Gas

Does being confined to a hospital bed give husbands better capacity for kindness toward their wives?

- Nikhita Thomas

On Sunday mornings Da liked to ring up other married men and interrogate them. Enthado? Palli poyo? What man? Went for church? In response to whatever they said he would tch-tch like a lizard and announce, Sheyyl Just now we returned. Aahne. You did not see me at Mass, or what? Then he chuckled, gleefully, because this was a lie.

We never went for Mass, let alone on Sundays. We were not even members of any parish. When he caught me looking, Da winked at me to let him be. Witnessing his performance, my mother looked up to the heavens and quietly asked for mercy. This was her performance. It may just be that my parents get some kick out of pretending to be good Christians.

That Sunday morning Da did not call anyone. Instead he held the swell of his growing belly and announced Gas. I have gas.

To remedy this he inhaled four bananas and marched over to the hahkoos with the Sunday supplement. To kill time. To berate it to death.

Is it twins? My brother ventured from outside the bathroom. Some grunts. Some heaves. A slipper flew out to answer the boy. He slunk away.

By noon and to no avail several trips had been made to the bathroom. Alert to the worry ripening our faces, Da insisted now and then—only gas. Full stop. Then he rolled out the frayed grey yoga mat and assaulted the thing with twenty jumping jacks and a surya namaskara. To cajole out a fart. Nothing.

Please, said my mother, namukku hospitalil pokam. Let us go to the hospital. Your father will come pay for it or what, he retorted from the mat. Face down and pivoted on his bloat, he looked like a seesaw. In a while we did go to the hospital.

My father, for the most part, listened to my mother though he sometimes barked at her things he felt a husband ought to bark at his wife. My brother, who in those days only emerged from his room when called for, was called for. And we—meaning me, my mother, and my brother—drove to the nearest hospital with Da.