by Philip Roy
At the bottom of the steps he took off his shoes, socks, jacket, shirt and tie. He rolled up his pants and showed Radji how to do the same. Radji took off his t-shirt. The rich man held out his hand, Radji took it once more and together they stepped into the river. The rich man reached down, cupped the water with his hands and washed his face. Radji did the same. The rich man lowered his arm into the water and washed it with the other, then reversed them. Radji imitated him exactly. The rich man watched this, and then . . . he started to laugh. It was a small laugh at first, but it grew into a great big belly laugh, which reminded me of the statue of Ganesh, as if Ganesh were there in the river, rolling his big belly in laughter. The rich man lowered his head and scooped water over it. Radji did the same. Then he dropped his hands onto both of Radji’s shoulders and said something to him that I couldn’t hear. I saw Radji nod his head. Then they stepped out of the river and dressed. The rich man came past us, smiled, bowed his head, and kept going. We watched him climb the steps and disappear. Then Radji came. He had a funny look on his face, what I imagined a bird might look like the very first time it flew.
Chapter Twenty-four
THERE WERE THOUSANDS of people at the river but not a single policeman or guard or attendant of any kind, just crowds of people everywhere, sitting, praying, talking, singing, dancing, laughing, meditating, walking around, bathing, swimming, throwing a ball, holding serious discussions, eating, sleeping, and doing absolutely nothing. It was a place to come to do nothing, and by doing nothing, feel everything. And yet, as I stared at the river and forgot about everything else for a while, I felt a longing grow inside of me to get back to the sub and go back to sea. India was a fascinating place for sure. I loved it, and I loved the experience of being here, but I really belonged at sea, as did Hollie and Seaweed, and we were ready to go back. I didn’t know what to do about Radji, though.
We climbed the steps and made our way through the colourful crowds to the ghats downriver, where there were makeshift pyres for burning bodies and black, charred spots on the flat stones of the quay. We could see them from above. How strange that this was a place where people carried dead family members, to set them on fire and burn them into ashes and spread their ashes in the river.
In fact, burning a body wasn’t an easy thing to do. It took a lot of wood. And I had read that many families simply couldn’t afford enough wood to burn the bodies entirely before putting them in the river, and that it was common for corpses to float away in the arms of Mother Ganga, charred and blackened, hardly ashes at all. There were crocodiles in the river too, and porpoises, though it was supposed to be terribly polluted now, which was hardly surprising. Yet to practising Hindus the river would always be a goddess.
Now that we were here, Melissa was uncomfortable. She carried the urn like a baby in her arms. It didn’t help that this ghat had a feeling so unlike the other ones that were crowded with people and happy sounds. This place was quiet and almost deserted. There was something a little eerie about it even, probably because of the black stains on the stones, where bodies had been burned.
We followed Melissa slowly down the steps until she stopped halfway. She had taken off her wide sun hat and was standing bare-headed beneath the sun. Her hair was white and thin. She looked so much older here somehow, with her white skin, white hair and white clothes. She had been born in India and lived here all her life. And yet, I had a sense of her not really belonging here. But she did. This was her home.
She hesitated. She turned around and looked at us with a confused expression. She didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do either. She turned and stared at the river. Then she looked around again, and I saw that she was crying. I felt so sorry for her, I really did, but I did not know what to do. It seemed that this was her business and so I left her alone.
Radji didn’t. He went down the steps and stood beside her. And then, as if he were an old man and she a young girl, he reached up and took her hand. Together they climbed down the steps to the quay. Hollie and I stayed where we were and watched. It didn’t take long. They went right to the water’s edge, stood and stared at the river. They were talking but I couldn’t hear them. They looked upstream and down. They looked up at the sun. Then Melissa opened the urn and shook the ashes into the water. They stood and watched them sink. I couldn’t see them. Melissa threw the empty urn into the water too. Then she turned and hugged Radji. They held hands again as they came back up the steps. Melissa’s face was tear-stained but she was smiling. So was Radji. Nobody said anything. We climbed the rest of the steps and searched through the alleys until we found the Jaguar, and on top of the Jaguar, like a feathered god from a distant land, my first mate.
