When Adi was a child her family lived for a time near the city of Mathura, where Lord Krishna was said to have resided. Her favorite holiday was Holi, wherein everyone would throw the most wonderful colors of powdered pigments at one another. The tradition was said to have begun when Krishna worried to his mother that he was darker-skinned than Radha, his beauteous goatherd soul mate. Krishna’s mother rectified this by painting Radha’s face with pigments.
It was the one day of the year when Adi didn’t feel as if she stood out so much, darker than the British but lighter than the Indians. At sunset, after all the powder had been thrown, the rainbow-colored children would run screaming into the Yamuna River. Adi liked to walk in slowly to watch the color swirl off of her and fade into the dark water.
• • •
The front door of the house slammed hard in Adi’s face. Through it she heard, “I don’t know. Some mute girl, peddling a watch.”
She opened her mouth to retort, but again, her pulse raced. Her breath caught in her throat. The color drained from her sight as if she might faint.
She had knocked on several doors with the same result. What else could she do? Her head ached with fatigue, but she kept moving.
As soon as the bell tower had struck six, the watch started to whir almost imperceptibly on the chain around her neck. Opening it, she saw the tiny blood red second hand tracing its course. On the other side, the numbers in the little squares across the face, at least the rightmost of them, began ticking off the seconds and the minutes. “What is it, girl?” the desk officer had barked. “I don’t have all morning for your nonsense.” Unable to contrive the simplest response, she had fled.
• • •
The bell tinkled above the door as Adi entered a bakery. She nearly swooned from the smell of fresh bread.
The shop girl looked up. “Morning, miss. May I help you?”
Adi tore her eyes away from the warm loaves stacked before her and held her watch out.
The shop girl took one look at Adi’s bare feet. “Oh, miss!” she cried. “The owner is very strict about beggars. You’ll have to leave.”
She pushed the silently protesting girl out of the shop. Adi stood outside the door, her cheeks burning with frustration.
• • •
A few blocks to the west, George, having made it into town, was leaning his aching head against a cobbler’s window, watching the little man inside doing something to the sole of a boot.
“Now that would be a good way to make a living,” George said to himself. “Sit in that chair all day and make shoes. People would drop in. You could talk about stitching or grommets or something. End of the day you could point and say ‘this is what I made today.’ And there would be a pair of shoes.”
Turning back to the street, he looked around at the buildings and tried to get his bearings.
“. . . pretty sure it was by the . . .” He started in one direction, then changed his mind and headed in another.
“Damn it, Augustin. You couldn’t have gone home tomorrow?”
As he crossed the street he avoided the truck, but nearly collided with a bicyclist.
“Sorry, my fault,” he said after.
• • •
Adi stood outside the back door of a little red brick church. She had been politely but firmly escorted out by a no doubt well-meaning, but confused, choir director.
She sat down on the steps and leaned her head in her hand. The watch dangled before her on its chain.
Though Adi knew it was worse than pointless, she was about to break down and go back to her former place of employment when someone cleared their throat nearby.
“Excuse me, miss,” said a nicely dressed man, tipping his bowler. “Might I be of some assistance.”
She could hardly believe her ears.
Fumbling open the watch, she held it up for the man, pointing out the image of the boys. He stepped closer into the alley and looked at it with keen interest.
“Why, yes!” he said. “I think I have seen these boys!”
Adi looked up at him brightly, but then noticed his shirt collar was soiled.
“Let me get a closer look at that,” he said, attempting to take the watch from her hand.
Adi pulled back, perceiving suddenly that his suit was garish and worn. She tried to push past him.
“Give us the watch,” he hissed.
In a second he had it, shoving Adi to the pavement.
She scrambled to her feet; the thief was already turning the corner at the end of the street.
Half a block away, George turned a corner only to come upon an alley stacked with wooden pallets and trash. Above him there was a huge, faded perfume advertisement on the side of the building. He looked at the woman’s face as if she might tell him which way to go.
He heard the sound of running. He turned. A seedy-looking chap in a bowler was rushing toward him. Farther back was a young lady, coming fast through the traffic in his direction.
With surprising agility, considering his condition, George stuck his leg out as the man passed. Down went the thief, dropping the watch onto the pavement. His hat rolled into the gutter. Cursing at George, he scrambled to his feet and ran away up the block.
George leaned over and picked up the watch.
Adi pushed past pedestrians, and seeing only a man holding her watch, launched herself at him, knocking him down onto the sidewalk. She dropped right on top of George and cocked her fist back in the way someone might if they’d never used their fists.
She caught sight of the thief running away up the street. She looked down in astonishment at the young man holding up her watch.
“—believe this is what you’re looking for,” mumbled George.
Adi opened her mouth to apologize and then slapped her hands over her lips. George looked even more confused.
She stood up, and with both hands helped the young man to his feet. George handed her the watch.
Adi attempted, through a series of remarkably inadequate pantomimes, to explain herself. The expression on the young man’s face told her she wasn’t having much success. Though upon closer examination she noticed that he appeared, perhaps, to be unwell.
Still catching his breath, George rubbed his head and said, “Don’t mean to be uncooperative, miss. It’s just that, it’s early and—”
It suddenly occurred to Adi that the young man had been drinking! There was grass in his hair. And his fine clothes—she now could see clearly—had been slept in. For heaven’s sake! Were there only thieves and drunkards in this city?
Close to tears, she put the watch chain around her neck, and with a wave of her hand she turned to leave. Another disappointment had taken what little wind she had in her sails.
“I know you,” said George.
Adi stopped and looked back at the young man, surprised.
“You were at the . . . Perséphone Reine . . . at the restaurant, yesterday. Was it yesterday?”
She remembered! Him and his dreadful friend. Sailing down the Amazon! There was the yellow liqueur stain on his shirt.
She stumbled and sat down upon a step, her head spinning.
George, brushing his coat off, looked at the young woman.
“Are you all right?”
Staring down at her feet, she studied the scratches and dirt. She began to laugh a little, which turned helplessly to tears.
George rubbed the back of his neck.
“Good work, George,” he muttered. Thinking about it for a second, he sat down on the step next to the girl. She flinched and tried to get up, but settled for moving over a few inches.
They sat. Adi wiped at her face with her sleeve, looking thoroughly miserable. George went through his pockets, found a rumpled bill and several coins.
“I’ve got no idea,” George said, “what’s going on with you and your—” He gestured at the watch. “And I seem to have misplaced my wallet. But I think”—holding out the coins in his hand—“I’ve got enough to get us some coffee and bread. And then maybe you could explain how a young woman who can’t talk could be so terrible at charades.”
Adi, her arms folded, leaned upon her legs and weighed her alternatives.
When she was growing up her father would say, “Use what you have.” What did she have? A drunk who slept in his clothes and not a thing else.
She looked over at the young man in his damp suit.
George pushed the glasses up his nose, brushed the hair from his eyes, and climbed to his feet. He held out a hand.
“My name is George.”
He didn’t volunteer a last name. Adi was hardly in a position to complain.
She reached out a delicate hand, a bit darker than his. He took it and pulled her to her feet. He looked around and spotted a cafe down the block.
“After you,” he said. They started walking. The sun was finally burning through the morning mist.