Asha & the Spirit Bird

by Jasbinder Bilan

  He sits at the wheel of his taxi and speaks to us through the window. ‘My wife makes cushions,’ he says. ‘I deliver them round the city.’ He looks in his mirror and makes a funny face as if he’s thinking. ‘I have a special big assignment.’ He twists round. ‘You see the cushions? Big wedding, big cushion order.’ And then he speaks more quietly. ‘Royal wedding. Hush hush. Palace at the edge of the city. Beautiful cushions for beautiful princess and guests’ big bottoms.’

  I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to laugh, and I can’t help the giggles exploding . . . but the next minute I’m smearing dirty tears across my face. ‘W-we were trapped in a dump,’ I blurt.

  He gets out of the taxi again and smiles. ‘Squish in – Raj will take you. No more crying . . . OK?’ He dabs at my cheeks with the cuff of his shirt. ‘Bit better, little one? You look like you have suffered enough . . . would make my Lakshmi cry too.’

  ‘W-we’ve come from Moormanali to find my papa.’

  ‘He lives at 102 Connaught Place,’ adds Jeevan.

  Raj raises his eyebrows and whistles. ‘Long way!’ He starts moving the cushions. ‘We’ll put them in the front . . . so they don’t get dirty? And – don’t be offended – but maybe I put this plastic on the seats?’

  I look down at my blackened fingernails and shove my hands behind my back.

  ‘And one more thing,’ he says seriously. ‘You know anyone else who can do this?’ He wiggles his ears and his eyes spin round at the same time. He ruffles Jeevan’s messy hair. ‘You want to learn this?’

  ‘He’s funny,’ laughs Jeevan, copying Raj.

  ‘I think we can trust him,’ I giggle. ‘Let’s get in.’

  I let my shoulders slump against Jeevan and wipe my cheeks.

  ‘We can pay.’

  ‘I’ll charge you a cheap price . . . All relaxed now? Get steady and go!’

  Raj zips around the busy roads beeping his horn, even though there doesn’t seem to be any need. It’s like he’s on parade and wants everyone to look at him.

  He clicks his indicator and we take a sharp turn off the main road into a smaller street, which seems to go on for ever.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he calls from the front. ‘This is where the factories are.’

  ‘I know Papa’s working in a factory,’ I say to Jeevan. ‘But surely he doesn’t live in one as well?’

  ‘What these men do for their families,’ says Raj, twisting to talk to us. ‘Here is 58,’ says Raj, slowing the taxi down and peering at the buildings on his side of the road. ‘74 . . . 100 . . . Oh . . .’ His voice trails off and sounds all wrong. ‘There it is.’ He slows right down and stops.

  My chest thuds as if it’s going to break; 102 Connaught Place is a charred husk of a building with blackened windows, which stare back at me like dark hollow eyes, the ground in front littered with lengths of half-burnt fabric.

  Has Papa been caught in a fire? Was he trapped inside?

  I fling the rickshaw door open and hurtle towards the building. ‘No!’ I cry. ‘No . . . !’ My voice is strangled, everything is blurred, the stinging smell of fumes clings to the air. I feel Jeevan’s arms holding me, Raj trying to talk to me, soothing me.

  I pull myself away from their grip and hurl myself on the filthy charcoal-covered ground.

  ‘Papa!’ I scream. ‘Papa!’

  ‘Papa, what’s happened? Where are you?’ I cover my face with my hands, tears seeping through my fingers, Raj and Jeevan’s far-off voices dull in the background.

  Jeevan puts his arm around my shoulder. ‘Asha.’

  ‘I know he’s alive . . . I have to find him.’

  ‘We . . . we don’t know,’ says Jeevan, moving closer to me.

  I stare at the burnt-out factory in a daze, trying to figure out what to do. ‘But someone must know . . . they must have seen something.’ I grab hold of a passing man’s sleeve. ‘Help me.’

  Raj pulls me back and holds the rickshaw door open. ‘Oh, betay, you poor thing. These factories are not fit for anything.’

  ‘Asha, look what I found.’ Jeevan leaps into the rickshaw next to me, waving a dirty piece of paper in the air. He squeezes my arm. ‘Look,’ he says, showing me the small poster. ‘I found this pasted to the side of the building.’

