Day Eight

BEN OPENED HIS EYES. The sound of retching from the bathroom had woken him. Over the steady pulse of the large ceiling fan, he could hear his grandmother vomiting.

Ben leapt out of bed and stood barefoot outside their adjoining bathroom door. “Are you okay, Gran?”

“I hope so,” was the hoarse response. Then a pause. “Must be … that curry I had last night.” Another pause, then more retching. “You’re not sick are you, Ben?”

“No, I’m just tired,” Ben answered. Not certain what to do, Ben waited, standing by the door.

White and shaky, his grandmother opened the door. Clutching her nightgown across her stomach, she stumbled back to bed.

“It’s cramps … like knives … one after another,” she groaned. Ben helped her onto the bed, where she lay doubled up on her side with her face buried in the pillow.

Her voice was weak. “I feel so awful. I never should have brought you to India. It’s all hopeless.”

“Oh, Gran, I know we ran into a dead end in Varanasi, but don’t worry about that now.” This was not the time to tell her that this could be the day there’d be a message on the school site.

“I’m a stupid old woman. Thinking I could find someone I knew fifty years ago.” Gran interrupted herself and rushed back to the bathroom. There were more sounds of heaving.

It sounded gross in there. She’d need water. Ben poured some from the pitcher on the dresser and sat waiting on the end of his grandmother’s bed. When Gran came unsteadily out of the bathroom, she sat down beside him. Her hands were shaking as she sipped the water. Then she dropped back on the bed. One second later she was gagging and struggling to get up. There was no time to shut the bathroom door before she was vomiting in even more violent spasms.

This had to be malaria. Gran was always reminding him to take his pills, but he’d never asked if she was taking hers. He sat on the bed, listening for sounds from the bathroom and keeping his bare feet off the floor in case of lizards or cockroaches.

When she shuffled out of the bathroom, Gran was stooped over like a one-hundred-year-old woman. Ben shivered. He could tell she was going to die.

Gran collapsed on the bed, barely able to raise her head from the pillow. “Don’t worry, Ben … it’s called Delhi belly … food poisoning … work its way through.”

“I thought you’d missed taking your pills and you got malaria.”

“I’ve … been … taking the … pills.”

“More water, Gran?” offered Ben.

“No. Couldn’t keep … down. Go back to bed … I’ll sleep.”

Ben gave his grandmother a last look and turned out the light. “I’ll leave the door between our rooms open, Gran.”

Ben lay down on his own bed. He wasn’t sure if he’d done the right thing leaving Gran. It was all so weird. The last thing he remembered was listening hard, not sure if he was imagining the soft scurrying noises in the room. Who knew what crawling creatures were hiding in the darkness? Who knew what would happen to his grandmother? He’d never seen anyone as sick as she was. And she was so weak. If she died, he’d be by himself, all alone in India.

Then he heard more vomiting. Ben sat up, acutely awake. Rushing to the bathroom door Ben saw his grandmother collapsed on the tile floor.

“Can’t get up …” It was an effort for Gran to speak. “Can’t stop … get a doctor, Ben.”

Still in his pajamas and bare feet, Ben ran out into the dark, across the wet grass to the Gurins’ bungalow. He pounded on the door with both hands. After a few long moments, a sleepy Prem opened the door.

Ben could barely catch his breath. “It’s my grandmother. She’s been vomiting all night. Can you find a doctor?”

Prem put his hand on Ben’s shoulder and said, “No problem, Ben. I’ll phone the doctor in town right away. Go back and stay with your grandmother.”

Ben raced back across the grass, only faintly aware of the sun just rising over the rim of the sea. His grandmother was still lying on the bathroom floor. She had crawled close to the wall and lay curled up like a little kid. In her rumpled nightgown she could have been one of the bodies on the street in Delhi.

The body moaned and Ben knelt down beside her. “The doctor’s coming, Gran.”

A few minutes later Prem came in and said, “The doctor will arrive in fifteen minutes. He lives close by and will come on his bicycle.”

Prem’s eyes opened wide when he saw Gran slumped on the bathroom floor. He signalled to Ben. “We must get your grandmother up.”

With Prem lifting Gran’s shoulders and Ben holding her bare legs, they managed to lift her onto the bed. Prem was wiping Gran’s face with a wet cloth when a bearded man in a high blue turban arrived. To Ben’s relief, the man spoke English. Prem introduced Ben.

