The Faith of Ashish (19 page)

"Please to be knowing India now?" Darshina asked Abigail as they walked home by the moonlight.

"No," Abigail said. "But now I have some idea of how much I have to learn."

With a long day behind them and nothing special to look forward to, the road back to the mission medical clinic seemed much longer than when they had walked it in the late afternoon. "I wish someone would slow down and let us climb up on the back of their wagon," Abigail said.

"It is being better to walk," Darshina assured her. So they walked, mostly in silence. In her weariness, Abigail had little energy left for talk.

Suddenly, Darshina stopped. "Please! What is the sound I be hearing?"

"I didn't hear anything," Abigail said.

They took a few more steps and Darshina stopped again. The two women stood still for a moment, then Abigail heard the sound too. A whimper, perhaps. Or maybe only a breeze blowing through the cluster of trees ahead.

"Someone is in there," Abigail said, pointing to the trees.

"Come along, come along! Pease to be hurrying past," Darshina insisted.

But Abigail grabbed her arm. "What if someone is hurt? What if it's a child who needs us?"

"No! It's being foolishness to be stopping here. Someone could be wanting to hurt us. No persons be around to give us help."

Darshina spoke the truth, of course. Yet even as Abigail acknowledged it, she hurried toward the whimper. She paused at the edge of the trees and stared into the black grove. "Is anyone here?" she called.

Silence, except for the soft sound of Darshina's feet creeping up behind her.

"Does someone need help?" Abigail asked.

More silence. But as they turned to go, a broken voice wept, "
Eikku kudikkan entendilum tarumo?"

"
Ate!"
Darshina exclaimed. "Yes, we can give you water!"

Abigail pushed through the brushy overgrowth. In a shallow nest of leaves lay Pooni, battered and sobbing.

Abigail strained to understand Pooni's talk, but to her ear it sounded like nothing more than melodic babble. "What is she saying?" Abigail asked Darshina.

"She wants for you to be understanding she be untouchable and unclean. She cannot believe you to be tending to women like her."

"Tell her she is my favorite patient all day," Abigail said.

Darshina laughed. "And should I also be telling her she is being your only patient today?"

Because Pooni was a woman, and because her injuries did not require Dr. Moore's surgical services, the doctor offered to stay out of the surgery. Abigail was perfectly able to dress Pooni's wounds by herself.

Pooni, her eyes wide and troubled, spoke again.

"She's to be saying her husband is being angry with her because she is being very wicked," Darshina said. "She's to be saying pollution is on her and she must not touch the white sheet you wear on your bed."

"Tell her we are followers of Jesus, the Son of the one and only true God," Abigail said. "Tell her Jesus desired to mingle with sinners and outcasts, and with all the people others considered polluted."

Pooni's eyes opened wide as Darshina translated the words.

"Tell her Jesus ate with such people. Tell her Jesus sat with them and shared their food."

Pooni gasped in astonishment.

"She's to be saying she cannot be understanding such things," Darshina said. "She's to be saying such actions would make Jesus unclean too."

"Tell her that Jesus taught the truth: There is only one true God, and all people are made in His image. It is not true that some people come from His head, some from His arms, some from His belly, and some from His feet. Tell her that no people anywhere come from underneath God's feet. All of us came from the breath of God. We are all made after His likeness. Tell her that is the truth."

Abigail stayed with Pooni all night. The next morning she gave her water and porridge, and tenderly washed her face and again tended to her wounds.

"Doctor to be saying it be for me to be tending her now," Darshina said. "Doctor be saying it be for you to be resting."

When Abigail came out of the surgery, she found Dr. Moore waiting for her.

"It's so unfair!" Abigail said. "People like her and like Ashish. It is so terribly unfair!"

"Tragedy has a way of visiting those who can bear it the least," Dr. Moore said.

"But these were more than tragedies. They weren't diseases or accidents. These were purposeful, horrible beatings!"

"It is the way of India," Dr. Moore said. "I warned you before, Miss Davidson, do not expect to change it."

In the sweltering heat of the day, Abigail fell across her bed. She suddenly felt so very tired. Maybe if she lay down for an hour or so. Only until the worst of the heat passed.

Exactly how long she slept, Abigail didn't know. Longer than she had intended, judging by the length of the shadows outside her window. She hurried back to the surgery to check on her patient, but Pooni was gone.

"She is being gone back to her home," Darshina said.

Abigail shook her head in disbelief. "But why?"

"Because she feels condemned to be lowly," Dr. Moore said.

"Because she sees it as her inescapable fate."

But Darshina said, "She be going back because she has a daughter there."

W
hen Master Landlord's large house came into view, Ashish gripped Devi's hand. Up ahead he saw Saji Stephen waiting, dressed completely in spotless white, his hands on his hips. Ashish dug his fingers into Devi's palm.

