The Far End of the Gravel Path

Manasi

Translated from the original Malayalam by J Devika

Content warning: domestic and family violence.

Translator’s Note: Manasi is one of the earliest literary voices in Malayalam who can be called feminist. While her concerns began to be shared widely among authors, especially female authors, after the 1980s, her unique contribution, I believe, is her style of narration that sound and feel like intense, rebellious, whispers – in the darkened chambers of patriarchy – which draws the reader and holds them in thrall. I am delighted to share, in English translation, a glimpse of her powerful feminist fiction which has, for some strange reason, never been noticed enough.

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Santhi lifted her eyes towards the far end of the gravel path, again. It dozed under the heat sweeping down from the sky.

Bits and pieces of the broken dishes hurled by her husband from the kitchen flew into the yard. Santhi was sitting under the moringa tree and scrubbing the pots. Her eyes lingered on the broken pieces for some time.

Then, as usual, she went back into the kitchen, walking right through the flying missiles and stepping over the fallen pieces.

Knowing well that he would hit her, she shielded herself instinctively, with the freshly washed pots she held. His hands hit hard on them. He yelped in pain, rubbing his hands and stuffing them between his legs. The flat glass dish that she and Dakshayani had bought at the Vela festival in the temple was smashed. She looked at him again through its fragments.

Her husband was in agony, rubbing his hands hard.

She could well pick up another pot and smash it on him now.

Why is it that I don’t do it?

As she was picking up the broken pieces, he came near her again. His eyes blazed with anger. He stretched himself tall on the kitchen step and grabbed Santhi’s exposed shoulder, moist with sweat. She dropped the pots and pressed against the wall, a slight scream escaping her lips.

He was going to bite her; she felt the hands that were holding her down scrape her breasts. Her husband’s eyes were on her sweat-soaked cleavage. They crawled down to her firm waist.

Before his hands fell upon her waist to strip her, she said, ‘Go inside. I am coming.’

He didn’t like that gentle expression of consent. His hands fell on her loosely tied-up hair. Santhi slipped. The pots clanged as they scattered on the floor. Her knee hit the step. The loose end of her long hair escaped the man’s clenched fist and fell over her shoulder.

‘Ha!’ he spat. ‘Damn you, okay!’

Because her head was bowed, Santhi could not see his face as he strode over the broken pots and dishes dragging her by the hair. Instead she saw his worn toes with the ingrown toenails and his dirty, frayed feet. She saw the thick, unsightly hair on his calves. And a part of his mundu, folded up and tucked into his waist.

If she wanted, she could struggle, hit hard on that painful ingrown toenail, and the man’s hand would surely fly off her hair. She could flee through the open north-side door to Kunhikkannamma’s house. Pressing her hands on the painful bite marks behind her neck, Santhi wondered - why, then, am I not doing it?

Her husband had reached the door of the inner room. He shoved her inside and banged the door shut. It filled the room with darkness. She touched once more the bite mark on her neck and the mundu on her waist which had come loose when he dragged her there.

She saw a sliver of light fall on his face through the door that had not bothered to close, like the shadow of a knife. The stubble, the pimples that protruded from it, the searing reek of perspiration…all of it stood revealed in that fading shard of light.

The pimples reminded her of the peanut-seller at the movie-place where she had gone last week with her lover, Velayudhan, when her husband had been away in the forest to fell trees. He had thrown a pack of peanuts on her lap along with a coarse look. It hit Velayudhan’s hand which was pressed down on her thigh. Velayudhan’s eyes, however, were wedged on the screen on which a woman was twirling fast, her legs increasingly exposed.

‘Get the peanuts,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. ‘They cost just eight annas.’

‘No,’ she said.

The movie tickets had cost all of the six rupees that she had.

‘Good movie,’ Velayudhan said. ‘Should come again.’

When they stepped out into the dark, at midnight, after the movie, he caressed her hand.

She pulled it back, embarrassed. It was rough and lined with all the dishwashing, the sweeping and swabbing.

‘It’s as smooth as a fresh green leaf,’ said he. ‘And your belly, like the smooth shiny white banana-stem…should come to see movies again.’

‘Can you come to the house tomorrow morning, just for a little while? I had something...’

‘When it is light?’ he asked, ‘Your man will finish me off in a single stroke!’

‘He’ll finish me first,’ she reassured him, watching the fearful look on his face. ‘You can use the time to run away.’

‘Don’t be scared,’ she added slowly. ‘I was just kidding. I can do my stuff, can’t I?’

That day, Velayudhan slept peacefully on the veranda. She lay on her side beside him, staring at the open backdoor.

It was evening; she was just back from work and standing under the moringa tree. That’s when Velayudhan first came to the fence and smiled at her.  

She could still remember that moment when her mind began to bloom.

She would say, ‘Let us go to the riverbank. It is really cool there.’

‘What about your man?’ he would ask.

‘He’s far. Gone to the forest to cut down trees.’

‘He won’t be back today?’

‘Won’t be back tomorrow even.’

Each time she waded across the river with Velayudhan in the fading dusk, she would tell herself, ‘This is the last time.’ But it felt good when the water splashed on her face forcefully. It felt good too, when the wind touched the fine strands of her hair. She would notice, how big this world under the sky. She would feel, I can make my own path any time before I reach the far end of the gravel path.

Velayudhan would speak just then. ‘Run on and cross the river. I’ll watch from here.’

