The Orphan Keeper Read online

  His mother had often told him to be cautious, that thousands of children vanished in India every year without a trace. Naturally, Chellamuthu had paid no heed. For a child, apprehension is no match for curiosity. Chellamuthu had known of children who had disappeared, but it was never anyone close—no siblings, cousins, friends, or neighbors. He accepted the stories of the missing as true but imagined they had merely gone to visit relatives in the villages and would soon return.

  As he lay now on the putrid van floor, trying to catch his breath, reality constricted in his chest, choking him.

  Chellamuthu was being kidnapped, and his father would never know what happened.

  When Kuppuswami exited the building, he looked to the spot where Chellamuthu was told to wait. Not seeing him, he scanned the street.

  No boy.

  Next he walked to the park fence and called out. “Chellamuthu?”

  No answer.

  One more glance over the street.

  Nothing.

  Normally Kuppuswami would have cursed his son for disobeying, before continuing on his way alone, with a promise to later teach the boy a lesson. This morning, though, Kuppuswami retraced his steps to the building. He waited, watching the countless faces of people passing on the street. He held the papers he’d retrieved from the building and now seemed frustrated as to what to do with them.

  “Chellamuthu?” he called out again.

  There was no sign of the boy.

  His gaze dropped to the ground.

  Nothing. Nothing but mango peelings.

  It was perhaps ten minutes before Chellamuthu tried to sit up. The instant he did, the man in back raised his voice like a sword. It was gravelly, halting, and cold. “You scream, boy, I swear I’ll cut you with my knife, and you’ll bleed till you die.”

  Chellamuthu touched the side of his head where he’d been hit—no blood yet.

  While common sense admonished him not to look back at the man, the blow to his head had jarred his judgment. His glance lasted for less than a second, but that was long enough to let fear bare its fangs and growl.

  His captor’s face was pocked, scarred, and hollow, reminding Chellamuthu of the teenagers who lived together near the train tracks—boys too damaged to attempt anything more than stealing money and sniffing paint thinner. Though new faces occasionally joined their ranks, just as many of them would be found dead along the tracks, keeping their numbers mostly constant.

  They were dangerous boys with nothing more in life to lose.

  He had once seen one of their dead bodies up close, the day that Selvaraj walked with him to their uncle’s mill on Roja Garden Road. “You were dead the day you got here,” Selvaraj had muttered to the corpse, a comment Chellamuthu hadn’t understood—until now.

  Chellamuthu turned sideways to check the small boy behind him. His eyes were closed, perhaps in sleep, or more likely pretending it was all a terrible dream, a horror that would somehow float away. The floor in front of the boy was empty, and it was only then that Chellamuthu realized Harisha and the older teen were nowhere to be found. They hadn’t climbed in with him.

  “We are almost there,” the driver called out to the pock-faced man in back, as casually as if the van was dropping its customers at a local restaurant. The van slowed and then steered off the main road to park beside an abandoned sugar factory.

  They waited in the stuffy vehicle for several minutes before an old Jeep, a Wagoneer with four doors, pulled up a few meters away. It had dark windows all around.

  “Out!” the man in the back snarled. “And if you try to run, I’ll . . .” There was no need for him to finish. The knife he flashed completed his words.

  Chellamuthu had heard of boys being sold into the sex trade, and while he wasn’t certain exactly what that meant, he knew one thing for sure—unlike boys who ran off to visit family in the villages, boys sold into that kind of thing never came home.

  He’d also been told about children who, once kidnapped, were physically maimed and then forced to plead for money on the streets. A ruthless man could make a good living with enough disfigured children begging under his control. Either way, Chellamuthu would come out with ugly scars.

  He whispered to the other child as they shuffled toward the waiting Jeep. “Can you run?” The boy twitched but didn’t turn.

  Their transfer to the new vehicle was orderly. The man with the knife kept it covered by his shirt, and as the exchange took place, neither Chellamuthu nor the younger child decided to risk it.

