Chloe in India (8 page)

The next couple of days, Lakshmi didn't come to the park after school. She kept her distance from me at school, too, but like I said before, things had always been different for us there. It was like some unspoken rule—we never hung out together. I stuck with Anvi and Prisha. Lakshmi stuck with Meher, who was the only other EWS girl in Class Five. Turns out, Meher's mom also worked at the school, and Meher had been at Premium Academy since she was little, which surprised me because her English was pretty bad. Or at least, I assumed it was. I didn't really know, because she hardly ever said a word.

Lakshmi finally showed up at the park about a week after our fight. It was a Tuesday afternoon and it was really hot. I was sitting under the champa tree with a book, trying to read, but it was hard because I kept glancing up every couple of minutes, hoping Lakshmi would appear.

And then there she was.

She had Kali with her and she held something in her hand. When Lakshmi sat down next to me, she placed it in the grass. It was a piece of origami in a shape I had never seen before. It looked like a fortune cookie.

Lakshmi didn't say anything at first. She just picked up a champa flower and started fiddling with it, folding its petals all the way back till she could spear them with their own stems. The flower came out like a little ivory box with a golden center.

“Hey, it's flower origami,” I said, and Lakshmi smiled a little.

So we sat there, under the shade of the champa tree, both of us not talking and doing champa origami, when, out of the blue, Lakshmi said, “My mother, she also teach me folding technique.” She pointed her chin toward the strange piece of origami sitting on the grass between us. “She work in hospital. She teach me to make sister's hat.”

So that's what it was: a nurse's cap.

Lakshmi's fingers kept working, folding the champas' ivory petals back, piercing them with their stems. “She teach me corners on bedsheets.”

Lakshmi held one flower in front of her face and twirled it in her fingers. “Her uniform, it all white,” she said. “White like champa.” Then she picked up the little origami nurse's cap. She put it on top of her head and let go, balancing it. The cap stood out against her black hair like a bright star in a moonless sky. Lakshmi grinned.

“She wear hat like this!”

The origami cap tumbled from her hair onto the grass.

I didn't say anything, just kept doing my flower origami, not looking at Lakshmi, hoping she might say more. I was curious. In the few weeks that I had known her, she had never talked about her family before. Not once.

Lakshmi leaned over and put one hand on Kali, who was splayed out on her side in the shade, sleeping. Lakshmi's hand went up and down with Kali's breathing.

“Outside the hospital, one
didi
sits there. She is—what you say?—
phool
wallah?”

“She's a fool?”

“No, no.” Lakshmi let out a laugh. “She not fool. She
phool
wallah. She sell flower, jasmine flower.”

“Oh, right,” I said.
Duh.

Lakshmi continued: “She have no teeth. Her mouth dark like cave. Every day, she take one basket full of jasmine flower. She massage my head and then she put jasmine inside my hair.” Lakshmi leaned back, resting her head against the trunk of the champa tree, her chin tilted up. She closed her eyes. “It smell so nice. Sweeter than champa.”

I cleared my throat. I wanted to get back to Lakshmi's family. I wanted to know more about them.

“So…your mom was a doctor?”

I don't know what made me use the past tense.
Was.
I could just tell. Something bad had happened to Lakshmi's mom.

Lakshmi's eyes flew open. She frowned at me. “No, I already tell you, she sister. Christian Medical College. She do injections. She do bandages. She do blood pressure test. It very good hospital. It even have school for girls. That why my English so good. My mother send me every day to Christian Medical College school for girls. The sisters teach proper British English.”

“Oh,” I said. I couldn't believe how much Lakshmi was telling me. “Um, so your mom is Christian?” This time I used the present tense.
Is.
I was confused.

Lakshmi nodded. “She Christian with fair skin. Her skin like chai with too much of milk. Every night, she use Fair and Lovely. She put cream all over her face. My father laugh. He say, ‘You cannot change crow into egret.' Sometime my mama laugh, too, but if she tired from long day at hospital, she hit him. But he just laugh more.”

Lakshmi reached down and pinched a piece of grass between her thumb and index finger, then pulled at it, snapping off its top. Her fingers moved to another blade and snapped its top off, too. Then another and another.
Snap, snap, snap.

“What else was she like?” I said. I was too scared to ask what I really wanted to know.
What happened to her? Did she leave? Did she die? Was she
was
? Or was she still
is
?

Lakshmi kept clipping the grass. “She have small teeth, like rice. She make
idli
with
sambar.
And every night, she sing ‘Amazing Grace' to me when I sleep.”

And then Laskhmi closed her eyes again and began to sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me….” Her voice was high and thin. It was strange to hear the hymn in the hot, heavy air of the empty park. The sound seemed out of place, like a white girl in an Indian school.

Lakshmi stopped as abruptly as she had started. “It was big problem, she marry my father. She Christian from Kerala, he black Tamil man.”

“So why did she?”

