He looked into her eyes with compassion, placed the gold in her hand, and went inside.

# Chapter Seven

Dasacharya, unable to bear his hunger, lay tossing on his mat, muttering "Narayana, Narayana," as his stomach grumbled and twisted in pain. His son, unable to sleep, woke his mother.

"Amma, bad smell, bad smell," he said. Dasacharya, tormented by hunger, felt nothing. But his wife replied, "Yes, there is." She nudged her husband insistently, "It’s you, the bad smell."

"The summer heat—the corpse is rotting, the stench is spreading through the whole agrahara," she said. Half-asleep, Lakshmidevamma heard someone outside cry, "Naranappa’s ghost, ghost!" and shrieked in terror. She shuddered, wondering if the spirit of the corpse was indeed wandering, spreading its pollution.

* * *

In her hut, Gudiyamma could not sleep for the stench. She sat up in the darkness, unable to see anything. She stepped outside. The washerwomen had set fire to the hut, and now, in the ashes, the embers glimmered in the wind. In the distant thicket, she saw a swarm of fireflies flickering. She walked softly towards them, unwrapped her rag, and stood naked in the cool night air, waving her cloth playfully. She caught the twinkling fireflies in the rag, then ran back to her hut and released them inside. The fireflies darted about, casting a faint, shimmering light in the gloom. With her silver bangle, she searched the floor, while she moaned...

Samskara

Appa and Amma, taking up the silver ladle, muttered, “Ish! What is this girl doing at this hour?” “A rat has died, what a misfortune—ish!” Muttering thus, Belli searched about, and in the corner, in the dim glow of fireflies, she saw the rat lying cold. “Ayayyappa!” she cried, recoiling, then lifted it by the tail, threw it outside, and returned. “What curse has befallen these rats, that they run and die like this—these wretched she-rats!” she cursed, tore off a piece of cloth, lay down on the floor, and soon fell asleep.

* * *

Dasacharya, Venkataramanacharya, Srinivasacharya, Gundacharya, Hanumanthacharya, Lakshmanacharya, Garudacharya, and Durgabhatta, their eyes red from sleeplessness and the burning hunger gnawing at their bellies, rose at dawn, washed their faces, and came to the chavadi, cursing Narayanappa, the inauspicious one who had brought such calamity upon the agrahara. Inside their homes, the children, warned of misfortune, played in the courtyard and backyard. The women were fearful: what if the ghost of Narayanappa, wandering the streets, trampled the children? The children, not allowed inside, were scolded and pushed in, and the doors were bolted. Never before, even in broad daylight, had the doors of the houses been shut like this. There was no rangavalli drawn at the threshold, no sacred water sprinkled in the courtyard; though it was morning, the agrahara did not seem to awaken. It felt desolate. In every dark room of every house, it was as if a corpse lay hidden.

On the chavadi, the Brahmins sat with their heads in their hands,