The Wishing Trees

by John Shors

  “Daddy?”

  “Yeah, luv?”

  “Why would people call him an untouchable?”

  “Because doing so makes them feel better about themselves. Because they’re the weak ones.”

  “Where do you think his parents are?”

  “I don’t know, Roo.”

  The boy surfaced, raising his fist above the water, appearing to look at what he gripped. Continuing to hold his hand high, he struggled against the current, swimming toward shore. Mattie glanced to her left and saw a pair of old sandals and a dirty shirt on a nearby step. The boy seemed to swim toward these items, his head disappearing at times beneath the water. Soon he could stand and began to walk toward shore. He wore dark shorts, but nothing else. His ribs resembled curved sticks. His knees and elbows seemed oversized, stretching his skin taut. The boy’s hair was cropped close to his head and cut irregularly, as if he’d found some old scissors and used them on himself.

  Mattie watched him emerge from the shallows. He paid her no heed, sitting on the step beside his clothes. He opened his fist, and placed a plastic blue triceratops beside him. Raising his fingers toward the sun, he studied whatever he had found, then rubbed the item on his shirt.

  Ian wasn’t sure if Mattie would break the silence, so he waved to the boy. “Did you find something good?”

  The boy glanced at Ian, then turned around, looking to see if someone was behind him. Seeing that he was alone, he pocketed the small item and picked up his toy dinosaur.

  “We’ve been watching you,” Ian continued. “You’re a magnificent swimmer.”

  Shaking his head, the boy looked down at his feet.

  “What’s your name?” Mattie asked. “I’m Mattie. I’m ten and a half years old. And this is my daddy. His name is Ian.”

  The boy studied Ian and Mattie. He stroked his dinosaur. “Rupee,” he said softly. “I Rupee.”

  “Is that your friend?” Mattie wondered, pointing at the blue triceratops.

  Rupee covered the toy with his hands but nodded. “He Prem.”

  Mattie smiled. “How old are you?”

  Shrugging, Rupee put on his sandals. “Bye-bye.”

  “Wait,” Mattie said, standing up. “Do you want to go to lunch with us? We’re about to have lunch.”

  Rupee looked around again, his thin toes moving back and forth in his sandals.

  Ian sensed the boy’s fear. “I promise we don’t want anything from you. Nothing at all. Mattie just hopes to make a new mate. A new friend, I mean.”

  Rupee’s eyes narrowed and he bit his lower lip. “Me no have money.”

  “We know,” Ian answered. “We don’t want your loot. And we’ll buy you lunch.”

  “Whatever you want,” Mattie added.

  Rupee was confused. People had stolen from him so many times before. He’d been beaten, thrown naked into the river. He was afraid of most everyone—of the bullies who also looked for gold teeth and tried to take whatever he found, of the gangs that preyed on the homeless. Only his dinosaur, Prem, had always remained faithful, had never hurt him.

  “Please come with us,” Mattie said, nodding. “We only want to have lunch with you. In a nice restaurant where you can get really full.”

  Rupee wasn’t sure what she meant. He had never been in a restaurant. But he watched her eyes and they did not seem to be the eyes of someone who would hurt him. They reminded him of Prem’s eyes.

  “You look hungry,” Mattie continued. “Don’t you want some food?”

  For two days Rupee had been hungry—he hadn’t eaten for longer than that. He longed to trust this girl, who smiled at him, who didn’t turn away.

  Mattie nodded. “Will you be my Indian friend? Please?”

  Rupee had never been asked to be anyone’s friend. He dipped his head, his heartbeat quickening.

  Ian smiled and walked up the steps, followed by Mattie and Rupee. The smoke and heat from a nearby funeral pyre drifted over him. He smelled flowers, incense, sandalwood, and the scent of a body being transformed by fire. As he increased his speed, Ian glanced behind him, unsure what to do with the boy, but glad that Mattie wanted to help him.

  Forty or fifty steps brought them to a funeral procession—a body covered in layers of marigold flowers, surrounded by a few dozen relatives. Ian turned to his right, avoiding the procession, stepping up and up until the riverbank plateaued and the city stretched away from him.