  Raj starts the engine. ‘You’ve had such a shock . . . I’ll take you home, my wife Lakshmi and I can look after you.’ We drive back along the road, away from Connaught Place.

  The paper trembles between my fingers.

  Jeevan holds it steady. ‘It says that this charity is campaigning for better working conditions in factories, and helping the survivors of this fire . . . look, there’s an address.’

  ‘Raj can take us!’ I cry.

  I shout to him over the noise of the traffic, showing him the poster. ‘Raj, look what Jeevan found. This charity might know something about the fire . . . do you know where it is?’

  He slows the rickshaw down, and I push the poster towards him.

  ‘Yes . . . but listen –’ he gives it back to me – ‘it is so dark, so late . . . come to my home. Lakshmi will look after you and then tomorrow you can find it . . . is it an idea?’

  Everything comes crashing down, the exhaustion of the brutal weeks on the dump finally ripping into my spirit. ‘Yes,’ I murmur, covering my face with my hands, tears escaping through my fingers. ‘Can you take us home, please?’

  I can feel Jeevan’s thin arm around me, but everything else is like a terrible nightmare. The inside of the taxi feels unreal, like I’m sleepwalking, with all the animals climbing off the cushions . . . then they fade away and I can’t hear or see anything other than a deep deep darkness, like a noiseless cave in the depths of a turbulent sea.

  When I wake, my clothes feel soft and smell of washing powder. Someone’s changed me into pyjamas and I’m tucked into a small wooden bed. Cries of parakeets squawk through an open window. As I prop myself up on my elbow I notice a fringe of green banana leaves poking into the room.

  Then I drag it all back – the dump, the factory . . . Papa!

  A rap on the door makes me jump as it springs opens and a large woman dressed in a bright blue sari stands in the doorway.

  ‘I’m Lakshmi . . . Raj’s wife,’ she says, smiling. ‘I’ve brought you some fruit and something to drink.’ She stretches over to rearrange the covers, lifting me gently so I’m sitting upright.

  ‘My papa!’

  ‘Shhh,’ she says, putting her finger to her lips. ‘No need to speak.’

  She passes her hand over my short, clean hair and fusses over me.

  ‘The other children have told me all about you.’ She spoons pieces of orange into my mouth. ‘And all about that disgusting junkyard.’

  ‘Th-they’re all here?’ I let the fruit slip down whole without tasting anything. I know that Lakshmi’s only being kind but I don’t want to hear any more, I just want to get out and find Papa.

  Jeevan bursts into the room. ‘Asha . . . Raj and Lakshmi run the street shelter.’

  ‘Th-that’s a-amazing!’

  The doorway is crammed with the shiny faces of all our friends from the dump.

  ‘Let Asha rest,’ says Lakshmi, shooing the others out of the room, but Attica squeezes through and jumps on to the bed, giving me a huge hug. ‘You too, Attica.’

  I hug her back. ‘Go on,’ I say, forcing a small smile.

  Lakshmi closes the door and comes back to the bed. ‘More sleep, that’s what you need.’

  ‘I don’t want to sound ungrateful – Raj has been so kind, and you – but I have to find my papa.’ I grab hold of the poster from last night. ‘I have to find this place.’

  ‘Why don’t we just call them?’ says Jeevan gently.

  I nod – it’ll be quicker this way.

  ‘You have to be even braver now,’ says Lakshmi, helping me out of bed. ‘Prepare yourself for what they might say.’

  We go next door, where the others are just finishing breakfast. I pull up a chair and ge
t ready to make the call, my fingers shaking as I try to carefully press the numbers, everyone watching in silence.

  The fear rises inside me and however hard I try, I can’t push it away. At last I’m going to find out what’s happened to Papa . . . is he alive or not?

  ‘What did they say?’ asks Jeevan as soon as I put the phone down.

  ‘We have to go to the hospital,’ I say. ‘He said he might be there.’

  I rush to the bedroom, get dressed and collect the mango seedling, but the bud that was forming yesterday is looking a little crushed and makes me pause.

  ‘Look what’s happened to it!’ I say to Jeevan, placing it on the breakfast table in the other room.

  ‘I’m sure it will recover,’ he replies.

  ‘Why don’t I pot it for you?’ says Lakshmi, taking it from me. ‘All it needs is a bit of water . . . and Raj is waiting downstairs so you can get to the hospital straight away.’

