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Authors: Kay Marshall Strom

Tags: #Book 1 of the Bless ings of India Series

The Faith of Ashish (6 page)

BOOK: The Faith of Ashish
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The dusky hues of orange and pink that bathed the road washed over the long shadow stretched out behind Latha. Still, she would not leave her post. Surely, any moment now, a cloud of dust would arise in the distance and the landowner's bullock cart would appear bearing little Ashish to his mother's waiting arms. Perhaps the English healer's medicine would work so well that the boy would run to her, already well and healthy.

Virat laid his hand on his wife's shoulder. "We must eat," he said gently.

Latha shook herself as if from a dream. Yes, of course, they must. The day had been long, and tomorrow's work would begin at sunup. Silently, Latha laid wood in the fire pit in front of the hut, small kindling first and then a larger branch. The wife of the potter in the hut on her left busied herself doing the same, as did the wife of the Sudra on the other side. Except they both had children to help them. Latha put a handful of rice in one pot, poured in water, and set it over the fire. In the pottery bowl she measured out a fistful of flour, poured oil over it, and mixed the two together. With expert hands, she kneaded the dough. She sprinkled dried onions and peppers and a pinch of curry into the rice pot. The dough she formed into thin bread patties which she baked on rocks heated burning hot in the fire.
Chapatis.
Smoke rose from Latha's cooking fire and blended with the smoke from ninety-nine other cooking fires, all baking
chapatis
and boiling rice.

"Eat, Wife," Virat urged as he rolled rice up in a hot
chapati.

But Latha could not. In front of a strange hut they must call home, surrounded by people whose names they did not know, facing a tomorrow they did not understand, she sat in silence and watched the sun sink behind the mountains. And still Ashish did not come.

 

 

Virat and Latha lay side by side on their sleeping mats on the ground in front of their hut listening to unfamiliar snores accompanied by the swish, swish of coconut palms in the breeze. Nighttime silence did not reign in the laborers' settlement.

"Soon our Blessing will be back with us," Virat whispered.

But Ashish did not come that night.

Before the stars faded in the sky, the settlement came to life again. Smoke rose from cooking fires, and soft voices floated through the air.

"We must be very evil people," Latha said.

Virat reached over and touched her butter-soft skin. "We can wipe out our sins with good. This day we will give rich gifts to the gods."

"We did that before. The best of the meat you brought back to the village always went to the village god."

"Not only the gods," Virat said. "We will also share generously with neighbors here."

"That, too, we did. You even shared with Ranjun. That cruel man never deserved anything from your hands, yet you shared with him."

For several minutes they lay together in silence. Then Virat said, "Our son is the goodness of our life. He is our Blessing. Our hope."

Latha said nothing.

 

 

Outside, in the breaking dawn, Anup waited impatiently for Virat and Latha.

"I will take you to the fields and show you where you are to work," he said. "Labor hard and mind your own business. Make this your home and forget what is past."

"We will not be here for long," Virat said. "Only until we earn enough to pay off our debt to the landlord. Then we will go back to our mud hut on the edge of the village."

"Pay off your debt?" Anup laughed a bitter laugh. "That's what my father said of his debt to the landlord's father. That was long ago before I was born. My father worked his entire life, and his debt was not paid off. I have worked my entire life, too, but his debt still is not paid off. Should the gods bless me with a son, he will also work for the landowner to pay my father's debt, but I don't believe he would ever be able to pay it off either."

Virat stared at Anup. He opened his mouth to explain that he was the village
chamar,
and that he had no family to carry on his work. To make it clear that high caste feet depended on sandals made by his hands and that Brahmin priests needed his hand-stretched drums for their sacred ceremonies. But he never got the chance. Anup had already started across the field.

8

 

 

 

I
bring an outcaste child to you, beaten and abandoned for dead," Mammen Samuel Varghese announced to Abigail Davidson. The young missionary had opened the door of the English Mission Medical Clinic to see who bellowed outside." Such an action was not required of me, mind you. I did it as a voluntary goodly deed from the kindness of my Christian heart."

Abigail stared at the short, squat man and shrugged apologetically. She couldn't understand a word of his language." Here, here! In my cart." Mammen Samuel raised his voice to an impatient yell, as if the young woman standing before him were quite deaf. "Come and see for yourself."

