Where I Found You

by Heidi R. Kling

  “Sorry, sorry.” He waved her away and went back to scooping food into his mouth.

  With his right hand.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Dad, come clean,” I demanded. “Is Vera telling the truth?”

  When he heard “come clean,” Tom laughed out loud again.

  “Shush, Tom,” Vera said, “you don’t want to embarrass the kids. To them it’s perfectly normal.”

  “I know it is! I think it’s a great custom. It’s hygienic, and it saves money on TP.”

  Dad lowered his voice, too. “It’s really no big deal, but I’m sure you noticed there was no toilet paper in the mandi?”

  “Uh. Yeah. They obviously ran out, right?”

  “Can’t run out of something that was never there,” Tom said. “And people have to wipe with something.”

  Wipe with something? “They wipe themselves with their hands?” I said a bit too loudly. “Seriously?”

  Dad nodded, trying to act serious, but the corners of his lips were raised. “You pour the water over your bottom and then—well, you wash your hands very well afterward. It’s quite sanitary once you get the hang of it.”

  The pitcher in the bathroom. That’s what it was for.

  I screeched a whisper. “Do you all do that?” I looked from face to face. All three members of Team Hope shrugged.

  “When you work abroad, you adjust to local customs,” Vera said.

  I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t imagine wiping my butt with my own hand. I mean, seriously, if the kids at school found out, I’d be shunned forever. “They don’t think it’s sanitary? That’s why they don’t use toilet paper?”

  “It’s also a waste of resources,” Tom said with a mouthful of rice. “They can’t afford to waste paper like we do. We shouldn’t do it, either, but we do. Ask your social studies teacher when you get home. We’re the most wasteful country in the world.”

  Watching Big Doctor Tom shovel piles of food into his already two-ton belly didn’t just prove his argument; it won the case.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not doing it.”

  Dad nodded. “You don’t have to. That’s why I brought the baby wipes.”

  Subject change. Someone? Anyone? “Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “So after art, do I have a break before therapy?” I wanted to start asking around for Deni.

  “We’ll break for lunch,” Dad said, “And yes, then group therapy with Vera in the afternoon.”

  “Is there anything else to eat?” I was still hungry after my small bowl was empty.

  “I’m afraid not, honey. They don’t have much, and to share with us is very generous. We can go out to lunch later in town,” Dad said, looking pointedly at Tom, who seemed to eat a lion’s share.

  Glancing down the rows of kids, I thought about how they must still be hungry, too. Rice wasn’t much for a whole meal. Where was the protein, dairy, or vegetables? Skipping those wasn’t good for growing kids like Elli. I thought about our kitchen at home with the big bowls of fresh fruit I took for granted. The endless boxes of pasta and cereals in the cabinet, and organic milk and yogurt in our fridge.

  “Can we do something to help them get more food? Talk to the pesantren owner or something?”

  “The thing is, they rely on donations to keep the place going. If they have a donor come, they have a better variety of food. If they don’t, it’s a lean month for the kids.”

  “Oh. It just seems like, maybe we could think of something? Maybe donate something?”

  “We are. We’re donating our time. It might seem odd to you, but it’s all we can do, sweetie,” Dad explained. “Our specialty is mental health, so that’s what we’re giving them. They aren’t starving. Look at them.”

  I looked around at their mostly happy faces. They were thin, but not skinny.

  “Compared to most developing countries, believe me, these kids have it good,” Tom added.

  It didn’t seem like enough.

  A loud ruckus broke out at the other end of the table.

  Some older boys were roughhousing, but they seemed kind of angry. A big scrappy boy pushed a scrawnier, shorter kid. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but the energy in the dining hall changed. Chatter quieted. Everyone stopped eating to watch. The kid that got pushed started whaling on the bully, and then a group of maybe three or four older boys took sides and got all up in each other’s faces.

  My stomach squeezed like it did at school when the rare fight broke out, usually among the football players. I hated fighting. The cook yelled at them in Indonesian. She grabbed the scrappy boy by the back of his T-shirt and pulled him toward the door. Scrappy’s friends protested, standing up with their arms raised, talking fast in Indonesian, but one of their voices was louder than the others.

