The Orphan Keeper

by Camron Wright

  “I admit,” Maneesh said, in a tone calmer than Eli expected, “there are aspects of our work that aren’t black and white. But don’t stir your colors together too self-righteously, or you’ll end up covered in muddy gray—and we’ll both end up in prison.”

  “It won’t happen. I know you. You’ll simply pay them all off.”

  Maneesh’s voice was low, like gravel. The man was downright ­pensive—out of character.

  “That, my friend, is a prison of a different kind.”

  On song day, Chellamuthu didn’t sing about ABCs, flowing fountains, slinging stones, or boys named David. When the children around him fell to the ground at the end of the song in smiles and giggles, Chellamuthu turned his slumping shoulders back to the room and his mat. What was the point?

  “I don’t feel good,” he’d told Rajamani, who was leading activities that day—and he didn’t. For days Chellamuthu had combed over every last inch of the Lincoln Home for Homeless Children looking for a way to escape. The main door and gate were always locked. The door in back that led outside was padlocked, never open. He’d looked for a place to dig under the fence, but had no tools and would be discovered anyway. He’d watched for food deliveries, hoping to sneak into an empty truck, but most deliveries came by auto rickshaw and unless you were a small rat, there was no place in them to hide.

  Time was running out. Children were being adopted. If he didn’t get out soon, he’d be sent to a strange country, a place much farther away than three and a half hours, a place from which he’d never return home.

  “Chellamuthu, hurry!” It was Rajamani rocking him awake. Fear was sweating from the man’s face. “I need your help.”

  Chellamuthu had been dreaming of home, of working in the fields with his father and two uncles and, for a few seconds, wondered why his father was shaking him in front of all the workers. When the boy realized where he was, that it was actually Rajamani and not his father, he pulled away and rolled over. It was the man’s next words that grabbed Chellamuthu by the heart, lifted him up, and placed him in a dead run behind Rajamani in an effort to keep up.

  “It’s Anu!”

  Rajamani carted a pan from the kitchen and called back to Chellamuthu as they crossed toward the room where Anu slept. His words were hurried and halting. “The commissioner is away . . . taking babies to the airport. I checked Anu . . . she’s throwing up again . . . not drinking. I worry that she c . . .” He paused mid-word, not letting the notion out.

  Chellamuthu’s pace quickened.

  Rajamani continued, “The women have gone home so I have no help . . .”

  The man reached the door and yanked it open. Chellamuthu followed him inside.

  The girl was heaving. She had a bucket, but it was high and she was too weak to keep herself propped up. Rajamani pulled it carefully away and replaced it with the shallower pan.

  “Easy, child,” Rajamani said, leaning in close. “We’re going to get you some help.”

  He turned to Chellamuthu. “I’ll go call the doctor. There’s water in the corner. You’ve got to get her to drink. Please. I’ll be right back.”

  The smell of sickness swirled from the bucket she’d been holding, and as Chellamuthu moved it beside the door, the stench almost caused him to vomit right along with her.

  She was dry heaving now into the pan; there was nothing left to come up. Her face was pale, her gaze withdrawn. She was about to faint. If she did, it could be too late.

  Chellamuthu remembered that Arayi would hum to calm Manju. While he considered his mother’s example, he opted for something more natural for him—he talked.

  “Anu, I know you hurt. I’m sorry. It’s like I told you, so did Manju, my sister, when she was sick . . . but you have to drink, or you’ll get sicker.”

  He reached for the rag from the water bucket. Though her face was down, she must have understood, because when he held out the dripping rag, she pulled it from his fingers and pushed it to her lips. It didn’t stay long. She pulled the rag away to heave, spitting up what little water she’d swallowed. It was a painful cycle: heaving, resting, then motioning again for him to give her water.

  When Rajamani returned, he seemed pleased that she was sucking water from the rag. “Good, good. I reached the doctor, and he is coming.” Rajamani took the pan, poured it into the original bucket, and then faced Chellamuthu. “The smell can’t be good for her. Empty the bucket and then come right back.”

  It was a disgusting job, cleaning up after a sick little girl, but it was Anu, which made it okay. It was a curious thought that had stepped onto the stage in his head, because it also replayed pictures of his mother when she’d held sick Manju back at home in their hut.

  He stopped and set down his bucket.

  “She stayed up all night with Manju while everyone slept,” he whispered to no one, as though seeing it for the first time, as if he hadn’t been in the room with her that night.

  The vision was a gift, a child’s first grasp of a mother’s devotion. But it was also a curse, for as Chellamuthu stood in darkness, hours away from home and uncertain if he would ever see his mother again, regret clawed at his heart. Empathy, he’d learned, can be lonely.

  Chellamuthu reached for the bucket and hurried on his way. Anu would be waiting. If he stood in the yard any longer thinking about home, his emotions would flow like lava, and he’d promised himself that wouldn’t happen again.

  He scurried across the yard, into the room, and to the far wall. He covered his nose to keep the smell at bay and then emptied the little girl’s vomit into the cement trough. Next, he picked up the waiting blue bucket full of water and poured it into the cement furrow with force to wash away the stink.

