Follow the Elephant

by Beryl Young

  Maybe Rani had been wrong. Maybe snakes out here in the country were not the same as big city snakes. Whatever the truth was, he and his grandmother were inside a bus tearing down the highway with a live cobra across the aisle.

  Ben jumped when Gran shook his shoulder and yelled in his ear. “Ben, tell the driver to make that man take the snake off the bus! Why would they let a snake get on a bus anyway? Go on, tell him!” Her whole body was trembling.

  Ben tried to reason with her. “Snake charmers have a right to be on a bus. They have to travel, just like us.” He saw that the man had woken, probably from Gran’s yelling. “Gran, he’s got his hand on the lid. The snake can’t get out now.”

  It was as though she hadn’t heard him. “We’re trapped!” shrieked Gran. She was gasping for air in an alarming way.

  Was this how someone behaved when they were having a panic attack? Weren’t you supposed to throw water on their faces? No point looking in his pack. He didn’t have any water.

  Just then, the bus slowed and the driver pulled into an open area with a few huts. It was obviously a stop for food, and Gran became desperate to get out. She leapt over Ben, caught her foot on his shin and sprawled, face across his lap. Her skirt had twisted around her legs, and her arms thrashed wildly in the aisle, perilously close to the man with the snake. Uttering shrill yaps that reminded Ben of an angry Pekingese, his grandmother scrambled to get on her feet. Attempting to push down her skirt, she stumbled and shoved her way past the other passengers to get out of the bus.

  Ben slid down in his seat; the other passengers filed off, followed by the snake charmer, his flute in one hand and the basket in the other. Ben bent down to pick up his grandmother’s baseball cap, hooked his backpack over his shoulder and was the last off the bus.

  His grandmother was sitting hunched over on a bench in the dirt square. He went closer; her hands were pressed into her face, but the Pekingese noises had stopped.

  “Here’s your hat, Gran,” he said, dusting it off and sitting down beside her. “You’ll be fine now. See, the snake charmer is way up the road. He probably lives near here.”

  Gran took a deep breath and wiped her face. Gradually she stopped shaking, but her face was puffy and her grey hair stuck up in all directions, making her look as though she’d been in a windstorm. Her voice was raspy and tight. “Just let me get myself together, Ben.”

  Ben went to one of the stalls and brought back the only drink he could find — a red syrupy drink in a plastic bag, with a straw sticking through the hole where the bag had been tied. It was good to be in charge of the money and he’d never admit it to Gran, but he liked carrying their rupees in the money belt. They felt safe there.

  Ben noticed some bus passengers standing in a circle to watch a show. He told Gran he wanted to see what it was and made his way to the front. A tall performer was holding up a box of metal nails. One by one the man began swallowing the nails; large ones, small ones, whole clusters of nails were disappearing down his throat. The man dipped his chin and swallowed over and over again.

  Then, signalling the crowd to pay attention, he began to cough up the nails, singly and in clumps, spitting them into the tin box. If Ben wasn’t standing right in front of the man, he never would have believed it. The man rubbed his throat, bowed and passed around a cup for the crowd to show their gratitude. Along with everyone else, Ben dropped in coins from his pocket.

  “You should have seen that guy, Gran,” Ben said, sitting down beside her. “It was amazing.” He passed Gran one of the samosas the Gurins had sent with them.

  “I just can’t eat,” she said. “I’m sorry for my outburst, Ben. I’ve never actually been that close to a live snake.”

  “No problem now, Gran. The guy and his snake are way gone.”

  “I feel ashamed of myself. I’m just going to sit quietly until the bus leaves.”

  Ben turned and saw a young boy half-lying on a skateboard rolling toward him. The boy had no legs and his body ended where his legs should have started. Ben stared. The boy was about eight or nine and had a grim set to his lean face. Using his arms, he was propelling himself through the dirt, coming closer and calling for rupees. How could anyone live like that? To have to lie on a skateboard and beg because you had no legs.

