Children of the Wolf (8 page)

Just then Mr. and Mrs. Welles walked out into the compound.

“You are a miracle worker indeed, Mohandas,” said Mr. Welles, smiling at me.

“Kamala listens to you, Mohandas,” his wife added. “I cannot get her to say
my
name.”

“Perhaps…” I began.

“No perhaps about it,” said Mr. Welles. He turned to his wife. “
I
told you he is a fine lad. The brightest of the lot, even though he rarely speaks.” Then, turning back to me, he finished, “
Words
, Mohandas. Words. See how the lack of words keeps her in her animal state? When she has attained the miracle of speech, which more than the opposable thumb separates man and beast, she will be free of her animal spirit entirely. Words will free you as well.”

They stayed a minute more, contemplating Kamala, who fidgeted under their stares. Then they left, chatting about parish business. Mrs. Welles placed her hand on her husband’s arm as they walked.

Kamala put her hand on the crook of my elbow.

“Mmmmdas,” she said, pulling me forward. She mumbled a succession of sounds, like a baby’s babble, imitating Mrs. Welles.

I did not know whether to be disgusted or to laugh. In the end I did neither, but disengaged her hand from my arm and went indoors, where I knew she would not follow.

Later that same day Rama and I walked out of the schoolroom together. It had been months since we had spent time with each other, since before the trip to Godamuri. I realized suddenly how much I had missed him, and that was strange, for, in truth, I saw him every day. We studied together and slept in the same room. But since the arrival of the wolf-children, all between us had changed. I wondered if I had the proper words to tell him so, but I never got the chance to try.

“Mohandas,” he said to me, his words tumbling over one another in Bengali, “Mr. Welles tells me that in a year I am to be apprenticed to a storekeeper in Midnapore. He sells cloth and woven goods and needs someone with a strong back and a head for figures. He will teach me how to tell good cloth from bad. I will live there as well, and I will have a trade. He is a Christian man, Mr. Welles says, and is doing this out of duty and love.”

I wrinkled my nose, and Rama laughed, and it was so much like our old times together that I felt a great rush of affection for him.

“Indira says that I should be a soldier, not a shopkeeper, with a uniform of red and gold. But what does she know? I will be in the city and will be treated as a man there, not a boy or some Englishman’s lackey. And I will have money for rice beer and sweets.”

I clapped him on the back, for I knew that being on his own was his greatest wish. Then I looked at the ground as if the words I wanted were growing there at my feet.

“I will miss you, Rama.”

He grabbed me by the shoulder. In English he said, “It is not for a year. And besides, you have your dirty little wolf-girl. You will not miss me.” He laughed when he said it, but there was an edge to his voice.

“You…you have been
jealous
!” I said, amazed that I had never realized this before, never realized that I had been as much Rama’s friend as he was mine.

“Of
that
?” He pointed through the door and out into the compound where Kamala waited for me.

For the first time I saw her as Rama did. Bent over, with legs and arms as gnarled and crippled and thin as those of an old, old woman, her eyes were focused on a lizard crawling up the wall. Her fingers twitched as she watched it. I remembered with burning shame how, in the past, she had occasionally pounced on lizards and eaten them alive. Her skin was still like parchment stretched over bone, and the deep hollows of her cheeks matched the hollows of her eyes. How could Rama have been jealous of my attentions to such a creature?

Kamala turned and saw me then and gave her inhuman smile, just lips pulled away from sharp yellow teeth. There was no mirth or humor in that grimace. It was a dog’s baring of fangs.

“Mmmmdas,” she cried out, holding up her arms.

I wondered that I had ever thought such a mumble was really my name.

I turned from her and said, “Rama, I am sorry…” but he was already gone.

Mr. Welles came out of his study. “Ah, there you are, Mohandas. I thought that today you could take Kamala out for a walk on the
maidan
for the first time. She trusts you enough so that I doubt she will run away.”

I nodded sullenly. I wanted nothing more to do with her.

“Be sure to fill your pockets with some sweets,” he added. “You know how she has developed a taste for such things. And take her on a leash.”

Because I had been ordered to do so, I went to Cook and got a few of the biscuits she had made for afternoon tea. She was not pleased that they were for the wolf-girl.

