Outside In

by Jennifer Bradbury

  Ram figures she’s brave because he’s with her. The trees feel friendlier, the shadows mysterious instead of threatening. He tells her proudly about all the real animals he’s seen here—the pangolin and the birds and the mongoose he heard once. He points out one of the gooseberry trees and pulls tiny twigs from a neem tree for them to chew as they walk.

  When they reach the menagerie, and Daya is short enough that she doesn’t have to duck under the arched doorways. He shows her the laughing army, and the someday waterfall, and Shiva up on top. The only thing he doesn’t show her is the village. He figures that is Nek’s alone to share.

  Daya’s wonder grows at every new corner. When they get back to Sita, Ram shows her how he’s been building the pattern.

  Daya sighs, her breath spiced by the bitter twigs they’ve been chewing. “Poor Sita. Kidnapped. Why do girls in the stories never get to do anything good besides get rescued?”

  “So Rama and Lakshmana do rescue her?” Ram asks. He figured as much. Why else have all these festivals and parades if the story ended unhappily?

  “Eventually,” Daya snorts. “But only because she’s so smart. And even then they take forever.”

  “Why forever?” And Ram realizes as he says it, as Daya looks at him with wonder, that he’s forgotten to pretend that he already knows it all. But he doesn’t care. “What happens next, Daya?”

  Rama chased the golden deer that was Surpanakha for hours. Since Sita had begged him to capture it for a pet, he had to stalk quietly. Every time he drew near enough to pounce, wily Surpanakha sprinted away, leading Rama farther and farther afield. When they were half a day’s journey gone, Surpanakha resumed her form, slunk into the treetops, and flew away. She would not dare face Rama alone, not after the way he and Lakshmana had humiliated her first brother’s army. Besides, her ends had been met. Sita was ripped from the prince, and now Rama would suffer for having rejected Surpanakha.

  Rama realized the deer’s trail had vanished. And then he began to wonder how the animal had been able to evade him for so long. Worry puffed up inside him like bread baking in the tandoor. He raced home.

  Meanwhile, Lakshmana chased the anguished cries of Rama in the opposite direction. The demon threw his voice all around the jungle, confusing Lakshmana. But Lakshmana would not abandon his brother and followed the voice all the way to the mountains on the eastern edge of the forest. Coming into the foothills, the demon gave a final cackle in his very own voice, and Lakshmana knew at once that he had been duped. If he had been tricked, perhaps Rama had as well!

  He hurried back, exploding into the clearing at the same time as Rama.

  “We’ve been deceived!” Rama said to his brother. “Is Sita safe?”

  The hut was empty.

  “Sita!” Rama called. “Where are you?”

  In the distance, they heard a bird’s call. But not just any bird’s call. The squawking croak of a vulture repeating Rama’s name, over and over, like a prayer.

  “I’ve already followed one foolish voice today,” Lakshmana told his brother. “I don’t know if—”

  But Rama was already gone.

  Lakshmana, like always, followed. Soon they found poor Jatayu, the vulture who had tried to slow Ravana down as he fled with Sita.

  The noble bird, his great wing divided from his body, had but moments left to live. “A demon king,” Jatayu said, “such as I have never seen. With many heads, even more arms . . . He has taken your Sita.”

  “Where?” Rama asked, panicked.

  Jatayu’s words came weaker than before. “South,” he breathed as his soul slipped loose, and he fell silent.

  “Lakshmana,” Rama said, “come quickly.”

  Lakshmana held up a hand. “Jatayu gave his life to help us. We must show him honor before we go.”

  As anxious as he was to search for Sita, Rama knew his brother was right. Together they thanked the bird for his sacrifice, prayed for his soul to find peace.

  When they finished, Lakshmana stood. “Now we will find Sita.”

  They ran south. As they went, Rama called up to the birds in the treetops, asking if any had seen a great demon clutching the beautiful Sita. None had.

  Just as they began to lose hope, Lakshmana caught a glimpse of something gold glittering from a branch high overhead. “There, Rama!”

