Trial by Silence

by Perumal Murugan

  Now Ponna was frantic, wondering what might have transpired once Kali found out. She shook Muthu and said, ‘Tell me! Did you go there to hit him?’

  Muthu replied, still in tears and whimpering, ‘It was he who hit me.’ And then he told her everything, from Kali leaving from the coconut grove late that night, Muthu discovering that only the next morning, Kali finding out everything and then going to his barnyard and trying to hang himself, Muthu paying Kali a visit the day before, Kali hitting him—everything.

  ‘My husband tried to hang himself!’ Ponna cried. ‘You wretched people! You all have led me to this place. You have betrayed me! Couldn’t you have told me that he did not consent to this idea? For how long have you been scheming to ruin my life? I knew my husband well, but I believed you. How was I such a fool! Ayyo! How he must have suffered! What all must have gone through his mind!’ Ponna wept, beating her chest.

  Then she turned on Muthu, screaming, ‘You motherfucker! You told me you explained to him that this was a religious matter and secured his permission. How could you lie to me like that! Did you hope that if both of us died you can take over our lands, you wretched motherfucker?’ She hit him on his face with both her hands.

  Muthu lowered his face and submitted to the blows on his head. Poovayi strove to prise Muthu and Ponna apart, saying, ‘He is a man, you can’t hit him like this! We have suffered enough ever since you got married.’

  But Muthu said, ‘Let her hit me. I deserve this and more. You hit me, girl, go ahead.’

  Suddenly, Ponna spoke as though she had entered a trance. ‘If you are capable of tricking me and betraying me this way, you are also capable of poisoning me to death because you have an eye on my inheritance. From now on, I have no father or mother, no sibling, nothing to call my maternal home. I will not drink even a drop a water from this house ever again. None of you should visit even if I die. If anyone dies here, you should not send for me. I say this with goddess Kooliyatha as my witness. None of you should visit me ever—not even to catch a glimpse of my face. I cast you all away like spit from my mouth. I shall never take you back!’

  Then she spat on the ground forcefully. Her mother screamed, ‘Ponna! What are you doing?’

  But Ponna gathered some soil from under the portia tree in both her hands and flung it in the direction of the house. Without another word she turned and raced along the narrow path that led away from the house.

  SEVEN

  Ponna ran quite a distance, slowing down only when she was on the elevated mud road. Now she thought she only had herself to blame. How could I have allowed myself to be fooled by my mother-in-law, my mother, my brother? There was no way Kali could have given his permission in so many words. That was out of the question. But, in that case, she could at least have asked him directly. On the other hand, she had not expected everyone to conspire in this manner. If he was the kind of man who would agree to such an idea, he would have done that much sooner. He wouldn’t have taken two years. Her mother-in-law and mother had suggested it two years ago. But Kali did not speak to Ponna about it right away. He took his time in broaching the subject with her. During an intimate moment he had asked, ‘Will you go to the festival like they are suggesting?’ Considering their emotional state in those days, she had said, ‘I will go if you want me to.’

  Kali had not been able to digest that response from her. She had had to console him with all kinds of explanations. After that, he went silent every time the topic came up. And she wanted to be careful, because if she brought it up too often he might construe that she indeed desired to go to the festival. Eventually she stopped talking about it. In fact, she avoided even mentioning visiting her parents’ village, fearing it would somehow lead to the dreaded topic of the festival. However, this year, Muthu had visited them and insisted that they go to her parents’ home—but even then she had no idea that they had all been planning everything on the sly. Later, she assumed that Kali may have softened his resistance to the idea over the past two years and thus might have eventually agreed to the plan. After all, not a day went by without the question of their childlessness coming up in conversations. Kali might have shut himself up in the barnyard to avoid seeing people, but people were not going to leave him in peace.

  In fact, it had happened two months ago on this very road she was now walking on. Kali had herded the sheep up the path and was standing about when Vavuthupaattar came along. Vavuthupaattar had been taking his cows back from grazing, and he stopped to chat with Kali, rubbing his belly as he spoke. Usually, Kali would find some way to wriggle out of a conversation if anyone stopped to chat with him. But it was dusk and the sheep were still grazing about lazily. They always grazed happily until it grew pitch-dark, and Kali did not want to spoil their meal by leaving right away. So he stayed put and gave clipped responses to the old man’s questions. The other man’s cows too settled down to graze alongside the road. He loosened the rope he held in his hands, allowing them a bit of leeway. The conversation somehow turned to the man’s groundnut crop not having done well the year before.

