“If that’s you trying to be encouraging, you suck at it,” Taj retorted.
“No, no, listen! We’ve been visiting bleaching factories that have been around for generations. We’re wasting time. We need to see only those that are ten years old!”
Without waiting, he dashed back inside. When he returned, his face flashed news, though it was hard to tell what kind.
“We don’t have much time, and the man wasn’t sure if this would help, but he said there is a small factory on the opposite side of town, farther out into the country. He thinks it was started about ten or twelve years ago. He doesn’t know who runs it. It’s not close. If we go, we’ll be passing up a dozen more between here and there that we could be checking. It’s up to you.”
They all turned to Taj and waited.
He stared back. How would he know? How could he?
All he knew for certain was that the pain pinching his chest was back, that he was feeling nauseated, perhaps from the heat, perhaps from nerves.
Was it another dead end? Taj glanced heavenward. He was tired of asking for help. Instead, he stated the obvious. His tone wasn’t kind. “You’re getting to be ridiculous!”
There was no answer. He didn’t expect one. All he could do was offer his best guess. He faced the waiting men.
“Let’s go!”
It took longer than expected to find the place. The sun would be down in an hour. The road was dusty and uneven, and as the autorick bounced the sweaty men in the back, Taj tried to gather the words he was going to need to explain his utter disappointment to Priya.
“I think this is it,” the driver said, pointing.
It looked like the other bleaching factories they’d already visited, only this place was smaller. Fewer pools. Fewer drying racks. Smaller piles of waiting fabric.
An older turbaned man was rinsing fabric in one of the ponds, stirring it with his feet.
When the autorick stopped and the posse scrambled out, the worker quit mixing.
Christopher took the lead, stepping to the edge of the pond. “Good evening, sir. We are sorry to bother you, but we are looking for Selvaraj. Do you know where we might find him?”
The man’s head shook back and forth. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone named Selvaraj.”
The reply was a dagger that pushed into Taj’s heart. He’d made the wrong choice. Again. It would be dark by the time they returned to town. Time was up. Tomorrow he’d have to drive back to Chennai with Priya to catch their flight home.
“Do you know of a bleaching factory near here,” Christopher continued, “that might be owned by a man named Selvaraj?”
The man thought. His turban wobbled in the negative. “No. I am sorry.”
Isaac and his father climbed back inside the rick. Taj reached for the bar on the side. The smell of failure was overpowering the scent of bleach and making his nausea worse.
Christopher was ready to turn away when something in the man’s expression caught his attention—it was a tinge of fear.
“Sir,” Christopher said, “I assure you we mean no harm. We are inquiring about Selvaraj because many years ago he lost a brother, a little boy who was taken. We bring news of that boy from America.”
The man didn’t flinch.
It wasn’t until Christopher had placed his foot on the step of the autorick that the man stepped from the pool.
“Wait!” he called out. “You are not the police?”
Christopher turned back to face him. “No. We only have news about a boy stolen many years ago.”
The stately man adjusted his turban. “I remember him telling me once that he had a brother who disappeared. Selvaraj is my boss. He lives a few minutes away. I can take you.”
Too many false starts. Too many dead ends. Too many disappointments. Was this another? Or could it be true? Had Taj found his brother?
“The fabric is only rinsing. It will not hurt it to stay in the water. If you have room, I will show you where he lives.”
The autorick was comfortably built to hold three, two men in back plus a driver in front. Taj, Christopher, and the employee who had introduced himself as Ankur wedged into the back seat. Once the driver was in place, Isaac hung off one side of the front, while his father dangled off the other.
It was all the weight the little rick could handle.
A warming breeze stirred the aroma of bleach with the smell of goats as the cart full of men puffed over a slight ridge. In the distance, a woman carried a basket toward a hut. Behind her trailed two children, laughing at her red sari that was blowing like a scarf in the wind.
Ankur spoke to Christopher and pointed. He, in turn, translated the news for Taj. The words nearly wept as they came out. “Taj, do you see that woman in the red sari?”
“Yes.”
“Her name is Usha. She is your sister-in-law, your brother’s wife. Taj, those children,” his voice cracked, “they are your niece and your nephew.”
Taj couldn’t reply, couldn’t admit that it might truly be happening.
“Chris,” he instructed, “remember what we talked about. We can’t tell them who I am until we know for sure. I have to know before you say anything!” He couldn’t repeat the fiasco from the slums of Erode, with so many women claiming to be his mother. His heart couldn’t take it.
The autorick slowed and then stopped. The men climbed out. Ankur greeted the woman.
“Is Selvaraj home?” he asked. “These men are inquiring on behalf of his brother who was lost many years ago.”
The news jerked her head around. Her voice quickened. “He’s not here, but he’ll be back shortly,” she said. “Nana is down at the river bathing. Let me get her!”
The woman commanded the older child to take the younger one inside. She then hurried over the hill and down the tiny path that led to the water. As they watched, Christopher let his hand fall on Taj’s shoulder.
“Welcome home.”
