Salvage (23 page)

“Sorry.” He steps back and holds up his hands. His nose has been broken and mended and his eyebrows angle down, as if he's thinking. “You don't want to drink that. Unless you're bulimic or something.”

I make a face. “Bulimic?”

He bends down and scoops my bottle out of the mud. “Yeah. You know . . .” He pretends to gag and vomit into the river.

I stare at him.

He gives me an embarrassed smile. “Sorry. I guess maybe that wasn't the best way—” He stops himself, takes a breath, and holds out a hand. “Let me start over. Hi, I'm Rushil. You don't want to drink the canal water. It'll make you sick.”

I take his hand. “Ava.” I glance over at the people swimming. “What about them?”

“It's all right for swimming and washing and all that,” Rushil says. “But for drinking, you really want the filtered stuff from the stores.”

I drop down onto a rock jutting out from the bank and stare at my muddy feet. “That's what everyone says.”

Rushil peers at me as if he's taking me in for the first time. “You okay? You don't look so good.”

I think about lying, but I'm too tired. I shake my head.

“You just get here?”

I raise my eyebrows. “It's that clear?”

“Well, you're not dressed like a Mumbaikar.” He looks pointedly at Perpétue's leather jacket tied around my waist. “Most people around here don't go in for the whole dead cow thing.”

I look down. Any leather we had aboard the
Parastrata
was goat hide, and I'd thought this was the same. “How do you know it's . . .” What did he say again? “Cow?”

“Point taken,” he says. “If anyone asks, I'd just say it's synthetic.”

I cover my eyes with a hand. “Look, as much as I'd like to sit around talking about cows . . .”

“Of course. I'm sorry.” He holds out a hand to help me up. “Come on, I'll show you where you can get water.”

I shake my head. “We don't have any money. We used the last of it to dock our ship.”

Rushil raises his eyebrows. “Your ship?” I can't tell if the look on his face is surprise or alarm. “Where is it?”

“Navi Flightport?” Why does everything I say turn into a question?

“Navi?” Rushil grimaces and sucks air past his teeth as if he's stubbed a toe. “You'd better get it out of there before they make you start paying in blood.”

My skin goes cold, despite the sun. “Blood?”

He catches the look on my face. “Oh . . . no.” He laughs. “It's just a . . . you know, an expression.”

“Oh,” I say.

“But you really should take your ship out of there,” Rushil says. “Especially if you're staying awhile.”

He looks out over the water at the boys jumping into the canal and then down at his feet. “I've got a shipyard. You can dock with me for much less.”

Ah. So that's it. I couldn't figure why some strange boy would want to help me for nothing, but this makes more sense.

“I told you.” I sigh. “We're out of money.”
So piss off
, I want to add, but I hold my tongue.

“Wait.” Rushil looks up, unfazed by my tone. “We?”

“Me and Miyole.”

“Miyole?”

“She . . .” I falter. How much do I want him to know about us? “She lost her mother. I'm looking after her.”

“A kid?” He blinks. “Where is she?”

I nod to the buildings at the top of the bank. “She's asleep back there in the alley.”

“In the alley?”
His face darkens, and suddenly he changes from a boy hanging out by the canal to a young man full of purpose. “Come on. Get up.”

My hand creeps down to Perpétue's knife. “Why?”

“Because you can't leave a kid asleep in an alley.” He rolls his eyes. “That's why.”

I lead him quickly back up onto the street. I can't help staring at the ink scrolled around his arms. A horse and its rider. A tiger savaging a soldier. A formless, blossoming design some like the intricate ironwork on the doors and balconies we've passed. A name around his wrist. His arms are strong beneath the tattoos. Not bulky, but muscled in a way that makes me think he works with them.

“No offense, but what are you doing in the Salt?” Rushil interrupts my thoughts.

My face flames. I look down, away from his arms. “The Salt?”

Rushil waves his hand at the streets around us. “The Salt. Well, Old Dharavi on the maps, but no one calls it that except the transit authority.”

“We got lost,” I say. “We were looking for my modrie, and—”

“Your what?”

“My . . . my . . .” I sift through my memory, trying to think of the word Perpétue used for Soraya. “My
tante
?”

