Girl and Boy

JUST AN HOUR AND A HALF FROM HERE,” he said. “Super place!”

“Is it safe?” the boy asked.

“Sure! Better than a five-star-hotel!” His tongue drew a wet line on his upper-lip; it then proceeded to sketch it: “Very airy and nice. There’s nice soft grass, plenty of it—better than a foam bed! And around it, there’s lots of lush growth and tall thickets. Even God Above wouldn’t know you’re there inside.”

“What about the snakes?”

“Eda, take this from me—if a cobra tries to bite a fellow bent on some dirty shooting, that cobra’s going to fall dead—dead as a doornail.”

“Don’t call it dirty shooting and all that.”

“Huh! You aren’t going there with your wedded wife, are you? You’re just taking a girl from your class? This is what we call doing it on the sly—dirty shooting! I’ll tell you how to reach the place—write it down if you want.”

“I AM NOT GOING anywhere,” she said.

“Edi, it’s alright! There isn’t a soul anywhere around there. It’s safe.” He reassured her.

“What’s wrong with sitting in a place where there are people around?”

“How can I then hug and kiss you?”

“Why can’t you? I have no problem with you hugging and kissing me!”

“What if someone tells my parents?”

“Oh, really? Trouble if it reaches your family! So you think there’s no trouble if it reaches my family?”

“Your family is far away, isn’t it? In Wayanad?”

“Ah! Right you are! People from Wayanad don’t notice anything happening around them! They just don’t com­prehend anything!”

“Look, don’t fuss, please? I didn’t mean that.”

She threw him a glance. He touched her fingertips lightly and continued his pleading: “Edi, let’s go just once, please. I’ll take you back to the hostel before six-thirty, I promise!”

She swatted his hand off lightly and was quite still for a while, staring out of the window of the classroom.

“Let’s do something—why not go to a movie?”

“What for?”

“You’re the one so hungry for cuddles and kisses? You can do it in the dark there, in the movie theatre.”

“Ayyo, that’s risky.”

She looked puzzled.

“The movie theatres are all fitted with security cam­eras. They work in the dark too. Will catch everything!”

She thought for a while and then said: “In that case, let’s postpone all this till after our wedding.”

He was irritated by that; he felt helpless and tearful. When all of these emotions broke in him together, he al­most fell at her feet. “Someone will see,” she warned him.

“Let them!”

“This is what is called ‘obscene’, eda.”

Holding his shoulders, she made him stand up. He looked like he was going to burst into tears. Two tear­drops massed in the corners of his eyes ready to fall.

“Wipe your eyes,” she told him.

He wiped his tears. She touched his hand. He smiled mildly. She was unsmiling, but kept her gaze on him.

They were silent for some time. They were just a breath away from each other.

“So we’ll go there tomorrow, right?” he asked.

She nodded in agreement.

“Hey,” he said, “Bring a scarf, alright?”

“What for?” She asked, not clear why.

“There’ll be a lot of wind and dust when you sit behind me on the bike—you don’t want that. Just tie it around your head like these radical fellows. It’s quite the trend!”

“I don’t want to. The wind and dust are nothing. I travel on the pillion of my Chachan’s Bullet from Wayanad to Pala!”

“That’s your Chachan—your dad … actually …” He was hesitant, but the words just jumped out. “What if someone saw us?”

She slapped his hand, pushing it away.

“Please…”

“Who do you fear so much?” Her voice rose. He, who was about to fall at her feet again, straightened up instantly.

“… I… the family, of course, and then the local people…”

“Okay, so then, just wind up all this right now!” When she got up to leave with these words, the two teardrops mentioned earlier, along with a couple of companions, leapt on his cheeks.

She saw them, but strode out of class pretending not to notice. She had gone some way. But then she stopped and ran back.

He was not free of the usual style of venting his sor­rows—lying face down on the desk, letting them flow down to the ground. Actually, he was practicing it then.

She tapped his shoulder. He did not raise his head.

“I don’t think much of the proverb about milk and crying babies—or crying boyfriends.”

