The Best Day of My Life (7 page)

Turn your head, I silently ordered the little girl. Leave your coins alone and turn away. Just for a moment.

I kept concentrating.

The girl's mother called again for her to hurry up. It was time to eat. The girl kept ignoring her.

Then the girl's granny got into the act. One shout from the old lady, the girl dropped her coins and turned her head.

And I pounced.

I had the coins in my hand and was under the water before the girl knew what had happened.

I swam as far as I could, came up for a quick breath of air, then went back down again.

Above me, I heard shouting and yelling when the girl realized her coins were gone. I stayed below the surface of the water for as long as I could at one time. I spat out a mouthful of river, then popped the coins into my mouth so that my hands would be free to move me through the water.

I moved farther out from the shore and let the current take me away. I left the bathing ghat behind and became part of the river, like the boats and the fish.

By bending low and walking on the riverbed, churning up mud with each step, I made my way downriver to the next ghat.

It was a burning ghat, a place for cremating dead bodies. Smoke rose from the wood that helped the dead people burn. Mourners and religious men brought the ashes down the steps to return the dead ones to the river.

There were no other children in the water here. Maybe they didn't like being so close to death. But coins got tossed from burning ghats as well as bathing ghats. People were always hoping for blessings.

I dove, feeling along the riverbed with my hands. I scooped up handfuls of mud and watched it drip through my fingers. Now and then I found a coin. I rinsed the mud off in the river and popped the coin into my mouth with the others.

After a while there were more coins in my mouth than I could hold. I spat them into my palm and headed to shore.

The current was a bit strong and I had to take it slow, stopping to rest now and then.

The burning ghat was not busy. There were just a few people saying prayers, sending off little paper boats with fruit and flower petals and floating garlands of marigolds in the water.

It was peaceful. I heard the sound of chanted prayers. The walls of the temple held back the city noises.

I was almost at the shore when I spotted a woman standing alone by a smoking pyre. Women didn't often come to this ghat. And she was reading a book.

I knotted my coins into a corner of my kurta so she couldn't see that I already had money. Then I moved in to see what she was reading. If she could afford a book, maybe she could afford to give me a few rupees.

She was reading a Bible. An English Bible.

It was perfect.

I knew a few Bible verses. They were useful when I went begging outside the fancier churches on Sundays.

I kept my eyes on her as I moved closer. I didn't want her to run away.

And then I was right next to her.

‘Jesus wept,' I said.

She was startled, and she looked up from her reading.

‘Yes, he did,' she said. ‘Do you know why?'

It seemed like a foolish question, but as I stood there I realized there were all kinds of reasons someone might cry. Maybe Jesus hit his thumb with a hammer. I had seen carpenters in the street do that, and one of them had cried. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he was thirsty and the tea seller wouldn't give him any tea. Maybe he was lost in a strange city. Or maybe he had heard a great joke and was laughing so hard he started to cry.

The woman was waiting for an answer.

‘He was sad?' I said.

‘Do you know what made him sad?'

How would I know that?

‘He was hungry?' I suggested. ‘I cry when I'm hungry.' I held out my empty hand, hoping she would take the hint. I hoped I wouldn't have to pretend to cry to get my point across.

She glanced at my hand, then looked into my eyes. That made me feel funny.

I lowered my hand. She went back to her Bible.

‘My name is Valli,' I said. ‘Are you reading about Jesus being sad?'

I had a feeling that this woman could be good for quite a few rupees – maybe as many as ten – so I hung in.

‘No,' she said. ‘I'm reading something happier.'

‘Are you happy that your family is dead?'

‘This man was not my family,' she said. ‘I don't know who he was.'

I let her read in peace for a moment while I thought about that.

‘Do you come here every day?' I asked. Maybe she just liked to read the Bible at the burning ghat. People did all sorts of strange things. I knew of a park where people gathered every morning just to laugh.

The woman didn't answer right away. I looked up and saw that she was praying so I let her finish. She seemed like a serious woman who would want others to also be serious.

I meant to stand quietly so she would think I was a good child and worth giving rupees to, but a bee started buzzing around my head.

I waved it away. It returned. I thought it might be going to land on my back, so I spun around to shoo it and I lost my balance a little. I didn't fall over, but I worried that the woman might think I was just a child who was playing around, and not a serious child who could discuss why Jesus was crying a lot better if she had a few dosas in her stomach.

‘This man died outside the hospital where I work,' she said. ‘No family claimed him. No one knew him, so I – you're standing in hot coals!'

She took my arm and pulled me away.

In trying to escape the bee, I had stepped into the cremation pit where the unknown man was now coal and ashes, ready for the Ganges.

‘There was a bee,' I started to say. ‘I didn't mean to disrespect …'

The woman dropped to the ground and looked at my feet. I had to lean against her while she lifted up one then the other.

‘You're burned. And you're cut.'

The old pier had a lot of sharp bits of rusty metal on it. I must have scraped my foot on one of them. There was blood on it.

‘It's all right,' I said, pulling my foot away. ‘Tell me more about the happy part of the Bible.'

I wanted to get her thoughts away from my feet and onto the number of rupees she would give me.

‘Who do you live with?' she asked. ‘Who looks after you?'

‘I look after myself,' I said. I was starting to feel uneasy. I was used to people asking me questions when I asked them for money, but this woman acted like she really cared about the answers. She wasn't just asking to make herself feel good.

I had enough money to get some food. I started to walk away.

She came after me and took hold of my arm. I knew what was coming next. She wouldn't be the first person to hit me when I tried to get money from them.

I raised my hand to protect my face from the beating.

The knot in my kurta came loose. The coins I had collected clattered to the ground, mixing with the sand and mud that covered the old stone steps.