"Let me go," Devi said, firmly, but not unkindly.

Ashish trembled and loosened his grip. He held his breath and fought hard against the tears that sprang to his eyes.

Babu approached so quietly that Ashish never saw him coming. The servant grabbed the boy by the shoulder and, pushing him ahead at arm's length, steered him over to the corner where a bucket of cold water awaited him. Babu stripped off the boy's filthy clothes, all the while making faces and murmuring "ghastly!" and "disgusting!" He scrubbed the tender little body until Ashish wept and begged him to stop. Babu sighed and handed Ashish new clothes. New to Ashish, that is. They were actually Saji Stephen's old ones. With clipped words that barely hid his disdain, Babu instructed the boy to dress.

"Hurry up with him," Saji Stephen ordered crossly. "I want to play."

Babu nodded and handed the still-dripping boy over to him.

Saji Stephen held out the wooden top Ashish had given him. "Show me how to play this game," he said.

Again and again, Ashish spun the top on the hard ground. Every time, Saji Stephen would say, "Let
me
do it!" But every time he tried, the top bounced and fell over on its side. And every time that happened, Saji Stephen stamped his feet and screamed a little louder.

"You must not do anything to annoy him!" That's what Ashish's
appa
warned. His
amma
had told him the same thing, and Devi whispered it again as she let go of his hand. Ashish started to shake so badly that he could hardly hold the top straight. When he tried to spin it, he dropped it and it bounced on the ground.

"Ha!" Saji Stephen said. "You are worse than me! I can throw it better than you can! You are a stupid boy! Now I want to play something else."

From then on, whenever they played with the top, Ashish took great care to bounce it so it would tip over. And when Saji Stephen chased him, he made it a point to stumble and fall. And when they threw stones at broken pots, he would be certain to miss every time.

"I'm better than you!" Saji Stephen bragged.

Only a little child, but already Ashish had discovered the secret of being a good slave boy.

No one seemed to know who renewed the settlement's flagging interest in doing
puja
before the pieced-together god house. Someone laid a couple of palm leaves over the idols, and one by one, people fashioned a structure to shade them from the burning sun. Most offerings were handfuls of rice, but some people still managed to leave a piece of coconut, or a banana, or even an occasional chip of fragrant sandalwood to please the gods.

When Latha suggested perhaps they should make a special offering, Virat said, "Why should we waste good food that we can save as a treat for our son?"

"Hush, Husband!" Latha warned. "You mustn't say such things in the presence of the gods!"

Virat shook his head. "We offer and we offer, yet no blessings come to us."

"One blessing did," Latha said. "We still have Ashish."

The fields, sun-baked to a warm brown, stood stark against the distant gray-blue mountains. Any piece of earth not covered with water dried hard and split open in the heat. Even the paddies were in danger of drying out. Virat shaded his eyes and looked to the sky. Not a single cloud. No hope for rain. Maybe a light shower would fall, if they were fortunate. Perhaps just enough to moisten the thirsty land, should the gods smile on them. Then again, probably not.

Two men sat idle in what mud remained in the rice paddy. Virat said nothing to them. He simply directed his team of sluggish water buffaloes around them. What could he say? Everyone struggled at the edge of exhaustion. The workers simply could not continue such strenuous labor under the relentless sun.

"You do not offer sacrifices to the gods?" Anup asked Virat.

" Latha will bring rice to the altar."

"Rice? That's all? Virat, one does not offer to the gods what one has. One offers what one likes best."

Virat, his face set, made no answer.

"Look at the luxury of the other offerings. Buttermilk and fruits and garlands of flowers."

"And rice," Virat said, pointing to the many lumps laid out before the various gods and goddesses. "Perhaps the ones who left those offerings, like us, live their lives under a curse."

Ashish, tied up like a bullock and hitched to a little wooden cart, stood still and waited for Saji Stephen to hit him with a branch and yell, "Go!" Ashish hated this game. He struggled so to pull the cart. It hurt when Saji Stephen hit him with the switch. "Faster, faster! Pull me faster!" Saji Stephen commanded.

Ashish stumbled and fell to his knees. "Stupid bullock!" Saji Stephen cried. And he rained blow after blow down on the child's head and shoulders.

"You must not do anything to annoy him!" That's what his
appa
and
amma
had told him. That's what Devi said. Ashish's lip began to quiver and he felt the hot rush of tears. But at that very moment he saw a strange sight out on the road.

"Look!" he called to Saji Stephen. "A man crawling like a baby!"

Saji Stephen jumped up and down and clapped his hands. "It's a beggar!"

"What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know. He's sick or something."

"He could go see the pale English lady," Ashish suggested.

"She would make him better."

"Phoo! He's too sick for the English lady to fix him. Let's go see who he is."

Saji Stephen ran toward the road, and Ashish followed after him, carefully choosing his steps.

