The next day Karuthamma did not get out of her house. In Pareekutti’s curing yard there was much work that day. Several working women had come from the east. They were packing dried fish.
As she lazed at home, a disturbing thought came to Karuthamma. Would Pareekutti be staring with that piercing look of his at those women too?
In the afternoon the fishing boat came ashore. Chakki went to the seashore with her basket. As she was leaving, Chakki reminded Karuthamma of her earlier warning.
“My child, do remember what your mother told you!”
Karuthamma fully realized what it was that she had to remember.
When Chemban Kunju came home, Karuthamma served him his rice. She noticed that Chemban Kunju looked her over carefully. It was quite unusual of him to do so. He had been seeing her every day. Then why was he looking at her like that? Karuthamma was afraid that her father was aware of her secret. But if that had been so, his look would have been stern.
Chemban Kunju worked in a boat on a share-and-share basis. At first he was merely an oarsman. Now he was at the helm, the man in control. With his life’s ambition in front of him Chemban Kunju wouldn’t waste an anna of what he made.
The girl had come of age. And a girl like that could get into trouble. What Chakki said was true, all of it. Her anxiety was understandable. Should he get his boat and net, or should he arrange for his daughter’s marriage? The question troubled im. Chemban Kunju also had a word to say to his daughter.
“My child, be on your guard.”
Karuthamma didn’t answer him. And Chemban Kunju didn’t expect an answer.
After he paid off his workers Pareekutti sat on the steps of his boat in the quiet of the evening. Chemban Kunju walked over to see him. Karuthamma saw them talking to each other for a long time. She wondered what they were talking about. Perhaps her father was asking Pareekutti for a loan.
Later on, Chemban Kunju and Chakki talked in hushed tones for a long time. Karuthamma longed to know what they were saying.
That evening again, Pareekutti sang his song, Karuthamma listened to it lying in the seclusion of her hut. She had to tell him something, just one thing. He must not stare at her breasts the way he did. And one more thing. He must not sing in her vicinity.
The next evening Pareekutti’s song was not heard. It was a moonlit night and the sea lay bathed in the moonlight. The music of the waves spread sweetly eastward in harmony with the fluttering leaves of the coconut palms. Then Karuthamma missed Pareekutti’s music, her ears longed to hear his song. Wouldn’t he sing any more?
After supper Chemban Kunju went out. Chakki seamed restless. Why isn’t Mother sleeping, Karuthamma thought. Finally Chakki told Karuthamma to go to sleep herself. And so Karuthamma just closed her eyes.
Suddenly she woke up with a start. Somebody was asking, “has Karuthamma gone to bed?”
Karuthamma recognized the voice. There was a tremor in it which only she understood. It was Pareekutti.
“Yes, she has gone to bed,” Chakki said.
Karuthamma also felt a slight awkwardness in Chakki’s tone. Karuthamma’s whole body became bathed in perspiration. She got up and peeped through a little hole in the wall which separated her room from her parents’. It wasn’t a wall of mud or stone. It was only a partition made out of the leaves of the coconut palm. Chemban Kunju and Pareekutti were carrying in something heavy. Not one or two, but six or seven bundles. Dried fish, it was.
Karuthamma’s heart beat as if it was going to burst. In the courtyard Pareekutti, Chakki and Chemban Kunju stood talking softly to one another.
The next day Karuthamma asked Chakki about those bundles.
“That Kochumuthalali just left them there,” Chakki said evasively.
“Why can’t he keep them in his curing yard?” Karuthamma asked.
A little later Chakki said sharply, “why do you ask all these things? What is he to you? Behave yourself.”
Karuthamma felt like asking a lot of questions. He was nothing to her. But wasn’t this kind of cheating? Wouldn’t this make them indebted to Pareekutti? You must guard yourself, said her father. But if you place yourself in debt like this, then? Karuthamma kept silent.
The next day the bundles were sold. The following day they had a good haul. And after one haul Chemban Kunju went back to the sea with the boat for another. Chakki went east to the market. Panchami was not there. Karuthamma was alone.
Pareekutti came to see her.
Karuthamma ran inside the hut. Pareekutti waited outside in the yard silently for a while. He was nervous. His lips and throat went dry.
“The fish I gave them will bring money for the boat and net,” he said.
There was no answer. Pareekutti continued, “will you still sell us fish? I can pay you.”
