The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on the highways. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and spill across the flooded roads. Boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. The nights are clear, but suffused with sloth and sullen expectation.īut by early June the southwest monsoon breaks and there are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month.
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