Free The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph Page B

secret weakness. It makes him uncomfortable, especially when he is not fortified by good rum, to stand in front of a person, to be seen, judged. How nice it would be if he could sit in the confession box of the Catholicpriests, behind its ecclesiastical mosquito net, and listen to the old friends of Unni – those intimidating new men who are boys one moment, adults the next. Some even have fully grown moustaches, their voices have changed, and there is something about their manliness that makes his heart ache for Unni. Unni, who will never shave, who will never stuff his wallet in the back pocket of his jeans with all the preoccupation of a man. What is it about life that even Ousep Chacko believes it is a lottery?
    On his way out, he sees Mythili Balasubramanium going down the stairs. Does she know why Unni died? He has asked the question many times but without conviction. The way she is now, with her adolescent reserve, and circumspect walk, and breasts whose time has begun, it is easy to forget that she was just a child when Unni died. That child still survives as a dark portrait by Unni. In the portrait, she is in a coffin, her large interested eyes shut, her hands clutching an unidentifiable flower resting on her chest.
    Almost every day, all through her entire childhood, until the day Unni died, she spent hours with the two boys. She was Mariamma’s imagined daughter, Unni’s assistant, Thoma’s matron. She used to pretend to be frightened of Ousep, she would never meet his eyes. Some days, in the mornings, she would stand outside his room and peep in, and when his head turned she would run away. But when he managed to meet her eyes and smile, she always returned the smile. She did not hate him as others did. But that was then. A little girl who probably believed all fathers must be nice.
    The girl whom he imagines this way is a bit younger than the one in the coffin. She was twelve or thirteen when Unni drew her in the
Album of the Dead
. In the black diamond coffin, shelies in a blue frock that reaches to her knees, her hair is tied in two flying plaits by red ribbons, and she is wearing silver anklets around her wrists, as she used to then because her mother did not let her wear them around her ankles. Her mother said Mythili was too young to wear anklets. Even now the girl is not allowed to wear them. Mythili’s mother, like the mothers of all daughters, has the same pornographic eye as men. They see sexual omens in anklets and skirts and flowing hair and long earrings that nod in the wind. They imagine, correctly, that the sex of their daughters is hidden in innocent places, as the soul of a vampire is stored in improbable objects.
    IT IS THE FIRST day of the ‘fast-unto-death’, and not many people have turned out to watch, but if it lasts another two days there will be great crowds on the road – men screaming and laughing, alcoholics singing, women weeping without sorrow, boys hurling stones in the air. But now there is peace, and a deep sullen silence that has the quality of a mishap. Ousep scans the area for a sturdy young man, smartly dressed and not very clever.
    Not more than fifty people stand behind the wooden barricades and gape at the ten men on the pavement, who are sitting in line on the mats they have brought from their homes. One of them is special, there is a table fan by his side. They claim they will starve to death unless the state government clearly spells out how it plans to protect the Tamils of Sri Lanka. The men are in starched white shirts stitched for the event and
veshtis
that are bunched in a way that magnifies their groins. There is a long silver torch beside every fasting man. The reporters know that the torches contain stuffed bananasinstead of batteries, which will be consumed when the martyrs go to urinate.
    The fasting men return the stares of the spectators through a distant blank gloom, and when they grow tired of looking sad they take sips of water from plastic cups or