The Covenant of Water

It is fitting that the Saint Thomas Christians were converted, perhaps apocryphally, by the apostle known as Doubting Thomas. The characters here have their faith tested, and sometimes broken, many times over the decades. The Condition and its consequences impact the Parambil family at least once a generation, not to mention the other tragedies they must endure. Digby and his cohort—Rune Orqvist, Celeste Arnold, Elsie—also suffer numerous tragic events, from injury and death to illness and ill-fated circumstances. Maintaining faith in the face of such situations is difficult, if not impossible. However, some of the characters succeed in cultivating a closer connection to their faith in the end. When inherited faith is tested, what sometimes emerges is a stronger form of belief—one that must be actively chosen.

Faith fails Big Ammachi with the death of JoJo. In the aftermath, she questions her ability to believe; she refuses to have her own daughter, Baby Mol, baptized. She doubts whether it will do any measurable good: “Grace didn’t save JoJo,” she says, in her conversations with God (179). Later, Big Ammachi will have her faith tested to the breaking point; she has lost her grandson, Ninan; her cousin, Odat Kochamma; and the estate manager’s wife in a six-month span.