The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

exhausted, distraught and covered in mud, made their way through
the swamp and approached the History House. Hansel and Gretel
in a ghastly fairy tale in which their dreams would be captured and
re-dreamed. They lay down in the back verandah on a grass mat
with an inflatable goose and a Qantas koala bear. A pair of damp
dwarfs, numb with fear, waiting for the world to end.
“D‟you think she‟s dead by now?”
Estha didn‟t answer.
“What‟s going to happen?”
“We‟ll go to jail.”
He Jolly Well knew. Little Man. He lived in a Cara-van.
Dum dum.
They didn‟t see someone else lying asleep in the shadows.
As lonely as a wolf. A brown leaf on his black back. That made the
monsoons come on time.
Chapter 17.
Cochin Harbor Terminus
In his clean room in the dirty Ayemenem House, Estha (not
old, not young) sat on his bed in the dark. He sat very straight.
Shoulders squared. Hands in his lap. As though he was next in line
for some sort of inspection. Or waiting to be arrested.
The ironing was done. It sat in a neat pile on the ironing
board. He had done Rahel‟s clothes as well.
It was raining steadily. Night rain. That lonely drummer
practicing his roll long after the rest of the band has gone to bed.
In the side mittam, by the separate “Men‟s Needs” entrance,
the chrome tailfins of the old Plymouth gleamed momentarily in
the lightning. For years after Chacko left for Canada, Baby
Kochamma had had it washed regularly. Twice a week for a small
fee, Kochu Maria‟s brother-in-law who drove the yellow municipal
garbage truck in Kottayam would drive into Ayemenem (heralded
by the stench of Kottayam‟s refuse, which lingered long after he