A Walk Across the Sun

by Corban Addison

  Thomas watched the Professor walk away and then turned to Priya, masking his anger. She was hugging herself protectively, her eyes on the ground. Surekha touched her cheek and gave Thomas a look that said, “I told you it wouldn’t be easy.” She left them to attend to the other guests.

  “I should go,” Thomas said when they were alone.

  Priya nodded, not meeting his eyes. “This was a mistake,” she murmured.

  Her words cut him, but he held his tongue. “I’ll see you later,” he said and left the terrace for the lawn. He walked quickly through the gardens and out to the street. After five minutes, a taxi appeared and he climbed in.

  “Take me to Churchgate Station,” he said.

  It was then that he saw her standing at the gate between the watchmen. He held her gaze until the taxi pulled away from the curb and he lost sight of her. If she had come sooner, he would have said goodbye.

  But the apology in her eyes was enough for him.

  Chapter 14

  The sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless. I know not what this is that stirs in me—I know not its meaning.

  —RABINDRANATH TAGORE

  Paris, France

  For Sita, Paris was a dungeon of suffocation and toil. The walls of the world closed in until nothing existed outside the restaurant and adjoining flat. Her work was endless and she was afforded no break. Navin’s aunt, who insisted Sita use the term of respect “Aunti-ji” for her, reminded Sita constantly of her debt and showed no sympathy when the girl exhibited signs of exhaustion. Aunti-ji’s commands were dictatorial: “Mop!” “Sweep!” “Scrub the floor!” “Scrub the stove!” “Clean the bathroom!” The quality of Sita’s work was never satisfactory, nor did she ever finish fast enough.

  She slept each night on the floor of the kitchen closet beneath used tablecloths. For reasons she couldn’t understand, the heat that warmed the restaurant and the flat never seemed to reach the vent in the kitchen, and she was always cold. On occasion, she thought about escaping. But she was never left alone during the day, and at night Aunti-ji locked both doors to the kitchen using a key she kept on her necklace. Apart from the doors, the only exits from the kitchen were the heating vent and an exhaust vent over the stove, neither of which was large enough to accommodate her body.

  One night the air in the closet grew so cold that Sita found it impossible to sleep. She shivered more violently by the hour and clenched her teeth against their incessant chattering. She kissed the little statue of Hanuman and bundled herself in tablecloths, praying for warmth, but by early morning she began to lose sensation in her toes. Reluctantly, she emerged from her cocoon to soak her feet in the sink.

  The kitchen was as dark as the bottom of a well. She tripped over the mop she had left leaning against the refrigerator, and it fell clattering to the floor. She stood still, listening for the sound of footsteps. Auntiji had only slapped her once—when she spilled a bucket of cleaning solution in the bathroom—but she had threatened to beat Sita on countless occasions. Her heart raced when she heard a creak, but it came from upstairs.

  She climbed softly onto the countertop and placed her feet in the sink. Feeling for the faucet, she twisted the knob slowly until water trickled from the tap. She turned it farther until the stream was steady and warming. The sound of the water flowing through the pipes petrified her. She was sure that Aunti-ji would appear, brandishing a broomstick.

  Placing her feet in the water, she rubbed her toes to restore circulation. She wore the same churidaar that Navin had bought her in Bombay. Her undergarments had not been washed since she left India. Navin’s uncle, who she was forced to call “Uncle-ji,” allowed her to use the restroom in the restaurant, but only in early morning and late evening. Once, when she had the audacity to request a bath, Aunti-ji laughed cruelly and spat in Hindi, “You are not worth the price of the water.”

  After warming her feet and hands in the sink, Sita left her perch on the countertop and returned to the darkness of the closet. She fell asleep only an hour before sunrise and didn’t stir until prodded with the handle of the fallen mop. She blinked her eyes and saw a fuzzy image of Aunti-ji standing over her. Her mind was a fog and her skin felt feverish. She tried to stand, but vertigo overcame her and she nearly collapsed.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Aunti-ji demanded. “We use these tablecloths for our customers. How dare you sleep in them!”