Twilight fell by the time we were back on the highway and heading southwest. The traffic leaving the city was nothing like it had been coming in but it was still dark before we found a field with buses and tents. We set ours up in the dark, had a late dinner of rice and veggies, lay down on our mats and went to sleep. I never even heard Radji cry out or Melissa snore. We were all so exhausted.
There were monkeys on Melissa’s house when we drove into the yard. Seaweed flew onto the roof immediately, and, with a loud squawking and wild flapping of his wings, chased them off. The monkeys might have hurt him if they hadn’t been so afraid of him. But they didn’t know the difference. Fear is a mysterious thing.
Radji and I helped Melissa carry the picnicking things into the house and we put the tent away. Then we went down to the boathouse to see that the sub was all right. It was. The sight of it excited me. I was so anxious now to get back to sea, though I didn’t know what to do about Radji. In some ways he was like a younger brother to me. But I was from Canada, and was a Canadian citizen. He was from India. He didn’t even have a passport. He couldn’t read or write. I knew I could teach him though; he was really smart. He’d learn fast. Then maybe he could get citizenship in Canada. But did I want him to join the crew permanently? And did he want to? I didn’t even know. I really didn’t know what to do. Perhaps Ziegfried would know.
I was long overdue for calling Ziegfried. So I climbed into the sub, with Radji and Hollie, turned on the short-wave radio and got comfortable. It would be morning in Newfoundland. Maybe I could reach him. I tried for an hour but found nothing. I wondered where he might be. And then, suddenly, I heard his voice. He was calling me from another frequency, and he sounded so clear. That was strange. That meant he was at another location. I wondered where he was.
“Ziegfreid! Is that you?”
“Al! I’ve been trying to reach you for days!”
“Where are you? How come you’re so clear? I can hear you like you’re in the next room. Where are you?”
“Al. I’m in Mumbai.”
“What? You’re in Mumbai? Are you kidding me? Are you really? Are you really here?”
My eyes filled up. I was so excited I could just cry.
“Al. I’m coming down to see you. I’ll meet you in two days at the train station at Old Goa. Okay?”
“Oh boy, you bet! I can’t believe it! I’m so happy!”
“I’m bringing a big surprise, Al. A big one.”
“I don’t care, the biggest surprise is that you’re here. I can’t believe it. How . . . how did you decide to come?”
“Will tell you all about it in two days. You’ll be there, will you?”
“I sure will.”
When we climbed out of the sub and went across the yard I felt as though I could fly. I was so deeply happy. I had two days to wait, two agonizingly long days to wait, but Ziegfried was here in India. It was the most wonderful gift I could ever have asked for.
We spent the next two days cleaning out the garage and reorganizing it. It was good to be busy doing something. But what a dusty job! We pulled everything out into the sunshine and swept the floor clean. We found three snakes: two dead ones that looked like old belts and one live one. The live snake hissed at us and Hollie barked at it until it slithered into the woods. It di
dn’t like us following it but we had to, to make certain it didn’t stay close to the house. Melissa came out to look at the garage when we were finally done. She was immensely pleased. She seemed to be giving Radji all the credit, but I didn’t mind. They had formed a special bond now, ever since Varanasi. She would ask his opinion on things even though he was only ten, and he would give it after a lot of consideration, as a much older person would do. If I believed in reincarnation, I would have said that Radji used to be a very wise old man who had been born again as a boy. Seaweed would have been a great warrior, and Hollie would have been a happy sailor, well, he was a happy sailor still.
Finally, it was time to go to the train station. I thought it would never come. Melissa was planning to invite Ziegfried to stay at her house. Boy, was she in for a surprise. So was Radji. So was Hollie and Seaweed. I wondered what they would think when they saw Ziegfried in India. Ziegfried was originally from Germany, but had lived in Newfoundland for so long and had adopted its ways so completely that I thought he belonged there every bit as much as my grandfather or anybody else. My grandfather’s grandfather had come to Newfoundland a hundred years ago. In Newfoundland a hundred years seemed like a long time but here in India it was nothing. There were only two fishermen standing in front of my grandfather. There were hundreds of field workers standing in front of Radji.
