A Walk Across the Sun (4 page)

Sometime later Ramesh returned with a wiry man dressed in a loosefitting shirt, or
kurta
, and a pair of khaki pants. The man had gaunt cheeks, cold eyes, and a scar on his chin. He looked at the sisters and then nodded to Ramesh. Ahalya felt an instinctive distrust toward the scar-faced man, but she had no option but to accept Ramesh's help.

“Where are we going?” Sita asked, a slight tremor in her voice.

Ramesh answered her. “This man—Kanan is his name—has a truck with four-wheel drive. He is the only person in all of Kovallam willing to brave the road after the waves, and his price was remarkably fair. We were lucky to find him.”

Ahalya took her sister's hand. “It's all right,” she said.

Staying close to Ramesh, the sisters trailed Kanan through the marketplace toward an alleyway draped with brilliantly colored fabrics. The truck—a dust-coated blue Toyota—had seen better days. It stood battered and rusting beside an apothecary's shop. Ahalya, feigning claustrophobia, declined Ramesh's invitation to ride with Sita in the cab and motioned for her sister to climb onto the flatbed. The idea of sitting so close to the scar-faced man repulsed her.

Kanan started the engine and engaged the clutch. The truck shuddered and lurched forward. After navigating the streets of Kovallam, he took the highway toward Chennai.

The waves had turned the scenic coastal plain into a silt-infested swamp and the roadway into a mud flat. The truck made slow headway across the crust of sand. Although there was no traffic on the road, it took them an hour to reach Neelankarai, the southernmost suburb of Chennai, and another hour to reach Thiruvanmiyur, two miles shy of the Adyar River. The waves had destroyed many of the coastal dwellings, flooded roads, overturned cars, and washed fleets of fishing boats ashore. The East Coast Road was overwhelmed with pedestrians, and traffic moved at a glacial pace.

Half a mile south of the river delta, traffic halted altogether. Horns blared and drivers shouted obscenities, but nothing dislodged the unseen logjam. After ten frustrating minutes, Kanan reversed course and took an inland road toward St. Thomas Mount. The sun was low in the sky when they crossed the river by way of the bridge at Saidapet. The thoroughfares north of the river showed no signs of damage.

The driver turned east toward Mylapore and the coast. Ahalya took a small measure of comfort in the chaotic dance of cars, trucks, buses, bicyclists, and auto rickshaws. She squeezed Sita's hand to reassure her.

“We'll be there soon,” she said, delivering a smile that found no reflection in her sister's eyes.

“What will we do?” Sita asked.

“I don't know,” Ahalya admitted.

She fought against the grief tugging ceaselessly at her heart, but this time the pressure was too great. Tears spilled down her cheeks, burning her eyes and tickling her chin. She took Sita into her arms and promised Lakshmi on her father's grave that she would allow no harm to come to her. She would be a mother to her. She would make the sacrifices necessary to ensure that Sita would find life on the other side of the horrors of this day. Her sister was her charge.

She could not fail.

A few minutes before six o'clock, the truck stopped beside an upscale complex of flats. The shadows were long upon the tree-shaded lane, and the sun was close to setting. Ramesh climbed out of the cab, smoothed his shirt, and gave the girls a sympathetic smile.

“I regret that I can't take you all the way to Tiruvallur,” he said, “but I have an engagement in Chennai this evening. I have paid Kanan to take you the rest of the way.”

He gave Ahalya a business card with his mobile number. “I can't express how sorry I am for your loss. Call if you should ever have a need.” With a slight bow, he bid them farewell.

Kanan didn't speak to the sisters after Ramesh left them. He placed a brief call on his mobile phone and then turned the truck around and headed northwest toward the city center. They crossed the Kuvam River and took a left on a major thoroughfare. Kanan navigated through the traffic toward the western suburbs.

All was well until they passed through the intersection at Jawaharlal Nehru Road. Without warning, Kanan took a left into an industrial park.

“Neengal enna seigirirgal?”
Ahalya demanded of him, knocking on the cab window. “What are you doing?”

Kanan ignored her and drove faster down the dirt road. They entered a neighborhood of dilapidated flats. Dirty children and mangy dogs milled about, men smoked in the shadows of doorways, and elderly couples sat silently on cramped terraces. The neighborhood was unfamiliar to Ahalya, but there were countless others like it in the city. It was a place where generations had eked out a living on the margins of society, a place where people looked the other way and didn't ask questions. Ahalya knew that if she cried out, no one would come to her aid. Her instincts had been correct. Kanan was not trustworthy.

She reached for her phone in her satchel. Just then, Kanan slammed on the brakes and the truck slid to a stop. Grabbing the phone, Ahalya hid it in her churidaar. She took in her surroundings. The truck sat at the end of a row of dingy flats beneath a high stone wall. The area was poorly lit and deserted except for a group of three men standing in the gloom. The men surrounded the truck, and the youngest one climbed onto the flatbed.

Stooping in front of them, he said, “You have nothing to fear from us. If you do what we say, we will not hurt you.” He noticed Ahalya's satchel. “What do we have here?” he asked, reaching for the bag.

Ahalya clutched the satchel tightly. Without hesitation, the young man backhanded her across the face. Ahalya's cheek smarted from the blow and she tasted blood on her lip. Beside her, Sita began to whimper. The violence had been sudden and shocking. Ahalya handed over the bag.

