The Wishing Trees (28 page)

Though Ian felt rushed in his decision-making process, he knew that even if the orphanage wasn’t perfect, Rupee would be much better off than he had been a few days earlier. The boy had his own bank account, and the orphanage sounded like an honorable establishment.

Ian was worried that Rupee would be sad to leave them, but on the contrary, he was thrilled by the prospect of having a place to live. After Ian explained the workings of the orphanage, and how he and Mattie would try to find a family to adopt Rupee, the boy started smiling again, as if unbelieving of his good fortune.

Wanting to spend as much time as possible at the orphanage, Ian led the children to a taxi. The streets of Varanasi were predictably chaotic, and the driver punched at the horn like a moth battering itself against a streetlight. It took about twenty minutes to reach the orphanage, a two-story cement building adjacent to a dusty soccer field. Children swarmed over the field, chasing several balls, as if multiple games were occurring on the same patch of dirt.

Ian, Mattie, and Rupee walked past the field and toward the building. They hadn’t yet stepped inside when a well-dressed man emerged, introduced himself, and shook Ian’s hand. The manager spoke with Rupee in Hindi, and soon both were smiling.

After several minutes of small talk, the manager asked if Mattie and Rupee wanted to play soccer while he spoke with Ian. Mattie wasn’t interested, and politely declined, taking Rupee’s hand and leading him toward a purple bench near the other children. Ian and the manager stood not more than thirty feet away, watching the children, talking about Rupee’s future.

Mattie edged closer to her friend. “I’m going to miss you, Rupee,” she said, happy for him but sad for herself.

Rupee smiled, sure that he was dreaming, that an American girl couldn’t possibly think of him as a friend, that he hadn’t arrived at such a beautiful orphanage. “Why?” he asked. “Why you my friend? Everyone else, they think I dirty. Cannot touch me.”

Her hand found his. “You make me smile, Rupee. And you’re not dirty. See? My skin is against yours and there’s no dirt anywhere. So if anyone ever calls you dirty again, you just think about your hand against mine.”

Rupee nodded, remembering sifting through piles of bones at the bottom of the river, hoping that Mattie was right, that his hands had somehow remained clean. “You send me letter? From Hong Kong? I get someone to read it for me.”

“I’ll send you a lot of letters. A heap of letters, as my daddy would say.”

“I no forget you.”

“And I won’t forget you.”

Rupee looked at her skin against his, remembering her words. He didn’t have a single memory of being held, of a hand against his. “I so happy,” he said.

Despite her sadness at the thought of leaving him, Mattie smiled, reaching into her backpack. She took out her sketch pad and leafed through its pages, coming to the image she had drawn of him. She set the pad on his lap. “Someday, Rupee, I’ll come back to India. And I’ll draw another picture of you.”

He studied her sketch, smiling at his smile in the picture, warmed by the glow of his face. “You so good, Mattie. I think maybe . . . maybe a painter . . . he already reborn into you.”

Mattie thought about the river, about whether her mother was in heaven or had been reborn, as the Hindus thought. “Rupee? Can you climb a tree with me?”

“A tree? Why?”

“Because I want to leave a picture for my mother. So she can see it.”

Rupee looked around the soccer field, pointing to an immense teak tree at the corner of the building. “Like that one?” he asked, carefully handing her back the sketch pad.

She nodded, then walked to the orphanage’s manager, asking him if they could climb a tree and leave a message for her mother. The man’s brow furrowed, but then he saw the yearning in her expression, and he nodded. Knowing that her father was watching, Mattie walked toward the tree.

The climb was difficult, as the trunk had been pruned of low branches. Rupee went first, jumping up, grabbing onto the stump of a broken branch and hoisting himself higher. Mattie repeated his motions, her backpack moving from side to side as she climbed. She wondered how high Rupee would go, hoping that he wouldn’t stop. Wanting to give her mother the best possible view of her sketch, Mattie climbed higher. She liked following Rupee, liked that he looked down to make sure she was fine. Twice he held out his hand for her, helping her up, their fingers intertwined.

Mattie asked herself what it would be like to climb a tree with a brother or sister. Would they always help each other? Would they be best friends?

