by Marisha Pink
THIRTEEN
STANDING on the steps of the Mayfair Beach Resort Hotel, Aaron waved goodbye to Manoj and thanked him again for his help. He promised to let him know how everything turned out and then watched the refuge director speed away until the rear lights of his motorcycle were nothing more than specks in the darkness that had fallen on Puri. Once they had disappeared completely, he turned to make his way into the hotel, exhausted from the day’s events and grateful to escape the oppressive heat that had somehow persisted despite the setting of the sun. Passing through the double-fronted entrance, he was met by the same concierge who had assisted him that afternoon. The concierge recognised him instantly and greeted him like a somewhat relieved old friend.
‘Very good evening, sir. You are okay; I was starting to think that you are not coming back from this bad place.’
Aaron chuckled to himself; it was sweet of the concierge to care and he appreciated the warmth and concern that all of the people he had encountered had shown him during his short time in Puri.
‘You were right, it wasn’t a very nice place, but I’m back now.’
‘Very good, sir. Did you meet with your acquaintance?’
‘Sort of.’
The concierge regarded Aaron with a look of confusion, but wisely chose not to press him any further and waved him towards the elevator.
Reaching his room, Aaron flopped down onto the king-sized bed and stared at the ceiling, blinking into the darkness. The day had not turned out at all as expected and every time that he thought he was getting closer to meeting Kalpana, something seemed to crop up to render the situation even more complex than it already was. He was aware that it was no small feat to have encountered Manoj when he did and for the refuge director’s team to have found a forwarding address for Kalpana, but it was the other information that Manoj had shared with him that he couldn’t quite get his head around.
It was impossible for Kalpana to have left Rachna Hari before he was born, but it was there in her records and Manoj had been unable to think of any reason why it might be incorrect. It was only a matter of a few short months, which raised the possibility that his mother had gotten his birthday wrong, but this too seemed unlikely. And then there was another explanation. An explanation that Aaron wanted to reject as soon as it entered his mind, but couldn’t on the strength of all that had occurred in recent weeks. If the paperwork was correct, then not only was Aaron born and adopted after Kalpana had left the refuge, but his mother had deliberately lied about this fact.
It pained him to accept that his mother might not be the woman that they had all believed her to be, but it hurt even more to think that he may not yet have uncovered all of her secrets and lies. There was already a sharp, stinging pain behind his eyes, a manifestation of the stress, fatigue and heat that he had been subjected to all day, and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He reached across the bed for the remote and turned on the fan above his head in an attempt to unwind. He watched the blades continually rotate, and feeling strangely soothed by their rhythmic hum, it wasn’t long before his eyelids were kissing each other and sleep had washed over him.
Disorientated on awakening the following morning, Aaron tried to make sense of his surroundings. He was still fully clothed from the day before and sprawled across the large expanse of the bed, the side of his cheek stuck to the back of his palm by a small dribble of saliva that had escaped from his mouth during the night. He sat up slowly against the headboard, squinting at the light that streamed through the open curtains and wiped the moisture from around his mouth. There was an overwhelming feeling of lethargy and though he had slept soundly through the night, he felt as though he could sleep for a million more years. Suddenly recalling the previous day’s events, he reached into the back pocket of his shorts and pulled out the slip of paper onto which Manoj had transcribed Kalpana’s forwarding address. He twirled it absent-mindedly between his fingers so that the early morning light bounced off the page, while he debated what to do.
If she still lived there, Kalpana’s home was not too far from the centre of town; a small and predominantly self-contained village that Manoj had assured him he would have much less trouble securing a taxi or rickshaw to, than he had to Rachna Hari. If she didn’t live there, it would be another dead end and another wasted day. He looked at the piece of paper longingly, wishing that he could glimpse the future to know whether this place would at last hold the answers to his questions. He had been lucky so far, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that this good fortune could last forever. Yet he had also endured a number of shocks and surprises in recent months and a small part of him maintained that the universe still owed him a favour or two before they would be even.
After an unexpectedly tasty breakfast of large thin pancakes that were lightly browned and filled with a delicious mixture of spiced onions and potatoes, Aaron felt much more awake and ready to face the day ahead. He made his way to the lobby where the smiling concierge from the day before greeted him brightly.
‘Good morning, sir. Where we are going today?’
‘Good morning. I’d like to go here today please,’ Aaron replied, flashing him the slip of paper.
The concierge regarded Aaron curiously, again surprised by his choice of destination.
‘Always going in strange places, sir. This is a small village only; not very many things to see here. You are meeting someone again?’
‘Yes, I’m meeting someone again.’
‘As you wish it, sir,’ pronounced the concierge, beaming jovially before exiting the lobby and deftly hailing another taxi.
Moments later, Aaron was speeding along the city streets enjoying the coolness of the air-conditioned taxi from the comfort and safety of a back seat with seat belts. An unaccompanied, high-pitched female voice rang out loudly in song from the taxi stereo and before long it was joined by a male voice, a raft of honky tonk instruments that Aaron didn’t recognise and heavy percussion. He had no idea what the pair were singing about, but the melody was catchy and he soon found himself humming and tapping along. The taxi driver grinned at him approvingly in the rear-view mirror and cranked the volume higher as the city streets turned from crowded, noisy thoroughfares to dusty terracotta paths meandering through the Indian countryside.
