Little Princes

by Conor Grennan

  Farid laughed. “Conor, I know you, and I believe that God must have sent Liz to you. He knew you would pay attention if she came to visit, no? I don’t think He is offended.”

  “Exactly! You’re joking, but that is what I thought, too!” I said.

  “I’m not joking, truly,” Farid said, still smiling. “As I said, Conor—when you bought that Bible, I knew you were doing the right thing for you. We both saw that light, I think. We just saw different things in the light.”

  I liked that idea. I also liked that both of us were completely convinced that what we had seen was the Truth, and we could speak about it so openly with each other. Under this one roof, we had a Buddhist, a Christian, and two dozen little Hindus. And we couldn’t be happier.

  On January 30 I was sitting with Leena, watching the little boys play soccer. The days were warm enough, as long as you stayed in the sun. If you ran around in a crazed pack chasing a ball, all the warmer. There is nothing quite like watching young kids play soccer. It must be the same around the world—a scrum forms around the ball, it pops out, hammered off somebody’s toe with a grunt, and the scrum swivels their collective heads around like a family of periscopes, spot the ball, and fly toward it, en masse, as if by gravitational pull.

  I could not tell if Leena was finding the same enjoyment. As usual, she had not even acknowledged me when I walked into the house, nor had she responded when I picked her up and carried her outside to watch the match with me on my lap. I felt like a child with a fancy doll. She was at least watching the game, though. Any stimulation had to be a good thing, I thought. I was about to lift her onto my shoulders when my cell phone rang. It was Jacky.

  “Hey, Jacky—I’m just next door at Dhaulagiri, watching the kids play socc—”

  “Conor, I need you. Right now,” he said, cutting me off. He told me to meet him at Kimdol chock, an intersection of quiet streets next to us that circled Swayambhu.

  It was unlike Jacky to be so abrupt and insistent. I left Leena with her big sister and ran the five minutes to the intersection. Jacky was impossible to miss, with his straggly, mildly dreadlocked graying hair among the shorter Nepalis and Tibetan monks. He saw me coming and got into the backseat of a waiting taxi. I jumped in on the other side, and the driver, already given directions, took off toward the center of Kathmandu.

  “Where are we going?” I panted.

  “Gyan just called—he has Bishnu,” Jacky said. “He says we must hurry.”

  I could hardly believe it.

  Gyan’s office at the Child Welfare Board was characteristically mobbed. He sat at his desk with an assistant leaning over his shoulder, pointing out the relevant place on a document that would help Gyan make a decision that would likely change the future of the family standing in front of him. I did not envy his job. I envied it even less because he was paid almost nothing; this was a civil service he was giving his country, a duty performed by his father before him, something expected of a man of his talents. He bore a heavy responsibility.

  We waited inside the office for a few moments before Gyan noticed us. He made eye contact with me and motioned to the far corner. There, through the forest of distraught mothers and crying children, was a barrel-chested man standing in front of a chair, as if refusing to sit on principle. He had a tidy haircut and wore casual western clothes, a sign of wealth. I ducked my head to get a better look. In front of him, sitting at his feet, Indian style, was a boy of six, with sharp Tibetan features and smooth bronzed skin, gazing at the floor.

  It was Bishnu.

  Less than five minutes later Gyan managed to make his way over to us and pulled us into the hallway. Speaking quickly, he related the situation: Bishnu had been working for the last ten months as a domestic slave. He was sold by Golkka to a local hotel, where he worked twelve hours a day washing dishes. There, he was discovered by a bank manager who was a client of the hotel, a relatively wealthy and powerful man by Nepalese standards, who bought the boy from the hotel for the equivalent of perhaps eighty dollars. He took him to work in his own home. The story was similar in many ways to what had happened to Kumar. Gyan was vague when I asked him how he had persuaded the man to come in, and I had learned not to press him on such issues. I had to force myself to remain calm at those moments, not demand that the man be arrested for enslaving this young boy. The important thing now was getting the boy into Dhaulagiri House, where we knew he would be safe.

