Free The Narrow Road to Palem by Sharath Komarraju Page A

genders .’ He hiccupped and broke into a long giggle. At the end of it he said, ‘Nice, heavenly thing, toddy – almost as heavenly as a woman’s –’
    ‘Who do you think is the father?’
    ‘Eh? Why do we care?’
    ‘Because she is a woman of our village. Tomorrow she will give birth to the boy, and what if she points at one of the young men and say he is the father?’
    ‘What if –’ Shastri stopped himself and hiccupped again. He said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘You are afraid that your son may have – eh?’
    ‘Maybe.’ Satyam lifted the glass to his lips and downed its contents in one large gulp.
    ‘I do not know why, Satyam – eh? – I do not know why this is bothering you so much. She is a crazy loon, that girl. Who is going to believe her word over yours, eh?’
    ‘They might not believe her now,’ Satyam said acidly, ‘but if the boy grows up with my son’s eyes and nose, it won’t take long for them to crow about it.’
    ‘Ah, yes, that could be a problem. But you know what, my friend? I think the boy will grow up with that schoolmaster’s eyes and nose.’ The priest tried winking at Satyam a couple of times, failed, and gave up. ‘Eh?’ he said, and stretched out on the porch, looking up at the stars.
    ‘It will all be so neat and nice if that happens. But you know what they say about Avadhani. He’s – you know.’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘Why do you think his wife left him?’
    ‘Eh? Oh – oh!’ Shastri broke into another long giggle. ‘Any man in the village could have had Lachi. She is always out by herself in the night, is she not? Out by the old Shivalayam, under the Banyan…I have heard of people talk of seeing her by Ellamma cheruvu in the moonlight…if a girl like that walks by you in the night when the full moon runs in your loins, what red-blooded man would resist picking her up and pinning her to the nearest tree and –’ His voice abruptly stopped, and his eyes glazed over, his tongue moistening his lips. ‘Such a heavenly thing is toddy, and a woman.’
     
    * * *
     
    Lata plucked at the strings of the sitar and cocked her head, her eyes focused on some far away, invisible point. Somebody in the gathering of women called out for her to play a movie song. Lata smiled indulgently and continued plucking, listening – she ran her fingers along the length of the strings once, one by one, and then strummed them, allowing them to catch in her longest fingernails at the very end of the stroke. She bided her time, allowing her fingers to play idly and yet with enough rhythm to entertain the ladies sitting in front of her. Her hands then changed tack as though with a mind of their own, and her ears perked up in anticipation, following the notes, knowing where they would lead. Her mind, conscious of what had happened on the three previous nights, told her that the first tabla note would hit just about – now!
    Dhum .
    She lifted her eyes and looked around the room once, to make sure no one had heard it this time as well. On the first occasion, three nights ago, she had sat up and stared all around her when the note appeared; much to the ladies’ annoyance. Only after she had heard it a couple more times did she realize she was the only one to hear it. She had resolved to tell Sister Agnes about it that night, but the notes on the accompanying instrument had been so precise, their combination with her own had been so delectable, that she had not had the heart.
    The tabla was also speaking to her in some strange way. Yesterday in the middle of her performance she had begun to see flashes of Palem – now here, now there, flicking into her mind and out of it with such rapidity that she could not tell for certain what it was that she saw. She could make out Avadhanayya’s house amid the slew of images; of that she was sure, and there had been the Shivalayam too…no, not the new Shivalayam in the middle of the village, but the old, decrepit one, in the shade of the big Banyan