Salvage

by Duncan, Alexandra

  Something tender and stricken plays across Rushil’s face, and I realize it’s pity. A shudder of anger passes through me. I don’t want his pity. I don’t want anyone’s.

  “Listen, my house is only a few blocks away.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets and tilts his head back in the direction of the canal. “You lot look like you could do with sitting down. Maybe get some food in you.”

  The part of me still shaking wants to refuse, give him that sign with the finger Perpétue taught me and stalk off on my own. That’s what I would do if it was just me, but it’s not. There’s Miyole. I’ve got to keep her alive, keep her fed, find water.

  “Right so,” I agree. “Lead the way.”

  We pass back along the same dusty streets Miyole and I walked the night before. Now that the sun is out, men and women squat on squares of bright-colored cloth in the small space between the shops and the road, hawking jewelry, painted shells, bolts of cloth, scuffed handhelds, and other trinkets. More of the little green street sweepers whirr around the crowd’s feet. I have to jump over one that darts in front of me. The pipe hovers overhead, its dripping-paint shapes scrawled on the underside. Juice vendors have set up shop in its shade, propping up colorful umbrellas to protect them from the constant dripping.

  When we reach the landing fields, the dogs come back, barking and snarling as we pass the fences.

  “Yeah, yeah, we know,” Rushil says to them. “You’re terrifying. You’re the most vicious creatures on Earth.” He grins over his shoulder at me and rolls his eyes.

  We stop beside a wire-link fence with a keypad lock. Razor wire curls along the top. Rushil taps in the access code and holds the gate open for us.

  “Mademoiselles, welcome to my humble estate.”

  We duck through to the other side. A dirt-and-concrete lot covered in a jumble of ships and spare parts stretches back as far as I can see. Sun-reflecting tarps cover some of them, but others are clearly junkers.

  “Come on in. I’ll see if Pala has the tea ready.” He tilts his head at a low-slung metal trailer propped up on cinderblocks in the corner of the lot. Broadcast needles and receiving dishes cover its roof. A stringy cat uncurls itself from a dish on the roof, hops down, and darts into a hole in some latticework. Two folding chairs sit in front of the trailer, one of them holding the narrow door ajar.

  “Got some customers there, Vaish?” A lanky boy lolls atop a sleek, two-engine daytripper in the next lot over.

  Rushil stops. “What do you care, Shruti?”

  Shruti grins and dangles his legs over the ship’s side. “Just watching out for these ladies.” He eyes me. “You looking for a place to dock, chikni?”

  I look at Rushil and shrug.

  Shruti shakes his head. “Don’t dock with Rushil Vaish. He’ll chop up your ship and sell its bits.”

  Rushil closes his eyes. His jaw tightens. “Shruti, I swear . . .”

  Shruti slides down the side of the daytripper and hooks his fingers through the fence. “Dock with me. I’ll make you a much better deal.”

  “So?” I spare a quick glance at Rushil.

  “Yeah.” Shruti locks eyes with me and gives me a sideways smile. “You can dock with me for nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “That’s right,” he says. “But if we’re doing each other favors . . .” He drops his eyes to my breasts and cocks his head, grinning with all his perfect teeth.

  “Satak le, Shruti.” Rushil smacks the fence between them. “Gross. No one’s going to fall for that.”

  “She would.” Shruti raises his eyebrows at me. “How about it, chikni?”

  “N . . . no,” I stammer. “No.” My skin crawls.

  Shruti winks as he backs away. “Open offer. You know where I am if you change your mind.”

  “Sorry about him.” Rushil pulls the chair propping the trailer door open out of the way. “Whoever put Shruti together only gave him one setting.”

  Inside, every spare surface is crammed with junk. A dozen fans bolted to the ceiling and walls stir the air. At the back of the trailer, a sheet barely covers an alcove with a raised bunk and a window. In the front, I see a cramped kitchen with a portable stove some like the one Perpétue kept, only streaked with grease all over its sides. It looks like no one ever takes it apart to clean it.

  “Where’s—” I start to ask, but Rushil pulls back the sheet, waking an enormous white dog with pointed ears. It blinks sleepily at us and thumps its tail on the bed.