“Hello, Ben. I am Dr. Sandeep Dhaliwal. Prem told me your grandmother has been sick all night. Vomiting and diarrhea, correct?”

Ben nodded. The doctor bent over Gran and asked, “When were you first sick, Mrs. Leeson?”

“About eleven last night … it got worse.”

The doctor was taking Gran’s pulse.

“What is it?” Ben asked.

“Probably food poisoning. This can happen in India,” said Dr. Dhaliwal.

“My grandmother had goat curry last night. That was it!” said Ben.

“We rarely find out what causes the food poisoning,” said Dr. Dhaliwal. He felt Gran’s forehead, shook down a thermometer and put it in her mouth.

“She has a bit of a fever,” he said. He leaned over the bed. “Mrs. Leeson, you are dehydrated from the fluids you’ve lost. I’d like to put you in hospital and start a saline drip.”

Ben’s worst fears were coming true. His grandmother had a fever. She was dehydrated. She was so sick she had to go to a hospital. An Indian hospital! Was that man in a turban a qualified doctor?

“I’ll phone for an ambulance,” Prem said, and with a nod from Dr. Dhaliwal, he was out the door.

The doctor put down his stethoscope. “Ben, pack a bag for your grandmother. Put in her toothbrush and clean night-clothes.”

“I will,” Ben said. “And her malaria pills and her high-blood pressure pills too.”

“Good man. We’ll make sure she gets those.” Dr. Dhaliwal sat at the end of the bed holding Gran’s wrist while Ben rushed to gather the things from the bathroom.

“Tell me what brings you and your grandmother to India,” he asked Ben.

Ben stood by the bed, gripping the backpack to his chest. Trying to hide his shaky voice, he told the doctor about their search for Shanti. Being scared always made his voice wobble.

“That’s an interesting quest,” Dr. Dhaliwal said. “What was the pen pal’s name?”

“We don’t know her married name. When she wrote to my grandmother her name was Shanti Mukherjee.”

Dr. Dhaliwal packed up his medical equipment. “It may be a coincidence, but I knew a man in Calcutta called Mukherjee. You see, although I am from the Punjab, I won a scholarship to medical school in Calcutta, and it is there I met a fellow student who may be related to the woman you seek.”

Just then Prem came to the door with two men in white shirts, carrying a stretcher between them. They lifted Ben’s grandmother onto the canvas stretcher and tightened a strap across the middle. It was awful to see Gran lying there with her face screwed up in pain.

Ben thought he should reassure her about the money and he leaned over to whisper, “I’ll take care of the money, Gran. I’ll wear the fanny pack.”

“Thank … you,” she sighed, not opening her eyes.

Ben squeezed her hand and followed the group as it trekked back across the lawn. Overlapping footprints in the morning’s wet grass had kept a visible record of the procession of people who had crossed it, beginning with Ben’s barefoot race in the dark to get Prem.

The sun was now up, and Ben’s watch said almost eight o’clock. “Can I come in the ambulance?” he asked the attendant who was loading the end of the stretcher.

“Sorry, no one rides in here except us,” the attendant said as he closed the door.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital,” said Dr. Dhaliwal to the attendants. “Ben, you come to the hospital with Prem after four this afternoon. It’s my guess that you’ll find your grandmother feeling a good deal better.” The ambulance pulled out along the gravel driveway, giving Ben no time to protest.

He hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye to his grandmother. A terrible feeling washed over him. He remembered Geoffrey Bonder telling the joke about the sick man taking one look at the entrance of an Indian hospital and announcing he was cured.

What had he done, letting his grandmother be taken to a hospital in India? He’d been irresponsible. His father would never have done that. Dad was always so good at taking care of things. Ben thought he’d probably find his grandmother’s cold dead body when he got to the hospital.

Prem put his arm around Ben’s shoulder. “Cheer up, old boy. Let’s get some breakfast into you. I can smell my mother’s dosas cooking.”

“I’d better email my mother and tell her what’s happened,” Ben said. He had to swallow hard to get the wobble out of his voice.

“Why not wait until after we’ve been to the hospital this afternoon? We’ll have a better idea later of how your grandmother is recovering. These bugs usually work their way out. No need to alarm anyone just yet.”