He tried to figure out the meaning of that statement staring into the little corridor of darkness between his eyes and the ground under the desk. He could not wrap his head around it; but though the meaning slipped away from his grasp, her reference to milk made him drool a bit. The thought of sucking her nipples made his drooped-down neck-vertebrae straighten up towards her face, actually, rather like his member leaping to life. Careful not to let out even a tiny indication of his inner drooling, he said, “I want to suckle your breasts.”

That, she had not anticipated. She felt as though his statement had touched both her breasts safely tamed inside a 34-inch-bra—but carefully barring the sensation from get­ting registered on her face, she responded strongly: “Cchhi!”. But it did not hit him on the face strongly enough.

“I want to!” He repeated. “Lower your voice!” she snapped.

She looked at his face. When it seemed as though his ravenous stare might tear out both her breasts and flee, she suggested, “Get up, come, let us go.”

As they walked together, she asked him. “Why are you trying to romance me? You are so full of the fear of your folks and the neighbours?”

“Not fear,” he said. “Just to make sure people don’t know right now… just that.”

“Will you dump me in the end, and say that your folks won’t let you marry a Nazrani woman?”

“Now, now, what’s this?” He touched her hand. “I’ll make a vow on Lord Vishnu of Guruvayoor … that I’ll marry this Christian girl!”

She laughed.

“So… then… tomorrow…” As he twisted and turned, not knowing how to tell her again, she completed what he could not say: “You’ve to cover yourself with a scarf!”

He nodded. But noticing that her face was beginning to look cloudy and stormy once again, he quickly built the traditional ridge to stop the storm waters: “Please, this is needed, in the present situation. Please, please understand. Being the only child of two bureaucrats … there is some tension … should I stoke it right now… that’s why…”

“Ah, good luck that my parents are both farmers. What would we have done if they were bureaucrats, right?”

He didn’t really get what she said.

“NOT BAD, NOT bad at all,” she said, looking around.

He was busy scanning the area to make sure that no one was around.

“No one’s growing any crops around here,” she noted, looking around the fallow fields stretching all around as far as the eye could reach. “Shall we buy some paddy land here after we marry and become farmers?”

He did not reply; he was trying to find out how to get on a small patch of raised land overgrown with wild growth in the middle of the fields.

He was not free of the usual style of venting his sorrows—lying face down on the desk, letting the tears flow down to the ground. Actually, he was practising it then. She tapped his shoulder. He did not raise his head

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“Will the gandakashala rice grow here?” She asked.

He was feeling relieved at not finding signs of fre­quent visits by outsiders—beer bottles, cigarette stubs, used condoms stretched out in exhaustion.

“You’re not listening to me?” She sounded angry.

“What did you say?”

“Your mind is somewhere else.”

“Hey, no. I am just checking if there’s someone around here.”

“What if there is? Will they eat us up?”

“Not that…”

“Then?”

“Nothing. Don’t get so pissed off!”

“I am not getting pissed off. You wanted to come here. I came. You aren’t comfortable still. That’s why I am asking you!”

“No, not that, our safety…”

“If you feel that there’s a safety problem, come then, let’s leave right now.”

“I didn’t say that.”

She took out the water-bottle from the bag and took a sip. Then held it out to him. He refused it with a wave of his hand.

He had found the path into the wild patch by then. A rough path hewed by those who went in and out now and then. Like a hair-partition.

“Shall we walk a bit?” she asked.

“Walk after riding the bike so long? Let’s sit somewhere.”

She pointed to the wooden bridge across the water-channel that connected the raised land and the fields. “OK, then let’s go sit there.”

“Let’s go sit inside there,” he said.

“Why go inside? Isn’t it really nice here?”

The same old trio of anger-tears-disappointment appeared on his face again. Because they were yet undecided about where they were to flow out through—eyes or tongue— there was a pause. In the end the eyes restaged the old drama.

“Why are your eyes welling?”

Not letting go of the old style, he said, “Nothing.”

“Tell me, boy!”

“You don’t give a paisa for what I say, do you?”

“What happened here, to count the paisa?”