  The boys couldn’t hear everything that was being said, but as money changed hands, Chellamuthu heard enough.

  “The older boy is thirty rupees. The younger one, fifty.”

  Though the Jeep was smaller than the van, it carried more people: two adults, both middle-aged, and babies.

  “Sit beside me in front,” the new driver said to Chellamuthu. “I’ll need your help.” It was a tone a father might use with a son: stern, nonthreatening. Both he and the woman in back seemed equally relieved when the man with the knife drove away.

  On the bench seat, between Chellamuthu and the door, lay a ­bundled baby. The man continued calmly. “If the baby cries, I need you to hold him and settle him down. Can you do that?”

  Chellamuthu nodded and then glanced to the back. The younger boy—still not speaking—clung to one door while the woman leaned against the other. She rocked another baby in her arms, beside yet a third sitting like a loose loaf of bread in the center, as if there had been a sale.

  The driver pulled out onto the highway, heading away from the city. Occupied and anxious, he swerved to miss potholes while maintaining his speed.

  After several minutes the woman spoke. “Would anyone like some fruit?” It was as if they were a family on holiday. Chellamuthu wasn’t sure how to answer. It was always fruit that got him in trouble.

  The smaller boy didn’t flinch, perhaps also hesitant, until Chellamuthu realized the youngster was not only scared but couldn’t hear.

  “Yes, please,” Chellamuthu answered. “We both would.”

  The woman retrieved oranges and grapes from a bag at her feet. When the boys had finished those, she passed over several Bondas, a potato mixture deep-fried in batter. There was plenty. She had come prepared, a fact that caused Chellamuthu to wonder how long they’d be driving.

  As the car rattled across the rough road, the motion of the ride, together with the jostling of the baby beside him and the contentment of a full belly, made Chellamuthu sleepy.

  He ground his teeth, squinted his eyes, and forced himself to watch the road.

  He’d traveled enough with his father to work in the outlying villages that he had become good at judging both travel distance and time; they had even made a game of it. When Chellamuthu paid attention, he could also remember where he’d been and how to get back home. If that was ever a skill that mattered, the time was now.

  Once they stopped, as soon as the right opportunity presented itself, he was determined to make a run for it.

  Kuppuswami didn’t travel on to meet his brother, Chellamuthu’s uncle. Nor did he go straight home. Instead he retraced his morning steps to the corner of First Street and Otapalayam Road, to a vendor of what he considered to be both the sweetest and strongest palm toddy in all of Erode, perhaps all of India.

  It was early. He was their first customer.

  He dropped his money on the makeshift counter and waited for the man to scoop a nearly full coconut shell of the liberating liquid.

  He would go home early and of one thing he’d make certain.

  He’d be good and drunk when he arrived.

  Every baby in the car was wailing, and had been for the better part of an hour. Babies were harder to shut up with fruit than boys. Chellamuthu was rocking the child in front, while the woman behind him was attending to the babies in back. As if it were
n’t enough commotion, the young deaf boy, seeing the tumult, felt the obligation to join with quiet sobs.

  The driver, not even holding a baby, looked to be the most on edge.

  Chellamuthu had been watching him for several minutes, and he’d been repeatedly glancing at his mirror. Just as they were beginning to leave this city and head to another, the Jeep slowed. They turned down an alley on the outskirts of town and stopped in front of a massive metal gate. The man honked twice with two sustained beeps. His sigh almost formed words: Praise Vishnu.

  “We’re here.”

  The man’s lips parted ever so slightly, the corners turning heavenward, as if all of them should be as thrilled to have arrived.

  Instinctively Chellamuthu glanced across at the passenger door for an opportunity to flee. Yes, there was a baby on his lap, blocking his way to freedom, but he could twist, drop the child on the seat, grab the lock and handle. If the driver tried to grab him in the process, the baby would fall to the floor and, well . . .

  He checked the driver—and then lurched toward the door.