  “But I’m cold at night,” Sita whispered.

  Aunti-ji stared at her angrily. “You ungrateful girl. We feed you and provide you shelter, yet you complain.” Aunti-ji started sniffing the air. “What is that stench?” She leaned closer to Sita and wrinkled her nose. “You smell like an unwashed pig. Come with me.”

  Sita followed her into the warmth of the flat. Her body felt prickly and unnatural. Her joints hurt and her throat was scratchy like sandpaper. She knew that she was getting sick. Aunti-ji threw open the door to the bathroom and gestured at the tub.

  “Undress!”

  Sita obeyed without thinking. Aunti-ji grabbed her churidaar and wadded it into a ball.

  “Wash yourself! You have ten minutes. No more. I will clean this filthy rag of yours.”

  Sita climbed into the bathtub and scrubbed her skin until it was nearly raw. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair and began to cry, the tears flowing like a river of lava down her cheeks. She had left Bombay, thinking that she would be strong like her sister. But she had never expected such loneliness, such privation. When her ten minutes were up, she tried to collect herself, but the tears would not stop.

  Aunti-ji barged into the bathroom and threw a towel and faded purple sari on the floor.

  “Dry off and dress yourself. You have work to do.”

  For reasons Sita didn’t understand, Aunti-ji allowed her to prepare for the day in privacy. She sneezed once, then twice, and felt her illness gestating. When she could wait no longer, she left the bathroom and walked to the restaurant. The boy, Shyam, was in the kitchen holding a broom and dustpan. He looked at her and smiled shyly.

  “My mother went to the market,” he said. “I am supposed to give you these.”

  Sita stared at him, unsure whether she should take the broom and sweep the restaurant. It was one of her morning duties, but Aunti-ji had always supervised her.

  At once Shyam placed the cleaning supplies on the floor. “Do you like cricket?” he asked, extracting a handful of dog-eared sports cards from his pocket. He held them out to Sita eagerly. “I have Ricky Ponting and Sandeep Patil. But I do not have Sachin Tendulkar. Do you know Sachin Tendulkar?”

  Sita nodded.

  “Here.” He thrust the cards toward her. “You may look at them.”

  She took the cards out of his hand. With the exception of a high-gloss Ricky Ponting card, their design was spare—just a photograph of the player’s face rimmed by a white border.

  “They’re nice,” she said, handing them back and managing a smile.

  Shyam beamed with pride. “I will show you when I get Sachin Tendulkar.”

  Soon they heard the bell above the door to the restaurant jingle. Shyam stuffed the cards in his pocket, and Sita scooped up the broom and dustpan from the floor. She entered the restaurant and saw Aunti-ji holding a paper bag from the market. The warmth she felt on account of Shyam’s kindness was short-lived. The woman glared at her and demanded to know why the floor hadn’t been swept.

  “You worthless creature,” she said. “I let you bathe and you grow lazy. Get to work!”

  The hours of toil turned into a millstone, grinding away at the last of her strength. She tried to stifle her sneezes, to stand upright and bear the burden of her illness invisibly. But her body failed her and sometime after noon she blacked out. She didn’t know who found her, but she awoke on the couch in the flat, a pillow beneath her head. One of the girls who helped in the kitchen sat in the chair beside her. She held out a glass of water.

  “Here,” she said in Hindi. “You need
to drink something.”

  Sita took the glass and gulped down the water. She felt as if she were floating in a cloud.

  “I’m Kareena,” the girl said. “I work in the restaurant.”

  “I’m Sita,” she replied, beginning to shiver again.

  Kareena covered her with a wool blanket. “Where are you from?”

  “Chennai,” Sita responded, trying to sit up.

  “Easy now. You’re not going anywhere today.”

  Sita grimaced and fell back against the pillow. Chills raced through her body and her skin was hot to the touch.

  “You need to rest,” Kareena said. “Uncle asked me to look after you.”

