The Light of Hidden Flowers

by Jennifer Handford

  “Speaking of good luck charms,” Kate said. “We kind of need a talisman. If our hero’s journey is going to be complete. To aid us in our quest.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s keep our eyes out.”

  After breakfast, we returned to our hotel room and went through our checklist, made sure our backpacks were securely zipped and locked, that our money and passports were safely strapped inside the waists of our shirts.

  “We have to be on the defensive,” I said. “Some of the street people are very persistent.”

  Once we were dressed in clothes that covered us from head to toe and rendered us as inconspicuous as possible, I checked the zippers on Kate’s backpack. I dug into the small zipper of my own backpack to make sure I had ready money so that I wouldn’t have to open my money belt in public. As I jammed my fingers into the small space, I felt something hard. I made tweezers with my fingers and pulled it out. It was the charm of St. Brigid! The patron saint of travelers! The charm Dad had given me that I was so sure I had lost. “Kate, you’re never going to believe this,” I said.

  “What?”

  “We found our talisman!” I held it out for her to see and told her about it, how my father had given the charm to me on my birthday with the hopes that I would take a trip, how I’d thought it was lost for good.

  “It’s our talisman!” she said.

  I reached around her neck and secured the clasp.

  “You’re letting me wear it?” she asked, reaching up to feel it.

  “I’m letting you have it,” I said. “If you want it. I’d love for you to have it.”

  Kate lunged into my arms.

  We were ready for our next step.

  We bought train tickets to Agra and after a 220-kilometer ride, we exited the rails and headed toward the Taj Mahal. Immediately we were accosted by souvenir vendors, unofficial guides offering us private tours, and children selling trinkets. I took Kate by the arm and pushed through them. Protecting Kate was my priority. I had assured Joe and Lucy of my ability to do so, but now that we were here, I questioned whether I would have the skill to get us through these aggressive crowds. “No, thank you! We’re all set!” I pushed us forward.

  We made it to the guards with the guns, who frisked us and checked our bags. After the guards passed us along, I reclaimed my grip on Kate’s wrist, a hold she tried to twist from every so often, trying to point at something, but that was not going to happen. Not on my watch. With my sunglasses perched atop my head and my money belt strapped tightly around my waist, I squeezed Kate’s wrist with one hand and the brochure in the other and read: “The Taj Mahal is the finest example of Mughal architecture, combining the style of the Persians, the Indians, the Islamic, and the Turkish.”

  “Missy!” Kate said.

  “Hold on,” I told her. “Listen to this. Construction began in 1632, and over the course of its building, over twenty thousand laborers worked on it.”

  Kate tugged at my sleeve. “Missy! You’re missing it.”

  I looked up and saw that we had passed through the archway, and what stood in front of us—our first peek at the Taj’s dome—was otherworldly. White marble so pristine its purity seemed ethereal. The sun beamed gloriously on the unspoiled palace. Just then, a clump of clouds shrouded the brightness, and in its shade, the Taj mellowed to a dreamy pink.

  Kate and I stared at each other in wonder.

  “It says here that the white marble often looks as though it’s changing colors, depending on how the sunlight and moonlight hit it,” I said.

  “Kind of like getting away from school,” Kate said. “Everything looks different in a new light.”

  I gawked at her. “You are just fourteen, right?” I joked, nudging her, this little mystic who seemed to have it all figured out. The fact that she almost let a group of middle school girls derail her cut me in half.

  “I’m totally serious,” she said. “Just getting some distance—being here—I already feel totally more equipped to go back, you know?”

  I knew we were only a few days into this trip and that it would take time for Kate to find the strength and confidence to weather the storms of her teenage life, but this—getting some distance, gaining perspective—was as good a first step as I could hope for.

  The next day we boarded the train back to New Delhi. The minute we stepped from the train there, we were crowded by beggars. I pulled Kate through the train station and when I saw her eyes focused on a group of children—a few of whom were deformed or missing limbs—I pulled her close to me and told her she needed to be prepared, that she was about to see more sadness than she had in her lifetime. I had already told her about the multitude of orphan children, many of whom had been abducted by crime rings and mutilated so that they would appear needier when sent out to beg. An entire society of orphan children spent their lifetimes—barely out of infancy—working for others, every day, long hours, for very little food and wage. Though I had already told Kate about the horrors of India, I watched her face grow pale. She could not look away from the band of children.

  I took Kate’s arm and led her inside the train station and sat her on a bench. I pulled out our bottle of water and gave her a swig.

  “These kids,” she said, grasping for words, her solemn eyes glued to mine. “Their problems . . .” She covered her face and began to cry. “I feel so stupid. So selfish, complaining about . . .”

  I hugged her. “Kate, no,” I said. “You cannot make comparisons. Each person has her own struggles. Your struggles were . . . are . . . real. Don’t minimize your feelings just because we’re staring at kids worse off.”

  “Still. There has never been a day of my life when I haven’t had my basic needs met: food, clothing, shelter, love. I’ve never been too hot or too cold. I’ve never been forced to do anything against my will.” Her shoulders bobbed and she cried some more.

