Follow the Elephant

by Beryl Young

  Aunt Sheila asked why Gran and Shanti had stopped writing to each other.

  Polishing off her second helping of plum pudding, Gran put down her fork, patted her stomach and sat back in her chair. “Shanti and I were both in our early twenties and she wrote that her parents had picked out the man she was to marry. I wrote back and said I would never let my parents pick out a husband for me.”

  “I’m going to pick out my own husband, that’s for sure,” said Lauren.

  “As if,” Ben said, sharing a look with Marvin.

  “Then what happened?” asked Aunt Sheila.

  “When I didn’t hear back from Shanti in several months I realized I’d hurt her feelings. I knew I shouldn’t have challenged a strong Indian tradition, and I wrote again, apologizing.” Gran took a long breath. “But I never heard back from her. I thought either she was too angry to write or her new husband wouldn’t let her.”

  Gran shook her head. “I didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing.” She was quiet. “I lost a dear friend and I want to try to make it right with her before I die.”

  “You don’t have a clue where Shanti is now?” Uncle Bob said.

  “I don’t, and almost fifty years have gone by,” Gran said. “But I feel she’s still alive, somewhere in India. Of course, even if Ben and I do find her, she might refuse to see me.”

  Oh, wouldn’t that be great, Ben thought. We go all the way to India, find this old lady and she slams the door in our faces.

  “Gran, did you ever try to find her?” Lauren asked.

  “Yes, I had the name of her school. It was the Calcutta Senior Girls’ School. I wrote there ten years ago, but I never heard back. I think it no longer exists. The Indian consulate here in Vancouver told me I’d have better luck tracing her through marriage records at the central registry office in Delhi. Our plane lands in Delhi and I want to go there as soon as we arrive.”

  Ben watched his grandmother. Her broad face and strong jaw reminded him of his father. He’d inherited his own brown eyes from them. Ben had always loved Gran; he just wasn’t sure about going on this crazy trip with her.

  Marvin burst out, “India is full of snakes and elephants!”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” Gran said. “I am terrified of snakes!”

  “Seeing a real elephant would be awesome,” Ben said.

  “This is a crazy quest you’ve set yourselves,” Uncle Bob said. “Seems to me it’s about as impossible as finding the hair of a camel in the desert.” Aunt Sheila was the only one who laughed with him.

  “Well, here’s fifty dollars for the trip, Ben,” Uncle Bob said, handing a bill to Ben.

  “Thanks,” Ben said. He put it in his new wallet and closed the Velcro strap.

  “Watch out for yourselves, you two,” Uncle Bob said. “India’s not an easy country. Only drink purified water. Take your malaria pills.”

  “We’ll be fine.” Gran nodded across the table to Ben.

  “Whatever,” Ben said on his way out of the room.

  Day One

  HIS MOTHER AND LAUREN had come to the Vancouver airport to say goodbye. Gran appeared dressed for the trip in a brown skirt the colour of a soldier’s uniform. It came almost to her ankles, and with it she wore a matching brown hat with a wide brim and holes in the sides. She looked as though she were going on a safari.

  “Why does the hat have holes?” Ben asked.

  “To let my head breathe,” Gran said. “It’s a Tilley hat.”

  A black pouch was fastened around her waist and bulged over her stomach. She put both hands on it and patted. “Everything I need is right next to me in my fanny pack.”

  More like a funny pack — it was ridiculous. He was on a 747 on his way to India with a weird-looking old woman. Ahead of them they had a twelve-hour flight to Hong Kong with a short stopover in the airport, then another seven hours to Delhi. It was going to be long and boring, but Ben had prepared for it. As soon as they’d settled in their plane seats, he turned on his PlayStation and put in earphones.

  “What’s that?” Gran asked.

  “My PSP.” Ben kept his eyes on the screen.

  “What?”

  He took out one earphone. “It’s a PlayStation Portable. I can listen to music and play games on it.”

  “What games?”

  “Star Wars. Battlefront. Dungeon Explorer. Games like that.”

