Looking For Bapu

by Anjali Banerjee

  “No fighting, remember?” I unzip my jacket and clean Unger's glasses on my shirt. “Why don't you get contacts?”

  “My parents say I'm not old enough,” Unger says. “Do you think the driver will tell the police?”

  I shake my head, although I'm not so sure. “I think he believed her.”

  “Izzy doesn't look old enough to babysit,” Unger says.

  Izzy straightens her shoulders. “I look twelve at least.”

  Unger frowns. “What if he calls our parents?”

  “He doesn't know who we are,” I whisper.

  An elderly lady gives us the evil eye, then faces forward again. We slide down in the seats.

  Izzy presses her nose to the window. She absorbs the scene outside, hills and trees and houses whizzing by, as if she's visiting from another planet.

  We're silent most of the way. The bus makes many stops and gradually fills with people; the sun moves higher and the day grows warmer. We change buses in Port North.

  “Look, you can see the ocean!” Izzy presses her finger to the window. The sea glints through the trees to our right, to the north. The terrain opens into rolling pasture dotted with barns, horses and cows. To the west are the jagged Olympic Mountains. Wisps of white clouds cling to the peaks. I wonder if Bapu can float to the highest mountain. Then I think of the god Shiva, meditating on Mount Kailasa in the Himalayas, which are twice as high as the Olympic Mountains.

  “Wow, cool!” Unger says. He stuffs the plastic snot up his nose. I can't believe he brought it with him.

  We're so absorbed in the scene that we don't notice the bus turning into town and heading down toward the dock.

  “Ferry stop!” the driver calls, and this is where we all get out. The wind whips in from the sea. We're at the very edge of the world, on a waterfront road lined with faded stores, a fish and chips restaurant, a clothing shop and a small run-down book depot. Ahead of us is the ferry building with a sign directing cars to line up to the right. We go inside. A bunch of sleepy people sit on long benches. Izzy grabs a ferry schedule. “The next one to Divine leaves in half an hour.” She stands on tiptoe at the counter and buys our tickets.

  I've never been on a boat so big. You could fit our whole school in here. The passenger area, lined with chairs, is as big as our gymnasium.

  We slide into a booth near the window. Unger buys French fries, and we munch and stare out at the seagulls flying alongside the ferry, the mountain range turning hazy blue in the distance behind us. I'm seized by fear. We don't have our parents anywhere close.

  “What if we get stuck there?” I ask. Izzy turns to look at me.

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” She glances toward Unger, who's off playing a video game. “We'll be okay.”

  My rib cage squeezes, but I force myself to breathe evenly. “I brought the phone.” I take it from my pocket, the one Dad left for me to use in case of emergency. If I'd had the cell phone when Bapu died—when Bapu fell … The phone is on, a picture of a jester in the display window.

  Izzy's lost in thought, her freckles gathering at her nose again. “I'm worried about my mom.”

  “Me too.” Unger takes off his glasses and cleans them. “I told my mom where we were going, but she won't see the note until she takes a shower around noon.”

  We sit in silence until the driver cuts the engine and the ferry drifts into the bay. We watch out the window, all of us tense, but eager to see Divine.

  “Whoa—it's a jungle. Look at all the trees.” Unger goes out on the deck and we follow, the wind whipping off the sea. I feel a little sick.

  “No, look, a few buildings!” Izzy says, pointing.

  When the ferry docks and we walk off, we're in a forest. Thick fir, madrone and cedar trees grow nearly down to the water. Most people drive off the ferry. A few stragglers follow us on foot. Inside the ferry building, we go to the information desk to ask for directions to the museum. “Three blocks,” the clerk says. “You can walk into town.”

  Relief. Old-fashioned, tall brick buildings mark the downtown strip—Divine Grocery, a small store. Art galleries, eateries, clothing shops—tourist traps, as Ma would say. We find the Mystery Museum in a tall, wooden A-frame, the name written across the top. I can't believe it—we're really here.

  Through the dark, tinted windows, I catch glimpses of touristy things—key chains, postcards, sweatshirts, flag decals. People mill around looking at the framed pictures, the polished, petrified wood. We step inside and the floor creaks under our shoes.

  “Whoa, this is sweet!” Unger pushes the glasses up on his nose.