Rushil shakes his head.

“My mother's sister,” I say.

“Your auntie?” he says. “Shouldn't she have met you at the flightport?”

“She didn't know we were coming.” I swallow. “In fact, I'm not even sure she knows I exist.”

That makes Rushil shut his mouth. We walk the rest of the way to the alley in silence.

I kneel down beside Miyole and shake her shoulder. “Mi?”

She starts awake. “Manman?” She blinks the sleep from her eyes, and I watch her face contort as the memory of the last days falls back over her.

My throat tightens. “It's me, Miyole.” I look behind me. “And that's Rushil.”

Something tender and stricken plays across Rushil's face, and I realize it's pity. A shudder of anger passes through me. I don't want his pity. I don't want anyone's.

“Listen, my house is only a few blocks away.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets and tilts his head back in the direction of the canal. “You lot look like you could do with sitting down. Maybe get some food in you.”

The part of me still shaking wants to refuse, give him that sign with the finger Perpétue taught me and stalk off on my own. That's what I would do if it was just me, but it's not. There's Miyole. I've got to keep her alive, keep her fed, find water.

“Right so,” I agree. “Lead the way.”

We pass back along the same dusty streets Miyole and I walked the night before. Now that the sun is out, men and women squat on squares of bright-colored cloth in the small space between the shops and the road, hawking jewelry, painted shells, bolts of cloth, scuffed handhelds, and other trinkets. More of the little green street sweepers whirr around the crowd's feet. I have to jump over one that darts in front of me. The pipe hovers overhead, its dripping-paint shapes scrawled on the underside. Juice vendors have set up shop in its shade, propping up colorful umbrellas to protect them from the constant dripping.

When we reach the landing fields, the dogs come back, barking and snarling as we pass the fences.

“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Rushil says to them. “You're terrifying. You're the most vicious creatures on Earth.” He grins over his shoulder at me and rolls his eyes.

We stop beside a wire-link fence with a keypad lock. Razor wire curls along the top. Rushil taps in the access code and holds the gate open for us.

“
Mademoiselles
, welcome to my humble estate.”

We duck through to the other side. A dirt-and-concrete lot covered in a jumble of ships and spare parts stretches back as far as I can see. Sun-reflecting tarps cover some of them, but others are clearly junkers.

“Come on in. I'll see if Pala has the tea ready.” He tilts his head at a low-slung metal trailer propped up on cinderblocks in the corner of the lot. Broadcast needles and receiving dishes cover its roof. A stringy cat uncurls itself from a dish on the roof, hops down, and darts into a hole in some latticework. Two folding chairs sit in front of the trailer, one of them holding the narrow door ajar.

“Got some customers there, Vaish?” A lanky boy lolls atop a sleek, two-engine daytripper in the next lot over.

Rushil stops. “What do you care, Shruti?”

Shruti grins and dangles his legs over the ship's side. “Just watching out for these ladies.” He eyes me. “You looking for a place to dock,
chikni
?”

I look at Rushil and shrug.

Shruti shakes his head. “Don't dock with Rushil Vaish. He'll chop up your ship and sell its bits.”

Rushil closes his eyes. His jaw tightens. “Shruti, I swear . . .”

Shruti slides down the side of the daytripper and hooks his fingers through the fence. “Dock with me. I'll make you a much better deal.”

“So?” I spare a quick glance at Rushil.

“Yeah.” Shruti locks eyes with me and gives me a sideways smile. “You can dock with me for nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“That's right,” he says. “But if we're doing each other favors . . .” He drops his eyes to my breasts and cocks his head, grinning with all his perfect teeth.

“
Satak le
, Shruti.” Rushil smacks the fence between them. “Gross. No one's going to fall for that.”

“She would.” Shruti raises his eyebrows at me. “How about it,
chikni
?”

“N . . . no,” I stammer.
“No.”
My skin crawls.

Shruti winks as he backs away. “Open offer. You know where I am if you change your mind.”

“Sorry about him.” Rushil pulls the chair propping the trailer door open out of the way. “Whoever put Shruti together only gave him one setting.”