The taxi delved deeper and deeper into rural India and each time they drove through a village, butterflies filled Aaron’s stomach, while he wondered anxiously whether they had reached their final destination. The butterflies subsided when they simply swept past the clusters of clay houses, but with every passing village Aaron held his breath a little tighter and longer. He counted six separate villages before the taxi finally slowed to a steady crawl and the driver wound down his window to peer into the open doorways of the houses, no longer able to see through the thick layer of terracotta dust that blanketed the car.
Eventually they happened upon an elderly woman who was almost bent double, advancing painfully slowly along the road with the aid of a walking stick. A dull orange sari hung loosely about her thin frame and her few remaining strands of greyed hair were pulled back from her sagging face into a straggly ponytail. Aaron felt his stomach lurch at the sight of her and his heart began to thump furiously in his chest. The driver called out to her and, acknowledging his summons, she slowly began to inch her way towards the car. He spoke with her in the tongue-twisting dialect that Aaron could not understand and she peered inquisitively past his head into the back of the taxi to stare at Aaron with coffee-coloured eyes and a toothless smile. Aaron smiled back, unsure exactly what was happening and desperate to know whether this was the woman that he had been so frantically searching for.
The toothless woman continued to gaze down at him silently, but after a few long minutes, she turned her attention back to the driver, croaked something unintelligible at him and pointed a long, bony finger towards the end of the dirt track. The driver nodded his thanks and when the old woman had stepped far enough away from the car, he put it into gear, allowing it to rol
l leisurely down the gentle incline in the direction that she had indicated. Aaron was a wreck in the back seat; they had obviously reached the correct village and any moment now he would be reunited with his biological mother. His hands and brow were clammy with anticipation, and the thick heat that seeped through the open taxi window was only making it worse. He breathed deeply, desperate to calm his growing nerves, but the dry terracotta earth being kicked up by the taxi’s wheels quickly filled his nose and mouth until the taste and smell made him feel sick to his stomach. Groaning, he lay back against the seat and closed his eyes, allowing the gentle motion of the slow moving vehicle to soothe him until it finally came to rest and he realised with fear and excitement that they had arrived.
At the end of the path was a well-kept clay house that was slightly larger than most of the others that they had passed. A veranda was wrapped around the front of the house and a small shop constructed from rusting pieces of corrugated iron was attached to the side. An assortment of sweets and small household items dangled from the shop’s roof, but the goods were partially obscured by a young man, not much older than Aaron, who was busy tending to the rear wheels of a battered old rickshaw. He wore faded blue fisherman pants that he had rolled up to his knees, but his chest was bare and his bronzed skin glistened with sweat in the sunlight.
The young man looked up when he heard the taxi approaching and tossed his head back to lift the crop of floppy coffee-coloured hair that crowned it from his face. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm, leaving a greasy black streak across his forehead, and dusted his hands off on the sides of his pants. Intrigued by the presence of an official Puri taxi in his village, he drew himself up fully into a standing position and picked his way across the yard to where the taxi had stopped. Aaron didn’t notice the young man peering through his window at first; he was distractedly fishing in his pockets for enough rupees to pay the driver. But when he turned to open the door, he locked eyes with the young man and it was like staring into a mirror.
The young man stepped back from the window to allow Aaron to exit the car, never breaking his gaze, and the pair stood by the roadside, surveying each other in awe. Aaron blinked repeatedly in disbelief at the likeness that they shared, but the image before him remained the same. He guessed that they were about the same age and evenly matched in height, boasting the same lanky, adolescent-like frame. They shared the same delicate features: the warm hazel eyes, strong nose and crop of coffee-coloured hair, but the young man’s mouth was less full than Aaron’s, his lips just two thin lines marred by a faint fleshy scar that contrasted against his bronzed skin. They continued to stare at each other in amazement, both fascinated by having clapped eyes on their doppelganger. Finally breaking his gaze and remembering his manners, Aaron was the first to speak.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello,’ the young man nodded, his gaze unbroken.
‘Do you … do you speak English?’ he asked nervously, though he had no idea why because the young man had quite obviously understood his greeting.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m … I’m looking for Kalpana. Kalpana Dash?’
The young man’s face instantly fell and he looked visibly saddened when he broke off his gaze. He stared intensely at the floor, twisting his fingers sombrely around the folds of the pants that hung at his knees. At once Aaron felt uneasy and the sick feeling began to creep back into his stomach. He didn’t know what to say or where to look, and though it was obvious that the young man knew of Kalpana, the abrupt shift from wide-eyed wonderment to deep-seated melancholy unsettled him.
‘Who are you?’ the young man asked after a while, looking up at Aaron mournfully through his floppy hair.
‘My name is Aaron, Aaron Rutherford. I …’
But Aaron didn’t get the opportunity to finish. The young man’s mood shifted rapidly once more and his face unexpectedly lit up with recognition. His eyes were wild with excitement and an enormous, toothy grin spread across his dimpled cheeks, stretching his lips into even tauter lines. Overcome with elation, he turned to shout into the house behind him.
‘HANARA! HANARA COME QUICKLY OUTSIDE!’