  “There you are, Pala.” Rushil kneels down beside the dog and ruffles its ears. “Did you make tea for us? No?” Rushil shakes his head. “He’s a terrible housekeeper.”

  “Oh,” I say. I’m stretched too thin to laugh. Miyole doesn’t say anything.

  The dog stands and jumps down to the floor, and it’s only then that I realize it’s missing one of its back legs. It hobbles after Rushil, wagging its tail, as he scoops a stack of warped paper repair manuals and a battered tablet from the trailer’s one sagging chair, drops them on the bunk, and then pulls the curtain closed to hide the mess.

  “I’ll get the tea brewing.” He edges around us. “I think I’ve got some roti in here, too. I can heat it up.”

  I circle slowly in middle of the cramped trailer. “You live here alone?”

  “Yeah.” Rushil grabs an armful of dirty mugs and cups from a small table by the wall, then hurries into the tiny kitchen. “Well, me and Pala. This place was my uncle’s before he died.”

  “Oh,” I say again.

  “Sorry about the mess.” Rushil scoops the rest of the junk from the table—connecter lines, coins, a multitool, bits of paper covered with numbers, tacks, an old leather-stitched ball—and dumps everything into a plastic bin half full of snarled cables. “I keep this stuff to reuse, but sometimes I forget.”

  He waves a hand at the chair. “Go on, sit down. Tea’s almost on.”

  I sit. Miyole crowds into the chair beside me. She leans her head against my shoulder and picks at her bandages.

  “Don’t scratch,” I say. Another thing we need. Medicine. Proper bandages for her hands.

  Pala limps up to us and snuffles Miyole, then props his head on her knees, giving her a hopeful look.

  “Pala, don’t beg!” Rushil comes back with a teapot, some plates of flat, round bread, and three glass cups. “He’s not much of a guard dog, either.”

  Rushil hands me a sloshing-full glass of tea. I take a sip. The tea is hot and milky, sweet, but with a bite of something, clove maybe, and something else we never had on the Parastrata. We drink in silence. The tea is perfect, and the bread a little stale, but I swear it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I try to eat slowly, but I can’t keep myself from pushing more and more into my mouth. Miyole is eating, too, thank the Mercies.

  Rushil watches us in wonder. “What happened to you two?”

  I stop with a scrap of bread halfway to my mouth and lay it down on the plate again. “We were up on a run. Her mother . . .” I look at Miyole. She sits frozen, her eyes glazed over, but I can tell she’s listening to every word.

  Nausea fingers the back of my throat. I can’t talk on it now, I want to say. If I start talking on what’s passed, it will turn me inside out. “I’m sorry, I can’t—”

  I’m going to be sick. I push myself out of the chair and run outside. I double over behind a pile of rusted metal corrugate beside the trailer. My stomach buckles and heaves, and all the bread I’ve eaten comes up. I spit into the dirt. I wipe my mouth and look out on the roofs of the Salt. Solar panels glare back at me, and laundry hangs stiff on runners. A breeze kicks up a puff of dust, sends it curling.

  Rushil stands in the door, looking worried. “You okay?”

  “I think I ate too fast.”

  Rushil kicks the dirt. “That can happen.”

  “Right so.” I catch his eye and a strange, soft feeling passes through me. I want to thank him for acting as if everything is even keel, but I also want to slink under the house with hi
s cat and pretend I’m dead for a little while.

  “You need water,” he says. “Come back inside. I’ll get some for you.”

  “What about . . . ?” I grimace at the stacks of corrugate.

  “Oh, don’t worry. Pala will get that sorted.”

  It takes me a moment to realize what he means. “Ew.”

  He cracks a smile. “He’s not such a bad housekeeper after all.”

  I laugh. A small, brittle thing, but I can’t help myself. I think of Perpétue on the roof. Laugh or cry, is that it, fi?

  I drink the water slowly, taking little sips so I’m sure it will stay down. Miyole rubs Pala’s ears absentmindedly, humming to herself.

  “Your aunt,” Rushil says. “She lives here in Mumbai?”

  “I think so. She works at a university. She’s a so doc—I mean a doctor.” I shrug. “At least, that’s what the feeds say.”