  The passengers waiting to get back on the bus saw the boy, but only a few tossed coins to him. Ben opened his backpack and took out the last two bananas and put them on the skateboard. He hesitated a moment, then reached for his pocket knife and put it in the boy’s hand. The boy stared up at Ben, then back down at the knife. Ben nodded to show the boy he could keep the knife and was rewarded with a smile that lit up the boy’s entire face.

  Ben crouched down beside the skateboard to demonstrate the three blades, the scissors and the bottle opener. He watched while the boy tested the longest blade for sharpness against his finger. They were both so absorbed that Ben didn’t hear the bus doors close and the driver start the engine. He didn’t notice the bus swing out of the clearing until the back wheels sent dust spitting down on the two of them. He stood up to see the bus tearing down the road. Gran had let the driver leave without him!

  Ben grabbed his backpack and began to run down the highway. He ran as fast as he could, panting hard, breathing in dust, until he realized he’d never catch the bus. He slowed, staggered and after a while, stopped.

  He tried to get his thoughts together. Here he was, thirteen years old, alone on a dusty road somewhere in south India. Too old to cry. Too scared to hitch a ride. Too stupid to have any other ideas about what to do.

  Ben watched the bus get smaller and smaller, his thoughts whirling. He hadn’t wanted to be on the stupid bus anyway. What he really wanted was to be back on the beach with Rani.

  Then, like something seen from the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, the bus stopped, turned and headed back along the road toward him.

  The passengers cheered when Ben climbed on — everyone but Gran, whose face was as white as a snowman’s. He thumped himself down beside her.

  “I’m so sorry, Ben.” She spoke quickly, sounding like a kid who’s had a bad scare. “When I got on I had to check to make sure the snake wasn’t anywhere on the bus, and I was so tired, I just sat down and closed my eyes. When I looked over and saw you weren’t beside me, I panicked.” Her eyes pleaded with Ben to understand. “I rushed up to the driver as fast as I could but it was hard to make him understand we’d left you behind. He didn’t speak English so I was using sign language, pointing to your seat, holding up two fingers, doing everything I could to get him to turn around.”

  Another time Ben might have laughed at the thought of his grandmother using sign language with the bus driver, but not now. “I just can’t believe you let the bus drive away without me! I stood there on the road thinking I’d never find you. I thought I’d have to get back to Canada by myself.”

  “I’m sorry, very sorry.” Gran’s face was crumbling.

  Ben wiped his sweaty forehead and reached in his pack for water. The grit in his teeth reminded him of the mouthful of dirt he’d eaten on a dare when he was four. Of course, there was no water in his pack.

  “This trip has been one disaster after another. I’m sick of it. I wish I was back in Canada right now,” he said.

  “I don’t blame you, Ben. I feel angry with myself. I talk to you about being responsible and then I do a thing like this. I wish the trip was over too.”

  Ben didn’t like to hear his grandmother say that. It was okay if a kid said it; you blurt out all kinds of things when you’re fuming mad at being dumped on the side of the road. “You don’t mean that, Gran.”

  “I guess not, but we have no idea why Shanti’s brother asked to see us. I’m worried about what we’re going to find out.”

  Ben was too, but there was no point trying to guess what it was. He leaned back on the seat.

  “What were you doing back there, anyway, Ben? Didn’t you see everyone getting on the bus?”

  “I
gave my pocket knife to that boy without legs and I was showing him some of the neat things about it.”

  “You let him have the pocket knife I gave you for Christmas?”

  “I’m sorry, Gran. I had to. That boy had nothing.”

  “But you used that knife all the time to peel fruit.”

  “I loved that knife, and I’ll miss it. Remember I used the scissors to make cut-offs out of these jeans?”

  “I’m surprised you’d give it away.”

  “I gave it to him without thinking, but I’m glad I did. That boy was the most handicapped person I’ve ever seen. He has a terrible life ahead of him. I can get another knife, but that boy won’t ever get anything special.”

  Gran smiled at him. “I think I understand, Ben.”

  Gran was quiet, and Ben’s thoughts were about the boy. Ben wondered how he’d lost both legs. Could he have been born like that? Or been in some kind of horrible accident? He’d never forget the boy’s smile when he’d realized he could keep the knife.