  The tall drummer boy.

  He spoke slowly and firmly, his feet steady on the ground like he wasn’t moving until she heard what he had to say. His friends stopped yelling, so he lowered his voice, too, but kept his tone serious. I had no idea what he was saying, but there was fiery passion behind his eyes, and I could see that the woman was listening to him. He was gesturing, and I guessed explaining what had happened. Then he looked at her expectantly, but she was already grinning like she was his friend, too. He nodded once gratefully as she walked away.

  Impressive.

  The other boys sat back down at the table and reluctantly continued eating, looking at the boy like he was some kind of hero.

  But he wasn’t looking back at them.

  As he cast his gaze down the table, his eyes stopped on mine just for a moment, a flash of something in them. Some sort of question. Was he checking to see if I was watching? I raised my eyebrows once. He nodded back quickly, but his eyes danced. I knew it.

  “That’s him,” I whispered to Dad. “The leader of the drum circle. He’s the leader of the Aceh boys.”

  “Hmm. Maybe you’re right,” Dad agreed. “All the details seem to add up.”

  Tom looked at the boy incredulously. “How do you know for sure?”

  My heart skipped a beat when I said with utter authority, “I just do.”

  He stayed only a few seconds longer before he disappeared out the same door his friend was ejected from.

  Time to see what all the fuss was about. And to satisfy my own inexplicable curiosity.

  “I’ll see you at art!” I said, darting for the exit.

  It was sprinkling. I looked around but didn’t see him at first. Then I noticed an older boy heading down the far path, away from me. From this distance, I wasn’t sure it was him, so I sped up. As I got closer, I could see he was walking with a limp.

  Bingo.

  The rain fell harder, and I walked faster. I didn’t have a plan other than to ask him his name, and for now, that was enough. That’s all Dad needed, right? But then thunder cracked once above me, and the rain seemed thicker and hotter and was falling faster. I jumped and ducked behind a building, watching as a younger boy about six or seven cried out at the sky’s snap, too. I wasn’t sure what he was doing out there alone while everyone else was eating.

  The older boy whipped around and without a second thought scooped him up onto his shoulders. Lightning zipped through silver clouds and lit up the path. The older boy glanced up at the sky as if daring it to do it again. I was close enough to see water streaming down his clenched jaw, pouring over his sinewy arms.

  And then he was looking at me, too.

  I felt like I’d been caught spying, but he wasn’t mad. He was just staring, and so was I.

  I couldn’t look away. Finally, lamely, I waved.

  He didn’t wave back, but he didn’t turn away. What should I do? Calling out through the brewing storm, “What’s your name?” suddenly didn’t sound like the greatest idea.

  Streaks of electricity shot against the sky. The-boy-I-assumed-was-Deni grabbed hold of the younger boy’s ankles, furrowed his brow, and yelled to me, “The storm comes, rambut kuning. Go.”

&nb
sp; Rambut kuning? What did that mean?

  And he spoke English?

  I grounded my feet in place to keep from running after him as he took off into the storm as fast as he could manage with a limp and a kid on his shoulders.

  Finally, with thunder cracking over my head, I ran, too, toward safety.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was pouring rain. Pouring. Like gallons of water being dumped on the dorm’s roof.

  My little roommates and I were hanging out waiting for instructions when Vera finally knocked.

  Her mascara was smeared and running down her cheeks. Mascara? Seriously? In this weather?

  “Sienna? We’ve decided to relocate art to this room.”

  “Okay.”

  She nodded as if surprised I was being cooperative. “Great. Well, the children’s regular classes were canceled because of a major leak in their classroom’s roof. Andy, I mean, your father, said that room is starting to flood.”

  Vera set a wet box of art supplies on the table. Crayons, markers, pencils, and paper that we’d brought from home.

  “So what should I do?” I asked.

  “I’ll gather around the girls, and you can pass out the out supplies?”

