by Asha Miro
Everything is as it was twenty years ago. The school is to the right, a conventional-looking building, a grayish color, three floors, no balconies but with wide windows. To the left is a colonial-style building, the convent. I take the four steps leading up to the convent entrance hall in one go. In English, I ask the first young nun I see for Mother Adelina. I am a bundle of nerves. She asks me to take a seat on a chair in the hall. My eyes dart from one door to the other as I wonder which one will reveal the nun who was like a mother to me. I look in front of me and recognize the passageway that leads to where the girls live, the place that was home to me from age three to age six.
It wasn’t easy being just one out of two hundred girls. The rules were very strict and they weren’t shy about giving us the occasional slap. The great affection I received from the Nasik nuns until I was three vanished when I arrived here. Although, almost immediately, I became the spoiled little girl, the nuns’ favorite.
I don’t know how I managed it. Looking back over the years, I clearly recall how life among those girls was ruled by the survival of the fittest—the most alert were the best equipped to survive. I was always covered in scratches and my face was marked by the constant fights. No, it wasn’t survival of the fittest, it was the law of the jungle. I was not aware of what I was doing, but I had the fortune of falling into the nuns’ good graces. Whenever I could, I would evade my duties and go running to hide in their skirts. I was their little pet.
Regina Pacis was divided into two parts, the school and the orphanage. In the school were girls who came from wealthy families. They were boarders who lived in twin bedrooms, with their own beds, cupboards, and bedside tables. We orphans often managed to sneak in and poke our noses into all their things and spy on them. We didn’t have rooms of our own. I recall an enormous hall with arches in the ceiling and overhead fans. We each slept on a towel on the floor, all lined up in a row, one next to the other. India is a hot and humid country, and this was reflected in the hall’s warm air and the cold, damp floor on which we slept. A warm country? Perhaps, but we felt cold. The only heat came from the body alongside you. And though we slept closely together I remember feeling lonely. A lot of company, but at the same time very much alone.
The fans went on turning, stirring the air in the hall, but I lacked the air I needed to feel alive. Time went by and each day was an exact copy of the day before, nothing ever changed.
On either side of the living area was a door that squeaked and allowed no more than a sliver of light through. At night, the slightest sound would wake me up. I would hear those hair-raising squeaks and was so scared that I didn’t dare budge, not even to go to the toilet. I looked for the little sliver of light, but I was enveloped in fathomless darkness. Each morning there would be the same drama: Who wet the bed? Asha. Ever since then I have been easily frightened. The toilets were just alongside that area, a hole in the ground, dirty and disgusting. There was also a dressing room, a row of shelves with a little niche for each of us to leave our clothes, all our belongings. In contrast to the bare simplicity of all this, the only luxury was a small room for anyone who was ill. It had a bed, which made all the difference.
We got up early and carried our towels out into the yard to air them. Since I often wet myself, time after time I had to hang mine out to let it dry, and each day I received a smack for this. But afterward it was all forgotten and I would go and play with the nuns. When the towels were put away the hall was free to be used for other activities. On one occasion, when we were supposed to have been at risk from I don’t know what infection, the nuns prepared a large pot with liquid of indeterminate color and we had to pass by in single file to be given a couple of spoonfuls each. Such an awful taste! That scene remains forever etched in my mind. The rich girls in the boarding school used to receive visits every weekend from their parents. We girls in the orphanage had been abandoned for reasons we did not know and would not have understood then. We watched those meetings from the other side of the fence while parents smiled and gave presents to their daughters. They would embrace them, their eyes shining with happiness. I had the affection of the nuns, all of them would make a fuss over me, but it wasn’t the same. I might not have needed the parents, but I did want the happiness. And so one fine day, when I was five years old, I crossed the passage that connected us to the nuns’ residence. They were praying on the upper floor. I didn’t hesitate for a second. I went up the spiral staircase made of wood and sat down in the last row until they finished their prayers. It was an old wooden staircase and each step creaked as I trod on it. When Mother Adelina came out of the oratory I said to her, “I want some parents!” That ascending spiral became transformed in my mind as a symbol of my quest, and for an entire year I climbed that staircase every day to sit on the top step and ask her if she had found any yet. Poor woman, what could she say to that little creature asking for so much?
