching ahead. The very sight of her took away his anxiety and brought him some calm. He could sense that, as a girl from a crowded city, Saroja was probably terrified by the emptiness of this place.

He looked at her face. A lock of hair had escaped her plait and swayed against her cheek. He longed to gently tuck it behind her ear. He tried to control himself, but his heart’s desirous reach could not be checked. His gaze still on her, he smiled and said, ‘At midday, not even a crow or a sparrow ventures out in this heat. This is not a big city like yours, just a little village. But wait and see. You will be amazed at how many different people live here. Don’t worry about a thing. I am here.’

Kumaresan had rehearsed his strategy several times in his head. He believed that everything would go according to plan; it had to. He had thought long and hard about all possible contingencies and modified the plan accordingly. And though he was well aware that any scheme can unravel no matter how foolproof it might have seemed at first, a blind courage propelled him on.

Saroja clutched his shoulder and continued to shuffle ahead, making sure her legs didn’t get in the way of his. Smiling faintly, she wondered if he would have taken her smile to mean, ‘I have no one besides you. I have come placing all my trust in you.’ Perhaps he did. He somehow already understood all her movements, like someone who had known her intimately for a long time. Her grip on his shoulder slowed him down and held him back, but he savoured the pleasure of her warm grasp, and kept walking.

They were on the main road that led from Senkundroor to Odaiyur. To get to Kattuppatti, they would have to walk another mile. He kept explaining the different routes and places to her. The chatter helped him keep his anxiety in check. Though she was aware that he was describing the village’s layout and other things, her attention began to drift. She had exhausted herself thinking about what might have transpired in her town, and now her mind was muddled with questions about what could happen here. All night, her imagination had terrorized her with the thought that policemen would intercept them any minute and take her away from Kumaresan. Even now, she was seized by that fear, and she kept looking about warily.

When nothing untoward happened during their journey, she wondered if her family had said good riddance to her and disowned her. Perhaps they were relieved and happy that she had not taken anything with her, that she had walked out in just the sari she was wearing. Was that all there was to it? Was that all there was to everything? Had all these years of love and affection meant nothing? Why hadn’t they come looking for her? Despite her fears of being separated from Kumaresan, she would have been somewhat comforted if someone had come after them, even if it was the police. Now all she had was the emptiness of knowing no one was looking for her. After all this, could she ever go back there? And would anyone embrace her and welcome her back if she did? They would just say, ‘You left. Couldn’t you just stay away?’

But if she did choose to go back home after all of this, she would feel less fearful if she went with Kumaresan. In any case, he wouldn’t let her go alone. He had already said enough to dispel her fear and boost her confidence. She held on to those heartfelt words he had uttered: ‘If you can trust that from now on I am everything for you, then come with me.’ Even if she came to lose everything else, as long as she had him it was enough. ‘I am everything for you,’ he had said to her. When she repeated it to him several times like a chant, he had laughed. It was a laugh of approval.

He had already explained to her that once they reached the village, he would do most of the talking, and that no matter what his mother or the others in the village asked her, she need speak only a word or two in response. He had repeated this to her several times—both when they left Tholur together on the bus, with her head resting on his shoulder, and when they resumed their journey after they got married—to make sure she understood clearly.

‘Whatever I say, amma will listen to me,’ he reassured her many times in many different ways. ‘She will worry about what others might say, but everything will be all right soon. Don’t be afraid.’

Saroja nodded like an obedient child, hanging on to Kumaresan’s every word. Although it was uncharacteristic of her garrulous nature not to talk, she realized how important it was to act according to his wishes while in the village. Later, when things had settled and she learns how things worked here, she could probably chatter as much as she wanted to. But until then she had best follow his instructions.

He even told her that he had hinted at these possibilities to his mother already. Apparently, the last time he was in the village, she had said to him, ‘What do you say? Shall we start looking for a girl for you?’

‘No rush,’ he had replied. ‘We can talk about this at leisure some other time.’

‘You live in a different town. Please don’t come back here dragging along a girl from a different caste,’ she had said, fixing her gaze on him.

Laughing, he had responded, ‘So what? If I don’t find a girl for myself, you think you will? I am the one who has to live with her.’

His mother had not said anything more on the subject. He believed he had given her enough to think about. When he took his leave, she had merely grunted a non-committal ‘Hmm.’ He had had such conversations with her a few times already. Now he assured Saroja that his mother wouldn’t be entirely shocked.

‘Can anyone who looks at your face not like you, my dear?’ he asked her. ‘They will instantly be won over to your side. They might even forget me. “Look at this foul-mouthed fellow’s luck!” the boys will say.’