  Sita closed her eyes and fell asleep again.

  When she awoke, the window to the courtyard was dark and Kareena was gone. A glass of water sat on the floor beside the couch. She drank it thirstily and listened to the sounds of activity in the kitchen beyond the wall.

  She thought about Kareena. It was obvious that the girl had nothing to do with her imprisonment. What story had Aunti-ji concocted to explain her presence in the household? Sita wondered if there were other girls like her in this city of endless winter—girls held against their will and forced to work until they collapsed from exhaustion or sickness. Navin had said there had been others before her. Where had they gone? And what had he done with the drugs she had carried from Bombay?

  After a while, she lapsed into a dreamy state. She stirred only briefly when the family closed up the restaurant and retired for the night. Auntiji didn’t bother her, and Shyam kept his distance. To Sita’s surprise, it was Uncle-ji who replenished her water glass and asked if she was hungry. When she shook her head, he placed another blanket over her.

  “Sleep well,” he said. “When you recover, we will take better care of your health.”

  Winter deepened after Sita’s fever broke. In keeping with his promise, Uncle-ji reduced her workload and allowed her to sleep on the couch in the flat. She kept a grueling schedule during the day, but she was allowed a ten-minute bath before breakfast and she ate freely from the restaurant’s leftovers. Uncle-ji ordered his wife to buy Sita two saris, and Aunti-ji grudgingly allowed her to launder them with the family’s clothing.

  Each morning when Aunti-ji went to the market, Shyam met Sita in the kitchen and showed her his possessions. Once he brought a handheld video game and introduced her to Tetris. Another time, he brought a Bollywood magazine with a full-page photograph of Amitabh Bachchan and launched into a long-winded narrative about the famous actor.

  The next day, he brought Sita a yellow marigold. He sat down on the floor and explained that he had secretly picked the flower from a neighbor’s flowerpot. On impulse, she took a seat beside him and told him about her family’s gardens on the Coromandel Coast and Jaya’s kolam designs. Shyam listened carefully and then asked a question that took her aback.

  “If you had such a nice home in India, why are you here?”

  She looked at him for a long moment, realizing he had no idea of her predicament.

  “Why do you think?” she asked.

  Shyam furrowed his brows in puzzlement. “My mother said you needed work. She said you didn’t have a family.”

  Sita took a sharp breath and folded her hands. “It is true about my family,” she admitted, her voice little more than a whisper. “Only my sister is still alive.”

  “Where is she?” Shyam asked.

  She thought of Ahayla in Suchir’s brothel. “In Bombay,” she said simply.

  Shyam blinked. “I was born in Bombay,” he said brightly. Then his eyes turned sad. “I don’t like Paris. I miss India.”

  They talked for a quarter of an hour until they heard the ringing of the bell and Aunti-ji’s footsteps. Sita scampered to her feet and hid the flower in her sari. Shyam, meanwhile, disappeared into the flat. Sita met Aunti-ji in the restaurant and endured her chastisement with a resurgence of poise.

  Shyam was only a child, but for her his friendship was a ray of light.

  Chapter 15

  As a person acts in life, so he becomes.

  —BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD

  Mumbai, India

  CASE arranged for the delivery of blue lotus seeds to the Sisters of Mercy home. When they arrived, Sister Ruth gave Ahalya a clay pot to cultivate the plant. The lotus was a finicky flower and there was no guarantee that it would grow. But Ahalya was determined to try. She wanted to have a gift to offer Sita when they found one another again, something that would keep alive the spirit of their family. She planted the lotus seeds carefully in mineral-rich soil and filled the pot with water. She placed it in the pond near the entrance to the grounds.

  Life at the home was highly structured, and all hours of the day were accounted for by some activity. Ahalya quickly learned to appreciate the schedule. Healing, she found, required motion, intention, purpose—the reassurance that life was still worth living.

