Ankur slaps Rushil’s shoulder again. “I’ve got to get the show started. Grab a seat anywhere.”
We find seats in the last row. I glance around, still nervous, but no one spares a second glance for me.
“How did you hear about this place?” I whisper to Rushil.
“Ankur and me, we used to work here selling drinks, after I, um . . . after I got out. He runs the whole night shift now.”
Just then, the chandelier dims. A shaft of light beams down from the back wall, and the empty square before us bursts into a flurry of colors and swirling lights. Music booms down from the ceiling, sudden and brassy, full of drums and horns, and one long word in the script I’ve seen used for Hindi jumps onto the screen. A woman’s voice joins the music, and at the same moment, she dances into view, spinning over the letters—bapabapabapabapa—in time with the tempo. When she reaches the end of the word, a man steps in and catches her hand. Then they’re dancing together, leaping over the letters and out into a restaurant, where they land on a table. The cooks and waiters and everyone sitting around them all leap up and join the dance, too.
It’s too much. I’ve seen feeds and grainy clips on ship-to-ship transmitters, plus the glittery moving ads on the sides of buildings, but there’s something different about this. The colors bleed too thick and rich, as if the figures in a tapestry have sprung to life. I cover my eyes and lean forward, dizzy.
“Are you okay?” Rushil whispers.
I nod and sit up.
“You want to go?” Rushil asks.
I shake my head. I lean as far back in my chair as I can and look at the screen again. Now the woman sits alone by her window, plucking petals from a violently orange flower, the kind I’ve seen sold in the Sion station market. Kohl rings her eyes, and a single tear tracks its way over her cheek without leaving a smudge. She starts singing again, and even though I can’t understand the words, I can tell her song is about heartbreak. But she’s not content to sit around destroying flowers. She flings open the doors of her family’s house and draws her sisters, and then her mother, and then the family’s servants out into the courtyard to sing to her father about how cruel he is to keep her away from her love.
“I’m okay,” I whisper. “It’s only . . . I didn’t know what to expect.”
But now I see. It’s like my mother’s stories, only with live people saying the words. I can follow it some. Half the time the people talk in Hindi, half the time in English, but I can tell something about the two lovers’ families keeping them apart. The man flies a passenger ship for a living—there’s another song and dance in the narrow aisles of the craft that has something to do with some of the passengers wanting coffee and others wanting tea—but she’s heir to her family’s electronics business, and they don’t want her leaving home. There’s a lot of hiding in closets and singing, but in the end they get married and she runs the company from the ship, and everyone—the man and woman, their families, and the passengers all end up happily dancing together on the craft’s wings.
I find myself humming the tune to the coffee-and-tea song as we sneak out the back of the theater and rattle down the fire stairs. Rushil joins in, bobbing his head from side to side and batting his eyes like the woman in the show, and soon I’m laughing too hard to keep singing.
We trip around the front of the building as the crowd disperses into the night. We race across the promenade and stop, out of breath, beside a marble wall overlooking one of the city’s artificial bays. It laps below us, closed off from the sea by the levee. A set of gaats leads down to the water, where twinkling pleasure boats ferry their riders out into the bay. Voices and laughter echo to us across the water.
“That’s the Gateway of India.” Rushil points to a massive stone arch lit up like the moon on the far side of the bay, and then to an even grander building behind it. This one has red domed towers capping its top and corner rooms, and lighted windows setting it aglow from within. “And that’s the Taj.”
“Is it a palace?” Another word I learned from Miyole’s books.
Rushil laughs. “Close enough. It’s a hotel.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
Mumbai shines along the curve of the levee. I feel lighter, more than I have since . . . maybe ever. I hoist myself up onto the wall and let the ocean breeze play with my hair. Rushil leans beside me. I look down. VEER + JIHAN 4EVR. I trace my fingers over the letters scratched into the stone.
I look up and catch Rushil watching me.
“Did you have someone?” he asks. “Back where you’re from?”