  “This is nothing like my dream,” I whisper to Izzy. The museum buzzes with activity, kids of all ages, grown-ups from all over the world.

  “You dreamed about the Mystery Museum?” she asks. “What did you dream?”

  “Karnak was awesome.” My heart thumps at the thought of him somewhere in the back room, waiting to make anything happen.

  Tourists browse the T-shirt racks, and women gather at a glass case full of flashy silver jewelry. There's a 1950s gas pump ahead of us, about six feet tall, in the shape of a cowboy. A man drops a penny in the slot. The pump grinds, then spits out a flattened penny. Unger's already moving into the crowd, checking out the funny magic tricks. I lose him in the sea of faces. There's so much stuff in here, but none of it is really weird. Then I notice what's hidden in the back and up on the walls. Wooden masks with black, empty eyes staring; shields and totem poles; old weathered mounted antlers; spears; blades. I shiver, and Izzy takes my arm and pulls me forward.

  “Look!” Unger appears in the crowd, pulls on a plastic finger that makes a loud farting sound. All the kids are gathering there, pulling on the plastic fingers. “The soap!” He waves the soap that makes you dirtier the more you use it.

  “Come on, that's kid stuff,” Izzy says. “Let me show you something really cool.” She leads us to a big wooden contraption with a handle. The sign reads, X-RATED VIDEO FROM 1920S.

  Unger's eyes go wide. “Naked ladies?”

  “You think everything X-rated is about naked.” Izzy drops a quarter in the slot. She stands on the step, cranks the handle and peers down into a glass viewer.

  Unger and I crowd up on the step and peer through the viewer. A woman sits in an old-fashioned clawfoot tub. You can only see her head and shoulders above the water as she washes and splashes, sticks a bare foot in the air.

  “This is X-rated?” Unger says.

  “Believe it or not, back then it was X-rated to see a woman's ankle.” Izzy lifts her skirt to her knee. Her tights are really purple.

  The woman gets out of the tub. She's wearing a towel. Then she walks out of the picture and it's over.

  “That's it?” Unger says.

  “That was pretty daring for the 1920s,” Izzy says. “Come on, I'll show you Stella.” She leads us to the left side of the store, but Unger keeps getting sidetracked, and we stop at a set of shelves with Divine Island coffee mugs imprinted with names in alphabetical order: Adam, Alan, Amy, Betsy, Bob, Chet, Dan, Elizabeth, Frank …

  “No Izzy,” Izzy says. “There's never an Izzy.”

  “Or an Unger,” Unger says. “There's never even a ‘U.'”

  I know there won't be an Anu. I never bother to look. I never realized that Unger and Izzy wouldn't find their names either. I feel closer to them now, closer because we're here together, together in trouble, all of us with funny names, looking for holy.

  Stella sits high inside a glass case with a purple velvet backdrop. She wears a red hat covered with glitter. The plastic mannequin stares at us through marble eyes set back inside her head, as if a real person hides inside the plastic shell.

  “Whoa, Stella.” Unger opens his mouth and his hot breath fogs up his glasses. He fumbles in his pocket for two quarters and drops them in the slot. We jump backward as Stella whirs to life. One arm rises while the other waves across her crystal ball. Her long, tapered fingers don't move, but her arms bend at the sho
ulder. Her lips are painted red. A creepy, clanking sound echoes out. There's a clicking, and a card drops out through the slot. Unger grabs it and reads, “‘You will find your calling and inherit a great fortune.' See, I told you!”

  “It says ‘inherit.' Not make crooked business deals,” Izzy says. “My turn.” She drops her quarter in the slot, and Stella comes to life again, her frozen plastic arm moving over the crystal ball. The fortune drops from the slot and Izzy reads, “‘Your future lies in the limelight. You love to perform.'”

  “That's true.” Unger points at her. “You like to dance with your shrunken heads.”

  “I do not!” She shoves Unger in a playful way and he shoves her back. The Indian Cupid is at it again. I roll my eyes. Izzy's fortune could be for anyone.

  “Your turn, Anu,” Izzy says, but I shake my head. I don't believe in Stella anymore. I want to believe in her, but she keeps the fortunes in a pile and they come out one by one, in order, as people put their quarters in the slot. I hate that I know that, and I hate that the Mystery Museum doesn't seem so much of a mystery. I want it to be; I want it to be a mystery with all my heart.

