“Is something wrong?” Taj asked. She was always terrible at keeping secrets.
“We can talk about it later, after we celebrate.”
“Seriously, what is it?”
“You should sit,” she directed.
The man had been married long enough to know that you should sit meant I have something to tell you, and you aren’t going to like it.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Family is important, right?”
Could there be a more loaded question in the world? It was a minefield. If he didn’t watch where he stepped, it could get messy quick.
“Yes, family is important,” he replied.
“Well, Emanuel is getting married.”
“Your brother? When? Where?”
She plowed right in. “Taj, I think we should go. After all that has happened, I feel like it would be good to be there to support my family.”
“By go, do you mean . . .”
“India.”
His first question was obvious. “How do we pay for it?”
It seemed she’d already figured out that part. “We have $2,400 in savings. We can pay the minimum on our credit card this month in place of the full balance, and I get my check on Friday. Besides, you just landed a great job.”
He’d asked the easy question. It was the next one that was troubling.
“When is the wedding?” Taj asked.
Her eyes were big, brown—and forlorn. She paused before answering. “We’d need to be there in six weeks.”
His head started shaking immediately. “Priya, I start work in three! I just shook the CFO’s hand. We made all the arrangements. I can’t push them back now.”
“Can’t you just call and ask?”
“Honey, it’s not the Rotary Club. Jobs like this don’t arrive with the morning paper. You know how long I’ve been interviewing! There’s a boatload of qualified applicants hoping I crash into a tree on the way home. We can’t chance it.”
Her silence held longer this time. She didn’t look mad but rather like she was thinking.
“It seems to me that we’ve made a great list of the reasons we shouldn’t go,” she finally said. “Now, to be fair, let’s list the reasons we should.”
“Fine.”
Priya had already mentioned the importance of family. He wrote it down.
“What else?” he asked.
“Well, you were born there and have talked about going back.”
“Yes, but . . .” He’d accepted the silly exercise in the first place because prudence was on his side. No matter how she spun it, this job was critical and would trump all other petty reasons. But as he lifted his finger to begin his argument, Kelly’s words scrambled into his head.
Don’t give up on your dream, Taj. Promise?
“I know, but . . .” he said aloud. He was ready to disagree, to make a solid case she couldn’t refute, but the words wouldn’t cooperate.
Taj! Promise?
“But what?” Priya wondered.
If Kelly were here listening to this, she’d be slapping him about now. Two women ganging up, and neither realizing it.
It was true his job was perfect, that it made sense not to do anything that might disturb it. On the other hand, if not now, when? Once he and Priya started having children, it would never happen, and . . .
He didn’t need to draw the conclusion. Priya had a point. Would it hurt to ask?
“Honey, you’re right. I’ll call Jerry and tell him a family situation has come up and that I’ll need to delay my start date slightly. Hopefully they’ll be okay with it.”
Priya blinked. “Really?”
“No promises, but I’ll call him. And don’t sound so surprised.”
“I know, but . . .”
“What?” he said, with shrugged shoulders. “Family is important, right?”
It was after she’d given him an extended hug, after they’d eaten dinner, while Priya was already organizing the clothes she planned to take, that Taj called to her from the spare bedroom, the one they were using for storage that was now packed with piles of boxes.
“Priya? Do you know which box has my old school notebooks in it? I’m looking for a specific binder. I think it was labeled . . .”
He pulled the lid off the box on the floor.
“Never mind. I found it!”
The binder was marked Business Law–Class Notes. He opened it to the back, to where his hand-drawn map was patiently waiting.
From: Taj Rowland
To: Christopher Raj
Chris,
I’ve found something we can import to India from the United States—me. I arrive in Chennai on May 19th and will travel to Coimbatore to attend my brother-in-law’s wedding. My wife, Priya, arrives two weeks earlier to help her family with preparations.
I know we haven’t met in person, but I was hoping you could be at the airport when I arrive and help me get to Coimbatore.
Thanks,
Taj
When his plane touched down in Chennai, on India’s southeastern coast, Taj wasn’t concerned. He’d lived with the Tambolis in London. He’d walked the streets of Upton. He’d heard their music, eaten their curry, admired their traditional Indian dress.
It didn’t take long to realize that living in London had prepared Taj for India like holding an umbrella prepares one for a hurricane. There wasn’t just a room full of dark-skinned foreigners speaking an indecipherable tongue, there was a thronging sea of them, of various hues, walking, talking, smoking, waving, laughing, arguing, selling, eating, drinking, bumping, pushing . . . and that was just at the airport.
Christopher Raj was to be there waiting so they could travel together to Coimbatore, where Priya’s family lived—except for a single glaring problem: Taj had no clue what Christopher looked like.
What if the man didn’t show?
Taj had been reading about Chennai on the airplane. It was the third largest city in India and the thirty-first largest urban area in the world. The article had called it the “Detroit of India,” perhaps not meant as a compliment.