Arayi Gounder closed her eyes as the water swirled around her and then flowed downstream. Each night she recited the same chant:
I salute the Lord of the southern direction who is the embodiment of pure knowledge and eternal peace. I invoke and invite the water of the seven sacred rivers—O Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswati, Narmada, Sindhu, and Kaveri—to sanctify and cleanse, to be present in this place.
Bathing in the river was a daily ritual that she seldom missed. Like many good Hindus, she understood that rivers are sacred, that the individual soul must merge with Shiva as the rivers merge with the ocean.
She hoped the water would eventually wash her clean.
Arayi had become more devout as she grew older, more structured. She had no choice. The routine had spun into cords that kept her precarious life from unraveling.
When she’d moved in with Selvaraj six years earlier, she’d vowed never to complain about her life, to endure her struggles and live a life of devotion. She would help him bleach fabrics, but the real blessing had been the time she was able to spend with the grandchildren. She would make certain they learned their chants, said their prayers, understood that for Hindus, religion was in the very air they breathed, that all are connected to the entire universe.
“Pāṭṭi! Pāṭṭi! Quick!” her daughter-in-law, Usha, screamed as she neared the bank.
Arayi frowned. Usually it was the grandchildren who would interrupt—and why disturb her sandhya vandanam? Doesn’t an old woman deserve a little evening peace?
“I’m coming!”
Arayi stepped carefully toward the bank. She reached for her waiting sari, making sure she was covered.
“Nana, come quick! There are men, strangers who need to speak with you.” Usha was bouncing, trembling. It was difficult to tell if she was laughing or crying.
“Who is it? Who would dare to interrupt an old woman’s bath?”
>
“I don’t know, Pāṭṭi. But they bring news.”
“News? What kind of news?”
“They bring news of Chellamuthu!”
Taj waited behind the other men, perhaps unconsciously hiding. He had looked forward to this moment so intently, for so long, that now it was unfolding, he was nervous to see what might actually be wrapped inside nearly two decades of yearning.
The cries of an old woman interrupted. She was rushing up the path, her spindly legs churning at astounding speed, as if the hillside had caught on fire. She was holding the loose fabric of her sari in one hand while desperately trying to tie it around her wet and wrinkled body with the other—but she wasn’t about to let the process slow her down. Her old feet kicked at the path like a runaway mule, and if she tripped and tumbled, Taj was certain she would never get up.
It must have been a while since she’d sprinted so forcefully, because as she neared the men she seemed to have forgotten how to slow down. Christopher reached out to both stop and steady the wheezing woman.
“Chella . . . Chella . . .”
Her breath had not run as quickly, and she had to wait for it to catch up.
“Take your time,” Christopher reassured.
A gasp. A sniffle. More panting.
“Please . . .” she pleaded, followed by another gulp of air. “Please . . . tell me what you know about my son . . . my lost boy, Chellamuthu.”
She was pointing at Christopher with her two fingers as she spoke, and as she did, a voice of recollection did its own pointing in Taj’s head. Your mother used to point at you just like that when you were a child. Remember?
The woman’s daughter-in-law finally reached the woman’s side. Taj still didn’t move, didn’t say a word. He had to be certain.
Christopher spoke to her first, staying true to his instructions. “I can tell you that we are here representing a friend who was taken from his family when he was just a child. He has sent us to try to contact his family, and our search has led us to you. Did you lose a child about sixteen years ago?”
The woman couldn’t respond but not for lack of breath. She was sobbing now, weeping so desperately that her whole body quivered. She reached out to Usha for support.
A moment passed in silence while the men patiently waited, while the woman regained her composure. Isaac’s father even reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder, reassuring her that it was all right to take the needed time.
When she could finally speak, she confirmed that her child had been taken. His name was Chellamuthu.
Taj so seldom cried that he’d convinced himself he wasn’t capable of tears. His blurry vision now argued otherwise.
“How can we be certain you are really his mother?” Christopher asked. “Is there anything about the child you can tell us so we can be sure you are telling the truth?”
Dread filled the woman’s eyes as she thought. There must be something? But what? Then, as if Shiva had bestowed a gift from heaven, her hands fell to her feet.
“You will know he is my child because he will have scars on the tops of his feet. Also a tooth that drops below the other, from the time he fell from the tree.”
Memories were now flooding the old woman’s head.
“Oh, yes, yes, and the fingers on his hand are scarred from when they were crushed in a grain mill. His uncle burned them in the fire to stop the bleeding.”
“And his age?” Christopher prompted.
“Age? He . . . he would be nearly . . .”
She frantically glanced across the group of men. When she got to Taj she stopped. “My son now would be about his age,” she said, pointing, pondering.
Her arms were still shaking, still pulsing with too much adrenaline for a woman of her age. It could be why at first she didn’t notice Taj wiping at his eyes.
Taj’s feet inched forward, unconsciously perhaps, as if they were prodding him, offering their permission.
When he took a step toward her, she studied him more closely. Her head tilted forward. Her eyes were tracking the scars on his fingers. Her gaze plunged to his feet, but he was wearing shoes. It didn’t matter. By the time she looked back up, her heart was already screaming the news.
