Summary
Mariamma and her husband grapple with Jojo's death, and the spirit of Jojo's mother sabotages their food and home. Heightening her despair, Mariamma miscarries several times. One day, Big Appachen's distant cousin, an elderly woman named Odat Kochamma, arrives and takes over cooking responsibilities for Mariamma's mother, who is weakened by a mysterious disease after a feverish monsoon season. Odat's teasing, often crude humor lifts Mariamma's spirits. Unable to "walk past the grave of one child and then go inside and baptize another," Baby Mol remains unbaptized and unnamed until she nearly dies of whooping cough. Baby Mol delights in the baptismal waters, demonstrating she is unaffected by the Condition, and exhibits prescient abilities, such as predicting when visitors will arrive. She is beloved and treasured by her entire family.
One day, a young priest notices Baby Mol and points out that there is something "wrong" with her. Mariamma realizes that, in her fear over the Condition, she did not notice Baby Mol's physical and developmental abnormalities. With her mother, Mariamma takes Baby Mol to a doctor in Cochin.
The doctor, Rune Orqvist, is a Swedish physician who settled in Cochin after drunkenly washing ashore. Despite his intemperate, vice-filled lifestyle, he is beloved by patients from diverse backgrounds due to his genuine bedside manner, cultural awareness, equitable fees, and language skills. Mariamma explains The Condition to him; though he cannot treat the family history of drowning, he diagnoses Baby Mol with a thyroid disorder that will leave her physically and mentally stunted. He assures Mariamma that Baby Mol was born with this condition and that it is her God-given fate, not a product of poor or neglectful parenting. He also diagnoses Mariamma's mother with advanced cancer, providing her with medication to ease her final months of suffering.
That night, Rune contemplates his life and sees a man with leprosy, an image that sparks his spiritual awakening. Realizing that all people and nature are connected, Rune joins a monastery and later sails to an abandoned lazaretto to open a new humane medical practice and self-sufficient community. Enlisting the help of two people exiled for their leprosy, he repairs buildings and opens Saint Bridget's Leprosarium, named after the nun who raised him. Rune saves the life of a wealthy neighbor named Chandy, who then donates supplies to Saint Bridget's and helps organize the commune's farming.
At age thirty-five, Mariamma becomes pregnant again and gives birth to her son, Philipose. Though both she and Big Appachen are thrilled with the arrival of their son, Big Appachen's health rapidly deteriorates; he suffers a stroke and experiences confusion, often digging in the dirt at night. One evening, he snaps at Mariamma after he cannot taste his favorite meal, and that night, after their first-ever fight, he dies in his sleep. Mourners of all castes attend his funeral, and Shamuel grieves intensely.
As Philipose grows up, he is not afraid of water but experiences strange episodes of vertigo each time he bathes or tries to swim. Fearing for her son's life, Mariamma takes him to a church where a saint named Mar Gregoris is entombed. Mariamma has a direct conversation with the saint and asks Philipose to vow never to go swimming unaccompanied. Later, Mariamma opens a school for the children who live at Parambil. When Shamuel's son, the curious and confident Joppan, tries to attend, he is beaten by the school teacher because of his caste. Philipose is distraught by the cruelty his friend experiences and confused by the caste system, which his mother tries to explain. The two boys attend a new primary school together until Joppan gets a job, creating a rift between the two boys.
As Philipose gets older, he exhibits curiosity and intelligence, mixing his own inks and doing well in school. Like his father, he struggles with poor hearing, and he is often mocked for his inability to learn to swim. One day, Philipose encounters the eccentric war veteran Saar Koshy, who promises to teach Philipose English. Though Mariamma is at first hesitant about Philipose studying books that are not the Bible and envious of his opportunities, the family unites around Philipose's reading of Moby Dick.
One day, as Philipose walks to school, an unexpected rainstorm floods the canal ways, and he takes shelter. Then, he hears the boatman screaming, as the man's child has suddenly stopped breathing. When Philipose goes to investigate, the boatman tasks him with saving the child's life, because Philipose has an education. Unsure what to do, Philipose clears the child's throat of an obstruction, allowing the baby to breathe again. Still, Philipose knows the child is in danger, and forces the boatman to take them to the nearest clinic, despite the raging waters that throw the boat off course. They crash at a set of steps leading to a wooden gate, the boat is destroyed, but the boatman, Philipose, and the baby are miraculously alive.
