Karuthamma thought that the sea itself looked different in the new village. The water was not the same. The sea here was not calm by nature. In its depths lay hidden treacherous currents and cross-currents, which might come to the surface any moment. Even the sand was of a different color.
The villagers came to see the new bride singly or in groups. Karuthamma was anxious to make a good impression on everyone, to make friends with all of them, but she did not know what was expected of her. Everyone who came to see her looked at her searchingly. She felt acutely embarrassed.
Early in the morning Palani went out to sea. It was a good season for sardines. Alone, Karuthamma realized that she was the mistress of a home. She had work to do.
In her new home she had only a couple of earthenware pots and a wooden spoon. Many more things were needed to make it into a real home. Palani had not known a home before his marriage, and there had been no one to tell him what he should buy or get for a bride.
Karuthamma borrowed some pots and pans from her neighbor, an old woman who lived to the north of her cottage. She made a curry of onions and cooked some rice. She even had to use her neighbor’s things for grinding the curry powder.
“You have been entrusted with a youngster. You will have to look after everything yourself,” her neighbor said.
The women of the village discussed the new bride among themselves. They found much ground for speculation. She was the daughter of a fisherman who owned two boats. Would a girl like that in normal circumstances be given away in marriage to a boy who had no kith or kin?
“Perhaps her father really hasn’t got a boat and net,” one of them said.
Fisherwoman Kochakki said that was not true. Her husband had been to Nirkunnam for the Chakara season. He came to know of Chemban Kunju then.
“He has boats and nets. And he has money. Lots of money.”
“Then why did he give away the girl to one like Palani?” Fisherwoman Vavakunju asked.
“I think there is something wrong with the girl,” Fisherwoman Kotha said.
This statement caused a buzz of interest. It looked as if Kotha knew something. The women asked her what she meant.
“The girl must have done something wrong.” Kotha said. “They must have wanted to send her away from the seashore for some reason.”
One of the fisherwomen, older than the others, was stunned.
“So she has come to ruin our seashore.”
The old woman placed her hands on her chest. Everyone tried to question Kotha. She said no more. By afternoon Karuthamma had become a mysterious figure who nursed a great secret. In every home she had become the main topic of conversation.
Her housework finished, Karuthamma herself kept thinking of her mother. How was she? Was it right of her to have left her mother when she was ill? Her father’s words echoed in her ears.
“She is not my daughter any longer.”
She understood her father well. It was quite possible he would never accept her again as his daughter. Karuthamma feared that in her own village people would blame her, even curse her. But she knew she had her mother’s blessings.
How much had her mother suffered on her account! That was the fate of all mothers. Her father would surely blame her mother for everything. Her mother must suffer even now for her.
Karuthamma thought of her future. She had known security. Her needs and hopes had been modest, but she had never known want. Now she had abandoned all that and had turned her back on security. How would her new life be?
Would she have food to eat? Clothes to wear and oil for bathing? Would she be able to open up her heart, and laugh? Would she be able to breathe freely and happily? Everything was uncertain, insecure.
She was loved once.
Would the man she had come away with love her? She knew nothing about him.
He had seen her mother lie ill and helpless, and yet he behaved in an obstinate, almost inhuman way. What kind of a man could he be? How would she behave to earn the love and esteem of this man and hold it for life?
Except for this man she had no one. His likes and dislikes were the props of her life. And she did not know what his likes and dislikes were.
Karuthamma could suffer anything. She wanted to be just one of thousands of fisherwomen who lived and suffered and died. She must end her life like any other fisherwoman. But would it be possible? That was Karuthamma’s fear.
If only Palani loved her, she would be content. She wanted it. But was it fair to want it? That was her doubt.
Karuthamma had known what love was. She had experienced the pain of love. But would she earn the happiness of love?
