Outlaw in India

by Philip Roy

  We went ever deeper into this chaos until the driver came to a stop.

  “Is it here?”

  He pointed down a dark street. “There. You’ll have to walk in there. I cannot go in there, I won’t get out.”

  I didn’t know if he meant he couldn’t fit, or if they wouldn’t let him out. “Will you wait here?”

  He looked impatient. “Four hundred rupees.”

  “Okay. Here.”

  We got out of the rickshaw. I pulled Hollie onto my back. Radji took my hand. People on the street stared suspiciously at us. I tried to ignore them and searched for the numbers on the buildings, which were almost impossible to find underneath the dirt. These must have once been new, clean buildings with shops and workshops in them. Now they were filthy, and many were shut or just filled with people and junk. But some of them still appeared to be functioning as workshops where people were fixing things and maybe selling them. There was nothing new for sale, only old things that were fixed up. In fact, it sort of looked like a community of recyclers, and that was kind of cool. Ziegfried would have enjoyed seeing that, although he wouldn’t like the mess.

  Suddenly, I had an idea. With Radji in hand I ducked into a makeshift shop where a man was sitting at a workbench straightening copper wire. On the floor, which was just earth, were large piles of copper wire twisted up in impossible messes. Some of it was still attached to pieces of pipe or wood. It must have been pulled out of old buildings. The man was carefully unwinding it and straightening it by running it slowly through two wheels, like rolling wet clothes through an old fashioned ringer washer. A group of four or five other men and boys were hanging around the shop watching. Their eyes opened wide when they saw us enter. I did my very best not to look nervous at all or too interested.

  “Good looking copper,” I said.

  He didn’t look up but I knew he saw me. “Copper is copper.”

  I picked up one clump. “No. This is better copper than that.”

  He looked up now. “You are right. Do you buy copper?”

  “No, but I have a friend who does. He would like this copper very much but he is far away.”

  “How far?”

  “Canada.”

  I thought for a second that he almost smiled. “That is far.”

  “Maybe I could buy a little of your copper and bring it to him as a gift. He would like copper that had come all the way from India.”

  He stared at me to see if I was being serious. “One hundred rupees for that piece,” he said.

  I did my best to frown. “I can only pay fifty rupees.”

  This time I was sure he smiled just a tiny bit. “Eighty rupees and you can take it back to Canada.”

  I should have argued more but was too anxious. I pulled the bills out of my pocket, flipped through them and handed him eighty rupees. I was a little nervous waving money around, but if they were thieves there wasn’t much we could do about it anyway. Something told me they weren’t thieves.

  He took the money and squinted at me. “But that is not why you are here.”

  “No. That’s true. But my friend really would like a present of copper from India. And he will send you a postcard to thank you. That is the sort of man he is.”

  He considered for a moment. “You have a nice friend.”

  “He is. He is the one who taught me about copper and many other things.”

  “But that is not why you are here. Why are you here?”

  “I’m looking for an old man.”

  He looked puzzled. “You look for an old man here? Who could that be?”

  “He is staying with Mr. Singh. At this address.” I handed him the paper. He took it, read it and looked confused.

  “He is dead?”

  “No. But I think he is very sick.”

  “He must be dead.”

  “Why must he be dead?”

  “If he is staying with Mr. Singh, he must be dead. Come. I will take you.”

  He gestured to a boy in the shop who rushed over and took his spot when he got up. The boy immediately took over the task of straightening the wire as if he had been just waiting to do it. We followed the man down the street until we were standing in front of another shop that was lined inside with urns. The urns were everywhere. There was a very old man there. The coppersmith spoke to him and he came out to greet us. He was very friendly. I was pretty sure he was a Sikh. He wore a long white turban wrapped around his head and had thick white eyebrows. His eyes were unusually large and kind. For some reason he reminded me of a very skinny version of Santa Claus.

  “You are looking for someone?” he asked.

  “Yes. I am looking for the brother of Melissa Honeychurch. She said that she called you.”

  I handed him the paper with her brother’s name on it. He took it, read it and started nodding his head and never stopped. He went back inside his shop and started fiddling around with the urns. He picked up one and put it down. He picked up another and put it down, then another. He came halfway out with an urn in his hands, then went back inside and put it back down. Finally, he settled on one, a brown and grey one with a silver strip around it. He carried it out and handed it to me. “Here he is.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  AT THE OLD GOA TRAIN station in the middle of the night Melissa reached out her arms and I handed her the urn. If she were terribly upset finding out that her brother was dead she didn’t show it. She took the urn as if it were a soccer ball or something, tucked it under her arm and continued talking. “I can’t thank you enough for getting him for me. I hope it wasn’t too difficult. Mumbai is such an awful city. I just couldn’t go there. Funny, isn’t it, to meet one’s brother only after his life is all over? I don’t know a thing about him.” She looked at the urn and sighed. “Come. You two must be dead tired. I’ll take you home and you can go to bed. Your seagull is just fine. What a strange bird! I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s been chasing away the monkeys!”

  I guessed she had known all along.