“You’re teasing me so! For wanting to go and sit inside there.”

“Isn’t it enough to sit here? Why are you so stubborn about going in there?”

“I want to hug and kiss you. It won’t be okay here.”

“You can do it anywhere, have I told you not to do it?”

“Not that…”

“Then what?”

“Would’ve been better with some… more privacy….” He muttered.

She was mightily amused. “It’s nothing but privacy around here! Hug me, eda!”

He did not reply; just looked at her. Her eyes fell on a long wound-scar on his neck.

“This scar looks nice on you.”

He was still silent. She came up close, hugged him, and pressed her lips on that scar. Her tongue traced the minus-sign of the scar, leaving a wet trail.

His breath bloomed in her ear like the rearing call of a trumpet.

“Don’t tickle me, boy!” she said, shaking her head, getting it off her ear.

He held her hand and said, “Let’s go over there.”

“What for? Why not right here?”

He held her close. “There, we can sit close together like two plants. See, here, there’s the huge sky above and the big fields all around. They keep staring at us.”

She turned to him with a slight smile. “You know well that I’ll fall for this kind of talk, right?”

He laughed.

When they rode the bike on the rough path through the dense foliage, she asked, “Why can’t we leave the bike here?”

“It’s been with us, this chap. Let it see what we are up to.”

“But we aren’t up to anything?”

“Sure, sure—but still?”

“Isn’t it that you are scared that someone may see the bike and check inside?”

The conversation stopped like the breath of someone who was swiftly hung to death.

“Don’t push it in too much,” she said, “If you are allergic to the sky and the fields, I am allergic to vehicles. Keep it there. No one’s going to see it from outside.”

He stopped the bike and got off. She hung her bag on the handle. They put the bike’s keys in her bag.

They walked, and came upon a nice, round, bed of grass.

“Wow, this is good,” she said, smiling. “Honeymoon style!”

“Why don’t we celebrate our honeymoon here?”

“Ah, by that time, other fellows would have taken over this place and built flats on it, my dear!”

“Then let’s not wait. Let’s just have our honeymoon now!”

“Ayyada! Look at him. I knew well that this is what’s niggling you!”

“Hey, no, don’t talk nonsense.”

“Your eyes go straight for my cleavage if I don’t watch out for a moment!”

“Now… but anyone would do that?”

“Not just mine! I’ve seen you look at many girls in our class—at their bums and tits and all—like a butcher star­ing at a fat goat!”

“Pardon me!”

“I’ll pardon you. I don’t know about those women, though.”

He sat on the grass. Green, from leaves of tender ages to rotting ones, lay scattered all around.

Her eyes fell on a long wound-scar on his neck.‘This scar looks nice on you.’ He was still silent. She came up close, hugged him, and pressed her lips on that scar. Her tongue traced the minus-sign of the scar, leaving a wet trail

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“Lie down on my lap, here. Let me love you a little.”

“Why lie on your lap for that? Here—isn’t it enough to sit down here and just hug?”

“No, but you do it this way, don’t you? The style?”

She looked deep into his eyes. The effort made by his lips, brows, and other such servants of his expression to convey the urgency of that request addressed to her looked funny to her, but she did not laugh.

“You want to put your hand inside my dress. It’ll be easier if I lie in your lap. Excellent strategy!”

The many muscles on his face that served to make up his expression instantly recoiled and assumed their normal position. Another guy, Mortification, took their place.

“It was a strategy, am I right?”

He nodded, agreeing. She was seeing so weak a nod for the very first time.

She laid her head on his shoulder and said, “Hey, boy—I didn’t fall for your muscles or your head of hair or beard. I made a mistake.”

He shook her off his shoulder and asked, “Mistake? Why did you say that?”

“Eda, sometimes we are in a hurry and jump on the wrong bus, don’t we? Without reading the destination board? If we want, we can always ring the bell or jump off. Or just continue. I’d thought of ringing the bell some­time in between. Then I decided, no.”

“Why?”

“I was in, wasn’t I? Have to get a chance to get out first, right?”