Rani and her mother sat across the table from Prem and Ben. The fried crepes filled with vegetables were hot and spicy, but Ben was distracted, imagining his grandmother being injected with dirty needles. She’d be scared. She didn’t know one person in the hospital. He refused the second masala dosa Rani offered him.

“I’m sure my grandmother’s sick because she ate goat curry last night,” Ben said.

“What makes you think it was the goat meat?” Mrs. Gurin asked.

“Gran and I were at the market yesterday. None of that meat is refrigerated.”

“True,” Mrs. Gurin said, “but it’s fresh. Did you see the bright orange meat?”

“Sure did. Gran couldn’t believe it.”

“That’s goat meat!” said Rani, smiling. “It’s orange before it’s cooked. Here we mostly eat vegetarian meals, but snake meat and goat meat are sold in our markets.”

Rani and Prem laughed at the look on Ben’s face.

“Your grandmother is overtired,” Mrs. Gurin said. “This trip has been upsetting for her.”

Ben shook his head. You don’t get so sick just from being overtired. It was scary that she could be so weak so fast. Maybe Gran was wrong about taking her malaria pills. Maybe she’d forgotten she’d missed one. Or maybe they weren’t working. People died from malaria. Ben felt as though a monster had tied a rope around his chest and was pulling on it. “Gran could have malaria.”

“No. She doesn’t have any symptoms of malaria,” Prem said.

“Don’t worry, Ben,” Rani said. “Your grandmother is in good hands. Let the hospital take care of her.”

Rani asked her mother something in a language Ben couldn’t understand. Mrs. Gurin nodded. “I’ve just asked my mother if I could take you swimming this morning after I do my work,” Rani said.

When she looked directly at you, Rani’s eyes danced with light. He’d never seen eyes like them. For a moment Ben forgot to answer. Then he said, “Great idea, but I have to be at the hospital by four o’clock.”

“Tell you what,” Prem said. “I have work to do in the office and Rani’s helping the women who clean the resort. Why don’t you make up for the sleep you lost last night, and Rani can come for you at eleven.”

“Excellent,” agreed Ben.

“Bring a towel,” Rani called as she headed out the door to start work.

Once again Ben crossed the grass, now beginning to vibrate with the heat of the morning sun. The bungalow showed signs of a hard night. Sheets trailed off his grandmother’s rumpled bed; towels were scattered around the bathroom. The memory of his grandmother slumped on the floor made Ben feel sick. He had the whole day to put in before he could see her at the hospital. His head buzzed; he was wide awake.

Poor Gran. She’d been in agony, and he’d stood by uselessly. He was not a good grandson. He’d left her favourite hat in the taxi and not said a word. Before that he’d blamed her for his father’s smoking. That was unfair. People started smoking because they didn’t know any better, and then they were hooked. His dad had tried to quit, but it was too late.

Ben picked up Gran’s guidebook and sat on his own bed. Once more he studied the elephant photograph on the cover, then he flipped through a few pages. He lay back on the bed and started reading about the maharaja rule in India.

The next thing he heard was Rani calling his name at the bungalow door. “Ben! Wake up. It’s time to swim.”

Ben tried to make his voice sound as though he hadn’t been asleep. “Be right there. Just changing into my bathing suit.”

He decided he had to take the fanny pack with him to the beach so he rolled it in a towel and put it under his arm. When he came out he saw that Rani wore a loose cotton beach coat over her dark blue bathing suit and had a towel over her shoulder. And she was smiling at him. “Race you!” she called.

Ben stowed the towel under a palm tree and was first into the warm water, but once there Rani matched him stroke for stroke. Every few minutes Ben looked up to check that his towel with the money was safe under the tree. Rani and Ben chased each other through the water, dived for shells and hurled themselves through the waves. Ben lay on his back, buoyed up by the salty green water, and for the first time since he’d come to India, felt completely relaxed.

When they came out of the water, Rani put on her beach coat and they sat under the tree watching men cast fishing lines from the two catamarans floating offshore. It all seemed unreal. Was it really Ben Leeson sitting beside a girl on a white sand beach in India? His old life in Vancouver felt a world away. Of course when you thought about it, Vancouver was half a world away.

Then he remembered Gran. “Tell me about Dr. Dhaliwal,” he asked Rani. “He said he was from the Punjab. Where’s that?”

“The Punjab is a state in the north where most Sikhs live, though many Sikhs live here in Tamil Nadu too. I believe Dr. Dhaliwal did his residency here and fell in love with Mahabalipurum. The doctor and his family are a respected part of our community.”

