Outlaw in India (3 page)

THE SUN WAS HOT ON
my skin but not a burning heat. It felt like
a heat you could get used to. The ground was warm, as if it were made for
sitting on and lying down on and never feeling cold, at least not here in the
extreme south of India, where it was always hot. Every country had its own
feeling, it seemed to me. I liked the feeling of India already.

I think that Hollie liked it too. He seemed calmer, more relaxed and more
reflective than before. There was something in the air here—the heat maybe, or
the sun, or the smell of the land—that fired my imagination. Everything looked
so different from everywhere else, and felt so different. And the feeling was
pleasant.

I had to find a bank and a hospital. And we had to find
Seaweed. Well, actually, Seaweed would find us. There was no way in the world we
could find him. All we had to do was stay out in the open until he spotted us.
Seaweed could find a speck of rice on a sandy beach, and it wouldn’t take him
long.

I followed the boy down the road. We passed more empty warehouses and some
houses. It was early but there were people outside already. Mothers were washing
clothes and their children. The children stood naked while their mothers
scrubbed them down with soap, then emptied buckets of water over their heads.
Some kids were using the bathroom outside in front of everyone. That was weird.
Then I noticed some people waking up on the ground. They had slept underneath
blankets and newspaper. They stared at us as we passed. I tried not to stare
back. But some people waved and I waved back. Hollie stared at everybody.

I asked the boy his name but couldn’t figure out what he was saying, even when
I tried to read his lips. I asked him if he knew where a bank was. He nodded.
Was it open early? He shook his head. How about a hospital? He thought about it
for a while, then nodded. I asked about a restaurant. His eyes lit up and he
grabbed my hand and pulled me along. I freed my hand and followed him.

He led me to a corner in the road where a group of men were standing around a
small portable food stand. I saw steam rising from a stainless steel container.
The men looked old and tired but they smiled at us. They greeted the boy in a
friendly way and wanted to shake my hand. One man slapped me
on my shoulder in a warm and welcoming way. I pointed to my ear and shook my
head. They looked sorry and nodded their heads. Then the man behind the stand
took a ladle and scooped a hot brown liquid into two small cups. He offered them
to us. I watched the boy take one with two hands, bring it to his mouth and sip
it. He closed his eyes and smiled. So, I did the same. Then I smiled too because
it was probably the best drink I had ever tasted. It was hot tea with lots of
cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and milk. It was so rich!

I asked the boy to tell them that I would return with money after we went to
the bank. They shook their heads and said no, no money. The boy looked at me and
shook his head too. I wondered if these were the friends he had smiled about. I
thanked them and we followed the road to where the Chinese fishing nets
were.

There was something hypnotic about watching the big nets swing down into the
water and rise with fish in them. Half a dozen men worked each one while other
men just stood around and watched. The nets never came up empty. I looked at the
faces of the men who were watching. They must have seen this a thousand times
yet they seemed fascinated still. I noticed there were no women here. I had seen
women only at the washing. I tried to imagine my grandfather here. He wouldn’t
do it because he liked to work alone. He would respect it though, because it was
a good method. It produced results. He just wouldn’t want to do it
himself.

When the bank opened, we were the first ones there. I put
Hollie inside the mesh tool bag and hung it over my shoulder. He liked it and
was used to being carried in it. It had a wooden frame and was just big enough
for him to ride inside comfortably. He could see out but no one could see in
unless they stood next to him and stared closely.

But the boy was nervous and didn’t want to come inside the bank. I insisted
because I needed his help. I couldn’t hear. So he followed me in but a man
stepped in our way, smiled at me but frowned angrily at the boy and pointed to
the door. He barked something at him; I saw his mouth. I held the boy’s hand but
the man looked at me and shook his head. He ushered the boy outside, without
actually touching him. I thought that was strange. I wondered if it was because
the boy’s feet were bare. “I’ll be right out,” I said to him, and I probably
said it too loudly.

