A Walk Across the Sun

by Corban Addison

  It’s fitting that the call should have come today, Thomas thought, accelerating the SUV past a slow-moving rickshaw. They skirted the edge of the international airport and took Sahar Road into Andheri. When they reached the grounds, Sister Ruth swung the gate wide and allowed them to park in a lot inside the fence.

  “Come,” the nun said, hurrying up the path. “It won’t be long.”

  The rising sun painted the grounds in shades of gold and delivered the promise of another blazing Bombay day. The monsoon rains had been shorter this year, extending from late May to the end of August, and the heat and humidity had returned with a vengeance in September. It wasn’t yet seven thirty in the morning, but Thomas felt beads of sweat forming on his brow as he walked behind Sister Ruth.

  “How is she?” Priya asked.

  “It has been hard,” the nun said. “But it is nearly over.”

  They were in such a hurry that they nearly passed Ahalya’s pond without noticing the change. Thomas, however, caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye.

  “Wait!” he exclaimed.

  Sister Ruth stopped so quickly that Priya nearly ran into her. The nun followed Thomas’s gaze and began to smile. There, suspended on the shimmering surface of the pool, was a star-shaped lotus flower. Its petals were cerulean like the sky, and it caught the slanting rays of the morning sun.

  “This wasn’t here when I came last week,” he said.

  “The flower opened yesterday,” Sister Ruth replied.

  “Did she see it before the hearing?”

  “Yes,” the nun confirmed. “I was with her.”

  Thomas shook his head. The lotus was the reason Ahalya had been untouchable on the witness stand. She had interpreted the flower as a sign of divine favor and decided that her victory was inevitable. In believing, she had made it so.

  They arrived at the hospital just in time to hear the wails of the child echoing through the main hall. Priya clutched Thomas’s hand. Sister Ruth led them to a small anteroom outside the delivery area.

  “Wait here,” she said. “I will return when the child is presentable.”

  A minute later, a different face appeared at the door to the delivery room.

  “Thomas!” Sita exclaimed, running out to greet him.

  She had grown in the six months since he met her. Before, she was a gangly girl, lovely but frail. Now she had begun to fill out in all the places that distinguished a woman. Her voice was surer, her confidence keener, and her round eyes brighter. The nuns would need to watch her with the boys. Then again, Thomas thought, will she ever want to marry, after all she has seen?

  He embraced her and took a step back. “How is Ahalya?” he asked, finding Priya’s hand again.

  Sita beamed. “She was strong and the baby is healthy. Come and see.”

  Sister Ruth reappeared and beckoned them into the delivery room. The space was outfitted with a cluster of beds, a large washbasin, and a rolling cart with medical equipment. Ahalya was sitting up, her head resting on pillows. The baby was quiet in her arms, and two nurses were attending to her. Sita went to her sister’s side and took her hand.

  Ahalya spoke when they approached. “Thank you for coming.”

  “We wouldn’t have missed it,” Thomas replied. “Do you have a name for her yet?”

  Ahalya smiled and her weariness seemed to retreat. “She is Kamalini, my little lotus.”

  He smiled. “We saw your flower on the way in.”

  “It is a rebirth,” she said with sudden strength. “A new beginning.”

  The passion in her voice took Thomas by surprise. For months, she had treated the baby as an afterthought, a burden she had to bear. Her ambivalence had made sense to him. The child was a living reminder of her exploitation. He had detected subtle shifts in her perspective as the little girl had taken shape in her belly, but he had never really expected her to embrace the child as her own. Looking at her now, he began to understand. Confronted with the choice between bitterness and love, Ahalya had chosen love. And by that choice, she had turned little Kamalini from the demon seed of the rapist into the newest member of the Ghai family.

  “Would you like to hold her?” Ahalya asked Priya.

  “Can I?” Priya asked. Only Thomas detected the tremor in her voice. The last time she had held a child was the night Mohini died.

  One of the nurses swaddled the little girl and handed her to Priya. She rocked the baby back and forth, and wet tears streamed down her face. She began to sing the lullaby her mother had taught her as a child. It was the song she had sung to Mohini on the day she was born.

  “Could you be darling,

  the crescent moon?

  the lovely lotus bloom?

  the honey that fills the flowers?

  the luminance of the full moon?”

  She handed the baby back to Ahalya. “She is beautiful. She looks just like you.”