  ‘What can I do, Kaliyappa?’ he said. ‘The seed looks fine, but it doesn’t seem to sprout. You know the man from Selloor whom I hired to plough the fields? His plough was a rather small one, so he ended up doing some shallow ploughing. So all the seeds stayed close to the surface and dried up in the heat. That was why nothing grew. What could I do? This is just like your situation. You and Ponna are both perfectly healthy. You look as robust as a strong palmyra tree. But nothing seems to work out for you two. Don’t get disheartened if your plough is too small. Just plough hard and sow it deep. Let’s see if that works.’ And he walked away, chuckling to himself.

  That night, Kali had narrated this incident to Ponna. She had said, ‘We are trying to distance ourselves from all these despicable people. But they somehow seek us out and torment us.’ They had endured several such insults. So Ponna had thought these experiences had perhaps changed Kali’s mind and he had eventually agreed to the plan.

  Ponna was amazed at how much Kali could keep to himself. He had tried to hang himself! What would have happened to her if he had indeed succeeded in his attempt? She was entirely dependent on him, but he seemed to have not spared her a thought. And that was a sign of how angry he was. When Seerayi had said to him once, ‘No one else will know about it. Just the four of us,’ he had retorted, ‘That might be true, but you see, my heart knows. It will keep asking me about it. What do I tell my heart?’ That was his approach to things. He always wanted to keep Ponna right beside him. Whenever she went to her mother’s place, he followed her within a day. Or he would send for her, saying there was a lot of work for her to do in the barnyard.

  Her mother, Vallayi, had once remarked, ‘I have never seen a husband like him! Imagine how much more he would pamper you if you give him a child or two!’ To which Ponna had said, laughing, ‘That’s where you are wrong. If I had given him children, he would have directed all his love towards them. It is just as well that we don’t have any.’ He was so devoted to her.

  As soon as she arrived at the farmstead, she would fall at his feet, she said to herself. Would he believe her if she told him that she too had been tricked, that she had not been privy to the plan? He was not a cruel man, was he? The mud road was quite smooth at this point. On either side, trees and shrubs grew and thrived. She could hear little rustlings here and there but she did not pause to linger. The people she passed by on the road were either herding sheep or taking their cows and oxen back home. She did not stop to chat with anyone, but those who saw her rushing down the road talked among themselves: ‘Wonder why Ponna is in such a hurry. She is coming back from her village, but she hasn’t even combed her hair. And she is wearing an old, faded sari, and she seems to be in a tearing rush.’

  Seerayi spotted Ponna when she turned from the road and walked into the fields. She called out to Ponna, but Ponna ignored her and ran towards the barnyard. Seerayi discerned that Muthu must have informed Ponna of e
verything. She was now terrified. Kali had beaten Muthu to a pulp. What would he do with Ponna? The day before, after Muthu had left, Seerayi had said to Kali, ‘He loves you. How many people are lucky enough to get such a brother-in-law? He comes rushing here as soon as we send for him. He wishes you well. And you hit him like that! Have you gone mad?’ But Kali did not respond. Seerayi was also scared that if she said too much, his wrath might fall upon her. So she didn’t say anything further. At night, she called him for dinner, and he ate. No conversation. In the morning, he did some chores. He cleared out the dung, but he took a lot longer than usual. She even wondered if he was playing with the balls of dung. But she was happy that at least he was engaging himself in some work.

  Seerayi ran after Ponna. The barnyard gate was open. Ponna ran in, calling out, ‘Maama . . .’ She noticed the severed branch of the portia tree lying outside and the vacant spot on the tree where the branch should have been. She quickly guessed how things must have unfolded. She also realized that had Seerayi not been in the barnyard at the right time, Kali would be dead now. At first, she could not find him anywhere, but then she spotted him standing in the northern corner, brushing his teeth with a twig and staring at some crows cawing at a distance. She ran to him and held his feet in her hands. He did not respond to Ponna’s endearments. ‘Maama!’ she cried. ‘I did not know. They told me you had agreed to it. I did not know how to ask you myself. I did fear that they might lie to me. And they did! They lied to me. They have ruined my marriage. I am definitely in the wrong. Kill me. Punish me however you want. Why should you die? What were you about to do?’

