Ticket to India (15 page)

23

Unexpected Encounters

“T
HEY'RE NOTHING BUT THIEVES,
I tell you,” growled the old man. Maya cringed, holding tight to Jai's hand as they stood shoulder to shoulder on the veranda, surrounded by what looked like every family member and servant in the house. They'd all come tumbling out into the garden in their nightclothes, rubbing their eyes as shouting erupted outside.

“And they dug up all these holes around the tree?” asked a rotund woman, unbound hair flowing over her shoulders.

“Yes,” said the old man. “I caught them trying to
run away. When I saw the girl's face, I remembered her from yesterday.”

“Are you sure it's the same girl?” asked a mustached man with heavy cheeks, pacing in a white undershirt and crumpled shorts.

“Yes, yes,” grumbled the old man. “I'm old, not blind.”

“You don't understand,” said Maya, her tongue finally unhinging itself from the roof of her mouth. “We're not thieves—”

“You were up to something,” interrupted the mustached man.

“You have it all wrong!” cried Maya, panic building in her chest. She remembered the key and pulled it out. “This house once belonged to my grandmother. Here is the key—”

“Ha,” laughed the heavyset woman, hands on her hips, glancing toward the mustached man. “This is my husband's house and always has been.” A barefoot little girl stood behind her, peering at them through the folds of the woman's hastily wrapped sari. With a last wide-eyed look, she scampered back into the house.

As the woman raged on, the line of sleepy-eyed children huddled near the door moved to the side and
out emerged a tiny figure in a snowy-white sari.

She resembled a bright white dove, her delicate features framed by closely cropped silver hair. “Hush,” she said, voice resonating with authority.

The stout woman stopped in midsentence, mouth hanging open, which she shut with a frown.

The mustached man stepped in. “Mother, don't worry yourself with this nonsense. Go back to your room; we can take care of it.”

“Don't
mother
me, young man,” scolded the woman, in a surprisingly deep voice for such a diminutive body.

“You will only weaken your heart . . . ,” mumbled the man, cheeks reddening.

“My heart is just fine,” said the woman, sailing forward. She stopped in front of Maya and Jai and reached out to cup Maya's chin with a hand marked by spidery veins. Lips pursed, she narrowed her eyes and turned Maya's face with strong fingers, as if examining a peach for blemishes.

Maya blinked, staring into dark eyes that radiated intelligence, and a hint of mischievousness.

“Show me the key,” ordered the woman, a deep crease above her brow.

With shaking fingers, Maya handed it over.

The woman examined it from one end to another. “Come with me,” she said abruptly, taking Maya's elbow.

“Where are we going?” squeaked Maya, grabbing Jai's hand.

Without answering, the woman pulled them through the line of children back into the house. They stopped at the front door, then slipped back outside. As Maya and Jai watched, the elderly woman inserted Maya's key into the hole and turned. The metal head caught on the latch and spun with a loud click. She glanced back at Maya in surprise. A riot of emotions played out across her face: excitement, sadness, and joy. She opened the door and guided them back inside, ushering them upstairs to a heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. Once inside, she slammed it shut and locked it. She stood panting, as if she'd run a marathon, back against the door, eyes closed.

For a moment, fear flared through Maya.
What have I gotten myself into now?

“What are you going to do to us?” said Jai bravely.

But the woman smiled. Maya frowned, but her ­muscles relaxed. Something about the woman's odd manner and the twinkling warmth in her eyes reminded her of
Naniamma
. She calmed down, but just a bit.

“You just wait and see,” said the woman, and stepped toward a heavily carved armoire standing beside the window.

As she pulled open the door and rummaged through the shelves, Maya glanced out the window. Early morning light filtered down through the cloudy sky, illuminating the sparsely furnished room. This was the window someone had spied on them from the day before, she realized. The burst of white—it had been this woman's sari. From deep within the armoire, the elderly woman pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle and laid it on her narrow bed. With agile fingers she pulled aside the cotton sheet, and inside sat a scuffed and dented metal chest. On it was engraved
RMT
.

Epilogue

Wednesday, September 21

New Delhi, India

Mrs. Hackworth, I need to be totally honest with you. As you've probably figured out by now, my trip to India didn't go exactly as Zara and I thought it would. But during my crazy dash to my grandmother's house, I met some wonderful, kindhearted people. And some who were far from nice. Okay, they were dirty crooks who would probably sell their mother for a nickel. But like Pakistan, India is a land of contradictions.
There is extreme poverty and wealth, charity and greed, beauty and ugliness, prejudice and tolerance. Throughout the journey, I looked for the part of me that was Indian. And you know what? It was always there, coexisting with all the Pakistani parts, like kebab and
paratha
, the perfect combination.