So many beggars came along the road that Parmar Ruth Varghese had left strict instructions that a separate bowl of rice should always be available for them. But Saji Stephen didn't pay any attention to the bowl of beggar rice. When the boys got close, Saji Stephen stopped and called out to Ashish, "Look how funny he walks. On his hands and feet with his knees sticking out. He looks like a spider crawling along."

"The pale English lady would pray for him," Ashish offered. "She would sing him to sleep at night."

"Maybe he has leprosy," Saji Stephen said. "My
appa
says lepers are not welcome here."

Saji Stephen grabbed up a rock and threw it at the beggar.

"What are you doing?" Ashish cried. "You'll hurt him!" But already Saji Stephen had grabbed up two handfuls of rocks. One large stone hit the man on his back. He fell to the side and cried out. The next rock hit him in the back of the head.

"Stop it!" Ashish cried.

With a laugh, Saji Stephen turned his aim and threw a rock at Ashish. It missed, so he threw another. It also missed. But the third rock caught Ashish on the side of his forehead and knocked him cold.

The next thing Ashish knew, he was coughing and choking. Babu had thrown a bucket of water in his face. As soon as the boy's eyes opened, Babu pulled him to his feet and led him to the veranda to lie down.

Mammen Samuel paused in his work to watch as the little child staggered toward him. "What happened to the boy?" he asked.

"The beggar has leprosy," Saji Samuel said. "Ashish kept running after him and it made him mad. I told Ashish to stop, but he wouldn't, so the beggar with leprosy threw a rock at him and hit him in the head. It's the beggar's fault. It's Ashish's fault."

"Fool!" Mammen Samuel chided Ashish. "Babu, get him to the girl in the garden and tell her to take him home."

"But I want him!" Saji Stephen howled.

"He is a stupid, stupid boy. But you can have him back another day."

"Fire!" Anup called.

The laborers stopped their work to stare. Beyond the village, clouds of smoke poured straight up into the air. It couldn't be the landlord's house on fire. No, the smoke billowed too far away for that. It wasn't actually coming from the village at all. Even so, the sight of that smoky haze, growing and swelling so rapidly, struck terror into everyone. In the hot summer months, fire was the great fear. Dry stalks of grain could spontaneously ignite, and before anyone could stop it, an entire year's crop could be lost—not to mention nearby houses and the people who lived in them.

By now, Landlord Varghese's wheat had hardened. His sheds packed tight with sheaves of dry stalks could be the next to catch fire and burn.

Anup jumped up on the watchman's platform and called out, "We have work to do! Virat and all the rest of you in that front line, come with me now. The rest of you, get back to work in the paddy! Everyone, early tomorrow morning, we will begin threshing the wheat."

Anup pointed out the threshing ground on the other side of the storage sheds. "Plaster the floor with mud," he said. "It will dry quickly and hard in this heat."

Early the next morning, before the sun arose, Virat followed Anup and the other men to the threshing ground. With brooms made of twigs lashed together, they swept the newly mud-plastered floor smooth and free of loose dirt. When the other workers arrived, the threshing floor lay ready for them to spread out the stalks of grain. With a rustling that sounded like a great wind, hoards of rats—too many to count—scurried out from their nests in the wheat sheaves and ran for the safety of the fields.

After the workers had spread all the wheat out across the floor, a stocky man with bulging muscles—followed by half a dozen older boys—led ten animals to the threshing floor. Bullocks, mostly, and water buffalo, but also two cows. Virat and Anup fastened each animal to the large stake at the center of the floor and led the animals around and around and around it.

With grunts and huffs, the animals trod and stamped their heavy hooves over and over the stalks scattered across the floor. Round and round they went, their hooves knocking the grain off the stalks. Men hunkered along the sides, gathering up the untrampled stalks that had been forced to the outside, and pushed them back in under the animals' crushing hooves. Others rushed in between the stamping hooves to clean up after the animals.

Round and round the animals trod, trampling and stamping and crushing and flattening. One entire day. Two days. Three more days. They kept it up until those heavy hooves had knocked off every last grain. When the stocky man and boys finally led the animals back to their field, men swooped in with forked sticks to throw off the straw. Women followed them to sweep up the grain and chaff that remained on the floor and pile it into large winnowing baskets.

"Over here!" Anup called to the women. He and several other men climbed up onto ruggedly constructed three-legged stools. The women handed their winnowing baskets up to the men.

"Wind gods!" Anup yelled. "Do not hide your breath from us!"

"We serve you!" another man shouted. "Now you must not play your games against us!"

"Send the wind to blow!" the men ordered. "You have no right to withhold your breath and—"

As a sudden gust blustered, the men turned their baskets upside down. The wind caught the light chaff and carried it away, but the heavy kernels of wheat fell back to the threshing floor.