  A crow cawed non-stop. But through that ruckus she thought she heard him say, ‘Yes, innocent little whore.’

  She calmed down and looked at his face. It was absolutely impassive. He was staring somewhere into the distance, completely disengaged from the situation at hand. ‘Maama, please say something,’ she pleaded. ‘Please hit me if you want.’

  He casually released himself from her hold. Walking over to the corner, he split the twig into two and started cleaning his tongue. Then he coughed up his phlegm and spat it out. After that, he gargled and rinsed his mouth with some water from the pot. Seerayi stood in the shade of the portia tree. Ponna walked closer to him and said, ‘Please don’t be like this, Maama. Why did you try to hang yourself? Please don’t even think that way again. You used to be so sociable and happy. But you confined yourself to the barnyard. I thought I could remedy that. That’s why I went. But I would not have gone if I had known you did not agree to it, would I? They have fooled you, and they have fooled me too.’

  When he finished gargling, he turned around. And Ponna thought she heard him say something.

  She did not hear it clearly, but reading this lips, she inferred what he had said: ‘Whore.’ He had called her a whore. She knew that when his mind spoke, his lips moved without making the sounds. Often, by reading his lips, she could tell what was going on in his mind. She was quite certain of what he had just said. He had called her that. It was definitely that word. She walked after him, saying, ‘What did you say? You called me that, didn’t you? Say it to my face. Your lips moved, you said that word, I heard it. You called me that. How could you?’ And she grabbed him by the shoulder and demanded a reply. He tried to release himself from her hold, gently at first. But she held his shoulder firmly. So he used all his strength and pushed her away. It sent her staggering to a side and she fell down.

  Seerayi came running to her, lifted her up, and asked, ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Your son called me a whore,’ said Ponna. ‘Tell me, am I a whore? All of you have managed to get me a new title. Damn you!’ And sobbing, she began beating herself hard on her forehead.

  EIGHT

  Now things were such that it fell to Seerayi to take care of both Kali and Ponna. She could never have anticipated that her plan would lead to such a situation. She had thought that Kali would be angry for a few days and then calm down. She also found herself being very active suddenly. Until now, she had lived a rather relaxed and uninteresting life—going to work in other people’s fields when needed, cooking Kali’s favourite dishes, gossiping and chatting with people, cooking a little something for herself every day. But now, suddenly, she had taken on a lot of responsibility. She believed, however, that this was temporary, that both Kali and Ponna would soon be all right.

  Kali had simply stopped speaking. She teased him once, ‘Did I give birth to a mute son?’ He did not respond to that. As for Ponna, whenever Seerayi tried to talk to her, she would start weeping. Seerayi was shocked when she found out that Ponna had ritually severed all ties with her family. On Thursday, when she went to the market, she paid a visit to Ponna’s parents in Adaiyur. All of them looked really miserable. In fact, they even hesitated to give her a glass of water. That’s when she found out that Ponna had sworn, with the goddess Kooli as witness, to cut off ties with her family—even throwing a handful of earth at the house to solemnize the oath. After hearing that, Seerayi did not even drink water there.

  ‘I can’t even give a glass of water to you!’ cried Vallayi.

  Seerayi did not know how to comfort Muthu. How badly Kali had hit him the other day! In this peasant community, when things got physical between brothers-in-law, it sometimes ended in murder. But here was Muthu, bearing it all silently. And Ponna had broken her ties with such a family? Seerayi had a hard time digesting that.

  Ponna’s family were pretty much the only relatives Seerayi had. She relied on them. Kali’s father too had been an only son to his parents. If he had had brothers and sisters, Kali would have had uncles and aunts and all those relatives. But for three generations, his side of the family had just one son. So they did not have a lot of relatives. There were some close kinsmen in the village, but they were only bound by their clan identity. Some seventeen or eighteen families. She had to reach out to them for anything and everything. And they showed up out of a sense of duty, not love.

