A Walk Across the Sun (3 page)

“Ahalya?” Sita whispered at long last. “Where are we going to go?”

Ahalya blinked and her mind reengaged. She let go of her sister and felt the weight of the phone in her hand. Numbly, she pressed the familiar numbers.

“We need to get to St. Mary's,” she said. “Sister Naomi will know what to do.”

“But how?” Sita asked, hugging herself. “There is no one to drive us.”

Ahalya closed her eyes and listened to the ringing of the phone. Sister Naomi picked up. Her words were anxious. What had happened? Were they in danger? When Ahalya spoke, her voice seemed far away. A wave had come. Her family was dead. She and Sita had survived, but their home was destroyed. They had no money, only the phone.

The line crackled with static for long seconds until Sister Naomi found her voice. She instructed Ahalya to walk to the road and catch a ride into Chennai with a neighbor.

“Go only with someone you trust,” she said. “We will be waiting for you.”

Ahalya ended the call and turned to Sita, trying to look confident. “We must find someone with a car. Come now. We need dry clothes.”

She led her sister across the room to a chest of drawers. She helped Sita peel off her wet, soiled garments and handed her a clean churidaar. Then she changed her own clothing. She tried the sink, hoping to wash her face, but found no water pressure. They would have to live with the grit coating their skin until they reached St. Mary's.

Sita moved toward the door, ready for the journey, but Ahalya stopped to collect a photograph from the bureau. The image showed the Ghai family at Christmas a year before. She removed the photo from its frame and slipped it into the waistline of her churidaar. She also retrieved a wooden box and placed it and her phone in a cloth satchel. The box contained gold jewelry the sisters had received as gifts over the years—the sum of their collective wealth. Ahalya took one last look at the room and nodded in farewell. The rest she would leave behind.

The sisters descended the stairs and waded through the foyer to the front yard. Outside, the sun was hot, and the standing water left by the second wave had begun to reek with the odor of dead fish. Ahalya led Sita around the back of the damaged bungalow and out onto the lane. The family's two vehicles, both parked in the driveway before the arrival of the waves, were nowhere to be seen. Ahalya thought to take a last look at the bungalow, but she resisted. The ruined world left by the waves was not the home they had known. The former world, and the family that inhabited it, lived now only in their memory.

When they reached the main road, they found it awash with debris from the palm forest. Ahalya felt a twinge of despair. Who would venture out on the roadway in such conditions? A thought came to her then: perhaps they could catch a ride with someone from the fishing village. She knew it was a long shot. Most of the villagers lived in seaside huts that probably had been leveled by the waves. But the survivors would need to obtain provisions and assistance from Chennai. Before long someone from the village would have to make the trek.

The sisters walked side by side without speaking. For nearly a mile they saw no sign of life. All ground-level vegetation had been swept away, leaving the earth on both sides of the tarmac naked and forlorn. By the time they reached the outskirts of the fishing village, they had begun to sweat heavily, and their throats were parched with thirst. Even in winter, the South Indian sun was merciless in its intensity.

Ahalya led the way down the road to the fishing community. As they neared the shoreline, they saw a man wearing a muddy white skirt, or
lungi
, walking toward them with a child in his bare arms. Behind the man was a bedraggled line of fisherfolk, carrying palm baskets on their heads and colorful satchels on their shoulders.

The man stopped in front of Ahalya.
“Vanakkam,”
she said in the customary greeting. “Where are you going?”

The man was so agitated that he didn't acknowledge her question. Pointing and gesturing wildly, he told her about the waves.

“I was in my boat,” he said. “I felt nothing. When I returned, everything was gone. My wife, my children—I don't know what happened to them.” He turned around and swept his hand across his ragtag band. “We are the only ones left.”

Ahalya absorbed the man's grief and steeled herself against her own. She focused instead on practical things.

“Your chieftain has a van,” she said. “Where is it?”

The man shook his head. “It is wrecked.”

“And your drinking water? Surely you kept drums from the monsoon.”

“They were washed away.”

“Where are you going?” Ahalya asked again.

“Mahabalipuram,” the man replied. “We have relatives there.”

Ahalya tried to conceal her disappointment. Mahabalipuram was five miles in the wrong direction. “We must get to Chennai.”

The man stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “You will never make it.”

Ahalya took Sita's hand and spoke with defiance. “We will make it.”

The sisters accompanied the villagers back to the main road, where they parted ways.

“We should go to Kovallam,” Sita said softly, speaking for the first time in many minutes. “Maybe we could catch a bus.”

