The Orphan Keeper Read online

  He didn’t understand at all but nodded anyway.

  “Good,” she said. “Seek dharma, child. Find out how you fit in, who you are. Remember that everything around you has a purpose. Even you, child.”

  She leaned close, her piercing stare poking him like a boney finger, as if she could see into his head and know that he’d been getting into trouble with the older boys at the park.

  When he didn’t blink, she touched him on the shoulder and then steered him toward the river. “Now go, boy! Perform dharma and take my cattle to feed, okay?”

  Chellamuthu forced his lips into a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  When he was out of sight of the woman, he closed his eyes and listened again.

  Whack, whack, whack . . . whack, whack, whack.

  The sounds from the machete seemed to pause, watch, and then fade.

  Whack, whack, whack . . . whack, whack, whack.

  Chellamuthu frowned. No matter how hard he listened for dharma, it appeared that the neighbors were right. The only echo circling overhead was the thumping of a determined three-fingered man chopping at the stubborn shells of never-ending coconuts.

  Chellamuthu waited beside the Erode Station Bus Terminal. It was a fitting name. The place hadn’t seen improvements since the British had built it in the early 1940s. It was all original: a dusty parking lot, a tiny building, feeble blue walls, homely gray floors. A lone arched entry opened to swallow hot and weary travelers who needed a ticket, a toilet, or an easy spot to sit. At one time it might have been stylish. Today it was disparaged, barely noticed, as unwitting throngs moved past.

  But Chellamuthu had noticed.

  He let his gaze skip off the dirt to rest beside the building where a few new vendors had set up shop. His recent exploits in the park had started him thinking about a lot of things, in particular about the fruit keeper.

  He was an older man with dark skin, heavy hair, and lips that turned up naturally to offer all a perpetual smile—a true salesman. The man glanced back at Chellamuthu, staring for a split second at his scraggy, shirtless body. Had he noticed how the boy’s lanky skin was doing a poor job of hiding visible ribs? Perhaps, but his answer to the boy’s silent plea hung like a cardboard sign from his nose: I’d like to help, but if I gave away free fruit to every ravenous gutter child, I’d be begging beside you by tomorrow.

  No problem. Chellamuthu wasn’t actually concerned with the man. He wanted his box: a large, rectangular thing made of solid wood with a slatted front designed to fold down and display its contents to hungry travelers. At night the hinged face was locked tight with the goods caged inside, then it was all chained to a post so the keeper wouldn’t have to haul the easily bruised fruit back and forth from home.

  Chellamuthu glared toward the stubborn sun, as if it was clinging to the horizon on purpose, curious to see what the boy was up to.

  “Poda Mayiru!”

  Chellamuthu wasn’t certain what the swear word meant, but he enjoyed how it tasted in his mouth, the way it slithered across his tongue and then spit into the dirt with such little effort. He would thank the older boys later, his new friends, for teaching it to him.

  When the fruit keeper finally hurried past toward a waiting bus, Chellamuthu smiled.

  It was time.

  He scanned for the policeman who normally patrolled the area . . . gone. He glanced at the tobacco seller who worked beside the fruit keeper . . . back turned. Nobody was watching.

  The voice of conscience screaming in the boy’s head should have been enough to convince him to give up, go home, and take his silly notion of fruit thievery with him. Instead, he approached the fruit seller’s box, crouched down, and peered through the wooden slats at the jailed fruit locked inside.

  It was a moment of speechless joy—there were jackfruits, mangos, water apples, palm fruit, all waiting, even pleading for freedom, asking the famished boy to help himself. He could almost hear them fighting one with another: Eat me first, boy! No, eat me!

  Though the fruit keeper had protected his prized goods with slats and a sturdy lock, starving children come with scrawny arms. Chellamuthu pushed his hand through the narrow gap and thrust it deep into the box. His skin scraped against the wood, needling his arm with splinters. He didn’t stop. He grabbed hold of the largest mango and instinctively tried to set it free. It stopped cold at the boards. The mango—like the rest of the fruit in the box—would not fit between the narrow openings.

  Chellamuthu remembered watching men catch monkeys out in the villages. The process was simple. They would use a stick or a pipe to burrow a small hole into the side of a hill, about a foot deep, and then scoop out a hollow opening inside. They would then place a handful of peanuts or melon seeds in the hole and wait. Once a monkey smelled the bait, it would reach into the opening, clutch the prize—its hand then too big to pull out through the hole—and refuse to let go.

  But Chellamuthu was no monkey. The boy had a plan. His hands might be skinny, but they were also strong. He gripped the helpless mango and squeezed until it shuddered and then burst. After he’d crushed it into pieces inside the box, he slipped the dripping chunks out through the front openings. To a starving boy, smashed mango is every bit as tasty as firm mango.

  He’d brought a small cloth sack in which to carry away his pummeled loot, but he couldn’t resist popping the first pieces into his mouth. As the sweet syrup danced on his lips, he was certain that, for just a moment, he had attained moksha.

  Amidst his rapture, he heard footsteps.

