by Susan Oleksiw

                                Anita reached deep into her cloth bag for the clutch of rupees she knew was there. She liked this new shop, with its odd collection of old Kerala things and new honky-tonk toys for tourists. She especially liked the owner, Macheri, a young woman picking out items to sell according to her tastes and no one else’s. The old wooden boxes were falling apart and desperately needed oil, and the clay bowls and pots would probably disintegrate in the typical dry climate of North America, but the old earth colors were a joy to behold. Anita had to keep herself from running her fingers over them or she’d buy every single one. Instead, she patted the ten hand-painted notecards she had selected, and fished around the bottom of her cloth bag for her money. What she pulled out was a broken rubber band and a torn envelope. The young woman behind the counter gasped.
                “Ayoo! Shakunam aanu!” The young woman slapped her hands over her mouth and stared at the rubber band. “Oru naaga poole!”
                 “Omen? This?” Anita held up the rubber band, surprised at the other woman’s reaction. Macheri seemed shy but sensible when Anita had dropped by to welcome her, and tell her about life in the resort where Anita lived with her Auntie Meena in her aunt’s hotel. “That would be a pretty tiny snake.” Anita let the bands slip back into her bag. “Not really much of an omen, if you ask me.” But she hadn’t asked me, Anita thought, as she handed over her money. Macheri was young, in her early twenties, and obviously nervous in her new business venture. Her hand trembled as she took the bills while her eyes kept glancing at the cloth bag. Anita took her parcel, thanked Macheri with a few more words of welcome, and fervently hoped she’d settle into the business and prosper.
                 “Do you know the new shop at the top of Lighthouse Road?” Anita said to Ravi, the desk clerk, as she came through the doorway. Hotel Delite sat firmly on the rocky coast in South India, where Anita Ray’s aunt catered to foreigners during the winter season, recovered during the monsoon, and Anita pretended to help. It was the least she could do, considering how ashamed Meena was of Anita’s dabbling in photography and unmarried state. Ravi and the other staff members kept the hotel going and Auntie Meena relatively sane. Diners chatted out on the terrace as waiters clattered past with laden trays. “I stopped there today to buy postcards, just to see what it was like.”
                 “You are welcoming the new ones to this lucrative neighborhood, isn’t it?” Ravi looked up from the registration book that only he could decipher, since it was filled with his color-coded blocks and scribbles. “You are not scaring her away with tales of dead bodies? This is very kind.”
                 “Would I do that?” Anita jumped up onto a stall stool.
                 “Does not Yama, the Lord of Death, wait for us all?”
                 “The woman who started it is a nervous wreck. I hope she gets used to talking to strangers. Look at these.” Anita pulled out the notecards and spread them on the desk. A piece of paper fluttered to the floor, and Anita climbed down to pick it up. “Ayoo!” She held up the thousand-rupee note.
                 “Oh!” Ravi blinked and leaned closer.
                 “This is what she gave me for change!” Anita sighed and slipped the note into her cloth bag. “This is not a small mistake. I’d better return it right away.” She headed back up the road, to the intersection, where stores were lit by small hanging lights. She saw before she reached it that the new shop was closed.
                 “I must have just missed her,” Anita said to the man at the tea stall.
                 “No, no, she is leaving as soon as you are walking away. He pointed to a teacup, but Anita declined with a shake of her head.
                 “Do you know where she lives?”
                 The tea wallah called across the street to another shop, and after some backing and forthing, the two men agreed that Macheri lived near another intersection on the other side of Vilinzham. Anita thanked them and went in search of an autorickshaw, the small three-wheeled cab that sounded and ran like an enclosed motorcycle.
                 The driver pulled up in front of a narrow dirt lane, and agreed to wait. Anita scanned the area, decided that this was in fact where the directions from the last tea stall had meant her to go, and started down the path. The houses were only one or two rooms, with little yards around them and no compound walls or even sapling fences to keep animals from wandering. The neighborhood seemed a small, cohesive unit apart from the surrounding developments, the bustling shopping arcades and noisy traffic farther away. Anita threaded her way between the little houses, not one of which had a second floor. A few had lean-to kitchens with walls and roofs of woven mats.