“If you offer us a good price, we shall sell you the fish,” should have been the answer. But that day there was no answer to his question. While talking about this in the shadow of the boats, they had burst out laughing and couldn’t control their laughter. Pareekutti hoped that the same thing might happen again, but there was only silence.
“Why isn’t Karuthamma saying anything? Are you angry?” Pareekutti asked.
Pareekutti thought that he heard her sobbing.
“Are you crying, Karuthamma? If you don’t like my coming, I shall go.”
There was no answer to that either. Pareekutti’s voice quivered when he asked, “shall I go then, Karuthamma?”
That question touched her heart somewhere and she said, “Kochumuthalali, are you a Muslim?”
Pareekutti couldn’t understand what she meant. ”Why do you ask?” he said.
There was no need for an answer. What was wrong about being a Muslim? She asked herself.
“Why don’t you go and stare at the women working at your curing yard?” she said impulsively.
Pareekutti was startled by her accusation. She was under the impression that he had some interest in the women who worked for him at the curing year. How could he convince her that she was wrong?
“Allah, I have not looked at anyone like that!” he said truthfully.
Karuthamma was happy to know that Pareekutti was a good man. But she wanted more from him than a expression of disinterest in other women. She did not know how to convey it to him. She wanted to tell him all about the philosophy which ordained how a good fisherwoman should live. But she couldn’t do that. She hadn’t the courage.
There was silence for some time. Growing uneasy, Karuthamma said, “my mother will be coming now.”
“What about it?”
“Goodness. No, that will be wrong,” she said anxiously.
“Karuthamma, you are inside. I am outside. So what is wrong?”
Even that she must make him understand. But how? There was so much to tell, she did not know where to start.
“Karuthamma, do you care for me?” Pareekutti asked.
“Yes. I do,” she said.
Suddenly he was happy. “Then why don’t you come out, Karuthamma?”
“No, I won’t come.”
“I shall not make you laugh. I just want to see you before I go.”
Helplessly, she merely said, “no, I shouldn’t.”
A few moments later, Pareekutti said, “then I must go.”
“I shall care for you - always,” she said softly.
He wanted nothing more.
After Pareekutti left, Karuthamma realized that she hadn’t said any of the things she wanted to tell him. But she had said many things she shouldn’t have.
That night, in the light of a little kerosene lamp, Chemban Kunju and Chakki counted the money they had. It was not sufficient, yet Chemban Kunju was somewhat encouraged.
“We have managed to get so much without getting involved with Ouseph or any of those cutthroats,” he said.
His wife gave a sigh of relief at that.
“There are fellows who walk about the seafront with money in their pockets looking for fishermen to ruin. If you get involed with them, you never get out of debt. Then you are left with neither boat or net. Nor any of the money that you saved.”
Ouseph and Govindan, the moneylenders, have been asking Chemban Kunju if he wanted to borrow any money. And Chemban Kunju always said “no”. But the money was not enough. What was to be done?
“Let us borrow the rest from Kochumuthalali. Why not?” Chemban Kunju said.
For the first time in her life, Karuthamma hated her father, and she hated her mother because Chakki did not oppose the suggestion.
In the days that followed, the workers in Pareekutti’s yard were busy curing and packing fish. Karuthamma knew the cause of all the haste. In those few days Karuthamma had grown up to understand a lot of things.
Chakki was happy at the prospect of the new prosperity in their life.
“Karuthamma, my child, the day has come for us to have our own boat and net,” she said.
Karuthamma did not say a word. She could not share in her mother’s happiness. That was the change that had come over her.
“The sea goddess has blessed us,” Chakki said to herself.
Karuthamma’s resentment, which had been mounting up, suddenly came out.
“Won’t the sea goddess be angry if you cheat men?”
Chakki looked at Karuthamma’s face, Karuthamma did not look away.
“Mother, why do you want to exploit that poor boy for the sake of a boat and net? That is not fair,” she said.
“What are you saying? Cheat that boy?”
“ Yes,” Karuthamma said deliberately.
“If we get the money from Ouseph, the boat and net will be his in no time,” Chakki said.
“That is not it, Mother. If we borrow the money from Ouseph, we have to repay the money with interest.”
“And don’t we have to pay in this case?”
“In this case - in this case - do you really mean to return the money?” Karuthamma asked angrily.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with taking dried fish from Pareekutti, argued Chakki. Chemban Kunju had just asked once. He didn’t insist. He neither cheated nor lied. They would return the money - most certainly.
