The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

were still stained a pale orange from years of walking barefoot on
red mud. He had gray calluses on his ankles from the chafing of
the rope that Paravans tied around their feet when they climbed
coconut trees.
On the wall behind him there was a benign, mouse-haired
calendar–Jesus with lipstick and rouge, and a lurid, jeweled heart
glowing through his clothes. The bottom quarter of the calendar
(the part with the dates on it) filled out like a skirt. Jesus in a mini.
Twelve layers of petticoats for the twelve months of the year.
None had been torn out.
There were other things from the Ayemenem House that had
either been given to them or salvaged from the rubbish bin. Rich
things in a poor house. A clock that didn‟t work, a flowered tin
wastepaper basket. Pappachi‟s old riding boots (brown, with green
mold) with the cobbler‟s trees still in them. Biscuit tins with
sumptuous pictures of English castles and ladies with hustles and
ringlets.
A small poster (Baby Kochamma‟s, given away because of a
damp patch) hung next to Jesus. It was a picture of a blond child
writing a letter, with tears falling down her cheeks. Underneath it
said: Pm writing to say I Miss You. She looked as though she‟d
had a haircut, and it was her cropped curls that were blowing
around Velutha‟s backyard.
A transparent plastic tube led from under the worn cotton
sheet that covered Kuttappen to a bottle of yellow liquid that
caught the shaft of light that came in through the door, and quelled
a question that had been rising inside Rahel. She fetched him water
in a steel tumbler from the clay koojah. She seemed to know her
way around. Kuttappen lifted his head and drank. Some water
dribbled down his chin.
The twins squatted on their haunches, like professional adult
gossips in the Ayemenem market.
They sat in silence for a while. Kuttappen mortified, the
twins preoccupied with boat thoughts.