A Walk Across the Sun (22 page)

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. Ahalya dozed fitfully, her sleep beset by nightmares. The roar of the tsunami blended with the clicketyclack of the Chennai Express and the repulsive sounds of Shankar's lust.

In the morning, she was transferred into the custody of a government home for orphaned girls in Sion. The
maushi
, or warden, treated her with disinterest. She showed Ahalya the large dormitory where the girls slept, assigned her a bunk, and explained the meal schedule. Then she left her alone.

Ahalya looked out the barred windows and wondered how long she would have to endure this new form of confinement. Anita had assured her that CASE would find her a place in a private home, but Ahalya had no idea what that meant or whether it would change her circumstances. Her only desire was to reunite with Sita.

Life had lost all other meaning.

After three days, Anita returned with good news: the Child Welfare Committee had approved Ahalya's transfer to an ashram in Andheri operated by the Sisters of Mercy. Anita escorted her to the private home in a rickshaw.

During the ride, Ahalya asked about Sita. Anita told her the story Inspector Khan had passed along to Jeff Greer. Under interrogation, Suchir had confessed the name of the man who bought Sita—it was Navin. But the brothel owner had no idea where he had taken her. Suchir expected Navin to return to make an additional payment, but it could be a month or two. In the meantime, Khan would keep watch.

When they arrived at the ashram, Sister Ruth, the superintendent, met them at the gate. She was a heavyset woman with a moon face and wore the sari habit of an Indian nun. She welcomed Ahalya cheerfully, taking no offense when Ahalya failed to respond.

Ahalya followed her through the gate and onto the Sisters of Mercy property. The ashram was located on a sprawling estate with gardens, winding paths, and well-kept buildings. They followed one of the paths through a grove of tall trees, passing buildings on either side. As they walked, Sister Ruth gave Ahalya a verbal tour. She spoke with such enthusiasm that Ahalya found it impossible not to pay attention.

The sisters operated a day school, an orphanage, and an adoption center for infants, along with the recovery center for girls rescued from prostitution. The girls at the recovery center took classes at the school and helped with chores. All the girls were expected to complete the tenth standard, but those who excelled in their studies were educated through the twelfth standard. Once in a while, one of the brightest students was given a scholarship to attend the University of Mumbai. The sisters had two objectives for each rescued girl—healing of body and soul and reintegration into society. It was an ambitious project, Sister Ruth admitted, but the ashram had a sterling success rate. Only 25 percent of the girls who graduated from the program returned to prostitution.

Ahalya walked with Anita and Sister Ruth to the recovery center, which stood at the top of a tree-shaded knoll. A breeze blew from the northwest and offered relief from the heat of early afternoon. Large bushes of bougainvillea proliferated around the perimeter of the center. The wind rustled the branches and turned their colorful flowers into pinwheels. Ahalya stood on the threshold of the stucco building and noticed that the noises of the city no longer crowded her ears. Gone were the horns of taxis and rickshaws, the cries of hawkers, and the chattering conversations of the street. In their place, she heard the laughter of children and the sound of wind playing in the leafy boughs of a banyan tree.

She walked up the steps and stood at the entrance to a trellis-covered walkway lined with flowers. There were violets, primrose, jacobinia, and marigold, all vibrant in the loamy soil.

“Each of the girls is given a plant of her choice to tend,” Sister Ruth explained. “What would you like, Ahalya?”

“A blue lotus,” she replied, recalling the cherished
kamala
flowers that her mother had cultivated in a pond beside her family's bungalow. They were Sita's flowers. As a small child, her sister had believed them magical.

Sister Ruth looked at Anita. “We have a pond near the orphanage,” she said. “I think a lotus would grow well there.”

The nun's words lifted Ahalya's spirits. She looked toward Sister Ruth and then at Anita.

“You would let me plant a lotus?” she asked, astonished. Blue lotus seeds were rare and expensive, and germinating them successfully was difficult even under ideal conditions.

“I have a pot that would be just right,” Sister Ruth said. “What do you think, Anita?”

Anita took Ahalya's hand. “Give me a few days. I'll see what I can do about seeds.”

Chapter 12

The heart will break, but broken live on.
L
ORD
B
YRON

Paris, France

Sita awoke when the plane landed at Charles de Gaulle International Airport. Her mouth was parched with thirst, but she knew she couldn't drink anything until Navin gave the word. She distracted herself by looking out the window. It was seven-thirty in the morning, Paris time, and the winter sky was still dark.

The plane taxied to the gate. Navin took his suitcase out of the overhead bin and handed Sita a down coat. “It's cold outside. Put this on.”

Sita stood slowly and donned the coat, ignoring the sloshing of the pellets in her stomach. The garment felt awkward over her churidaar, but she was grateful for its warmth.

“We're almost there,” he said. “Two more hours at most.”

Sita trailed Navin up the jetway to the international terminal. With the other passengers, they were funneled through a series of hallways to a bank of glass-encased cubicles. In each cubicle sat an immigration official. Sita ran through the details of her new identity again.
I'm Sundari Rai. Navin sells insurance. We're in Paris on a honeymoon. Don't act like a criminal because you aren't a criminal.

The immigration agent eyed them wearily. He flipped open Sita's passport and barely glanced at her photograph before stamping her visa and setting it aside. Then he took Navin's passport and opened it. At once something registered in his face. He held the passport up to the light, peering at the photo. Then he looked hard at Navin, all sleepiness gone from his eyes. He punched a few keys on his computer. Frowning, he picked up a handheld radio and placed a terse call. Within seconds, two security officers approached them, looking at Navin.