  On what was maybe the brightest Sunday morning I ever saw, we took a pile of clay tiles from the garage and laid the old ladder against the roof of the house. The monkeys were watching from the trees but Seaweed had taken a spot on top of the roof and was behaving aggressively towards them, I didn’t know why. He just didn’t seem to like them. Seagulls from Newfoundland were bigger than seagulls from anywhere else, and probably tougher.

  Radji took to assisting me as if we were performing a religious ceremony. The roof had a low pitch; there was little risk of falling. And the fall wouldn’t kill you; still, I warned him to be careful. I carried some tiles up in the tool bag with a hammer and nails. Radji came up behind me and climbed carefully onto the roof. The tiles were dry and dusty and not slippery at all, although they were too hot to sit on for long.

  I had never replaced clay tiles before but it looked like a simple task. Each tile had a hole in it for a nail, and each one interlocked with the tiles above and below it. Well, it would have been simple if we could have just hammered the nails through the holes into the roof, but every tile we wanted to replace had an older tile above it and in the way of the nail hole. We could slide the tile in place but couldn’t hammer in the nail. After half an hour or so, I was sweating so much my hands were slippery and I was frustrated. It didn’t help that Radji kept sticking his fingers in under the tiles while I was trying to figure it out.

  Then he said he had an idea and went down the ladder to get something. “Be careful,” I said. He returned with a sharp, hooked tool I had never seen before and a long punch. To my amazement, he slid the hook underneath a tile and cut a pilot hole for the nail in the roof. Then he put the nail in place, but at an awkward angle. That’s where the punch came in. By fitting the punch onto the head of the nail, and hitting the punch with the hammer, we could drive the nail into the roof. It was a great idea. But Radji didn’t have the strength or the coordination to hold the nail and punch in place and hit it with the hammer at the same t
ime. But I did. It worked perfectly. I was so impressed. “Radji, that’s fantastic!” I was so pleased that I stood right up, lost my balance and fell off the roof.

  I hit the ground really hard, but it wasn’t a long way down. Still, it knocked the wind out of me. I rolled over and looked up at Radji looking down at me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I got to my feet, brushed the dirt off my clothes, felt my bones and head. Nothing seemed to be broken. “I guess so. It really hurt.”

  Then Melissa came around the corner with a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. She was wearing her white, wide-brimmed sun hat. “How is it going, boys?” She poured a glass and handed it to me.

  My hand was shaking as I reached for the glass but I tried to hide it. “Thank you. It’s going great. We figured it out.”

  “Did you? Well, that’s just wonderful!” She looked up and threw Radji an affectionate smile, but he looked away.

  “I’ll bring him up a glass,” I said.

  “Won’t he come down?” said Melissa, looking a little hurt.

  “Umm . . . I don’t think so. He gets pretty intense when he’s concentrating.”

  “I see. Well. Okay then.” She poured another glass and looked out from beneath her sun hat. “It’s very nice to have men working around the house again.”

  “Your roof really needs the attention. We’ll finish it up before we leave for Varanasi.”

  Melissa curled up the front of her hat with one hand so that she could look into my eyes. “Yes, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I thought maybe . . . maybe I could come too.”

  “To Varanasi?”

  “Yes. You see, I have these ashes. And my brother was a Hindu, like his mother’s people. So, I suppose the thing I ought to do is put his ashes in the river. In the Ganges. And since you two are planning to go there anyway, why don’t we just go together? We can go in my car.”

  I stared at her. I wondered if I wanted to travel so far with her. It would take at least a few days to get there by car, and a few back. That was a long time to sit together in a car. And I bet Radji wouldn’t like it very much. We had been planning to take the train. We liked travelling by train. I took a deep breath and just stared back at her. I really didn’t know what to say.

  Melissa’s face softened. Her shoulders dropped. I wondered for a moment if she was going to cry. Then it occurred to me that maybe she was sad about her brother after all, even though she had never known him. Maybe she wished she had known him. I knew what that felt like. I had never known my mother.

  “Sure. Okay.”

  “Oh, good! Oh, I’m so glad! We’ll have a good time. We’ll make a real trip of it. It will be a true pilgrimage.” She beamed and looked up at Radji, then hugged me. It hurt. I was sore all over.

  We finished replacing the tiles on the roof of the house by suppertime. Melissa brought us lemonade six times, and prepared us a feast, which we greatly appreciated. Even Radji smiled at her a little. We washed up and came to the table. Radji explained carefully how we had fitted every tile in place, and how difficult and complicated it was to nail them down. He spoke carefully, with precise detail, like an experienced worker. He had a right to be proud. Melissa listened as if it were the most important thing she had ever heard. After supper we hit the sofa. Radji curled up with Hollie and started to fall asleep immediately.

  I wanted to find a map. Melissa had a drawer full of maps that had belonged to her father. Some were a hundred years old! They were great if you wanted to travel to Varanasi by elephant. Then Melissa brought me a topographical map that was fairly new. It had roads on it too. I was impressed. I opened it on the floor, knelt down and studied it. Radji wiped his sleepy eyes, slipped off the sofa, knelt down beside me and studied it too. Though he couldn’t read or write, the map fascinated him. That didn’t surprise me; everything fascinated Radji.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s a road.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s a river.”