  We're somber going to the door that opens into the dark room beyond.

  A woman stands in the way. She looks like a prison guard in her gray uniform. A man and his son and daughter are waiting to get in, talking in excited voices. A big handwritten sign on the door reads:

  The three of us stare at the last sentence as if it's written in Japanese.

  he blood stops flowing in my veins. The room dims with a sense of doom. This is too important. We can't turn back now. I think of Bapu about to fade away forever. I think of myself running through the woods, Bapu falling.

  “Andy didn't tell me about the sign.” I turn to confront Izzy. “Why didn't you tell us?”

  “I didn't know—the sign wasn't there before!” she says.

  “We're under eighteen,” Unger whispers. “We'll never get in.”

  “We could sneak in,” Izzy says. “Turn around and pretend to look at the postcards. Maybe the guard reads lips.”

  We all turn and stare at the postcards. “We could distract her,” I say.

  “She doesn't look distractible,” Unger says. “She's planted by that door.”

  Izzy picks up a postcard of the Space Needle in Seattle. “We could slip inside with the other kids.”

  “That won't work,” I say. “She'll see.”

  “We could pretend our parents are just around the corner,” Izzy says. “I've done that before.”

  I glance over my shoulder at the woman, a stone statue by the door. “Somehow I think she won't buy it.”

  “Then we go home.” Unger's got his glasses off and he's cleaning them vigorously on his T-shirt, over and over again.

  “I'm not going home until I talk to Karnak,” I say.

  Unger props the glasses back on his nose and they promptly fog up again. “Look, Anu. Maybe an Indian holy man can fly, but nobody has ever brought a ghost back to life. Your grandfather is gone for good, okay?”

  “Unger!” Izzy says in a warning voice, and I look at them and realize Unger and Izzy have been talking about me behind my back. They think I'm crazy.

  “We have to try,” I say. “We came this far.”

  Izzy puts her hands on her hips. “How exactly do you plan to get in?”

  We watch the guard talking to a family. “… only let ten people in at a time,” she's explaining.

  “We'll just have to talk to her.” I square my shoulders.

  “I'm not talking to her,” Izzy says.

  “Me either.” Unger shakes his head.

  My feet are moving forward and I'm standing in front of the guard, who stares down at me from skyscraper height. My mouth moves, but nothing comes out.

  “Can I help you, son?” A line of bright pink smears her cracked, thin mouth. I try not to stare at the lipstick gathering in the fissures of her lips. I point back toward Unger and Izzy. “My friends and I have to see Karnak,” I say.

  Her penciled eyebrows rise. The father and his kids are watching me. “Is that so? And why is that, young man?”

  “We have important questions for him. We really need his help.”

  The woman's cracked mouth widens into a sort of smile. “You kids are too young. Did you see the sign?”

  “We're mature for our age. We can handle the mummies.”

  “No kids allowed alone. We've had little kids pee their pants in there.” She leans down toward me. Her breath smells faintly foul. “And your hair could turn white from fright.”

  The kids gasp with excitement. The father is looking at me. Why does this woman call me a young man if she thinks I'm just a little kid?

  “My grandfather died.” There, I said it. He died. “He always wanted to bring me here, but he never got a chance.”

  “Then why didn't you get your mom or dad to bring you, honey?” So now I'm no longer a young man. I'm a honey.

  “We took two buses and the ferry and saved our money.”

  “Rules are rules,” she says, straightening.

  “Please, just this once?”

  “Come back with your parents.”

  “But it's so far!”

  We're somehow deflated when we step outside the Mystery Museum. The sun climbs high in the sky, shining too brightly and making us squint. All the happy people bustling by, some with big ice cream cones, seem distant, in another world.

  We drag our feet down the street, along the blocks back to the ferry. I think of Dad and me on the Nisquat trail and Dad telling me about quantum physics and how anything is possible. Izzy and Unger are talking about how they didn't really want to go into the Mystery Museum anyway.