The airport was under construction—at least he hoped that was the excuse—and only a few of the temporary signs were in English. He wound his way through the maze of barricades to baggage, pulled his suitcase from the belt, and headed for the door.
If walking through the terminal induced culture shock, they should have placed a neon sign outside that read Danger! High voltage! A chaotic crowd, as if hired as the greeting party, waited just beyond the outside doors for anyone brave enough to wade the gauntlet.
“Hey, Ṭāksi? Ṭāksi?”
“Hōṭṭal? Hōṭṭal?”
When Taj stared blankly back, they switched from Tamil to English.
“You need taxi? Hotel?”
“I get your bag. This way!”
“No, come with me!”
“Good price!”
“No! NO!” Taj brushed them all away like roaches, tightened the grip on his suitcase, and glanced across the swell of shoving bodies.
He was praying he’d see his name written on one of the signs that flapped along the crowd’s edge, but that meant making eye contact. Each time his eyes locked on an eager Indian stranger and then glanced away, it only served to encourage the rest, like serving blood to sharks. It didn’t matter that his skin was their same color, that he looked just like them—except perhaps for his dark blue blazer. He was a wounded fish splashing about in the water, and they could smell the fear, taste the money.
“Here, mister! Taxi?”
“This way!”
“Here, sir! Here!”
“I help you! I take you where you need.”
The air was thick, moist, hard to breathe. His armpits were already wet, dripping panic. Was the crowd cir
cling, or was he just imagining? True, he wasn’t wearing a lungi, but if he stepped forward into the crush of bodies, he was certain he would blend in and disappear.
He was ready to twist around, to retreat back into the relative safety of the terminal, and catch the next flight home.
“Taj Rowland?”
He turned. “Christopher?”
The man was certainly Indian—no surprise there: dark skin, about the same shade as Taj’s; black hair, though cut shorter and not as curly; grandfather eyes, framed by large silver-rimmed glasses. He wore a royal blue polo that draped his wiry frame like an old T-shirt might drape a scarecrow—but he wasn’t scary. He welcomed Taj with a smile so wide it likely touched both ears.
A picture of Taj was clutched between his skinny fingers.
“It is so good to meet you,” Taj said, and he meant every precious syllable. “Where did you get my photo?”
“You sent Priya’s flight information, remember? I met her at the airport, and she passed me your picture.”
His English was good, his accent noticeably Indian. Taj wouldn’t have cared if the man was speaking pig Latin. He had come as promised.
“This way,” Chris called. “We’ll take a ride to the hotel. In the morning, we’ll catch the early train to Coimbatore. We’ll get a better price on the taxi if we aren’t standing right in front of the airport. Follow me!”
One had to appreciate the man’s frugality.
Christopher picked up the suitcase while Taj lugged the backpack. They worked their way through the crowd to the outside curb and then down the street.
While the bustle inside the terminal had been startling, even eye-opening, anyone indoors had to be able to afford a ticket. Without a financial filter, the scene on the street as they walked farther away grew increasingly raw.
“Stay close,” Christopher instructed, weaving between people on the sidewalk. He stepped over a man, dirty, prostrate and motionless, like a child might step over a flower—except the comatose man didn’t smell like a garden.
It was hard to identify the many mixing aromas—gasoline, tobacco, incense, mildew, something fried in oil—all liberated by the heat. One smell clambered over the rest, stood on their shoulders. It was more pungent, more visceral—the smell of rotting urine.
Taj’s eyes darted nervously to Christopher and then to the sidewalk near his feet, trying to both keep up and watch where he stepped. Why did he feel the sudden urge to wash his hands?
When they were a good block away from the airport terminal, Christopher motioned to a green and yellow, canvas-covered auto rickshaw, also called a rick or autorick, a motorized three-wheeled cart with just enough space in back for two. In the States, on a hot summer day, it might have been mistaken for a small ice-cream truck. In India, it provided the primary means of transportation.
Their driver wasn’t shy. He hurled the suitcase beside his seat up front while the men climbed into the back. He didn’t bother asking if they were ready. If a checkered flag had been waved, Taj didn’t see it. The driver gunned, braked, swerved, honked—all while reaching out with one hand to grab the tipping suitcase and steering with his other.
And he wasn’t alone. An entire swarm of drivers, brothers perhaps, all clones from the same driving school, buzzed around in synchronized chaos, honking, gesturing, hollering back and forth like courtroom attorneys. Taj didn’t bother to ask what they were saying.
The hotel was more akin to an apartment building with a single entrance on the street. No valet, no parking. No mint waiting on a feather pillow.
“I forgot to ask if you wanted a private room or if you prefer we share.”
“Are there two beds?”
“Yes.”
“Sharing is just fine.”
Taj passed Christopher some money.
It wasn’t the Ritz Carlton. Taj couldn’t say it even equaled a Motel 6. His brain was on overload, his body too jet-lagged to care.
The elevator was out of order, so the men hiked the stairs.
Christopher took one bed. Taj took the other. Within minutes, Christopher was snoring. Four hours later, dead tired but with open eyes, Taj’s confused body clock couldn’t figure out why it was so dark at noon.
