The Covenant of Water

Big Ammachi and Uplift Master travel to Elsie’s family estate to try to find her. She has been gone for six months, and everyone—especially Baby Mol—misses her. Elsie’s father, Chandy, has died, and they are there to pay their respects. Elsie clings to Big Ammachi but refuses to come back to Parambil; the distance between Philipose and Elsie is not to be easily healed.

Back at Parambil, Big Ammachi has other concerns: “Her son has become an opium eater” (419). After his fall and the death of his son, Philipose has retreated into drugs in order to cope with his pain. When Big Ammachi does not return with Elsie, Baby Mol is inconsolable. She seems to be suffering from a respiratory illness, but Big Ammachi thinks that “Baby Mol’s real sickness is her wounded soul” (420). Big Ammachi writes to Elsie, begging her to come back to Parambil, for Baby Mol’s sake. Elsie finally acquiesces. When Philipose sees her, he is at first elated, but he soon realizes that Elsie has not returned for his sake. The emotional crevasse between them widens.

Elsie intends only to stay long enough to placate the distraught Baby Mol; however, the monsoon arrives shortly after, and the rains come in with a vengeance. She cannot leave the property, nor can anyone communicate with the outside world. Elsie is nearly despondent, but she responds, albeit briefly, to Philipose’s efforts to communicate with her. She tells him that she needs his forgiveness, though he does not fully understand why. He is still in the depths of his addiction. One night, he brings her to his room, and they again make love. While it comforts him, Elsie only looks more dejected.

Even after the monsoon departs, Elsie decides to stay. She has resumed work in her art studio, working on a sculpture of a woman in stone. Big Ammachi informs Philipose that the reason she stays is obvious: she is again pregnant. Philipose, in the midst of his opium fugues, decides that the baby will be a boy, as if their first son will be reborn. In the middle of the night, Philipose believes that the sculpture on which Elsie is working is trapped; Elsie has not yet fashioned a face for the sculpture. Thus, Philipose destroys the sculpture and has Shamuel hide the evidence. Elsie tells Philipose that he has never actually supported her artistic endeavors.

The chapter ends with one of Philipose’s articles for his Ordinary Man column, about cures for warts. Ultimately, it reads like a philosophical article about the power of belief.

Elsie tries to stay away from Philipose for the rest of her pregnancy. Big Ammachi, now in her sixties, knows they will need help with the baby, so she hires a woman named Anna for the purpose. Anna quickly becomes part of the family. They prepare the delivery room for Elsie; it is the same room in which Big Ammachi gave birth to Baby Mol and Philipose.

Elsie begins to have contractions in what appears to be the seventh month of pregnancy. She asks Big Ammachi to care for the child in case something happens to her during delivery. Indeed, the delivery is difficult: the baby is breach, and Elsie loses a great deal of blood during the delivery. Anna, however, knows what to do, pinching the womb tight to stop the flow of blood. Elsie and the child will both survive, though Philipose is distraught to find that the baby is a girl—not the son he though would replace Ninan. Elsie decides to name the girl after Big Ammachi. It is the first time she has heard her “very own Christian name” in a long time (458). The child will be called Mariamma.

Elsie refuses to bond with the baby. Big Ammachi, on the other hand, delights in taking care of her granddaughter and namesake. After three weeks of tears and depression, Elsie returns to the river stream behind the estate to bathe. She does not return.

The family and Shamuel search for Elsie for days, but they do not find her: “The best they can hope for now is word of a body being discovered downstream” (462). Big Ammachi goes to the nature sculpture that Elsie has been working on—the nest, as they refer to it—and finds a piece of paper with a charcoal drawing. It is Elsie’s work, depicting the baby in the arms of Big Ammachi. Now Big Ammachi knows that Elsie is gone, that the responsibility of raising the child is hers—and Anna’s. But Big Ammachi tells no one what she has found; it is her secret to keep.