                Near the end of the lane she came to a house set on the edge of a sandy patch leading into a marsh. By the side of the house stood a brightly embroidered pandal, on four wooden posts, its colored threads sparkling in the candlelight. By the nearest post sat a large clay pot with a smooth, leather covering stitched over it. The pot sat on one end of a long stick; a single stout thread ran from one end, through the pot, to the other end, holding the pot in place. Anita recognized it at once as the pot drum played by members of the Pulluvan caste during certain rituals and pujas. Beyond that was Macheri sweeping the dirtyard. She started when she saw Anita, but lay down her broom and came to greet her.
                 “So I came to return the money,” Anita said after explaining her visit. She reached into her bag and drew out the thousand-rupee note. Macheri extended her hand to take it, then clutched her trembling fist to her chest as she turned to the house. She stared at it so hard that Anita turned to look, but no one was there. “Are you all right?” Macheri’s head jerked back, her neck so stiff with fear that she could barely move it.
                 Macheri nodded slowly, took the note. She held it in her hand for some moments before slipping it into her waist, pushing it down until it disappeared from view. She leaned toward Anita, shaking and shivering, as though waiting for her to speak. “Devi, our Goddess, did not come, not once.” She glanced back at the pandal.
                 Perplexed, Anita followed her gaze. This was the setup for an exorcism, Anita suddenly realized. The pandal was empty now but Anita could see the grains of colored powders left over on the ground, swept into small piles to be carried away. She had seen this a few times before—the grotesque figure of a large serpent drawn on the dirt floor beneath the pandal in colored powder, white, yellow, red, green, and black—the colors on a serpent’s neck. And the pot-drum was for the Pulluvan to play while he sang, his music leading the women undergoing the exorcism to fall into a trance and in that state destroy the serpent image. But if Devi did not come, if any one or all of the women did not fall into a trance, it meant that the Goddess was angry with someone in the household—a very bad sign. No wonder she was so distressed, Anita thought. She offered her sympathy to Macheri.

                                                           * * *
                A few days later Anita spread her notecards out on the breakfast table and tried to decide which ones she would send to her parents in the States and which ones she’d keep for herself, just for their beauty. Her American father liked all things Indian and her Indian mother liked all things American, particularly washing machines, dishwashers, and other appliances.
                 “Are these from that new shop?” Auntie Meena leaned over her shoulder to better see them. “You are lucky to have gotten them. I am hearing the shop is closed now.”
                 Anita turned around in her seat. “It can’t be. It just opened.”
                 “But it is. Just this morning I am hearing the news. The owner is dead.” Auntie Meena flopped down in the seat opposite Anita and sighed. “Such is karma.”
                 Karma? Anita recalled her meeting with Macheri, her uneasiness in her own home compared to her enthusiasm in her shop. No, Anita thought, this wasn’t karma. Her thoughts must have flickered across her face because Meena blanched and grabbed Anita’s arm.
                 “No, no, it is only the merest of accidents. Not murder, no, nothing like that.” Meena closed her eyes, muttering to herself.
                “I am certain you are right,” Anita said.
                But half an hour later Anita marched into the hotel office and unlocked the cabinet, taking out the cash box. She rummaged through the bills just as Auntie Meena came through the door.
                 “Anita? How much money is it you are needing?” The older woman leaned over the cash box, watching Anita’s nimble fingers work their way through the notes. “You are welcome to whatever you want, but is it so much?”
                 “I’m looking for a thousand rupees.” Anita continued her search without meeting her aunt’s eyes.
                 “But it’s right there.” Meena pointed to the bills.
                 “Ah, this one.” Anita pulled out a thousand-rupee note and slipped it into her pocket. She locked the cash box and put it back into the cupboard. “Going and coming,” she said to her aunt as she hurried out the door.

                                                           * * *
                At the top of Lighthouse Road Anita banged on the wooden shutters. The other shopkeepers were already mostly open, rearranging their goods for sale, snapping a rag over the rows of biscuits and newspapers to drive away the dust. Behind the blue-washed shutters Anita heard a voice telling her to go away and sounds of work being carried on. She banged louder.
                 “I have money to give to Macheri,” Anita said. “A thousand rupees.” The shop grew silent. A moment later one of the shutters was pulled aside, and a young man leaned out.
                 “Money? You have money for Macheri? How is this?”