  “I can’t believe you brought the thing with you,” Gran exhaled a long breath. “I hope you’re not going to keep those plugs in your ears all over India.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Not a good one,” Gran said. “I’d hoped you and I would have a chance to talk on this trip.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “About you.” Gran leaned toward him. “You’re still so angry about your father dying.”

  Ben put the earphone back in. “You could say that.”

  “Listen to me, Ben. We’re together for more than two weeks. I’d like to help you talk about your feelings,” Gran said. “Please take out those plugs when I’m talking to you!”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Gran. You can help me by leaving me alone.”

  Gran glared at him, then picked up her book on India.

  Ben flipped through the list of the movies available on the plane but he’d seen most of them. He stared out the small window. At 37,000 feet, the sky was a cold, unbroken blue. He played a few games on his PlayStation. Gran dozed and woke with a start as the attendant brought them each a meal.

  When the pilot announced they were landing at the Hong Kong airport, he suggested passengers change their watches. It was now afternoon of the next day. On-going passengers weren’t allowed to leave the plane during the stopover, and all Ben could do was look out the window at the large planes on the tarmac. He couldn’t even say he’d set a foot in Hong Kong.

  For the last seven hours of the journey, Ben decided to watch some movies he’d already seen. When the attendant put down breakfast trays with scrambled eggs and toast, Ben realized he’d fallen asleep.

  As the plane descended, Ben and Gran had their first view of India. Below them, Delhi stretched like an enormous jigsaw puzzle across the landscape. Thousands of tin roofs, interspersed with parks and large buildings, went on as far as they could see.

  Passengers cheered when the plane made a smooth landing, and they stepped out onto a metal stairway leading down to the tarmac. The air glittered with heat, burning Ben’s eyes as he followed Gran and the other passengers toward the nearest building.

  The long line for customs and immigration moved slowly. Passengers were tired and the room smelled worse than the boys’ locker room at school. The serious uniformed immigration officer stared hard at Ben’s passport photograph, then up at Ben and across to his grandmother. After a pause, he stamped their visas and passports.

  Next, there was lineup at the money exchange. Ben studied the tariff, trying to figure out Indian money. Forty rupees to a dollar. For his fifty dollars he was given two thousand rupees in small red bills. It made quite a pile. Gran handed over five hundred dollars, and a high stack of bills and some silver coins came back across the counter. She stuffed the bundle inside her fanny pack and did up the zipper. Ben tucked his wallet into his pocket, and they headed for the terminal door.

  In the brilliant sun of the Delhi afternoon, a noisy crush of men rushed toward the exiting passengers. Calling and gesticulating, the men tried to attract people to their taxis that were lined up in rows on either side of the terminal.

  “This is scary. Hold onto your pack, Ben,” Gran said.

  Drivers pushed and shoved at each other to be the first to secure passengers. At one side, a tall, almost bald man smiled politely at Ben. Ben nudged Gran. “That man looks okay. Ask him.”

  Gran nodded and went up to the man, asking, “Could you please take us to the Hotel Mahal?”

  “My honour, memsahib,” the man said, taking Gran’s backpack. He led them down the side, past r
ows of more men selling trays of cigarettes and gum, and stopped at a small grey taxi.

  “My name is Madhu,” the man said, bowing with his hands in a prayer position at his chest. “Namaste.” A smaller man who had been leaning against the taxi jumped up. “This is my friend Padam.”

  Padam greeted them with the same clasped hands, gave a high-pitched giggle, and opened the back door for Ben and Gran before hopping into the front seat beside Madhu.

  Padam turned around to talk to them and grinned, revealing a mouth with hardly any teeth. In a sing-song voice he said, “Good golly, it is nice to have foreigners with us in our car. I see by that very fine red hat that you are from Canada and we are welcoming you.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said. “It’s our first time here.”

  Padam smiled. “And I am certain it will be only the first of many visits to our so-beautiful country.”

  “Not a chance,” Ben said under his breath.

  Traffic was heavy, and their taxi fought for road space with rickshaws, motor scooters, buses, exhaust-spewing trucks and pedestrians. The air around them was a haze of grey fumes; Ben saw some pedestrians wearing masks.