Every time he called her ‘my dear’, she quivered in delight. Even though she couldn’t tell if he actually meant it or was saying it in jest, it still made her secretly happy in her heart. The expression in his eyes was always very earnest, without any hint of exaggeration in them. If she said, ‘You are fooling me,’ he would surprise her with his response: ‘Are you the kind of girl that gets fooled?’ His very words embraced her and carried her along.

Kumaresan turned on to the mud path that forked away from the road. ‘This is the royal highway that leads to our village,’ he said and looked at her.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked. He sometimes scared her with such grandiose language. Sometimes she simply could not understand what he said. When he spoke very fast, it sounded like a whole new language to her and she would wonder if he was just being mischievous.

‘A royal highway,’ he explained, ‘is when they lay out soft flowers for a king and his queen to walk on. Now you and I are the king and queen.’ He laughed. In the heat of the day, it looked to her like the path ahead of her was strewn with long, slithering white snakes whose heads or tails she could not discern. Was this really a royal path? She felt a rush of affection for him and for the way he could joke and laugh even at such a time of anxiety.

The dust on the path stuck to their feet, searing their soles. She pulled the loose end of her sari over her head.

‘Don’t cover your head like that; remove it,’ he said. ‘In these parts, covering the head is a mark of mourning. Here, use this.’ He spread a small towel over her head. Once they decided to get married, he had started saying things like ‘Don’t do it that way. It will be misunderstood there,’ and ‘This is how they do it there.’ It continued even now, but she still did not know what to do and how exactly it would be perceived. She was fearful about how the villagers would interpret her actions. Every time she wondered if she would have to transform herself completely, the heaviness in her gut grew. If she had to learn everything afresh, she might as well become a child again. But who would raise her then? Was Kumaresan ready for such a prospect? She kept touching her head to make sure the towel didn’t slip off.

After a while Kumaresan decided to stop under a large neem tree by the wayside. Its branches had spread over the entire width of the path, all the way to the other side, making the tree look like a giant umbrella. She looked up at it, but was unable to tell how tall the tree was; she had never seen a neem tree this huge. As soon as they halted beneath it, all her pent-up anxieties seemed to vanish, as though the tree had sucked the summer heat into itself. It was pleasant there in the shade. Glancing around the canopy, she remarked, ‘What a massive tree!’ She felt comforted by it, as though it had gathered her and seated her in its lap. She trusted that Kumaresan would similarly offer her refuge in his lap.

Right then, in a teasing tone, he said, ‘This is my ­village’s—no, no—our village’s kaanakkaadu,’ and pointed behind her. Confused, she looked at him. He explained, ‘This is the cremation ground.’

The lap that had given her refuge only a moment ago now pushed her away and shrank back into itself. Fearfully, she looked at the cremation ground. It lay beyond the neem tree, a vast outgrowth of bushes and huge trees that rose to the sky. There was no sign of anyone being buried or cremated there. The place hid all sorts of secrets within itself, even though it appeared unassuming. Saroja turned away, but something from behind her kept its gaze on her. She wanted to leave the place.

She was familiar with the cremation ground that was part of the Tholur Municipality. It spread over acres, dotted with pits and graves. Thickets of thorny bushes had taken over some spots. There were just one or two trees, and someone or other was always lying down next to the gravestones under those trees. The racket of the men who sat huddled in the middle of the clearings amidst thorny bushes, playing cards, was a permanent feature. The place was never deserted. Her father had told her that many even slept there at night. ‘They don’t even let the ghosts roam around in peace,’ he’d said. There was always a new pit dug out and ready in one place, and a corpse burning in another. But there was nothing of that sort here. As though he knew what she was thinking, Kumaresan said, ‘Only one or two corpses are brought here every year. Most of the time, you’ll only see cows and goats grazing here.’

She was trying hard to resist looking at the bushes with their closely guarded secrets when she heard a voice: ‘What is it, mapillai? Why are you standing here?’

She whipped around to see a man on a bicycle, standing with one foot on the ground. He had called out to Kumaresan with a friendly term of address commonly used between men. The man was wearing a loincloth and had a towel tied around his head. He looked middle-aged, with a swollen belly and thick hair covering his entire body. Had he not been wearing the loincloth and the towel, he would have looked exactly like a dark pig. Saroja felt both embarrassed and amused at the sight of the man, but she noticed that he was sizing her up carefully. As his bee-like eyes bore into her, she lowered her gaze to protect herself from his unsettling scrutiny.