                 “I was here a few days ago and bought some postcards and left the change in the envelope she gave me, but only now have I checked, and Macheri gave me the wrong bills in change. A thousand-rupee note instead of a hundred-rupee note.”
                 The young man’s glance immediately went to Anita’s hands, which were empty.
                “Is Macheri here?”
                 “Macheri is dead.” He pushed another shutter aside and leaned against the wall. His dour expression began to crumble, and Anita was shocked to see he was only a teenager. “I am cleaning out the shop. We are selling the goods to another store Kovalam side.” He slid down the wall until he was sitting on a low stool, his head resting on his fist, his elbow propped up on his leg. He looked about to cry. His face reddened, highlighting the cluster of pimples along his chin.
                 “I am so sorry.” It was all she had to say. A tear bulged over his thick black eyelashes. “Your sister?”
                 He shook his head, no. “Like my older sister. But cousin.” He straightened up to look at her. “I am Raju.”
                 “Was she unwell, Raju?” Anita pushed the other shutters out of the way and found a stool to sit on. Outside a few tourists wandered past, some looking for the chemist, others for an interesting place for a cup of coffee, still others on their way to the bus stop. “Some disease?”
                 “Yes, no.” He buried his face in his hands.
                 “It’s a mystery, is it?”
                 “No, it is no mystery how she is dying.” Raju rubbed away the tears and kicked a box with his bare foot. “She is possessed by a devil but no puja is driving it away. The serpent is angry and so she dies.”
                 “What serpent? What devil?” Anita had seen the pandal and the Pulluvan’s pot-drum, but Macheri said the exorcism didn’t work. What had happened afterwards?
                 “This is a nice shop, isn’t it?” The boy suddenly looked up at the nearly empty shelves, the boxes of souvenirs stacked haphazardly in the small space. “She is doing this with her own jewelry. She is going to the bank and getting a loan for her gold bracelets and renting the shop and buying her goods. She is doing this. And her husband is agreeing and then he is not agreeing.”
                 “Did you hear them argue?” Anita asked.
                 “Yes, they argue. And then he is agreeable again, and then they argue.” He shook his head, confused over the changeableness of his cousin and her husband.
                 “Do you live near them, Raju?”
                 “We are all living together—cousin and her husband, parents, and older brother cousin and his wife. I stay with an aunt while I am in school in Trivandrum, but in the other months I am also there. My own parents are dead.”
                 Anita studied his well-patched pants and imagined how cramped and poor the family must be. Macheri’s foray into business would have raised the family significantly, if she had made a go of it. “Who decided she was possessed? Did her husband complain?”
                 “Not her husband. Older brother, Banu. He is unsettled. He is a bearer at the train station,” Raju explained.
                 Which means he travels far for work every day and makes little. “What does Macheri’s husband do?”
                 “Tullu? He works in the town for a builder,” Raju said, his attention returning to the souvenirs still waiting to be packed away.

                                                           * * *
                Anita had no trouble finding the small house a second time. A cooking fire smoldered at the rear and a few chickens scratched in the dirt before fluttering off towards the swamp. Anita paused at the end of the lane, listening for voices and the idle conversation that moves life along in a home during the day. Women’s voices floated through the air but the words were too indistinct for Anita to make out. To her right, beyond the pandal, came men’s voices. Anita called out.
                 Two young men stepped out of the swamp forest and came towards her, peering at her around the pandal. One carried a cluster of coconuts over his shoulder, a machete in his other hand. Once again she explained who she was and why she was there—patting the thousand-rupee note in her pocket.
                 “How foolish of her. My sister was foolish, Tullu.” He pointed to the bereaved husband with his machete. “It is my sister who has died,” he said to Anita. “I am Banu.”
                 Anita introduced herself and explained she had been to the shop on Lighthouse Road. “We are sad to see it go. Even in its short opening we directed several of our guests there, from Hotel Delite.”
                 “We are in mourning,” Tullu said with almost no emotion. He seemed slight in build and energy next to his brother-in-law, Banu, with his arms hanging slack at his sides, his black hair in little spikes pulled up by overhanging tree branches. Tullu’s eyes flickered up to her, then away, as though too weak to focus. He must be stunned, thought Anita, perhaps even in shock. The silence deepened, only the sounds of chickens reminding them of where they were. Anita offered her condolences.