Inside, every spare surface is crammed with junk. A dozen fans bolted to the ceiling and walls stir the air. At the back of the trailer, a sheet barely covers an alcove with a raised bunk and a window. In the front, I see a cramped kitchen with a portable stove some like the one Perpétue kept, only streaked with grease all over its sides. It looks like no one ever takes it apart to clean it.

“Where's—” I start to ask, but Rushil pulls back the sheet, waking an enormous white dog with pointed ears. It blinks sleepily at us and thumps its tail on the bed.

“There you are, Pala.” Rushil kneels down beside the dog and ruffles its ears. “Did you make tea for us? No?” Rushil shakes his head. “He's a terrible housekeeper.”

“Oh,” I say. I'm stretched too thin to laugh. Miyole doesn't say anything.

The dog stands and jumps down to the floor, and it's only then that I realize it's missing one of its back legs. It hobbles after Rushil, wagging its tail, as he scoops a stack of warped paper repair manuals and a battered tablet from the trailer's one sagging chair, drops them on the bunk, and then pulls the curtain closed to hide the mess.

“I'll get the tea brewing.” He edges around us. “I think I've got some
roti
in here, too. I can heat it up.”

I circle slowly in middle of the cramped trailer. “You live here alone?”

“Yeah.” Rushil grabs an armful of dirty mugs and cups from a small table by the wall, then hurries into the tiny kitchen. “Well, me and Pala. This place was my uncle's before he died.”

“Oh,” I say again.

“Sorry about the mess.” Rushil scoops the rest of the junk from the table—connecter lines, coins, a multitool, bits of paper covered with numbers, tacks, an old leather-stitched ball—and dumps everything into a plastic bin half full of snarled cables. “I keep this stuff to reuse, but sometimes I forget.”

He waves a hand at the chair. “Go on, sit down. Tea's almost on.”

I sit. Miyole crowds into the chair beside me. She leans her head against my shoulder and picks at her bandages.

“Don't scratch,” I say. Another thing we need. Medicine. Proper bandages for her hands.

Pala limps up to us and snuffles Miyole, then props his head on her knees, giving her a hopeful look.

“Pala, don't beg!” Rushil comes back with a teapot, some plates of flat, round bread, and three glass cups. “He's not much of a guard dog, either.”

Rushil hands me a sloshing-full glass of tea. I take a sip. The tea is hot and milky, sweet, but with a bite of something, clove maybe, and something else we never had on the
Parastrata
. We drink in silence. The tea is perfect, and the bread a little stale, but I swear it's the best thing I've ever eaten. I try to eat slowly, but I can't keep myself from pushing more and more into my mouth. Miyole is eating, too, thank the Mercies.

Rushil watches us in wonder. “What happened to you two?”

I stop with a scrap of bread halfway to my mouth and lay it down on the plate again. “We were up on a run. Her mother . . .” I look at Miyole. She sits frozen, her eyes glazed over, but I can tell she's listening to every word.

Nausea fingers the back of my throat.
I can't talk on it now
, I want to say.
If I start talking on what's passed, it will turn me inside out
. “I'm sorry, I can't—”

I'm going to be sick. I push myself out of the chair and run outside. I double over behind a pile of rusted metal corrugate beside the trailer. My stomach buckles and heaves, and all the bread I've eaten comes up. I spit into the dirt. I wipe my mouth and look out on the roofs of the Salt. Solar panels glare back at me, and laundry hangs stiff on runners. A breeze kicks up a puff of dust, sends it curling.

Rushil stands in the door, looking worried. “You okay?”

“I think I ate too fast.”

Rushil kicks the dirt. “That can happen.”

“Right so.” I catch his eye and a strange, soft feeling passes through me. I want to thank him for acting as if everything is even keel, but I also want to slink under the house with his cat and pretend I'm dead for a little while.

“You need water,” he says. “Come back inside. I'll get some for you.”

“What about . . . ?” I grimace at the stacks of corrugate.

“Oh, don't worry. Pala will get that sorted.”

It takes me a moment to realize what he means. “Ew.”

He cracks a smile. “He's not such a bad housekeeper after all.”