  “Okay, we can bring Bishnu back in a taxi,” I said. “Jacky, can you wait here while I get one?”

  “Wait—there may be a small problem, Conor sir,” said Gyan, putting a hand on my elbow. “The bank manager—the man in the corner, standing up—he does not want to give the boy up.”

  I stared at Gyan, incredulous. “He doesn’t want to give him up? Surely that’s a nonissue, Gyan? You can compel him, can’t you? He’s already here, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, I can try to compel him. But I cannot arrest him right now; I do not have the correct papers. If I try and make force with him, he may leave this office with Bishnu now and disappear. He has already said Bishnu is better with him. It is best if we can persuade him to give the boy up by his free will,” he said.

  Gyan watched my reaction. We had been through this before. Either I had faith in him or I didn’t. Gyan had done very well to get the man here in the first place. I imagined he had used some thinly veiled threats about police visiting the bank manager at his home, a public embarrassment that the man was probably eager to avoid. Maybe Gyan didn’t have the right papers to arrest the man or even compel him to release Bishnu, but he sure knew how to bluff. Whether he could convince the man to actually give Bishnu up to us was another story. We were about to find out just how far Gyan could push his bluff.

  “Okay, Gyan—whatever you think is best,” I sighed.

  He stepped back into his office, indicating that we should stay where we were. “I will call the man here—we will leave Bishnu inside.”

  He returned a minute later with the bank manager. The man stood two inches shorter than me but a solid foot wider at the shoulders, as if he wore an ox yoke under his jacket. He did not smile when he was introduced to us, and ignored our greeting. Instead he spoke quickly to Gyan in what was clearly some kind of diatribe about western intervention in the case. Gyan declined to translate for us, opting to speak softly to the man. I started to interrupt, but Gyan, not even looking at me, lifted his hand just slightly toward me—the sign to keep my mouth shut. I realized that anything I said at this moment was only going to enrage this man. He already looked ready to pop. All we wanted was the boy, and Gyan was working on getting him for us.

  This dialogue went on for ten minutes. The families inside, forced to wait, grew restless. The bank manager swayed between relative calm and severe agitation. Jacky and I leaned in, trying to glean a clue as to where the conversation was going. Gyan alone remained utterly calm, speaking in a low voice, his hand on the man’s shoulder.

  Finally, after an unusually long monologue by Gyan, the man hesitated, then gave a single reluctant nod and grunt. He looked Jacky and me up and down. He had softened from his original position, that was clear. He nodded once more as Gyan continued to speak, then cut Gyan off with a single word. The manager walked back inside, helped Bishnu to his feet, and walked back out to the hall where we were waiting.

  Gyan turned back to us. “He will let the boy go into your care. But he wants to see the conditions where Bishnu will live. You do not have to show him inside, just the outside of the house, so he knows you have other children and are committed to Nepal, that you are not simply taking Bishnu back to your country. Would this be acceptable?”

  I wondered why this man was so intent on keeping the boy. Surely Bishnu was just a servant? It gave me pause as to whether we were doing the right thing. A year ago, if I was in this position I may have decided the man could be trusted. He seemed to genuinely c
are what happened to the boy. I had to allow for the fact that I might have been making a mistake. Maybe Bishnu really was safe with this man. Maybe this was the boy’s one chance to have a foster home.

  I couldn’t risk it. By then, I had seen too much. I had seen instances of Nepali men and women talking with pride of the poor boy or girl they had taken into their home, only to discover that yes, the child was being cared for and going to school, but was also being treated as an outsider to the family, as little more than a servant, working all hours of the day without pay, cooking and cleaning for the family. Was that wrong? Were they better off living as a servant, with the blessing of their mother or father who had given them away? Was it better to get an education than to live with one’s own family? These were the questions I had asked myself in my time in Nepal. It was, as Gyan always said, a difficult country. There were no easy answers.

