The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

Author:Abraham Verghese
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2023-04-04T17:54:29+00:00

CHAPTER 47

Fear the Tree

1945, Parambil

It’ll be gone by evening, darling! That’s what he should say. Instead, he hesitates long enough for the rooster to crow again. “That tree?” he says. The false note in his voice sickens him.

Her gaze retreats. Her smile crumples like that of a child offered sweets only to have them snatched away. In a planet divided into those who keep their word and those who just speak words, she’s given her body to one of the latter.

“It’s all right, Philipose—”

“No, no, please, dear Elsie, let me explain. I’ll cut it down. I will. I promise, yes. But will you give me some time?”

“Of course,” she says. But already he feels the fissure, the seam in their union. If only he could step back. Or if only she’d made another wish.

“Thank you, dear Elsie. Here’s the thing . . .”

His story “The Plavu Man” struck a peculiar chord with some readers. A few people make pilgrimages to see this plavu, believing that his story is real and that this is the very tree described, and nothing Philipose says will change their minds. Others write to him, care of the newspaper, requesting their letters be placed in the tree, tucked into its hollow—their words are addressed to the departed soul they are trying to track down. All this prompted his editor to commission a photo of Philipose in front of the tree.

“The photographer comes soon. Meanwhile, I will also get Shamuel’s blessing. You see, he’s often told me the story of his father and my father planting this tree when they cleared the land. This was the first. When I was a boy, Shamuel showed me how. We dug a hole, put one giant chakka inside, intact. From the hundred seeds inside that crocodile skin, twenty sprouts pushed up. Any one of them could have been its own tree. But we weaved them all together, forced them to be one mighty plavu.” He has said too much, he knows.

From the kitchen, he hears pots rattling. A raucous crow calls to its mate, Look at our idiot friend, opening his mouth when it should have stayed shut.

“Don’t worry. Don’t ask Shamuel. You don’t need to—”

“Elsie, no! Pretend it’s gone. Consider your wish fulfilled. Ask me something that I can do right now, ask me—”

“It’s all right,” she says more gently than he deserves, hunching her shoulders into her nightgown, corralling her breasts. “I don’t need anything else.” She rises, tall and proud, fastening the buttons from top down until the dark triangle of her womanhood and the gleam of her thighs are just a memory.

She pauses at the doorway. Filtered by the plavu leaves, the light through the window illuminates those gray-blue irises that glint like graphite.

“But Philipose? Please . . . please keep your word about my art?”

He hears her faintly outside chatting with Baby Mol, and then with Big Ammachi and Lizzi, their voices bright, happy, hers low-pitched, easier to discern than theirs.

The photographer has come and gone, and weeks and months pass.

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