  As for Seerayi’s side of the family, she was not really in touch with anyone any more. Things soured when Kali married Ponna. Those relatives had expected Kali to marry a girl from one of their families, and they did not like that Kali married from outside the clan. Before Ponna entered this family, Kali’s uncles on Seerayi’s side of the family would visit them at least once a month with their wives and children. They would cook and eat chicken and spend at least two days with them. In fact, this continued for a while even after Kali married Ponna. Once, Seerayi’s younger brother had come for a visit. He was sporting large gold ear studs, and he wore his hair in a bun-like knot just above his nape like women usually do. He had brought his third daughter with him. Ponna took a deep dislike to that man. He stayed in the barnyard and ordered them about. They had to kill a chicken, cook chicken kuzhambu and paddy rice for him. And when they left, they took a rooster with them.

  And just fifteen days after that, Seerayi’s other brother and his two sons landed up. That brother constantly stared at Ponna. She found his relentless gaze very troubling, but she knew that if she shared that observation with Kali, he would not take her seriously. He would flippantly reply that that was how men looked at women. They had to cook chicken and rice for these guests as well. And then they left, they too took a chicken with them. Ponna remarked, as if addressing the chicken that was hanging from one of the boys’ hands, ‘Look at its thieving gaze. It happily ate a whole measure of rice and still looks greedy. I feel like burning its eyes with a firebrand.’ Seerayi’s brother rushed away, looking sheepish. He never visited them again. It bothered Ponna that they never brought any gifts when they visited. They knew that their sister Seerayi was a widow who had raised her son all by herself. They could have helped her out if they’d wanted to. But no. They just visited whenever they felt like it, stuffed themselves happily, and left.

  What did they need such relatives for? When Ponna had brought this up with Seerayi, the old woman said, ‘Brothers will always visit their sisters. And when they
do, we can’t send them away empty-handed.’ To this Ponna had replied, ‘Why not? They don’t seem to care about coming empty-handed to their elder sister’s house, do they?’ Seerayi brushed it aside, saying, ‘We don’t depend on their largesse, do we? They have children. Let them enjoy the gifts we give them.’ In Ponna’s view Kali was generous to a fault. ‘How can we not be gracious to our guests?’ he would say. Ponna did not mind their visiting, but she could not tolerate how they ordered everyone about, and demanded that a chicken be caught and cooked. Although Ponna was irritated by all this, she let it be, waiting for a chance to do something about it someday soon.

  Sometime later, the uncle with the head-knot came by again, this time with one of his sons. Ponna was alone in the barnyard that day. Seerayi was in her house in the village. Kali was away on the mud path, herding sheep. Ponna just said, ‘Come,’ and carried on with her chores in the cattle enclosure. The uncle lay down on the cot in the shade of the portia tree. His son was around fourteen or fifteen then. He said to Ponna, ‘Father wants us to catch a nice, young chicken, one that hasn’t laid eggs yet.’

  That sent Ponna into a rage. ‘Father and son have arrived here empty-handed. He is coming to see his elder sister, isn’t he? Can’t he bring a chicken and five measures of rice? Do you think we are growing rice in our fields here? Are we doing wetland farming here? All right, you two, father and son, just lie about in the shade of the three. And let us wait for it to rain, so that the well fills up, so that we can plough the fields, irrigate them, plant the saplings and harvest a rice crop. Be patient until then and go lie there in the shade of the tree!’ She added, ‘These people come once a month without fail to eat rice and chicken.’ And then she spat. ‘Thoo!’

  By the time she finished cleaning the sheep enclosure, the visitors were gone. Ponna did not tell Seerayi and Kali about this visit. When the uncle’s wife ran into Seerayi in the market one day, she said, ‘Why is your daughter-in-law so arrogant?’ But she did not explain further. She only called Ponna names. When Seerayi returned home, she asked Ponna, ‘Did the first thambi visit?’ referring to the older of her two brothers. Ponna said, ‘First thambi who?’ When Seerayi replied, ‘My first thambi. Who else?’ Ponna said, ‘How would I know?’ She never told Seerayi about the visit and what had happened. She counted on the fact that the visitors couldn’t really tell people what Ponna had said to them. It would be a disgrace to them. Besides, people might say Ponna was right in saying what she had. But Seerayi was confused. Ponna just said, ‘They might have dreamed that they visited here. What did they say I told them in their dream?’ And Kali had laughed.