Laskhmi shrugged. “It love match,” she said. “My father, he black skin but he handsome one time. And he sing. So much of singing. He sing Bollywood song and my mama laugh or he sing love song and she put her head here.” Lakshmi patted her lap. She was quiet for a moment. “He stop singing when she…” She paused. “When she die.”

I held my breath.

The only sound was the
snap snap
of the grass as she clipped it with her fingers.

“What happened?” I finally whispered.

“Fever,” said Lakshmi. “She get high, high fever. Hospital try to help, but fever too high. And then she gone.”

I learned the rest of Lakshmi's story over the course of the next few weeks. It came out in dribs and drabs—how her father had stopped singing and stopped eating, how he had gotten the fever, too. All their money went to buy blood and medicine to save him. How he had sold their few belongings in Madurai and bought two sleeper tickets to Delhi, where he had an uncle who he thought might help him find work. How Lakshmi had watched India roll by as the train traveled from south to north—the beaches and palm trees of Tamil Nadu giving way to the flat plains of central India, then the clogged streets of New Delhi. The train journey took forty-two hours. Lakshmi barely slept, she was so excited. And then the hard truth, that the uncle had no job for her father and no place for them to sleep. That Delhi was loud and dirty. On their first night, they slept on the platform at Nizamuddin station. When Lakshmi woke it was because she felt little fingers rifling through her bag, which she had placed under her head as a pillow. She screamed, but it was too late, the street boys were already running away, laughing. They had stolen the last thing of value Lakshmi and her father owned: her mother's wedding ornaments. And the worst part: Her father didn't yell or even cry. He just looked at her with tired, empty eyes. Another thing gone.

By October, things were going a bit better for me at school. We had been in India for almost four months and I had been at Premium Academy for over three. I still stank at Hindi—that was hopeless—so I dreaded the Hindi and Sanskrit classes. (I'd just sit there, feeling stupid, while everybody else worked.) Science and math were okay, since they were both taught in English. Social studies—where we had just finished the Regional Handicrafts of Andhra Pradesh unit and were starting Flora and Fauna of Temperate Grasslands—was boring, but at least it was taught in English, so I could get what was going on. Oh, and I liked English class. Ms. Puri taught that one and she'd call on me specially. Sometimes, when I spoke up in class, I could even hear my accent changing a little, going all singsong like my classmates'. But then I'd catch myself and switch back to my American accent.

As for Lakshmi, I think school would have been really tough if she wasn't so clever. I don't mean book smart—she didn't get great grades on science and math quizzes—I mean
clever.
Like, this one day—it must have been about a week or two after she had joined school—we came into the classroom and Ms. Puri had written
WRITING WORKSHOP
in large cursive letters on the blackboard.

“Today, children, we will be trying a new experiment, which is”—Ms. Puri tapped her chalk on the blackboard—“writing workshop. You will be given a half hour to complete an expository piece on the topic ‘summer holidays.' You will then break into smaller groups, read your essays out loud to one another, and receive valuable feedback from your classmates.”

There were a few titters in the room. Indian kids aren't used to working in teams.

Anvi's hand shot up.

“Yes, Anvi?”

“Ma'am, can we pick our own groups, ma'am?”

“No,” said Ms. Puri. “I will be dividing the class into sections.”

Anvi scowled. “As long as I'm not with one of
them,
” she muttered, loud enough that all the kids around her could hear.

Of course, Anvi was put with Prisha. I was in their group too. As were drippy-nosed Dhruv Gupta and Soumya Singh, who's actually pretty nice. That is, when she doesn't have her nose in a book. Lakshmi was added last. As soon as her name was called, I just knew there was going to be trouble.

Ms. Puri told each group to shove their desks together in order to facilitate collaboration (her words, not mine). That's when Anvi pulled a bottle of antibacterial spray out of her backpack.

“
What
are you doing?” Dhruv said.

Anvi started spraying Dettol all over our desks.

“My mother says that we all need protection
now.
” Anvi rolled her eyes in Lakshmi's direction.

Lakshmi crossed her eyes at Anvi.

Ten minutes had passed, but when I looked over at Lakshmi's paper, it was still blank. Lakshmi was staring out the window and chewing on the end of her pencil.

I cleared my throat loudly. When she looked over, I pointed at her blank paper.

“Why aren't you writing anything?” I whispered. “We only have twenty minutes till we have to share.”

Lakshmi shrugged. “I can't think what I write,” she said. She lowered her voice even further. “I don't know ‘summer holiday.' ”

Dhruv glanced up from his page. He must have overheard us. “Just start from the beginning,” he said to Lakshmi. I guess he was trying to be helpful, but he didn't know anything about Lakshmi's circumstances. I did.

“Like, what did you do in May?” Dhruv prompted. “Or where did your parents take you in June? Where did you go?”

Anvi snorted. “They don't
go
anywhere, Dhruv,” she said.

Lakshmi glared at Anvi. Then she bent her head over her paper and started writing furiously.