I changed my money from dollars to rupees and walked out with a fat handful of
funny-looking money. Some of the bills were large and some small. I stuffed them
into my pocket, let Hollie out of the tool bag and asked the boy to show me
where the hospital was. He pointed up the road so I turned and started that way,
but he lagged behind. When I turned around to see why, he came running up to me
with something in his hand. I looked. It was one of the large bills. I counted
the rest of the money and realized that I had dropped it, and he had found it.
We stared at each other for a moment. He could have just kept it and I would
never have known.

“Thank you,” I said. He smiled and his eyes sparkled. I
remembered once finding a twenty-dollar bill when I was little and giving it to
my neighbour who had lost it, and she gave me a dollar as a reward. So, I took
one of the smaller bills and gave it to the boy. “Thank you for your honesty,”
I said. He took it in his hands and stared at it as if he had never seen money
before. And as we continued up the road, he never took his eyes away from
it.

The hospital was just a small clinic. But they wouldn’t let the boy in. He
stood at the door with a deeply guilty look on his face, as if he had done
something wrong. This time I asked why he wasn’t allowed inside. A lady in a
white uniform tried to explain it to me by writing a word down on a piece of
paper. She wrote, “Dalit.” “What does it mean?” I asked. She looked at me and
frowned. She wrote another word underneath the first one. “Untouchable.” Oh.
That meant he was in the lowest class of India, or even lower than the lowest
class. I wondered how she knew that. Could she tell just by looking at him? Was
it because he was barefoot? Because his clothes were shabby? Was it the guilty
look on his face? That went away when it was just him and me and Hollie.

So I asked the boy to wait for me again. He agreed. He pulled the bill out of
his pocket and turned around to examine it again. I followed the lady to an
examination room where she had me fill out a form asking for my name, age,
address, passport number and what was wrong with me. I was waiting for her to
tell me to take Hollie out too once she realized
I was
carrying a dog on my back, but she didn’t. She clicked her tongue and smiled at
him through the mesh.

When the doctor came in, he read the form I had filled out and he clapped his
hands but I didn’t hear anything. He looked surprised. He opened a drawer,
pulled out a bag and took a little hammer and tuning fork from it. He put the
tuning fork close to my ear and hit it with the hammer. I did hear something. “I
heard that,” I said. “Just a little.” He went to the other side and did it
again. I thought I heard it but wasn’t sure. He picked up a tool with a light on
the end of it and stuck it into my ear and looked through it like a periscope.
He moved it around. That hurt. I could feel his breath on my neck. He went
around to the other side and did the same thing. Then he wrote down on a sheet
of paper and showed it to me. “You heard a very loud noise?”

I said yes, but wasn’t about to tell him that I had been chased by the Indian
navy and that they had attacked my submarine with depth charges. He wrote
something else and tore a little sheet off a pad. Then he wrote on the other
sheet again. “Prescription for steroid drops. Ears are damaged but will heal.
Put drops in twice a day until gone.”

“Thank you,” I said. “How long will it take to get better?”

He raised two fingers, then three, and tossed his head to one side.

“Two or three days?”

He shook his head.

“Weeks?”

He nodded. Shoot.

I paid for the visit. It was only the same as twenty dollars in Canada, which
was really cheap. The nurse drew a small map to show me where to buy the
eardrops. I met the boy outside. Suddenly I had an idea and ran back inside and
asked the nurse to come to the door for a moment. She frowned but came. I asked
her to ask the boy his name and write it down for me. She shook her head. No.
She wouldn’t do it! I couldn’t believe it. What the heck was wrong with
her?

I let Hollie out and we walked away. Now I was hungry. “Are you hungry?” I
asked the boy. He nodded. “Good. Me too. Let’s go find a restaurant.”