  He didn’t get far. His little back had barely inched away from the seat when firm fingers bit into his shoulder, roping him backward and lashing him against the seat.

  When Chellamuthu twisted to look up, the man was actually smiling, as if he’d seen this movie a dozen times and this particular scene was his favorite.

  His grip loosened.

  “You don’t need to run. You’re safe now,” he said with a thin voice.

  The Jeep had stopped, but the baby’s screams hadn’t. The driver raised his chin and then tapped the horn again with his free hand. He rolled down his window. “Madaya! Open the damn gate!” he hollered, as if the baby’s cries were filling up the car inside and might suffocate him.

  Chellamuthu edged forward, pressing against the man’s hand that now rested on his shoulder.

  The gate was a massive thing, attached to a surrounding stoic cement fence. A line of metal pickets on top bent inward, reminding Chellamuthu of the fence that surrounded the park in Erode, with one difference: this fence was meant to keep people in.

  The woman in the back, who Chellamuthu just realized had been humming to calm the infants, placed the baby on the seat beside the others and reached for something in the back.

  “Wake up. We’re here,” she said.

  “How is she?” The man in front asked, glancing at the rearview mirror.

  For the first time, Chellamuthu realized there had been another passenger riding like luggage in the space behind the back seat.

  He heard movement, a petite moan, and then the tussled and sooty hair of a little girl rose above the seat to peer forward. She had gray skin, bony cheeks, and saucered eyes. Rather than curiosity, her gaze lugged loneliness.

  She was about the age of the younger boy, perhaps four, maybe five. She reminded Chellamuthu of Manju, his baby sister, though this girl was older.

  She coughed, winced, and coughed again.

  When she spoke, her voice was tiny, and if it hadn’t come at a rare moment of silence between screaming babies, he would not have heard it at all.

  “I need to go home.”

  The woman stroked her on the head, like one might pet a cat. “It’s all right, child. No reason for concern. You are home.”

  There was a clank outside, announcing they’d been heard, and as everyone turned their eyes to the walled compound, the gate began to swing open.

  Chapter 6

  Eli Manickam penciled in the last of the letters on the board and then used his finger to draw an imaginary line below each one as he read the words aloud, checking for errors. He’d learned from sad experience that carelessness encourages calamity.

  Not today. The sign was perfect.

  Lincoln Home for Homeless Children

  Madukkarai, India

  He would have Rajamani, his orphanage superintendent, paint and hang it tomorrow to replace the aged and fading one out front.

  As he admired his work, a drop of sweat fell from his chin to the wood. He wiped it away with his sleeve and then dabbed at his spindly beard. With the humidity it was foolish to wear the sweaty thing, but what choice did he have? When his hairline began to recede, he grew his hair longer in back to compensate. It wasn’t working, making him look instead as if his hair on top was slowly sliding toward the rear. To provide balance, he’d grown the beard. Then it all turned gray—an apt reminder, perhaps, that one’s time on earth is limited and must be well spent.

  He stepped to his desk where a letter waited to be opened. He eyed the addressee: Mr. Eli Manickam, Commissioner of Children’s Services.

  Eli was his Christian name and rightly so. His grandfather had been converted in the town of Madukkarai by Christian missionaries, and as was the custom in India, practicing Christians blessed their children with fitting Christian names. It was also a tradition that made it easy to identify a stranger’s religious affiliation—Hindu or Christian—after a simple introduction.

  The contingent of Christians in Madukkarai was small when compared to the number of Hindus, but that was true for all of India. Not that Eli cared. To him, what mattered was that the believers followed their hearts and found their calling. He was proud of his beliefs and what he’d accomplished. Like everyone else, he had his own struggles, his own crosses to bear, but he was overcoming them.

  He scanned the letter’s postmark—United States. He could guess the opening line without even looking but sliced the envelope open anyway.

  Dear Mr. Manickam,

  Our names are Fred and Linda Rowland from the United States. We are writing to let you know that we are a loving couple desperately hoping to adopt a little girl . . .