  Rama climbed the tree hastily, and then jumped back down. In his palm was a thin gold bangle, set with a tiny ruby. “This is Sita’s!”

  “It must have fallen from her as she struggled!”

  “Or maybe she dropped it on purpose, for us to follow,” Lakshmana suggested.

  Indeed she had. A few miles farther, they found a ring. Clever Sita had left a glittering trail for the brothers to follow. And she had plenty of jewels to throw, marking out a path. Confident now of their direction, the brothers ran.

  The light is almost completely gone when Daya finishes the story. Ram walks her back to 22, where her father will be waiting. Daya is uncharacteristically quiet.

  When they reach the corner, Ram hangs back. “Aren’t you coming?” Daya asks.

  “I can’t. See you tomorrow, though?”

  “Tomorrow is Diwali,” Daya says. “I’ll be at home all day. Everybody will.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “What are you going to do, Ram?” Daya asks. Now that she has seen the garden, now that she knows what is at stake, she seems to understand the hugeness of the problem, the complications of asking for help when all that help will come at a price.

  “Nek uncle will know what to do,” Ram says. “I will wait for him at the factory when he is due back. Maybe we will come to your father together. Do you really think he will help?”

  Daya brightens. “I know he will, Ram. He likes you. And he’ll like anybody who can make such wonderful things. He will figure out a way.”

  “I hope you are right. But promise not to say anything? Until I speak to Nek uncle?”

  Daya nods. “Promise.”

  Ram takes a few steps back. “Happy Diwali, then.”

  Daya hesitates, then runs over and throws her arms around Ram’s neck. She squeezes hard, and then runs away without another word.

  Ram walks back, thinking. Rama and Lakshmana didn’t know what to do when Sita was taken, any more than Ram knows what to do now. But they had faith. They found the bracelet, and then they found her ring. They kept going.

  And Ram knows that this is what he must do. He has no idea how this all will end, only what he must do next.

  Ram works late into the night, burning tire after tire, the oily smoke clinging to his hair and clothes. When he finally drags himself under his sign to get a little sleep, he knows the clock has rounded the bend to the next day already. It is Diwali. The lamps in the windows of the apartments burn, and the peace of the city at night seems out of touch with the turmoil Ram feels inside.

  Still, he is so, so tired.

  The next day is a cold one. Ram huddles under his blanket. The street below is eerily quiet.

  The holiday. Of course. No workers at the factory.

  But he still has work to do. So he hurries to the garden.

  Sita’s dress is nearly done. But that last bit will take the longest, the fold up and over her shoulder.

  He can do it.

  He works, mixing mortar, placing pieces, gradually sweeping the pattern up and over the shoulder of the statue. He stops now and then to cut more bangles, worrying he won’t have enough. But when he at last manages to finish the pattern, he has a few pieces to spare.

  Good. Nek will be pleased. But something is off now. The sari looks like it’s been placed on a department store mannequin. As if the sari is the point. And it isn’t, Ram realizes. It is only part of it.

  Her features will matter. Yes, of course, the eyes and a mouth. And her head is too bald. The soldiers and Lakshmana all wore puzzled together pot fragments for helmets. But a helmet for Sita? No. What would Nek have been imagining?

  Then he considers th
e silky dupatta, the little round mirrors. “You might be right,” he says to the statue.

  He fetches it from the supply tarp. The mortar is still too wet around Sita’s shoulders for him to try it now, but he holds it up and away, a little behind the forehead, like a veil.

  Yes.

  If he cuts out the mirrored part and uses that only, it will be just the right size. He can attach it with a skim coat of mortar, but not until the pieces of bangle on Sita’s shoulders and back dry. Not until tomorrow.

  When Nek returns.

  It will be enough time to finish her.

  It will have to be.

  How can time fly and creep at once? Maybe it is like the dark magic out of the Rama stories. Maybe it is the kind of torment Ravana and his demons might have plagued people with. All the horrible desperation of hurrying combined with all the torture of waiting, without the anticipation of waiting for anything good.

  So both finally and too quickly, Diwali comes and goes. The last two days have been the longest and shortest Ram has ever known, but finally they end.