In the afternoon Palani returned from the sea. With great care she served him food for the first time. Would he like the curry? Palani began to eat. He seemed satisfied with the food from the start. That was something. She stood half hidden by the kitchen door, and told him some of things she wanted to tell him. She didn’t tell him that he must love her, or that she would love him in turn. She said she had no pots and pans, that the rice was full of little stones. She had no sieve to sift the rice from the little bits of dirt and stone. She had only one spoon. The curry wasn’t good because she had to borrow the frying pan from the neighbor.
“We must buy all the pots and pans,” she said.
“Yes, we shall get them. But we cannot get them all straightaway.”
“That is all right. We can buy them little by little.”
He ate the first helping of rice she served him. She gave him a second helping. Even after he had said “enough” she served him an extra spoon. That was the usual thing .
“You have given me too much rice,” he said.
“What does it matter? I can use whatever is left over.”
After a while she mustered enough confidence to ask, “Is the curry bad? Or did you not like the food?”
“The curry is fine. I have eaten a lot.”
“ Is that a lot? Well!”
“I never eat so much.”
“You must eat more. If not, I will make you,” Karuthamma said, smiling like a wife.
Palani too smiled. It was a smile of happiness. That smile was a comfort to her suffering heart.
She served some food on the same plate and began to eat herself. Palani washed his hands, lighted a beedi1, came into the kitshen and sat by her side.
1 Beedi – a cheap smoke.
“I shall serve you.”
She said nothing. Her heart felt like a bud ready to blossom forth into a world of happiness.
“Well. After all this, you haven’t eaten anything,” he said.
“I have had enough.”
He looked at the pot.
“Isn’t there enough rice?” He said.
“Yes, but I don’t want any more.”
“ No, that won’t do.”
Palani served her another helping of rice. Karuthamma kept insisting “that is enough, enough.” But she ate all the rice.
Karuthamma was starting her life as the mistress of a house, if not as a loved one, at least as a good housekeeper. After she had finished her dinner, she washed the pots and came out of the kitchen.
“What are the things we have to buy?” He said. He, too, had become master of a house.
“How much money do we have to spend?”
He took out a small packet and counted. It came to four rupees. He told her of that day’s takings. It was a bad haul. He had paid back some of the money he had borrowed for the wedding. This was left over.
“How do you share the catch in these parts?” Karuthamma asked.
“Fifty percent of the catch for us workers to share.”
“In our parts it is sixty,” she said. “You must ask them for a share on the same basis.”
“That is the way it is here,” Palani said casually.
She described to him how Chemban Kunju had organized all the people on the seashore and made their share sixty percent.
“It won’t work here,” Palani said.
He again asked her what were the things she needed most. “Will you go and get them now?” Karuthamma asked.
“Yes.”
“Just rest a while,” Karuthamma said. “Don’t go so soon after you have returned from the sea. People will say I drove you to get the pots and pans. Stretch for a while and go. Go just before sunset.”
Palani welcomed the suggestion. He unrolled a mat and lay down. Then he called out to her.
“Karuthamma.”
Perhaps she was waiting for that call. She answered.
“Come here,” Palani said.
She went shyly. She would try her very best to be a good wife.
He pulled her to him, his strong arms tightening around her. She lay, her eyes half closed, unable to control her hard breathing. She had loved a man and he in turn had loved her. But she had not known the touch of a man. She may have had a desire smoldering in her. But she hadn’t given to such temptations. She was married now. A man had taken her unto himself with the right of a husband and she surrendered herself completely to him. She loved someone, but the fulfillment of desire came from someone else. Now she was his. Her body was meant only for him. She had kept herself pure for him. And she would preserve that purity forever.
She couldn’t say how long she was lost in that ecstatic state. Their young love was warm and full of passion. It flowed strong as a river that had burst its banks.
When their lovemaking was over, Karuthamma became shy as well as a little afraid of herself. She spoke of all kinds of things, yet the unknown fear remained with her. It was a kind of madness. Something slightly unclean, without morals or decency. Was it becoming of a woman’s duty? What would her husband be thinking of her?
She was afraid that everything she had done was wrong, that her secrets had come out. Palani was really a stranger to her. Was it right of her to have surrendered herself to him and behaved as she did, on the very first day, even if he were her husband?
