The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

“Goodnight,” Estha said, too sick to love his sister.
Rahel Alone watched them walk down the hotel corridor like
silent but substantial ghosts. Two big, one small, in beige and
pointy hoes. The red carpet took away their feet sounds.
Rahel stood in the hotel room doorway, full of sadness.
She had in her the sadness of Sophie Mol coming. The
sadness of Ammu‟s loving her a little less. And the sadness of
whatever the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man had done to Estha in
Abhilash Talkies.
A stinging wind blew across her dry, aching eyes.
Chacko put a leg of chicken and some finger chips onto a
quarter plate for Rahel. “No thank you,” Rahel said, hoping that if
she could somehow effect her own punishment, Ammu would
rescind hers.
“What about some ice cream with chocolate sauce?” Chacko
said.
“No thank you,” Rahel said.
“Fine,” Chacko said. “But you don‟t know what you‟re
missing.”
He finished all the chicken and then all the ice cream.
Rahel changed into her pajamas.
“Please don‟t tell me what it is you‟re being punished for,”
Chacko said. “I can‟t bear to hear about it.” He was mopping the
last of the chocolate sauce from the sauceboat with a piece of
paratha. His disgusting, after-sweet sweet. “What was it?
Scratching your mosquito bites till they bled? Not saying `Thank
you‟ to the taxi driver?”
“Something much worse than that,” Rahel said, loyal to
Ammu.
“Don‟t tell me,” Chacko said. “I don‟t want to know.”
He rang for room service and a tired bearer came to take
away the plates and bones. He tried to catch the dinner smells, but
they escaped and climbed into the limp brown hotel curtains.
A dinnerless niece and her dinnerfull uncle brushed their
teeth together in the Hotel Sea Queen bathroom. She, a forlorn,