Ahalya nodded. Kovallam was a larger fishing community two miles to the north. Even if they couldn't find a bus, she felt reasonably certain that they could get filtered water at the Kovallam market. Water was her first priority. Transportation would have to wait.

The miles passed slowly in the tropical sunlight. A breeze blowing in from the ocean brought occasional relief from the heat. Otherwise, the trek was monotonous and painful. Their sandals, soaked and sandencrusted, made the soles of their feet raw with blisters.

By the time they reached Kovallam, Sita's face was locked in a perpetual grimace, and Ahalya was having difficulty maintaining her composure. From the angle of the sun, she judged that it was nearly eleven o'clock in the morning. Unless their luck turned, they stood little chance of reaching the convent by nightfall.

The village of Kovallam was a hive of activity. Oxcarts and wagons vied with cars and pedestrians on the narrow, waterlogged roads. Ahalya stopped an old woman wearing a mud-splattered sari and inquired about a bus to Chennai. The woman, however, was beside herself with grief.

“My son,” she cried. “He was on the beach. Have you seen him?”

Ahalya shook her head sadly and turned away. She asked a man carrying a basket of ripe bananas for help, but he stared at her blankly. Another man trailing a cart loaded with grapes responded to her with a curt shake of the head.

“Don't you know what happened here?” he demanded, spitting a stream of
paan
juice on the street. “No one knows whether the buses are running.”

Ahalya struggled against a sudden riptide of desperation. She knew if she didn't stay calm, she could make a rash decision and endanger them.

She led Sita into the Kovallam market. As she expected, only a few stalls were unshuttered. She asked a cane juice vendor whether he could spare a bottle of water. Mustering her best smile, she explained that the wave had taken her purse and that she had no money. The vendor gave her an unsympathetic look.

“Everyone pays,” he said brusquely. “Nothing here is free.”

Taking Sita by the hand, she approached a vendor of vegetables. She told him their circumstances and he responded with pity. He gave them bottles of water and a patch of shade beneath an umbrella.

“Nandri,”
Ahalya said, accepting the water and handing a bottle to Sita. “Thank you.”

They took their leave of the sun and drank thirstily. After draining her bottle, Sita leaned her head on Ahalya's shoulder and dozed. Ahalya, however, resisted the urge to sleep and searched the market for a familiar face. Her father knew a number of men in Kovallam, but she couldn't recall their names.

As time passed and she recognized no one, she began to calculate the street value of the jewelry hidden in her satchel. How much would it cost to hire a driver to take them to Chennai? Her instinct cautioned her against securing a taxi, but she had seen no buses pass through the market, and she doubted any would make the trip that afternoon. She and Sita could not make it to Chennai by foot, at least not that afternoon, and she knew of no place outside the city where they could spend the night in safety.

The girls rested for over an hour in the shade of the umbrella. Sita didn't stir, and Ahalya finally drifted off to sleep. When she awoke, she saw that the sun had passed its zenith. She had to make a decision soon.

She turned toward the vendor to ask about a driver, but at that moment something triggered in her memory. A face in the crowd. A dinner reception in Mylapore earlier that year. The man had greeted her father warmly, and her father had responded in kind. Ahalya couldn't recall the man's name, but she never forgot a face.

She pinched Sita awake and told her not to move. She wove her way through cows, automobiles, and rickshaws and approached the man.

“Sir,” she said, speaking in English, “I am Ahalya Ghai. My father is Naresh Ghai. Do you remember me?”

The man looked at her and broke into a grin. “Of course,” he replied with crisp English diction. “I am Ramesh Narayanan. We met last spring at the Tamil Historical Society.” His look turned to puzzlement. “What are you doing here? Are you with your father?”

The question pierced Ahalya. She looked away from Ramesh while she collected herself. In halting speech, she told him the truth about her family.

The blood drained from Ramesh's face as she spoke. He struggled to find something appropriate to say. Finally he asked, “Where is your sister?”

Ahalya motioned toward the vegetable vendor's stall. “We are headed to our convent school in Tiruvallur. The sisters will take care of us.”

Ramesh glanced back and forth between Ahalya and Sita. “To reach Tiruvallur, you will need a ride.”

Ahalya nodded. “We walked this far, but Sita is very tired.”

Ramesh pursed his lips. “We are in the same position then. The bus I was on is no longer running. I've been trying to find a driver to take me back to Chennai.” He paused and gave her a smile. “Don't worry. I will make sure you arrive in Tiruvallur by nightfall. It is the least I can do for the daughters of Naresh Ghai.”

Ahalya was nearly overcome with relief.

“Wait with your sister,” Ramesh said. “I will come for you as soon as I can.”