“Is he a good doctor?”

“Oh, yes, your grandmother is fortunate to be in his care.”

“I hope so. It just seemed strange to have a doctor wearing a turban.”

“I can see it would seem strange to you. I’m thinking you must be Christian, Ben?” Rani asked.

“Well, sort of. We’re Unitarian, which is kind of a non-religion, but Lauren and I went to Sunday school for a couple of years. I never thought about religion until I got over here where it’s so important. What about you? You’re Hindu, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You must believe in reincarnation?”

“Yes, we believe that when we die our souls are reborn and we come back to earth as other people.”

“Really?”

“And we return many times until we reach enlightenment. It might take thousands of years.”

“You mean a person could come back and live other lives?”

“Yes.”

Ben picked up a fistful of sand and tossed it in the air. “I just can’t go for that. It’s too weird.”

Rani didn’t say anything. Ben picked up another handful of sand. “I’d like to believe that a person’s soul or their spirit could live on, but not inside another person. Say my father came back as someone else. I’d recognize him, wouldn’t I? If the person had my dad’s soul, I think I’d know.” He dropped the sand.

“You shouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

“The reincarnation stuff is just too crazy for me to believe.”

Rani stood up. “Ben, I’m not saying you have to believe.” She looked angry and turned away in the direction of the bungalows.

Ben hurried after her. He’d made her mad; he was just like Gran who’d judged Shanti about her arranged marriage. He called, “Rani, I’m sorry. Please wait.”

Ben caught up to her. “I’m a lame jerk. Sorry if I seemed to be criticizing your beliefs. I’m just trying to figure it all out. I need to know what happens when someone dies. There’s got to be more than being buried and eaten by worms or burned and turned into ashes. Tell me about what you believe.”

Rani nodded. “It’s hard to understand another culture and hard for me to explain. Hinduism is complicated.”

They reached a shady bench under a row of large trees and sat down.

“Have you heard about karma?” Rani asked. “It’s something else for you to think about.”

“What’s karma?” Ben asked.

Rani took a breath. “In our religion everyone is responsible for their own behaviour. Karma is what comes from our actions. Good ones and bad ones. The deeds people do in their lifetimes determine their destiny in the next life.”

Ben thought about it. Of course. It made sense that you were responsible for the way you behaved in life. In a flash he saw the rumpled Tilley hat lying in the taxi. The skin on his back prickled. He’d simply walked away and left it there. What kind of a deed was that? Then into his mind came the picture of strangers carrying his grandmother’s stretcher through the door of the hospital. Right at this moment, while he was sitting here talking to Rani, Gran could be dying.

Rani’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I can see you’re worried about your grandmother.”

“Yep.”

“Ben, it’s a fine hospital. Last year I had my appendix taken out there.”

“You did? You seem to have survived okay.” He’d never get tired of a smile like that. “You know there’s another thing. I’ve been mean to my grandmother ever since we left Varanasi. I feel terrible about it.”

“Being mean hasn’t made her sick, Ben,” Rani said.

“What if she dies?”

“She won’t. Just tell her you’re sorry when you see her.”

“I’m not so mad anymore. It was stupid of me. I blamed her for my dad dying, because she didn’t make him stop smoking. It wasn’t her fault.”

A burst of fresh wind off the ocean travelled across the grass. It stirred the palms, rustling the long branches and clearing away the guilty storm in Ben’s head. He knew what to do. “I’ll get my grandmother a new hat in town.”

“Does she need a new hat?” Rani asked.

“Yes, if I’m going to have some good karma,” Ben answered.

“Always a good idea,” Rani said.

He couldn’t believe how fast time passed when he and Rani talked. She seemed to have forgiven him for being critical of her beliefs and was back to being friendly. Ben checked his watch. “Almost time to go to the hospital. I’d better get ready.”

In the bungalow the sheets were pulled tight across Gran’s bed; the afternoon breeze billowed the white curtains halfway across the room. Ben put on a clean shirt and was waiting by Prem’s car before four o’clock.

Prem drove along the dusty streets, past the shops lining the main road to the three-storey brick hospital on the other side of the village. Ben was nervous, not knowing what he’d find as he neared the stone entrance.

Inside, it smelled like the hospital where his father had surgery. Prem asked one of the nurses hurrying along the hall where they could find Norah Leeson. She pointed to a long room with frosted windows and rows of beds. A nursing sister took them to the far end of the room near the nursing station.