  But I knew one thing for sure. I knew Bishnu would be safe with us. This man might be a loving father to the boy, providing him with a home. Or he may have just been upset that we were taking his piece of property. I was not going to take the chance. We would take him with us. If that meant fulfilling Gyan’s conditions, then that was what we’d do.

  I looked at Jacky. “Does that sound okay to you? He can come and see the house?”

  “Yes, if that is the condition, I think it is okay, no?”

  “I think so too,” I said, and turned back to Gyan. “Fine, we will go together. And then he’ll leave the boy with us?”

  “Yes, he will leave Bishnu with you. He knows he may get in trouble if he does not.”

  I noticed that the man was listening. He understood English, at least a little of it.

  I clasped Gyan’s hand. “Thank you, Gyan. You’ve done a great thing. Really.”

  “You have also, Conor sir. And you, Jacky sir. Always you do great things for children.”

  I looked down at Bishnu, who was looking up at me with surprised recognition. The man, looking from Bishnu to me, spoke to me in broken English. “He say he know you,” he said. “How you know?”

  “We met one year ago.” I smiled at the boy, who was now smiling openly right back. “It is very nice to see him again.”

  Then the four of us—the bank manager, Bishnu, Jacky, and I—walked out of the government offices together. As I was leaving, Gyan took my arm and pulled me back and spoke in a low voice.

  “Conor sir—be careful. I have seen this very often. I think he will give up the boy. But whatever happens, do not trust this man. Bishnu is not his family. You understand?” he said.

  “I understand. We’ll be okay,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

  Outside the offices, there was a line of the usual beat-up taxis waiting on the street. The bank manager indicated that he would follow us, with Bishnu, on his motorcycle. I nodded and opened the door of the taxi. I was getting into the backseat when I noticed another boy, about Bishnu’s age, standing behind me. There was nobody around him, no parent or any other children. It took me a moment to realize that he was waiting to climb into the taxi with us. He clutched a tiny battered suitcase the size of a large lunchbox.

  I called back to the bank manager, waiting on his motorcycle for us to lead the way.

  “Dai, you know this boy? He is your son?”

  The bank manager craned his neck to see the small figure standing next to the taxi. The boy had gone around to the other side and was now reaching up, tugging at the door handle.

  “I never have seen him,” he said with a shrug.

  I realized what had happened; it was hardly surprising, really. With so many children coming and going in Gyan’s office, the boy had followed the wrong people out. Many children were there with distant aunts and uncles and cousins who had suddenly discovered they had guardianship of an orphaned child they had never seen before. In the confusion, the boy had likely thought the bank manager was his relative. Meanwhile, somebody upstairs was panicking. I asked Jacky to wait for a minute while I took the boy back to make sure he found his family.

  Gyan was back at his desk, and now there were two new families surrounding his desk, one mother making a scene while others grew impatient waiting their turn. Bored children wandered through the legs of the adults. Gyan saw me walk back in with the boy and hurried over to me.

  “Gyan, I’m really sorry, this boy followed us out—his parents must be panicked, if they even noticed he was gone for the last few minutes,” I told him, looking around the office for some sign of recognition from a mother or father.

  Gyan smiled sadly. “No, Conor sir—Tilak is also from Humla. We found him living alone. He has no parents. He must have followed you when he saw you taking the other boy. . . . You can take him, perhaps?”

  It was not really a question. The boy had no home. In Nepal there were no safety nets, no system where all children were cared for in an orderly manner. If we had the means to care for a child without parents, then that is what we would do. The woman who had been yelling at Gyan a moment earlier was now tugging at his arm, seconds away from turning hysterical.

  I reached down my hand. Tilak took it without hesitation, completely trusting. I led him through the decrepit government hallways and back outside to where the others were waiting. We walked up to Jacky, waiting in the front seat.

  “Jacky, this is Tilak. Can he come with us?” I asked.

  Jacky didn’t even blink. Umbrella had rescued almost two hundred children just like this.

  “Mais bien sûr!” he cried enthusiastically to Tilak, who clearly spoke not a word of English, let alone Jacky’s heavily accented mix of French and English. “Come, Tilak! You are sitting with me.” He lifted the boy and his suitcase into the front seat of the taxi and onto his lap. The five of us drove back to Dhaulagiri and the other Umbrella houses.

