Little Princes (17 page)

Jagrit was one of the more than 170 children at the Umbrella Foundation. I got to know dozens of these children in my time there. I tried not to play favorites, and I failed. I love Jagrit. He is exceptionally bright, and his English is amazing. But mostly he is a smart aleck. I have a weakness for smart alecks.

The first time I ever visited Umbrella, I wandered into the children’s home where he lived to meet the kids. There were so many of them. I just stood and watched them running around the field outside the house. Jagrit walked up to me.

“You are friend of Viva and Jacky sir, I think. I can give you a tour if you like, sir!” he said loudly. “What is your name?”

“That sounds great. But don’t call me ‘sir’—my name is Conor,” I told him.

“Okay, Conor! I am Jagrit. And I do not charge you anything, sir. But do not worry because this is going to be a very good tour. I am very entertaining,” he informed me.

Jagrit turned out to be hilarious, smart, and well respected by the younger kids. He asked many questions about America and my family. I asked him where he was from.

“I am from Humla, sir. I do not think you know Humla, not tourist place like Sagarmatha. Very few children at Umbrella from Humla. But it is very beautiful.”

I told him that, as a matter of fact, I did know Humla. The kids at Little Princes were from that region, and they had told me all about it.

“You are joking I think, sir! It is a good joke. I congratulate you.”

“I’m not joking, Jagrit. I know it,” I said. “It’s in northwest Nepal. The largest village, the district headquarters, is called Simikot.”

Jagrit was speechless for all of two seconds. “Okay, now I really will not charge you. I was going to charge you many thousands of rupees at the end of the tour, but now I will not.”

This was a fairly typical exchange with Jagrit. The more time I spent at the Umbrella homes, the better we got to know each other. Usually we found ways to make fun of each other.

“Today you are very fat, sir,” Jagrit would say when I came to Umbrella after being away for a few days. After a couple of months on a diet of daal bhat, I was pretty sure that I was significantly underweight.

“Fat? Where are your glasses, Jagrit? Let me guess—you don’t wear them because you are trying to look pretty? For the girls?”

“I use for reading! I do not need to see you so enormous! I hear you coming before I see you. I hear you ten minute before, walking down street like elephant.”

When I arrived at Umbrella carrying Dirgha and walking slowly next to Navin, Jagrit was waiting at the front gate of one of the homes. Viva had told him the situation; he had been waiting for me for two hours. He said nothing, but took Navin’s hand and led him to one of the small beds in the nursing station.

I followed him inside with Dirgha, laying the boy down on the other bed. Jagrit went to get water for the boys, then disappeared and returned with two boys about his age and two younger girls.

“They watch boys, sir. If they need water or biscuits, they can fetch, no problem,” he said.

“Okay, great,” I said, and turned to the four children who would be keeping a vigil over our boys. “Thank you—it’s very kind of you,” I said. The children smiled, thrilled at the idea that they were helping a grown-up.

“Conor sir, you look very tired. You go sleep in my bed—it is the top bunk in the upstairs room,” he said. “It is very cozy bed, you see.”

“It’s all right, Jagrit—I have a bed next door.”

“What are the names of these boys?” he asked. I told him. He relayed the information to the other four.

“Okay, no problem now, sir. You go. We take care,” said Jagrit, and he gave me an affectionate push toward the door.

I believed him. I went next door, to a tiny room with a bunk bed on the top floor of one of the children’s homes where volunteers could stay. I was asleep in minutes. Two hours later I came down to find Jagrit still there, but with four new children watching the boys. In a stack were dozens of hand-made get-well cards that the Umbrella kids had made for them. That image stayed with me: a beautiful six-year-old girl handing Dirgha a piece of paper with a clumsily painted blue flower hovering above the words “Get Well Soon,” clearly taught to them by Jagrit. That’s Nepal. Children take care of one another.

F
ive of the seven children were now safely at the Umbrella children’s homes in Kathmandu. Two were still missing: Kumar, a boy of about nine, and Bishnu, the youngest. But there was more news. Gyan had located Kumar. I couldn’t believe our luck. The information came less than a week after we had rescued the other four boys. I was anxious to pick him up.

