The Bridge Home

by Padma Venkatraman

  “Four,” you said.

  “My sister means one hundred fifty rupees,” I said.

  “Three,” you sang. “Three, four, five, six.”

  “I’d better pay before the price soars ever higher.” The girl laughed and then fished in her bag for her money.

  “I can’t believe you’re actually spending your money on that,” the other girl exclaimed.

  “What’s a hundred and fifty rupees?” the nice girl said. “These kids are cute, and the necklaces are pretty.”

  “Pretty.” You wrapped one around a finger and twirled it so the beads caught the sunlight.

  “That’s right.” The girl slid her necklace over her head. “Very pretty.”

  We couldn’t have asked for a better model. The girl’s golden brown skin set off the beads, making them sparkle even more.

  “We’ll send some friends your way,” she promised.

  Sure enough, another college girl came by soon, her pink sari swishing around her heels. “There you are! I’ll take one.”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “Whichever, doesn’t matter.”

  “One hundred and fifty.” I handed over a pink one to match her sari.

  She gave me two hundred.

  I returned the extra fifty.

  “Keep it,” she said.

  “We settled on one hundred and fifty,” I said. “We don’t need charity.”

  “You’re not offended, are you?” She sounded worried. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not offended,” I said.

  In less than an hour, you’d sold all but one necklace and we had earned a small fortune.

  “You’re a miracle, Rukku!” I said. “Your necklaces are worth their weight in gold!”

  “Golden roasted corn,” Muthu said dreamily. “Rukku is a miracle, Kutti, do you know that?”

  Kutti opened his mouth wider, like he was grinning in agreement.

  “Balloon!” you said.

  We walked with you to the balloon stand, though I worried about whether buying a balloon was really such a good idea. Amma had bought us a huge balloon once, and we had fun with it until it burst and the loud noise set you off.

  But my worry dwindled when I looked at you.

  Standing erect, an openmouthed smile spread wide across your face, you picked out a long, bottle-green balloon.

  “You give him the money, Rukku. You earned it.” I counted out the exact amount and put it into your outstretched palm.

  You handed over the money. I’d never seen you stand so tall before.

  That was something.

  No.

  That was everything.

  18

  RICHES

  “Where did you get all this . . .” Arul’s eyes darted from your balloon to our clothes to the food we’d piled on the ground in front of our tents—a whole loaf of fresh white bread, chocolate bars, packages of salty plantain chips and crisp murukkus.

  We’d felt so rich, we’d even bought Kutti a juicy bone from the mutton stall, and he was gnawing on it contentedly.

  You handed Arul the new T-shirt we’d bought him, and then tied your balloon to our tent.

  “Look!” Muthu unfurled our straw mats. “These are for us to sleep on!”

  “What? How?” Arul leaned against the bridge wall like he was too surprised to stand.

  “It’s all because of Rukku!” I said.

  Bit by bit, we told him how you’d sold your necklaces.

  “That’s wonderful,” Arul said. “Thank you, Rukku.”

  “Thank you, Rukku. Thank you, Rukku,” Muthu chanted.

  “Thank you, Rukku,” you repeated, swatting at your balloon. “Thank you, Rukku.”

  You and Muthu played with your balloon while Arul and I placed the straw mats and new pillows inside the tents, making them look almost cozy.

  “Fly, balloon?” You pulled it close to your ear as if you could hear it reply, the way I’d seen you talk to your wooden doll. “Okay,” you decided, untying the balloon. “Go.”

  “No!” Muthu made a grab for it, but it floated out of reach.

  I was just as surprised as he sounded, but my surprise was mixed with happiness and relief. Ever since we’d left, you’d been behaving so differently from before. You hadn’t once lost your temper. You’d made friends. You even looked different, because you’d been holding your back straight all the time.

  “Why did you let it go, Rukku?” Muthu said grumpily.

  “Balloon wants to fly.” You waved as it drifted above the river.

  “But—” Muthu began.

  “You set it free, Rukku,” I cut him short. “Now it can go anywhere it feels like. That was really nice of you.”

  * * *

  • • •

  When we were done eating, I showed Arul the remaining notes and coins that I’d refused to let us spend. “We’ve still got some money left.”

  “We could go to a movie tonight,” Muthu suggested.

  “No,” I said. “We’re going to save it.”

  “I saw a movie one time with Rajinikanth acting.” Muthu boxed an imaginary opponent. “I can still hear Rajinikanth punching the bad guy. Tishoom.”

  “Tishoom.” You looked up briefly, then continued playing with Kutti. “Tishoom.”

  “See? Rukku thinks it’s a good idea.”

  “She didn’t say that at all. Arul, don’t you think we should save some money?”

  “Where?” Arul sounded genuinely curious. “How?”

  “Think they’ll let us enter a bank?” Muthu chuckled.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Now that we’re wearing T-shirts without holes, I’m sure they won’t mind.” Muthu fingered a hole in his shorts. “Especially if we spray on our perfume and wash our feet.”

  I glanced down at my skirt. I’d tried so hard to scrub off the stains that I’d torn a hole right through it. Beneath the hem, my toenails peeped out, edged with dirt.