                 “Can you tell me how it happened? She had so many friends on the Road, even in so short a time.”
                 Tullu’s face softened, and Anita warmed to him. “Yes,” he said, running his hand over his head, picking out the leaves and buds entangled in his hair. “She would draw them quickly. She was always a good daughter and a good wife.”
                 “Was it an illness?”
                 “She was possessed,” Banu said. Pain flickered across Tullu’s face. “She would not listen. She went into this shop without consulting us, using money without consulting us. It was not like her. She was taken over by some evil.”
                 “It was her money,” Tullu said in a soft voice. “Her own bracelets. Did I not scrimp and save for them for years to give her on our wedding day?”
                 “Did she consult with her family? Her mother and brother?” Banu said. The bickering had the sound of a well-established family argument.
                 Tullu opened his mouth to respond, but instead turned to Anita. “She is dying in the serpent grove, just there.” He nodded to an area behind Anita. “Come, I will show you.”
                 Banu snorted and waved them away as he went into the small house, tossing the coconuts onto the floor and calling out as he did so.

                                                           * * *
                Tullu was a man of few words. With no more than a wave of his hand, he led Anita along a little used path through the thick grove until they came to another lane, followed that until it widened enough for a cart, and then turned off onto a sandy yard in front of a row of small images. He walked without grace, stomping through the brush, leaning forward as though to propel himself. He grabbed hold of a tree at the edge of a grove and jerkily pointed at the ground.
                 “Here it is happening.” Tullu stared at a spot in front of him, as if trying to penetrate the earth, expecting to see his wife emerge and rise from the dust.
                 “What exactly happened?” Anita knelt down and studied the stone serpent images, then the trees and shrubs behind them. This seemed an ordinary serpent grove, and perhaps even a kavu, the sacred grove that once delimited, cannot be entered by anyone—a home to animals and birds and plants until the earth comes to an end, or a relative sells the land to an outsider.
                 “We are having an exorcism. I am building the pandal and hiring the Pulluvan to sing and play, and perform the puja. All is going well. My mother and wife and sister-in-law, Banu’s wife, Uccha, are drawing the serpent image in the colored powders and then sitting there. The music is most powerful—my sister-in-law and my mother are receiving Devi—they are one with the music. But Macheri, no. She is sitting as still and as quiet as a child in school.”
                 “Did this happen more than once?” Anita asked but she knew the answer. This was the reason Macheri had been so distressed when Anita had seen her last.
                 “Five times we are beginning.” Tullu paused to unwind a cloth from around his forehead, to keep off the sun, and wipe his face. “But the last time, we are doing more.”
                 “What do you mean, doing more?”
                 “The Pulluvan is saying we are not finishing the rite, and we should all be going to the serpent grove, right here. Before we are leaving Macheri at home, and only Uccha and my mother are coming with us to the grove, but this time the Pulluvan is saying we must all go—even his wife, who sings too. Even Macheri.”
                 “And did she go with you?”
                 “Yes, not willingly at first, but going.”
                 “And this is where she died?”
                 Tullu waggled his head yes. “The three of them are coming to the grove and prostrating themselves in front of the serpent images. Macheri is slow to do this, but quick to finish. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law recover themselves and are so grateful to the Pulluvan. They finish their puja but Macheri is slow—she must pick up the water pots, the Pulluvan says. We start back to the house, thinking she will catch up with us. But we hear a scream. It is Macheri. We rush to her—she is crying and crying. She is hysterical She says she has been bitten by a snake. I am rushing into the underbrush looking and looking. And then I see the snake. Foolish woman, I tell her. There it is, only the wolf snake. It does not kill.”
                 “Did you see the wolf snake?”
                 “Yes, yes, yes.” He waved away Anita’s question, but then his expression changed again. He grew sad and somber. “But she is very sick later, very sick. She cannot breathe. And I am thinking, can there be another snake? Was I wrong?” Anita winced at the pain of unbearable guilt in his eyes.