It was too late to take the bus to Kathmandu that evening, but the next morning, I was on a minibus to the capital. I took it directly to Gyan’s office; I wanted to be with him when he got Kumar. I waited for him outside his office until he had finished with the parents standing at his desk, then I squeezed between the waiting parents and children to where I could catch Gyan’s eye. He said something to his assistant, then walked over to me. He took me by the arm and led me out into the dank hallway.

“There is complication, Conor sir,” he told me. “Kumar is in Kathmandu, we found him in the Kalanky district. But he has been sold. He is servant.”

“A servant? He’s nine years old—a servant to whom?”

“That is complication.”

I was accustomed to Nepalis speaking around issues. It often took extensive probing to reach the heart of the matter, especially if the topic was sensitive. I was not used to it with Gyan, though. He was trying to explain the situation in such a roundabout way that I finally interrupted him.

“Who is holding him, Gyan?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I have heard that it is a member of the local government,” he said. “I do not know if it is true. I am finding out. If so, he must be persuaded to give boy voluntarily, or it will be . . . difficult.”

“But you know where he is?”

“Yes, we know.”

“So we can go get him. It’s not legal, is it? To have a nine-year-old boy as a domestic slave? Your job is to enforce the law, isn’t it, Gyan? Isn’t that your job? Am I missing something?”

Gyan sighed. “Conor sir, I promise we will get this boy. You believe me?”

“Of course I believe you, it’s not the point—we need to go, right now, Gyan. We can’t leave him there. You saw what happened to the other two boys. You’re the one who
found
them, for God’s sake.”

“If you believe me, then please trust, Conor sir. This is complication.” He motioned that he had to go back into his office to the waiting mass of people. “Nepal is difficult, I know this. But I will get Kumar.”

I stood outside his office, seething, but I could do no more at that moment. I took the bus back to Godawari, frustrated at Nepal and everybody in it.

Back at Little Princes, I ignored Hriteek’s attempts to climb up my back onto my shoulders. Raju ran to show me a toy that he had made out of bottle caps, and I ignored him, too. Only the older boys sensed that something was wrong and stayed out of my way. I stomped into the office, sat down at my computer, and started composing an e-mail to Farid. We wrote frequently—I kept him up-to-date on everything. He was counting the days until he could get a visa into Nepal. He had rejoiced at my finding the five children. But now I had bad news for him. I had to tell him that I had information about Kumar, that I knew he was working as a domestic slave, that Gyan even knew where he was, and that I was unable to act on it. He would ask me—he would have to—why I could not get him right that moment, why I was sitting at my computer when a child was in danger. I wouldn’t have an answer.

Sitting there, wondering what to say, I came to an unpleasant realization. My foul mood was not just out of fear for Kumar’s safety. It was also from guilt. It was the thought of admitting to Farid that I had not stood up to Gyan, that I had not rescued Kumar, even after seeing the danger these children were in. That guilt made me want to bang my fists against the cement in frustration. I wanted to go back to Gyan’s office, almost two hours by bus, and demand that we go get Kumar that instant.

I found myself writing down these exact sentiments, almost word for word. Not to Farid, but in an e-mail to Liz. I told her what had happened that day. I told her I felt like I had abandoned a child for reasons that made no sense to me; that I had not pushed harder because I trusted Gyan. But what if I was wrong? What if Gyan was protecting somebody and Kumar disappeared again? The boy would spend his childhood in slavery, and it would be my fault, because I did not stand up to Gyan.

I waited a long hour until Liz wrote back; it was early morning in Washington, D.C. “First of all, I am so sorry—this must be incredibly difficult,” she wrote. “Do you really think Gyan is corrupt? Or are you just afraid that he is? Has he done anything so far that has made you doubt him? It sounds like he has been pretty faithful to everything he promised he would do for the children and for you.”

I thought about that. “I guess I am afraid he is corrupt. And no, he’s never done anything to make me doubt him,” I wrote.