I nod. I should tell him about Luck and what we did, about the whole mess of it, but the words stick in my throat.
I swallow. “What about you? Did you ever . . . I mean . . .” My face goes hot, thinking of that afternoon in the cramped kitchen, his lips on mine.
Rushil shrugs. “Once. Before I got sent away, there was this girl Shama. We were only kids, but . . .” He looks over at me and smiles sadly. “She was the first girl I kissed. Anyway, when I got back, she’d found someone else. She has a kid now. . . .” He trails off and stares out over the city.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“What can you do, you know?” He drops his eyes to the water, and then looks over and gives me a half smile. “At least we’re here.”
“We are,” I agree.
A silence follows. I trace the names in the stone again.
“Thank you,” I say without looking up. “For tonight.”
“I’m just glad I got you to do something other than work,” Rushil teases.
I shrug. “It’s what I’ve got to do. For Miyole.”
“I get that.” Rushil nods. “But you’ve got to take care of yourself, too.”
I look up at him, trying to draw the sense from what he’s said.
“What?” A self-conscious smile picks at the corner of his mouth.
“Nothing,” I say, and smile back. “I’m happy, is all. I’m glad I came tonight.”
“Me too.” Rushil hops down onto the sidewalk and holds out his hand to help me down from the wall. “Let’s go home.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER .28
Two blocks away from the shipyard, a crowd of boys shoves past us, running full tilt. One of them lets out a whoop as he knocks Rushil into the chain-link fence along the side of the road.
Rushil picks himself up. “Pankaj?”
The older boy wheels around, eyes lit up with glee. He gives us the same sign with his fingers that Perpétue taught me on Bhutto station and dashes off into the night. Rushil stands frozen, staring after him.
I clutch Rushil’s arm. “What’s he doing here?”
Rushil doesn’t answer. He grabs my hand instead and pulls me into a run. “Come on.”
The moment the shipyard comes into view, I know something is wrong. All the floodlights are on, washing the perimeter in something brighter and colder than daylight, and smoke clouds the air. An alarm blares up in a long, winding howl, then trips off and winds up again. The sound rings through to the marrow of my bones. Rushil and I exchange a look.
Miyole.
I let go of his hand and dash for the fence. The section near the entry gate is blown apart. The razor wire still curls along the top bar, but below, the mesh bows inward and splits into two blackened sections, leaving a hole wide enough to drive a small vehicle through. I stop at the opening. The sharp bite of ozone hangs in the air, and beneath it something sickly sweet.
“Miyole?” I try to shout above the alarm.
A metal barrel lies on its side against Rushil’s trailer. Small puddles of liquid burn around it, licking at the siding and sending up a thick, ugly cloud of smoke.
“Chaila,” Rushil curses and runs for the flames, ripping off his jacket.
I duck through after him. The sick-sweet burning smell grows st
ronger. Mercies, please let her be in the sloop. Please let her be safe. I pull my shirt up over my nose and run.
Our vessel looms out of the smoke, lit by the flashing perimeter lights and then plunged into night again. I sprint for the hatch.
“Miyole!” The alarm blares on, deafening. I bang on the sloop’s side and scream again. “Miyole, it’s me. It’s Ava!” The door stays sealed. I spin around, searching for Rushil, but I can’t see anything through the smoke clouding the passage to his trailer. I should never have left her alone, not even for a few hours. Not with what I knew about Wailers and thieves. Mercies, please, let her be smarter than me. Let her be safe in the ship.
“Miyole!” I try again, thumping my fist against the sloop’s hatch. “It’s—”
Suddenly, the lights stop their flashing and the alarm cuts off. My voice rings out in the silence. “—Ava. Are you in there?”
A muffled thunk echoes from inside the sloop, and then the hatch rattles open. Miyole crouches by the opening mechanism, eyes wide, one arm tight around Pala’s neck.
“Mercies.” I run to her side.
