A Sister's Promise (40 page)

A ghost town. Not a town, no. Even village is an overstatement.

Next door, there’s another hut, a pungent smell emanating from it. An opening which yawns into darkness.

He cannot see anything else for the swirling dust.

Not a soul.

It is as if the kids have disappeared into thin air.

He should have paid better attention as to which direction they had gone, but he was coughing from the dust which had launched a fresh assault on his eyes and his face.

The sun beats down mercilessly, the heat an insect burrowing inside his very soul. He can see the appeal of going naked here he really can, wearing nothing but a covering of dust which will do for modesty and uniformity. You can’t see anything anyway, there’s always dust eddying in front of you or yellow sun causing you to scrunch your eyes into squints, and making everything shimmer.

‘Hello? Sir?’ he hears and turns.

A boy about his age, perhaps a year or two older, is standing before him, holding out his hand.

‘Hi, I’m Raj,’ he says, taking the proffered hand and rudely transferring the grime he is coated with onto it.

‘Nice to meet you. I am Somu.’ The boy says in very good English, although he pauses before each word as if he is reading from a page in a book etched onto his memory. ‘You are Kushi’s cousin?’ Somu politely does not mention the dust Raj has transferred onto his hand, gamely wiping it onto the white skirt like thing all the men here wear, and which instantly turns a vivid tangerine.

Raj hesitates, then, ‘Yes.’ He does not want to get into the whole story, and say,
she’s actually my sister, but . . .
This notion of him being known and accepted not for himself, but in relation to Kushi, the wan girl he’s left behind in hospital, feels strange, and takes some getting used to.

‘We are all so upset about what happened to her.’ Somu’s face is very expressive and seems to enact every word he utters. ‘Kushi is our saviour.’

‘Your saviour?’ Raj’s voice is sprinkled with amused disbelief.

But Somu nods earnestly, his face grave, voice solemn. ‘Kushi made sure I got the engineering seat I deserved. She has helped every one of us here in so many ways. She is amazing. The heroine of our village. Is she okay?’

He thinks of his mother even now being tested for a match.

‘She’s getting there,’ he says.

‘Good.’ The boy nods again. ‘Shall I show you around the village?’

Wow,
Raj thinks as he walks through the village—so far it is a dusty smattering of huts nestling amongst grime-washed emerald fields—with Somu who tells him all that Kushi has done for him, and for the villagers. Raj is getting a different image of the girl he has to keep reminding himself is his sister, the scared girl trying so hard to be brave at the hospital morphing into this remarkable person who was so incensed by the injustice of her father’s death that she wrote a letter that changed everything.

Raj pictures a girl with blazing eyes and fervent views, an incorrigible zest for life and a commitment to change the world around her and her absolute belief that she will do so, a girl absolutely aware of exactly where she’s headed in life and the knowledge of how to get there.

I wish I knew where my life was headed.

What an awesome girl Kushi is.
His
sister. He feels a rush of pride. He is so honoured, he thinks, to be associated with this extraordinary girl.

Please let Mum’s kidney be a match,
he thinks, even as he shies away from the vision of his mum on the operating table.
Please get better, Kushi,
he thinks.
You have a world to save
.

Somu tells him about the boys who were expelled and how their parents wrought their revenge. Raj is beset by a helpless, frustrated fury on behalf of his sister, much like he was when he heard his mother’s story, what had been done to her.

‘We are taking action. The media is in an uproar. What happened to her will not go unpunished,’ Somu declares fervently, nodding his head.

Gentle-eyed, dirt-crusted cows stalk down the road, flicking away the flies that alight on their backs with a swish of their tails. It is hot enough to fry eggs in and the ubiquitous churning dust makes him feel like he is walking through a carroty haze. It tickles his nose, provoking a perpetual urge to sneeze. The air, thick with soil angst, hangs heavy with a strangely piquant, but overpowering aroma of spices, gutters, and heat.

The huts they encounter look barely big enough to house him, let alone the families he glimpses inside. He would have to crouch to enter one and keep crouching inside, he thinks, they are that small.

Bedraggled children wearing nothing but hungry expressions, thin bruised coverings of brittle brown skin straining over their ribs and dipping into the concave hollows of their stomachs, stare curiously at him, their liquid eyes the colour of ditch water.

I have been so lucky,
Raj thinks,
and so very spoiled.

He samples the pungent flavour of a world completely different from the one he is used to, the soft give of yellowish red soil beneath his feet whispering with every step.

Women in multi-coloured saris cooking on fires out in the open, mud pots simmering and hissing, avert their eyes from his gaze. But all of them wave to Somu and chat with him, in rapid-fire exchanges in the regional language, which Somu tells him is Kannada.

‘What are they saying?’ Raj asks, curious.

‘There’s no drinking water in the village. Again! The wells are dry. The borewells that have been installed are far from enough. This year the drought has been terrible and a man was poisoned by the germ-laden excuse for water that the borewells dispense trickle by agonising trickle. Kushi organised a demonstration, before her accident, but we are yet to see any concrete action on the part of the local government . . .’

And once again, Raj is swamped by admiration for his new-found sister, with her passion, her boundless enthusiasm, wishing he had but one ounce of her energy, her fire, her conviction.

What a waste it will be, if Mum’s kidney is not a match,
he thinks, and instantly pushes the thought, and the accompanying nausea away.