                                                           * * *
                Macheri’s mother was waiting for them when they returned to the house. With her hands pressed together in anjali, she bowed and welcomed Anita. Since the family was in mourning, they couldn’t offer her any hospitality, but true to the practicality with which Hindu families address inconvenient restrictions, the mother had asked a neighbor to provide tiffin, coffee and biscuits. A table had been set at the edge of the lane facing the house and swamp. There Anita could be welcomed and visited with, but not polluted by the family death. It was a concept Anita had no choice but to tolerate. The neighbors had gone to considerable trouble and she knew they were lined up behind her, watching. She settled herself into the white molded plastic chair, drew the candle closer, and lifted the metal cup of coffee from its flat-bottomed bowl. The coffee was sweet with sugar and milk, and Anita offered appreciative comments.
                 Tullu squatted nearby, lost in his own thoughts. Banu was out back chopping wood for the fire, and a woman Anita assumed to be Uccha leaned against the far corner of the house, watching her.
                 “When I was here before,” Anita said to Tullu, “I think I saw the Pulluvan’s pot-drum over by the pandal.”
                 Tullu followed the pointing hand, then nodded. “Yes, it was there between pujas, but now it is put away for safe keeping. It is over there.” He indicated a small hut with no roof and walls of woven mats. The old latrine, she thought, looking around for the new one.
                 “I’m surprised he would leave his instrument here,” Anita said. Pulluvans are not rich, she thought. None of them can afford to lose something so important to their livelihood. “Will he soon come back for this?”
                 “Of course.” Tullu turned to his sister-in-law, Uccha, still half-concealed by the corner of the house, and repeated Anita’s question. In a voice Anita couldn’t hear well, she answered Tullu. “Yes,” he said, turning to Anita. “He will come in one or two days’ time.”
                 “Where has he gone that he doesn’t need his drum?” Perhaps with a few more questions, Anita could draw out Uccha, and have a real conversation with her. She was, after all, living in her husband’s house rather than in her mother’s, and that in itself was unusual.
                 Tullu repeated her question, but the answer was abrupt. Uccha muttered something, shrugged, and pulled away from the house, disappearing from view. “He has no performances to give in the next few days,” Tullu relayed. Then, having done his duty, he returned to staring at the ground. His mother-in-law stared at Anita. The only sounds were the squeaking of the chair under Anita’s shifting weight, the murmurs of the villagers behind her, and the sound of an axe splitting wood.

                                                           * * *
                Anita found her autorickshaw still waiting for her at the main road. She climbed in and settled back onto the seat. The driver started the little engine, then looked over his shoulder, expecting her to give him directions, but Anita was oblivious to his queries. Macheri was not that much younger than Anita, and seeing the other woman’s life so circumscribed by both poverty and family brought Anita a sad anger and feeling of helplessness.
                 “Why would a family say one of its members is possessed when she isn’t?” The question was directed to the ether and Anita frowned as she pondered this. “And why would a Pulluvan leave his drum behind, even if he can count on it being cared for, and come back and get it later?”
                 The auto driver shrugged and smiled. “Kovalam?”
                 “That’s it!” Anita lunged forward. “That’s it! Because he could! He left it because he could.”
                 “Trivandrum?” the driver suggested.
                 “He knew he could leave it and it would be safe there.” Anita clapped her hand over her mouth. “Of course.”
                 “Varkala?” the driver suggested, now hoping for a huge fare and bigger tip from his crazy passenger.
                 “And why did he know he could?” Anita hunched over, trying to think.
                 “Bus station?” the driver suggested, wondering if he should just give up.
                 “Because he has a connection,” Anita said, flopping back in her seat. “But which one?”
                 “Tea stall?” the driver asked sadly, now resigned to a short trip and no tip.
                 “Yes,” Anita said, pointing at him, “a tea stall. Exactly right.”
                 Surprised, but glad to at least get moving and thus make some money, the driver revved the engine and drove along the road to the first row of shops. At the end stood a small tea stall, and the auto driver pulled over. Anita hopped out. She ordered two coffees, and motioned for the driver to take one.
                 “I was sad to hear about Macheri,” Anita said to the tea wallah. “Her new shop was popular with the foreigners.”
                 “Ahhh!” The tea wallah dunked a dirty glass in equally dirty water, to rinse it out, and wiggled his fingers among the glasses to spread them around. “Very sad. She was a hard worker.”
                 “Her family must have been proud of her.”