We arrived at the station before the train. Seaweed rode on the roof. I hadn’t taken the box off yet. Hollie jumped out but stayed close to me. There were lots of dogs at the station, though they were friendly. Hollie could tell that I was excited, and he was like my shadow. I couldn’t stop fidgeting with my hands. Radji wanted to play chess but I couldn’t sit still to concentrate. So he asked Melissa, which he didn’t like to do because she took so long to make a move and she said everything out loud, which irritated him. Nobody took chess as seriously as Radji.
When I saw the train in the distance I felt my heart jump into my throat. I suddenly realized how much I had missed Ziegfried. It had been almost six months since we left Bonavista Bay. We had been through the Arctic, down and around the Pacific, and over here to India. We had been trapped in the ice, thrown around by gigantic waves, caught in typhoons, and I had been shot in the arm. So much had happened. I felt older now. Travelling has a way of aging you faster than anything. Every time we sailed somewhere we came back different from when we left. But this time we hadn’t come back. We had travelled too far. We were on the other side of the world and it would take at least another six months to get back.
Ziegfried always stayed the same. He was like a father to me, and a brother and a friend. He had made more difference in my life than anyone else, and if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t even be here. I’d be fishing for a living with my grandfather.
I also missed Sheba. But I missed her in a different way. If Ziegfried taught me to be strong and smart and look after myself in the world, Sheba taught me to be more aware and caring of people and animals and things. She taught me to care even about little things, and that you didn’t have to be a genius or a billionaire to make the world a better place to be. All of the little things that you did every day added up to a big difference. That was part of her magic, and I always felt in awe of her, the way she looked after her animals or watered her flowers or spoke to ghosts. If there were angels on earth, then Sheba was one.
The train rolled to a silent stop. Now I was the one who was breathing deeply. Hollie kept looking up at me nervously. “It’s Ziegfried, Hollie. It’s Ziegfried!” Hollie wagged his tail at the sound of Ziegfried’s name. I stared down the length of the train. Which door would he come out? I saw other people get off but not him. I waited but didn’t see him. Suddenly I felt worried that maybe he hadn’t come. And then, all I saw was an arm, but I knew it was him—way down the platform. It was such a big arm. It reached out with a suitcase in hand. Then, he stepped out. As big as I knew him to be, he looked bigger. He towered over the people around him. He put down two suitcases, then two more. Four suitcases? Why so many? Was his surprise in the suitcases? No. It was something else. He reached his arm up into the train and out stepped Sheba.
Chapter Twenty-five
ZIEGFRIED WAS A DIFFICULT man to explain. Sheba once called him a “divine enigma.” He was as big as a man could be without being called a giant. To the small men scurrying around him, who couldn’t help staring at him, he probably did look like a giant. But his height and width, and the sheer thickness of his arms, legs and head, hid a couple of important secrets about him, secrets he revealed only to the very few people who would ever get to know him well—that he was actually a genius, for one, and that he had the softest heart you would ever find in a person anywhere. Ziegfried couldn’t hold a kitten up to his face without his eyes watering.
Sheba wasn’t as hard to explain but was probably harder to believe, because of what she believed. She claimed to be a witch who had lived many times before, a good witch who had once been burnt at the stake in New England hundreds of years ago, but she didn’t hold it against anybody now. She was also extremely tall, though not as tall as Ziegfried, nor as wide. She was lean and reminded me of a giraffe. Her red hair was almost as long as her body and had small curls that looked like the surface of the ocean when it was a little choppy— little waves like seashells. Her eyes were bright shiny green and really sparkled. She said it was because she ate a lot of carrots but I knew it was because she was always excited. She was in love with the world. She loved everything and everybody, even the people she didn’t like. Sheba was Ziegfried’s queen. He said his life was split in two parts: the first, before he met her; and everything else after. He said it was the difference between darkness and light.