Rupee stopped, leaning against the trunk. He pulled Mattie up again and she straddled a nearby branch. They were higher than the top of the adjacent building, and Mattie saw that an immense puddle had formed in the center of the flat roof.

Using her right hand, Mattie unslung her backpack, opened it, and removed her sketch pad. She leafed through the pad until locating her drawing of the Taj Mahal. She studied the drawing, showed it to Rupee, and then carefully folded it and stuck it into a crevice formed within a split branch. She looked up, trying to somehow glimpse her mother’s spirit. She spoke silently to her mother, asking her to watch over Rupee, to make sure that he was safe and happy.

“Why you leave picture in tree?” Rupee asked, Prem held tight in his hand.

Mattie put on her backpack, glancing below at her father, who stood near the base of the tree. “My mother . . . she’s dead, like I told you. But she loves to see my drawings, and to read my words. So I put them in wishing trees.”

“Wishing trees?”

“Places where I feel closer to her, where I know she’s looking.”

Rupee nodded. “Tomorrow, when you at airport, when you go to new country, I come outside and look for your drawing. If it fall to ground, I carry it back up, put it at top of tree again. Then your mother see it for many days.”

Mattie moved her loose tooth with her tongue, not wanting to think of being separated from Rupee. “Do . . . do you miss your mother, Rupee?”

“Me no remember her, so me no miss her. But sometime . . . me see mother with boy, and this make me sad.”

“I know. Me too.”

“But you take me here, so now I so happy. Maybe someday I have mother.”

“We’re going to find you a family. My daddy’s really great at that stuff.”

Rupee exhaled deeply, as if he’d just arisen from the river’s murky waters. “Me think me already reborn. When you say hello, when you take me to eat food, that day I born again. Me lucky. No have to get body burned, pushed into water to get reborn. I already reborn. You are like my Ganga River.”

“Really?”

“You . . . you do so much for me. Next time I see you, I do so much for you. And Mr. Ian. I make you feel reborn too.”

Mattie studied his smile. She was so happy to see it. But her smile was only half as wide. She wasn’t ready to say good-bye to the boy who made her laugh, who gave her his hand and helped her climb a tree.

Mattie wanted to be reborn. She understood what he was talking about. She longed to wake up and have everything different, everything the way it had been.

“I’ll miss you, Rupee,” she said, biting her lower lip so that she wouldn’t cry.

Rupee’s smile wavered, and he reached out to her, their fingers meeting and clasping, neither of them quite ready to climb down from the wishing tree, from a place where rebirth seemed so near and yet so far.

HONG KONG

Pain and Pleasure

“IT IS ONLY WHEN THE COLD SEASON COMES THAT WE KNOW THE PINE AND CYPRESS TO BE EVERGREENS.”

—CHINESE SAYING

T
he hotel rose like a sword into the night sky. The ultramodern building was sleek and soaring, thrusting higher than the half dozen skyscrapers crowding around it. Forty rows of oversized windows provided guests with spectacular views of downtown Hong Kong, which at night resembled its own solar system, replete with brilliant constellations, glowing planets, and setting suns. The city seemed afire with color and radiance. The skyscrapers weren’t simply tall rectangles of steel and glass, but sculpted and flowing structures illuminated by millions of green, purple, blue, and red lights that reflected off the clouds, the nearby sea, and the mountains, giving rise to a futuristic landscape that might have been conjured within the pages of a science fiction novel.

Ian stood near the window of their hotel room, peering through a telescope at the world below. Four high-rises fell within his immediate field of view, and all appeared to be apartment buildings. Many featured large windows, and he saw families eating dinner, watching television, gathered around flat-screen computer monitors. Children ran from room to room while mothers washed dishes. Fathers spoke on cell phones, pacing like caged lions. Other telescopes twisted and turned as people studied the scenes around them.

Not sure what to think of such voyeurism, Ian continued to look into the night. The nearby buildings must have housed wealthy families, for many of the apartments contained a variety of large rooms. Ian intensified the strength of the telescope and was able to see children smiling and laughing. He watched a pair of boys make paper airplanes and toss them around a family room. Sitting nearby, a man and a woman, presumably the parents, drank wine and smiled at their children’s antics.

