Chapter 11

Eli was whispering to Rajamani in the courtyard when Maneesh entered. They were hoping not to wake any of the children.

“I got your message,” Maneesh said. “What’s wrong?”

Rajamani excused himself and hurried away. Eli turned to greet Maneesh.

“This must be bad,” Maneesh added.

“Why would you say that?”

“Rajamani rushed away like I have smallpox.”

“We need to sit.”

Maneesh followed Eli inside. “There’s something I need to tell you about Chellamuthu, the boy who . . .”

“I know who Chellamuthu is. What about him?”

“He’s gone!”

 

Arayi had wept most of the night after the astrologer had delivered the terrible news of Chellamuthu’s death, after he’d packed up his carved table and his astrological charts, conveyed his deepest condolences, finished another good day’s work, and headed home to eat dinner with his own family.

At first she’d believed him, and for several hours she mourned desperately for the loss of her little son. But she awoke before dawn the next day unable to shake a feeling that had soaked into her muscles and bones overnight. It insisted that the man was wrong. Perhaps he’d mixed up two stars, misread a line in his chart, inadvertently switched a planet.

Something. She couldn’t put her feeling into words, except to say that at times a mother senses truth in ways that can never be logically explained.

A few days later, she sat in the home of Jagdish Prasad, another astrologer. She needed a second opinion.

Arayi had come to his home because it was less expensive, because the charts, she’d been assured, should read the same anywhere. He didn’t have an ornate carved table, nor did he wear a crafted gold medallion. He used only a few charts, two maps, and a single book. He claimed to have learned the skill from his late father and was happy to use it now, for a tiny fee, to help others—in this case, a grieving mother.

He took less time than the first man, but he claimed to be just as sure in his conclusion. “If I am reading the signs correctly, and I believe that I am . . .”

Arayi fought the urge to cover her ears, to run from the house before he could deliver his reading. At least then she could cling to her hope, her instinct-fueled belief that Chellamuthu was still alive. If this man delivered the same message, then a mother’s love—that force that overshadows all of the stars and planets and surely holds the universe together—wouldn’t be real. The sun must cease to shine. Stars would fall from the sky. Planets would leap from their orbits, and the universe would implode.

Life itself would lose all meaning.

“Your son,” the astrologer announced, “is not only alive and well . . .” He lifted the open book into better light. “ . . . he is coming home at this very moment and will return to you soon.”

Arayi exhaled. Could it be true? “How soon?” she pleaded. “How soon?”

Another check of the charts.

“Your son will be home by tomorrow night.”

 

In the darkness outside the orphanage, Chellamuthu considered his two choices: walk toward what appeared to be the city center and look for someone who might be able to help or shun any people and head toward the edge of town, hoping to get far enough away to stay out of danger. He opted for the latter, resting for only a moment beside a rundown warehouse that sat across from a towering cement factory. At least he intended it to be only a moment.

It was the rumble of eager trucks pulling out of the yard with their weighty loads that stirred him awake—just in time to greet the sun rising over the busy building.

“Muttal!” he mumbled, annoyed at himself for not creating further distance in the dark when he’d had the chance. Now his only choice was to stay hidden, out of sight, until the sun set again in the evening.

His stomach wasn’t convinced. He’d eaten little the previous day, and thankfully so, since he’d barely squeezed out through the opening. The price now, however, was a complaining belly that sounded a lot like the heavy trucks.

And it wasn’t just the rumbling that jabbed at his gut, but Eli’s words. Haven’t we always given you plenty to eat?

“Shut up!” Chellamuthu answered aloud, as he inched forward to get a better look at a man across the street.

The worker held a long green hose behind a chain-link fence, and as the cement trucks rounded the corner and stopped, the man would thoroughly spray down every truck, as if he were washing a parade of dirty elephants. Chellamuthu scratched at his scalp. The water looked . . . wonderful.

It wasn’t enough that his stomach was being ornery, but every inch of his body was joining in to complain. His skin was more than just smelly, it was beginning to rash.

He’d tried last night to listen for a river, a place where he could scrub off the stink. They must have a river, he reasoned, because the street he’d been following was named Chenkatti Bridge Road. Every bridge he’d ever known had crossed water.

He strained his ears again and listened, just as the landowner had shown him. There were sounds all right, but nothing familiar. No Banerjee. No drunken father. No Manju. No cousins. No Erode. And no Kaveri.

If I could just get to the river, I could get home.

“Hey, boy!”

Chellamuthu spun around. A man in uniform was approaching—a policeman, perhaps, or a security guard from the cement factory. Chellamuthu said nothing.

“Come here, boy.”

Perhaps he should have asked what the man wanted, or at least waited to find out. But the way he’d called him boy, raised the hair on Chellamuthu’s neck.

