SUNDAY MORNING AT a little after seven, the phone rang. I answered, though still groggy. Since I received so few calls, I thought it was Sarah. Instead, Holika’s voice, despite her question, rushed out with a breathless urgency, rather than modest concern. “Are you feeling better?”
“I dunno. I was sleeping,” I grumbled. “But I caught it fast. The meds worked.”
“Can you move about?”
“Yeah, I guess. Why? You want to come over?” Passage had slowed considerably.
“Later. Now we need your assistance. My brother Ratish has had another car accident. He is fine, but he hit a girl. I think she is not badly injured. Are you able to meet us at your office?”
I didn’t want to go, but it was part of my job, and I wanted to see Holika. Chandon drove me to the compound where the people on duty moved with a hung-over-from-holiday-indulgences languor.
In my outer office, Holika sat on the edge of the leather cushioned sofa holding the hand and caressing the hair of the scruffy, shivering young girl, who she introduced as Ooju, and who seemed more scared than badly injured. Ratish paced in front of them, looking disheveled in his sweat-covered off-white, button-down shirt and baggy tan trousers. His small, bleak eyes peered out nervously behind his glasses, which sat crookedly on his nose. His eyelids twitched open and closed at a frantic speed.
Sensing Ooju’s apprehension, I approached her as delicately as I could. Even still, she flinched before I touched her. I whispered, “Ooju, it’s OK,” and Holika reassured her in a few words in Hindi. She stood not even five feet and weighed maybe eighty-five pounds. I picked her up, cradled her in my arms against my chest, and carried her into the examining room. I asked Holika to change her into a gown. While Ratish and I waited outside, he explained that he was on his way to a meeting, and not speeding or driving recklessly, when the girl appeared from between cars right in front of his car. He hit the brakes and didn’t slam into her; he thought he barely grazed her. A group of men and women, who lived in the tents along the side of the road, charged and circled him. He started “freaking out, thinking they might stone or beat me to death.” Using his cell phone, he called the police, who–Shazam—with the promise of magic rupees, showed up fast, kept order, and dispersed the crowd.
Holika opened the door and signaled me to begin the examination. Ooju’s left leg was swollen and scraped, but I didn’t think any bones were broken. “Some of these bruises, I can’t be sure, but they don’t seem to be from any car accident.” To go along with scrapes on her legs and arms, which I cleaned and bandaged, there were lacerations, and what appeared to be burn wounds on her achingly thin wrists and ankles.
Ratish shrugged his shoulders, not uncaring, but in bewilderment.
“Holika, how old is she?” I asked.
“I think eleven. When I spoke to her before she gave me very little information.”
“Talk to her. Find out what happened.”
Holika spoke to Ratish in Hindi, then he pointed to the outer office and he and I went there to wait.
Ratish took out his cell phone and made a call, again speaking in Hindi. He started to light a cigarette. I shook my head and he stopped. He finished the conversation, hung up, and made sure to look me in the eye.
“Thank you for coming. I heard you had a case of our famous shits.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. His intense, tightly wound presence did not inspire comfort even while exchanging small talk.
He sucked on the unlit cigarette before talking. “This was not my fault. Truly. I was on my way to give a sunrise talk to some environmental groups on the necessity to clean up and save the Yamuna River. You may have had a touch of the shits, but imagine what the people who drink and wash in that river get?”
I didn’t have to imagine: hepatitis, skin diseases, lethal dysentery, lead poisoning from the factory and small-business runoff, and every known and unknown form of cancer.
“We have turned Delhi’s lifeline into a sludge pile of waste. I am going to change that.”
Wow, I thought, even this me-first solipsist had a compartment of social concern and nationalist determination. “I can’t save the river. But don’t worry, the girl’s not hurt from anything you did.”
Holika opened the door and waved us inside. Ooju clung to her side. “I am going to take her to Summit’s.” Summit ran one of the homes for street kids. “Your suspicions were correct.” Holika frowned and her teeth clenched together. “Let us leave it at that.”
Holika decided against my taking x-rays of her leg and tests for STDs, TB, or HIV. She understood better than I did how to handle the situation.
As they were leaving I said to Holika, subtly, I hoped, “Please call me later and let me know how she is doing.”
Ratish stepped toward me to shake my hand, which I shook back. “This is much appreciated. I understand you did not have to come here.” His voice still raspy and macho, but suddenly tinged with sincerity and without its usual sly superiority. “I am having some friends over for dinner before Holika leaves town next week, if you feel up to it, please come. I will let you know the time and day.”
Before I could answer, taken aback by the depth of the sting of her leaving without telling me, Holika, still holding Ooju’s hand, turned and stepped in front of Ratish so he saw only her back. She spoke with her neck tilted forward and her eyes touched me in ways her hands could not. “Ratish, do not put it like I am leaving forever. I will be gone less than two weeks.
“Neil, now that you are no longer ill and allowing yourself to be disturbed,” she tweaked me while communicating with me in a language of old words with new meanings, “I will call you later and look forward to seeing you in less strained circumstances.”