Going back to what happened at my grandmother's old house. I don't remember much after I saw my great-grandfather's initials on the chest. It's all pretty much a blur in my tired brain. I remember my mother, Syeda
Khala
, and Zara showing up at the house, then people shouting, laughing, crying, and hugging, all at the same time. When everyone calmed down, we sat on the veranda and the woman in the white sari told us her story.

Her name is Reshma Tripathi, which sent a spark of recognition through me. This was
the
Reshma . . .
Naniamma
's best friend! She looked so sad as she told us what had happened the day her father dropped my grandmother and her family off at the train station. When he'd returned home, he'd told them that
Dr. Tauheed wanted him to take care of his house, and that the family would return if life in Pakistan didn't suit them. They had waited years for a letter or phone call. But none had come. She said her father had died wondering what had happened to his friend. When they heard the terrible stories about those crossing Partition lines, they feared the worst.

Of course it was my sister who asked her what she was doing in
Naniamma
's house, which got her the stink-eye from Mom for being rude. But I'm glad she asked. I was dying to know too. Reshma wasn't offended, though. She said that when the Indian government started confiscating abandoned Muslim properties, her father had taken ownership of the house. It was empty till he gave it to Reshma when she got married. She lived there with her husband and son. Finally, I asked her how she found the chest. It was a monsoon storm, back in 1972, the year her husband died, that had caused a tree in the garden to topple over. The gardener found the chest while digging out the tree.
When she saw the initials scratched into its side, Reshma knew immediately who it belonged to, and she had kept it safe ever since.

Maya tucked the pink pencil into the journal's pages and leaned back in the lumpy chair. Every bruised limb scrubbed clean, wearing fresh clothes, sore feet tucked up under a soft shawl, she sighed. Somehow she'd made it through the entire journey without doing serious damage to herself, though she'd come precariously close multiple times. And once her mom had finished hugging her to death, she'd informed Maya that she and Zara were going to be seriously grounded when they got home.
But,
she thought,
it was all worth it.
She gazed out over the hospital room, where
Naniamma
reclined against pillows, sipping a steaming cup of tea, nibbling biscuits. Tucked up beside her sat Reshma, giggling, both their eyes radiant as Maya's mom and aunts fretted over the chest, trying to get it open.

“Isn't it amazing?” said Zara, coming up from behind, carrying a third plate of kebabs and
parathas
for Maya.

The sisters' gaze met and without having to say it, they knew exactly what the other meant. It was
beyond awesome how everything had worked out.

“You did it, you know,” continued Zara, admiration settling over her delicate features.

“No,” said Maya, taking the plate. “It was all your idea. You got us to India, then convinced me that we should look for the chest.”

“But you're the one who found it,” said Zara. “It was dangerous and nutso crazy, but somehow you got to
Naniamma
's house and got Mom to follow you.”

“Okay, okay.” Maya smiled. “You're right about that part.” Zara grinned and ruffled Maya's hair. “You're not the quiet little mouse anymore, are you,” she said. It was more of a statement than a question.

Maya narrowed her eyes and smiled. “And you're not quite the bullheaded rhino.”

Before Maya could reach for another kebab, despite her full stomach, an excited voice called out from the bed.

“Girls, come here,” said
Naniamma
.

Dutifully, the sisters hurried over just as their mom managed to pry open the ancient, rusty lock on the chest. Everyone in the room stared as Syeda
Khala
­gently lifted the lid. Inside the squat metal box lay a protective layer of fabric coated with a thick layer of dust.

“Take it out,” whispered
Naniamma
, two spots of color on her pale cheeks.

Syeda
Khala
lifted what looked to be an old linen tablecloth, protecting the contents underneath.

A book lay on top, which Dalia lifted with trembling fingers. “It's a Quran,” she murmured, opening the cover.

Syeda
Khala
leaned over her shoulder to inspect the yellow pages. “It's our family tree,” she whispered in wonder.

The sisters stared at the list of names, written out in elegant Urdu script—great-grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, long gone and nearly forgotten, as if they had never existed at all.
They were real people,
thought Maya,
and they are a part of me. And they live on through us.