The first sight of his grandmother scared Ben. She seemed to have shrunk and lay with her eyes closed, her arms stretched out along her body. A white sheet was pulled up tightly to her chin. From a bottle above the bed, a tube led to a needle in the back of her hand.

“How are you, Gran?” said Ben, bending over. “It’s me.”

Gran opened her eyes. “Oh, Ben. Good to see you.”

She shifted her head on the pillow. “The nurses here are taking good care of me, and Dr. Dhaliwal is an excellent doctor.”

“I was worried.” Ben grabbed his grandmother’s free hand.

Gran reached up and stroked Ben’s cheek. “Have you been all right without me?”

“Yes, I’m with Prem and Rani. I haven’t emailed Mum yet because I wanted to wait until I’d seen you. I’ll do it tonight.” He squeezed hard on Gran’s hand. “I feel terrible, Gran.”

“You haven’t lost the money, have you?”

“It’s in your fanny pack, right here. See?” Ben patted his waist. He had to wear it and Prem hadn’t said anything about it. Ben was getting up his courage to explain to his grandmother that it was her hat he was feeling terrible about, when a nurse came by and reported that Dr. Dhaliwal was pleased at how Mrs. Leeson was responding to treatment. There had been no more diarrhea or vomiting and the intravenous drip was working. She added, “Because of her age the doctor wants your grandmother to stay overnight to get her strength back.”

“Ben can stay with us, Mrs. Leeson,” Prem said. “We’ll take good care of him.”

“Thank you, Prem,” Gran said, her eyes closing.

“Visiting hours start again at four o’clock tomorrow. I’ll be here, Gran.” Ben gave her hand a final squeeze, but it seemed his grandmother was already asleep.

On the way home, Prem stopped at the market to buy fish and vegetables for his mother to make a curry. Ben bought a green baseball cap that said DELHI DEVILS over the visor.

When they got back to the resort, Prem went into his bungalow with the groceries and Ben went into the office to use the computer. Surely there would be a message on the school site finally to cheer up Gran. First he’d email home.

Dear Mum and Lauren

Gran got food poisoning and she couldn’t get up from the bathroom floor. I think it’s from goat curry even though nobody else does. Her doctor has a long beard and wears a turban. Don’t believe what U hear about Indian hospitals. This 1 is very clean. The doctor says Gran is getting better.

G2G Ben

P.S. Don’t worry about me. I’ll never eat goat curry.

Then he keyed in the school address. The screen flashed, then: No Messages. He’d been so certain this time. Ben turned off the computer and left the room.

Rani met him at the door. “Any luck?”

“No, and I was sure there would be a message.”

“Well, do you know what Gandhi said?”

“Yes, everyone in India knows. Patience and persistence!”

“We must remember that.” Rani smiled.

On the way to the Gurins’ bungalow, Rani asked, “I was wondering if you play chess?”

“My dad did start to teach me, but I can hardly remember,” Ben said.

“I could teach you.”

“You’re on! Thanks.”

Rani won both games, but the second one was close. After the fish curry dinner, they played another game. “You’re a fast learner,” said Rani. “By the way, I have permission from my mother to take you to see the cobra farm near here tomorrow.”

“Cobra farm?”

“Yes, it’s famous. They milk the cobras for live venom and make an antidote to save the lives of people bitten by cobras.”

“Wicked!” exclaimed Ben.

Rani laughed. “We can swim first and go on bikes. I’ll lend you a spare one we have here.”

“Sweet,” Ben said.

“Sweet! Wicked! We don’t use those strange words in India,” Rani said, laughing again.

“That’s the way kids talk back in Canada.”

“It’s like a special language,” Rani said, laughing.

Feeling brave, Ben turned down the offer of a bed in Prem’s room, assuring the family he’d be fine in the bungalow not too far away.

Somehow the bungalow didn’t seem quite as safe as it had when he and Gran first arrived. Ben turned on the light and leapt into bed as fast as he could. He thought about the visit to the cobra farm. He wrapped the covers around his shoulders. If there were cobras so near, who’s to say there wasn’t one curled up in the corner or climbing onto the end of this bed? What are you supposed to do if you have a cobra in your bed?

Ben told himself not to be a jerk. He was thirteen, old enough to go to India. He was old enough to take care of himself.