Ian turned the telescope, scanning lit and unobscured windows, pausing when he realized that a woman in a nearby building was staring through her telescope at him. He stepped back, fumbled at the buttons of his pajamas, and then once again put his eye to the instrument. The woman wore a black cocktail dress. Her hair was pinned up, dark ringlets held in place by a pair of lacquered chopsticks. She waved to him, then turned her telescope elsewhere.

Twisting to Mattie, Ian started to ask if she wanted to look out into the night but realized that sights of cheerful families would only further dampen her mood. She had been quiet since they’d left India—actually, since they’d left Rupee. Ian was aware of how quickly Mattie and Rupee had formed a bond, a connection based perhaps on the losses they shared. After Kate’s death, Ian had often arranged playdates with Mattie’s friends, but she’d never seemed to want to be around them. Maybe they had been too happy, their lives too perfect. One day, Mattie had asked Ian to stop inviting her friends. She’d wanted to be with him, or with no one.

Usually when Mattie was feeling low, Ian tried to engage her with humor or games or stories. But tonight he felt too tired. He wanted to surrender for the day. He didn’t have the strength to act, to pretend that the moment was grand when he felt as if he’d stepped into a black hole. Watching the families below, he had been reminded of all he had lost.

Ian walked to the couch, where Mattie sat working on a geography lesson. She wore her pajamas, which had been purchased at the Bronx Zoo and featured a collage of African animals. Her hair, unbraided, yet still curled from the memory of being held fast, fell below her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head and put his arm around her. “Need any help, luv?” he asked, kissing her again.

“No.”

“What are you working on?”

She closed her book, which had been open to a map of India. “We shouldn’t have left him, Daddy. He’s all alone.”

Ian sighed, rubbing his brow, wishing he had an antacid handy. “Roo, three days ago he was homeless and swimming for gold teeth. Tonight he’s sleeping in a bed, with a full belly, and a bunch of nice blokes around him. And he’s got his own bank account, which is full of loot. I reckon we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves.”

“But what if—”

“And, luv, we’re going to stay in touch with the orphanage. We’ll make sure that he’s all right. And when we get back to the States we’ll try and find him a family.”

“What about our family?”

“I can’t adopt a child, Roo, without a wife.”

She turned away. “Then we don’t have a family, do we?”

“What?”

“If they won’t give us Rupee, then they don’t think we have a family.”

“Anyone who fancies that notion is a bloody fool,” he replied, leaning away from her so that he might see all of her face. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

She wiped her eyes. “I don’t know. I think . . . maybe we have half a family.”

“Half a family?”

“That’s what they think. That’s why they won’t give us Rupee.”

“What a bunch of rubbish.”

“It’s not!”

“We helped him, Roo. Can’t you just focus on that?”

“I don’t understand. I—”

“You reckon I do? But I’m doing my best, just like you are.”

“I miss Rupee.”

He sighed, glancing at the ceiling, wanting to curse whatever god dwelled above. “Did you see his smile? He was as happy as a butterfly on a breeze. We made him happy. You made him happy. Just like your mum wanted you to.”

“I don’t feel happy. We shouldn’t have left him. We left him just like everyone else did.”

Ian felt anger building within him. Before he raised his voice and said something he’d regret, he stood up, walked into the bathroom, and grabbed an antacid. He looked at himself in the mirror, wondering who he was becoming. He wanted to fall to his knees, lean against the counter, and close his eyes. Instead he chewed the medicine, took a deep breath, and ran his hands through his hair. He squeezed two fistfuls of hair tight, strands falling as he removed his hands from his head. Swearing to himself, he took another antacid and pressed the lever on the toilet as if it were his enemy.

He washed his face, took several minutes to calm down, then returned to his daughter, not wanting to fight with her, memories of his fights with Kate like thorns in his soul. “What if we go shopping for Rupee tomorrow?” he asked, drawing near her. “What if we buy him another set of clothes, and . . . and maybe some more dinosaurs? We could mail him a package and he’d have it in a couple of days.”

