Small Days and Nights

SMALL DAYS
AND NIGHTS

Tishani Doshi

For Ajay, Carlo and the Ar Lan y Môr legion

It’s in the little towns that one discovers a country, in the kind of knowledge that comes from small days and nights.

James Salter, A Sport and a Pastime

PROLOGUE

My sister Lucia.

How strange it is to say the word.

For three years we have lived together in a house without men. It is a large pink house with blue shutters and verandas, and a garden set on ten acres of beachfront land.

That we live here, in the deep south of India on this spit of isolated beach, is a matter of concern for the neighbouring villagers. The headman, Valluvan, who has named his daughters after Hindu goddesses – Bhubaneswari, Karpagavalli, Manjubharghavi, and inexplicably given his sole son the name Lenin – invites me to discuss issues of safety once a month. He insists I bring Lucia even though she has no interest in tea or politics.

It was Valluvan who suggested we bring a woman from the village to stay with us.

‘You put one small house in your compound,’ he instructed, ‘and you take this lady. She has nothing. Husband has disappeared. Parents are dead. No children. Her name is Mallika. She can help with the cooking and cleaning. And she can keep watch.’

Mallika is short and dark like most of the women in Paramankeni. She is beautiful even though her front teeth are big and crossed over, her fingers shooting up to cover her mouth every time she laughs. Her eyes are her best feature – brimming with calculation and astonishingly free of the wide range of sadness she has certainly suffered. Sometimes I spy on her from the terrace when she’s watering the lawn or hanging clothes out to dry. She is always draped in a bright polyester sari and a fresh flower in the bun of her hair. Every bit of gold she owns, she wears – earrings, nose-ring, a bangle on each twig-like wrist.

The three of us have managed to create a togetherness here with the dogs. In the beginning Mallika could not understand what was wrong with Lucia but she soon learned her habits. She was quick to pick up a few English words as well. ‘Ya, ya,’ she says impatiently when I struggle through my Tamil explanations. I think she watches American sitcoms on the television in her room, because when new friends visit, she shakes hands with them and says, ‘Hi. I’m Mallika.’

The night before the puppies arrive we hear sounds in the garden. Loud, gut-wrenching moans from the undergrowth that wake us from sleep. Lucia shuffles across the corridor from her bedroom to mine. ‘Grace,’ she says, ‘the new babies are coming.’

We go out on the terrace and lean over the balcony handrail. Everything is dark except for a rim of moonlight on the ocean, where we can see the outline of a few fishing trawlers. It is October. The heat of summer is behind us but the days still feel bedraggled and worn. In a few weeks the rains will arrive, transforming everything. For now, only the hibiscus and bougainvillea valiantly put out flowers. We go back and lie on my bed together, fans whirring madly above our heads.