  As the water swirled with the bile and carried it through the hole in the wall to the dirt outside the compound, a place where no one could smell the stench, a second moment of clarity flickered. He bent closer to examine the hole.

  His mother had often said life was like that, answers so close they were too big to see. For days he’d been marching around the compound looking for a way to out, but he’d been searching in the wrong places. His escape had been waiting patiently inside, just meters from where he slept.

  Chellamuthu’s heart beat the sound of impending freedom. He’d be escaping after all. But instead of climbing triumphantly to freedom by scaling the wall, he would humbly inch through it. Like a sewer rat, he’d be crawling out a hole.

  In darkness Chellamuthu poured three pails of water down the empty trough. If questioned, he’d claim he wasn’t feeling well. Would anyone make him bend over to verify?

  Even with the rinsing, the escape would be disgusting. Sometimes the roads we choose in life are just messy. He lowered his body face down into the trough and began to scoot toward the opening.

  A child in the room stirred. Chellamuthu waited, breathed, waited. As he hugged the cement and inched forward, the persistent smell of excrement smothered him, urged him to vomit. Desperate thoughts raced. Wait! Should I go feet first? Doing so might help with an upright landing, but he wouldn’t be able to see if it was far to the ground.

  Again there was movement in the room. This time he could hear steps coming toward him.

  Bhagavan! Help me!

  Chellamuthu didn’t raise his head, as that would clearly have given away his position. The noises told him everything he needed to know: a discouraged sigh, the dragging away of the empty bucket, then silence. Whoever it was, they were heading to the fountain to refill the blue bucket and would promptly return to use the trough.

  Perhaps Chellamuthu should have sprung to his feet, raced to his mat, and pretended to be asleep. Instead, he stretched his arms out over his head, arched his back, and used his toes to scoot his body into the opening. It was now or never.

  Unless the hole was shrinking, perhaps in an attempt to chew on the boy, Chellamuthu had completely
misjudged its size. When his shoulders hit the edge, they stopped like a cork.

  Not good!

  Chellamuthu twisted, pulled his shoulders in, twisted some more. As he wriggled in the dark like a muddy worm, the feces-covered cement scratched at his skin. He grunted, wrenched, pulled, contorted, grimaced, prayed, and grunted harder. If he didn’t make it out soon, he could be dead before he was discovered.

  In his panic, he’d been sucking in deep gasps of air. Then an enlightened thought skipped into his brain.

  I should be doing the opposite.

  Like a Yogi beginning morning meditation, Chellamuthu shut his eyes, relaxed his muscles, and exhaled with a steady, sustained breath, purposely forcing out every measure of air from his lungs. When nothing more would come and he was certain he’d pass out if he waited even a second longer, he garnered all the strength that his constricted little body could muster and pushed.

  Had someone been watching from outside, it must have looked like the building was birthing a small boy. In a single, sliding movement, Chellamuthu popped out, flipped over, and landed backside down on the pile with a splat.

  He wanted to cry like a newborn, perhaps so someone would carry him away and clean him up, for when he extended his hand to push himself up, it squished into a shallow layer of putrid waste.

  He was sitting in the bottom of a slight furrow created from the constant splash of liquid that had eroded away the dirt. It led down a small rise to a ditch that ran beside the road, a road with buildings lined up along the opposite side—and they had lights on.

  Chellamuthu pondered the scene, wondering what he should do, where he should go, hardly believing that he’d actually made it out undetected.

  By the time he heard the splashing sound from above, it was too late. A stream of tainted, smelly, warm water poured over him, as if warning the boy never to try escaping that way again! It oozed around him, cuddled him.

  He sat in the dark, polluted, exhausted. His skin was itchy, scuffed, and raw, and another child’s urine was now dripping in his eyes.

  Chellamuthu didn’t care.

  He was free!

  Chapter 11

  Eli was whispering to Rajamani in the courtyard when Maneesh entered. They were hoping not to wake any of the children.

  “I got your message,” Maneesh said. “What’s wrong?”

  Rajamani excused himself and hurried away. Eli turned to greet Maneesh.

  “This must be bad,” Maneesh added.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Rajamani rushed away like I have smallpox.”

  “We need to sit.”

  Maneesh followed Eli inside. “There’s something I need to tell you about Chellamuthu, the boy who . . .”

  “I know who Chellamuthu is. What about him?”

  “He’s gone!”

  Arayi had wept most of the night after the astrologer had delivered the terrible news of Chellamuthu’s death, after he’d packed up his carved table and his astrological charts, conveyed his deepest condolences, finished another good day’s work, and headed home to eat dinner with his own family.

  At first she’d believed him, and for several hours she mourned desperately for the loss of her little son. But she awoke before dawn the next day unable to shake a feeling that had soaked into her muscles and bones overnight. It insisted that the man was wrong. Perhaps he’d mixed up two stars, misread a line in his chart, inadvertently switched a planet.

  Something. She couldn’t put her feeling into words, except to say that at times a mother senses truth in ways that can never be logically explained.

  A few days later, she sat in the home of Jagdish Prasad, another astrologer. She needed a second opinion.