Mattie looked up at him, her eyes widening. “Really? Could we do that? Could we find him some dinosaurs?”

“In this city? I reckon we could find him anything we want. Have you looked out the window? It’s like we’re in the middle of a Christmas tree.”

She glanced outside, nodding. “Can we go in the morning, before we do anything else?”

“Sure, luv. We’ll go dino hunting. Care to be my lookout?”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

He put his arm around her, still thinking about her earlier words, about not having a family. “Let’s head for bed,” he said, taking her hand and standing up. “I reckon if we’re going to rise early and find some dinos, we’d best get some sleep.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

Impulsively, Ian lifted her up, carrying her toward the bed, laying her down. He crawled in beside her, pulling the sheet over them. She asked him to tell her a story, and stroking her brow, he forced his own thoughts of doubt and pain aside and mused over what tale he might bring to life. He told her a story of a girl who drove a truck, who was supposed to deliver pigs, cows, chickens, and turkeys to cities where they would be eaten by people. But instead of delivering the animals as promised, the girl drove them to a secret valley and freed them within a land of endless grass and lakes. She lived with them for the summer and then returned every summer thereafter, growing older, in time bringing her children with her. The valley, the animals, her children—everything seemed to get more beautiful with each passing week and month and year. And the woman’s happiness grew as well, because she was so loved.

Mattie smiled. She put her head on his chest and fell asleep. Ian tried to do likewise but wasn’t able to so easily tame his thoughts. He crept quietly from the bed, returning to the telescope. He searched for families within the wombs of light below him. Many people had gone to sleep, but other families lingered, sitting together around tables, using chopsticks to pluck food from colorful platters. These families laughed; they sometimes appeared to argue. They didn’t necessarily seem to savor their moments together, but they were together, and in that togetherness Ian saw a certain kind of beauty, something not created by the skill of an artist or the grand design of the world, but by people who loved one another, even if they didn’t always recognize that love.

Watching the families—seeing the mothers and fathers interact with their children—brought tears to Ian’s eyes. Though he would never admit it to her, he shared Mattie’s loneliness; he understood its nuances. He understood it because he needed Kate; he needed her to help make their little girl well again. Without Kate, Ian sometimes felt powerless, no matter how hard he tried. And when he felt powerless, the true loneliness set in, the feeling of being the only person in the world.

Ian wiped his eyes, continuing to watch the families. Seven or eight stories below, a mother put her fingers on her young daughter’s face, playfully pinching her cheek. Ian remembered Kate doing the same thing to Mattie. He recalled one Halloween when Mattie dressed as a bumblebee and Kate pinched her cheek again and again. For a moment he panicked, wondering where the costume was, afraid that he’d lost it, that his memories of such times would fade.

The woman below lifted up her daughter, holding the girl in one arm while tickling her stomach. Again, Ian thought of Kate doing the same thing to Mattie, of what Mattie was missing. And that thought put such a weight on him that he slowly fell to his knees, the telescope swinging up toward the starless sky.

Much later, not knowing what else to do, Ian returned to their bed, holding the shell Kate had given him. He wrapped his arms around Mattie and drew her tight against his chest. He listened to her breathe, hoping that she was dreaming about good things, that she wasn’t afraid to dream of better times.

“I love you, Roo,” he whispered, kissing the back of her head, wondering how he might let her see them as a family, as not just a father and a daughter, but as a family that could smile and laugh and dream together.

THE RESTAURANT LOOKED AS IF IT SHOULD have been at a downtown corner instead of floating in the harbor. The ornamental three-story building was almost as long as a city block. Blue with red trim, it featured a flat roof highlighted by a pair of enclosed, tentlike structures. Most of the diners throughout the three levels were protected from the elements, though about thirty rooftop tables absorbed the sunlight.

Located at the end of a pier, the floating restaurant was accessed by a walkway, but also surrounded by dozens of wooden sampans that ferried people to stairs descending from the lower level of the building into the water. The sampans were in constant motion, shuttling people to and from the shore, various piers, and much larger boats. Many of the vessels were padded with truck tires, as if their captains expected constant collisions.