‘Just hold on,' she said. She didn't let go of my arm while she crouched down and picked up all the coins. I kept squirming and trying to pull away.

‘Let me go!' I cried out. ‘Keep the money. Just let me go!'

I was sure a beating was coming.

She gave all the coins back to me. She had me sit beside her on the step until I was able to calm down.

She touched a white patch of skin near my elbow.

‘Do you have any more of these?' she asked.

I didn't answer her. I took some mud from the step and rubbed it over the white patch to make it look more like the rest of my skin.

‘Your feet are in bad shape,' she said. ‘Tell me, do you feel the burns and the cuts?'

The last time I said I felt no pain, people screamed at me and threw me out of their house.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘My feet hurt. A lot.'

She kept looking at me.

I shook my head. I felt as though I was doing something wrong, but I didn't know what.

‘I have magic feet,' I whispered.

‘I'd like you to come with me. My name is Indra,' she said. ‘I'm a doctor and I can fix your feet.'

‘My feet are fine.'

‘Do you have a home? Yes or no.'

I thought of what the old man said on my first day in Kolkata.

‘The earth, the sky, the air,' I said.

‘Where did you sleep last night?'

‘The Englishmen's cemetery. But I wanted to sleep there.'

‘Then maybe you will come with me because you want to,' she said. ‘You'll get a meal and a checkup, and no one will make you stay if you really want to leave.'

She let go of my arm. I was free to run away.

She waved the ghat workers over to us. It was their job to put the bodies in the shallow troughs shaped into the cement platform. They built up the fires with small then big sticks of wood. Then they raked the ashes into a container to be carried to the river.

Dr. Indra took some money out of her purse and gave it to them. I knew she had already paid for the cremation. I had spent enough time around the ghats to know how it worked. People had to pay up front because wood was expensive.

She was giving them extra money. She didn't have to. She just did it.

‘Thank you,' she told them.

And then she held out her hand for them to shake.

I watched the three men hesitate. No one ever wanted to touch the burning ghat workers. They handled dead bodies. They were unclean.

But the doctor kept her hand held out. One by one, the men shook her hand.

She turned back to me.

‘Well?'

I decided to take a chance.

She smiled and led the way.

We left the river and the troughs of smoking fires. We went out through the pavilion where people were getting oil rubdowns, buying incense and flowers for offerings or being shaved by one of the barbers. We went out into the street that was crowded with tea shops and flower peddlers.

The doctor waved over a taxi. She held the door open for me.

I stopped.

‘Children get into taxis with strangers and no one ever sees them again,' I said. ‘I don't want to disappear.'

‘The hospital is some distance,' she said. ‘Your feet really are not good.'

‘You ride,' I said, backing away. ‘Tell me where to meet you.'

She sent the taxi away.

Then she did something I never would have imagined anyone ever doing for me. Ever.

She took her dupatta off her shoulders. From her purse she took out a small pair of scissors and cut her scarf in half. She wrapped the halves around my feet. She tied the cloth tight so it wouldn't fall off.

‘If you can walk that far, so can I,' she said.

8

Beautiful Blood

I
t was a bit of a walk.

Dr. Indra did not try to hold onto me or make me walk where she could see me. I tried walking behind her and she just kept going. She didn't even look back to see if I was following her. I could have run away any time.

I decided to walk beside her.

She talked to me about what it was like to be a doctor. She said she had to study very hard for a long time. She said she didn't think she could ever learn everything she needed to know, but now it was all in her brain, ready for whenever she needed it.

‘It's what I've always wanted to do,' she said. ‘When I was young, all my friends would spend their spare time at the movies. I spent mine with my biology books and volunteering with a street clinic.'

‘I've never been to the movies,' I said.

‘I enjoy them now,' Dr. Indra told me. ‘Now that I am doing what I was meant to do, I can take time for things like movies.'

She didn't offer to take me to the movies. That was another point in her favor. When I was living at the railway station, a man took a boy I borrowed with to the movies and I never saw him again.

I decided I would trust her enough to let her take me in a tuk-tuk, as long as I sat on the outside.

Dr. Indra waved her hand, and a tuk-tuk pulled out of traffic and came right over to the curb. She got in beside the driver and I squished in beside her, right against the outside railing. We sped off at first, but soon got caught up in the start-and-stop traffic.

I didn't care. I was enjoying myself.

I had hitched rides on the backs of tuk-tuks before, crouched on the bumper with my face pressed against the dusty metal. Sitting in the front was much more fun.

We hit a patch without traffic and the tuk-tuk took off. I swayed into Dr. Indra as the driver swerved his three wheels to zip between a bus and a truck full of melons. Horns blared at us.

I stood up and started to hang off the side to make faces at the other drivers. Dr. Indra pulled me back in, but she did it in a nice way, so I didn't mind.

We got stopped by some cows right in front of the sometimes friendly tea seller. I leaned over the doctor to yell at him and wave.

He didn't notice me. He was too busy looking miserable because his older brother was back. His brother was counting up the little clay cups and comparing his total to something written on a piece of paper.

I watched the older brother put the paper in his shirt pocket, pick up a stack of the clay cups and wave them in the tea seller's face. He lost his grip and the stack of cups started to teeter. Then, one by one, they fell to the sidewalk and smashed.

By the time the cows had crossed the road and our tuk-tuk was moving again, I was laughing so hard I couldn't even see.

‘I'm having a really good day!' I called out to the city.

Not long after that, Dr. Indra told the driver to pull over, and the tuk-tuk came to a stop. I was sorry the ride was over, but I was also curious to see what would come next. After all, I was hungry!

Dr. Indra held out her hand for me to take. It was an invitation, not an order. I could take it or leave it.

I decided to take it.

She held my hand loosely. I could easily slip away if I wanted.