  Tilak had a new home.

  Things did not go as smoothly with Bishnu. After showing the bank manager the homes, we went into the small Umbrella office, next door to Dhaulagiri. Just before we went inside, I asked Farid to bring over the remaining four children who had lived with Bishnu when we first met him. In two minutes flat, Kumar, Samir, Dirgha, and Amita were running across the field toward us. They stopped short in front of Bishnu. They said nothing but only stared at him, and he stared right back. The bank manager asked the children if they knew Bishnu. They all nodded. This seemed to make the bank manager more agitated, as if he were losing his grip on the boy.

  Farid took Bishnu’s hand and led him out into the field where he could play with the other children. Jacky, the bank manager, and I went inside the office to speak.

  Immediately I sensed a serious problem. The man would not sit down. He paced back and forth, shaking his head at every word that came out of our mouths, then pounding on the table and pointing at us and cursing in Nepali. Jacky shot me a look; he had seen this before. He confirmed in French what I was thinking, that there was going to be a big problem. The man stopped pacing and looked at me.

  “I take boy my house. He is mine, not yours,” he said. He strode toward the door. I moved so my back was against the door.

  “Dai,” I said, respectfully, my palms facing him. “I am sorry, but this is not an option. Bishnu will stay with us. We appreciate you taking care of him for this long, but he belongs here.” I slid one foot back until it was jammed against the door.

  The bank manager’s jaw tightened. He pushed my hands aside and grabbed the doorknob and yanked at it. The door moved an inch before hitting my heel. His hand came off the doorknob and he stumbled backward. Furious now, he regained his balance and flung himself against me. I was ready for this. Using the door as leverage I threw myself back against him and pinned him hard against the wall. But I was no match for his strength and weight. He grabbed my throat and slammed me back against the door. I wouldn’t let go of him, and he was pushing me against his only exit. But I had no idea what I was goin
g to do next. I couldn’t hold him forever, he was much stronger than me. If he got out—and he would get out—he could physically grab Bishnu. Once he had the boy it would be impossible to stop him without harming the child.

  Jacky, who was behind him trying to pull him off me, suddenly let go and lunged for his cell phone. With one hand gripping the man’s arm, he scrolled frantically through numbers and pressed a number. He held his phone tight as the man wrenched around trying to get us off him. After several interminable seconds, I heard Jacky say, “Yes, hello? . . . Hello? . . . Yes, sir, this is Jacky Buk, with Umbrella Foundation, we met . . . yes, exactly . . . yes, I am well, sir, but we have a situation right now and I need your help very badly—a man is here who is trying to take one of our children,” he said, panting with exertion.

  The bank manager seemed oblivious to this phone call, intent only on getting out the door. But I was mesmerized by it, wondering who on earth Jacky could possibly need to call right now.

  “Yes, sir, that’s correct,” Jacky panted into the phone. “Yes, sir, he is here, we are speaking with him now . . . yes, sir, I am putting him on the phone now,” Jacky said. He released the bank manager’s arm and took a step back. He touched the man on the back and held the phone out to him.

  “Sir, the mayor would like to speak to you,” he said.

  The struggle stopped. The bank manager pushed off me and turned toward Jacky, panting and looking between him and the phone, trying to work out if this was some kind of trick. I was trying to figure out the same thing. Still Jacky held the phone out.

  The bank manager snatched the phone out of his hand and said a gruff “Hahlo?” into it. He was silent for a few seconds. He then launched into Nepali. Almost as soon as he began he was cut off by a raised voice on the other end of the line, audible from where I stood. He stared at the floor. After a couple of minutes, he said a cursory good-bye, clicked the phone closed, and placed it on the table. Without a word, he took the doorknob again. I looked at Jacky. Jacky waved me out of the way. The bank manager walked out to his motorcycle, put on his helmet, and without so much as a glance back he drove off. We never saw him again.