Mending the Past

by Avery June Ligon

  Ed clasped his letter to his father. He held it like the end of a string that would lead him out of the maze. He was tired and his body still hurt. He turned toward the window and watched the tended Indian countryside slip past as he tried to think of how to wrap up the whole misadventure. He groaned at his aching body and closed his eyes. Jet had once taken him on a picnic. They’d laid a blanket in a field of dry grass so tall it had felt like its own room. He’d fallen asleep with Jet in his arms. He remembered the cool breeze licking his skin, and the warmth between.

  * * * * *

  Arjun was certain he and Puja were close to finding the right people. The man he’d translated for had described a woman who fit one of Mrs. Mae’s targets, but her last name was also Mae. He went to tell Puja.

  “We aren’t the only people looking for whatever we’re looking for,” Arjun said. “That man even used the name Mae. I wish I knew what we were looking for. I keep going over what Mrs. Mae said. She told us not to harm the baby. I’ve never hurt anyone before. Why would she tell us not to hurt the baby? Must the others be hurt? Why would she think I would hurt anyone?”

  “I don’t think she expects you to hurt anyone. That’s why she picked me.”

  Arjun was silent.

  Puja laughed, and Arjun jumped in his seat.

  “You don’t need to look so scared,” she said. “My husband was the village moneylender. There were three consecutive bad harvests. Everyone in my village was doing poorly. The neighboring villages were the same. A lot of people owed us money. I’m sure they thought we had money in our home, or lots of food. But we didn’t. My husband had lent out more than he should have, but it’s difficult to watch your neighbors starve. A man came in the night. My husband heard him. By the time I got there my husband was probably already dead, but I just saw that man with his hands wrapped around my husband’s throat. I grabbed a pot. I aimed to knock him unconscious. He died.”

  Arjun still hadn’t found any words.

  “Mrs. Mae left me in the room with her open file. You defaulted on loans. I’ve been in jail for murder. She was looking for people who could get a job done. People desperate enough to do what she needs. You have no access to credit. You need your job and you need money more than most. She thinks I’m a ruthless man hating killer.”

  Arjun stared.

  “People talk of what’s on their minds. I think we’re all looking for the emerald the crazy man spoke of. It doesn’t belong to Mrs. Mae though. She’d have called the police.”

  Arjun recovered from the shock of Puja’s story, and the shock of her having spoken so many words and managed to say, “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled with one corner of her mouth and looked out the window. Arjun thought over what Puja had said. What if she was right? What if they were after an emerald? He imagined bringing his parents very big gifts. Yes, what if Puja was right? She’d agreed to this expedition. How did she imagine it would end? Arjun watched her as she watched the passing landscape.

  * * * * *

  Jet, Steward and the baby took their seats on the train: Their plan was simple, put the emerald back, and then gather up Jet’s family. The baby looked out the window at the passing shapes and colors. Jet watched fields and homes go by, women and children harvesting, men standing on plows. She thought about getting exercise by paying for a gym membership and squirmed in her seat. She thought about her last trip to the gym and about Cam telling her to keep her mind on the task at hand. Soon they’d be at their hotel in Khajuraho, and then the job would be finished, and she would find Ed.

  * * * * *

  Mrs. Mae received a call to her hotel just before dinner. The man she’d hired told her that he and the woman had taken the train in pursuit of five people, three men, a woman, a baby. American. Mrs. Mae could have wrung his neck. It wasn’t as though she was looking for the only Americans traveling with a baby in the whole of India, and now those fools she’d hired could be completely off track. But as she began to berate the man for his stupidity, he interjected, “Mae. They are following a Mae. A Jet Mae.”

  Mrs. Mae fell silent. Arjun thought that maybe Mrs. Mae had hung up, and wished he’d listened to Puja and called before getting on the train.

  “Following a Mae?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know? Are you certain?”

  “I talked to one of them.”

  “And? What did they say?”

  Arjun felt stuck. The man he’d translated for seemed too strange to sound reliable by description. Also, if Puja was right, he didn’t want to mention the emerald.