  I take the cell phone from my pocket. I wonder if Ma or Dad tried to call. They must have. They must be running around in a panic. Suddenly I hate that I left them a note instead of telling them in person. But they would never have let me go to the museum alone. But how can I be sure? I stare up at the sky and anything is possible. Then I flip open the cell phone, but the display is dark. The battery is dead.

  I use the pay phone by the grocery store. Ma picks up after half a ring. My heart pounds through my throat. “Ma?”

  “Anu!” she says with relief in her voice. “Are you all right? Where are you? We tried to call—”

  “I'm on Divine Island.”

  “Are Izzy and Unger with you? Their parents are worried sick.”

  “I know. I'm sorry. We had to come—”

  “Do you have any idea how worried we've been?” I can tell I'll be punished for a year.

  “Can I talk to Dad? Can he come here? I need him to come here, Ma.”

  “Unger's parents told us where you were. Dad's already on his way. He's on the ferry by now. He's coming to get you. I decided to stay here in case you showed up at home. Your cell phone isn't working.”

  “I know.” I let out a sigh of relief. “We'll wait by the ferry.”

  I hang up, and Izzy and Unger are staring at me with horror in their eyes. “We are in so much trouble.” Izzy screws up her nose. We wait in tense silence until Dad drives off the ferry in the Subaru. He pulls over and parks and we all pile inside, Izzy and Unger in the back, me in the front. Dad's face is calm. He doesn't look angry. “Put on your seat belts,” he says, then snaps open his cell phone. “They're all here, and they're fine,” he says to Ma. “I'll bring them back on the next ferry. Two hours.”

  Two hours? “Dad,” I say. “I know I'm in trouble. Really big trouble. Thanks for coming. I can get in trouble later, but for right now, I need you to take us to the Mystery Museum. I need to talk to Karnak the Magician.”

  “Karnak the Magician, huh?” Dad's voice trembles oddly. “Is the museum in town?”

  I point, and he starts the engine and pulls out into the thin stream of traffic. We're in town in two seconds. We're all quiet, wondering what will happen next as Dad parks in front of the grocery store. “I've never been to Divine,” he says. “Q
uaint, isn't it?” He unlatches his seat belt and turns to us. His face is a little sad.

  I'm not sure what to say. We get out of the car and walk along the main road, not talking. This is so weird.

  We're standing outside the Mystery Museum again.

  “You came here to see the magician.” Dad looks down at me with the same quiet look.

  I nod. Izzy and Unger gather around, and then Unger says, “We couldn't get in. We had to have a parent—”

  “Unger.” Izzy elbows him.

  “Let's go in, shall we?” Dad says.

  n the dim back room, our footsteps creak on the wooden floor. The room is smaller than I expected, the ceiling lower. From high on the walls, masks with black, hollow eyes stare out at us. Dried white hair sticks out of the tops, as if the masks have gone crazy being alone up there all these years. Stuffed birds are frozen in flight, forever trapped. No place to fly, no windows. Two gigantic totem poles rise like ancient pillars ahead of us. Otherwise, all the curiosities hide in glass cases. I didn't expect glass. I expected the mummies and shrunken heads to dance out at me, brush my hair with their bony fingers.

  “Whoa, cool.” Unger rushes forward to a tall glass case. Inside, a shrunken man the color of mud stands on tiptoe, one hand across his chest, the other across his stomach. His shriveled skin shows the outlines of ribs, intestines, and organs underneath. He's bald, his eyes are shut, his lips pull back to reveal crooked white teeth. I let go of Dad's hand and race after Unger and Izzy.

  “Desmond the Desert Mummy,” Izzy reads on a plaque. Desmond's wearing a black cloth over his private parts.

  “Whoa—sweet.” Unger pushes the glasses up on his nose. “Look. He still has a mustache, eyelashes—and teeth.”

  I secretly thank the gods for not turning Bapu into a mummy. “And fingernails,” Izzy says.

  Dad hangs back, letting us explore.

  “Look, another one!” Izzy shouts. We run to the next mummy. “Desdemona!” She's even more shrunken, with orangey-red hair, an open mouth as if she's screaming and empty eye sockets sewn shut. She's wearing a red loincloth and knee-high boots tied around her legs with white string. She gives me the creeps. A huge lonely feeling presses on me. Maybe I've become truly holy and I can feel the sadness of the world. The mummies' sorrow surrounds me.