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a big cave with a rocky floor and a sand-plastered roof. Kovai creepers fell like a curtain, covering the entrance to the cave. Kali was amazed. Muthu had enough things stocked up there to throw a feast. Muthu started skinning the two white rats he had caught that day and brought hanging from a string on his waist. One was a male with swollen balls and the other was a female. Together, they’d make a decent amount of meat.
    The cave had everything—a penknife, a stove made with small stones, an earthen pot, wood. There was even a little money stowed away. Muthu pounded some chillies and roasted the meat. How did he manage to get wood that burnt without smoke? Even if someone were drawing water from the well, they wouldn’t know anyone was down here in the cave. Kali stretched his legs and lay down. The tasty meat went well with the arrack. The little bit of gravy at the bottom was incredibly delicious. Kali poured it into the curve of his palm and slurped it down. They both drank, ate and slept there undisturbed for several hours and emerged only in the evening.
    ‘Only snakes use the holes in wells, don’t they?’ asked Kali.
    ‘I have calamus to ward off real snakes,’ replied Muthu. ‘Its fragrance repels them. And if we smoke samburani as soon as we finish eating, the smell of the meat won’t linger.’
    Kali said, ‘No man can discover such a place. You are the snake!’
    That place must still be a secret. If anyone found out, Muthu would immediately change his hideout. But who was going to climb down that well? Even if someone did, they would need extraordinary eyes to see past the screen of kovai creepers. How many hours would he have worked inside? Muthu’s work was better than even those of professional roof-layers. He had done such a perfect job.
    It would be nice if he were here now.
    Kali sat up. Seeing this, Ponna came running. ‘Maama, do you want water?’ He nodded. She ran in. Wheneverthey were here, Ponna was more sensitive to each and every move of his and paid close attention to his every little need. Sometimes it looked like she was lost in some other work, but her mind was fully occupied with him.
    Her mother once remarked, ‘As if you have some wonder of a husband that no one else has! Even if he moves his finger a little bit, you run and stand in front of him.’
    ‘That’s right. My husband is a wonder for me,’ she replied.
    ‘Let’s see if you still run around taking care of your husband after a child is born,’ said her mother.
    ‘Even if I give birth to ten children, he will always be my first child,’ she responded, brimming with pride.
    ‘It is all right to desire. But you are greedy. Maybe that’s what has put off even the gods,’ her mother said with a sigh.
    The conversation ended there, and silence fell.
    Now, when Ponna brought Kali an aluminium pitcher full of water, he drained it in a single gulp.
    She laughed, ‘Were you this thirsty?’
    He was about to say, ‘Yes, but it is definitely less than Pavatha’s thirst,’ but he stopped himself. Perhaps because that was the day the deity went back to the hill, all his thoughts revolved around that one event.
    ‘When is your brother coming?’ he said to her.
    Ponna said, ‘He went somewhere in the morning and has not returned yet. But he’ll be here in time to eat. Today it’s your favourite: drumstick.’
    Kali’s lips widened into a smile, but his heart was not in it; his mind was elsewhere. He felt that if he made Ponna lienext to him, embraced her tightly and cushioned his head on her breasts, all his broodings would vanish. In the middle of the day, in the shadow of the tree … Why was his mind stuck on impossible things? He held her hand and gently rubbed it against his cheek. But then her mother called from inside. Had her sister-in-law been at home, there wouldn’t have been so much work for Ponna. But she, along with her child, had gone to her mother’s house. They had been invited to keep the fast