I couldn’t believe it. Ziegfried and Sheba were both here, standing down at the other end of the train, hand-in-hand and looking our way. “There they are!” I said, and started walking quickly towards them. Ziegfried saw me and waved. Sheba beamed. Then Hollie saw them and ran ahead of me. Ziegfried picked him up and got a face-licking, and I saw Ziegfried wipe his eyes with his sleeve. His tears flowed so freely. I felt mine start too; I couldn’t help it.
Seaweed came out of the sky, landed on the platform beside them and started squawking loudly. Sheba greeted Seaweed then she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me tight. For all the spices in India, nothing smelled nearly as wonderful as her. When she opened her arms she took my face in her hands and looked deeply into my eyes, as if she were reading my life since we had last seen each other, or checking to make sure it was really me and not a ghost. “You darling boy,” she said. “Not an hour has passed I haven’t been thinking of you.”
Then Ziegfried gave me one of his bear hugs, which was what it would feel like if a horse fell on you—I couldn’t breathe until he let go. And he took his time. He looked me over with tears in his eyes. “We’ll you haven’t gained any weight. Let me see the arm.”
I showed him my arm where I had been shot by shrimp fishermen in the Pacific while trying to free dolphins, turtles and sharks from their net. He frowned deeply with his large bushy eyebrows and shook his head back and forth. He stared me in the eye and kept shaking his head. “I don’t know, Al. It’s too dangerous out there, I think.”
“No, it’s not. I’m more careful now. That won’t happen again. Oh! Here. This is Melissa. And this is Radji.”
Poor little Radji. Ziegfried was truly a giant to him, and he was terrified. Ziegfried raised his eyebrows to examine the boy as if he were a treasure, but Radji hid behind me and I felt his fingers clutching the back of my shirt. Melissa shot out her hand and Ziegfried took it graciously with his fingertips. Then Sheba and Melissa kissed, which pleased Melissa a great deal. She was so excited to have company.
“How . . . how is it you both came? And, who’s looking after all the animals? And, who’s looking after the junkyard?”
“I closed the junkyard for a month,” said Ziegfried.
“And you’ll never guess who is watching our family
,” said Sheba. By “family” she meant a house full of dogs, cats, turtles, goats, mice, birds, butterflies and everything else.
“Who?”
Ziegfried twisted his mouth to one side. “Your grandparents.”
“No.”
“Yes. They were only too happy to give us the chance to get away to see you . . . on our honeymoon.” Ziegfried grinned.
“Honeymoon? You got married?”
Sheba reached out her hand. Among the many beautiful rings was a new, plain, soft gold ring. She smiled as only she could smile and her eyes sparkled like jewels. “Yes. Married.” She tucked her arm inside Ziegfried’s. “We are so happy. We would have waited for you, dear Alfred, but you were so far away, and we just couldn’t wait any longer. We had a beautiful ceremony on the point, with all our family together. And now we are here with you.” She reached over and planted a kiss on my forehead. “But who is this wonderful young man so attached to you?”
Sheba tried to take a better look at Radji, but his face was buried in my back. He was overwhelmed. I could feel him breathing heavily against the back of my shirt.
“This is Radji,” I said. “He just needs a little time to get used to you. He likes to play chess. He’s really good at it.”
“Chess?” said Ziegfried, with his booming voice. “That’s wonderful! I didn’t know anyone played chess in India.”
“Oh yes. They do. And Radji is going to become an expert.”
“Really?” said Ziegfried. He bent down closer. “An expert? Really?”
Radji reached up and whispered into my ear. “What is an expert?”
I whispered back: “Someone who is better at something than anyone else.”
He liked that answer. He boldly stuck out his hand with his chess set.
“I think I remember this,” said Ziegfried. He examined the set carefully. Radji was pleased. I was almost waiting for him to say, I can beat you. But he didn’t. He probably thought it though. He’d be in for a surprise.