At that time and in that place, adoptions were not very common. The religious community took charge of teaching the girls, and as they got older they ensured that they had enough for a dowry and a husband. The option of not wanting to get married did not exist, unless of course a girl should decide she wanted to become a nun. From a very tender age a path was marked out for their futures, without their having any say in the matter, without the power to make decisions about their own lives. At times I was seized by negative feelings toward those nuns who scolded me the most. I always thought that one day, when I was grown, I would come back to show them how I had turned out. I only wanted them to understand how I felt.
When it was time to go to school I tried to get out of it as much as I could. I would run up and down barefoot chasing the nuns all day. Perhaps I was such a prankster because some kind of intuition told me that my life would not end there, that one day my life would be free. Thanks to my obstinacy I was given the opportunity to see a bit of the world, which meant a few walks through Bombay. Mother Adelina was in charge of relations with the outside community and she took me along whenever she could. The other girls never left the compound. After I questioned her daily at the top of the staircase, Mother Adelina would give me an apple and we would cross the garden and go through the gate to find a taxi. We would visit all of the city’s grand hotels, such as the Taj Mahal, where we collected extra food to bring back to the orphanage. We orphans, of course, wouldn’t see a morsel of it. We were given nothing more than rice and vegetables, no fish or meat. All of those succulent treats must have wound up on the plates of the rich girls.
In response to my demands for a family, Mother Adelina would always say that I had to pray more and have faith. Without saying a word, however, she wrote a letter in Spanish explaining my case and put my photograph in the envelope. That letter traveled, via an intermediary in Barcelona, thousands of kilometers from Bombay to the house of Josep Miró and Electa Vega, who never thought that one day they would wind up as my parents. They were engaged in trying to adopt a pair of Indian twins. Because they were so deeply immersed in the whole business, it was hoped that they might be able to find a family for this other child who was a little older. The twins were Fatima and Mary. They were born in Gujarat, in the north of India. Their parents were as young as they were poor and couldn’t take responsibility for them. The same religious order of Regina Pacis has a center in Gujarat and that is where they were taken in for little more than a year. My parents were very excited about adopting twins. That way, they could give two children a new life, with the same amount of effort. A few days before the plane was due to take them to Barcelona, they were transferred to the orphanage in Bombay. Mary fell ill. She caught a simple case of measles, which she would have gotten over at home with a few days in bed and the right medication. But she didn’t make it. Mary’s death led to the start of my second life. Mary, Fatima, and I lived under the same roof, unaware that destiny would bring us together.
Once they managed to get over this situation, our parents decided that Fatima should have another sister anyway, and t
hey applied to adopt another baby. Meanwhile, the letter with my photo was lying on the sideboard in their dining room. Each time they lifted it up to dust they would promise themselves to try to find me some parents, until one day a light went on in Mom’s head and she decided that it would be better to adopt a child than a newborn, so they applied for me. When Mary died, I was six, almost seven years old. And while I knew nothing of the matter, everything went ahead until all that remained were the formalities of the adoption. Mother Adelina had her work cut out convincing the other nuns of the benefits of an adoption. They’d had no warning and were not familiar with the process. It wasn’t usually an option in their educational program, and I suppose that they cared for me. But they had to concede, and finally, one morning, so early that the time for the daily ritual of climbing the spiral staircase had not even arrived, Mother Adelina came to tell me the news: You’ve got some parents! She gave me a black-and-white photograph. From that moment on, I carried the photo of the people who were to be my parents in my pocket everywhere I went. To me, they were already my parents, and the picture became creased and worn from all the time I spent looking at and kissing it. Fatima was also in the photo. I had a little sister. That was an extra gift that I hadn’t even dreamed of. I clearly recall many of the moments I spent with that photo in my pocket and the happiness I felt knowing that I would have a family, just like those other girls I had spied on.