  ‘Thank you, Lakshmi,’ I say, my heart beating fiercely. ‘It might be silly, but I don’t want to leave without the seedling – I’ve carried it all this way for my papa, you see.’

  The others wish us luck and, clutching the seedling tight, safely planted in a small terracotta pot, we sprint down the stairs, through the courtyard and jump into Raj’s taxi with Lakshmi following behind.

  ‘Good morning, little sir and madam,’ says Raj, starting up the rickshaw. ‘What lovely perfume you wear today . . . no worrying, OK? All will turn good.’

  Raj drops us in front of the enormous hospital building, which looms ominously in the middle of its sprawling gardens, and I’m weak with fear. The thoughts I’ve been trying to quieten are now screaming in my head; what if he’s not here after all, or what if he’s so badly hurt he’ll never be the same again?

  It feels like snakes are crawling through my stomach as I push open the wide glass doors and rush ahead of Jeevan and Lakshmi towards the reception desk. As Jeevan catches up with me, I slow down, dragging my feet, almost wanting to turn back. ‘I’m scared, Jeevan,’ I whisper.

  ‘We don’t know anything for sure yet,’ says Jeevan, touching my arm. ‘And I know that’s hard . . . but the one thing that has kept you strong is your hope and what you believe.’ He takes my hand and together we stand before the desk.

  Tugging at my sleeves, I take a deep breath, hold my pendant for courage and feel its rhythm pulse through me. ‘I’m looking for my papa,’ I say. ‘He was in the factory fire at Connaught Place.’

  A nurse looks up from behind the reception desk, giving me a hard stare.

  I tug at the ratty ends of hair that barely cover my neck and pass my hand over the rest, trying to smooth it down.

  ‘Yes . . . we do have a few men from that fire here.’

  ‘We are all together,’ says Lakshmi, hurrying along.

  My heart gives a huge twist as I stand on tiptoes, peering over the desk.

  ‘But I’m afraid the papers of all those men were destroyed in the fire, so we don’t have any names.’ The nurse puts her pen down and stands up.

  I swallow. ‘Please . . . I have to find him. My ma is back in our village. I’ve come from Moormanali.’

  ‘But that’s hundreds of miles.’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Let me see if I can find someone . . . we’re very busy.’ She waves her hand to another nurse. ‘Nurse Marler will take you, my dear.’ She gives a tired smile, then carries on with her work.

  We follow Nurse Marler as she clips along the white-tiled corridor.

  ‘Try not to worry,’ says Jeevan.

  ‘Try not to worry? Are you crazy?’ My insides are like springs, tightening and unravelling with each step. ‘I didn’t mean to snap like that, I’m sorry, Jeevan.’

  Lakshmi strokes my cheek and we carry on down the long corridor.

  When at last we arrive at the ward, sweat drips slowly down my back as I stare along the line of beds, crammed closely together. Long twisted wires filled with glistening liquid are attached to each patient’s arm, sending shivers spiralling down my spine.

  ‘This is where most of the men are,’ says the nurse kindly. ‘Don’t be shocked . . . we’ll go along the beds, see if you can find your papa.’

  ‘I’ll stay right by you whatever happens, Asha,’ says Jeevan.

  ‘I wouldn’t be able to do this without you, you know.’

  Moving slowly along the row, I scan each face. As I approach each new person, my heart almost leaps into my mouth, perhaps the next one will be Papa, no, the next one has to be him . . . but none of them are and then the beds come to an end.

  ‘My papa’s not here.’ I sway, suddenly feeling hot, sourness rising into my throat. ‘I’m going to be sick.’ I cling to Jeevan.

  ‘You need some fresh air,’ says Lakshmi, scooping her arm around my back.

  ‘Here, quick.’ The nurse scrapes a chair towards me. ‘Oh, honey . . . I’m so sorry.’

  Lakshmi takes out a folded handkerchief and a bottle of water from her bag, She wets the handkerchief and dabs my face.

  Jeevan fans me with a piece of folded paper.

  I stare up at them all, still feeling queasy.

  ‘I don’t want to get your hopes up,’ says the nurse, ‘but there is one last room.’ She pats my hand. ‘A small one on the left over there, with a man who keeps shouting in his sleep, disturbing the others. That’s why he’s in the room by himself.’

  I struggle to my feet. ‘What if it’s not him?’