  “Maybe . . .” Rushil studies his knuckles. They’re knobby and thick with old scar tissue at the joints. They’ve been broken, I realize.

  “I don’t mean this the way Shruti did,” Rushil says, still looking down. “But maybe we could work something out. Maybe you could keep your ship here and pay me back when you find your aunt.” He looks up at me.

  I tighten my jaw, wary. The thing that Shruti boy said comes back at me. What if this is some kind of trap?

  “You won’t come after us for more later?” I say. You won’t come looking for favors? You won’t chop up our ship and sell its bits?

  “Of course not.” Rushil rolls his eyes. “Don’t listen to anything Shruti says. They had a break-in over there last month. Lost two craft to ship strippers, and now they can’t keep their clients, so he’s trying to pick off mine.”

  I look from Miyole to Pala, and back to Rushil. Maybe this is the perfect fix.

  Too fast, too raveled, a small voice says in the back of my head, a faint echo of what I felt before. But I ignore it.What choice do I have?

  “Done,” I say.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER .21

  “Miyole,” I try to shake her awake. Morning-blue light filters in through the sloop’s open hatch.

  She rolls over and blinks at me. “What?”

  “Time to get up.” After we flew the sloop to Rushil’s lot yesterday afternoon, he spent some time on his grimy old tablet, showing me how to get to Kalina. We’re going to find my modrie.

  Miyole buries her head in her mother’s jacket. “I don’t want to.”

  I rock back on my heels. She doesn’t want to?

  “Mi.” I try again. “Come on. All we have to do is ride down to—”

  “I said I don’t want to!” Miyole shouts. She shoots me an acid look and wraps her arms over her face, as if that will hide her.

  I stand. “Fine. Stay.” If she wants to be a brat, she can be a brat alone. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t go anywhere, right so? If you need something, tell Rushil.”

  On the way to Sion station, a pair of men in white linen clip by on horseback, swishes of gold thread braided into their animals’ tails. I step aside, into the gutter. The more I see horses, the more they unnerve me. So far, I’ve seen no oil-fed groundcrawlers in Mumbai like there were in Mirny. It seems anyone halfway wealthy rides a horse or, more rarely, an elephant. Rushil told me they’re trained not to run over people on the street, but I can’t make myself trust them.

  I ride the floating trains through south Mumbai, the annoyance trickles out of me, and guilt grows in its place. I shouldn’t have snapped at Miyole. She’s just lost her mother, her home, everything she knows. I should have spoken kinder. I should have given her more time.

  I peer out and up at the skyline at our next stop. The buildings shoot up in spiraling confections of reinforced glass and sheer, stately reflective metals, so tall the streets would stand in twilight every hour but midday if it weren’t for the glow of smartboards. Glittering words and pictures span the sides of the higher buildings, and past them, the sky crawls with ships.

  A man sitting on one of the concrete stairs between buildings catches my eye. Stringy gray hair falls over his ears, and his feet are bare and covered in sores. He holds a sign: HUNGRY. HELP PLEAS. DHANYAVAD. Even I can read it. But everyone on the street walks by all the same, as if he’s a ghost.

  The man sees me staring and springs up. He dodges through the morning traffic and approaches my window, hand outheld. I start back. I have nothing to give him. Can’t he see that? Shame boils in me—for him, asking, and for me, with nothing. I shake my head. His face falls. He raises a fist and starts yelling something in that language I can’t understand, muffled by the window. He smacks the glass, and then, mercifully, a soft bong, and the train pulls forward again. He melts into the crowd as we pick up speed.

  I sit down in one of the empty seats, shaken.

  “You can’t let them know you see them, dear,” says a plump, middle-aged woman next to me. She looks me up and down. “Especially when you’re dressed like a tourist.”

  I nod, too confused to argue. The train starts to fill with a younger crowd as we come closer to the Kalina campus. Young men and women sit quietly thumbing through their handhelds, or else laugh together. I shrink in my seat and stare out the window, willing myself invisible. I know they’re only a turn or so older than me, but somehow that feels like a gulf what can’t be bridged. Any breath now, one of them is sure to point me out for the fraud I am. She isn’t one of us. She doesn’t belong here.

