The Covenant of Water

“She’s forgotten what it’s like to see so many at worship, to feel bodies all around, to be part of the fabric instead of a thread torn from the whole.”

When Big Ammachi is first allowed to attend church, she is elated. The metaphor here reveals how important it is for Big Ammachi to be integrated into a like-minded community. The book, as a whole, shows the significance of interrelated communities and families.

“Digby was astonished to learn that a million Indian soldiers had fought in the Great War, and as many as one hundred thousand had died. Editorials opine that if Indians are to be conscripted into the British Indian Army to fight again, they won’t settle for anything less than freedom in return.”

In 1934, the rumblings of World War II have already begun. This history—that Indian soldiers were conscripted to fight in both world wars by the British empire—is still not well known. Of course, the editorials were correct: India will gain independence in 1947, just two years after the end of World War II.

“But the heartbeat of Parambil remains irregular. Neither prayers nor church nor tears restore the cadence.”

After the death of JoJo, all is unsettled; the Condition has taken yet another victim. Here, the estate is personified as a living, breathing entity. It needs all of its parts to function properly. This tragedy also points to the failure of faith, as doubt grows in its wake.

“Philipose is delighted by his first boat ride, but she keeps a close eye on him. Neither her husband nor JoJo could ever be persuaded to get on a boat, whereas this one cannot see water without wanting to challenge it.”

Big Ammachi worries for her son as he exhibits a kind of (foolish) bravery her husband and stepson did not possess. There is irony in this display, however, as Philipose will become more fearful of water over time—and, alas, he will eventually die by drowning. This is also a personification of water; the Parambil family and water are adversaries.

“The spectacle of these ruined tools of a surgeon’s livelihood fills Rune with sorrow. This is, after all, his own nightmare, though in his dream the culprit is always leprosy.”

Rune is speaking of Digby’s ruined hands, using metaphor to describe them (“tools”). Because Rune works with leprosy patients, whose hands are disfigured by the disease, he has become an expert in hand surgery. He also knows that the contagious and, at this time, incurable disease could easily devastate his own tools.

“The gift Elsie possesses is breathtaking. [...] With devastating accuracy and without judgment she has rendered Digby’s hand the way it appears, and accepted it for what it is. He has yet to.”

Elsie’s artistic talent is obvious from the time she is a child. This is also a foreshadow of what is to come: Elsie accepts Digby’s mutilated hands as he will eventually accept her leprosy (Hansen’s disease). They each help to heal the other as well as they can.

“He’s moved by the asymmetric ‘namastes’ of clawed or absent fingers, or absent hands. Imperfection is the mark of our tribe, our secret sign.”

Digby is leaving the leprosarium for Gwendolyn Gardens to farm, although he will return years later for Elsie. Digby feels he is one of these unfortunates because of his own ruined hands. It is a statement of solidarity and compassion.

“The seething humanity swarms like ants on a corpse, moving in streams and eddies that curl around stationary islands of travelers camped atop their luggage.”

Philipose arrives in Madras for college and is immediately overwhelmed. The macabre simile here implies that the city is a corpse on which humans, as ants, feed. It foreshadows Philipose’s future at a Parambil estate, which he will rarely leave.

“If Young Miss is none other than Chandy’s daughter, grown up and even more skilled with her pencils, then surely fate brought them together.”

On the train home from a failed college career—his hearing has led to his expulsion—Philipose shares a cabin with several others, including the unnamed Young Miss. She gives him a drawing as they disembark, and he finally recognizes her as Elsie. The skill with which she renders his pensive face reveals her identity.

“Inspired by her, Philipose works harder than ever. But work is her resting state, as unconscious as breathing, while he, by comparison, wields his pen too selectively, even though his subject—life—is always there.”

Philipose is a cautious writer, while Elsie is a natural artist. This reveals the first inklings of jealousy and competition that will eventually drive Philipose to prevent Elsie from traveling to show her work and leads him to destroy one of her pieces while under the influence of opium.

“So rarely does she travel away from Parambil that she forgets she’s the tiniest speck in God’s universe. Life comes from God and life is precious precisely because it is brief.”

Big Ammachi has gone to Chandy’s funeral. The wider world reminds her of her small place in it, though it also reminds her of her faith—a faith that has been tested by the deaths of JoJo and her husband, by the estrangement between her son and daughter-in-law. Ultimately, the strength of her belief wins out.

“Like a vengeful God, the real monsoon arrives soon after Elsie; it punishes them for being taken in by the pretender.”