Analysis
At the beginning of Part Three, the text exclusively refers to Mariamma as "Big Ammachi," confirming her role as the family matriarch after taking responsibility for curing the Condition. This new title demonstrates the Parambil family's changing dynamics, as the family adapts to Jojo's death, Big Appachen's death, Mariamma's mother's death, and the introduction of Baby Mol, Philipose, and Odat Kochamma, who permanently alter the family structure. Naming conventions also come into play when Baby Mol is baptized. The child's legal name is never revealed, and the entire family invariably refers to her as Baby Mol, with "Mol" short for molay, meaning "daughter." This name recognizes that Baby Mol is the family's only daughter and that with her developmental disability, Baby Mol retains a permanent sense of childlike awe and joy.
While processing Jojo's death and her successive miscarriages, Big Ammachi views the changes in her family as part of the life cycle, where life, death, and rebirth are constant, and "the sweetness of life comes with bitterness." The changes in family dynamics are represented through Parambil's evolving landscape. Big Ammachi finds relief from the personal trials she faces in the trees and plants in her yard, which she grows, prunes, and eventually "must hack[...] down, feeding the corpse to the cows and goats," leaving only one sapling that "begins the miracle all over again, carrying inside it the memory of its ancestors." In this sense, Big Ammachi regards the Parambil family as an ever-evolving system that includes not only the people presently alive but also ancestors and descendants. She recognizes that all deaths, though painful, are essential. Just as she cultivates her family with love and support, she cultivates coffee and banana trees that feed her family, accepting that they must be cut down to produce a harvest the next year. Though the pain of losing Jojo and her pregnancies was significant, this experience suggests that suffering and death are essential components of life and happiness, an idea explored throughout the text.
Despite her abstract understanding of the life cycle, Jojo's death tests Big Ammachi's faith, and she hesitates to baptize Baby Mol. In Christian symbology, baptism represents death and rebirth; the ritual holds additional meaning for the Parambil family, who associate water with tragic, untimely deaths. Arguing with God, Big Ammachi wonders how she can "walk past the grave of one child and then go inside to baptize another?" This internal conflict, coupled with Big Ammachi's dispute with the spirit of Jojo's mother, demonstrates that Big Ammachi's family relationships are formed through love and shared experiences rather than shared heritage. Big Ammachi grieves Jojo as her son, even though he was not biologically her child. However, Baby Mol is delighted to be baptized, enjoying the sensation of water being poured on her head. This significant moment demonstrates that Baby Mol faces life fearlessly, with wonder and joy, unlike her relatives who fear water, and, by extension, death.
After Baby Mol is baptized, her personality develops, and she changes the family. Her early life exemplifies the theme of fate. After Jojo's death, Big Ammachi struggles with miscarriages, and "looks to cast blame" before realizing "God only knows why miscarriages happen," but "doesn't choose to explain." Soon after, Big Ammachi is able to find meaning in her miscarriages, realizing that Baby Mol requires all her attention and provides significant healing to the family. Baby Mol's loving personality heals her parents' grief, and even Big Appachen can "see the divine in her ready smile and generous nature." Under Baby Mol's influence, Big Appachen becomes joyful and playful, a side of his personality that Big Ammachi had never seen before. He speaks more frequently and even makes jokes. Baby Mol's personality is complicated by her inexplicable powers of prediction, alluding to a complex inner world.
Descriptions of Baby Mol's personality are interspersed with scenes of Odat Kochamma. The two generations challenge gender norms and consequently change the family dynamics. Odat Kochamma is independent, crass, and authoritative, bringing joy and laughter to the house. Baby Mol brings joy as well, as unlike Jojo, she is not "awed by his size and silence," and convinces him to play dolls, crowns him with coconut fronds, and bosses him around. This change signifies Big Appachen's decline as the family's leader, and his readiness to pass on.