  The rocking of the bus calmed Ben, and his eyes closed. He and Gran would be in Canada in a few days. Maybe they’d leave on the plane without ever seeing Shanti. He’d been so certain he’d find her on the site of her old school; he’d imagined Gran admiring him, saying how smart he was. She’d say the computer did have some useful things about it, after all. But now, unexpectedly, just because Gran had been sick, they’d met Dr. Dhaliwal and were on their way to meet Shanti’s brother. It was funny how things worked. If she hadn’t got sick, they’d be back to where they were the day they’d arrived in India. Now they might be close to actually meeting Shanti. Maybe it would all work out, but then, being India, it just as likely might not. Ben could feel himself dozing off.

  He opened his eyes and realized the bus was passing small shacks and houses that were probably the outskirts of Bangalore. They passed more shops on suburban streets and finally came to a halt at the city bus terminal. It was four o’clock in the afternoon when they got off the bus.

  “Let’s find a hotel and go to see Dr. Mukherjee while his clinic is still open,” Gran said. Her sleep on the bus seemed to have helped her recover, both from the scare with the cobra and from leaving him behind on the road.

  A bicycle rickshaw driver took them to the Hotel Paradise. “It is owned by a friend of my very good friend. Most comfortable hotel in all Bangalore,” he said. “You will be thanking me.”

  Gran was pleased that the hotel was both reasonably priced and pleasant, with an attractive interior courtyard that backed onto a dining room. A porter took their backpacks to a shady room on the second floor with two single beds, a desk and a small bathroom.

  The rickshaw driver was leaning against his bicycle waiting for them when they came back down.

  “Could we stop on the way so I can buy a new cap?” Ben said.

  “What happened to your red Canada one?” Gran asked.

  “Rani liked it so I gave it to her.”

  “Hmm,” was all Gran said. Exactly the same reaction he’d expect from his mother when she didn’t want to make a comment.

  They stopped at a stall and Ben found another red cap, this one with MUMBAI MINIS written over the brim.

  “Whatever they are,” he said to Gran.

  Wearing their baseball caps, the two of them perched like royalty on the high rickshaw seat on the way to Dr. Mukherjee’s clinic.

  As they walked up to the large bungalow that housed the clinic, a dapper man with wire frame glasses like the kind Gandhi wore and a short white coat came toward them, his hand outstretched.

  “Welcome. Welcome. Welcome Mrs. Leeson and welcome Mr. Ben. I am your servant Dr. Vivek Mukherjee. Such a pleasure to have you visit here in Bangalore.”

  Hardly giving them a chance to answer, he went on. “And such a long journey, you must be tired. You will please dine with us tonight? You are expected by my wife Partha, who even now is preparing a fine south Indian dinner for you. She is a very good cook and most certainly you will not be disappointed.”

  The doctor finally needed a breath, giving Gran a chance to talk. “Thank you, Dr. Mukherjee. Years ago Shanti wrote to me about her brother.”

  “Oh, yes. We have many things to talk about.”

  Ben could guess who would be doing most of the talking.

  “I’m anxious to hear how Shanti is,” Gran said.

  “Let us speak of that later, my dear. Now I want to show you my clinic of which I am very proud.” A small, quick-moving man, his feet racing as fast as his mouth, the doctor led them through glass doors into a long hallway, turning his head to keep his conversation going. “Such an honour to have you visit us. I am your new friend, and my wife will be too. Soon I will introduce you to her and to this fine city of Bangalore, most correctly known as the garden jewel of south India. You must please call me Dr. Vivek. All the nurses do.”

  He surveyed the room proudly. “Such fine nurses we have here. You will be seeing for yourself. They are dedicated to the care of our patients. Yes, our poor patients who ask only that a gentle hand be placed on their forehead when there is nothing more to be done for them.”

  What was this? Ben’s heart started to pound. Surely this place wasn’t full of dying people?

  Dr. Vivek had paused, but only briefly. “Come with me, one of you on either side. Here we go.”