  At the next traffic light, a beggar suddenly appeared at the side of their taxi, stretching a sinewy, not very clean arm through the taxi window toward Gran and Ben in the back seat. “Baksheesh. Money,” the man pleaded, gesturing aggressively.

  “Delhi’s beggars. Do not give to them,” said Padam, twisting around to roll up the back window.

  The beggar was not quick enough and the window closed on his hand. Howls of pain filled the air before Padam rolled the window down just enough to free the man’s hand. The beggar fell back.

  “He’ll be hit!” Gran yelled as Madhu drove on.

  Ben turned and saw the man scrambling to his feet.

  “He is not hurt. He is unharmed,” said Madhu.

  “These Delhi beggars,” Padam said, shaking his head. “You will learn. They are too-too pushy.”

  “The guy could have been run over,” Ben said. He could feel himself shaking. The poor man might have been killed. He had looked poor — his shirt was ripped and filthy, and there were big scabs on his face. Ben knew they had street people at home, too, but they weren’t so scary. They wouldn’t be assertive enough to stick their arm right into a car. They stood on street corners with a cap in front of them, asking quietly if you’d give them money. Why had Padam crushed the man’s hand like that? Was that any way to treat beggars?

  Gran collapsed against the plastic seat. The incident with the beggar, the constant bleating of horns and the blasts of gas fumes were too much for her. “What have I got us into?” she moaned.

  Ben felt sorry for her. “Into a bed soon, I hope, Gran. Even though it’s only the middle of the afternoon here.”

  As the taxi pulled in front of a three-storey hotel, Gran saw there was no meter and reached into her fanny pack to pull out four bills. “I hope this is enough. Thank you very much.”

  “We are thanking you,” said Madhu. “Now you will be needing to rest so we will be coming for you tomorrow.”

  “No need for you to do that. We can get a taxi when we’re ready,” Gran said.

  Madhu gave a sideways nod of his head, “We are your drivers and we will be taking you everywhere.”

  “Good golly, yes,” Padam said. “We are belonging to you. It is no problem.”

  That was the second time the men had said “no problem.” Must be a common expression here, thought Ben.

  On the way to the hotel desk, Ben said, “Do you know how much money you gave the taxi drivers, Gran?”

  “I’m not sure,” Gran said. “All the bills look the same, and right now, I’m too exhausted to figure them out.”

  Travelling with Gran was not going to be easy. He’d have to make sure she didn’t give all their money away.

  After signing the register, they made their way up an unlit stairwell to the third floor and a small room with two single beds and a much smaller bathroom.

  “Smells like a leaky toilet in here,” Gran said, flopping down on the bed. “But I’m too tired to care, and I can’t stay awake another minute.”

  Ben dropped his pack on the other bed. Maybe his grandmother was too old for this trip.

  The noise that woke Ben was like nothing he’d ever heard before — a harsh wailing sound came through the open window. The vibrating lament filled the air for several minutes and then suddenly stopped. What made a cry like that? In the silence that followed, Ben heard birds serenading the morning and Gran on the next bed snoring.

  He was in Delhi, the capital of India. A country he knew nothing about. He checked his watch, which he’d set to Delhi time before the plane landed. Their flight had crossed the International Date Line, and here in Delhi it was five o’clock Wednesday morning and light outside. Counting back, it would be five o’clock on Tuesday afternoon in Vancouver. Mum and Lauren would be just sitting down to dinner while he and Gran had been catapulted half a world away and into the next day.

  From the hotel window, Ben could see over the tops of trees onto a small courtyard. In the distance he saw several tall temples. Drifting up from the garden came a familiar spicy smell, a smell that reminded him of Sunday mornings when his dad baked cinnamon buns. Mornings that seemed a long time ago.

  Ben reached to switch on his PlayStation. Nothing. It was dead. He looked in his backpack until he found the recharger, but the plug wouldn’t fit the wall outlet. It was the wrong shape. That was odd.

  He shook his grandmother’s shoulder.