Instead, the boy turned down dusty Chenkatti Bridge Road—and ran.

And ran, and ran, and ran.

 

“What if he goes to the police?” Maneesh said, pacing furrows in the courtyard dirt.

“He won’t.”

“Why not?”

“He believes that if he does, his family will go to jail.”

“Where did he get that idea?” Maneesh asked.

Eli glanced at his partner. Why bother to explain?

“So you decry and belittle bribes,” Maneesh needled, “but lies are fine?” It wasn’t really a question.

“Perhaps it’s not a lie,” Eli replied. “Besides, you said yourself that everything has a price. I’m willing to pay it. We’re helping them break free from poverty and pain. The boy will recognize that soon enough and come back.”

Maneesh huddled in close. “I’ve been wondering, Eli. Are you trying to help children escape, or are you hoping to escape yourself?”

“Let’s not do this again. I’m giving them a future . . .”

“But it’s costing them their past. You’re playing God.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Eli replied.

“Don’t I? Are there more? Besides the boy?”

“More what?”

“More children who’ve been taken from their families? Children who aren’t really orphans?”

Eli’s voice stiffened. “I’ve never forced a child to stay.”

“You’re fooling yourself—that’s deception of the worst kind.”

Eli stood. “Judge all you’d like, but if a child is kidnapped from hell and carried to heaven, should we condemn the kidnapper?”

Maneesh returned only a slight shake of his head as he headed to the door. “The difference,” he added, “between a hero and a fiend is often razor thin. Be careful where you step, Eli.”

Maneesh slipped outside, but before he closed the gate, Eli called out.

“There’s something else about the boy’s family you should know.”

 

Chellamuthu’s legs finally gave out on the edge of town, near a field of cotton where he stumbled to a stop and fell into the lukewarm shade of a tamarind tree. He was hungry and tired and thirsty and filthy—and lonely.

“Why can’t you rain now, when I need it?” he asked the cloud-filled sky. But his words were shadowed by a bigger question: Why had his life taken this terrible turn? His mother would say that we choose our destinations when we choose our paths, that all choices have consequences. She had counseled him on many occasions to follow knowledge, duty, and devotion. He’d preferred following the path to the park, the river—stealing. Was he now being punished? Was this his reward for disobedience?

It was early afternoon when he gathered both the courage and the strength to stand. He’d decided he would walk back to the road and beg a ride, and he’d go with anyone, wherever they were going.

When he stood, a shimmer caught his eye. It was off the road a distance, and while there was no sound of water, it was deep and wide and waiting. It was larger than a pond but smaller than a lake, and though this body of water could never compare to the Kaveri, it welcomed him with outstretched arms.

Chellamuthu made his way to the edge, and oddly, as he waded into the water to rinse his deprived body clean, the silly song from the Lincoln Home bounced into his head:

Deep and wide, deep and wide,

There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.

The basin must have been fed by an underground spring, as the water was cool and clear, and he gulped big swallows until he was certain he would be sick.

He had no soap like the women at Lincoln Home, so instead, as his mother had once taught him back in Erode, he reached for something else that would take away the filth—handfuls of sand. He stripped off his shorts and shirt and used the sand to scrub at his arms, legs, neck, and chest. He even pressed handfuls of the gritty mixture into his hair and scalp, rubbing and rinsing it away until he felt clean. As an afterthought, he scooped up a fingerful of the grit and polished his teeth.

Once his body had been sufficiently scoured, he focused on his clothes, kneading them against both sand and rock, as he’d watched his mother do at the river, until they were equally clean.

Since there was no one around—and even if there had been—he placed his clothes on the twigs of nearby bushes to dry and rinsed his naked body again in the water, just because he could. Then he poked along the shore, hoping to find berries or something he could eat.

He recognized the plant immediately. It had broad leaves, purple flowers, hairy stems, and the scent of lemons. It was the same plant his mother had sent him to find so she could treat Manju. Knowing it was perfectly safe, he pulled off a leaf and pushed it into his mouth.

Chellamuthu parked himself on the ground near the water and pulled up his bare legs. He stared at the scars on his feet, put there so he’d remember the pain and make wiser choices. He should have taken the leaves back to his mother right away when Manju was so sick, rather than selfishly riding the elephant. He knew that. Perhaps if he had gone right back, his father wouldn’t have burned his feet. He wouldn’t have been taken. He wouldn’t be lost, alone.

Choices have consequences.

Chellamuthu pushed his feet into the soft mud to cover the marks—but guilt is hard to hide. The mud seeped into the cut still healing on his foot, reminding him of a more recent shame, a persistent pestering that had been clamoring in his head and pinching at his heart since the stinky trough had given birth to his freedom.

He had left Anu.

She was ill and alone, and even after he’d promised to bring her water and help her get better, he’d left without telling her why. Would she understand? Would she be okay? Would she survive anyway? Why did it matter, now that he was free?