Abigail's bewildered gaze followed his gesture to the box behind the driver's bench. Stretching up on her tiptoes, she peered in. Ashish blinked out at her through blackened eyes." Oh!" Abigail gasped. "The poor, poor little one! Who did such a thing to him?"

Now it was Mammen Samuel's turn to shrug his shoulders and shake his head, for he could not understand her English language any more than she could understand his Malayalam tongue.

"Darshina!" Abigail called. "Darshina, come quickly! We need your help!"

 

 

To Abigail, everything about South India seemed shrouded in mystery and myth, sprinkled with a heavy dose of wonderment. Barely more than a month had passed since she had arrived at the mission, exhausted and wide-eyed, riding on the back of an elephant. Yes, an elephant! The carriage in which she left the docks at Madras quickly became mired on the overgrown jungle path. In order to complete her journey, the guide to whom she had been entrusted quickly bundled her into a cage on the elephant's back. Barely more than a month ago, yet already she had been called upon to assist Dr. Edward Moore with a steady stream of Indian patients. They included snakebites (one man and two boys), many cases of malaria (two young children had died since she arrived at the clinic), and a badly burned woman.

Small and slender, with a round, smiling face generously sprinkled with freckles, Abigail knew better than to call herself a nurse. Certainly her two years' experience in a London hospital had not overly impressed Dr. Moore.

"Why headquarters could not have sent me someone with real experience and medical stamina, I do not know," the doctor sniffed when Abigail paled at the sight of the Indian woman's horrific burns. Never mind that before she arrived, the doctor had no help at all.

In Abigail's third week at the mission medical clinic, Darshina had appeared at the door, scrawny and half-starved. Dr. Moore prepared to send her away with a good meal and a night's rest when the girl amazed him by appealing in English, "Please,
Sahib
. . .
Memsahib
. . . please to be helping me?"

Abigail grabbed Dr. Moore's arm and exclaimed, "She speaks our language, Sir. She speaks English! God must have sent her to us!"

Dr. Moore, allowing that while there could indeed be some benefit to such a circumstance, extracted himself from Abigail's presumptuous grasp. "Yet, she is nothing more than an Indian," he pointed out. "And, no doubt, a Hindu as well."

Darshina stayed—with the proviso that she observe proper English decorum at all times and that she dress in a manner appropriate to an English mission medical clinic. To Dr. Moore, this meant she should speak only when spoken to and she should wear a white dress (though he finally conceded to allow a white
sari,
lightly starched).

"We shall maintain some semblance of professionalism, even in this heathen outpost," Dr. Moore had insisted.

 

 

"This man, he being Mammen Samuel Varghese,
Sahib,"
Darshina said to Dr. Moore. "He being a great landowner in the village. He saying the boy being an outcaste. He being beaten for breaking caste laws. He saying the boy brought here for you to be making him well again."

Dr. Moore, his dour expression unmoved, stared hard at Mammen Samuel. "I do not trust the man," he said. "Not in the least."

While the others talked and argued, Abigail lifted her white skirt and climbed up into the cart. Tenderly, she unwrapped the faded
chaddar
from around Ashish.

"Oh!" she gasped when she saw his battered body. "This poor child! Poor, poor little one!"

"Really, Miss Davidson!" Dr. Moore scolded. "Do you or do you not fancy yourself a medical assistant? If you wish to be taken seriously, even in this godforsaken country, you simply must learn to control your emotions."

 

 

Fractured ribs resulted in a seriously compressed chest, the doctor said. Pressure on the child's lungs—badly bruised, most likely—made it difficult for Ashish to take a proper breath. Immediately Dr. Moore set to work on the boy. When the little one finally gulped enough air to wail out a long cry of protest, the doctor heaved a sigh of relief. The pressure lessened; Abigail swabbed Ashish's wounds with alcohol and water. The doctor bandaged and wrapped his injuries. This just causes the boy to wiggle and wail all the more.

"Hold him still!" Dr. Moore ordered.

Abigail dipped a cloth in water and bathed the child's bruised face. "There, there," she cooed. "You will feel better soon, little one."

Dr. Moore flashed an impatient look.

Mammen Samuel, who had been delegated to the outside waiting area, pushed the curtain aside and roared an irritated demand.

"He would be knowing how much longer before you be finishing,
Sahib,"
Darshina singsonged to the doctor.