  “Well, they said Jet told them to come to Khajuraho.”

  “And you’re there now?”

  “Yes, we followed them to their hotel. We’re each staying next to one of their rooms. Should we follow them? Tell you where they go and when?”

  * * * * *

  Jet pulled her Magna Stealth Gecko Suit from her suitcase and stepped into it. She pulled the gloves over her hands and waited for the suit to activate. It became an additional layer of muscle and protection. She lifted the sari cloth and string from her suitcase. She tied the string around her waist, folded pleats of cloth across her thumb and forefinger, and tucked and adjusted the sari. She put the necklace with the woven cloth bag over her head. Then she threw the end of her sari over her shoulder and pulled it over her head. It was a strange outfit, but in the dark, under the eyes of the unsuspecting, it would, she thought, pass.

  The original plan had been for Steward to watch the baby, but Jet suggested that she might draw less attention accompanied by a man. They asked around for a babysitter and were taken to meet the the wife of the hotel’s gardener, Sujata, whose children were grown. Sujata had been eager to hold a baby. She and the baby looked into each others’ eyes and smiled and cooed.

  When Jet had taken her baby back, he started to cry and Sujata spoke words at the baby that Jet couldn’t understand. Then Sujata adjusted the way Jet was holding her baby in her arms, and he calmed down. Jet asked through a man who could translate, if Sujata could watch the baby that evening in their room.

  Jet left the bathroom and walked to the bedroom where she took Steward’s arm. They listened to Sujata speak Hindi to the baby and for him to babble back at her. Then Jet and Steward slipped out the back door. There was no need for either of them to speak, the rest of the plan was simple and each knew it well. They walked through the garden, past a huge bodhi tree that marked the end of the driveway, and onto to the road which would take them to the temple.

  The night was hot and Jet could feel the expansion gills on her suit opening under her sari. The emerald beat against her chest with each step. The temple’s shikara was visible in the distance. Jet noted its size and watched it grow as they approached. Steward practically held his breath as they approached. So much planning had brought him to this point. He imagined the mummified cat and its owner and sent them a thank you via brainwaves from India to Egypt. They’d haunted the right child.

  The roofs of the temple rose like foothills leading to the shikara, which towered above like the great Mount Kailash. The thin strip of building that joined the inner sanctum to the rest of the temple was covered in four stories of status. Jet would climb the seam between this wall and the shikara itself. This seam disappeared where the roof began, and this would be the easiest part of the climb.

  Near the peak of the shikara were tunnels, which vented hotter air from the interior. The vents created a draft that pulled the cool moist air hovering over the tree-lined water tank at the temple’s entrance into the temple. The cool air flowed with the devotees of Shiva, as they made their way to the inner sanctum.

  * * * * *

  Arjun and Puja directed Mrs. Mae to Khajuraho and to Steward’s hotel. Mrs. Mae directed Arjun and Puja to the temple. Steward, she thought, had given her too much information. There’s only one temple here with a missing emerald. It must be that he truly doesn’t want to put the emerald back.

  She appreci
ated the help that Arjun and Puja had given her. She planned to give them some reward, even if she didn’t give it all to them. She doubted they’d be able to take back the emerald from Steward and Jet. If I didn’t manage to get it, how could they? She had a contingency plan. She told her driver to take her to Steward’s hotel.

  * * * * *

  Arjun and Puja sat on the temple’s top stair leaning against the gates, which were shut and locked each night. These metal gates had been installed in the late seventeen hundreds, and were not intended to make the temple appear less friendly. It was only that the temple had a history of losing the god’s valuable possessions. Roughly one hundred years before those, decorative pierced stone grates had been fitted into the once-open porches and windows.

  “I don’t understand why she wants us here at night,” Arjun said. “What does she expect? Why would her jewel be here?”

  Puja shrugged.

  “Puja, what will we do if we find it? Will we give it back like we promised for one year of wages? Think how much more this jewel is worth.”

  Puja said nothing.

