Same Sun Here (23 page)

I have started reading
David Copperfield
for the second time. He goes through lots of troubles but ends up happy. I think it will be the same for us. Ever since I started writing this letter to you, I have felt sure of it. There is something about writing that always makes me feel like everything is going to be OK.

Kiku and I called Mrs. Lau just now, and she said she is having a good time bossing her son around and that her daughter-in-law is making her favorite kind of chicken for dinner. They have a backyard, so Cuba and the parakeets sit outside in the sunshine for most of the day. Mrs. Lau said she had talked to Mai on the phone and they are going next week to see a lawyer at the Chinatown Tenants Center. She said she is so homesick for Chinatown she could die, but then she said she won’t give those rotten sons of _____ the satisfaction of seeing her dead. She said, “We’ll get back home, Mee-Mee. You be a good girl, now, and don’t worry.”

It’s kind of fun staying with Ana Maria. Today she braided my hair in a new way. It looks like a ladder, starting at my forehead instead of at the back of my neck. She also showed me how to do eyeliner. It’s hard not to poke yourself, but it makes your eyes jump out of your face. Just like outlining a tree in black paint on a backdrop makes it easier to see from the audience. Ana Maria also loaned me this really cool tank top. She has the best clothes. She says you don’t have to be rich to look good, you just have to have a sense of style and be creative. I can see why Kiku loves her. And I think Mum is starting to see, too. Even though Ana Maria isn’t Indian, she is like us.

There is something else I like about staying with Ana Maria and her family. Someone in the building plays the trumpet every night. I think it’s a woman, because it’s a light and quiet footstep walking up the stairs. First I hear that, then I hear the door to the roof opening. Then the ceiling creaks and I hear the footsteps walking right above my head. Then I hear the trumpet. Scales for about an hour, then a song. One long song that sounds so beautiful it hurts. The song swoops around the air like a bird. Someone standing on the roof, playing to the city, to the sky . . . Oh, River, the way it sounds twining through the shaftway. It’s like life, full of joy and mourning. Everything changing, this way then that way. I sat in front of the window last night and listened. I saw a man in the next building leaning out his window, watching the traffic on Essex Street. He was listening to the trumpet, too.

When it got dark, I couldn’t see anything except my own face reflected in the glass. Listening to that trumpet, I felt like I don’t know what’s coming next, but whatever it is, it will just make me more me. It’s kind of weird because when I was sad about Dadi, on the subway platform, I heard a trumpet, too. Maybe it’s a sign of some kind.

I thought I would be upset about losing all our stuff, our pots and pans and sheets and clothes. But I’m not. I feel like I have everything that really matters — Mummy-Daddy-Kiku. And there is always the library for books. Daddy says no matter where we go, there will be a library, because almost every town in America has one. Isn’t that amazing?

I don’t know if Mrs. Lau still has the PO box, so I don’t know where to tell you to send letters. I’ll go to the library every day and check for an e-mail from you.

Remember how I told you about the statue of Gandhiji in Union Square? I will meet you there on Sunday, June 14, at 3:00 p.m. We don’t have a camera, but here is a little portrait of me so you will recognize me when you see me. I practiced drawing it last night when I was looking at myself in the window. I am using the pencils Dadi gave me. I have sharpened them so many times they are almost too small to hold.

When you get here, I will be an American citizen, just like you. We will eat mangoes with chili pepper and sit on a park bench and watch the people go by. I’ll give you your birthday present and teach you how to buy a MetroCard so you can give me a tour of the UN. And I will show you my watch set to India time.

Right now, in America, it is 8:00 p.m. and I am sending you telepathic thoughts.

Everything is going to be OK. It is, it is.

See you soon, River Dean Justice.

Your friend,

Meena

Ardent thanks to the places where Meena’s letters were written: Sisters Bazaar, Mussoorie, India; Swamp Annie’s, Choteau, Montana; Gap Year College at IIIT, Hyderabad, India; The Flop, New York City; Knox College, Illinois; Spalding University’s MFA in Writing Program; two porches in eastern Kentucky; SIDH, Kempty, India; New York–Presbyterian, 10 Central. And ardent thanks to the people who fed Meena’s half of the book: Hilary Schenker and her inspired hands and eyes; Joy Harris; Terry Sheehan and the New York Public Library’s Seward Park Center for Reading and Writing (especially Senetta, Teresa, June, and Vasyl); the Chinatown Tenants Union (NYC); Naomi Shihab Nye; Sabrina Brooks; Ranjana Varghese; Karuna Morarji; Vinish Gupta; Mridu Mahajan; Jitendra Sharma and family; Sonu Vishnoi; Kapil Gupta and Tara Maria. For good eats on 10 Central: Sabs Shakley, Edelen McWilliams, Sam Zalutsky and Ed Boland, Matt and Lisa Lowenbraun, Liz Gordon, Kelly Van Zile and Andrew Grusetskie. Ashok Vaswani for his Hindi translation and penmanship. Much gratitude to the fine folks of Candlewick Press for making and supporting beautiful books, and to collaborator extraordinaire, Silas House, for writing the other half of this one. To my mother and father, as always. And to beloved Ann and Jim Gordon. To my grandmother, Sita Manganmalani, who was raised in Mussoorie, and to her mother, whose name has been lost. And to Holter, first and last reader, and my favorite human being for eighteen years and counting. — Neela Vaswani

My daughters, Cheyenne and Liv, have taught me just about everything. Liv was our very first reader, and an especially helpful one since she was the same age as River and Meena when she read the manuscript. Jason Howard has patiently and lovingly lived alongside these characters for a couple years now, and I can’t thank him enough — for everything. I thank Berea College and Spalding University for their support. I have too many heroes fighting injustice to list, but chief among them are Wendell Berry, Chad Berry, Teri Blanton, Mari-Lyn Evans, Ashley Judd, Jessie Lynne Keltner, Kate Larken, George Ella Lyon, Bev May, Daniel Martin Moore, Megan Naseman, Deborah Payne, Erik Reece, Anne Shelby, Lora Smith, Ben Sollee, Patty Wallace . . . so many others, particularly the many students I know who are refusing apathy and making a difference in the world. To learn more about mountaintop removal, please visit
http://ilovemountains.org
. I am thankful to Karen Lotz, Nicole Raymond, and everyone at wonderful Candlewick for all their good, hard work. Neela Vaswani has broadened my view of the world and the human heart, and I am indebted to her. To all of my family (created and blood): my love and affection. To everyone who has read this book, thank you for spending time with us. Now, go do good. — Silas House