  Holding Mattie’s hand, he led them forward, pleased that Rupee hadn’t run away. Varanasi appeared far different from the interior than it did from the river. People had been living on this stretch of land for three thousand years, and buildings looked to be about that old—stained and crumbling, covered in faded advertisements and draped with electrical wires. Where the buildings met the streets dozens of beggars congregated. Lepers held crying children. Cows lay in filth. A woman with no legs had tied herself to a tire and moved by putting her hands on the pitted pavement and lifting herself up. Hundreds of middle-class Indians also filled the alleys, as well as a few tourists with their digital cameras and oversized traveling hats.

  Rupee knew how to speak some English but was afraid to ask anything of these foreigners. He didn’t want them to leave him, not when he was so hungry, when his stomach felt as if two snakes were fighting inside it. He followed the tall man down the streets, wondering where they were headed. His hand in his pocket, Rupee felt Prem and the silver nose ring that he’d found on the bottom of the river. The nose ring, he believed, would feed him for a few weeks. He’d been lucky to find it hidden beneath an old tree trunk that had shifted in the silt. He would have to hide it well, for the gangs would search him.

  As Rupee walked, he studied the girl beside him. She was dressed in simple but nice clothes—red shorts and a T-shirt with dolphins on the front. She often smiled at him, and he liked the way her freckles moved as the corners of her mouth turned up. She was beautiful, he thought, more beautiful than anything he had ever seen.

  Rupee followed her into a narrow but towering building. He had never been inside such a place. Normally, he wouldn’t be welcome here, but the presence of the foreigners changed everything. A woman said hello to the tall man and led them toward a stairwell. Rupee trailed the girl up the stairs, his fingers rubbing Prem, his nervousness causing him to miss a step and stumble.

  The stairs finally ended, revealing a rooftop restaurant. They walked to a table near the edge of the building, overlooking the Ganges River. Rupee had never seen the river from such a high place, and his eyes widened. The river shimmered, fires along its shore, boats dot-ting its surface. The man pulled out a chair and motioned for Rupee to sit. He did as asked, moving closer to the table and smiling for the first time since meeting the strangers. They weren’t going to hurt him, he decided.

  “What a marvelous view,” Ian said, motioning toward the river. “And what a marvelous day.” He looked at Rupee. “We’re glad to have you with us. It’s a real pleasure.”

  Rupee grinned again, nodding at Mattie.

  “I like your name,” she said.

  He fingered Prem beneath the table, remembering how the bigger boys had named him Rupee because he was small, like a coin, and was always begging for rupees. “My name, like Indian money,” he said, his feet swinging back and forth.

  A waitress wearing a yellow T-shirt and black pants emerged from the stairway. She said hello, placed three menus on the table, and asked what they might like to drink. Mattie saw Rupee’s confusion, and she ordered them each an orange Fanta. Ian asked for a bottle of water.

  Rupee opened his menu, but since he couldn’t read, it was no use to him. He decided to order whatever Mattie did. He felt silly to be looking at a menu, as he was used to trading trinkets for bowls of rice or pieces of bread. Ordering from menus was something reserved for the rich.

  The waitress returned with their drinks. Rupee saw the straw in his Fanta and smiled. He’d never used a straw and wasn’t certain how it worked. After watching Mattie
sip from her drink, he put his lips to the straw and tried to suck. Unfortunately, he pulled the sugary drink into his lungs and started to cough, surprised to see Fanta dripping out his nose. Though his nose burned, Rupee saw Mattie grin and he smiled at his misfortune.

  “You have to suck it into your mouth, and then swallow it,” she said, slowly drinking more of her Fanta. “You see? Suck it into your mouth and then swish it around your teeth.”

  Rupee wasn’t certain he understood her correctly, but he did his best to copy her movements. The drink was so sugary in his mouth that he couldn’t help but smile. He giggled, swallowing the Fanta, slurping through his straw.

  A wasp landed on Mattie’s arm, and she instinctively leapt up from her chair, knocking the table and causing her father’s bottle to topple. Water splashed on the table, running onto Rupee’s shorts and legs, prompting him to smile again. “I always in water,” he said, as she used a napkin to wipe the table. “No problem.”