  But no one says a word. No one even seems to notice me as we pile off the train together at the university stop. I hestitate on the platform, unsure of where to go. The crowd of students flows around me, down the broad, shady paths to the buildings visible through the trees. Behind me, the train pulls away in a gust of hot air.

  “Room two-oh-three, Wadla Building for Linguistic Sciences.” I recite the address Rushil found to myself. I take a few steps and stop. What if . . . What if this doesn’t work? What if Soraya won’t help us?

  Come, Ava, courage. Perpétue is in my ear again. What choice do you have?

  None, I know that. But what good will it do to arrive at Soraya’s door so nervous I can’t keep my tongue from stumbling? I should walk a bit, calm my head. Perpétue left Miyole alone for longer than this most days; she’ll be safe inside the sloop. I can steal a few minutes to give the ground time to firm up under me.

  I follow the path under the trees. Students sit together on benches, or read on blankets spread out in the shade. A whole herd of young men and women jog along in a pack.

  The sun has barely cleared the treetops, but the heat is already closing in. I follow a trickle of students to a weathered stone building with an immense, jeweled window set in its face. Ornamental spires rise from its roof. I can’t help staring up at the tinted glass until I pass beneath the stone arch, into the cool darkness.

  A sudden hush descends inside the building. The only illumination comes from a series of lighted glass boxes along the walls. The nearest box holds what looks like a tablet, only larger, and encased in a bulky shell. It even has movable keys for clicking—a pretty thing, but not very sensible. Next to it, a book lies open on a red velvet stand. At least, I think it’s a book. It looks nothing like the thin scraps of bound paper Miyole scrounged from the kindling piles for me. It dwarfs the tablet beside it, and I can almost feel the weight of it through the glass. A deep ocher hide stretches over the book’s cover boards, and even the paper looks heavy—almost clothlike, with rough edges.

  To my left, someone sneezes. I look up and see a stone arch leading to high-vaulted room dusted with sunlight. Long, dark wood tables run in two neat rows on both sides of a central aisle, and on the far side, someone mans a high, crescent-shaped desk. Two identical stairways curve up, leading to another level, this one lit by high windows. And all around, rows on rows of
ancient, bound books paper the walls. The silence is so complete, I can hear a page turn, a muffled cough.

  “Can I help you?” A quiet voice reaches out of the darkness to me.

  I gasp and turn. A woman with dark hair and a gold-rimmed round of glass hung around her neck sits at a small desk behind me.

  “N-no. Thank you, so . . .” But she’s already standing and walking around the desk to me. Her shoes make a sharp clack-clack on the stone floor.

  “Are you looking for anything in particular?” She smiles at me, but her words have a point to them.

  “The . . .” I grope for something to say. “The Wadla Building. So doctor . . . I mean, Dr. Hertz . . .”

  “Ah.” Her face softens into a genuine smile. “Are you a potential student? Considering Mumbai University?”

  “Right so . . . yes.” It seems a safe thing to say, since she’s smiling.

  She makes for her desk. “I can contact one of our student ambassadors, have them give you a guided tour, if you like.”

  “No!” The word comes out louder than I mean. I lower my voice. “I mean, thank you, so, I’m fine on my own.”

  “All right, but if you change your mind . . .” She waves a hand at her desk. “If you go out the back entrance, through the rose gardens, and then turn right past the new biophysics labs, you’ll find the Wadla Building. It’s the yellow one, three floors.”

  “Thank you, so missus.” I hurry away before she can salt me with more questions and offers to help.

  The back entrance opens up on blinding sunlight and a smell so sweet I can near taste the air. I’ve seen flowers before—beans have them, and squash, some of the crops we grew in hydroponics aboard the Parastrata—but they were always delicate things that withered away in service of their fruits. The ones overflowing their beds before me are lush, layers and layers of thick, velvety petals bursting from their stems in showy reds and soft pinks, and even yellow. Fat bees buzz around them.

  I put out a hand to the warm stone wall to keep myself from sinking down to the thick carpet of grass. To have such beauty around you all the time—and to have the luxury to waste soil and light and water on something meant only to please. It fills me with awe and anger. How do some people live this way when their neighbors go without food or water? Do they not care? Or do the flowers simply help them forget what they can’t change?