He felt a rush of love for her then. He pulled her into the strength of his arms and kissed her covered breasts.

“My chachan says that boys like you have Che Guevara’s flamboyant garb and that wimpy, weepy mind of old Venu Nagavally’s characters in the movies!”

He didn’t get that either, but in the spirit of that guer­rilla operation in the wild, he let himself smile.

She too, would turn to traditional styles, like him, once in a while. “Tell me,” she asked, “How much do you love me?”

His strength drained away at that unexpected thrust.

“No, not your usual dialogues—as much as your sweat, as much as the sky etc etc. Tell me—how much, really?”

Maybe because he sensed that the usual response he’d picked up from the movies—of taking her face in both hands, raising it, locking his eyes in hers, and deliver­ing the standard lines—might be too much here. So he slowly pressed his face on her shoulder and debated whether to present the well-known line much used in popular movies and magazines, or to draw on the poor man’s refuge, the Bible. But before he could decide, she asked again, “What? You have nothing to say?”

“If I tell you what I thought, you will tease me.”

“Never mind, shoot!”

“That line from the Bible, the one that says, ‘even if you don’t clothe yourself, you must clothe her…’, will it do?”

“Ayyo? Need we go that far? Do you have the strength to lift all that up and carry all the way? Just tell me one thing for now: simply, so that I can be sure. Or else, I’ll start hating myself. We have to have respect for our­selves, after all? That’s why I am asking you. Tell me, do you really like me? Or is it just my body that you like?”

He did not reply. It was completely quiet there except for the murmur of the breeze blowing through the foliage.

“Loving the body isn’t such a bad thing. Just that I need to know. Isn’t it important for me to know which side of the scales weigh more in your love?”

He stayed silent for some time and then asked. “Do we have to spoil this precious time with such questions?”

“Eda, I told you—I just need to be sure. That I came here, that I sit here with you now, that we may copulate here – shouldn’t I know if it is out of love or if it is just what you men keep talking of—a hook up?”

His eyes seemed fixed on the insects creeping and running on the leaves. He got up. “Let’s leave,” he said.

“Yes. But tell me, can you not answer my question?”

Like the chorus appearing in one of Kavalam Narayana Panicker’s plays, the tears of old-style ran into his eyes again.

“You don’t trust me?”

“Did I say that?” She asked.

“A little before you asked me how much I love you. Have you ever tried analysing the word ‘trust’—Vishvaasam?”

No, she shook her head, since, as a student of English literature, she did not need to parse Malayalam words and phrases or fix their broken joints.

“If you take away ‘..shvaasam’—which means ‘breath’—from that word, it is nothing at all.” His voice grew mature with authority. “I am that word, and you are the shvaasam in it.”

It was this ability of his, to transform himself into someone who could utter ripe and mellow words, that had stopped her each time she tried to get off their love.

“Such big words, in the mouth of a twenty-one-year-old?” She asked, smiling slightly.

He tried to hide the sheer effort of saying so much, and hurried her.

“Come here,” she called.

He was not listening.

“Eda, I said, come here.”

He could not oppose this command. Faster than a stone from a slingshot, he fell into her arms. Her lips pulled up his lips like a fishhook.

“AND THEN WHAT happened?” Sumathi Amma hurried her husband. “Where did you see all this from?”

“Will tell you,” Vasudevan gestured to her to be patient till the murmur of hunger in his tummy subsided somewhat.

Sumathi opened her cataract-covered eyes as much as she could.

“I just crouched in the bushes there soundlessly.”

“Did they see?”

“How could they? I didn’t even breathe and the leaves covered me well. Nobody could see me.”

“And?”

“And what? The boy and girl started doing all they could do to each other.”

“Clothed?” Sumathi Amma was still curious.

“They took all their clothes off and piled them on the bike, right at the start.”

“Why did they do that?”

Vasudevan was irritated, “Look here, if you want to know such things, go and ask them! This curiosity is a bit too much!”

