Free Amballore House by Jose Thekkumthala Page B

religion. She was convinced all along that Thoma could have been rescued from the shipwreck that he caused, stranding his family in midocean, if only he embraced religion. Even though Thoma proved himself to be a failure of a man, Ann knew in her heart of hearts that her husband would have fulfilled his obligation to his family if only he could, and that “if only he could” would have materialized if— and only if— he prayed daily.
    “If only he could” was what she thought of him when life threw insurmountable challenges and he miserably failed to address them. Ann used to wake up in the middle of the night and pray. Those prayers were more like critical conversations with God rather than signs of submissiveness in front of him. She blamed the Almighty for bleeding courage out of a man and making him a weakling.
    “You should have given him a break, dear God,” she prayed to God.
    God, in his turn, consoled her by reminding her that he was giving both of them a break in the evening of their lives.
    “God works in mysterious ways, my daughter,” God told Ann.
    She talked loudly to God during those postmidnight encounters. She blamed the heavens for the misery sent their way. She held him accountable for arraying gathering clouds in their lives, while giving no resourcefulness in combatting them. Her loud prayers would wake up Subashini from her sleep. The parrot would join Ann in her prayers.
    “Give us peace, God,” Ann prayed.
    “Give us peanuts, God,” Subashini paraphrased. She loved peanuts.
    This loud chanting of two females would wake up Thoma, and he would instruct Subashini to keep quiet.
    “Shut up, you nitwit,” he told Subashini.
    Subashini thought this was Thoma’s own version of midnight prayer.
    “Shut up, you nitwit,” the bird prayed.
    “You shut up, not me,” Thoma said to the parrot.
    “You shut up, not me,” the parrot repeated after Thoma. The bird repeated him faithfully, as if she was the second fiddle, as if she provided anaphora to Thoma’s poetic lines.
    There was no way he could win over Subashini in the art of tit for tat, and therefore Thoma backed down and went back to sleep.
    ***
    Thoma never went to church, except to attend important milestones in his life, such as his wedding, his children’s baptisms, and, on rare occasions, to attend the midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. He was once referred to in the Sunday sermon as a bad role model for the upcoming young generation in Mannuthy, steering them toward a way of life devoid of Jesus. Thoma was incensed by this public insult and decided to confront said priest. He planned to meet the holy man in church in the presence of all the devotees, to settle the account.
    According to witnesses in the church, Thoma walked into the church when the priest was receiving confessions, sitting in the confessional cubicle adorned with wire mesh windows on both sides. Some parishioners claimed that Thoma was drunk at that time and was beside himself, seething with rage and his vendetta toward the holy man. He grabbed the priest and dragged him out of the confessional stand, declaring loudly that he, Thoma, was a decent man, minding his own business. He rebuked the priest for insulting him in the public, for putting him to humiliation.
    A deep silence descended upon the pious crowd of the church at this scene, because of the sheer outrageousness of this unexpectedact and because of the widespread feeling that a holy man was being attacked in his own abode, the holy church. Amid the pin-drop silence he created, Thoma bellowed to the priest, “You had no business insulting me in public. I need an apology. I lead a hard life. I lead an honest life. I don’t need a stamp of approval from you,” Thoma blasted.
    The priest was so taken aback that he could not think of how to respond to Thoma. He knew he had to be careful of what he said to him, because everyone in the church was watching him. Before he could respond, Thoma pulled the holy man