  Ben found himself led into a long room as the doctor, hardly stopping for a breath, greeted the nurse at the wood-panelled reception area. Narrow hospital beds lined each wall with nurses in long white saris bending over the patients. There was a strong antiseptic smell, clean but sharp, in the room.

  “You see, we have space for twenty-two dying only. We call this a dying home, but in North America I believe you call it a hospice.” Dr. Vivek smiled. “But I always say what does a name matter when you are helping people?”

  Ben thought he was going to collapse. The email had said it was a clinic. How did this happen? He was in a room full of dying people! “I didn’t realize this was a hospice, Dr. Vivek.” Ben could hear the shakiness in his voice.

  Dr. Vivek went on, “Indeed, most certainly. Here the poor of our city can die with loving care, rather than on the streets alone and suffering. We help who we can, though our place is small and there are so many needy souls.”

  Ben could do nothing but follow along behind. Every time the doctor stopped for a word or a touch for one of the patients, Ben tried not to look. But wherever he turned, patients were lying back quietly, most of them with their eyes closed. They were probably already dead, Ben thought with horror.

  Dr. Vivek stopped at a screen around a bed at the end of the room. Before he could turn away Ben caught a glimpse of an elderly man breathing noisily, with a nurse sitting beside him. Dr. Vivek told the nurse he would come by later.

  Ben hadn’t been near a dying person since he’d been taken to say goodbye to his father that last day in the Vancouver hospice. Now he was in another hospice. Horrible thoughts flooded into his head and he couldn’t pull his mind curtain down to stop them. He was surrounded with dead people. He hated it. He hated it that people had to die. His head was bursting and he wanted to smash something.

  The doctor went toward a wide door, talking all the way. “It is most certainly agreed that there is a need here, since many poor people in India do not have a place where they can die in peaceful dignity. Peace and dignity, that is our goal for the end of life.”

  He opened the door to a veranda. “Now come into the garden while I tell you of my dream.”

  Ben pushed past Dr. Vivek and ran down the steps. He’d never have come anywhere near this place if he’d known it was a hospice. He ran into a garden along a path bordered with gigantic orange flowers. Their heavy smell brought back the smell of the flowers in his father’s hospice room and made Ben feel sick. He’d been in the room with Lauren, Gran and his mother the afternoon his father died.

  “He’s gone,” Ben heard a nurse say. She’d waited while his mother leaned over t
o kiss his dead father’s lips. Then the nurse had led them into another room with a sofa and chairs. She sat with them while a volunteer had brought tea. It had been good to drink something hot.

  The nurse had let his mother cry and Gran had held Lauren on her lap. Later the nurse put her arm around Ben. They’d gone back into the room once more to say goodbye. His father was laid out on the bed with a sheet folded under his chin, a peaceful look on his face, and Ben could see his dad wasn’t there anymore.

  His mother said afterwards she was grateful they’d been in a hospice rather than a regular hospital ward where nurses would be rushing them to leave. They’d been able to stay as long as they wanted. Ben had taken it all for granted. His own feelings had been so overwhelming it hadn’t occurred to him to be grateful.

  Gran and Dr. Vivek came over to where Ben was standing. Gran spoke to Ben. “I’ve explained to the doctor that it is not yet a year since your father died. The memories are strong for me too, Ben.”

  “I am so sorry,” Dr. Vivek said. “But I am happy that you were able to be with your father at the end. One should not die alone.”

  “It’s okay,” Ben said, staring at his feet. “I’m over it now.”

  “One is never ‘over’ such a loss,” Dr. Vivek said, looking kindly at Ben. “One simply accepts that death is a part of life.”

  Gran was looking around the garden. “I’m impressed with what you are doing here, Dr. Vivek.”

  “You see we have enough space to expand on the grounds around us.” He gestured with both arms. “My dream is to put up an addition to the building we have now so there would be space for thirty more patients.”

  He sighed. “I am talking to people in the community hoping to raise money. The Bangalore municipal government will match what I am able to raise for a simple inexpensive building. Such is my dream.”

  Dr. Vivek led Gran to a bench, sat beside her and for the first time, stopped talking. He seemed to have run out of things to say and was quietly looking at the site for the new building.