  “Where is the Ganges?”

  “Up here.”

  “Is that far?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Mountains.”

  “Ohhhhhh. So many.”

  “The Himalayas. Biggest mountains in the world.”

  “Will we see them?”

  “No. We go from here . . . to here.”

  The roads looked like a thousand pieces of string twisted up in knots. What a mess! I took a pencil and very gently followed a route out of Goa. It twisted due north so I abandoned it and tried another one. It went south. Then I found a good one. It was the Number 7. It twisted around a bit but kept going in a northeast direction, finding its way through the mess. It appeared to follow the ridges of a plateau for a while, went past some animal reserves, water reservoirs, woods and jungle. Then it levelled out and ran through a drier, flatter terrain. Maybe it was a desert, I couldn’t tell for sure. It wound north with persistence, as if its purpose was to bring us right to Varanasi.

  “Did you find one?” Radji asked.

  “Yes. I think so.”

  I showed him and he traced the road with his finger as if it were the route to a secret cave filled with treasure. “Can we walk?”

  “No way! It would take forever. We’re not walking. We’re going to drive in Melissa’s car.”

  I could tell by the look on his face that Radji didn’t like that. Too bad about him. He was lucky he was getting to go in the first place.

  He was quiet for a little while, thinking it over, no doubt. “How long will it take?”

  “Probably two or three days of driving, depends on the roads, how busy they are and everything.”

  “Roads are always busy.”

  “It’ll be really interesting to drive there. It might even be fun.”

  “What about the train?”

  I looked Radji in the eye. The little rascal. “We’re going in the car with Melissa.” He could take it or leave it as far as I was concerned.

  “She smells funny.”

  “It’s called perfume.”

  Chapter Twenty

  BUT WHAT WAS I GOING to do with Seaweed? He wouldn’t be happy sitting in the car so long, that was for sure. I didn’t want to leave him behind either; we’d be gone too long. If he didn’t see us for that many days he might drift away. I couldn’t risk that. But if he were following us through the air, how would we know when he had stopped to rest? And how would he spot us when we were swept up in the traffic of a big city? It wouldn’t be like following the sub at sea.

  The answer came to me as I passed one of the old photos on the wall. It was a picture of the Jaguar when it was brand new. It was probably her father sitting at the wheel. On the roof was a rack with a bunch of boxes and suitcases. That’s what we could do—put a box on the roof that Seaweed could ride in, and jump out whenever he wanted to. And we could put something shiny in it that he would recognize from the sky so that he would always find us. That would work.

  Melissa spent a day preparing for the trip. She made a huge pot of rice and spiced it up and cooked vegetables and spiced them up and filled one whole basket with fruit. She filled another basket with bread, biscuits and cookies. All that day her house smelled like a restaurant and bakery. Radji and I replaced the rest of the broken tiles on the garage. We had the method down really well now. We could have gone into business fixing roofs.

  Out of curiosity I opened the hood of Melissa’s car. Wrapped around the engine I found what looked like a dirty old strap, which turned out to be a dead snake. That made me wonder when she had last changed the oil. Poking around I found the oil filter. It was clogged like a wet towel covered with sand. No oil was getting through. Then, I discovered there was almost no oil in the car anyway. I looked around the garage and found a can of oil but it seemed to have thickened into a kind o
f tar. I had no idea how Melissa was driving around without oil. I stepped into the kitchen door and asked her how often she drove her car. She wiped the sweat and cookie dough from her brow and smiled. “Oh, not too often. Maybe once or twice a month. Or less.”

  I asked her where a garage was so I could buy some oil. She said there was one at a crossroads just a mile away. Could I ride the old bicycle that was in the garage? Of course. So, I climbed onto the bike and Radji climbed onto the back carrier and we rode to the crossroads where we found the garage and a few shops. I left Hollie in the house. I didn’t want to risk losing him again. While I bought oil for the car I saw Radji staring intensely at one of those posters for skin-whitening cream in the window of a nearby shop. The contrast between the happy, almost white family in the ad, and the wishful look on Radji’s dark little face made me feel a twist in my stomach.

  Though I didn’t agree with it, I stepped into the shop and bought him a tube. It wasn’t expensive and it made him happy. He put it on right away. Then, on the way back I had to keep telling him to hold onto the bicycle because he kept rubbing his skin and almost falling off. When we got back to the house, he made a point of walking by Melissa with his arms sticking out, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy. I took a breath and sighed. Back home in Newfoundland people paid money at tanning salons to darken their skin. Some even bought bottles of brown liquid that made them darker. It wouldn’t sell well in India.

  I drained the old oil from the Jaguar. When I pinched it between my fingers it felt gritty. The last bits came out in clumps. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see a dead snake inside the engine too. Pouring new, crystal-yellow oil into the engine was a joy, like giving a glass of fresh water to a man who had just crawled out of a desert.

  Next, I checked the tires. They were okay, not great. If it rained we’d have to slow down a lot—there wasn’t much traction. Luckily we wouldn’t have to worry about ice or snow. I checked the spare. It needed air but we could get some on the road. All of the tires needed filling.