The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

mentioning his name, she sensed that a pact had been forged
between her Dream and the World. And that the midwives of that
pact were, or would be, her sawdust-coated two-egg twins.
She knew who he was–the God of Loss, the God of Small
Things. Of coarse she did.
She switched off the tangerine radio. In the afternoon silence
(laced with edges of light), her children curled into the warmth of
her. The smell of her. They covered their heads with her hair. They
sensed somehow that in her sleep she had traveled away from
them. They summoned her back now with the palms of their small
hands laid flat against the bare skin of her midriff. Between her
petticoat and her blouse. They loved the fact that the brown of the
backs of their hands was the exact brown of their mother‟s
stomach skin.
“Estha, look,” Rahel said, plucking at the line of soft down
that led southwards from Ammu‟s belly button.
“Here‟s where we kicked you.” Estha traced a wandering
silver stretchmark with his finger
“Was it in the bus, Ammu?”
“On the winding estate road?”
“When Baba had to hold your tummy?”
“Did you have to buy tickets?”
“Did we hurt you?”
And then, keeping her voice casual, Rahel‟s question:
“D‟you think he may have lost our address?”
Just the hint of a pause in the rhythm of Ammu‟s breathing
made Estha touch Rahel‟s middle finger with his. And middle
finger to middle finger, on their beautiful mother‟s midriff, they
abandoned that line of questioning.
“That‟s Estha‟s kick, and that‟s mine,” Rahel said. “…And
that‟s Estha‟s and that‟s mine.”
Between them they apportioned their mother‟s seven silver
stretch marks. Then Rahel put her mouth on Ammu‟s stomach and
sucked at it, pulling the soft flesh into her mouth and drawing her
head back to admire the shining oval of spit and the faint red