The young man poured out its contents onto the flatbed and picked up the wooden box, unfastening its clasp. The jewelry sparkled in the light of a streetlamp.

“Kanan, you old bandicoot,” he said exultantly, holding up one of Sita's necklaces, “look what you brought us! You must be blessed by Ganesha.”

“Good,” Kanan said, turning to a fat man with a pockmarked face, “then you can double my pay.” The fat man scowled and Kanan immediately retreated. “Okay, okay. Double is too much. Make it fifty percent.”

“Done,” the fat man said and counted out the bills. “Now get out of here.”

After the young man forced the girls out of the truck, Kanan hopped back in the cab, gunned the engine, and sped away in a cloud of dust.

The youth took Sita's arm, and the fat man flanked Ahalya. The third of their captors, a bespectacled man with a silver watch, trailed behind. Ahalya's heart pounded as the men led them into a dark hallway and up a flight of stairs. The door to a flat stood open. A
hamsa
charm was strung above the doorway as a talisman against the Evil Eye.

The men ushered the girls into the living room. An overweight woman in a sari sat on the couch watching television. She glanced up at the girls and then returned to her program. The youth and the fat man shook hands with the bespectacled man, whom they called Chako. The fat man spoke briefly to Chako in low tones. Ahalya heard nothing of the conversation except the fat man's promise to return in the morning.

Chako bid the others farewell and closed the door, locking two deadbolts. He turned to the girls with a neutral expression.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

Ahalya's stomach rumbled. The thought of food had not entered her mind in hours. She traded a glance with Sita and nodded at Chako. Chako turned to the woman and spoke a terse command in Tamil. The woman rose from the couch, glared irritably at the girls, and made her way into the kitchen.

Minutes later, she emerged bearing two steaming plates of rice with chickpea and potato chutney and a pitcher of water. The sisters ate ravenously. The food was too spicy and the water lukewarm and unfiltered, but Ahalya had long since ceased to care. They needed to bide their time until they were alone and she could place a phone call to Sister Naomi.

After the meal, Chako told the girls to sit on the couch beside his wife. He took a seat in a nearby chair. Chako's wife was riveted by a talk show that the girls' mother had never let them watch. A Tamil movie star was the celebrity guest, and the topic of conversation was her most recent production, a saccharine drama set amid the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Ahalya sat next to her sister in a state of mute disbelief. In a single day her family had been ravaged by the sea and she and Sita had been kidnapped. What did Chako and his wife want with them? Had other girls been imprisoned here, or were they the first? Ahalya recalled that Kanan had received a commission from the fat man. That suggested they had done this before. But why? What was their motive?

The show lasted an hour and then Chako switched the channel to an international news station. Ahalya and Sita sat up in their seats, captivated by footage of devastation wreaked by giant waves along the coastline of the Indian Ocean. Orphaned babies squalled in the arms of aid workers, women wailed in grief before the camera, and whole villages lay in ruins, felled by a wall of water that appeared without warning.

According to the anchor, the tsunami had started its journey in the tumult of a colossal earthquake off the coast of Indonesia. A succession of waves generated by the quake had spread outward from the epicenter at the speed of a jetliner. In the span of less than three hours, the tsunami had left untold thousands dead along the shores of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The station showed projections of the death toll. Some said fifty thousand people had perished. Others estimated five times that number. The scope of the catastrophe was unimaginable.

They watched television until ten o'clock. When Chako finally switched off the set, he led Ahalya and Sita into a small room furnished with two beds and a bedside bureau. Chako told the sisters they would sleep on one bed and his wife would sleep on the other. The room had a window on the far wall, enclosed by rusting louvers and iron bars.

Chako's wife entered the room after a few minutes dressed in a nightgown and carrying a glass of water and two round pills. Chako told the girls that the pills would help them sleep. Thinking quickly, Ahalya trapped the pill beneath her tongue and swallowed only the water. Her phone was still hidden in the fabric at her waist; she intended to use it after everyone fell asleep. Chako's wife, however, probed her mouth with her finger and discovered the ruse.

“Stupid girl,” the woman spat out, cuffing Ahalya on the back of the head. “You don't know what's good for you.” She gave Ahalya the pill again and forced her to swallow it.

Chako took a look at his shiny watch and bid the sisters good night. Closing the bedroom door behind him, he turned the lock with an audible click. His wife sat down on the bed nearest to the window and fixed Ahalya with a nasty glare.

“There is no way out,” she said. “Do not try to leave or Chako will bring a knife. Others have learned the hard way. And do not disturb my sleep.”

Ahalya and Sita lay down beside each other on the bed. Sita cried silently into the sheets until she drifted off to sleep. Ahalya wrapped her arms around her sister like a protective shield, trying desperately to ward off the unseen forces that had turned their world into a nightmare. As the sedative took effect, Ahalya fought to stay awake, but the medication addled her mind and weighed down her eyelids.

With the last of her strength, she pushed her mobile phone deeper into her churidaar. Then her resistance gave way and she lost consciousness.

Chapter 2

Confess it freely—evil prowls about the land, its secret principles unknown to us.
—V
OLTAIRE

Kiawah Island, South Carolina

On the morning after Christmas, in the twilight before dawn, Thomas Clarke took a walk along the shoreline of Vanderhorst Plantation. He was the first of his friends at the beach house to greet the day. The holiday bash the night before had been wild, the wine and brandy had flowed, and most of his companions had drunk themselves into a stupor. Thomas had showed restraint, but only because his mind was on other things.