  “What is it, Ben?” she said in a groggy voice.

  “I can’t get my recharger plugged in. I need to recharge my PlayStation.”

  “You might need an adapter.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a special plug. Lets you connect into their electrical system over here.” She rolled over. “Just let me go back to sleep for a few minutes.”

  This couldn’t be happening. How was he supposed to know you needed an adapter? He’d never travelled to a foreign country before. He shook his grandmother’s shoulder again. This time it was harder to wake her.

  “What do you want?”

  “Gran, why didn’t you tell me I’d need an adapter? The battery on my PlayStation has run down. I need it.”

  Now wide awake, his grandmother sat up. “I didn’t even know you were bringing the stupid thing.” She rubbed her eyes and blinked. “Well, I’m up now. Might as well get dressed and get this day started.”

  Ben sat on his bed. Unbelievable. No adapter meant no PlayStation. No music. No Battlefront for seventeen days. Just India … and his grandmother.

  While Gran was in the bathroom, Ben dressed and called, “I’m going to send an email to Mum.” He decided not to slam the door.

  The desk clerk was awake and showed Ben to the computer in a room beside the front desk. Ben keyed in:

  Dear Mum and Lauren

  Hard 2 believe we’re in Delhi. I’ve never seen so many people. Why didn’t anyone tell me I need an adapter for my PlayStation?

  Ben

  Gran came downstairs and Ben followed her droopy soldier skirt to the hotel restaurant. A young waitress smiled and seated them at a table by the window. “I am guessing where you’re from,” she said.

  “It’s that baseball cap, Ben. Please take it off,” Gran snapped.

  Ben scowled at his grandmother and tossed the cap on the chair beside him.

  “Welcome to India. I am Gita. You come from Canada! So, so far away. But I have read that it is being a very fine country.”

  Gita wore a starched white uniform with a blue apron. She was tiny and neat, with large eyes and a wide smile. She brought their order of poached eggs, and then pots of tea and hot chocolate and a plate of chapatis. It felt like two days since Ben had eaten. Probably was.

  “You speak English,” Gran said to Gita.

  “Indeed, madam,” she answered. “Of course, I also speak Hindi and two oth
er languages.”

  “How many languages are there in India?” Gran asked.

  “So many. Eighteen or more, madam. More chapatis?”

  “Please,” Ben said.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Ben,” Gran said.

  Was his grandmother going to correct him for every little thing the whole trip?

  Gran was being annoyingly chatty to the waitress. “It’s lucky for us you speak English because we don’t know any Hindi words,” she said.

  “Well,” Gita said. “Here’s the first one you should learn. In India when we greet someone we say namaste and we put our hands together in front of our chest.” She demonstrated with a little forward bow.

  “Our taxi drivers did that yesterday,” Gran said.

  “What does it mean?” Ben asked.

  Gita smiled her big smile again and said. “Namaste means ‘Greetings. I recognize the god in you.’”

  “I like that,” Gran said.

  Back up in their room, Gran reminded Ben to take his malaria pill, then put on her goofy hat.

  “You’re wearing a hat, Gran. Can I put on my baseball cap?”

  “Yes, because we’re going out. But please put it on the right way, Ben, not backwards.”

  He felt like a little kid being told how to dress.

  “Come on, Ben.” Gran opened the door. “Let’s go and find Shanti!”

  Day Two

  AT THE FRONT ENTRANCE of the hotel, a blanket of heat dropped over Ben and his grandmother. They stood, stunned, as the steaming air tumbled over their faces and through their clothes to their skin.

  Madhu and Padam came rushing up from beside their taxi. “Namaste,” said Madhu, with his gentle smile and a bob of his bald head. The gap-toothed Padam repeated the greeting, bowing low.

  “We didn’t expect you to be here for us,” Gran said.

  “But of course, memsahib, we told you. We are belonging to you,” Madhu said.

  “Well, thank you,” Gran smiled.

  “How do we say ‘thank you’ in Hindi?” Ben asked.

  “Dhanayawada,” Padam said, slowly.