All the while, Kamala waited for me at the door. I made a face when I saw her there, for I was seeing her now through Rama’s eyes: a pathetic parody of a girl.

“Come on,” I said, gesturing with my hand. She came readily. I put a dog collar around her neck and attached a leash. She did not seem to mind.

Then I opened the great wooden gate, lifting the latch and pushing hard with my shoulder. Kamala paid no attention to the process but capered around my feet on all fours, grunting and panting and making animal noises.

When I finally pushed open the door and she could see outside for the first time, she hung back.

“Come on,” I shouted at her, and started out, tugging on the leash.

Reluctantly she followed, standing upright and taking timid half-steps.

Open and flat, the
maidan
had once been used to drill soldiers when The Home had been headquarters for the Second Rajputs, an Indian regiment. There were now bushes growing up along the parade route, and a few spindly trees. It was a good place to play ball.

When Kamala realized how wide open the
maidan
was, she refused to move farther and stood there, trembling. She grabbed onto my arm and nearly pulled me over. I had to remove her hand from my elbow forcibly. Then I looked into her eyes, those frightened, shifting animal eyes.

“Kamala, come,” I said. “We are going to walk around the
maidan
. The
sahib
Welles has ordered it so.”

At Mr. Welles’ name, she looked over her shoulder back at the orphanage. I pulled on her hand and the leash simultaneously and began to drag her with me. “Kamala, come.”

The
maidan
was dry, and our feet raised soft little puffs of dust. Kamala twisted around to look at the prints we left behind.

I pulled her forward.

About halfway across the
maidan
we came upon the carcass of a cow. Vultures were already at it, tearing greedily at its rotting flesh. Kamala stopped and sniffed the air, turning toward the dead beast. She licked her lips, started to pull at her leash.

“Kamala, no,” I said sharply, giving the line a quick tug.

She broke suddenly from my grasp, tearing the leash from my hand and ran—not toward the cow, as I feared, but back to the open gate—crablike and scrambling on all fours.

I ran after her as fast as I could, but I could not catch up.

She stopped at the gate and pulled herself erect, using the wall. She was scarcely out of breath, but by the time I reached her, I was breathing heavily, and my stomach heaved.

“Kamala,” I panted, raising my hand, prepared to scold.

She smiled that strange animal smile at me and put her hand out, touching my chest.

“Mmmmdas,” she said. She pointed to her own chest. “Kmmmmala.” Then she pointed in toward the compound. “Home,” she said, as clearly as if she had spoken the word every day of her life. “Home.”

O
H, THE RIVER FLOW
of words that followed amazed us all. She was never easy to understand, but slowly we all learned Kamala’s peculiar way of speaking. She would concentrate her effort in her face, muscles straining, forehead wrinkled, pushing out a single word at a time, often foreshortened by a syllable or two. She never learned true sentences, and curiously enough, she never learned to say the words yes and no. Just a narrowing of her big eyes indicated no; a wide-open grin meant yes. Everything she said was in the present tense, as if the past did not exist for her. After my name, her name, and “home,” she quickly learned these words: milk, rice, meat, flower, tree, dog, bird, glass, hand, egg, cow, goat, cat, water, bath, mirror, dress, dirty, ball, horse, cart, garden, in, out, shoe, doll, give.

“
And whatsoever Adam called every living creature
,” intoned Mr. Welles in his Bible-quoting voice, “
that was the name thereof
.” He puffed a cloud of pipe smoke into the air.

“I hesitate to see where a shoe or a ball or a cart is a living creature, Mr. Welles,” Mrs. Welles said, laughing. Indeed, we were all laughing as Kamala went around the courtyard touching things and naming them back to us.

She was like a large baby, and we rewarded her efforts as we would those of a small child, clapping and encouraging her further. She responded by going faster and faster.

For an afternoon she was a wonder, and we played the naming game with her. Even Cook joined in, our laughter bringing her away from her rocker. She came out with a plucked chicken in her hands and pointed to it, saying, “Meat, meat.”

Kamala answered by trying to grab the uncooked fowl from Cook’s hand, and Cook ran back to the kitchen screaming, and that was the end of her participation.