  Once, while picking cotton, Chellamuthu’s father had pointed out an Indian eagle, the country’s largest flying predator with a wingspan nearly the length of a man. His father had said that the first hint for a rodent that they were about to be eaten was a shadow that would cover them a split second before they were snatched.

  Chellamuthu tried to turn his head as a shadow shrouded the box, but before he could coil sideways, fingers drove so deeply into his neck that he wondered if his bones might break. He squirmed in the talons of his predator, hoping to catch a glimpse. If it was the fruit seller, he’d likely cuff the boy several times and yell obscenities but ultimately send him on his way. If it was a policeman, it would be much worse. The older boys had told him stories of being beaten by the police, often severely, and they had scars to prove it.

  As he was jerked to his feet and shaken, Chellamuthu twisted just enough to view the demon that clenched him tight. The angry beast roared. Fear flooded his heart like the Kaveri River. The abductor who was now dragging him forcefully away from the terminal and into the darkness of the night was swifter than an Indian eagle, angrier than the fruit seller, and meaner than the policeman.

  It was Arayi Gounder, his mother.

  “That’s not yours to take!” she yelled.

  He knew better than to talk back. He knew better than to say anything.

  Without another word, Arayi towed him behind her, like tugging a stubborn goat to the butcher—past the entrance and the waiting passengers, beyond the buses and the loitering autorick drivers.

  Had this been his father, a token blow or two to the back of Chellamuthu’s head would have been delivered, and all would have been forgotten. The man might even have congratulated the boy for his ingenuity. But not his mother. Her fury would soon turn to hurt, hurt would become regret, regret would settle into worry, and then both of their lives would be miserable for days.

  The police were never around when you needed them.

  As the pair moved along in the dark toward the street that led them home, Chellamuthu heard the most distressing sound of all.

  His mother was crying.

  Kuppuswami Gounder, Chellamuthu’s father, was a man of few words, a hasty hand, and strong drink—often in reverse order. Perhaps the man’s weakness for anything fermented was cultural. After all, he was born a Gounder, the caste that bears his
name, a sub-layer in the social strata of India that could aspire to little more than pulling peanuts or picking cotton.

  “Life could be worse,” his arranged-marriage wife, Arayi, would remind him. “You could have been born as one of the Untouchables, those of the lowest caste, or even as one with no caste at all.”

  “True,” he’d reply, “but if life could be worse, didn’t that mean it could also be better?”

  As it was, he settled for odd jobs, harvesting occasional crops, living a life that was destined never to rise above the menial. He was proof that the muzzling of motivation only makes for mediocrity, that every man needs a purpose.

  What man in his shoes wouldn’t drink?

  But there were men who didn’t drink—many of them. So if it wasn’t cultural, then perhaps Kuppuswami drank because of peer pressure. He had numerous friends and acquaintances who drank, claiming that there was nothing in the sacred Hindu Vedas that specifically prohibited the practice, especially if done in moderation.

  Moderation could be a confounding concept.

  Perhaps his problems were hereditary. The man’s father drank and would then come home at night and beat his wife. The man’s grandfather drank and would then come home and beat his wife. Back and back the drinking and wife-beating went, rustling through the leaves of the family tree for as long as anyone could remember. For all Kuppuswami knew, drinking was a natural, perhaps even expected, part of his existence. He was doing nothing more than proudly carrying on the family tradition.

  But he wasn’t proud. He was ashamed. And traditions can have consequences.

  When he woke up in the morning, guilt was always grinning at him from the shadows, pointing, jeering, laughing—and he couldn’t scare it away.

  To drown the shame, to help him get through another day living with the fact that he was poor and unimportant, that he’d never accomplished a thing in his miserable little life, he’d devised a simple and yet reliable solution.

  He drank.

  “You’re quiet, Arayi. What’s wrong?”

  The troubled mother let her sister’s question drift past. Her thoughts were so entangled that the best she could offer in return were raised shoulders and a stone smile.

  Jaya nodded. “Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time for talk.”

  The woman was right. Their six-kilometer trek from the outskirts of Erode to the fabric dyeing factory near Soolai was the shortest part of their day. For the next ten hours, the two would stand across from one another, dipping and stirring skeins of silk into sweltering copper kettles full of bubbling color.

  At the factory, Arayi scooped the measured powder into the simmering water while Jaya whisked. The morning’s batch was scarlet.

  There had been a time when all the dyes were natural, extracted from plants or animals. The deep reds came from the root of the madder plant that was native to the country’s hilly districts. Indigo, or blue dye, was extracted from the leaves of the indigenous indigo bush. Rich yellows were obtained by boiling the dry green rinds of the pomegranate fruit.

  In today’s world, synthetic equivalents were available for virtually every color and hue. The traditional process was changing, and Arayi didn’t like it one bit. She coaxed the fire with a stick to keep the liquid hot while Jaya coaxed her sister’s gloom.

  “You’ll feel better if you just tell me what’s bothering you,” she said.

  With a teeming sigh that nearly spilled over into the liquid, Arayi relented. “I caught Chellamuthu stealing fruit from the vendor’s cart at the terminal.”

  Jaya shrugged with her eyes. “Well, you must admit, the boy has always been resourceful.” She tossed Arayi a smile to confirm she only meant to brighten the mood.

