Free One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan Page B

that day, they had teased him more than he could bear. He was fuming inside. Kali, however, did not know that. He joined in the teasing and said, ‘Looks like a doll but moves like a corpse!’ Everyone cheered, ‘Hear! Hear!’
    Murugesan lost it. ‘Dey!’ he fumed. ‘Work is not about this. Work is about
this
,’ and he made a lewd gesture, lifting two fingers of his left hand and inserting the index finger of his right hand between them. ‘Tell me, now,
who
looks like a doll and works like a corpse?’
    Everyone turned to look at Kali. No one laughed but he shrank with shame. He suddenly felt that there was nothing more painful than being in a crowd.
    Something else had happened about a year and a half into Kali and Ponna’s marriage. People had just started asking about a child. According to them, only the man who induced morning sickness in his wife in the very second month of marriage was a real man. When the girl looked unchanged in over a year and a half, it simply meant the husband’s ‘work’ was not up to the mark. And the entire bunch of Kali’s friends had insinuated this several times.
    Once, Subramani, who had become a father in the tenth month of his marriage, was in the crowd. When they heard that Munia Nadar had made and filtered a fresh batch ofarrack, they decided to go there. Munia Nadar’s arrack was in great demand. There were people who would be flat out for two days on just half a tumbler of his stuff. When they drank together, one of them said, ‘Oh, this is great stuff! As vital as water.’ And Subramani replied immediately, ‘It is not enough if the water you take in is great, the water you send out should be top-class too.’
    Everyone glanced at Kali, even if it was for just a moment. Munia Nadar’s arrack lost its pungency for him that day. He gradually stopped joining this crowd of old friends. He also knew they had nicknamed him ‘the impotent one’.
    Although he had no children, Kali was very happy with Ponna. He would also ask her now and then to make sure she was happy with him. Her replies always came as intense kisses, and he found peace in that contentment. If the only way to beat this reputation for impotence was to marry again, what would happen if that failed too? Should he ruin the lives of two women? And could Ponna bear his bringing in another woman? She was in the habit of pulling a long face for two days if she saw him even talking to another woman. If he married again, she wouldn’t stay. To make things worse, what if the second wife did get pregnant? That would be the end for Ponna. She wanted to believe she was the most important person in his life. Sometimes she even suspected he was fonder of his cattle than he was of her. He tried to reason with her. ‘Can this love compare to that?’ he said, and buried his face in her bosom. All his heat cooled down.
    The moment the thoughts of a second marriage invaded him, all happiness wilted away. It also meant he would need to learn how to handle two women. When his world was already complete with his cattle, his barn and Ponna, could he handle anything more? Also, if the second woman too could not get pregnant, his reputation as an impotent man would be engraved in stone. Thinking through all these things, he abandoned the idea. Whenever someone brought it up, he closed the topic, saying, ‘It won’t work. Forget it.’ They all attributed his hesitation to his fear of Ponna’s wrath. ‘Well, let them think whatever they want,’ he thought. Only he knew that Ponna was scared that he might, at some point, say yes to the idea.

GAP PA A .ORG

TWELVE
    Uncle Nallupayyan too played a role in Kali’s refusal to marry again. This was his story: when it came to splitting their inheritance, Uncle Nallupayyan’s brothers refused to give him his full share.
    ‘Why does a bachelor need the same share as we do?’ they all said.
    He replied, ‘How can you conclude that I will never get married? I might do it even