After an hour of the game Mr. Welles put his hands up for us to stop. “Let us hold a Thank Offering Service right here, right in the courtyard under the eye of God.”

Indira whispered to Rama, and I overheard, “I thought God could see us wherever we were.”

Rama nudged her in the ribs, and they both giggled.

But we knelt down because Mr. Welles requested it, untroubled by Indira’s whispered blasphemy or by the heavy smell of the charcoal and cow dung smoke from the lunchtime fires signaling Cook’s assault on the chicken. We knelt and gave thanks for Kamala’s liberation by words.

Kamala knelt, too, and hummed tonelessly throughout the entire litany.

The afternoon passed, and though Kamala learned several dozen new words, the wonder of it was over. It was just as when the monsoon rains pass and it is difficult to remember in the heat of the dry season how much we hated all that rain.

Now that Kamala had words enough, she needed me less. Anyone could understand her and make her obey, and so I returned to my regular studies and my regular chores, both relieved and saddened. My notebook began to refer to people other than the wolf-girl.

She became a part of the activities of The Home, exploring inside The Home as well as out, though there were some places off limits to her—the kitchen, the English garden, and beyond the wall. She became fascinated especially with certain of the children’s games—the boys’ spinning tops, the girls’ rag dolls. And while no one would let her play with their toys, she was allowed to sit quietly and watch. Often she would mumble under her breath as they played, “Give. Give.” But no one gave anything to her.

Finally Mrs. Welles noticed and made her a dolly of her own, from a piece of bright red material, for red had become her favorite color.

The day Kamala was given her dolly, Indira turned sulky, for until that time she had had the brightest, newest-looking doll. She never played with it, which was why it was so clean. And though she should have been too old to care about Kamala’s doll, she made her displeasure known. Loudly.

“
She
should have been given a dog-brown doll,” Indira said. “A doll with a tail.”

Preeti giggled, one slim hand held over her mouth.

“And pups at its teats,” added Indira daringly.

Both Veda and Preeti laughed. Encouraged, Indira continued, “Krithi, bring that dog’s doll to me.”

Krithi shook his head miserably.

Indira stamped her foot and looked around. She saw me in the doorway but did not dare ask me. Still she did not want to stop the game; to do so would have shamed her before her followers.

No one volunteered.

“You are
all
dogs!” Indira shouted, frowning menacingly. “I will get it myself.”

She went over to the corner where Kamala sat, rocking and petting the doll.

“Come here, Kamala. Come to Indira. Come,” she sang out in a cozzening voice. Anyone else hearing her use that tone would have been immediately on guard, for it promised danger. But not Kamala. She stood up at once and went over to Indira eagerly.

Indira’s hand, as quick as a cobra, reached out and snatched the red doll.

Kamala howled, crying out in her peculiar voice, “Give. Give. Doll. Give.” But Indira paid no attention.

Then Kamala tried to grab the doll back. Indira flung it quickly to Krithi, who caught it with a look of surprise on his face.

Kamala scrambled over to Krithi, growling, and he tossed the doll to Veda.

She caught the doll by a leg and threw it at once to Preeti. But Preeti, with her weak eyes, did not see the doll coming, and it dropped in front of her. Kamala pounced upon the doll, clutching it to her chest and grunting, “Doll. Doll. Doll.” She bared her teeth and looked so fierce that the game stopped at once.

The others ran across the compound and through the little gate to Mr. Welles’ garden, where Kamala had been forbidden to follow.

I had not moved or spoken the whole time, and when she passed me, Kamala gave me a look compounded of disgust and despair. Shamed, I turned away, bumping into Rama, who had just come into the hall.

“Mohandas, what is it?” he asked.

“A game,” I mumbled, and left.

After that day Kamala took the doll with her everywhere, dragging it along when she crawled, sleeping with it, holding it while she ate, until it was scarcely more that a tattered piece of red material. She did not seem to know or care whether it was a doll or a rag, just that it was hers and in her hand.

Indira, of course, was ecstatic, and in her happiness left Kamala alone. She took her own doll out, displaying it with pride.

“See,” she said, “see how beautiful
my
doll is.”