The months of preparation to join my new family were an adventure full of emotions. Mother Adelina and I took advantage of our tours around the hotels of Bombay by taxi. One day we would go shopping for warm clothes—I would need a coat in Barcelona. Another day for shoes—I had never had any before—and a suitcase, bigger than I, to put it all in. She advised me on all the purchases we made but let me choose the color of the coat, the skirts, the kind of shoes I wanted, and, above all, what kind of presents I wanted to take with me. She made me feel like a big girl. We went to the souvenir shops where I bought a colorful picture made of wood for Dad; for Mom, some paper dancers that moved when you touched them; and for Fatima, a doll, a game with little animals, and a sari. Something for everyone, and the suitcase was growing fuller each day. Of the old clothes that I had in my niche, I kept nothing, I left it all behind. I imagined that it would be passed on to the next girl, the one who would occupy my towel, my niche, and who, most probably, would not be as lucky as I was. It was the end of that period of my life, everything had to be new for my new life ahead.
A sound from the hall brings me back to the present. One of the doors I have been watching has opened and slowly the blurred image I have of Mother Adelina takes form. An elderly woman appears, about eighty years old, thin and small, with white skin and dressed all in white. My eyes mist up at the sight of her, and I shed all the tears that have been building up inside me since I came back to my country. We embrace and I feel as though nothing has changed, only that we are both much older. We sit down in the hall to talk but immediately are joined by the other nuns. Some of them are old dears like Adelina, but there are younger ones too. They surround me and in no time it becomes a cats’ chorus of wailing voices: Don’t you remember me? I washed your hair. I dressed you. I took you to class …. I didn’t remember any of the others. Amid this uproar, a mixture of Spanish and English, Mother Adelina and I exchanged a look that felt very familiar.
They told me that when I went to them to ask for breakfast I always used to say: “It’s time to ten.”3 Since I was always playing truant, my English was a little precarious. It seems that the expression, which is quite meaningless, caught on and that even today there is always someone who says, “It’s time to ten.” The younger nuns offer to show me around the school facilities and the orphanage. Nothing has changed. Right in the middle of the courtyard, where on Saturdays we used to take turns riding a bicycle and on Sundays we would lie in the sun, there was still a big rusty barrel filled with water. How many times had I drunk from there! In the branches of a tree a crow seems to be watching me. I lead the nuns over to the other side to get away from it. Crows always make me panic. When I was small, in this same courtyard, a crow once tore at my hair and scratched my neck. My impressions and foggy memories of my childhood now appear to me as real episodes. Behind the house I find the same big basins for washing clothes. The nuns come with me to the workshops where they teach dressmaking, cooking, and dancing. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot it: the spiral staircase, the most vivid symbol of my path; it exists, and is not the fruit of some distorted memory. I can’t really take it all in. There are too many images at once, but inside me certain pieces that were dislocated are beginning to find their places. The girls who live here now have prepared a song for me. They show me their drawings. In the middle of all the excitement I see in their eyes a trace of unhappiness mixed with the admiration they feel toward me. The emotions are overwhelming.
It is lunchtime. The same rice and vegetables they served twenty years ago and a cake that they have baked in celebration of my visit. The nuns talk about today in comparison to what it was like in my day. They talk about the differences, how everything has changed and how adoption has become a regular occurrence. Every year there are girls who leave this orphanage to go to families that will take care of them, either in this country or farther afield. They tell me about the problems they have with the new generations of girls, both in school and in the orphanage. For my part, I tell them about the two purposes of my visit: to rediscover my past, and to take part in the Setem work camps. We could have carried on chatting for hours, but as in any hot country, there is one sacred ritual: the afternoon siesta.