“It was at midnight that you brought over the bundles of fish. Why didn’t you bring them over by day? This is the sort of thing which makes the sea go barren,” Karuthamma said.
Karuthamma had gone too far. Her father and mother had conspired to do a heinous act to make the sea go barren. That was what she said. Chakki became angry.
“What are you saying? That your father is a thief?”
Karuthamma didn’t speak.
With the authority of a mother Chakki asked, “what is that Muslim boy to you? Why does all this hurt you so much?”
Karuthamma started to say that he meant nothing to her. But the words didn’t come out. Did Pareekutti mean anything to her? That moment she realized that he meant everything to her.
Chakki repeated the question and then said, “It seems as if you are going to ruin the seafront.”
Karuthamma firmly denied the accusation. “No, I shall not do anything that is not right or decent.”
“Then why do you feel so concerned about Pareekutti’s fate?”
“At this rate he will have to close down his curing yard and leave.”
Chakki swore at her daughter. Then scolded her. Karuthamma heard it all in silence.
When she felt that her temper was getting out of control, Karuthamma looked her mother in the face and asked, “did he give you the dried fish on Father’s word?”
“What do you think?”
Suddenly Chakki remembered Karuthamma’s asking him for the money. Karuthamma was asking all this with that in mind.
“Do you think it was on your word that the fish was given to us?”
Karuthamma couldn’t tell her mother that it was entirely so. Pareekutti loved her. Instead she said, “don’t make me saying anything, Mother.”
“Well, why not?” Chakki paused. “To get the money from him I had to dance round him and run after him. And you make accusations after all that!” She said.
Karuthamma burst into tears. “Why, Mother, did you have to borrow money from him, after all that you said to me? And be indebted to him?”
Karuthamma couldn’t go on. The words stuck in her throat. And suddenly the truth dawned on Chakki. There was sense in what her daughter said. There was something very wrong. She felt that Karuthamma was on the threshold of some calamity.
“What happened, child?” Chakki asked.
Karuthamma was crying.
“Did he come here, my child?”
Karuthamma lied. “No.”
“ Then, what is it, child?”
“Even if he did come, what would I have done, Mother?”
Chakki wanted to prove to her daughter that she meant no harm. She had no design of her own. She had, of course, not thought of the consequences that Karuthamma feared. She only asked him to help them, and Pareekutti readily agreed. She borrowed the money and fully meant to return it. She realized that Karuthamma had the right to question her as she did. Pareekutti, she felt certain, was a man of honor. But he was young.
Chakki’s peace of mind was shattered. Perhaps it was no necessary to borrow that money, she began to think. But would Chemban Kunju understand all this? That night Chakki nagged Chemban Kunju about Karuthamma’s marriage. The boat and the net can come afterward. But Chemban Kunju did not agree. He was bent upon his boat and net.
How could she tell him everything frankly? Chakki, cornered and finding herself in an impossible situation, said, “all these days, for the sake of your boat and net, I went selling fish in the east. You need not count on that income any more.”
“Why not?” Chemban Kunju looked at his wife. “What are you saying? What is all this about?”
“Yes, I meant what I said,” Chakki persisted
“What?”
“I must keep an eye on my girl.”
“ Meaning?”
“She is grown up now. I don’t want to leave her alone.”
Chemban Kunju was silent, as if he understood what the matter was. If Chakki refused to sell fish in the east, it would make all the difference.
“Is there anything wrong?” He asked.
“No, not so far. But what if something were to happen?”
One had to be careful. But Chemban Kunju was confident of one thing. Karuthamma was a good girl. She was not the reckless type. Even left to herself, she wouldn’t come to grief.
“How long does it take to get into trouble?” Chakki asked.
Chemban Kunju did not speak.
The next day Chakki did not go east selling fish. And Chemban Kunju did not insist.
That night more bundles of dried fish were to be brought home. Chakki opposed it.
“We don’t want all that.”
“Well, what is it?” Chemban Kunju said.
“Why do you want to swindle that boy?”
“ Who said swindle?”
“What else? Will you pay back all this money?”
Chemban Kunju said certainly he would pay it all back.
Karuthamma felt that she should inform Pareekutti that he might not get his money back, but she found no opportunity to see him.
Again in the night Pareekutti brought a mass of dried fish to their hut. Chemban Kunju accepted it without compunction. He didn’t even say when he would pay for it.
Karuthamma was both angry and frustrated because she could not talk it out with her father. She blamed Chakki. The guilt she suffered for her family was like a heavy burden on her shoulders.