It was her turn to step forward. Her lips formed a question. Her head insisted she ask.
“Chellamuthu? Are you my . . .”
Before the final word could come out, she again began to sob. She stumbled forward, too weak to stand.
The man at whom she’d been pointing was already reaching for her arms, already assuring her that everything was going to be all right.
“Yes, Mother,” he said quietly. “It’s me, Chellamuthu. I’m home. I’m home . . .”
Tears chased one another down her cheeks to her wrinkled sari, still damp from the water of the seven sacred rivers.
Shiva had answered after all.
God had worked a miracle.
Chellamuthu had come home.
Chapter 39
On the bus ride back to Madukkarai, Taj refused to shut his eyes, certain that if he did, he would open them to find it had all been a dream.
Later, when he touched Priya as she rolled over and asked softly if he had found his family, Taj didn’t need to answer. For a second time in a single day—a record for him—he embraced a loved one, and they both wept.
Even though it was late, the relatives were gathered. Priya insisted. After telling them the news, Taj turned to Maneesh.
“Sir, I told my family I would return tomorrow so they can meet Priya, so I can meet more of my relatives. Our return flight to the United States leaves early on Saturday, and while we’d planned to take the train to Chennai tomorrow, Christopher has arranged to borrow a car, which means we can leave as late as tomorrow night, drive through the night, and still make our flight. Sir, I can’t speak the language. I need an interpreter. Priya will be there, but out of respect, I’d like to invite you to come with us, to be my interpreter, to help me as I explain to my family where I’ve been these many years.”
The man stumbled as the words pushed him back. He looked to Priya and then to Taj. “I am sorry,” he finally stuttered, grabbing a chair to steady himself. “I . . . I can’t.”
“But I’m giving you a chance to . . .”
The man’s head dropped. His words were so quiet as to barely interrupt. “I simply can’t.”
“Why not?” Taj called out to Maneesh as the man prepared to flee the room.
Perhaps Maneesh didn’t mean to answer. His reply, barely audible, was heard anyway.
“What if your father sold you?”
When Taj opened the door of the taxi, he was swarmed. Word had spread throughout the night, by phone for those who had one, by messenger for those who didn’t.
“It’s him!” his cousin Krishna shouted, as if doubting the rumors.
Clutching Priya’s hand, Taj stepped into the throng, let them surround him. Instead of disappearing into a crowd and getting lost, as he’d feared at the airport on his arrival to India, today he was found.
He was summarily pinched, pushed, caressed, and patted, as if everyone had to touch him to be certain he was real, that he really was Chellamuthu. Arayi alone grabbed him by the cheeks with her weathered fingers at least a dozen times. Always weeping but with tears that traced paths across a wide and constant smile. Manju, his baby sister, now a woman with two small children of her own, stayed close but said little, clearly marveling at the wonder of this instant older brother.
Once the excitement had subsided, Taj stood on a small rise beside his brother’s home and in what looked to be Indian Story Hour, he related through Priya his kidnapping, his life in America, and his return . . . all to newfound, wide-eyed relatives.
When he finished telling his story, he heard theirs, individual accounts, one after another, of endless searching, cons
tant praying, and persistent yearning—and how their prayers had been heard.
Praise Vishnu! Thank Shiva! Chellamuthu has returned home.
Arayi was pinching his cheeks again when her eyes widened. She rushed into the house and returned with a tarnished, gold-leaf frame. It surrounded an old photo, taken at a wedding, of two proud parents behind three eager children, smiling at their futures that lay in store.
She passed it to Taj, folded his fingers around it so he’d understand. She relayed her message to Priya.
“She wants me to tell you,” Priya said, “that she’s looked at this picture every day since you were taken. She would now like you to keep it, so you’ll never forget, so you’ll always remember.”
While they were visiting, an autorick pulled close. When Selvaraj exited, he was supporting an elderly man. The man’s hair was freshly cut, his face shaven, and he was wearing a brand-new shirt and lungi.
“Taj, I would like you to meet Kuppuswami, your father.”
The elderly man didn’t move—perhaps he couldn’t—and for a moment, Taj wondered if he understood what was happening.
Then, gathering the fresh fabric of his lungi with both hands, he pulled it up to reveal a nasty scar just below his left knee. He aimed his toothless grin at Taj.
Not wanting to be outdone, Taj slipped off his shoes and pointed to his feet to show the old man with fragile eyes his own memories.
“Priya, tell him that my feet have always reminded me to be a good person, to try my best, to do what’s right—to not run away.”
The old man listened, watched, nodded, and then, wiping at his eyes, sat down in the grass to rest.
Selvaraj pulled Taj and Priya aside.
“You should know that since you were taken, he’s been living on the streets. He’s been a drunk, a derelict for all these years, never a part of the family. I found him and brought him home late last night. When he heard you were back, that you were well, he sobbed. He insisted I get him a new shirt, that he have clean clothes, a shower, and a shave before he saw you—that’s where we’ve been.”
The Orphan Keeper Page 33