  Easy enough.

  We all sat in a big circle on the floor. The girls sat on their knees, so I did, too.

  Vera cleared her throat and sat up tall. “I’d like you all to draw home. The first image that comes to your mind when you hear the word home.” I think Vera said it in English for my sake, because the kids looked blankly at her until she repeated it in their language.

  I colored a house with Dad, Mom, and me standing in the front yard throwing around a Frisbee. I drew myself short yellow hair and red overalls. I was about six. I don’t know why. Maybe because that’s how old I guessed Elli was? Maybe because that’s the first image I thought of when I thought of home?

  I peeked over at Elli’s drawing: palm trees, a small brown house, a purple airplane flying in a bright blue sky between two puffy pink clouds.

  Half of the piece of paper had red background. The rest was white.

  “Home?” I asked her, quietly not wanting to disturb the other kids who were busy working.

  She didn’t say anything. Kept scribbling more and more and more red.

  “My home,” I said, pointing to my picture.

  She looked over at the family with the young child. She narrowed her eyes, confused.

  She said something to Vera.

  “Elli wants to know why you aren’t in the picture with your little sister,” Vera said.

  I felt sheepish. Crayon-art evidence of me stuck in the past. “Tell her that is me when I was a kid. That I don’t have a sister.”

  She did. Then we went around the circle discussing our pictures. Some of the kids drew big waves. Some drew rainbows. Some drew the pink pesantren.

  “Why did she draw an airplane?” I asked Vera, referring to Elli’s art.

  Vera asked her in a smooth, patient tone.

  Elli looked at her lap while she explained. My gut told me it was some awful reason.

  “Because she wished an airplane would have flown in to rescue her mother from the sea. The day the wave came.”

  One kid’s nightmare is another kid’s hope.

  “What is the red about?” I pressed.

  Vera asked Elli.

  “She thinks of the tsunami as death, and she said the color of death is red.”

  My voice caught in my throat. “Like blood,” I said.

  “Yes,” Vera said sadly, “like blood.”

  I cleared my throat and felt hot. Listened to the pounding rain on the roof. Poor Elli.

  Vera asked me to hand out a fresh piece of paper to all the girls.

  The rain outside grew louder.

  “This time I’d like you to draw yourself. Any way you’d like. Just make sure you are in the picture.” She said it in English then translated to the group.

  Elli quickly scribbled another palm tree with a tiny stick figure standing below it. This time, thankfully, there was no red.

  “You?” I asked, pointing.

  “Elli,” she said, patting her chest.

  “It’s good,” I smiled. Then I turned and whispered to Vera. “Why did she draw herself so small?”

  Vera eyes widened as she translated Elli’s answer. “She said that is how she feels when she wakes up each day without her family. Very small and very alone.”

  Tears pinging in my eyes, I grabbed a green marker and even though I probably wasn’t supposed to, I drew a stick figure on Elli’s paper next to the tiny one.

  A tall girl with yellow hair and orange shoes.

  I pointed to my Converse. “You, me, together,” I said.

  Elli leaned into my shoulder before beginning to draw again.

  This time she drew another figure, then another.

  She was drawing her friends here at the pesantren.

  “You are not alone,” I told her. And I think she may have understood what I said. Maybe next time she would draw herself a little bit bigger.

  Maybe I would, too.

  At lunchtime, we ran into the hall to eat a bowl of noodles before breaking into afternoon groups, this time in one of the older girls’ dorm rooms. Deni wasn’t at lunch.

  Wind continued to slash at the shingles, but at least the thunder had died down a little. Vera spoke loudly above the rain, and we sat on the floor, the girls on kaleidoscope-colored prayer mats. One girl offered to share her mat with me, so we kneeled together.

  Vera said I could take pictures. I zoomed in on the doe-eyed face of a girl about my age who was wearing a lime green hijab. I listened as she told her story, in English.