Dr. Moore, his eyes flashing, glared at the man. "Tell him to stay out of my surgery. I will be finished when I am finished and not one moment before."

Darshina bowed and, in a gentle voice that in no way reflected the doctor's harsh tone, relayed the message.

Mammen Samuel's reply was clipped and curt.

"He be saying he must need return to his home before darkness be coming," Darshina said. "He be saying he must need be going now."

"Tell him he is free to leave whenever he wishes," Dr. Moore replied without looking up. "The boy shall remain here." Abigail, her blue eyes flashing, snapped, "You tell that man we will only release this little boy to his father and mother, Darshina. Certainly not to him!"

Dr. Moore looked up at his young assistant, his eyes twinkling and his mouth turned up in the closest thing to a smile that had crossed his face in a very long time. "Well, well," he said. "It would seem that you have more emotions in need of control than even I expected."

Darshina looked uncomfortable as she glanced from the doctor to the impatient Indian man. Only when Mammen Samuel Varghese barked an irritated command did she bow reverentially and murmur a respectful reply.

Mammen Samuel slammed his hand down on the table and glowered as he roared out a long string of angry words.

"He be saying the boy being his property because the boy's parents being his property," Darshina said, her eyes fixed on the floor. "He be saying he be going to his home now, and if the boy be well or if he be sick, he be taking his property with him."

Dr. Moore laid the bandages down, one by one, until they stretched out in a neat row across the table. Abigail opened her mouth, but the doctor shot her a warning glance, and she closed it again without uttering a word. Dr. Moore stepped toward Mammen Samuel Varghese. The doctor's height allowed him to see over the short Indian man's head, yet Mammen Samuel didn't flinch. He looked up and glared defiantly into the doctor's eyes.

Dr. Moore stared back, every bit as defiantly, with steely gray eyes. "Tell this man that the boy does not belong to him, but to Almighty God," Dr. Moore said through clenched teeth. "Tell him I will release the child to no one except his parents. Tell him that if the boy's parents do not come for him in due time, by which I mean a matter of days, I shall see that the child is sent to the mission orphan school in Madras. You tell him that, Darshina."

"
Sahib
. . . Doctor . . . Sir," Darshina stammered, "Please, you not be understanding the ways of India. This man being one of most great power."

"Tell him as I instructed you!" Dr. Moore insisted. His eyes held fast to Mammen Samuel.

"The authorities being with him,
Sahib.
He can be calling for them and—"

"Tell him as I instructed you!"

Darshina's face paled. Staring at the floor, she murmured the doctor's words.

Mammen Samuel's face flared with rage, and he spat a response. Without waiting for Darshina to translate, he stormed out of the clinic.

Calmly, without uttering a word, Dr. Moore turned his attention back to his patient. He mixed a concoction and handed it to Abigail. "See that the boy drinks this and keep close watch over him tonight. I will be in my quarters should you require my assistance."

After Dr. Moore left, Darshina ventured, "That boy, he not being accustomed to sleep on a cot,
Memsahib.
Shall I be putting down a sleeping mat for him?"

Abigail nodded her grateful agreement. And as Darshina spread out the mat, Abigail urged the whimpering child to drink the tonic. But even before he finished it, he was fast asleep.

"I be watching him this night," Darshina offered. "You please to be sleeping."

Abigail didn't answer. Instead, she asked, "What did that man say before he left?"

"The poor. He be saying the poor are with us always."

Abigail wrinkled her brow. "I see. And what else?"

"He be saying that sometimes the most kind thing, it be . . . it be—"

"It be
what?"
Abigail demanded.

"Sometimes the most kind thing, it be leaving one such as this child to lie in the corner and die."

 

 

Generally speaking, Abigail refrained from taking tea with Dr. Moore.

All night, she had sat beside the child, keeping careful watch, comforting him and wiping his face with a damp cloth. Whenever he awoke, she urged him to sip water. When he cried out, she stroked him and hummed soft tunes and whispered words of comfort.

"He most definitely is cooler to the touch and seems to be sleeping peacefully," Dr. Moore announced when he looked the boy over in the morning. "I might yet make a nurse of you, Miss Davidson." The doctor instructed Darshina to lay out tea—for both him and his nurse.

BOOK: The Faith of Ashish
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