We found three restaurants but none of them would let the boy in. They saw him
standing there staring at the ground in shame and they shook their heads at me.
Holy smokes! So we went back to the Chinese fishing nets. There were people
baking fish and onions and selling them. And there was more of that delicious
drink. I bought a whole bunch of everything and we sat down by the nets and ate
it, and man it was good. Suddenly my first mate came gliding out of the sky and
landed beside us, probably because he saw us eating. The boy was startled to see
a seagull come so close to us, and couldn’t believe it when the seagull let
Hollie sniff its feathers. I explained that Seaweed was part of my crew.

The boy twisted his face up in confusion. What did I mean?

I smiled. Boy, was he in for a surprise.

I FOUND THE PHARMACY
, bought the eardrops, turned my head
sideways and squeezed them into my ears. It tickled so badly my eyes watered and
my toes curled in my sneakers. The liquid bubbled and crackled in my head, with
the sound of a ship sinking under water, a sound that I hated. I waited till the
bubbling stopped, then we walked all around old Kochi.

It was an interesting place. If the polar ice cap ever melted, Kochi would be
one of the first places to disappear under water. It was completely flat, yet
you couldn’t see far because of all the buildings and houses. Some of the old
houses had colourful arches and little bridges and dark alleys between them, and
some had sculpted faces that stared down at you
from a
timeless past. Some were just flat and boxy, with clotheslines wrapped around
them, which reminded me of houses in Newfoundland, and in the Arctic, where they
were so plain. And some of the houses were completely rundown, like the
abandoned warehouses, leaning over as if they would fall, but not falling.

But there was also a neighbourhood that was very wealthy, where the houses were
large and fancy, like in Hollywood, or some rich place like that. There were
high iron gates to keep people out, beautiful lawns, enormous gardens, and
little houses beside the big houses that were just for decoration. There were
expensive cars there too, and they were driven by chauffeurs. I was amazed to
see such a rich neighborhood so close to the poor areas, but I didn’t get to see
much of it because the boy was too afraid to walk there. He shook his head
desperately to tell me that he was not allowed. Was he not even allowed to walk
down the street? No! He made gestures of hitting and kicking. He would get
beaten? Yes. But why? He pointed to his bare arm. I was confused. He would get
beaten just for walking there? Yes. He took my hand and tried to pull me away.
Okay, I said. And we turned away.

Since we couldn’t seem to eat in a regular restaurant together, I went into a
store and bought groceries to bring back to the warehouse for later. The boy
waited outside with Hollie and Seaweed while I chose packages of Indian food
that looked good. The pictures on the boxes showed mothers happily serving food
to happy families. I was curious to find out what
it tasted
like. I also bought fresh oranges, bananas, a melon, grapes, bread, cookies,
milk and juice. I had rice on the sub already.

On the way back to the warehouse we ate a whole box of cookies and drank a
bottle of juice. It was twilight when we approached the channel where the drain
was. We sat on the bank and waited until dark. Then, when we were sure no one
could see us, we pushed open the grate and climbed through the tunnel. Seaweed
flew up to the roof. Dark tunnels were not his thing.

Once we were inside the warehouse, I said to the boy, “Now, I have to show you
something. Do you know what a submarine is?”

In the light of the flashlight he shook his head. No? Oh boy.

“Okay. Do you know that there are boats that go under water?”

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

“Good. Well, I have one of those. That’s where I live, with Hollie and Seaweed.
And that’s how we travel around. Do you understand?”

He looked like he was trying really hard to understand, but he didn’t. He shook
his head.

“Well, let me show you. Would you like to see our submarine?”

He nodded excitedly.

“Okay. Follow me.”

I went towards the boathouse door, and he followed me. I
pulled open the door and shone the flashlight in. At a glance there was
nothing there, but I could see the flat circle in the water which was the top of
the hatch. “Be careful where you step because the wood is really old here. Can
you hold the flashlight and point it right there?” I handed it to him then
climbed down onto the hatch and opened it. I looked up and saw the flashlight
pointed at my face and the dark outline of the small figure behind it. “This is
our submarine. Do you want to see inside? Just wait a minute; I’ll be right
back.” I couldn’t tell what his answer was. I went in and turned on the
emergency lights and pumped air into the tanks to surface completely. I came out
and reached up for Hollie and brought him inside. Then, I came back for the
groceries.