She did not speak. Just looked at the little patch of sky above. Just as she was beginning to smile at herself at the fun of lying naked at this age staring at the sky, she heard his loud cry. she leapt up instantly and ran to the bike. The sight left her speechless for a moment

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“Father of my kids, don’t be mad. What happened next?”

“That boy is all muscle. When he was sucking her nip­ples, she was telling him—don’t do it like a calf suckling!”

“And the boy?”

“Ah! He was more and more like a calf!”

“Did she like it?”

“Did she? She was murmuring something, her eyes shut, like she was praying or something.”

“And after that?”

“That boy is the hurrying sort. He wanted to fuck. The girl was saying, this is the last day, let’s not do it.”

“Last day of what?”

“Her period, of course.”

“And he listened?”

“No, the rushed chap just opened her legs and went in.”

“Father of my kids, he’s some fellow!”

“That’s just a false feeling. The fool didn’t last. Went up and down the swing just two times and then fell on the ground in a heap!”

“Why was that?”

“That’s all he had. The poor child. Not strong.”

Sumathi thought that was a fine way of putting it. She giggled loudly.

“The girl is a fine one, though. She giggled louder than you now and the poor chap just folded up.” Vasudevan low­ered his voice and continued, “Then seeing his blood-stained weenie, she said, ‘Oh this looks like a new-born baby!’”

Sumathi Amma laughed again. But she suddenly stopped to ask: “did the boy laugh too?”

“No, how! The silly sod! He began to leap to his feet, but she pulled him down hard and climbed on him. He tried to shake her off but she said, go only after we’ve loved some more.”

“And did they make love?”

“Who knows? Didn’t that pork from yesterday start stirring in my tummy then?”

“Would they have?” Sumathi Amma’s curiosity was getting worse.

“That boy doesn’t have it in him for that. He has a body like those wild wrestlers, that is all.”

“LET’S GO NOW,” he said. “There’s a chuttuvilakku worship in the temple today. I have to be home for it.”

“Let’s stay some more. Weren’t you the one who wanted to come badly?”

“Get up! Someone may see us and that’ll be bad enough.”

“You weren’t so scared all this while?”

“Listen to me,” he tore off her arm from his body forcefully and got up.

She did not speak. Just looked at the little patch of sky above enclosed in the circle made by the tall heads of the shrubs. Just as she was beginning to smile at herself at the fun of lying naked at this age staring at the sky, she heard his loud cry. She leapt up instantly and ran to the bike. She saw him sobbing pathetically, leaning on the bike. The sight left her speechless for a moment. Then she went up close and gently put her hand on his shoulder. Don’t cry, she said. He shook away her hand and began to wail.

“IS VASUCHETAN at home?”

“Who?”

“Kuttan’s mom, this is me, Jose. Vasuchetan asked me to come.”

“He’ll be back—just gone to take a dump.”

“How are you, Kuttan’s mom?”

“My dear Jose, don’t ask me the same thing whenever you come? Didn’t I tell you? It is my fate to be bed-ridden like this, with a bad leg.”

“Don’t say such things, please. Can anyone predict when the good Lord will send blessings?”

Sumathi Amma said nothing to that.

Seeing Vasudevan, Jose, who was sitting on the half-wall of the veranda, stood up. Vasudevan gestured to him to sit, and going in, indicated that he would be back soon.

Waking up Sumathi Amma who was dozing, he said, “Jose paid seven thousand for the two mobile phones. He could have given us some more.”

“Why did you steal their clothes also?” She asked, sleepily.

“Got all of it. Just fun!”

THE COLOUR OF the sky turned red and then black.

When he began to sob loudly again, she roared at him “Stop that, NOW!” The sob exited his throat instantly.

“I am not clothed,” she spat, “Will you clothe me?”

He had no reply.

Between the two of them, life-breath, in two different speeds, rose and fell.

The night covered her with its black garments. Setting down the weight of her body upon that black, she asked him. “I am leaving. Are you coming?”

(This story has been translated from Malayalam by J Devika. She is a feminist historian and social researcher)

About The Author

Unni R

Unni R is an author and a screenwriter. His new anthology of short stories, Malayali Memorial, will be published by Penguin in 2023

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