The Faith of Ashish (24 page)

V
irat and Latha walked throughout the night.

"You are a brave boy," Latha said to little Ashish. Whenever his footsteps dragged, Virat urged, "Don't look at the mountains up ahead, my son. Look at the small steps at your feet." Sometimes, when the road grew too rough, Virat picked the child up and carried him.

The deluge of rain hit in the wee hours of the morning, but the family pressed on. They had no choice. Ashish whimpered, but he did his best to be brave and keep up.

"I don't like the rain!" Ashish cried.

"Rain is a blessing," his father told him. "When the landlord discovers we're gone, he will look for our footprints to see which way we went. But because of the rain, our footprints will be washed away."

"And we need not be afraid of wild animals," said Latha. "When they sniff the air, they will not smell us . . . only the rain."

"Our water jugs too," Virat added. "When they are empty, we can find plenty of fresh ponds to fill them up again. Sometimes blessings come to us in disguise."

"Like me?" Ashish asked.

"Oh, no, not like you," Virat told him. "You, my son, are a blessing that looks like a blessing."

At long last, the black path before them began to grow lighter as dawn approached. The rain stopped and the sky lit up a lovely golden pink.

"Sun!" Virat exclaimed. "Today it will shine just for us."

"The landlord's men will see our footprints," Ashish said.

"No, no," his father said. "We are too far away now."

Once the sun shone full in the sky, Virat found a rocky spot where they could sit and eat their breakfast. He untied his pack and Latha lifted off her headload. She pulled out three
chapatis,
all baked and loaded with vegetables and spices.

"Only one for each of us," she cautioned. "That way we will have enough to last us four days."

No road led toward the mountains—only a path beaten down by the feet of the few travelers who passed that way. Sometimes Virat couldn't even find a path.

"Where are we going?" Ashish asked.

"Over the hills," Latha said. "A very long way away from here."

Although the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, and the day grew warmer, their wet clothes continued to cling to them as they slogged forward in the thick mud. Ashish found it especially difficult, and he moved more and more slowly.

"Can't we rest?" he begged.

Virat glanced over to the side where a thick forest loomed. "Not here." He thought it best not to mention the possibility of hungry leopards and tigers. "You stay between
Amma
and me," he told Ashish.

After they walked a little longer, Ashish suggested, "Maybe we could give someone your money coins and they would let us sleep in their house. Maybe they would share their rice with us too."

"Whatever do you mean?" Virat asked. "We have no money coins."

"The ones the bridegroom threw out for the people when he rode through the village on the elephant. The coins he threw so the evil spirits would leave him alone. Devi said he might come to the settlement and you could pick up some of the coins."

"He never came to us," Latha said. "We never even saw the bridegroom riding on the elephant."

Ashish wrinkled his brow and frowned. "Then I hope the evil spirits do get him!" he said.

"No," Virat chided gently. "We will never wish such a thing on anyone, whether they have been kind to us or not."

As the day dragged on, the travelers grew more and more quiet. Talking took too much energy. Their clammy wet clothing made walking that much more uncomfortable.

"Look!" Latha said.

Up ahead stood a rough hut with a most inviting fire burning brightly in front of it. As they drew closer, they saw that a yogi holy man sat off to one side, his legs crossed, chanting his prayers.

"Come," the yogi called to them without opening his eyes. "Sit beside my fire and dry yourselves. Rest your feet and your souls."

Latha grasped Ashish's hand and held him back, but Virat walked over without hesitation. A large log lay close to the fire. Virat sat down on one end of it and called for Latha and Ashish to come and join him. Within minutes, the little boy fell fast asleep, his head on his mother's lap.

The yogi paid them little mind, though every now and then he paused in his prayers to recite a thought that might or might not be relevant. "When a man is not conscious of his relationship with the world, he lives in a prison with walls hostile to him," he intoned. "When he finds the eternal spirit in all things, he is freed, for he then discovers the full meaning of the world in which he was born."

Virat said nothing. He had no idea what to say.

Sitting before the fire, warm and dry, listening to the calm cadence of the yogi's prayers, Virat fought the almost overwhelming desire to spread out his sleeping mat and lose himself in a deep sleep. But he dared not. He must rouse Latha and Ashish and move on. Still, before they left, he longed to ask one question of the yogi. "Please, tell me, holy man," Virat said, "you are up here all alone, with no one chasing after you and no one tormenting you. Do you have peace?"

The yogi stopped his prayers, and for the first time, looked at Virat. "No," he said. "No, I do not yet have peace."

Virat thanked the yogi for his kindness and bade him farewell. But the holy man didn't answer. Already he had gone back to his prayers.