When I came out again, the boy was ready. He handed me the flashlight, took my
hand and jumped onto the hull. He poked his head into the hatch and looked down,
filled with wonder. I could tell he was afraid but his curiosity was greater. I
think we were the same that way. I showed him where to hold onto the ladder and
climb inside.

Hollie was excited to have a visitor in the sub. He ran to his corner, grabbed
his ball, brought it over to the boy and dropped it at his feet. As distracted,
nervous, and filled with wonder as the boy was, he bent down, picked up the ball
and patted Hollie.

I showed him around the sub. I didn’t think his eyes could have opened any
wider. He was especially interested in the observation window in the floor, and
the periscope, even though he couldn’t see anything through it in the dark. I
showed him the bicycle, the engine, the batteries, and
explained that we had been chased by the Indian navy and that the submarine
wasn’t working right and I had to fix it before we could go anywhere else. He
nodded as though he understood everything I was saying, but I didn’t think that
he did. How could he?

While I made supper, the boy sat by the observation window and played with
Hollie. I was surprised how quickly he seemed comfortable here. He had a lot of
energy for Hollie, which was nice; Hollie loved getting attention from other
people.

I cooked rice and mixed three of the packages with water until they turned into
bright green, yellow and red sauces. Then I mixed yogurt, water and sugar
together and whipped it up into a drink called a lassie—I read the instructions
in my guide book. I cut up the melon and put it on a plate with grapes. Then I
laid everything out in bowls and plates on the floor in the bow. Hollie sniffed
at everything but I fed him a can of dog food in his dish by the engine
room.

We sat and ate. The boy ate without taking a drink. I had to take a drink after
every bite because the sauces were so hot and spicy it was like lighting matches
in my mouth. My whole body felt hot and my forehead broke into a sweat. Then I
had to make more lassie to cool my mouth down. Indian food was tasty but it was
like eating fire.

After supper I dug out my chess set. I wanted to see if he could play. He
couldn’t. Would he like to learn? Yes. Great.

It wasn’t easy to teach someone to play chess when they
couldn’t ask you questions. Considering that, he learned amazingly fast. He
was so fascinated with the game and especially that all the players moved
differently and had different powers. We spent a few hours at it, while Hollie
lay beside us and watched. Once we started yawning I told the boy he was welcome
to sleep inside the sub on a sleeping bag if he wanted to. He nodded
emphatically. I told him I had to turn the light off to save power but would
light a candle that would burn through the night. When the sun came up I would
get busy fixing the batteries.

As I lay in my cot and waited to fall asleep, I thought of how different life
was in India. In Canada, no one would let a ten-year-old boy live by himself.
Clinics and banks wouldn’t refuse to let him inside. What if he got really sick?
What then? Here, he wasn’t allowed in stores, so how could he buy food and
clothes? And where would he get the money anyway? How will he be able to get a
job when he is older if he isn’t in school now learning to read and write? It
was lucky at least that India was so warm. He would never survive a Canadian
winter living the way he did. No one would. And yet he seemed kind of happy,
strangely enough. He seemed happy to be alive. How different the world was here,
I thought, as I drifted off to sleep.

I woke and saw the boy asleep with an arm around Hollie. Even though Hollie was
awake I could see that he didn’t want to disturb the boy by moving. It was as if
Hollie knew somehow that the boy was as he had once been himself—orphaned
and alone in the world. I put the kettle on for tea, turned
the emergency lights on and started examining the batteries. I couldn’t see
anything wrong with them, but Ziegfried had taught me not to trust the look of
things, to examine them thoroughly, and so I did.