  Arayi returned a frown. “What shall I do?”

  Jaya squinted toward heaven. “A mother’s curse . . . We are only as happy as our saddest child.”

  “I have taught him better.”

  “Don’t fret, sister. It’s not the first time a hungry boy in India has taken food. It won’t be the last.”

  Jaya wasn’t helping. Arayi’s chin lifted, pulling the pitch of her voice. “Jaya, he’s my son! And it’s more than just fruit stealing. He’s been running off at night, getting into trouble with older boys. Last week, I caught him going through the garbage at the Royal India, scavenging for scraps. What am I supposed to do?” Desperation swirled with the steam. “I curse our long hours!”

  “What other choice do we have?”

  Jaya was right. The poor and starving had none. Extra work from the women had been required now for weeks. The owner insisted. It wasn’t just the colors and compounds of fabric dyeing that were being improved but the process. Several factories around Soolai had installed fabric dyeing machines. Technology was replacing tradition and a way of life that had kept families employed for generations. The smaller factories, like the one where the sisters worked, claimed to remain true to ancient dyeing methods proven for a thousand years—hollow, meaningless words that meant management didn’t have the money to modernize. The business was clinging by its fingernails to antiquated methods that would eventually cause its death. The dyeing company was, in fact, . . . dying.

  “How are your other children coping?” Jaya asked, a question that caused Arayi to groan.

  “When he’s not working with his uncle, Selvaraj has been watching Manju. I ask you, is it right that a child of ten is forced to watch a baby sister of two while their mother is constantly gone?”

  As Jaya listened, realization crowded close. “This conversation isn’t really about Chellamuthu or your other children, is it?”

  “Of course it is. What do you mean?”

  “I think we’re talking about you.”

  Arayi’s face gathered in protest. “The stench of the dye has gone to your head!”

  Jaya laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Arayi, the only pain worse for a mother than the ache of her child is self-inflicted guilt. You are allowing it to rob your peace, and you should stop. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Silence nodded.

  A moment passed before Jaya spoke. Her voice brimmed with confidence. “We will stop at the temple on the way home. You can offer a prayer to Lakshmi that your fortune and well-being may improve.”

  Jaya reached across and touched her sister’s hand. “You will see, big sister. Amazing things are about to happen in your life—I feel it!”

  Chapter 2

  “Jump, kudhi, jump!” The scattered brood of boys egged the younger Chellamuthu forward, daring him to leap from the rocks to the water below, to prove yet again that he was man enough to become one of them.

  His new gang of unruly friends now stood half a dozen meters away, and Chellamuthu was thankful for the distance. Any nearer, and they’d see the terror bleeding from his eyes.

  “We don’t have all day! Jump!”

  The Kaveri River lured boys like candy. It was almost as seductive as Badri Park but more convenient for Chellamuthu because it was closer.

  The river circled around Erode the way a friend might wrap his arm around your shoulders and squeeze tight. It was always waiting, ever enticing, constantly begging for a companion to come out and play.

  Beneath the searing afternoon sun, the boys buzzed like flies—and they were equally irritating.

  “Come on, porampokku, jump!”

  “Don’t be a girl, mundam!”

  While their choice of slurs changed more often than the dirt beneath their fingernails, their resolve remained as constant as . . . the dirt beneath their fingernails. The most vocal of the group was their self-appointed leader, Harisha, a name that fittingly meant Lord of monkeys. He was a boy with steely eyes, stained teeth, and a clenched heart—the type of person you’d never want to meet on a dark street, a boy who carried the familiar scent of struggle.

  Harisha moved three st
eps closer to Chellamuthu, who was still planted at the rock’s edge. Harisha’s eyes narrowed the way a leopard squints just before snatching the life from its prey.

  “What are you waiting for?” he taunted.

  Harisha was at least five years older than Chellamuthu and more than twice his size, making the need for his show of dominance puzzling.

  Chellamuthu held out his hand toward Harisha in a gesture that he hoped said, I’m going to jump. Just give me a second to fix this knot in my shorts. The only knot, however, was the one in Chellamuthu’s stomach, and it was now reaching up into his throat to choke him.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have lied to his mother, telling her he was going to wash the landowner’s cattle. But he had little choice. When the older boys from Kannaian Street had dared him to tag along to the cliffs, an area of the river where many boys were forbidden to swim, he couldn’t say no. It was like receiving an invitation from the Indian Prime Minister for tea.

  The group had been splashing along the south bank all morning, staying away from the far shore where the river bends, the banks tighten, and the waters surge. They’d been chucking rocks and flinging mud and calling each other disgusting names that would have brought a certain beating if any of their parents had heard. Yes, life had been marvelous, and he’d even forgotten about his empty stomach until King Harisha had singled out the new boy for a dare.

  Growing bored now, Harisha bent down and picked up a rock. His throw was perfect, striking Chellamuthu in the chest. But it was when the other boys laughed and started looking for their own rocks that Chellamuthu knew stalling time was over.

  Without further hesitation, he ran back a dozen steps, turned to face the cliff, then sprinted like a madman toward the edge.