  I planted a kiss on her forehead. “Oh, honey, thank God that’s true. And yes, it is true. We’re First World girls with First World problems. But we’re here now to help these Third World children with their Third World problems. We’re going to make a difference, Kate.”

  “I want to help them,” Kate pleaded. “We have to help them.”

  “We will,” I said. “And meanwhile, we can definitely say we’ve ‘crossed the threshold’ on our hero’s journey, right?”

  “Good point!” Kate said, wiping her eyes. “We have definitely left the known limits of our world and are venturing in a realm where rules and limits are not known.” She pulled out her journal and poured her heart into three pages of notes.

  A half hour later, I was greeted by a vision far more beautiful than the Taj Mahal. In front of me was Reina—golden-ray-of-sunshine Reina in cheerfully red capris and a skintight T-shirt, not the least bit concerned with looking conspicuous. And the fact was, Reina blended in anywhere; she belonged everywhere. She didn’t need to cover up to meld with the local culture; her attitude did it for her.

  “That’s Reina,” I whispered to Kate.

  “Wow,” said Kate.

  We stood and I wrapped Reina in a giant hug, then stepped aside. “And this,” I announced with ceremony, “is Kate Santelli.”

  “There ought’a be a law,” Reina said, hugging Kate, “against being this gorgeous.”

  Kate beamed.

  There were gleeful moments of hugging and touching and appreciating each other, incandescent smiles filled with joy, admiration for haircuts and clothing choices, backpacks and jewelry. Just as Reina was complimenting the matching friendship bracelets Kate and I had made on the flight over, Kate pulled out a third one and handed it to her.

  “We made one for you, too.”

  Reina lit up, rolling it over her wrist, and then walked to a street vendor and purchased three colas.

  We returned to the bench, and after Kate distributed candy bars from h
er backpack, Reina briefed us on our next leg. She had once again hired her pal Salim to be our driver and translator. He would be here shortly to drive us to the orphanage. While Kate kicked back for a minute, Reina filled me in on the latest legal machinations. Her buddy from HBS was able to secure us our license to operate, and his family had been happy to purchase the parcel of land that stood adjacent to the existing structure. Demolition would soon begin and our new building would be erected.

  “Bribes—large and small—greased the wheels,” Reina said. “But this is India. Bribing is SOP.”

  According to Reina, the community was already buzzing, and if early interest was any indication, outreach to area fathers wouldn’t present the challenge we feared it might: they had already taken to waiting with their daughters outside the existing building, hoping to enroll. Though Mrs. Pundari took their names and assured them she’d be in touch when registration began, they still returned, day after day.

  When Salim arrived, we greeted him like an old friend. I hadn’t noticed the first time around, but he was probably only eighteen years old himself, a good-looking guy with low-slung slacks and seriously styled hair. It was the way he looked at Kate that clued me into his youth.

  “Kate’s fourteen years old,” I said to Salim. “Fourteen.”

  In Salim’s car, we drove first through the congested city streets and then into the countryside, where the crowding and shocking poverty scarcely lessened. Kate was shell-shocked, and because I felt my words were weightless against the demands of her grief, I simply draped my arm around her and offered her my shoulder. To see the barefoot children wading through the mountains of garbage, the preteens asleep on the edges of the street, and the girls soliciting themselves in alleyways was belladonna to the brain.

  Thunder rumbled; rain dumped from above, roads filled with ankle-deep water. With Kate still glued to my shoulder, I wondered about the shoddy rooftops and dirt floors and children on the streets we were passing. What did a deluge like this mean to them? How many times could one family rebuild before they lost the will to survive?

  The rain had stopped by the time we pulled up to the orphanage.

  “Home for the Orphaned and Malnourished Girls. Home for the Destitute,” Kate read quietly.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, squeezing her hand. “It’s actually quite happy inside. Wait’ll you see the girls.”

  Reina and I gathered backpacks and bags from the trunk of Salim’s car and led Kate to the building. We entered through the back and wended our way until the chorus of chatter and girls filled our ears. When the girls saw us, they greeted us with smiles wide enough to bridge the garbage-laden country.

  Mrs. Pundari had prepared lunch for us: flatbread grilled on her griddle and topped with vegetables. While Reina ate according to Indian culture, using her hand as a utensil to tear up her bread, mixing in the vegetables and sauce, and scooping the contents into her mouth, Kate and I opted to keep our bread whole, and instead wrapped our veggies inside, like a burrito. The girls sipped from their small steel cups, ate, and never stopped giggling.

  Hours later, as the afternoon sky darkened, Salim drove us three miles down the road to town and the motel we would call home for the next six weeks. It was a provincial little motel, far from the Marriott in the city, but it was nice and clean and would provide a safe refuge for us each night.