It was the scars that offered answers. He pulled his feet from the mud and stretched for the water to wash them clean. He longed to be home, if only for a moment, to tell his father that he no longer had to be disappointed in his son.

The scars were working!

Chellamuthu coiled around to face the plant. He would eat soon enough. Right now he needed a stick. Glancing around, he saw one in the mud nearby that would do nicely.

As he knelt beside the plant, the rustle of its leaves seemed to whisper a familiar word: dharma.

 

Arayi had kept the fire going until early the following morning—just in case. Despite the day’s heat, she fell asleep in the hut and didn’t wake until Jaya returned with Manju in the afternoon.

“I don’t know who to believe,” Arayi cried to her sister. “Is there no one who can tell me what happened to my son?”

Jaya couldn’t answer. Or wouldn’t.

It was time for Arayi to start cooking dinner, but she had no more fuel. She’d used up all of their wood the night before.

She stirred what was left in the fire—it was nothing but ash.

 

Kuppuswami sat in the dirt and slugged down the last of his palm toddy. It wasn’t enough. He was still conscious, still aware, still unable to squelch the ache smoldering in his chest.

As he lay back down alongside the road, he pondered what to do.

Where does one turn when palm toddy isn’t strong enough, when its arms are too short to reach down and choke out all the pain?

Kuppuswami had been walking along the proverbial edge for years. For many traversing a similar road, stumbling along life’s brink, a crisis often serves to wake them up, pull them back to safety, save them from themselves. For others, like Kuppuswami, faltering on rocky crags, tragedy steps in like wind to nudge them off the edge of the cliff.

The broken man crawled toward the field of a neighbor who grew ganja, a cannabis plant that was technically illegal in India but could be grown and used for “medical and scientific” purposes, if the right people were paid. Kuppuswami could imagine no better medicine.

He picked a handful of the mature leaves and spread them on the ground in the sweltering sun. As soon as it was ready, he would roll it, light it, smoke it, and let it deaden the agony that was too heavy for him to carry alone.

While he waited, Kuppuswami studied the scar on his leg. Maybe if the ganja didn’t work . . . he would find a real cliff.

 

Chellamuthu crouched in the dark outside the Lincoln Home for Homeless Children, peering at the begging bundle of leaves he’d left outside the gate for Anu. He was hidden behind a crate that had been dumped outside a building across the street, but he couldn’t expect to stay unnoticed for long. He had come back without a plan—only resolve—and so far, it wasn’t enough.

Hours earlier he’d watched Eli swing the door open, the metal pushing the roll of leaves and stems aside like garbage. His foot might even have brushed against it as he locked the door and then strode off into the night. How could he not see that help for Anu was right there, so close, pleading to be let in?

Chellamuthu had hoped that after Eli had hurried away, Mrs. Sundar would head for home and see the bundle of leaves on the ground. The problem was, she didn’t always go home. It was just as common for her to stay the night . . . and even if she did see the leaves, there was no guarantee that she’d realize their purpose.

Chellamuthu’s stomach growled its displeasure. Other than some rancid adai that he’d fished from a garbage can hours earlier, he’d had little to eat, and his body was letting him know.

What was he thinking? Why had he even bothered to come back?

The sound of scraping feet startled him. A man with a lantern was rounding the building from behind.

 

Once the children were finally asleep, Mr. Rajamani said good-night to the women on duty and waddled to the door. He was six steps away when the pounding started. It wasn’t a timid knock, but an authoritative one—the kind policemen use on official business. Perhaps it was news about the missing boy?

When Rajamani pulled the door open, Chellamuthu marched inside as if a delivery this time of night was normal. He didn’t bother with a greeting. Instead, he held out a bundle of leaves.

“You have to boil them. That’s what I watched my mother do, boil them ’til the water’s green. Anu has to drink it two times a day, whether she likes it or not, ’cause Manju didn’t like it, but Mother made her drink it anyway. And then boil the roots, but not too much, and mash them up and give her little bits with her food. If you do all this, she’ll get better.”

Stunned, Rajamani took the bundle. Then, as if Chellamuthu had never escaped from the compound at all, he hiked across the yard and through the doors to where the rest of the children slept.

Eli had gone home early with a piercing headache but had asked Rajamani to keep him informed if anything unusual happened. This likely qualified.

Rajamani followed the boy’s steps across the yard and peeked inside the door. Chellamuthu had peeled off his shirt and was sitting on his mat, taking huge bites from an apple he’d retrieved from a basket beneath the table.

Rajamani scratched curiously at the edges of his moustache. Then, instead of fetching Eli, he dashed to the room beside the main office and rapped on the door.

“Akkā, wake up! Wake up! Hurry and boil some water!”