  Ahalya smiled. “Do you have a name for yours?”

  “We were just discussing that in the car,” Thomas said.

  Priya touched his shoulder and looked at the girls. “I think we do. With your permission, we would like to call her Sita.”

  Thomas caught his breath and began to nod in affirmation. He had never considered it, but nothing could be more appropriate.

  “It is a good name,” Ahalya said, her eyes shining. “What do you think?” she asked her sister.

  Sita began to laugh. It was a musical sound, like chimes in the wind. After a moment, Thomas joined her, and then Priya and Ahalya followed suit, and before long even the nurses were laughing, though they knew not why.

  “I always wanted a little sister,” Sita said, taking Priya’s hand. “Now I will have two.”

  Afterword

  A Walk Across the Sun is a work of fiction, but the trade in human beings is all too real. It is a criminal enterprise that affects almost every country in the world, generating over $30 billion a year in profits and involving millions of men, women, and children in forced prostitution and slave labor. Yet it remains mysterious and often misunderstood on account of its clandestine nature. In writing the book, I drew heavily upon real-life accounts in the trafficking literature and upon sources I developed in my travels. Where I have exercised literary license in service of the story, I have done so sensitively, with an eye toward authenticity. There is no need to sensationalize modern slavery. It is horrifying enough as it is.

  The nonprofit organization, CASE, is a product of my imagination, though it has much in common with the global human rights organization, International Justice Mission, or IJM, my research partner in India (www.ijm.org). Recently, I learned that there are now at least two organizations that include the words “Coalition Against Sexual Exploitation” in their names. The fictional organization I created bears no relation to any such real-life organization. The same is true of Le Projet de Justice, the nonprofit research group I set in Paris.

  After finishing the book, many of my early readers have asked how they can learn more and become involved in the fight against trafficking. There are many useful sources of information on the trade. A few, however, stand out. Every year, the United States Department of State releases a Trafficking in Persons Report, rating the efforts of hundreds of countries in combating the trade; prosecuting traffickers, pimps, and slave owners; and caring for victims. The TIP Report offers an invaluable overview of modern slavery in addition to compelling real-life stories from around the world. All such reports are available on the State Department’s website: (www.state.gov/g/tip).

  One of the best nongovernmental sources of data on the trade is the Polaris Project in Washington D.C.: (www.polarisproject.org). Other valuable Web portals are maintained by Shared Hope International (www.sharedhope.org) and Fondation Scelles (www.fondationscelles.org). These sites provide a sense of the scale and scope of the trade, along with the market forces of supply and demand that drive it. In addition, I recommend CNN’s Freedom Project blog for stories and thoughtful commentary: (the
cnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com).

  For those interested in delving deeper, I recommend the following books: A Crime So Monstrous, by Benjamin Skinner; The Natashas, by Victor Malarek; Sex Trafficking, by Siddharth Kara; Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings, by Sheldon Zhang; and Disposable People, by Kevin Bales. I also recommend the following academic articles, most of which are available online: “Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States,” by Janice Redmond and Donna Hughes; “Demand: A Comparative Examination of Sex Tourism and Trafficking in Jamaica, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States,” by Shared Hope International; “Desire, Demand and the Commerce of Sex,” by Elizabeth Bernstein; and “Sex Trafficking and the Mainstream of Market Culture,” by Ian Taylor and Ruth Jamieson.

  Several documentary films contain compelling footage and live interviews with victims, investigators, and traffickers. I recommend At the End of Slavery, produced by IJM; Sex Slaves, a Frontline Television Exclusive on the trade in Eastern Europe available from Fondation Scelles at www.fondationscelles.org; Demand, an exposé on trafficking in Europe and America, available from Shared Hope at www.sharedhope.org; and Born into Brothels, a penetrating look at Calcutta’s red-light district.

  As for ways to join the modern abolitionist cause, I have three suggestions: First, use your voice. The more we can increase the intelligence and decibel level of the global conversation on the subject, the more likely we are to reach the ears and hearts of stakeholders and decision-makers—lawmakers, politicians, judges, police, and men on the street buying girls.

  Second, give financially to one of the many anti-trafficking organizations operating worldwide. My wife and I are enthusiastic supporters of IJM. Every day in red-light areas around the globe, IJM’s investigators risk their safety looking for leads, developing evidence, and collaborating with local police to rescue girls from the hands of pimps and traffickers. An investment in IJM is an investment in hope.