  She attended twelfth-standard classes at the day school, but the lessons were rudimentary in comparison with the rigor of St. Mary’s in Chennai. Sister Ruth soon realized that Ahalya needed something more advanced to engage her intellect, and she spoke with Anita about the matter. Not long afterward, CASE arranged for a tutor to visit Ahalya twice a week and start her on university-level course work. She had always taken pleasure in learning, and the familiar rhythm of reading, discussion, and recitation gave her spirit new buoyancy and her future a renewed sense of meaning.

  She met with Anita once a week, and they talked about many things. She always greeted the CASE specialist with a question about Sita. Each time, Anita assured her that CASE was working with the police to track down her sister. Anita told her that Inspector Khan had contacted the Bombay office of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the CBI had opened an investigation into Sita’s disappearance. Ahalya walked with a lighter step for a day or two, but soon the silence began to weigh upon her again.

  Where had her sister gone?

  One morning when Anita was scheduled to make her weekly visit, Thomas asked Rachel Pandolkar, CASE’s director of rehabilitation, if he could go along. Rachel gave him permission on the condition that he refrain from asking Ahalya any questions about Suchir’s brothel. Thomas accepted the condition without hesitation.

  Three weeks after the raid, he caught a rick to Andheri with Anita. The ride from Khar took the better part of an hour, and they arrived just before four in the afternoon. The gate to the ashram was unlocked, and Anita led the way into the grounds. They walked toward the fishpond situated in a stand of pink acacias.

  “This place must feel like paradise after what the girls have been through,” Thomas said, looking around in appreciation.

  “You’d be surprised,” Anita replied. “Most of them want nothing more than to go home. One girl tried to escape last week.”

  “Really?”

  “The sisters caught her and brought her back. She was trafficked by her uncle from Haryana in the north. Her parents probably consented to it. For obvious reasons, we don’t believe her home is safe, and the CWC agrees with us. It’s hard to explain that to her, though.”

  Anita stopped at the pond and gestured for Thomas to take a seat on a stone bench.

  “Ahalya will be along as soon as her tutoring lesson ends. This is where she comes during free time.”

  “Why?”

  Anita pointed to a clay pot visible beneath the surface of the water. “In that pot are lotus seeds she planted. The lotus is the most prized flower in India. It is for her sister.”

  “She’s still holding out hope that we’ll find Sita?”

  “Of course. Wouldn’t you?”

  Thomas thought for a moment. “I suppose the question was cynical.”

  “Cynicism is the curse of the West. In India, we still have faith.” Anita turned around with a warm smile. “There she is.”

  Ahalya walked along the path toward the pond, her arms full of books. She glanced at Anita and focused on Thomas. She took a sea
t and continued to stare at him. The intensity of her gaze made him uncomfortable. He looked at the pond, hoping Anita would intervene.

  Ahalya spoke first. “Have you found out where they took Sita?”

  “Still no news,” Anita replied. “The police are doing their best.”

  Ahalya turned to Thomas, and he saw the sadness in her eyes. “You were on the raid,” she said quietly. “What is your name?”

  “Thomas.”

  “You are British?”

  “American.”

  She thought about this. “Why are you in India?”

  “I’m a lawyer. And my wife is from Bombay.”

  “You practice law here?” Ahalya seemed confused.

  “In a way. I’m interning at CASE.”

  “Your wife is Indian?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you have children?”

  The question took Thomas by surprise and triggered a cascade of emotions.

  “No,” he said after a pause.

  “Why not? Do you not like children?”

  Thomas was unprepared for the girl’s directness. He tried to think of a proper response.

  “It’s not that,” he said finally. “We had a child, but she died.”

  Ahalya fidgeted with her schoolbooks. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice trailing off. Then she thought of something. “Do you know anyone at the American FBI?”

  He smiled. “No. But I have a friend at the Justice Department. Why?”

  “Maybe your friend could help find my sister.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t see how he could. The Justice Department has no jurisdiction in India.”

  “But America and India are friends,” she countered. “My father always said so.”

  “It’s true. But the American government doesn’t track girls who go missing in India unless they end up in the U.S.”