By now I really feel like spending some time alone with Mother Adelina, and she feels the same. Finally we have a moment to ourselves, to catch up on what has happened in our lives. She grips my arm—leaning on me—and we withdraw. Her health is quite delicate, her memory is going, and the slightest movement requires a great effort. We walk slowly along the passageways to her room. Going inside is, for me, like stepping over the threshold of a temple. Only these walls know how much hard work she put into giving me an opportunity. Her eyes reflect the joy she feels at seeing me, knowing that it was worth the effort to try to find me a family, give me a new start in life. Mother Adelina observes me carefully; she hasn’t stopped watching me since I arrived. But now that the two of us are alone, it is as if she is suddenly aware of the twenty years during which she has not seen me, as if by looking at me she might be able to confirm that she did the right thing by sending that letter with my photo inside. I imagine she is as moved as I am, if not more so. I also imagine that she realizes I am happy and that the parents I asked her for, the parents I found in Barcelona, have turned me into a well-educated and happy woman.
The sun is going down and the little strands of light that filter through the lowered blinds give this humble room a tint of gold, as though it were filled with the most precious treasure. A bed, a table, and a chair. On top of the table are lots of boxes, each one has a name, one box for each of her girls now distributed around the world. They are made of tin, like the kind you put biscuits in. With trembling hands she finds mine and Fatima’s and pulls out a yellowed envelope from inside. It is full of photos from when we were small. The most worn of all is the first picture my parents sent me at the orphanage. On the back I recognize Mom’s writing: “These are your parents and your little sister, who are waiting for you.”
Tied together with a piece of string are all the letters I wrote to the home over the last two decades. Mom started it, writing to tell them about our progress and what our life was like in Barcelona. Fatima and I took it up from there, telling stories about school, an excursion or the grades we were getting. I enjoyed telling them about the progress I was making on the piano. Going through the letters, I come across Fatima’s drawing of the pool where we learned to swim.
As I get older the letters maintain the same structure. At certain times in my life, during adolescence above all, I needed someone to conf
ide in. There were a lot of things that I couldn’t really talk about to those who were closest to me. Mother Adelina would have been the perfect person; she knew me better than anyone, and furthermore, I had even learned to speak her language! But I was never able to establish that close personal contact with her, because all the letters were written when we were all together. I would have liked to let it all out, tell her about the first boy I liked; that suffering that makes you feel you are dying. I also needed someone to talk to about how over-protective my parents could be. They didn’t want anything in our surroundings to hurt me, and at times this was suffocating. Of course, now that I am older I understand what my parents wanted for me and I am infinitely indebted to them.
I tie the letters back together and start pestering her with all the questions to which I still have not found any answers. After twenty years I am finally certain that my vague memories, those faded images, correspond to something real. She tells me all about the day that I left. I said my farewells to everyone without any sign of sadness, calmly. I walked toward happiness with such determination that she felt it wasn’t normal in such a small girl. At the airport, once I had passed through the glass door I waved good-bye without shedding a single tear. Now that I am grown I often wish I had the same strength I had then.
Mother Adelina continues her story with plenty of other anecdotes about my stay here, but she manages to evade one wound that remains very much open. She tells me that when I was three years old the nuns in Nasik decided to send me to Bombay because I would be able to go to school there, but she doesn’t give me any further details. She knows where I come from but she won’t give me the information, she wants to spare me the suffering and thinks that she is protecting me. After a lot of circling around I start to become more insistent. I want her to clear up the doubts that have led me back here. I want to know who my real, biological parents are, why they abandoned me, why they didn’t love me, what kind of situation they were in that I was such a burden that they had to get rid of me. It is very painful that so many years have gone by without answers. Mother Adelina tells me not to stir up the past, that I should look ahead, the past can only do me harm, that I have the best life I could possibly imagine, and that I should give thanks to God for this gift, for all the love my family has given me, for not having to suffer the poverty that afflicts India. And she adds, “It shouldn’t matter to you whether you are the child of rich or poor people, the sacred waters of India gave you life and the only thing you have to think about is to live the gift of God with dignity, helping others, doing good.”