She clings to me, utterly silent and shaking. Relief floods me, and then guilt. I never should have left her alone to go do something so foolish. A musical. What was I thinking?
You weren’t. You’re the same selfish girl you always were.
“I couldn’t find you, Ava.” Miyole says into my shoulder. “There were men outside trying to get in the gate, and I couldn’t find you, so I got Pala and sealed the door and stayed quiet.”
“You did the right thing.” I hug her tighter. “I’m so sorry. I’m just glad you’re safe.”
“What happened?” She lets go of my neck and looks at me.
“I don’t know. But I think Rushil does.”
I tramp through the smoke and harsh lights, carrying Miyole. Pala runs ahead. We come upon Rushil kicking dirt over the small pools of flame beside his trailer to stop the fire from spreading. I put Miyole down. A small knot of people have gathered near the hole in the fence. I spot Shruti among them, laughing about something with the woman who owns the shipyard across the way. Bad fortune for their competition means good fortune for them, I guess.
Rushil lifts the drum upright with a grunt and steps back to inspect it. “Looks like they used thermite on the gate, but this is only gasoline. A lot of smoke and fire, but no real damage done.” He looks up and catches sight of me and Miyole, her face smudged with ash where she’s been rubbing at her eyes.
“Oh, God.” He takes a step toward us. “They didn’t hurt her, did they?”
I don’t stop. My limbs hum with rage and fear. “What happened?” I shove him in the chest. “You said you were done with them! Why were they here?”
I catch him off guard, and he goes down in the puddle of gasoline. Confusion flits across his face, then a flash of anger. For a slip, I think he’s going to stand and swing at me.
“I am done with them.” He picks himself up. “If I was still with them, why would they try to set my house on fire and blow up my gate?” He swings an arm wildly at the twisted fence.
“Why would they do it either way?” I’m shouting now. I know I’m not making much sense, but I can’t seem to stop.
“Because they want me back!” Rushil turns away and kicks the drum so hard it falls over in the dirt with a hollow thunk. “They’re trying to scare me into it, show me what they can do if I don’t. Chaila.”
“And you didn’t say anything?” My body ticks with anger. “You knew they were after you and you let me leave Miyole here alone?”
Rushil runs his hands through his sooty hair. “They’re always threatening me, okay? Anytime I run across them and they remember I exist, they start up again.”
We fall silent. We both know I’m the reason they remembered him this time, me and my work tag.
Rushil looks at Miyole. His jaw and fists clench tight. “Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“No.” I answer for her. “She’s frightened, is all. She locked herself inside the ship with Pala when she heard them coming.”
“Smart kid.”
I sit down hard on Rushil’s front step and bury my head in my hands. Being smart will only take Miyole so far. It’s too dangerous here. She could have been killed when the gate blew. She could have been taken by Wailers, and all because I let Rushil distract me. I let him talk some nonsense about having fun, taking care of myself, and I nearly lost Miyole again.
“It’s not good enough.” I shake my head. Perpétue was wrong. It’s not enough to try to do good. What comes out in the end matters, too.
“What isn’t?” Rushil says.
“This.” I wave my hand at the smoke-filled shipyard. “It isn’t good enough. Not for her.”
“Ava . . .” Rushil’s voice is soft, pleading.
I stand. “This is your fault.” My words are sharp as razor wire.
Rushil’s face crumbles, but I don’t care. I grab Miyole’s hand and stalk back through the clearing smoke to the sloop. No more weakness. No more waiting. No more dodging. I’ve got to do what’s best for Miyole. It’s time to confront my modrie.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER .29
The second time I see Soraya Hertz, she’s sitting on a low cinderblock wall in the small park across the street from the university, eating her lunch. I’ve been lurking around the green, shady Kalina grounds all afternoon, trying to find the right time to talk to her. Earlier, Miyole and I snuck into the shadowy berth of the lecture hall while she stood under a wash of light on the far end, talking on about English and Hindi, and how they’re threaded into each other now. She wore a lemon yellow scarf loose wrapped over her dark hair. We stayed until a man in a security uniform started walking our way.