  I tried calculating how much money we could make if we switched to the bead business. “Rukku finishes two or three necklaces a day. Let’s say we sell each one for just fifty rupees each, and we only manage to sell about ten every week. Even then we’ll make around—”

  “Ai! Stop it, Akka,” Muthu said. “All this planning ahead is making my head hurt.”

  “Don’t you ever think about the future?” I challenged him.

  “No,” Muthu said. “There’s enough to worry about every day without worrying about tomorrow.”

  “I don’t just worry about tomorrow,” I said. “I also imagine good things. But all sorts of bad stuff could happen, so we should plan in case—”

  “That’s right,” Muthu interrupted. “All sorts of bad things can happen, and that’s why we should spend the money, Akka.”

  “You should imagine good things, too.” I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let the boys destroy my hope we’d find a better life, somehow. “I don’t know how you live without dreams.”

  “The only way I can get through each day,” Arul said quietly, “is by not thinking of all those tomorrows. All those minutes and days and months and years of sorting through mountains of rubbish. But if it helps you to have a bit of money to hold on to, we’ll save some for you to dream on.”

  Muthu grumbled as I stashed our remaining notes and coins in a pothole on the bridge and covered them with stones, promising myself I’d find some way to make the boys see how important our dreams were.

  One day, you’d have a bead shop, I’d be a teacher, and the boys would do work they liked. Because our treasure trove was sure to grow, thanks to you.

  19

  ABOVE A SILVER RIVER

  I was savoring the sound of Muthu’s snores rising and falling in concert with yours, after telling you our bedtime tale, when I heard Arul sneak
ing out of his tent.

  I felt too excited to sleep, so I sneaked out to join him.

  Arul was sitting by a break in the bridge wall, watching the river. “Looks like silver, doesn’t it? You could make up a story about a silver river.”

  “You could make up stories, too, you know.” I sat next to him.

  “I’m no good at telling stories. My brother was. But not as good as you.”

  “What sort of stories did he tell?”

  “Stories about Yesu. From the Bible. Once, Yesu had just five loaves of bread and two fishes, and he turned it into enough food to feed a whole crowd.”

  “Too bad Yesu isn’t here now,” I said. “That’s a useful trick.”

  “It was a miracle, not a trick.” Arul’s eyes shone, bright as the moonlit river. “If you’d heard my brother tell that story, you’d believe it. Or if you heard my priest tell it. Our priest was the best. He ran our village school. He taught us everything—math and reading and writing—as well as songs and prayers.”

  “Sounds like my favorite teacher,” I said.

  “My whole family loved him. We all loved music, too. My brother and sister and mother sang really well. My dad just sang really loud, loud and happy, though always out of tune.” Arul laughed. “But my dad was the best fisherman in our village. He’d bring home ten times as much as the other fishermen. He used to call the ocean Kadalamma. Ocean Mother.”

  “That’s a nice name,” I said.

  “Yes. Too nice. What actually happened was that the ‘ocean mother’ took my real mother away. And my sister and my brother and my father. One day, the sea receded so far that fish were hopping on the ground. Everyone else ran in, laughing, to gather up the fish. Only I hung back. I was scared, seeing the ocean act so strangely. And then it rose and came at us like a monstrous cobra, swallowing everything in sight, and I ran.”

  I could hardly take in what he was telling me, about how everyone he’d loved had disappeared in one terrible moment.

  “Don’t know why I ran,” Arul whispered. “Wouldn’t have if I’d known they’d all be taken. But, soon enough, I’ll meet them again in heaven.”

  He spoke with complete conviction. And I realized that by holding on to his beliefs, he was holding on to his family. He was so sure he’d be reunited with them when he died that he didn’t care how long he lived.

  But I cared. I cared about him as strongly as if we’d known each other all our lives. I couldn’t imagine our future without him and Muthu in it. I searched for the right words to tell him so, but all I finally said was “I hope it’ll be years and years before you get to go to your heaven.”

  “Yes. I guess I’ll have to wait a long time.” He sighed. “I’ve always wondered why God left me behind.” Then he gave me a crinkly smile. “Maybe he knew I needed to make friends with the three of you.”

  “Four of us, not three,” I corrected. “Don’t forget Kutti. He’s part of our family, too.”

  “Four,” he agreed. “I was never good at mathematics.”

  20

  ENDLESS MOUNTAINS

  “Couldn’t we all learn to make necklaces?” I suggested the next morning. “We’d get so much more money.”

  “But if we stop providing the waste man with stuff every day, he might start paying us less,” Muthu argued. “Plus, Kumar’s gang could take over.”

  “The city’ll have trash every day, but those girls aren’t going to buy necklaces every day,” Arul added. “Who knows if we’ll find other customers?”

  “Also,” Muthu said, “most people won’t pay as much as those college girls.”

  “How many necklaces do we even have left, Rukku?” Arul asked.

  “One.” You fished out the necklace we hadn’t yet sold and let it dangle from your fingers. Kutti pounced on a beam of light the necklace caught and reflected onto the bridge. “One. One. One-two-three.”

  “Just one? So, we don’t even have enough to make a nice display,” Muthu said. “Let’s go back to the Himalayas. Rukku can do her work while we do ours.”