  “I don’t have children, yet,” Arjun said. “But I hope that someday I’ll have a large family-”

  “Quiet,” Puja said. “Here come people. A man and woman.”

  Arjun peered into the dark. “Too old. Look how the woman stoops a little, her neck and upper back. Too Indian also. Look, she wears a sari.”

  “How much does clothing mean?”

  “Very much,” Arjun said and he touched his Gandhi hat. He looked at Puja and saw that she was not satisfied by his answer.

  “Why are they coming now? It’s night.”

  “Look how he supports her. They’ve just received news. Maybe one of their children has died. Maybe a grandchild has been born. Something important has happened. Maybe they prayed and promised to bring an offering the moment their prayers were fulfilled.”

  Despite Arjun’s explanations, Puja’s interest in these people didn’t wane. Her eyes stayed fixed on the man and woman as they walked past the stairs and around the side of the temple.

  “You see,” Arjun said. “They’ll circumambulate, pray, thank the god, and go home.”

  Puja stood to move out of the shadowed entryway, but Arjun grabbed her arm and held her. It was this impulse of Arjun’s that told them both that he agreed with her. Maybe these people were carrying a jewel that could be sold to make generations of Arjun’s family comfortable. Maybe these people were armed.

  Arjun and Puja followed the couple around the corner of the temple. The woman came into Arjun’s sight just in time to see the woman shed her sari. The gasp escaping Arjun as he covered his eyes alerted Jet and Steward who turned to see Puja moving toward them.

  “Stay still,” Puja said into the quiet night.

  “Go,” Steward said.

  Jet looked once at the woman’s face and began to climb. She pressed her right foot and hand against the outer wall of the hall, and her left against the outer wall of the inner sanctum. She was one story up before the woman below realized what was happening and yelled, “Stop.” Jet kept climbing.

  The woman turned to appeal to Steward. “Tell her to stop. She must bring the jewel back down.” The words surprised Jet. She stopped and looked at Steward. He looked surprised, too.

  “I didn’t expect you to find me here, but I suppose I told Eileen too much,” Steward said. “Tell Mrs. Mae I’m not giving the emerald to her. It belongs here. It isn’t some meaningless piece of wealth put on earth to make her feel important. It belongs here. It was given as a gift by-”

  “She has the baby,” Puja said.

  Jet felt her stomach turn.

  Steward was silent.

  Jet looked around her for help. For an answer. For guidance. She saw someone on the ground begin to run in the direction of the hotel. The person was nothing more in the night than a dark shape moving through the darkness, across the ground, under the trees.

  To Jet’s right stood a stone couple holding hands and looking into one anothers’ eyes. She traversed to them and pulled the necklace over her head. She dangled the string through the void behind the couple’s clasped hands and finessed the pouch holding the emerald through that loop. She dropped the pouch and the string of the necklace cinched itself around the couple’s wrists. She looked at them and thought the words thank you.

  Jet peeled the running sole from her right knee and slapped it onto her foot. With her hand suctioned to the arm of the carved man, Jet placed her Gecko Pad-free foot onto the narrow ledge where he stood. She took the other running sole off of her knee, adhered it, and looked to the ground. She was at least a couple of stories up. It’s easier, she thought, to wear a suit designed to help the human body withstand this kind of fall than it is to fall. Jet moved her hands so that she held the hands of the couple, so she was positioned to spring. She let go with one hand and looked out and down to the ground again.

  The sound of a gun shot pierced her thoughts. Jet saw the gleeful eyes of her mother-in-law, and heard her horrible laugh. She saw the sweet face of her baby. When she turned him over, the back of his head was missing. He was a sculptor’s experiment at the birth of Impressionism. She looked back at the ground. If she got this wrong, it would hurt. It might hurt enough to stop her from climbing back to the linga, or it might stop her from getting to her baby. She saw herself covered in the blood of her dead baby as she rocked him back and forth and back and forth. Then she heard Cam, “Where’s your mind Jet? Are you focused?”

