The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

mangled genie invoked by a modern lamp. He was naked, his
soiled mundu had come undone. Blood spilled from his skull like a
secret. His face was swollen and his head look liked a pumpkin,
too large and heavy for the slender stem it grew from. A pumpkin
with a monstrous upside-down smile. Police boots stepped back
from the rim of a pool of urine spreading from him, the bright, bare
electric bulb reflected in it.
Dead fish floated up in Estha. One of the policemen prodded
Velutha with his foot. There was no response. Inspector Thomas
Mathew squatted on his haunches and raked his jeep key across the
sole of Velutha‟s foot. Swollen eyes opened. Wandered. Then
focused through a film of blood on a beloved child. Estha imagined
hat something in him smiled. Not his mouth, but some other unhurt
part of him. His elbow perhaps. Or shoulder.
The Inspector asked his question. Estha‟s mouth said Yes.
Childhood tiptoed out.
Silence slid in like a bolt.
Someone switched off the light and Velutha disappeared.
* * *
Ammu‟s reaction stunned her. The ground fell away from
under her feet. She knew she had an ally in Inspector Thomas
Mathew. But how long would that last? What if he was transferred
and the case re-opened? It was possible considering the shouting,
sloga~fleeting crowd of Party workers that Comrade K. N. M.
Pillai had managed to assemble outside the gate. That prevented
the laborers from coming to work, and left vast quantities of
mangoes, bananas, pineapple, garlic and ginger rotting slowly on
the premises of Paradise Pickles.
Baby Kochamma knew she had to get Ammu out of
Ayemenem as soon as possible.
She managed that by doing what she was best at. Irrigating
her fields, nourishing her crops with other people‟s passions.