The text also evokes the motif of medical language to demonstrate the physical consequences of emotional pain. For example, after five years, Big Ammachi "lives with the pain of Jojo's death the way one lives with vision turned cloudy from a cataract, or the ache of an arthritic hip." This simile explains that the trauma of Jojo's death is incurable and constant. Like a person living with reduced vision or arthritis, Big Ammachi's life is limited by her grief. Conversely, when Big Ammachi takes Baby Mol to the clinic in Cochin, Rune uses Biblical references to explain Baby Mol's disability, affirming it was predetermined and unavoidable. Quoting the biblical passage Jeremiah 1:5, Rune states that before God "formed" Baby Mol in "the womb," he had already determined she would have this disability for a specific and important reason.
Rune's style of healing incorporates faith for those who desire it, and takes into consideration all aspects of a person's life, such as marital happiness. He is also quick to reassure patients of their value through the framework most appropriate to them, listening to their concerns with patience, such as Big Ammachi's belief in the Condition. This unique, specialized style of healing explores the idea of doctor-patient relationships as an essential component of healing, an idea explored throughout the text, and sets the stage for Rune's future projects at Saint Briget's, which require empathy and an insistence on upholding human dignity for even the most ill and disabled.
Rune's narrative arc also expands on the theme of healing to including the ideas of resurrection and redemption. After washing ashore, Rune undergoes the process of leaving behind his vice-filled life for one of service. His journey across the sea demonstrates the interconnectedness of water and humanity, which culminates in his spiritual awakening, viewing a man with leprosy by the sea. Rune then traverses the Kerala waterways to find the site of Saint Bridget's, a literal and symbolic journey.
Baby Mol's diagnosis is also an example of the theme of Disability. Before meeting Rune, the Parambil family did not notice anything different about Baby Mol and delighted in her personality, seeing her as a whole person no different from any of them. With the knowledge of her difference, the family's perception of Baby Mol changes, showing how labels and medical knowledge can impact how people view the humanity and abilities of others. This concept is then explored through Rune's discussions of leprosy, a condition that severely damages the body, though without the sensation of physical pain. The disease ironically expands a person's physical capacity, allowing them to walk extreme distances, stand for a long period, or even forget to blink. However, leprosy is highly visible, and people who contract the disease are excluded or exiled. While Baby Mol receives extra care and attention after her family understands her limits, and appreciation for her superhuman abilities, the Saint Bridget's community suffers exclusion and a lack of sympathy and support.
The Condition is its own form of faith. Big Ammachi believes that the Condition has a physiological origin, though the symptoms it manifests seem supernatural and incomprehensible. She also has faith that the Condition can be cured, though she does not understand its nature. At first, Big Ammachi turns to religion to solve the Condition. Treating the Condition as a matter of faith, Big Ammachi asks Philipose to enter into a covenant with her and Mar Gregoris, the Saint interred at the nearby church, to never enter the water alone. In this way, Big Ammachi blurs the line between faith and medicine, just like Rune and the other healers featured throughout the text.
As the Parambil family expands, characters come into conflict with the unfair social conditions that shape the world outside of the estate. Shamuel grieves Big Appachen's death with the same intensity as a parent losing a child, but restricts himself from entering the family home, as he has internalized a sense of inferiority based on the way people of his caste have been treated. Shamuel perpetuates the unfair system by forcing his son, Joppan, to limit his dreams and potential. Commenting on the unfairness of fate, which is often determined by legacy, history, and circumstance, the text contrasts Joppan and Philipose's attitudes toward education. Joppan is eager to learn, showing up to the schoolhouse despite his father's orders and the threat of corporal punishment. Philipose, by contrast, is encouraged to receive an education, yet he dislikes school and complains about attending. Joppan is cruelly punished and leaves school early to begin his business; Philipose receives consistent, endless chances to receive an education; he attends the Parambil school, is given ample time to experiment with his ink, and is even given private tutoring by Koshy Saar, expanding his already extensive opportunities. Philipose's position as heir of Parambil ensures his success, though Joppan struggles for a fraction of Philipose's privileges.