  Ram waits outside the gates the next morning as the factory reopens. If he can catch Nek before work, it will be better than trying to explain it all at lunch, when they’ll need to go see Singh.

  The plan has been building in his mind since Daya left him. It will work.

  It will have to.

  But first he must speak to Nek.

  The workers straggle in, Ram recognizing a few from Nek’s shift.

  But when the guard swings the gate shut, Nek has not appeared. Has Ram missed him?

  Nek’s bicycle—his unmistakable one with the rusted fender and the giant crate tied onto the rear rack—is not underneath the tree where he parks it every day.

  “You!” The guard has seen him now. The man is gangly, face scarred by deep pits up and down the hollows of his cheeks. “Shoo!”

  “Where is Nekji?” Ram asks, backing up a step so the guard can’t grab him if he is of a mind to.

  “Go beg somewhere else!” The guard’s military-style cap is fraying at the edges, one thread hanging down his forehead.

  “Nek!” Ram repeats, standing his ground. “Why isn’t his bicycle by the tree?”

  The guard stops. “The trashman?” He is almost smiling as he says it. But it is not a friendly smile. “The one who tries to steal the rubbish to take home with him?”

  Ram wants to shout that he doesn’t take it home. He takes it somewhere better, makes it into something better. But this man wouldn’t understand. And it wouldn’t help.

  The guard waves a hand at Ram. “Not here. Probably not ever again. The boss was already mad at him for stealing trash. He won’t take the idiot back after he decided to shirk on a day when we’re shorthanded.”

  Won’t take him back? But Nek needs this job. His family relies on the money. Ram knows that he would not simply skip work.

  Something is wrong. Maybe his train was delayed?

  Or he extended his visit a little longer?

  Ram’s mind whirls. Or would he just stay altogether? Abandon the garden? Abandon Ram?

  No. Not Nek.

  Ram runs in the direction of Mani Marg, the street Nek has mentioned once or twice.

  Ram knows Mani Marg well enough but wishes he’d thought earlier to ask Nek where his house was. Mani Marg is a smaller street than his own, in a quieter sector. He runs past the market and shops in the center, dodges a grocer with a broom who figures he has come to steal. He stands on the corner of the street, watches the rickshaw and cycles and trucks swirl around the roundabout, and tries to focus. How will he find Nek?

  He walks from one end to the other, back and forth, over and over, hoping for something, anything that will point him in the right direction. There is a multistory apartment house—maybe eight levels high—all concrete and right angles and tiny windows. Could Nek live in one of those rooms? Then there are windows open in the upstairs above some of the shops, and once in a while he sees a woman shaking out a rug or resting her chin in her hand.

  Please, he thinks, please let me find him!

  He tries asking shopkeepers. Most of them shoo him away as soon as they see him approaching. And when he catches sight of himself in the polished window of a fabric seller, he can guess why.

  His hair is filthy. What isn’t slicked down by sweat is matted and stands up defiantly. His one eye is twice the size of the other, what with the swelling from the beating he took. Not to mention his bare feet, black and dusty, his raggedy pants and tunic.

  He does his best to tidy the hair, licks a finger and scrubs at his face the best he can, but it is hopeless. Besides, the few shopkeepers who aren’t immediately appalled at his appearance are no more helpful. They know no man named Nek who works at the factory in Sector 22.

  Ram leans against a tree. What can he do now? What could he ever do? Filthy and bruised, exhausted and hungry. The smell of the samosas from the stand across the street makes it hard to concentrate—

  Samosas!

  Ram plunges into the street, dodging carts and cycles and pedestrians. The samosa seller is helping a young woman when Ram draws near the bright umbrella shading his operation. He can smell the rich potatoes and lamb, the heaviness of the hot oil lingering like a rain cloud. A great mound of coriander spices the air.

  He bounces on his toes while he waits for the woman to finish her purchase. Then the vendor turns to him. He is ready to be polite, but Ram sees the transformation as the man recognizes Ram as a beggar or thief or worse.

  “Go!”