  Ian helped clean up the mess. He watched Mattie and Rupee grin at each other. She seemed younger in the presence of another child, and he felt lucky that Rupee was with them. Though Ian sought to make Mattie laugh, he knew that there were limits to what he could do. He couldn’t giggle over straws and spilled water. He could try to be a child, but he wasn’t a child.

  The waitress returned. When it was Rupee’s turn to order, he simply pointed at Mattie and held up two fingers. Understanding his motions, the waitress nodded, then dropped to her knees and lit a citronella candle beneath the table.

  “Rupee, were you born in Varanasi?” Ian asked.

  Rupee shrugged, smiling. “Me not know. Only remember Varanasi. Me not think I born in Los Angeles, London, or Paris.”

  Ian chuckled, surprised at how quickly Rupee had emerged from his shell. “You sure? Your accent sounds a bit French.”

  “Sometimes, Mr. Ian, I beg near river. I talk with foreigners. So I learn to speak little English, little France, little German. That way people give me more money. Other boys call me Rupee because I get so many coin.”

  “And your parents . . . are they in Varanasi?”

  Rupee’s smile vanished. “I think the Ganga River is my mother and father. I swim every day, look for pretty things.”

  “You’re not scared?” Mattie asked.

  “Prem make me safe,” Rupee said, removing the dinosaur from his pocket and putting it on the table.

  Mattie could see that Prem was scratched, sun bleached, and missing the tip of his tail. “Where did you find him?”

  Rupee stroked the dinosaur’s back as he took another sip of his drink. “In Ganga. Long time ago, when I scared to swim in deep water. I find Prem and he always my best friend.”

  The waitress returned with their food, setting steaming plates of curried chicken and rice before each person. Rupee had never seen so much food. He couldn’t believe that one little person like Mattie could eat so much. Wouldn’t that be enough to last her for three days?

  Rupee started to reach for his rice with his fingers but saw that Mattie was using a spoon. Unsure how to eat with such an instrument, he tried to mimic her movements. The spoon was awkward in his hand, like a steel finger that he suddenly needed to move. He felt silly holding the spoon and once again grinned.

  “What’s so funny?” Mattie asked, moving up and down in her chair.

  “I never eat with spoon. It feel so strange in my mouth. Like a rock.”

  “A rock? But it’s smooth.”

  “Still feel like rock to me. Maybe I break tooth if I bite too hard.”

  Ian watched Mattie and Rupee laugh. He was delighted that two children, complete strangers and from such different pasts, could joke together about a spoon. He looked up, wishing that Kate could see their daughter giggling with Rupee. It felt so good to hear her laugh. The pain in his stomach, in his mind, seemed to disappear when he heard her laugh. He felt as if he were undergoing a restoration, like an old sailboat that was being refitted and set out to sea.

  As Ian studied Rupee, he thought about what to do with the boy. In two days, he and Mattie would depart for Hong Kong, and they couldn’t leave Rupee on the streets. But neither could they take him. Finding an orphanage seemed like the best idea. Surely, some place would accept a bright, happy boy. But how to find such a place? And how to keep from hurting either Mattie or Rupee by splitting them up so quickly?

  Mattie finished her lunch, stood up, took Rupee’s hand, and led him to the edge of the balcony. They were four or five stories above the ground and had an excellent view of the Ganges. Rupee squinted, studying the funeral pyres. He thought he saw boys diving under the brown water, looking for treasures from the dead. Though Rupee had long ago accepted his fate, he didn’t want to go back to the river, at least not yet. He liked the American girl. No one had ever held his hand, and he enjoyed the feel of her fingers against his. She was clean and beautiful, and yet she held his hand, as if he were her friend and not an untouchable.

  Rupee squeezed her fingers, not wanting her to let go.

  Mattie saw that his smile was gone, that he was afraid she would leave. “Let’s get you some new sandals, Rupee,” she said, leading him away from the sight of the river. “Those are going to fall off your feet, and you won’t be able to show us around the city if your feet hurt.”

  Ian watched his daughter walk hand in hand with Rupee toward the stairs. She was taking care of him, Ian realized. Though she’d always longed for a little sister, it seemed that she saw Rupee as a little brother of sorts, as someone she wanted to nurture and protect.