From the beginning of the deluge, Anup lay awake in his hut listening to the rain pour down. He knew the moment it stopped. He saw the first cracks of morning light, but for another two hours he pretended to be asleep.

Sethu prodded him with her foot. "Why do you lie there, Husband? You should be on your way to the landlord's house!"

"This is the morning after his daughter's wedding," Anup said. "I will not disturb his household too early."

Of course, he could not use that excuse much longer. He knew that perfectly well.

"I will send Lidya over to sweep out Virat and Latha's hut," Sethu said.

"No!" Anup said. "I am the one who gives the orders, not you. I will say when it's time to sweep."

Anup understood perfectly the reason for Sethu's urgency. More superstition. If a room was swept immediately after a traveler departed, the belief was that his journey would fail and he would have to return to the house. But Anup had already made up his mind that he would not interfere. If it was Virat's
karma
to fail, he would fail on his own. If it was his
karma
to succeed, Anup would stay out of the way.

"Master Landlord will be angry at the delay," Sethu insisted. "And on whose back will the punishment land? Yours!"

"Then let it land on my back. Do not bother me about it again."

Anup bowed low before Mammen Samuel Varghese, low enough to touch his forehead to the ground. "The
chamar
Virat left the settlement," Anup said. "Fortunately, he is not an important person. He has an ugly wife who is half blind and a most impertinent son. His is not an important family.You will not miss them."

"What?" Mammen Samuel roared. "I know that family. What do you mean they left the settlement? Where did they go? When?"

"During the wedding feast, Master. We were all so filled with joy over your generous celebration of the marriage of your beautiful daughter that no one missed the
chamar
until today."

"I will have the
chamar
dragged back and flogged! I will see that his entire family is soundly beaten!"

"Perhaps the
chamar
has an explanation, Master. By your gracious order, no one works today. Perhaps he will be back tomorrow."

"He
will
be back, if not tomorrow, then the day after," Mammen Samuel vowed. "Even if I must drag him back by a hook through his untouchable nose, he will be back!"

Long after Anup had left, Mammen Samuel paced back and forth across the veranda, mourning the injustice of his loss. "This would happen right after every crook in the village bled me dry with exorbitant wedding costs!" He vowed revenge. "First I will have them flogged, then I will multiply the
chamar's
debt ten times over. No, twenty times!" When he thought about the embarrassment he'd certainly suffer in the eyes of the village, rage seized him. "After all I did for those lazy village sluggards, after all the money I poured out of my coffers on their behalf, they will see that a foolish
chamar
has escaped from my settlement and they will gather together and mock me!"

The
chamar—
phew! His scarred, half-blind wife—blah! And the boy. "Nothing but trouble!" Mammen Samuel spat. "Trouble at the well. Trouble at the English Mission Medical Clinic. Trouble in my own house with my own son! And now this!"

Mammen Samuel paced the length of the veranda, and with each turn, his fury burned hotter.

"When I find that boy, I will break each one of his legs in two pieces and sell him as a crippled beggar!"

The path Virat followed led closer and closer to the forest. Suddenly, he grabbed Ashish by the arm and pointed up ahead. An enormous crowd of pale monkeys, each with a black face, sat on the path and perched in the bushes around it. Ashish gasped, and the monkeys all turned to stare at him. One cried a monkey cry, and the bushes came alive with a mad scramble of hundreds of monkeys all dashing for the trees.

"We disturbed their morning walk," Virat whispered. "They're angry with us."

"Will they hurt us?" Ashish asked, his voice quaking.

"No, no. They're harmless."

Virat took hold of Ashish's hand and the two walked down the path together. The monkeys stared down at them from the trees, watching as they passed, calling out monkey comments.

After a while Virat said to Latha, "Your father will not be pleased to see us."

Latha said nothing.

"Pooni said all our troubles came to us because you sinned by marrying me," Virat said. "She said I fall too far below you to have taken you for my wife."

"What did Pooni know about husbands and troubles?"

"Will your father say the same thing that Pooni said? Would I be an embarrassment to him, a carpenter, who lives in a house with two rooms, wood pillars, and doors finely carved with flowers, fish, and birds?"

"I once told you our son is a blessing despite my sin of marrying you," Latha said. "But then I said something else. Do you remember what it was?"

"Yes. You said, perhaps our son is a blessing
because
I married you."

For a long time, neither spoke.

"My people do not like slavery," Latha finally said. "Before my birth, they left their village after the Great Mutiny because they didn't want to be servants of the English."

"They don't like slavery for
them,
but what about for others?"

Again, Latha fell silent. For a long time she did not speak a word.

"You asked me what happened to my eye. I told you my mother and father never spoke of it, and that is true. But when I told you I couldn't remember what happened, that was not true."

Virat said nothing. He waited in silence for Latha to speak again.