Bony dogs amble up to him, sniffing his feet, hoping for a treat. He breathes in gritty lungfuls of the humid air.

‘Ah here we are,’ Somu says. ‘Would you like a taste of our local wine?’

‘Huh?’ Raj asks.

They have stopped outside a hay topped shack. When Raj peers into the dark interior, his eyes adjusting, after a bit, to the hazy gloom inside, barely alleviated by flickering lamps, he is surprised by the activity within. Men stooping huddled in the musty, confined surroundings, are taking huge gulps of a creamy liquid spilling from tumblers that shine in the dull murkiness.

Raj inhales the sweet, tart tang of brew as Somu walks in through the opening that stands for the doorway (there is no door) that is so small even Somu, a whole head shorter than Raj, has to crouch to pass through.

The pleasantly drunk men beckon to Somu, and then, when he points Raj out, they stumble outside to speak to him, and Somu translates their rapid-fire Kannada in his careful English. All of them ask after Kushi and send their best wishes; all of them tell Raj how much Kushi has helped them, what she has done for them.

The man at the stool that serves as a counter presses two cloudy bottles into Somu’s hands, refusing to take payment, calling after him to convey his greetings to his mother and father and sisters, as he hunkers back out through the opening and blinks in the sunshine.

Everyone knows everyone else here, Raj is beginning to realise.

Somu grins as he holds up the hazy bottles of white foamy liquid frothing at the rim, ‘Our version of alcohol. Palm toddy, distilled by cutting into the flower of a palm tree and collecting the sap overnight and letting it ferment. We’ll have it with our food. You must eat with us. It’ll be a real honour. My parents will be overjoyed.’

Raj takes a bite of something called a veg puff, puff pastry stuffed with spicy vegetables, which he picks at random from a shack crammed full to bursting with pastries, sweets and biscuits, all thrown together haphazardly inside a scratched and dirty glass case, fly-infested and wilting in the sunlight.

‘Not bad at all,’ he says, as his taste buds process the explosion of spices as the crumbly pastry travels down his oesophagus, adding substance and soothing his stomach which had been on the point of rebellion.

‘Wait till you taste my ma’s food,’ Somu says. ‘Not as delicious as Sharda amma’s of course. Your aunt is the best cook in the village. I will take you to her factory later, after you’ve been to the cottage, although she’s looking to sell it, now.’

‘Why?’

‘Medical costs,’ Somu says and Raj tastes the scarlet burn of wrath at the people who did this to Kushi in his throat again.

Afterwards, after Raj has been to the cottage his aunt and Kushi share, which is like a fairy-tale house in a magic wood, its mouldy scent of trapped air and old phantoms momentarily chased away by his presence, and collected the clothes and sundries Sharda needs, and after he has been to the factory, a hive of frenzied, bustling, spice-perfumed, laughter-sprinkled, gossip-seasoned activity, Somu takes Raj to his house.

It is a one-roomed hut, with a hearth in the corner. A framed photo takes up most of one crumbling wall. It is of Somu’s family clustered around a puffed-up man who Somu’s father proudly informs Raj in Kannada
—
with Somu doing the translating
—
is the Chief Minister. It seems to have been taken at the unlucky moment when Somu’s father was settling his crotch into place.

‘That picture was clicked when Somu got his engineering seat,’ Somu’s Da says. ‘Kushi’s doing.’

Somu’s sisters, who have just arrived from school, giggle when they see Raj. Then, hiding their faces in their churidar shawls, they run to help their mother who is chopping vegetables at the hearth.

‘I am studying very hard to reward Kushi’s faith in me,’ Somu says.

‘But he still takes the time to help me in the fields in the evenings when he’s back from college,’ Somu’s father grins affectionately at Somu, and pride streaks his voice the bright yellow of happiness. ‘Lucky he had the day off today for exam revision, so he could take you around. He’s one of the few in the village who can speak English fluently.’ Again the barely suppressed joy at his son’s accomplishment, a smile swamped with love as Somu, blushing, translates what he’s said for Raj’s benefit.

Love is giving,
Raj thinks,
not the other way round.

Kushi’s father dies and instead of wallowing in grief, she does something about it. She changes the lives of the entire village for the better. Whereas I . . . I have been expecting my mum to not only work and keep me in comfort but also to entertain me. All my life I have blamed everyone for my own unhappiness.

Somu’s sisters peel potatoes and chop vegetables, wiping their eyes of streaming, onion-induced tears.

This is real love,
Raj thinks.
Children returning from school and helping their parents, in the fields and at home. Children tending to their parents. Children giving.

Unconditional love. This is unconditional love.

When he gets back to the hospital, his mum and Sharda look as if they are the ones who have been run over by the car and not Kushi. They try (not very successfully) to hide the distress that threatens to bubble out of them, the worry that has taken their faces captive so they look, despite their differences, very much alike.

‘They couldn’t do it. It’s not a match.’ His mum tells him, after she pulls him out of the ward and into the corridor, and out of Kushi’s hearing, her face crumpling like a balled-up sheet of paper.

‘My blood group is not compatible with Kushi’s.’ His mum chokes on her words, her voice furious even as it stumbles, brackish with tears. ‘How is that possible? I am her mother. I should be able to protect her. Why is God punishing us like this? Why can’t I save my child?’

And once again, Raj holds his mother while she sobs, her thin body plagued by frustrated grief.