The Covenant of Water

The group working with Mariamma on the cadaver nickname her Henrietta after Henry Gray of Gray’s Anatomy. The work is going well, and she is also excited to receive a letter from Lenin; they have been writing to each other through the ensuing years of her college attendance and his seminary studies. They are both busy with their respective careers, and 14 months pass quickly. Mariamma lets Philipose know that her final exams are upon her; she has been asked to take the advanced exam in anatomy for a prize.

She receives another letter from Lenin, who admits he has lost his faith in God: “I’m lost,” he says (535). He is drawn to the Communist party instead. She is preoccupied with Lenin’s troubles when she arrives for her final exam. She finds a lone professor in an office who will question her after she has completed the physical part of the exam. He asks her to put her hand in his pocket and proceeds to force her to masturbate him; this is in exchange for a passing grade. However, Mariamma decides to fight back, squeezing the man’s penis with as much strength as she has. The two fall into a glass table, and Mariamma injures her head. After hearing the screams from the office, a fellow classmate rescues her.

Mariamma is dealing with the aftermath of the assault. Lenin has found out about the incident, and he shows up on campus to comfort her. He convinces her to go to the beach and out into the ocean with him. The sojourn helps her to feel better, and she reflects upon her feelings for Lenin. He always bothered her, but she could not help but to feel drawn to him.

Lenin tells her his story: He has been attacked and has finally recuperated. This is why she did not hear from him for so long. She noticed the scar on his face, but did not comment on it until he told his story. However, it is worse than she had feared: Lenin has joined the Naxalites, the extreme left-wing group labeled terrorists by the Indian government. He has watched a friend be killed, and he is now, by definition, a wanted man.

Mariamma cannot sleep after what Lenin has told her, and she finally realizes that she is in love with him—be he is now effectively an exile. She also has no doubt that “[h]e loves her too” (561). But now that love is impossible. They make love—Mariamma is sure that she will never see him again—and he asks her to go away with him. If they are married, then they can go into hiding together. Mariamma is furious. She wants him to consider that he could have chosen her instead of political extremism.

Though Mariamma knows that Lenin will either be imprisoned or executed, she cannot stop herself from thinking of a life with him. She starts to experience nausea and worries that she is pregnant. She is interning at the women’s hospital and her nurse, Akila, assures her that she is not. Akila knows that many women who intern at the hospital and witness women giving birth often have phantom symptoms.

It turns out that Akila is right: Mariamma is not pregnant. She returns to Parambil for the Christmas holidays. When she is asked about Lenin, she decides to feign innocence, claiming she has not heard from him in some time. Philipose already knows about Lenin’s association with the Naxalites, and he sympathizes with Lenin’s choice. Lenin has always been focused on social justice—even if this is a dangerous way of going about it.

Father and daughter bond over Mariamma’s stories about medical school, though she does not tell him about the sexual assault. She hears from Anna that Joppan’s business has been shuttered. She also visits the nest, her mother’s natural sculpture from before she was born. On the way back to the train station, Philipose tells Mariamma more about Joppan; Philipose has again offered him a position on the estate.

Dr. Uma Ramasamy wants Mariamma to work with her in the Department of Pathology. While Mariamma has always believed her strongest work was in anatomy, she cannot refuse Dr. Ramasamy’s offer. The chance to work with a renowned female pathologist on the scourge of leprosy is too tempting. So, Mariamma takes the internship, and Ramasamy is immediately impressed with her talents.

Meanwhile, Joppan has accepted the estate manager’s job at Parambil. While it appears that the extended family at Parambil will finally be coming back together, Ramasamy comes to the lab to give Mariamma some terrible news.

Philipose is in Cochin on assignment from the newspaper. After dinner, he happens to find an art catalogue that some tourists left behind. He is stunned to find that the cover features of picture of a sculpture that looks almost exactly like the Stone Woman sculpture Elsie had created so many years ago—the sculpture he destroyed while high on opium. He has always assumed Elsie was dead, though a body was never found. Now he knows he must return to Madras to see this work, to find out if Elsie is still alive.

He must take a train that crosses water to get there, but his urgency will not allow him to be afraid. As the train crosses the river, there is a crash, and his compartment falls into the water. He is injured, though not gravely, but he sees a child who he thinks is drowning. He sinks into the water to try to save the boy.

Mariamma is summoned to the morgue to identify her father’s body. She is overwhelmed: “He wasn’t dead. It was a mistake” (594). She has a letter from him that has just reached her. In the letter, he says nothing about his suspicions about whether her mother is still alive, though he makes oblique references to the situation.

When she returns to Parambil, she is greeted by Anna Chedethi and Uplift Master. Everyone is in shock, but Mariamma knows that Philipose’s death may provide some answers for science. She has asked Dr. Ramasamy to remove her father’s brain so that the two of them can study it.

Mariamma brings the Water Tree genealogy to Ramasamy so they can both pore over the evidence. Mariamma is still searching for an answer to the Condition. Ramasamy informs Mariamma that her father’s injuries were not life-threatening; he simply drowned. When they are finally able to autopsy the brain, Ramasamy claims that he has a “variant of neurofibromatosis, or von Recklinghausen’s disease” (601). It is a condition that interferes with hearing, balance, and orientation; when someone with this disease is not on solid land, they lose their bearings. Hence, the tradition of drowning within the family. Mariamma decides at that moment that she will continue her studies—but in neuroscience. She wants to find a cure for the Condition. She is admitted to one of the most prestigious schools in India, but first she must do an internship: she will be posted at the new hospital in Parambil.