  “I was home with my mother and my sisters when I heard the sound. The sound of thunder. My father and my brothers were fishermen and were working. I ran out the door and saw people running toward me, away from the ocean. They cried, ‘The sea is coming, the sea is coming.’ My mother grabbed my baby sister and the two older girls, and they ran. I grabbed my younger sister’s hand and we ran as fast as we could away from the water. My sister was seven and couldn’t run anymore. Even though she was big, I lifted her into my arms, and together ran until she was too heavy and I stumbled on a fallen man, and my sister slipped from my arms. I tried but I couldn’t reach her. There were many people running. The water moved so fast behind me and was so thick and tall that…”

  She stopped talking and crumbled forward onto the carpet.

  Vera said something to her quietly.

  The girl wiped her eyes and sat up. Her words had frozen me to the floor. and I didn’t know what I wanted more: for her to stop talking or to finish the story.

  “It’s okay,” Vera told her, gently prodding.

  “My sister was swept away.”

  The knot in my throat swelled up. I leaned in to hear the rest.

  “I had no choice but to run. To leave her behind. I climbed up a banana tree and hung on tight as muddy ocean rose around me. Many people went past me. Some already quiet.”

  Her face broken, she lowered her voice.

  “Finally, when I couldn’t hang on any longer, the water fell back to the sea, and I climbed down. For days and days I looked in the camps for my mother and for my sisters. One of my sisters is here at the pesantren with me. But not the sister I lost. I never found my sister again.”

  Vera put her arm around the girl and spoke quietly, letting her talk and cry.

  “It’s not your fault,” Vera said in English before translating. “You were a hero for trying to save your sister. You are a hero for saving yourself.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. Vera’s words helped.

  I set the camera down without taking a picture.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lightning flashed through the pitch-black room like a strobe light on the walls, followed by a massive crash of thunder.

  It had to be the middle of the night.

  Seriously. Was the storm ever goin
g to end?

  After a long day of the emotional art therapy with Elli and the teen group, I was completely drained by bedtime and quietly cried myself to sleep replaying the girl’s story in my head to the melancholy beat of the rain pounding on the roof.

  And now this.

  Water poured through the narrow slits in the shutters, leaving half my bunk soaked. Elli was so afraid, she jumped up onto my bunk and clung to me.

  “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s just a thunderstorm,” I said, but her face was soaked with tears. The sounds of the other girls’ cries were drowned out by the heavy thunder. Rain hammered against the window so hard, I was afraid the shutters might blow off their hinges. “We better move,” I said.

  I slid down, Elli clinging to my neck. I yanked on the string and the light sparked once, pulsed, and then fizzled out. Great. Following the whimpers, I stumbled across the wet floor, finding a group of girls huddled together on a lower bunk looking scared to death, while the rest of the kids slowly woke up, seemingly unfazed by the storm.

  Strange.

  Then I realized my bare feet were wet. Water was leaking in from somewhere. “Crap,” I muttered.

  I sat Elli down with the other kids and scanned the roof with my flashlight, trying to find the source of the leak. I pointed up at the ceiling, but aside from old-water damage and mold, it looked okay. Then I shone the light at the front door. Water was pouring in under the crack.

  “Get some towels—uh, get some clothes.” The girls didn’t understand me, so I grabbed a bunch of my stuff—T-shirts, one sweatshirt, an already-damp striped towel—and shoved them under the crack of the rickety front door.

  There was a loud crash of thunder, and the girls shrieked. I nearly did, too. The thunder sounded like it was right outside the door. Lightning flashed across the dorm room again, the shutters flapping open before slamming shut with the heavy wind. My barricade wasn’t working. The water soaked right through the material. Over an inch of water lined the floor.

  “Everybody up. Move over and climb onto that bed; it’s farthest from the window and the safest place to wait out the storm.”

  The huddled girls didn’t budge, so one at a time I picked them up and carried them across the room, setting them on the center top bunk. I left the other girls, the ones seemingly unfazed, in their bunks. Elli wouldn’t let go of me, so I was doing double duty, balancing two girls at a time on my hips. The rain beat the roof like hail.