  The next day, we got to work.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  It was only our second day at the orphanage. Kate and I were working outside, curriculum materials spread out on a flat piece of scrap wood set atop two old sawhorses, when a teenage girl hobbled up. She was an amputee—one leg, the other stopping below her knee, just like Joe’s, but no prosthetic. She was pretty, with a long, glossy braid and bright eyes. She told us her name was Aneeta. “It means Grace,” she said.

  “My middle name is Grace,” Kate said.

  Aneeta told us she lost her leg when she was trapped in a house fire when she was little. Kate told her about her father. And like that, they became BFFs.

  Aneeta wasn’t typical of the kids in the area. She actually had two parents and both of them supported education. Though her mother hadn’t been educated formally, her father had, and taught Aneeta to read when she was little. Kate told Aneeta about some of her favorite books. They went off to look at them, and from that moment on, they were nearly inseparable. Kate Santelli, a kid who couldn’t make a friend all year in middle school, even if her GPA depended on it.

  Aneeta helped us out, as well. She was able to tell us what most Indian kids in this region knew and didn’t know. Many of them were wise in math because of the bartering and selling of goods they were forced to do. While most of them had at least a basic understanding of English, their reading skills were poor. And as for history, what was going on in the rest of the world, most had very little idea.

  “With a population as large as ours,” Aneeta said, “you would think that there would be more to our lives, but they’re actually quite simple, quite small.”

  Every minute of every day, we worked. In the morning, crews of laborers would show up, or they wouldn’t. Some days we were hopeful, watching the men demolish walls, knowing that soon new ones would be rebuilt. But then days would pass and the workers wouldn’t arrive on the site, and we were left trying to maneuver around yet another pile of rubble.

  One week, the construction crew rolled up, ready to install the toilets, a luxury the orphanage heretofore hadn’t enjoyed; only, the workers couldn’t begin because the water taps and plumbing had yet to be fully connected. In order for the water work to be finished, we needed new paperwork to be signed and stamped, even though we had already completed sheaves of forms the month earlier. The ironic thing was that it wasn’t about the big money; it was about the small money. Between my start-up capital, the grants we’d received from One by One, and a number of alliances we had forged—chief among them one with water.org to provide for safe water and sanitary conditions—we had the operational budget. The problems we encountered were largely bureaucratic, structural, political—all of which required incentive money.

  Aside from the construction issues, we continued to be swarmed with interested girls and their fathers. Notices had been posted in the village alerting the families of the school’s opening. Each day, girls and their fathers, sometimes their entire families, would walk to the construction site, drop off their applications, and ask to be accepted. So far we had more than one hundred applications for only a handful of available spots.

  Every night Reina and I read applications and made piles, aware that our decisions meant choosing to give opportunity to one girl while denying it to another.

  Each morning, Kate worked alongside Reina and me. In the afternoon, she gave reading lessons to the orphanage kids and any other curious kids who’d come to check out the school. With Aneeta’s help, they split the youngest from the oldest kids into groups and worked on their English.

  I had only known Kate for a short time, but I knew her well enough to savor the glow that now emanated from her. There was no hint of the anxiety that had once muffled it. Her face was now wide-open and joyful, eager and expectant. She had traveled overseas and seen a much bigger world. She had lived in a village hemmed in by tradition and environment and seen a much smaller world. Somewhere in there, she had found her place. Much of the same could be said for me.

  Because the daily operation of the orphanage had no choice but to continue on in the midst of the construction, it did, shuffling living quarters and kitchen supplies to one side of the building, and then again to the other. Meanwhile, the construction crew did its part to accommodate the residents, building new walls and structures on the outside, before knocking down the old facades on the inside. For many weeks, the image was one of a building wrapped around a building, a graft and a host, scaffolding encasing an ailing edifice.

  We had been working for exactly
a month when the Dynamic Duo—Kate and Aneeta—approached me with mischievous smiles.

  “Cat? Canary? What are you two up to?”

  They looked at each other, holding hands, and grinned conspiratorially at me. “We have the most awesome idea!” Kate said.

  “And by awesome you mean you have a way to get the construction workers to work more than four hours a day?”

  “More like awesome for us,” Aneeta said.

  Kate looked at me with puppy-dog eyes, an expression that struck me as extraordinarily childlike—a state I didn’t think Kate was altogether familiar with, worrying for her father at war, assuming her position as the eldest child, maintaining her straight-A averages. “We want to have a sleepover.”

  “Here?” I asked, already thinking that there was no problem with that. There were plenty of new beds in the dormitory.

  “At Aneeta’s,” Kate said. “Her parents said it would be okay and they would be home the entire time and they would walk us both ways.”

  I looked at Aneeta, not wanting her to think I didn’t trust her parents. “Aneeta, you know I adore you and your parents, but I kind of vowed—like promised on my life—that I wouldn’t let Kate out of my sight.”

  “It is only a mile away,” Aneeta assured me, in her mature British-English voice. “And our house is substantial, with a real door and lock.”

  I knew this to be true. Kate and I had walked Aneeta home on a few occasions. Her family lived in a relatively nice neighborhood.

  “It’s a mile from here,” I said, “but it’s at least four miles from the motel where we stay every night.”