  No, she thought, I’m not focused. I’m a working mom. Then she jumped. She watched the hard iron-tinted dirt rush toward her. She checked that her tongue was not between her teeth and then braced herself for the impact. She hit the dirt with her feet first and let her body crumble into a roll.

  She heard Steward say “Wow” as she thought it.

  She was up and running. She could feel her heart beating in her chest, but couldn’t decide if it was beating out of worry for her baby or because she was running as fast as her body would allow. Both, she decided. Jet was halfway back to the hotel when her body began to scream at her to slow. She begged for adrenaline. She pictured her baby in pain.

  * * * * *

  For lack of a better plan, Steward and Puja introduced themselves. They stood at the foot of the red brown temple each afraid to leave the other alone with the emerald hanging two stories above. Steward examined the wall. His body could climb to the emerald, but he wasn’t sure his mind would allow it. Besides he’d still need to get in. He wished he’d worn his suit. He tried to judge the emerald’s height, and felt dizzy. Puja decided that the promise of a comfortable life could just about carry her to the emerald, but not with Steward there to pull her down. They stood in stalemate staring one another down.

  * * * * *

  The incomprehensibility of Bud’s private world increased as the train neared Khajuraho. Ed began following Bud. He wanted to find Sam’s stash of drugs and return them. Ed worried he would return to Sally and Marley a Bud that they wouldn’t recognize.

  Bud had begun to speak mostly of things others couldn’t see or hear. Only Maggie was paying attention to his rambling. Sam and Ed watched over Bud like a child.

  When they arrived in Khajuraho they checked into a chain hotel. Ed’s body still ached. He sat down to read more of his father’s letters, and try to formulate a plan to visit him and to get everyone home.

  Ed looked up from a letter. Sam had his arm around Bud’s shoulders, “Do you think the bear was working with the little lion, or were they mad at each other?”

  “Mad. No. They never get mad. The bear was just jealous. That’s why he turned blue. Because it made him a little sad. Sad at himself.”

  “Oh, I see,” Sam said.

  Ed wondered if Sam was understanding the conversation.

  “Hey Little Buddy, would you like to go for a walk?”

  “I’d like to go,” Ed said and began repacking his treasure chest of letters. He put t
he chest into his suitcase and pulled out a can of mosquito repellent. Ed sprayed himself and began to spray Bud.

  “Argh. That be poison,” Bud growled.

  “It’s okay,” Ed said. “I just put some on myself.” He sprayed some in his hands and smeared some on Bud’s hair and face. Bud glared at Ed and backed away to the other side of Sam.

  “It’s all right Little Buddy,” Sam said, taking the can from Ed and offering it to Bud. “Here, look, you can put it on me.”

  Bud took the can and located the hole from which the liquid would spray. He pointed it at Sam’s arm, and checked his aim a few times. He sprayed and checked Sam’s reaction. Sam gave him a reassuring look and, with some help, Bud finished applying the insect repellent to Sam. Then Sam helped Bud spray himself. In between sprays Bud glared at Ed.

  As Sam, Bud, and Ed walked through the hotel’s garden they passed Maggie, who was meditating with the baby talisman in her lap next to a minimalist sculpture of Ganesh.

  “Going for a walk,” Sam said. Maggie opened her eyes and gave him a faint smile and nod.

  Sam hadn’t much cared much for being in Delhi, but he was interested in the countryside. He wanted to smell the air, hear the birds, and see what plants grew in this part of the world. He and Ed walked out into the dusk with Bud who was easily distracted and had to be called for.

  “How long have you lived in California?” Ed asked

  “My whole life.”

  “Me too. Is this your first time traveling?”

  “Yup, never been this far away before.”

  “Do you miss your home?”

  Sam thought. “Nope, my home is a part of me. Don’t even feel like I’ve left. Besides,” he said, reaching for a cord around his neck, “I brought some of it with me.”

  Ed looked at the necklace. The pendant was a metal vial.

  “A vial of dirt, in case you get hurt,” Bud sang.

  “That’s right, Little Buddy,” Sam said, patting Bud on the back. Bud skipped off to the side of the road.