Philipose personifies the monsoon, which possesses not only great power but also the appearance of agency. It arrives unexpectedly, just as the community believes it has already come and gone. It keeps Elsie confined to the estate, where she will stay until her daughter is born.

“That rectangular sheet of paper holds the round world and its imagined corners, the remembrances of the disappeared and the dead, and the beating hearts of the faithful who pray each night that God’s will be done, not knowing what that will be.”

This is the drawing Elsie left Big Ammachi, of the grandmother holding her granddaughter. It is an ostensible (if unreliable) suicide note. It represents another test of Big Ammachi’s fate, but it also fortifies her determination to care for Mariamma.

“Lenin is unconcerned about Mariamma’s opinion, which makes it worse. She can’t admit to anyone that though she detests him, she feels compelled to keep him in sight, in case she misses what he does next.”

This foreshadows the continuing fascination and future love affair between the two characters. Lenin is rambunctious and disobedient, while Mariamma is studious and disciplined. These opposing forces will attract, and Mariamma will ultimately save Lenin’s life.

“The sophistication of Joppan’s argument surprised Philipose. But even to think of Joppan’s argument as ‘sophisticated’ was exactly the kind of blindness Joppan was talking about. ‘Sophistication’ implied that people like Joppan or Shamuel were not entitled to use history and reason and their intellect.”

Philipose acknowledges his underlying prejudice against the pulayar. It is fitting that he uses the word “entitled”; the caste system denies the lowest caste not only education but also agency and dignity.

“If one imagines what God is saying, is that the same as God actually speaking?”

Mariamma considers her grandmother’s statement that she might become a doctor. Perhaps it is her fate, but she is not entirely sure. The difference between destiny and faith, like the fluctuation between doubt and belief, is not as great as one might originally imagine.

“Her grandmother lit the velakku [lamp] the night of her birth with the hope that her namesake might shed light on the deaths of JoJo, Ninan, and Big Ammachi, and the struggles of those like her father and Lenin who live with the Condition, that she might find a cure. The journey begins here, but she is not alone.”

Mariamma enters medical school with the support not only of the living but also of the dead and of those still suffering under the Condition. She is acknowledging that she herself is part of a larger story, a journey undertaken by the entire Parambil clan.

“No, you’re right, I have a good story. That’s the trouble. I used to believe my own story. But I don’t know. I wasn’t spared to serve God. I was spared to serve people like the pulayi who saved me.”

Lenin was saved from starvation by a young woman of the pulayar caste after the rest of his family died of smallpox. As a young man, he entered seminary, but it was not a good fit. Politics—specifically, agitating for the rights of the pulayar—draws him in. Names, in many cases in this book, are destiny.

“At Parambil two days later, when Mariamma returns with her father’s body, she and Anna Chedethi cling to each other like two drowning souls.”

The irony in the simile is clear: Philipose has drowned due to the Condition, and now Anna and Mariamma are drowning in their grief. This also foreshadows Mariamma’s determination to discover the cause and find a cure for the Condition.

“After her years in Madras with its many diversions, Mariamma’s evenings and weekends at Parambil might have felt tedious if she didn’t have a project that kept her busy: she’s fleshing out every node and branch of the Water Tree.”

Instead of a traditional family tree, the estate of Parambil has a “Water Tree,” detailing all of the drownings that have happened throughout the generations. This information will be as invaluable as Philipose’s brain in Mariamma’s search for answers.

“She washes up, still marveling at the connections in her world, invisible or forgotten, but there all the same, like a river linking people upstream with those below, whether they know it or not.”

While water is treacherous to the people of Parambil, Mariamma also—like Big Ammachi before her—understands the power and beauty of water. The simile here reflects both Digby’s and Big Ammachi’s comments earlier in the book about how all water is interconnected; so too are people, particularly in this small Christian community.

“She doesn’t trust her voice. Every surgeon has beliefs, but also a bit of Doubting Thomas in them too. They need proof. Proof is why she is here.”

Mariamma has gone to Digby to discover the truth of her parentage. The allusion to Doubting Thomas implies a connection between the profession of surgery and the St. Thomas Christian community, who are believed to have converted to Christianity after an encounter with St. Thomas himself. Mariamma is a doctor too, trained in the scientific method, and she unites the perspectives of her local community and of the medical community.

“Elsie’s letter made sense. He understood why she’d left their daughter. The reason stared at him in the curling of her fingers, the beginning of a claw hand.”

Elsie has contracted leprosy. She does not want to expose Mariamma to the disease, and she does not want her daughter to suffer under the stigma, either. The story between her and Digby comes full circle; their disfigured hands bring them together.