She was a modest, good-living girl. She was terrified that her husband might ask some question which would ruin her whole life.
“So you are an old experienced hand at this, aren’t you?” He might say.
She could answer truthfully that that wasn’t so. But would he believe her?
How did she come to have this passionate longing, she wondered. She was a woman, a woman conscious of her sex, conscious of the male in men. The love affair had perhaps awakened the woman in her.
But the question she feared was never asked.
He said he must go out, asked her what were the things he should get for her.
“Buy whatever you can with the money you have,” she said.
Then she told him the things she needed most and even that was a long list.
When she was alone in the house, Karuthamma thought of Pareekutti. He must be heartbroken. Now that her mother was ill, it was possible that the money would never be repaid. She had ruined him.
She was a wife to someone and she was thinking of another. But something told her that she would never be able to forget Pareekutti. It would torture her all her life.
Palani came back with the pots and pans and spoons. Outside on his way home his friends teased him. At home Karuthamma found fault with the things he brought. The pot was not a good one. The pan was not of the kind she wanted. The wife was showing her husband how much more she knew in such matters.
“What do I know of pots and pans?” Palani said, accepting the role of all husbands.
She laughed. That was a big joke.
That night they did not sleep. They talked and talked about the many things they had to tell each other, about the things that are the basis of making a life together.
“Why did you take me away when my mother was lying unconscious? Karuthamma asked, freed from the constraint of strangeness.
The question troubled Palani, but he answered honestly.
“It is not like a man to leave his bride behind after the marriage. It is not right.”
Palani described the situation. The members of his party who had accompanied him to the wedding were not in favor of leaving her behind. So he had to speak like that.
“Were you not willing to come with me?” Palani asked, a little upset.
“Yes,” she answered quickly.
The story behind her willingness remained unspoken.
About leaving her home, however, Karuthamma had more to say. She spoke of her father.
“I haven’t a father any longer. That is his nature. He has disclaimed me as a daughter.”
“All right. If he thinks he hasn’t a daughter any more, you should also think that you haven’t a father any more,” Palani said as if that didn’t matter in the least.
That is the pledge of security he gave her. If she had lost her father, she had gained a husband.
“Your father is a greedy and terrible man. And so is the Headman of your village. He talked ill of us,” Palani continued.
“Even if I don’t have any kith and kin, I am a son of the sea. The broad sea is my wealth and inheritance. What else do I need? I am like any fisherman on the seashore. And I have the advantage of knowing my job. I can steer a boat on any sea. I can get through any whirlpool. Nobody will belittle me in that.”
Karuthamma did not speak. There was no need to have gone into that subject. Palani was getting excited. He had no respect for her father.
“Unless he, your father, himself, comes to me, I won’t return there,” he said.
Like her father, her husband had made a terrible decision. That decision, too, was not likely to be shaken.
Karuthamma spoke of herself. She was without father and mother. She had now only her husband. He must love her. She would be an obedient wife to him, conscious of her responsibilities. All that she asked for was his love.
He didn’t ask her to love him in turn. Perhaps he didn’t need her assurance. And perhaps she did not feel the need to give him such a pledge. Thus they came to an undestanding, but there was something lacking in their relationship.
Very early in the morning there was noise and bustle on the seashore. It was time for Palani to go to sea.
Before her marriage Karuthamma’s elder neighbors had taught her some of the customs of a fisherman’s daily life. Now she remembered one piece of advice.
“Are you going straight to the boat?” She asked anxiously.
Palani did not understand what was in her mind.
“Yes. Why?”
“Those who work on the sea should not get up from their beds and go to work,” she said.
“Then how should they go?”
“Those who go to sea should be clean and pure.”
Palani stood perplexed.
“What are you saying,” he asked.
“Bathe before you go,” she said shyly.
She bathed him. She, too, had her bath.
“Have you had your bath, Son?” One of the elder fishermen asked him when Palani reached the seashore.