The immigration agent stepped out of his booth. “You must come with us,” he said. “We have some questions for you.”

“What kind of questions?” Navin demanded. “What is the problem here?” When the agent didn't blink, he went on: “I'm a French citizen. You can't hold me without a reason.”

The agent shook his head, unimpressed. “We will speak in private. I am sure we will be able to correct any … misunderstandings, no?”

“This is outrageous!” Navin said, but his protest met a blank stare.

Standing beside him, Sita felt a stab of gas in her intestines and tried not to wince. She looked at the immigration agent and wondered for an instant whether he knew the truth. The thought of being caught smuggling heroin terrified her.

The security officers escorted them from the checkpoint area to a concealed door on the far wall. Navin took Sita's hand as if to reassure her, but the pressure he applied sent an unmistakable message. Sita's heart began to race. The weight in her belly was heavy as lead, and she felt the strong urge to relieve herself. She didn't know how much longer she could wait.

On the other side of the door was a corridor with security cameras. The immigration agent led them to another door not far down the hallway and gestured for Sita to enter. She glanced at Navin and fear blossomed in her. Instead of anxiety in his eyes, she saw only menace.

She stepped into the room, and one of the security officers followed. The room was featureless, furnished only with a table and two chairs. The officer pulled out a chair for her, and she took a seat. She wanted to speak, to ask what was happening, but she knew her voice would betray her. The security officer took up a post beside the door and stared into space. It was obvious he was waiting for someone.

The delay seemed interminable to Sita. In the vacuum of silence, her thoughts spun and tumbled. She pictured the inside of a French jail and imagined herself imprisoned behind bars of iron, a convict among hardened criminals. She folded her hands and looked down at the table, struggling to steady her breathing.

At last the door opened and a woman appeared, dressed in the uniform of an immigration agent. She was thin and her blond hair was cut short. She glanced at the security officer, and he disappeared without a word. The woman sat down at the table and placed Sita's passport and a pad of notepaper in front of her. She regarded Sita coolly, twisting her pen in her fingers.

“Your name is Sundari Rai?” Her English was crisp, with only a trace of a Gallic accent.

Sita nodded meekly, steeling herself against her raging heartbeat.

“You do not look like you are eighteen.”

For a split second, Sita considered telling her the truth and letting karma take its course. Perhaps a judge would give her a lighter sentence for confessing. Perhaps he would believe she had acted under Navin's compulsion. But then the second passed and the terror returned. If she were deported, she would be delivered into the hands of the Bombay police. In all likelihood, she would be charged with drug smuggling under Indian law. She recalled Navin's words the night before:
Believe me when I say that you do not want to see the inside of a Bombay jail.

“I am eighteen,” she said, trying to give her voice the confidence of an older girl. “I have always been small for my age.”

The woman tapped her pen on her pad. “Your family, where are they from?”

“Chennai,” Sita said.

“Where is that, exactly?”

“It is on the Bay of Bengal in southeast India. It used to be called Madras.”

The woman wrote something down. “The man you are traveling with, who is he?”

“He is my husband,” Sita replied, clasping her hands together in her lap to keep them from trembling.

The woman looked nonplussed. “You are very young to get married.”

Sita tried to imagine how Navin might respond if asked the same question. “It was arranged by our parents,” she said at last.

The woman thought for a moment and then took the conversation in a different direction. “Have you ever been to Pakistan?”

The question took Sita by surprise. “No,” she said simply.

The woman looked at her with sudden intensity. “Did your husband ever tell you about his frequent trips to Lahore?”

Sita narrowed her eyes and shook her head slowly, having no idea where this was going.

“Did he ever mention his connections to Lashkar-e-Taiba?”

Sita shook her head again. Her father had spoken about LeT. It was a radical Islamic organization responsible for numerous terrorist attacks on India. If the woman was right, Navin was far more dangerous than he seemed.

“No,” Sita replied. “All I know is that my husband is in the insurance business.”

The woman looked down at her pad. “You are in Paris for pleasure?”

Sita was about to nod when she felt a lancing pain in her gut. She grimaced involuntarily. The wave of intestinal gas persisted for a long moment before passing.

The woman noticed her discomfort. “Are you in some kind of distress?” she asked, leaning forward in her chair.

Blood rushed to Sita's face and her mind went blank. She had managed to avoid tripping over her words, but the churning mass in her colon had a life of its own.

“It's just …” she began, grasping at the bits of the story she was missing. What was it Navin had said? What was her excuse? It came to her: “I'm three months pregnant. I've been feeling a little nauseous.”

The woman sat back and regarded her. After a long moment, her face seemed to soften. Suddenly, they heard a knock at the door.

“Just a moment,” the woman said and left the room. When she returned, her face had transformed. In place of her interrogator's mistrust, she wore an apologetic smile.

“There has been a misunderstanding. Your husband resembled a man we are looking for, but the match was a mistake. You can go now.”

Relief flooded Sita. She tried to stand too quickly and winced at the pain.

“Let me help you,” the woman said, steadying Sita on her arm. “I remember the feeling. I have two children of my own.”

The woman escorted her to the end of the corridor where Navin stood waiting. He smiled at Sita and gave the woman a look of profound annoyance.

“If anything happened to my wife or my child …” he said, dangling the threat in the air. It was an effective ploy. The woman actually looked afraid.

“Please accept our sincerest apologies for your inconvenience,” she said, opening the door to the checkpoint area and handing back their passports. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Paris.”