  Impeccable timing.

  He twisted to face the old typewriter that sat on a stand beside his desk. While Rajamani could type for him, Eli preferred writing his own letters, especially those to prospective parents. It was easier that way for him to keep them all straight.

  After rolling in a copy of blank orphanage letterhead, he grimaced. It was the printed motto staring back that always gave him pause, a constant reminder of past mistakes. It was the reason he’d double-checked the new sign so carefully.

  When the orphanage was first organized, he’d crafted two slogans. But it was difficult to decide between them so he’d printed both, one below the other. At the top of the page the first read, “Unto every child a loving home.”

  Brilliant!

  The second slogan . . . well, that was a problem. Eli’s English was adequate but seldom flawless. He had always loved an old Tamil phrase of his father’s: naam nalla petroraaga erundhal, num pillaigalum nalla petroraaga erupargal. But he’d neglected to have his translation checked before sending the letterhead out to the printer. It was weeks later, after several thousand pieces of the starched pages had been delivered, that an acquaintance showed Eli his oversight. Although it should have read, “Be good parents to your children, so your children will become good parents,” every piece of the orphanage’s correspondence proudly proclaimed, “Best parents for the child, but not the best child for the parents!”

  At the time, there was no money to have it reprinted. And besides, Eli was too thrifty for that. By the time there were sufficient funds, Eli had grown accustomed to it.

  “It serves as the ideal reminder,” he’d told Rajamani a thousand times since, “that men are imperfect, that we all need redemption—that even the man running the Lincoln Home for Homeless Children could make mistakes.”

  Rajamani had never seemed certain if he should agree or disagree.

  Speaking of Rajamani, Eli heard someone climbing the stairs to his second floor office. A knock followed.

  “Come in,” Eli called out.

  Rajamani entered. “Commissioner?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s the ne
w children—they are here!”

  When Kuppuswami stumbled home drunk in the middle of the afternoon, Arayi sighed. It meant he hadn’t found work. But if he’d been drinking, then where was Chellamuthu? She wanted to ask, but when the man drank to near unconsciousness, the only words he would mumble were usually crude.

  Of course his current state also brought good news: when he drank this much, he was long past violence. The bad news was that he couldn’t tell her where to find her son.

  It was exactly like the boy to run off, and past experience meant that he could be anywhere—playing at the park, swimming in the river, stealing food, causing mischief with friends at any number of places in the city.

  She wasn’t worried.

  “Selvaraj, have you seen your little brother?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Would you go down to the river and see if you can find him?” Her words were stiff, tense.

  “The river?” the older boy protested. “There’s a million places there he could be.”

  “Son, go to the river now and look for your little brother!”

  Selvaraj left.

  She wasn’t worried.

  Later, with still no sign of the boy, Arayi walked down four doors to her brother’s hut.

  “Has anyone seen Chellamuthu?”

  They hadn’t. She noticed Krishna outside.

  “Krishna, have you seen your cousin?” He shook his head.

  Arayi could see Mrs. Iyer, the landowner, watering her plants beside her front door.

  She hated to trouble the woman. “Excuse me? Have you seen my son?”

  “Chellamuthu or Selvaraj?”

  “My younger boy, Chellamuthu.”

  The stately woman stopped, considered her day. “No,” she said, “I haven’t seen him. Is he okay?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. I’m sorry to be a bother. Thank you.”

  She left the woman to her watering and returned to the hut.

  She pulled a few sticks from the pile heaped against the outside wall, near where the cooking stove sat, and began to stack them for a fire. She would boil rice and beans, and then she’d make his favorite curry. He would show up soon, probably wet and dirty and with a thousand excuses. His father would smack him—which he would deserve—and they would eat dinner, offer praise to Shiva, and go to sleep with full stomachs and by tomorrow everyone, including the boy, would forget that he’d run off again or that his mother had been looking for him.