“I think you’re doing a great thing, Conor,” Liz wrote back. “I think in this case, you need to have faith, and put your trust in somebody else to get the job done. I know that’s not really useful advice, since from what you said it doesn’t sound like you have a lot of good options. But it sounds like Gyan is an honest guy, and if anybody can help Kumar, it’s him. You did the right thing.”

As soon as I read that, I realized that was what I needed—somebody to tell me I had done the right thing, even if I didn’t really have much of a choice. It wasn’t easy for me to be working alone. I often wondered if I was doing a thing right, or if I was making the right decision. In this case, I had no idea if Kumar would be okay, or if someone more experienced would have done things differently. But Liz was right: Gyan had never let me down. I wrote to Farid to tell him what had happened. I told him my concerns and said I had done what I had done because Gyan had always come through for us.

Farid wrote back immediately, incredibly frustrated. I knew what he felt, but this was the right decision. I was glad he was not in the room with me; he would have seen doubt all over my face. Our conversation ended with his telling me he was confident that if I truly believed it to be right, then yes, my decision was the right call. He trusted me and asked me to keep him updated.

A week passed. I was in a perpetually foul mood. I had called Gyan every day and received the same answer every day; he told me I had to trust him. He offered no more information. It was maddening. I also wrote to Liz every day. I leaned on her for reassurance that I was doing the right thing. Any moment she would surely write back “I don’t know, Conor—you’re there, I’m not. I have no idea what you should do.”

But she never did. She encouraged me, day after day, asking if there had been any progress, telling me that it would turn out okay. Liz’s e-mails were like kindling, sparks of inspiration in a dark week.

Eight more days passed. With no news of Kumar, I wrote to Farid less. I hadn’t called Gyan in four days.

There were few places to be alone in the children’s home. On an early Sunday morning, I was almost alone on the roof. Raju was several feet away, pretending I wasn’t there but sneaking glances at me, silently willing me to come play with him. The awkward silence was broken by footsteps pounding up the concrete stairs. Hari’s head appeared, and seeing me in the far corner, he walked quickly toward me. He was trying unsuccessfully to mask a look of dismay.

“Viva calling for you, Brother,” he said nervously. Hari knew what that meant. Calls from Viva were almost universally bad news. I thanked him and took my time getting to the phone. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.

“Conor, it’s Viva, how are you?” The line was drenched in static.

“I’m fine—what is it, Viva?” I could barely hear her. I pressed my ear against the phone.

“Listen, Conor, Gyan just brought a very nice boy to us that he says is one of yours. I’m standing next to him right now—his name is Kumar. You know him?”

The air drained from my lungs as I slumped into a chair. “Yeah, I know him,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”

I looked at my watch—there was no rush. I dashed off e-mails to Farid and Liz. Then I went upstairs to find Raju standing in the same spot, chin resting on the railing, staring out at the fields. I crept up behind him, snatched him up by the waist, tossed him over my shoulder, and carried him back downstairs. I laid him out, laughing, on the sofa in the living room. Then I deliberately turned my back on him and walked slowly away, knowing that at that very moment Raju was likely climbing up onto the back of the couch. At the top, he would yell the name of some professional wrestler—probably his current favorite, The Undertaker—at the moment he leaped, giving me just enough time to brace for—

“
Undy-tekkeeeaaahhh!
” I spun around in time to catch Raju belly flopping into my face.

Life was good again.

B
y mid-November 2006, I was spending most of my time in Kathmandu. Six of the seven children were at Umbrella, and I wanted to help them adjust to their new lives. The other reason I spent so much time in the capital was that I was looking for a house that would become NGN’s children’s home. I had continued to raise money from the United States. With six thousand dollars in our bank account, I was confident enough to put the down payment on the first four months’ rent, knowing we would have enough for rent, furnishings, and support of any children we managed to rescue, starting with the six. My goal was to have the house when Farid arrived, which would be any day now. I was talking over my plan with Jacky and Viva over one of our usual afternoon teas.

“Jacky, did you tell Conor about the house?” Viva asked. I was in their living room, the warmest room in Nepal. They had a kerosene heater on at full blast and a thick wall-to-wall carpet to insulate the floor. We could have been at their home in Northern Ireland.

I looked at Jacky. “What house?”