In that lonely walk, she would kick aside the gravel. Why do I run like a madwoman to the riverbank at midnight, she would ask herself. These days Velayudhan just sits on the riverbank. ‘Go across the river, go on alone, I’ll be lying down here,’ he says these days. He would buy her savouries from the teashop near the riverbank and glass bangles, touching her wet blouse lightly - she would fling away those packets forcefully over the fence as she walked off. When she turned to look, he’d be still standing there. In front of her, beyond the path smothered with darkness, lay the house. The door would creak when she pushed it open. She would go to the window and stand there for some time, gazing at the path. When she tried to push it out and shut the door on it, the night would resurface inside, on the gruel-pot, and above the sleeping-mat, gleaming like a floor freshly polished black. She would see with her own eyes the darkness fall in shards, like ripples on the river. It was when they grew in a heap under her feet that she felt the fear. She had often heard the night stack up the darkness in layers when she lay on the mat covering herself from top to toe but with eyes wide open.

Her husband was tiring now. The roots of her hair that he had grabbed ached right down to somewhere below the skin and the bone.

He had begun to fall asleep. Removing his hand from her body, Santhi stood up straight. She wiped her face and belly hard with the edge of the mundu tied around her waist. She stood there looking at her husband lying asleep flat on his back with his mouth open and legs apart. He was to leave tomorrow to the forest and would be back only weeks later. Velayudhan would come tomorrow night. He would knock gently on the window. The coolness of the riverbank came back into her memory. When she opened the window, he would ask, ‘Your man won’t be back tomorrow?’

Standing on this side of the window, she would knock about that question in her mind: should I go? Or shouldn’t I?

‘Your boobs are now bigger than before!’

‘Ah! Magic, it is!’

‘Make them bigger!’

‘My man doesn’t like that.’

Velayudhan would fall silent then.

Her husband turned in his sleep, and his flung-apart leg came under her foot. Santhi stared at his feet for some time. Dirty, lined feet.

Santhi took the large machete from under the pillow casually. The pillow moved a little. But the man did not wake up. Santhi stood there looking at her husband in the light that splattered around the room through the door opened a crack. He lay, head on one side, legs flung apart, hands open on the floor, mouth open and drooling.

Motionless for some moments, Santhi then gently shook him.

She brandished the machete so that he could see it clearly.

I don’t need the ignominy of murdering a sleeping man. And besides, when they met at the riverbank, if Velayudhan asked her if she wasn’t adept at setting traps, she would have no answer even.

Santhi kicked him again to wake him up. He woke and scrambled up angrily, and since the sight of Santhi brandishing a machete was totally unexpected, he let out an ugly sound of fear. His stupor drained off instantly.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Dinakaran.’

‘No. Velayudhan.’

‘Velayudhan.’ He repeated after her obediently.

‘Who’s Velayudhan?’ Santhi asked.

‘I don’t know.’

Santhi was quite amused to see him petrified by the sight of her wielding the machete.

She gripped it even more tightly.

‘I want to go to the riverbank,’ she said. The Vela festival was on. She wanted to go to the fair.

‘This very afternoon?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll take you there.’

‘There’s plenty of water in the river. You’ll carry me.’

‘I know.’

‘You’ll get me glass bangles and anklets from the fair.’

‘Yes, I will.’

But suddenly she thought: it is not any of these that I really want. The bangles that Velayudhan bought her were still unworn. The anklets, too.

So she said, ‘All that can wait. For now, wipe my feet with your mundu.’

He bent down.

He’ll notice that my toenails are beginning to be ingrown and that the balls of my feet are dry and cracked, she remembered anxiously. The same disgust that she had felt at the sight of his feet must be bubbling in his mind as well.

She felt the hatred fall like flakes off a scab in her mind. Her husband was still crouching at her feet, waiting for permission to rise.

‘Around this room on your knees three times,’ she ordered, avoiding his face.

And no sooner had she said it, than the thought why she had demanded it in the first place made her wonder.

That machete had always been there under the pillow - close enough for her to pull it out, any time.

I can tell him to throw open this door now if I want, thought Santhi, looking at her husband drag himself around the room on his knees, and gripping the weapon hard. I can hold this and stride on the gravel path to its farthest end, cross the river, and go beyond. I can tie up this husband on a stump like a guard dog.

But she would never do any of this.

Like trying to regain balance on an invisible tightrope, she gripped the machete even more tightly. Where do I falter, she had asked herself many times. I don’t know where the strings are. If I mention this machete to Velayudhan, he will only stare at me stunned, as though I had given him a tight slap.

And after, while at the movies, he’ll probably check in the dark if I am holding a machete.

I might forget to laugh when we sit on the cool sand by the river.

The husband had finished circling the room three times on his knees and was at her feet now.

Her husband’s thick, naked, sweaty neck below her, inside.

Outside, Velayudhan’s stupefied face has forgotten how to smile.

If this machete slipped just a little bit, how forcefully would he knock me down, Santhi tried to think. With that, he would wipe hard the sweat on his neck and start locking the door from the outside like before. She would wait for the night and strain her ears for the sound of the duplicate key that Velayudhan would bring.

Santhi felt disgust spew forth in her mind like the puss breaking out of a malignant sore. It was when its stink became unbearable that she swung the machete towards her head, like a sob long suppressed that escaped nevertheless. She saw for a moment the red splatter on the face of her husband who crouched below seeking permission to get up. And then it disappeared into a torrent of indescribable relief.

[Original title: ‘Charalpathayude dooram’]