  ‘We won’t know until we go and look,’ says Jeevan. ‘We’ve got one more chance.’

  The sweet scent of jasmine blows in through an open window, filling me with memories of home, of Ma, Roopa and Rohan, Moormanali.

  The nurse shows us to the room and I try to control my racing heart.

  ‘I’ll wait out here,’ says Lakshmi.

  I push the handle down, and creak the door open. Even with Jeevan right beside me, I hesitate before walking in.

  The bandaged figure on the bed faces away from me. All I can see are a pair of scarred hands resting on the white sheet. I put the mango seedling on the table and creep closer, moving round the bottom of the bed to get a better look.

  My papa’s hands were smooth and strong but these are blistered and burnt.

  His eyes are squeezed closed, his cracked lips parted, he looks so old and in pain, but I’d know that face anywhere!

  ‘Papa! I’ve found you . . . at last!’

  I throw my arms around his thin body, resting my head lightly on his chest, my tears dripping on to the woollen blanket, slowly at first, then spilling out as fast as the Ganges.

  ‘What happened to you, Papa?’ I touch the bandage on his forehead, but he doesn’t open his eyes and fear flashes through me.

  ‘Asha! You found him!’ Jeevan flings his arm around my shoulder.

  I lean into him. ‘ We found him.’

  The nurse rushes in, followed by Lakshmi.

  ‘It is your papa then?’ asks the nurse.

  ‘What wonderful news, Asha,’ says Lakshmi, grasping my hand.

  ‘It is,’ I say, my voice trembling. ‘But he won’t open his eyes and I don’t know what’s wrong with him . . . he’s not like the papa I remember at all.’

  ‘We don’t know exactly what happened in the factory. He was unconscious when he came in. We think he has traumatic amnesia.’

  ‘What does that mean? When will he open his eyes and recognize me? What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘It means he can’t remember anything,’ says Jeevan, pulling his arm tighter around my shoulder.

  The nurse frowns. ‘He couldn’t tell us who he was. He must have had a fall. Because he didn’t have any documents on him, nobody knew who to contact.’

  ‘But he will get better . . . won’t he?’ I grasp the nurse’s arm.

  ‘Listen . . . you have to be brave. This is hard for me to tell you, especially since your ma is so far away, but I have to be honest with you – he might have permanent brain damage.’

  Lak
shmi gives the nurse a hard stare.

  Papa’s breathing is even and hardly sounds like anything’s wrong at all. Maybe they’re mistaken and when he wakes up he’ll be the same as before.

  ‘Sorry, I know it’s not what you want to hear.’

  My throat is tight with grief. ‘So he may never remember me?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe what’s happened to these children and how they’ve fought to get here,’

  Lakshmi says to the nurse. ‘They need to stay positive.’

  Nurse Marler bristles. ‘But he’s still not well, and I don’t want to raise hopes only for them to be disappointed . . . the fact is, we really don’t know what the long-term effects of his accident will be.’ She checks Papa’s notes. ‘But now that the family has been located, it may be possible to discharge him.’

  ‘You can all stay with us for a few days before going back,’ leaps in Lakshmi. ‘You can’t travel with him like this.’

  ‘But we have to be back home by Divali.’ My voice is panicky. ‘I need to let Ma know that we’ve found him and we’ll be home by then.’

  ‘Just a few days,’ Lakshmi says again. ‘Do you have your ma’s phone number?’

  ‘There’s no signal in the village,’ I say.

  ‘Maybe we can send a telegram instead? Old ways are best! Your ma will get the message on the same day and it’s a week until Divali . . . plenty of time for you all to recover.’

  ‘Can I stay with him tonight?’ I ask, gripping his hand tightly.

  ‘Mmmm . . .’ ponders the nurse. ‘We usually wouldn’t allow it . . . but I’ll be able to twist the sister’s arm, in these special circumstances.’

  ‘So it’s all settled,’ says Lakshmi. ‘And I’ll get Raj to drop in a few things from home for you.’

  ‘Can you bring me a deeva please? It might help him to get better. Now that I’ve found him, I’m not leaving him for a minute.’

  Jeevan gives me a clumsy hug. ‘See you in the morning, Asha.’ He’s trying to hide it but I know he’s as worried as I am. ‘Everything’s going to be fine . . . just look at the bright green bud on the mango seedling.’