  Arayi had come to his home because it was less expensive, because the charts, she’d been assured, should read the same anywhere. He didn’t have an ornate carved table, nor did he wear a crafted gold medallion. He used only a few charts, two maps, and a single book. He claimed to have learned the skill from his late father and was happy to use it now, for a tiny fee, to help others—in this case, a grieving mother.

  He took less time than the first man, but he claimed to be just as sure in his conclusion. “If I am reading the signs correctly, and I believe that I am . . .”

  Arayi fought the urge to cover her ears, to run from the house before he could deliver his reading. At least then she could cling to her hope, her instinct-fueled belief that Chellamuthu was still alive. If this man delivered the same message, then a mother’s love—that force that overshadows all of the stars and planets and surely holds the universe together—wouldn’t be real. The sun must cease to shine. Stars would fall from the sky. Planets would leap from their orbits, and the universe would implode.

  Life itself would lose all meaning.

  “Your son,” the astrologer announced, “is not only alive and well . . .” He lifted the open book into better light. “ . . . he is coming home at this very moment and will return to you soon.”

  Arayi exhaled. Could it be true? “How soon?” she pleaded. “How soon?”

  Another check of the charts.

  “Your son will be home by tomorrow night.”

  In the darkness outside the orphanage, Chellamuthu considered his two choices: walk toward what appeared to be the city center and look for someone who might be able to help or shun any people and head toward the edge of town, hoping to get far enough away to stay out of danger. He opted for the latter, resting for only a moment beside a rundown warehouse that sat across from a towering cement factory. At least he intended it to be only a moment.

  It was the rumble of eager trucks pulling out of the yard with their weighty loads that stirred him awake—just in time to greet the sun rising over the busy building.

  “Muttal!” he mumbled, annoyed at himself for not creating further distance in the dark when he’d had the chance. Now his only choice was to stay hidden, out of sight, until the sun set again in the evening.

  His stomach wasn’t convinced. He’d eaten little the previous day, and thankfully so, since he’d barely squeezed out through the opening. The price now, however, was a complaining belly that sounded a lot like the heavy trucks.

  And it wasn’t just the rumbling that jabbed at his gut, but Eli’s words. Haven’t we always given you plenty to eat?

  “Shut up!” Chellamuthu answered aloud, as he inched forward to get a better look at a man across the street.

  The worker held a long green hose behind a chain-link fence, and as the cement trucks rounded the corner and stopped, the man would thoroughly spray down every truck, as if he were washing a parade of dirty elephants. Chellamuthu scratched at his scalp. The water looked . . . wonderful.

  It wasn’t enough that his stomach was being ornery, but every inch of his body was joining in to complain. His skin was more than just smelly, it was beginning to rash.

  He’d tried last night to listen for a river, a place where he could scrub off the stink. They must have a river, he reasoned, because the street he’d been following was named Chenkatti Bridge Road. Every bridge he’d ever known had crossed water.

  He strained his ears again and listened, just as the landowner had shown him. There were sounds all right, but nothing familiar. No Banerjee. No drunken father. No Manju. No cousins. No Erode. And no Kaveri.

  If I could just get to the river, I could get home.

  “Hey, boy!”

  Chellamuthu spun around. A man in uniform was approaching—a policeman, perhaps, or a security guard from the cement factory. Chellamuthu said nothing.

  “Come here, boy.”

  Perhaps he should have asked what the man wanted, or at least waited to find out. But the way he’d called him boy, raised the hair on Chellamuthu’s neck.

  Instead, the boy turned down dusty Chenkatti Bridge Road—and ran.

  A
nd ran, and ran, and ran.

  “What if he goes to the police?” Maneesh said, pacing furrows in the courtyard dirt.

  “He won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “He believes that if he does, his family will go to jail.”

  “Where did he get that idea?” Maneesh asked.

  Eli glanced at his partner. Why bother to explain?

  “So you decry and belittle bribes,” Maneesh needled, “but lies are fine?” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Perhaps it’s not a lie,” Eli replied. “Besides, you said yourself that everything has a price. I’m willing to pay it. We’re helping them break free from poverty and pain. The boy will recognize that soon enough and come back.”

  Maneesh huddled in close. “I’ve been wondering, Eli. Are you trying to help children escape, or are you hoping to escape yourself?”

  “Let’s not do this again. I’m giving them a future . . .”

  “But it’s costing them their past. You’re playing God.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” Eli replied.

  “Don’t I? Are there more? Besides the boy?”

  “More what?”

  “More children who’ve been taken from their families? Children who aren’t really orphans?”

  Eli’s voice stiffened. “I’ve never forced a child to stay.”

  “You’re fooling yourself—that’s deception of the worst kind.”

  Eli stood. “Judge all you’d like, but if a child is kidnapped from hell and carried to heaven, should we condemn the kidnapper?”

  Maneesh returned only a slight shake of his head as he headed to the door. “The difference,” he added, “between a hero and a fiend is often razor thin. Be careful where you step, Eli.”

  Maneesh slipped outside, but before he closed the gate, Eli called out.

  “There’s something else about the boy’s family you should know.”