  I agreed because I didn’t want to offend them by pushing too hard for what I felt was a nicer way to earn a living. After all, there’d be time to figure this out. I could, slowly but surely, convince them. I shouldered my bag and picked up my stick and tried to put on a brave face.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Ready to climb the Himalayas again?” Muthu asked when we arrived at the dump.

  My disgust probably showed, because Arul took one quick look at me and tried to make it into a game. “You can be captain,” he said.

  “What?”

  “We’re mountain climbers, remember? You can lead our team.” Arul speared a large rag with a misshapen metal pole that lay on the ground. “Here—carry our flag, Captain.”

  “Okay.” I took the flag from Arul and stood straight as a soldier, singing the national anthem. “Jana, gana, mana . . .”

  You set your beads down and hummed the tune along with me, and Kutti stuck his nose in the air and yowled.

  I was just getting into the spirit of our game when someone hooted, “Look, Kumar! Those bridge boys are following that new girl!”

  It was Sridar, the rude boy who’d wanted to fight. Scowling, I faced him.

  “Aha! So she’s your leader now?” another one of Sridar’s gang mocked me.

  “Why not?” Arul asked.

  “But . . .” Sridar gaped. “She’s a girl!”

  “Indira Gandhi was a woman,” Arul said. “She led our country, didn’t she?”

  “These boys don’t know that, boss,” Muthu said. “They’re ignorant.”

  “Who are you insulting?” Sridar balled his fists.

  “You started it.” Muthu glared back, arms akimbo.

  “Never mind who started it.” Arul pushed them apart. “I’m stopping it. We need to get to work. All of us.”

  “Right,” Kumar agreed.

  “Let’s see who gets more stuff,” Sridar challenged as he moved off with the three other boys in his gang. “That’ll show who’s smarter.”

  “Tell us where to start, Captain,” Arul said.

  I marched toward a mound that looked like it had lots of glass and tin. Carefully, I waded up as high as I could. I stuck our flag at the top and saluted it. The boys saluted me, and we went to work.

  A nauseating smell rose and smacked me in the face, but I toiled as fast as I could. I tried to focus on the one thing I could be thankful for—the thick haze of rain clouds that kept the sun from beating down on you and the rest of us.

  Finally, our sacks were full. “Enough,” I commanded.

  We marched back, single file, with me in the lead, to where you were waiting patiently.

  “Finish up,” Sridar yelled to his gang as we left.

  We hurried along to the waste mart man’s street. We were busy sorting our loot out front when Sridar sneaked up and snatched a twisted metal plate that we’d found.

  “Give it back!” Muthu shouted. “It’s ours!”

  “Not anymore.” Sridar shoved Muthu backward.

  “Muthu?” You leaped up as he lost his balance and fell. “Owwa?”

  Kutti snarled and nipped Sridar’s ankle, making him yelp.

  “I’m okay, Rukku.” Muthu grinned. “But sounds like Sridar has an owwa.”

  Arul was pulling Kutti off when Kumar and the other boys in his gang joined Sridar, yelling and adding to the commotion.

  The waste mart man lumbered out of his shack and took in the scene. “What’s going on?”

  I grabbed your hand and looked down at my grime-encrusted feet.

  “Who’s this?” He towered over us, so close that his shadow fell across you. “Another new girl?”

  “Hairy nose,” you observed, looking up at him. “Hairy ears.”

 
A nervous giggle escaped me. Some of the boys giggled, too.

  “Think that’s funny?” He looked at you. “What’s your name?”

  “Rukku,” you answered.

  “Rrruuukkku,” he exaggerated the slowness of your speech. “Where do you live?”

  “Don’t answer him, Rukku,” I whispered.

  “Keeping secrets?” The waste mart man turned to Kumar’s gang. “Maybe one of you boys can tell me where these girls stay.”

  “They live on the bridge,” Sridar volunteered.

  “Shut up!” Kumar hissed. “Sneaks can’t stay with us.” He stepped away from Sridar, and the other boys in his gang followed.

  “On a bridge?” The waste mart man scratched his nose. “Which bridge?”

  Kumar pressed his lips together.

  “I don’t like doing business with rude kids who don’t reply to me,” the waste man growled. “Rude kids get paid less.”

  No one, not even Sridar, said another word.

  “How could anyone live on a bridge without getting run over by traffic?” the waste man said, but he didn’t press us with any more questions. He even paid us the same pittance he usually did, despite his threats.

  Still, the waste man’s curiosity left me uneasy.

  21

  CHASED AWAY

  We spent some of our skimpy earnings on thick plastic sheets to keep our home dry, because Arul said the rainy season was approaching.

  “It scares me that the waste man’s so interested in where we live,” I told Arul that evening as we spread plastic on the ground beneath our straw mats and pillows. “You don’t think he’ll come looking for us, do you?”

  “No.” Arul sounded confident. “He’s a cheat and a bully, but too lazy to come searching for us.”

  “What are you worrying about now, Akka?” Muthu cackled with laughter. “Scared he’s going to steal our gold?”

  “You two don’t think we should move?” I said.