armavirumque

The Ayemenem River that I have just mentioned is probably the most intelligible and present, and also the most fatal border that appears in The God of Small Things. There is the Ayemenem House, the protagonists’ home, on one side, and the History House on the other side, which is the goal of Estha’s plans to run away, the place where Ammu and Velutha meet and the place where Velutha is eventually beaten up by the policemen. The river itself becomes fatal to Sophie Mol, who dies when she tries to cross it.

The transgressions of the river are not only of a topographical nature, but are also transgressions in a figurative sense. Ammu’s and Velutha’s relationship, which takes place on the other side of the river, is certainly the worst transgression of rules by traditional Indian standards, because it violates the caste system. Alex Tickell points out where exactly the significance of this transgression is to be found: “As a paravan, Velutha in TGST belongs to this stigmatized ‘untouchable’ group, and it is this fact that makes his affair with Ammu – and their mutual erotic ‘touching’ – such  a transgressive act.” (2007, 23).

Estha, Rahel and Sophie Mol run away from their family, in search of a new home. Estha does not plan to do this to teach his mother a lesson or to be found and regained, which are probably the motives of most small children who escape from their home, but, in his childlike naivety, he is serious about leaving and living on his own. This becomes clear when he talks to Rahel about it: “‘Are we going to become communists?’ Rahel asked. ‘Might have to.’ Estha-the-Practical.” (Roy 1997, 200). And they even lie to Velutha about their plans, when he helps them fixing the boat: “[Velutha:] ‘I don’t want you playing any silly games on this river.’ ‘We won’t. We promise. We’ll use it only when you’re with us.’” (Roy 1997, 213).

So I guess that Estha is well aware of the fact that he is about to break the rules by crossing the river. But from his perspective, it is his only option, because another serious transgression has happened before, one of parental rules, when Ammu told her children:

‘If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here! None of this would have happened! I wouldn’t be here! I would have been free! I should have dumped you in an orphanage the day you were born! You’re the millstones round my neck! [...] Just go away!’ Ammu had said. ‘Why can’t you just go away and leave me alone?’ (Roy 1997, 253)

What could be more cruel for children than hearing this from their mother? Thus it appears to me that Estha can not be blamed for what he did, he is, after all, a 8-year-old boy in a very tough situation. There is, however, no way around it that Estha is the one setting off the events that result in Sophie Mol’s death. The narrator mentions this, too:

Her [Margaret Kochamma’s] mind fastened like a limpet onto the notion that Estha was somehow responsible for Sophie Mol’s death. Odd, considering that Margaret Kochamma didn’t know that it was Estha [...] who had broken the rules and rowed Sophie Mol and Rahel across the river in the afternoons in a little boat, [...] Estha who had made the back verandah of the History House their home away from home, [...] Estha who had decided that though it was dark and raining, the Time Had Come for them to run away, because Ammu didn’t want them any more.

Despite not knowing any of this, why did Margaret Kochamma blame Estha for what had happened to Sophie? Perhaps she had a mother’s instinct. (Roy 1997, 264)

What plays an even bigger part in Estha becoming traumatized is a second transgression of rules, the betrayal of Velutha at the police station, when he accuses him of Sophie Mol’s death: “But worst of all, he [Estha] carried inside him the memory of a young man with an old man’s mouth. [...] And what had Estha done? He had looked into that beloved face and said: Yes. Yes, it was him.” (Roy 1997, 32).

When the story is told from Rahel’s point of view 23 years later, she, too, blames her mother, her brother and herself, accusing them and herself of crossing borders:

Perhaps Ammu, Estha and she were the worst transgressors. But it wasn’t just them. It was the others too. They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much. (Roy 1997, 31)

And later she reflects:

Had they been deceived into doing what they did [betraying Velutha]? Had they been tricked into condemnation? In a way, yes. But it wasn’t as simple as that. They both knew that they had been given a choice.  And how quick they had been in the choosing! (Roy 1997, 318-319)

But as 8-year-olds, the twins neither see through Baby Kochamma’s plan to mislead them into a wrong accusation of Velutha, nor do they know the concept of the love laws and their borders. Just like they do not see a boundary between each other – they think of themselves as one entity and one remembers things that only the other experienced – and just like the Food Products Organization banned their factory’s banana jam because it was not clearly on one side of the border that separates jam from jelly.

The problem is that nobody absolves them of their seeming guilt. The narrator himself wishes for “a counsellor with a fancy degree, who would sit them down and say, in one of many ways: ‘You’re not the Sinners. You’re the Sinned Against. You were only children. You had no control. You are the victims, not the perpetrators.’” (Roy 1997, 191).

Next chapter: 05. Returning and the loss of space, time and culture