  Finally, use your skills. If you have legal expertise and a passion for justice, organizations like IJM can put those skills to use. If you are a member of the media or have access to a public platform, even something as basic as a blog, you can use that platform to raise awareness about the issue. If you have the means, you could consider international adoption, as orphans, especially Eastern European girls, have a depressingly high chance of falling prey to the lures of traffickers upon their release from state care.

  The needs are great, and the challenges often feel overwhelming. But no problem is without a solution. We can make a difference—one word, one gift, one life at a time.

  CORBAN ADDISON

  NOVEMBER 2011

  Acknowledgments

  From its inception, A Walk Across the Sun has been a community project—aided by many voices and hands. No acknowledgment as brief as this could justly express my gratitude.

  In India, I wish to thank the heroic team of investigators, lawyers, social workers, and volunteers at the International Justice Mission for giving me a window into your work. I wish also to thank Shanmugam and Grace Pillai and Sadhanna Shine in Chennai for your hospitality and your tsunami stories.

  In Europe, I wish to thank Elias Mallon and Michael Mutzner at Franciscans International for putting me in touch with the right people in France. In Paris, I wish to thank Gérard Besser of Amicale du Nid and Jean Sébastien Mallet of Fondation Scelles for delightful and captivating interviews on the trade in the European Union.

  In Washington, D.C., I wish to thank Pamela Gifford and the team at IJM headquarters for giving me access to IJM’s India operations. It was a privilege to collaborate with you on this project. Thanks also to Amy Lucia, Holly Burkhalter, and Amy Roth at IJM for placing the book in important hands and for your enthusiastic support in the release. Many thanks to March Bell at the Department of Justice for granting me an insider’s perspective on the domestic trade in human beings and to Charles Colson and Mariam Bell at PFM for connecting me with March.

  In Virginia, I wish to thank Nate and Sara Hagerty for being my networking gurus and best of friends; Jonathan and Julie Baker for sending my name to the right people at IJM; David Roberts for putting me in touch with Nathan Wilson of Project Meridian Foundation; Mark Johansen for connecting me with your friends in Chennai; Bill Finley, Matt Brumbelow, Eric Nelson, and Charles Dumaresq for your encouragement and support; Ash Singh for educating me about India and giving me a great reading list; Stephen Scott, Bob Kroner, Lamar Garren, Neal Walters, and Chip Royer for affording me the professional space to travel to India; Scott and Palm Feist and Rick and Sue Shiflet for planting seeds and trusting in the goodness of the soil; Michael O’Brien for your kindness and inspiration; and all of my friends and family who contributed financially to make this project possible.

  Thanks to Wade Bradshaw, Keith and Claire Hume, Christy Tennant, and Alex Mejias for making key connections that led to the publication of the book. Huge thanks to John Grisham for taking a risk on an untested author and agreeing, first, to read the manuscript and, afterward, to give me a sterling endorsement that opened so many doors. Thanks also to Eric Stanford at Edit Resource, LLC, for being an exceptional book doctor.

  Thanks to my literary agent and manager, Dan Raines at Creative Trust, to my foreign rights agent, Danny Baror at Baror International, and to their wonderful staff, for believing in the book, shaping it with your feedback, and taking it to the right people to bring it to the world. I am honored to call you friends.

  Thanks to my extraordinary editors on both sides of the Atlantic: Jane Wood and Jenny Ellis at Quercus Books in London; Lorissa Sengara at HarperCollins Canada; and Nathaniel Marunas at Sterling Publishing in New York. I brought you the best book I could write and you made it even better. Thanks also to my publishers for loving the story, caring about the message, and investing your resources in my work.

  Last but certainly not least, I wish to offer profoundest thanks to my wife, Marcy, who stood beside me and sacrificed in countless ways to make this project happen. I will never forget the day you told me I needed to write this book and that I needed to travel to India to do it. Thank you ever so much for believing in me, for challenging me to pursue this dream, for letting me go to the other side of the world to live the story, and for giving me the space to write and revise the book. Without your wisdom and kindness, this novel would not exist. Without your love, I would be a shadow of myself.

  A Note to Book Club Readers

  A Reader’s Guide with suggested discussion questions is available on the Web at www.corbanaddison.com.