                 “Ahh, yes. Well, yes.” He seemed unsure of his answer.
                 “I would be jealous if my sister-in-law did something so brave.” Anita sipped her coffee.
                 The tea wallah stopped rinsing glasses and seemed to think about her comment. “Yes, when there is more than one woman in a house, and not a sister, is there not jealousy?”
                 “Does the Pulluvan live in this area?”
                 The tea wallah shook his head. “Tullu is finding him. He is telling me his mother-in-law will be pleased he is finding only the best singer. If Tullu must do this, then he must have the best singer.”

                                                           * * *
                “Again?” The auto driver turned around to Anita and did not try to hide his confusion. It was close to midnight, a black sky with clouds covering the moon, and the Kovalam resort fast asleep. Anita’s request to the driver to return by midnight had surprised him, and her request to return to the village where Macheri lived had stumped him.
                 “I want to go back to the village but I don’t want anyone to know I have come again.” Anita settled herself in the back seat. “Can you do that?”
                 “Of course.” He waggled his head, but didn’t smile. “Of course,” he said again, grabbing the handlebars. He started the autorickshaw, and headed up the hill. Anita didn’t recognize the route he took, but when the auto coasted to a halt on a dirt road, she thought she recognized some of the houses. “Along there is a path. It leads to a serpent grove and then on to the house.”
                 “I remember that path.” Anita climbed out. All was still and dark. The cooking fires were out, the lanterns out. Nothing moved, not even a goat or a chicken. The blackness had put all the creatures to sleep. “I’ll be back.” The driver agreed to wait, and Anita stepped into the darkness.

                                                           * * *
                Anita moved cautiously along the path. This was the time for snakes—both venomous and non-venomous—and if Macheri had been killed by one, then there was a good chance one or more nested in the area. She moved past the serpent grove, all but holding her breath. When she came closer to Macheri’s house, Anita crouched down and listened. Ahead of her was the dirt yard, the small house, the old latrine off to her right. She circled around to the right, knelt down, and crawled across the space, keeping the latrine between herself and the house. If anyone came out now, to smoke a cigarette, use the new latrine, or just gaze at the sky, he or she wouldn’t see Anita.
                 The latrine floor had been covered over with a thick layer of dirt that seemed to have settled. Anita parted the leaves at the lowest section of mat and stuck her hand in. She felt around for a water pot, but was not surprised when she didn’t find one. The water pot had served its purpose. Next she turned her attentions to the pot-drum. The pot-drum was only inches from her, its thin leather covering cold and dry beneath her fingers. It was a typical pot-drum—standing as tall as her knee, as round as a ball, with only a small flat bottom and equally small mouth. Gingerly, pulling away every few seconds because fear was stronger than curiosity sometimes, she felt along the mouth. It was covered with a thin skin that seemed to be tied on separately.
                Confident that the entire mouth was covered, she tapped on the surface. Nothing. She tapped again. Still nothing. She moved her hand onto the pottery and tapped all the way along the surface until she had moved from bottom to top and back again. Then she listened. She was rewarded with the sound of something sliding against the inner surface and a soft, familiar hissing.

                                                           * * *
                The following morning Anita arrived at Macheri’s shop, and was relieved to find Raju finishing up the disposition of the store goods. A loaded handcart was just pulling away as Anita banged on the open shutters. Raju saw her over his shoulder, and smiled warmly. He dropped a pile of newspapers he’d been using to wrap things with and came toward her.
                 “You have met my family, isn’t it?” The news pleased him and he motioned her inside.
                 “I wanted to give your family my sympathy,” Anita said. “We shall miss your cousin.” She felt a twinge at her deception, but pushed it aside. “It is sad that she should die just after the puja. But perhaps that means a good rebirth for her.”
                 Raju shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “She was so fearful. Macheri told me every night this puja would not work. But no one would believe her.” He lowered his voice and whispered, “She did not like the Pulluvan and his wife.”
                 “Did she say she was not possessed?”
                 Raju nodded and slouched down on a stool, folding up like a measuring stick. “She blamed greed in others.”
                 “In who?”
                 He shrugged. “Just others. That was all.”
                 “Whose idea was it to get the Pulluvan to come and sing?”
                 “Ah, that was Banu.” Raju was again a teenager, admiring the forceful decisions of his elders. “He sent Tullu for the Pulluvan.”