Sofia
Khala
lifted a stack of frayed documents, set it aside, and then removed a disintegrating cardboard box.

“Give that to me,” said
Naniamma
, reaching for it eagerly. A whiff of mothballs escaped as she tugged it open. Underneath sat a stack of black-and-white photos. With shaking fingers she raised the one on top. A lithe, graceful woman in an embroidered silk sari posed in a photographer's studio, four little girls
in frilly dresses beside her staring into the lens. The one in the middle stood out. In her rounded features Maya could see
Naniamma
's face. Hands on her hips, a stubborn tilt to her jaw, the girl had a naughty grin across her face. That stubbornness, Maya realized, was a trait she'd inherited as well, like peas in a pod.
Naniamma
gazed down at her mother's face, tears glistening along her lashes. Maya sucked in a breath at the sight of her grandmother seeing her mother's face for the first time in over half a century.
Naniamma
glanced up, and her eyes met Maya's. The joy Maya saw there made her heart swell. Zara gently lifted out another picture, a shot of the entire family sitting in the garden. In their faces Maya saw herself.

Sofia
Khala
had removed a large leather box from the bottom of the chest. “This is heavy,” she exclaimed, unlatching its tarnished silver buckles.

Secreted inside were frayed velvet pouches filled with a collection of family jewels—gold bangles studded with emeralds, necklaces strung with rubies and uncut diamonds, matching earrings, and traditional anklets of heavy silver—all handed down through the generations.

But it was a small tin box that caught
Naniamma
's eye. Biting her lip, she opened the lid, revealing four topaz rings, large enough to fit a man's finger. “Give
me your hand,
jaan
,” she said, staring intently at Maya.

Maya held up her hand and her grandmother placed the ring at its center. The cool, heavy metal nestled in her palm.

“
Nanabba
promised to bring you back to India one day,” whispered Maya, chest tightening. He would have been thrilled that they found the chest. For him the journey alone, with his beloved wife, would have been enough.

“And because of you, his promise was fulfilled,” said
Naniamma
, reaching out to cup her chin. “And he will have his ring—all because of you.”

Sharing a teary look with Zara, Maya handed the ring back to her grandmother, who slipped it onto her thumb.
Naniamma
then reached for the gold bangles, inlaid with emeralds. The round stones reminded Maya of peas, a vegetable she'd grown fond of these past few days. The gems' dark green represented good luck and renewal, she knew. Gently, her grandmother slipped one on each girl's arm. “These were my mother's. Whenever you look at them, remember that you are connected to her and our family,” she said.

The girls nodded and settled onto a corner of the bed. Maya glanced back with a shiver. In all the hubbub, she had momentarily forgotten something
­critical. Lying on a mat on the floor, passed out after eating enough to stuff a baby elephant, slumbered two small figures, cocooned in a soft coverlet. Jai's arm lay draped over Guddi peacefully. Maya smiled, recalling the moment the siblings had seen each other. True to her word, Maya had convinced her mother that the first thing they needed to do was to return to Agra and find Guddi. On the way they had called Sofia
Khala
, who was at the hospital with
Naniamma
. It turned out that
Naniamma
's doctor, Dr. Kumar, was on the board of Railway Children, a charity that rescued orphaned and abandoned children. After collecting information from Maya and Jai, she'd placed a few critical phone calls, leading to a raid at the warehouse. Although they were still on the lookout for Boss and the boys, Mini and the other children had been rescued and placed in orphanages, where they were being well looked after.

Maya's mother and aunts, after a long conversation, had decided to enroll Jai and Guddi in a respected boarding school. Reshma would be keeping an eye on them. Maya hoped to keep in touch with them and see them again soon. Maya sat at the foot of the bed, surrounded by women she loved, thinking what an amazing story it all was.
Good enough to make a Bolly­
wood movie out of it,
she thought, smiling inwardly. Somehow, she had lived up to all the meanings of the name Maya—the bearing of a princess, depth of an eternal spring, and love, coupled with the gumption and strength of the mothers of Hermes and Buddha and the invincible power of Durga.

. . . Ishwar Allah tere naam

Sab ko sanmati de Bhagwan. . . .

(Ishwar [Hindu name for God] and Allah

[Muslim name for God] are but names for You.

Oh, God, grant us some wisdom.)

—Hymn sung by Gandhi and his followers