  As they hurried down the stairs, Ian began to worry about their looming separation, wondering if there was anything he could do to soften the blow.

  FIVE HOURS LATER, RUPEE WAS WEARING NEW clothes and sandals. His belly was full. Maybe best of all, at least from Rupee’s perspective, was that Ian had opened a bank account in Rupee’s name and deposited five hundred dollars. With his new identification card, Rupee could go to the bank and withdraw small sums of money whenever he was hungry. Because of this arrangement, Rupee wasn’t worried about having to hide his valuables from the other boys. If he found a piece of jewelry, he could sell it, deposit the money, and then live on his earnings.

  Rupee had never understood the workings of banks, but Ian had explained to him in great detail how people went about depositing and withdrawing money. Normally, Rupee wouldn’t have been allowed in any bank, but with his new clothes, and with Ian and Mattie at his side, he hadn’t experienced any problems. And the bank manager had been happy to take Ian’s deposit.

  Numerous times during the day, Rupee had looked at the sun and thought about how he’d normally be swimming in the Ganga, fighting the current and the blackness, sifting through the silt to try to discover the treasures of the dead. Most days he found nothing more than bits of wood, stone, and bone. He went to bed hungry, sleeping in a half-sunk fishing boat that rotted at the water’s edge. He hid in the boat, lying beside the old wheelhouse, nestled in newspapers, Prem perched on his belly. Rupee always went to the boat well after dark, when the older boys were unlikely to find his hiding place. And he woke up at dawn, returning to the streets or the river.

  Now, as Rupee followed Mattie, he couldn’t believe how one chance encounter had so drastically changed his life. He’d eaten in a restaurant for the first time, wore new clothes, had a fortune in a bank, and a girl from America called him her friend. Rupee had never been happier. He felt as if he were flying instead of walking. His mind seemed to sing instead of slumber. Even his eyes felt sharper.

  Rupee had never been to the small amusement park on the outskirts of Varanasi, but that was where he, Mattie, and Ian were headed. They’d taken a taxi from the center of town, heading only a few kilometers from the river, but driving by sights foreign to Rupee—gardens and three-storied homes and markets with piles of food and goods.

  The entrance to the amusement park was little more than an iron gate flanked by a pair of ticket booths. Ian paid a no
minal fee and led Mattie and Rupee inside. Both children were excited. Mattie took Rupee’s hand and hurried forward, past groups of laughing teenagers, women sitting on benches, men taking photos with their cell phones. Though dusk approached, the day was still stifling. The heat was as noticeable as the balloons that sailed upward from the failed grasp of toddlers.

  Mattie led Rupee toward a small roller-coaster ride. A metal frame consisting of iron rods rose fifty or sixty feet high. A few dozen people formed a line that ran toward the ride. Ian looked up and saw a black, bubblelike car rumbling down the rails. The car screeched to a halt near the front of the line.

  Mattie, who tended to observe a whole scene rather than its parts, tugged on her father’s arm. Pointing toward a rise in the track, she asked, “Daddy, are those people . . . pedaling up that hill?”

  Squinting, Ian peered at the car making its slow way up the rise. He saw that no chain or cable ran up the hill to carry the car. In fact, the entire roller-coaster ride seemed to not contain a single engine. “I reckon you’re as right as rain,” he said, wondering how Indian information technology personnel helped to run his company while their roller coaster didn’t have a power supply. “Shall we give it a go?”

  “Absobloodylutely,” Mattie replied, rising on her tiptoes to try to peer beyond the people in front of her. Putting her hand on Rupee’s shoulder, she jumped up. “We’re almost there!”

  Rupee smiled, giggling at the thought of going on a roller coaster. He’d heard of such rides but hadn’t imagined sitting on one. “Thank you, Mr. Ian,” he said. “Prem and me, we thank you so many times.”

  “You’re welcome, Rupee. So many times.”

  Another few minutes passed before the trio stood at the front of the line. An attendant pulled a lever that somehow slowed an approaching car. Four laughing teens climbed out of two rows of seats. Mattie and Rupee got in the front seat, while Ian moved behind them. Sure enough, a pair of bicycle pedals was positioned just above the floor in front of Ian. He chuckled and put his feet on the pedals. “Ready, Roo?”