CHAPTER 57

Summary

• Chapter 57, titled “Invictus”, takes place in 1959 in the Manager’s Mansion in the village of M____.
• The protagonist, Lenin Evermore, is just a week short of his ninth birthday when a mysterious illness struck his family.
• In the morning, Lenin finds his parents and baby sister, Shyla, incapacitated with fever, inducing a state of panic.
• Despite Lenin's efforts to nourish his family during this time, they continue to deteriorate rapidly.
• We learn about his family's past; before Lenin was born, they were forced to flee their home in Parambil due to his father's troubles. Lenin's mother, Lizzi, took charge and helped the family find a new home.
• Lenin's father, Kora, is unable to find and keep a job, meanwhile Lizzi brings in income as a midwife.
• On Kora's final coherent interaction with Lenin, he imparts a cryptic advice: "Follow the straight path."
• The following morning, Lenin discovers that his father and sister have died while his mother is on her deathbed.
• Lenin, shocked and grieving, sets off to find food and comes across a Christian family's house which they have bolted shut due to the disease. He presses forward, encountering a thin pulayi woman who generously shares the food with him.
• After disclosing his family's condition, the woman reveals that Lenin's family is afflicted with smallpox, a deadly disease which had brought many deaths in the area.
• The chapter ends with the death of Lenin's mother from smallpox, and the arrival of a kind-looking priest, whom Lenin initially mistakes for an angel.