When it came time to share our work, we took turns reading out loud. Anvi went first.

“This summer we stopped in Europe on the way to New York. First we went to Rome and then to Paris, where I climbed the Eiffel Tower and stayed at the Ritz.” She looked up briefly. “It's
so
sad; that's where Princess Di stayed right before she was killed.” Her head went back down. “Then we flew to Manhattan. We stayed with my American cousins and did
lots
of shopping. After two weeks, Papa took us all to Universal Studios and it was
so
much of fun! Last year we went to Universal Studios in California, but this one was
so
much better because it was in Florida and…”

I looked down at my paper. Compared to Anvi's glamorous summer, mine was starting to seem pretty lame. To be honest, it
had
been pretty lame. We moved to India before school in Boston was even over. I missed the last week, which is the most fun part of the whole entire year. And then I had to start Indian school just a few weeks later. Some summer vacation, right?

Nana and Grandpa were the only good part, really. In May, when Mom and Dad were busy packing, Anna and I got to have weekend sleepovers at their house on Cape Cod. They took us to the ice cream parlor for chocolate fudge sundaes and to the public library for arts and crafts. One night we built a bonfire on the beach. It was chilly and the sand was damp, but we lay on our backs, close to the fire, and made up constellations like the Xbox 360 (mine), the violoncello (Anna's), and the one-tusked walrus (Grandpa's).

So that's what I wrote about. It wasn't Paris.

“That was, um, a very detailed travelogue, Anvi,” Ms. Puri was saying. She had come over to listen to our group for a few minutes. “Thank you for sharing. Now, who is next?”

To my astonishment, Lakshmi raised her hand.

“Yes, please, Lakshmi.” Ms. Puri nodded. “We would love to hear what you have to say.”

Lakshmi cleared her throat. “Summer Holiday,” she announced. “By Lakshmi.”

Anvi snickered, but Ms. Puri glared at her and she quieted down.

And then Lakshmi told the most amazing story about going deep into the jungle and coming face to face with this enormous mother tiger who had five tiger cubs trailing behind her. And the mother got shot by this evil poacher. She was lying on her side and bleeding and she would have bled to death if Lakshmi hadn't ripped her
dupatta
into strips and wrapped the strips tightly around the mother tiger's ribs to hold them together. By then, night was falling. The tiger cubs were mewing with hunger. Lakshmi knew she had to build a fire or they would all be eaten by the king cobras hiding in the brush, and so she began rubbing two sticks together, trying to start a fire. She could hear the rustle of the snakes creeping closer. And then, just when she saw a spark of fire, fat raindrops started falling….

“This is stupid!” It was Anvi. “We were
supposed
to write a
true
story about our
own
summer vacation!” She looked at Ms. Puri. “
Her
story is made up. It's not—”

Ms. Puri interrupted her. “Hmm, I don't recall specifying that this exercise was in autobiographical, narrative-style nonfiction only.”

Then she turned to Lakshmi. She had her lips pressed together tightly, like she was trying not to smile. “Still, we weren't expecting quite such a tall tale, Lakshmi.”

Lakshmi lowered her head, so we could only see the part in her hair.

“Well,
I
thought it was great!” said Dhruv Gupta.

I bent down to check on Lakshmi. Her head tilted slightly toward me as she grinned at the floor.

Things were definitely harder on Meher. She never talked, never raised her hand in class. Sometimes Ms. Puri would call on her anyway and she would just sit there, staring at the floor, till Ms. Puri moved on to someone else. Maybe it was because Meher's English—especially compared to Lakshmi's—was pretty bad. But she never spoke up in Hindi class, either.

So maybe Anvi was right, and Meher was just plain stupid? I didn't really know. But I think Meher simply didn't know what to say most of the time.

Once, when we were doing a unit on marine habitats, Ms. Puri asked us to describe the sounds and sights of the ocean. Everyone got all excited, raising their hands. Of course, I had tons to say because I've spent so much time at Nana and Grandpa's on Cape Cod. And Anvi was psyched because she had been to Miami and the Maldives and Saint-Tropez and a bunch of beaches in Thailand. Even Lakshmi had seen the ocean down south. Everybody else had at least been to Goa. So kids were yelling stuff out like “The waves go crash!” or “There are seagulls and peanut
chaat
!” or “We made a huge sand castle!” Ms. Puri was very busy writing all our ideas down on the blackboard.

Then Ms. Puri called on Meher—I think she was trying to be inclusive—but Meher just sat there, looking at the floor. She didn't make a peep.

I didn't think much of it but later, after school, Lakshmi brought it up. “I don't know why she call on Meher,” Lakshmi said. Her voice was tight with anger. “Meher never see ocean!” Lakshmi waved a hand, gesturing at the buildings surrounding the park. “She never go outside this place. She know only this! Only this!”

Lakshmi dropped her hand and her shoulders sagged. Her voice grew quiet. “How can she talk about ocean when she never leave this place?”