I checked all the wires and all the connectors. Everything had been so well
constructed and was designed to absorb lots of bouncing and banging around it
was hard to believe anything was broken. And then I found it. Ziegfried had
built a relay switch between the batteries and the rest of the sub. Inside the
relay switch was a row of fuses. One of the fuses was burnt out. The explosions
must have caused the batteries to surge and overwhelm the fuse. That was it.
That’s all it took to shut the sub down.

Fortunately for me, Ziegfried had stocked the sub with extra parts for
everything, including extra fuses. But when I went looking through the parts
drawer I couldn’t find them. I had a vague memory of having brought the fuses
along when I went into the Sahara Desert to fix an engine the year before. I
also had a vague memory of having forgotten to bring them back. Shoot! Ah, well,
that just meant I’d have to pull the fuse out, find an electrician’s shop and
buy another one to replace it. Surely there was an electrician’s shop in
Kochi?

Nope, there wasn’t. But there were some in Ernakulum, the city across the
harbour. And we could take a ferry there. I
learned that after
the boy woke up and we went out for fried fish and more of that delicious
cinnamon tea, which, according to my guide book, was called chai, now my new
favourite drink.

Seaweed was waiting for us when we came out of the sewer drain. We strolled
along the road beneath a cloudless sky towards the Chinese fishing nets and our
breakfast. I asked the boy if he was allowed on the ferry. Yes. Great. We
greeted the men at the road stands, bought grilled fish, onions and chai, then
sat and ate while we watched the Chinese nets scoop fish out of the sea.
Certainly if there were any place in the world that made homelessness tolerable
this was it. Some Pacific islands wouldn’t be too bad either.

The ferry ride was a treat. It was a noisy old boat with an exposed engine in
the centre that whined and coughed and blew smoke all the way across the
harbour. Every inch of the boat was filled with people squashed together like
sardines. The boy and I stood on the bow and had a spectacular view of the
harbour and its incredible number and variety of vessels. Hollie sat in the tool
bag on my back. Seaweed was up in the air somewhere.

From the far side of the harbour I could see where the naval base was. I also
saw navy helicopters taking off and landing nearby. Boy was I ever foolish
trying to sneak in here in the daytime.

Ernakulum was a modern city, but nothing like a Canadian city. It was very
noisy and busy, with way too much traffic
for the streets, and
man, what strange traffic! There were cars, trucks and buses—new ones and old
ones, and some that were painted bright pink, red, yellow, green and purple. The
buses were jam-packed with people. You never saw so many people on a bus in
Canada. It would be illegal there. There were also taxis everywhere—four-wheeled
ones, three-wheeled ones and rickshaws. There were men hauling wooden carts
piled high with wood, metal, boxes and burlap sacks. I even saw one filled with
dead carcasses. In the middle of all of this, unbelievably, cows were wandering
around like it was nobody’s business! Somehow the traffic was racing around the
cows without hitting them. I didn’t see how it was possible, but it was. There
was also garbage everywhere. There seemed to be no garbage pick-up
whatsoever.

Once we got away from the busier streets we found smaller, quieter streets
where all the working shops were—the garages, wood-workers, tanners, shoemakers,
rice sellers, spice sellers, paper sellers, tinsmiths, printers, plumbers and
electricians. Most of these shops were in two- or three-storey buildings and
were squeezed into tight spaces. It was easy to walk around here and there was a
lot to see. We passed a sewing machine shop that had dozens of old-fashioned
sewing machines that you would only see in museums back in Canada, the ones that
you pedal and that don’t use electricity. These were brand new. They were still
making them in India. Cool. Then I saw a bicycle shop with old-fashioned bikes
and they were brand new too. Oh, they were so beautiful!
“Let’s go in here,” I said. But a clerk met us at the door and wouldn’t
let the boy in. Oh, yah, I forgot. So we stood at the window and looked in. But
the clerk didn’t like that either and came out and made a fuss, so we
left.