                 “Then Banu knew him? They must trust each other, for the Pulluvan to go off and leave his pot-drum.” This was an unusual step to take, and she wondered if Raju knew about it.
                 “This Pulluvan is known to us,” Raju said. “That’s why he left his pot-drum while he went visiting family.”
                 “He has family nearby?” Anita couldn’t conceal her surprise.
                 “Cousins, many cousins. Cousins to him and cousins to us.”
                 Anita did her best to keep the excitement out of her voice. “Which part of your family is cousin to him?”
                 “Uccha. She is cousin to his wife’s cousin.” He went on to offer a careful recital of the relevant branch of the family tree.
                 “Uccha must be very unhappy at how these pujas turned out, yes? I mean, having her family involved in this.”
                 “It is karma, she says. Macheri broke with the family practice and the family desires, so it is karma that has claimed her.” He swung back toward the goods still waiting to be packaged, and heaved a sigh. “I return to Trivandrum tomorrow. To school. I liked helping out here.”

                                                           * * *
                By midmorning Anita was back at Macheri’s house. Macheri’s mother waved to her from the door as Anita approached, and she was careful not to cross the boundary onto their property.
                 “The Pulluvan’s pot-drum? Yes, it is here.” The old woman looked perplexed but pointed to the hut where it was being kept.
                 “That’s good,” Anita said. “I have sent word to your Pulluvan that we need him in our neighborhood.”
                 “Ah, he is welcoming business,” the old woman said. Uccha stood behind her, just inside the door, watching from the shadows.
                 “A maidservant’s sister is in such difficulty, so we are having the exorcism tonight.” Once launched on her tale of woe, Anita embellished happily on the plight of a hotel employee whose favorite younger sister was possessed to the point of stupefaction. It was a mesmerizing story, getting better and better as she went along, and Anita promised herself she’d tell it to others as soon as she got the chance. “So, you see, it is imperative he begin as soon as possible. And I am here to save him the trouble of another journey. I shall collect the pot-drum for him.” And with that, she crossed the yard, reached over the mat wall, snatched the stick to which the pot-drum was attached and lifted it out of the hut.
                 “No, no!” Uccha rushed from the doorway, her arms outstretched.
                 “But I assure you, Uccha, he said it was all right.” Anita held up the Pulluvan drum by its stick. “I am doing him a favor.”
                 Uccha cringed, as though terrified. Her mother-in-law squinted at her, then stared at the pot. Anita held the pot up higher and began to swing it gently towards the two women. Uccha fell back, stumbling into the house, and slammed the door. The old woman banged on the door, calling on her daughter-in-law to open up.
                 “What is this noise?” Banu came from around the corner, Tullu behind him.
                 “What have you done?” the old woman screamed at Anita. With her gray hair flying, Macheri’s mother began to run at Anita but swerved to the side, her eyes locked on the Pulluvan’s drum. “What have you done to it?”
                 “Me?” Anita held the drum up higher, swung it, and watched as Tullu, the old woman, and now Banu followed it as though hypnotized. “I don’t think it’s me that’s done anything.”
                With far greater care than she had shown so far, Anita laid the drum on the ground. “Listen,” she said and squatted down close by. All three approached and knelt.
                 “Ayoo!” The old woman grabbed her son’s arm. “It is Naagaraaja!”
                 “Nothing so grand as king of the naagas,” Tullu said. His eyes hardened, grew blacker, and Anita winced at the sharp stab she always felt when a man’s illusions fell.
                 “Look at the skin,” Anita said. “It is a new covering over the old. Smaller, only for the mouth of the pot.”
                 Tullu stood, and ordered Banu to do so too. “Banu, she is your wife. This Pulluvan is her cousin. This is his snake.”
                 “You accuse her?” Banu’s chest heaved and his fists clenched.
                 “She accuses herself. She is the only one to flee.” Tullu reached down to run his hand over the drum. “My wife was generous. She would have shared her success.”
                 The old woman lifted her arms, calling out the names of both men, before she set up an ear-piercing wail. Her lamentaton increased as she realized she was losing both of her daughters. Anita knelt down beside the old woman, and thought of the cheerful young Macheri, quirky and brave in her new shop.