  “Please!” Ram begs, sure that this is the place. Sure this must be the man whose samosas Nek praised. “I do not wish to trouble you, Uncle. But do you know a man called Nekji?”

  “I have customers to tend to,” the man says automatically, though no one is waiting for him.

  “Nekji,” Ram repeats. “He works at the factory in Twenty-Two. He rides a bicycle with a great basket attached to the back. Do you know him?”

  The man attacks the pile of coriander with a stubby knife, muttering.

  Ram’s shoulders slump, his heart caving in on itself. It was a dumb idea. But it was his only one.

  The sound of chopping stops suddenly. “Did you say Nekji?”

  Ram whips around.

  The man points with the knife to an alley. “Down there. But I haven’t seen him in a few days—”

  Ram doesn’t wait for him to finish.

  He races down the alley, into the shadows. There are different smells here that make him miss the samosa stand immediately, ones strong enough to make him lose his appetite. A few doors line the sides, but there is nothing written on them, no names or addresses to confirm that someone lives inside them.

  And then Ram sees it at the end of the alley.

  Chained up and locked to the railing of a stairway that looks as if it might collapse at any moment is Nek’s bicycle. At the top of the stair is a flat wooden door, green enamel peeling in great strips. A small window next to it stands open, the curtain drawn. “Hello?”

  When there is no answer, Ram puts his foot on the first step.

  “Uncle ji?”

  He keeps climbing, the stairs shifting and wobbling as he goes higher.

  At the top, he knocks softly at the door. “Uncle ji?” he repeats. “It’s Ram.”

  He waits, listens. Nothing. The window is not positioned over the landing, but if he climbs out on the railing, he might be able to peek in. He has always been a good climber.

  The stairs lurch in warning as he hops onto the rail. Ram freezes, squatting like a monkey on a wire, waiting just a beat to see if the rail will support him. When it doesn’t seem to want to move any more, he creeps his feet closer to the edge, straightening his legs as he slowly stands to reach for the window.

  The room is dark and small and close, with a pallet in one corner and a small table and two chairs in another. A door on the opposite side is shut tight, leading perhaps to a bathroom or a hall, Ram guesses.
r />   The room seems empty.

  But then the pallet shifts, and the blanket on top reveals a hand in the shadows.

  “Uncle ji?” Ram whispers.

  “Who’s there?” Nek’s voice is weak, but unmistakably his. Ram doesn’t wait for more. He heaves himself over the sill and tumbles through the window.

  Ram crashes onto the tile floor. A sour smell soaks the room.

  “Who’s there?” Nek repeats.

  Ram jumps up, hurries over to the pallet. “Uncle ji?”

  It is so dark in the room. There is a lamp fixed to the ceiling, but he cannot find a switch. An oil lamp sits on the little table. Ram finds a match, lights it, and carries it over.

  Nek’s eyes are sunken, his forehead glistens in the lamplight. He squints against the light as it draws closer.

  “Ram?” Nek moves to sit up, but falls back against the ticking.

  The foul smell is stronger here. Ram spies a bucket by the bedside. He moves it carefully as he holds his breath. He can feel the heat rising off Nek even from a distance, and even though the man has himself buried in blankets.

  “My garden,” Nek sounds as if he is remembering. “Ram.”

  “You are sick.”

  “I was sick on the train. I hope Ayushee and Vinod are all right. They were fine when I left them.”

  Ram remembers how tired Nek was the night before he left. He was sick even before he left, Ram figures.

  He wonders what to do now. His whole plan hinged on introducing Nek and Singh, seeing what Singh could do to help, maybe getting him to buy a statue for the museum. Surely Nek would let one statue go if it meant possibly saving the rest of the garden.

  But Nek is in no shape to do anything. And he has no one to help him. No one but Ram.

  What to do?

  “Is there water?” Nek asks.

  An empty glass sits on the floor beside the pallet. Ram snatches it up. A small cupboard on the wall under the window serves as the kitchen. A great clay jug with a spigot sits on the side of the little sink, which is really just an enamel bowl. There are no pipes for the water to drain out.