She’s even more real now, dusting crumbs from her hands for the pigeons trilling softly around her feet. She wears midnight-blue pants cut loose in the Mumbai style, with white slippers and a white silk shirt clasped tight at the wrists with glass buttons. Her scarf has fallen back from her head. She’s some how I remember, but not quite. I had thought she would stand out clear, as she did on the Parastrata, but here among these groundways women with their parrot-colored skirts and scarves and saris shot with gold thread, she could disappear as surely as the tree branches overhead weave into one dense, leafy roof.
Miyole and I sit on a stone bench, partially hidden by a juice vendor. Between us and Soraya, old men and couples and mothers with babies rest under the long arms of the trees. A tangle of skinny boys scuffle together, kicking a ball against the cinderblock wall.
Soraya snaps the top over her lunch tin, checks her water bottle to be sure the lid is screwed tight, and stows them both in her bag. She stands and brushes the wrinkles from her pant legs.
“Wait here,” I whisper to Miyole.
I feel as though I’m trailing along behind my body as I take one step and then another, around the juice vendor, past an ancient, knobby rain tree, barely breathing. Nearer now, five meters, then two, then an arm’s breadth. I stop. There’s some of my mother in Soraya’s face. Only my mother never had strands of silvery gray laced in her hair. She never lived that long.
Soraya looks up. “Can I help you?” She frowns. “Aren’t you in my morning lecture session? Don’t tell me. Is it Pakshi?”
She doesn’t recognize me.
I stop short. But of course she doesn’t. She never even saw me aboard the Parastrata; Modrie Reller made sure of that. And even if she had seen me, she’d be expecting a pale, amber-haired girl in skirts, not me with my darker groundways looks and my boots.
“No, missus.” My voice sticks in my throat. “You’re . . . you’re Soraya Hertz?”
“Yes.” She eyes me warily and secures her bag across her shoulder.
“The so doctor?” I want to be absolutely sure.
/> Shock twists her face. “What did you say?”
“I asked . . .” I look over my shoulder at Miyole, suddenly unsure of myself. “You’re Soraya Hertz, right so? The so doctor?” I shake my head. “Dr. Soraya Hertz?”
“Who are you?” Her voice climbs high and tight. Her eyes flick to Perpétue’s knife at my belt, then over to the juice vendor and the smallones at the water fountain.
“I . . . I’m Parastrata Ava, so missus. My mother, Ete, was your sister. You’re my blood modrie.”
For a moment, the afternoon hangs still around us. Horses and foot traffic trundle away on the nearby street. A crack and distant cheering rise far behind the trees, on the other side of the park.
“No.” Soraya turns away. “My sister’s dead. She never had any children.” She stands, grips her bag tight, and walks away from me at a brisk clip.
“Please, missus.” I follow her. “I don’t have anyone else to go to. I . . .”
She rounds on me. “I don’t know who you are or who put you up to this, but it’s sick, do you hear me? Despicable.”
I stop in the middle of the path. She doesn’t believe me. Her slippers slap the paving stones as she hurries away. If only I had some proof, some way to make her know . . . I reach for my throat. The data pendant, my ancestry charted back generations on generations. The disk rests warm on my skin, still threaded on its leather cord.
“Please, so missus.” I pull the cord up over my head and run after her. The disk gleams as it twists in the afternoon sun.
“I’m calling the police. Do you hear?” She holds up her crow. “I mean it.”
“Missus, please.” I hold the pendant out to her. “Look at this. It’s all I’m asking.”
She pauses mid-dial and looks up. Catches sight of the disk. My throat closes tight.
“Is that . . .” Soraya lets the hand holding her crow fall to her side. She reaches out and cups the pendant in her hand. Its delicate whorl of circuitry glints in the sun. She lets out a breath and slowly, heavily, raises her eyes to mine.
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