He forced his eyelids closed, slowed his breathing, folded the lumpy pillow to cover his eyes. Nothing could keep his brain from jumping up and down on the bed and yelling like a teenager.
You made it, Taj! You made it to India.
By morning, little had changed. India was still frantically scurrying about outside the window.
Taj and Christopher walked to a small market adjacent to the hotel and ate their breakfast: idlis and fried potatoes. Christopher had tea. Taj drank a Coke.
Even early there was honking, never-ending honking. Christopher explained that it was a courtesy to let other drivers know you were coming. Seldom was it intended to be rude.
Beside them, against the building, sat an old woman with a young child, perhaps her granddaughter, and it appeared they had been there all night.
She watched Taj stare, then held up her hand.
Compassion tugged.
“Should I give them something?”
“Who?” Christopher asked, finishing the last sip of his morning tea. He turned his head. “Oh. I will leave it up to you,” he said, “but I wouldn’t give them money. You’ll learn quickly that charity here must be . . . selective.”
Taj took the last of his idlis and passed them to the woman.
While Christopher stepped to the street to negotiate their next ride, Taj couldn’t help but glance around again.
India.
Still surreal. Still strange. Still a dream.
It was more than begging children. It was the sheer swell of humanity that burgeoned around him, a school that swam on all sides. In the street, right in front of the hotel, even as he waited for Chris, cars shared traffic with an oxen-pulled cart. Half a block down, a cow had wandered out into the busy road—a cow!—and as near as Taj could tell from his distance, little was being done to move it.
When Chris called, Taj grabbed his suitcase and scrambled in.
A car stopped behind them, and a man jumped out to urinate in the gutter. Taj was the only one who seemed surprised.
The driver of their rick honked twice and then pulled out into traffic.
A dog trotted past, so skinny that Taj wished he’d bought more idlis.
Honk. Honk.
Christopher faced Taj and smiled. He spoke a single word.
“India!”
Chapter 33
The train station was as brimming as the airport—too many people shoehorned into too small a box. The complex was never ending, cement platforms with trains of various colors, coming, going, some never stopping. It appeared common to find your train, run alongside an open door, and then jump on. Taj wondered how the elderly in India ever managed to travel.
And where were all these people going?
Christopher walked toward a blue-and-white-striped passenger train that was thankfully stationary. The cars themselves looked modern enough, though well used and dirty.
They had paid for a sleeper car, which appeared now to Taj to mean they wouldn’t have to stand. There were two rows, three seats wide, in the car, with a narrow aisle up the center. One could sleep, all right, as long as it was done sitting up.
There were vents in the roof and windows along the side, but neither seemed a match for the rising May temperatures expected to push 100.
Christopher helped Taj lift his suitcase to the overhead rack and then pointed out their seats.
As the train jerked into motion, the men sat. It was the first real chance they’d had to talk. Taj learned that Christopher was about ten years older than he, married, with two young sons. He worked for the Indian Railroad in their management office, and though
it sounded important, it meant his family still struggled. He lived in a tiny, rented home and was still in debt from his wedding eight years earlier. He was a third-generation Christian, a practicing Catholic—a rarity in a country that was 80 percent Hindu.
When he asked Taj about his past, Taj kept his answers short.
Married. No children. New job. Big plans for the future.
“It’s ten hours to Coimbatore,” Christopher added as their conversation waned. “You might want to get some rest.”
Christopher, a man who apparently could nap anywhere, let the train’s serenading rhythm coax his eyes closed.
Taj squeezed out into the aisle, then made his way to the back of the car. There was an open platform at the front and back of each car, with steps that descended nearly to the ground. Two vertical bars provided the only safeguard on the fast moving train.
Taj took a step down. Then another. He needed some air.
It was a precarious spot, considering a good grip on the railing was all that kept him from falling to his death on the blur of tracks just inches below.
Within minutes, a uniformed man approached.
“Coke?” he asked, holding up a bottle.
In America they’d be screaming at him to come back inside the train. In India they hoped to sell him a soft drink before he slipped. He bought a bottle and wiped the lid clean on his shirt.
Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.
To call the moment surreal would heighten all future expectations and overburden the word. Taj had been longing to return to India for so long . . . now that he was here, staring out across its cities and landscapes, he was convinced he’d jar awake at any moment.
The train tracks cut a diverse swath across southern India, and from Taj’s new vantage, he could sample it all—ornate stone temples and dilapidated huts, modern-day cars and broken-down bikes, pampered cows and emaciated dogs.
Mostly he noticed the people—old and young, male and female, a few with obvious wealth but most looking hungry and poor.
As the sun gathered strength, the smell from the sewage dumped onto the tracks became more potent. Taj should have stumbled back inside the stuffy compartment to try to get some rest. Today, however, his feet remained planted, his fingers holding steadfast to the rail. He’d missed more than fifteen years of this country and wasn’t about to miss any more.
The Orphan Keeper Page 28