The Best Day of My Life (3 page)

2

The Moving Mountain

R
iding on a pile of coal was fun while the truck moved slowly through the village. It got scary as the truck turned onto a highway and picked up speed.

It was scary, but it was also exciting. I had never ridden on anything faster than a handcart. I had never been away from my village, not once in all my life. All I had ever seen was coal.

Now I saw green. Real green, not green covered by grey. I saw fields and trees and paddies of rice and lakes full of water lilies. The sky was bright blue, the wildflowers were yellow and purple and pink. I saw buffalo and donkeys, mango trees and rows of cauliflower, tea plantations and bamboo stacked high for building.

I didn't know most of the time what I was looking at. We were moving so fast that I felt like I was a bird, flying high and fast and looking down at the world.

The deeper I buried myself in the coal, the safer I felt. The weight of the coal on my back kept me from slipping off the mountain. Just my face peered out of the pile. I rested my chin on my hands and watched the road roll out behind me.

I didn't think at all. I just looked.

Even after the sun went down, I looked out hard into the night. My eyes grabbed at any bit of light. The moon rose. It was full. I felt like the happiness would just burst right out of me.

The truck stopped a couple of times, pulling off to the side of the highway to refuel and for the driver and his buddy to take a break. I stayed still and quiet and kept my head down. I could smell pakoras and bhaji. My stomach rumbled, but I didn't pay any attention. I had been hungry before.

The truck kept rolling all night long. At some point I fell asleep.

I woke up to daylight and a man crouching down in the coal beside me, shovel in hand and swearing.

‘What is this?' he demanded.

I heard another voice.

‘Raj! What's the holdup?'

Raj stood up. ‘We've got a stowaway!'

‘What?'

I heard the other man scramble up before I could see him. The way I was buried in the coal did not allow me to raise my head very much, so I only saw the lower parts of their legs. One of them smashed his shovel against the coal right near my face.

‘When did this happen?'

‘How should I know?'

‘Didn't you check?'

‘Do I have to do everything?'

Back and forth they yelled at each other.

I don't like shouting. It almost always goes along with hitting. I put my face down in the coal and covered my head with my hands.

‘We should call the police,' Raj said.

‘If we call the police, we'll be stuck here for hours. That's if we're lucky. Maybe they'll think we stole the kid. Maybe they'll arrest us.'

‘Look, Kam, maybe the child is dead. Buried in coal dust like that, breathing it in.'

‘Then we have a dead kid to explain. How is that better?'

‘We leave the body by the side of the road. Not here. We find a rice paddy or a mangrove swamp. If the kid gets found, no one knows anything.'

‘We're not that lucky,' Kam said. ‘The kid's alive. Look.'

I was wiggling a little, trying to get more of my arms out of the coal so I could protect my head better.

‘We could always kill it,' Kam said.

The words hung in the air.

I didn't know what the men were thinking, but I was not going to let myself be killed. I had seen some wondrous things on the journey so far. I wanted to see a lot more before I died. I was too small to be much of a fighter against two grown men, but I could throw coal and I could bite and there were probably many other things I could do to make them think twice about killing me.

I could feel coal being tossed off my back. Hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me out.

I was trembling.

I kept my eyes closed. It was less scary that way. They carried me down from the coal mountain and stood me on my feet beside the truck.

‘We could still leave him by the side of the road,' Kam, the shorter man, said.

‘Would you want someone to do that to your child? What's your name?' Raj asked me. He was taller than Kam and had a scruff of a beard that he rubbed as he talked. ‘Why were you on our truck? You could have fallen off and been killed. Did someone put you there?'

The questions came too fast for me to answer them.

Then he had another thought.

‘Is there anyone else up there? Hey, Kam, grab your shovel. There may be more kids buried up there!'

‘There is no one else,' I said.

‘Wait.' He peered closer. They both did. I was so thickly covered in coal dust it was probably hard to see that I was even a person.

‘It's a girl.'

‘My name is Valli.'

‘Who put you up to this? Your parents trying to get rid of you? What kind of parent would put his child in a truck full of coal?'

‘I don't have parents,' I said. ‘It was my own idea.'

‘Why would you do that?'

‘Because … because I don't like coal.'

‘She doesn't like coal,' Kam said. ‘She looks like she's taken a bath in it, but she doesn't like it.'

‘Now we
have
to call the police,' Raj said. ‘We can't leave a little girl by the side of the highway.'

The two men started arguing again. I was getting bored, so I left them to it and walked away. I didn't know where I was but that was fine with me. I was somewhere. And I was going somewhere else.

I saw a lot of buildings and a lot of houses and little shops. The road was much busier with cars and trucks than my village road. On one side of the highway was the coal depot, which was not at all interesting, but everything else was new and different.

I hadn't gone far when Kam grabbed my arm.

‘Where do you think you're going?'

I pointed up the road.

‘It's not that easy.' He steered me back to the truck.

They seemed to have reached some sort of decision.

‘Here's what's going to happen,' Kam said. ‘You're going to get in the truck and keep quiet. We'll unload the coal and then we'll take you to a woman we know. Her name is Mrs. Mukerjee. She might give you a home.'

‘That's no life for a little girl,' Raj said. ‘She should be in school.'

‘What school will take her with no parents and no papers? And will you pay the fees? How many children are you paying for now? Don't worry,' Kam said to me. ‘This will work.'

He took me to the front of the truck and opened the door. I needed help to climb in. It was very high up.

The floor of the truck was littered with all kinds of things – empty chip packets, cigarette butts, bottle caps. I sorted through it, looking for money. I didn't find any. I licked the crumbs out of the chip packets. They were salty and good.

When the men came back they got into the front seat. I had to stay down at their feet, which I did not like. Their feet were dirty and took up a lot of room. Plus, I couldn't see out the window.

We didn't drive for long before we stopped again. They got out. I smelled food, but I was shocked when they brought me tea and dosas. I ate in the truck. It was food I hadn't worked for, food bought special for me, not left over from the children who were not my cousins.

They got back in the truck and then it was all start and stop, stop and start as the traffic got thick. I could hear the car horns and smell the exhaust. I felt the truck turn this way and that. I heard the driver yell at people who cut across his path, and I heard people yell at him when he got in their way. It was quite funny to hear, but I wished I could see.

And then the truck came to a full stop and the motor was shut off.

‘Look, I'm still not sure …' Raj said.

‘Quit fussing,' Kam said. ‘We're here, aren't we? The decision is made. Get up, kid. This is the end of the ride for you.'

3

The Butterfly Woman

T
hey lifted me out of the truck and took me into an alley.

T Everything was cement.

No. It wasn't. There were lots of other things.

There was a man sitting in a shop, tapping leather into shoes.

There was a woman pushing a cart full of bad-smelling stuff she had cleaned out of a latrine.

An alcove held a statue of the goddess Kali, all black with her red tongue pointing out. A young man in a suit and tie stood before her, praying.

Above me I heard a baby crying, and someone was playing music.

I couldn't stop grinning.

‘There is so much going on,' I said. ‘Thank you for bringing me here!'

‘Don't thank us,' Raj said.

They banged loudly on a green door. No one answered.

‘Are you sure she's in there?'

‘She's there. Where else would she be?'

They knocked again. They kept knocking until a middle-aged woman shouted down at them from an open window up above.

‘Are you men crazy? You know my girls don't get up until eleven. And I don't rise before noon. Go away.'

‘Mrs. Mukerjee. We have something for you.'

‘Anything you have can wait until regular business hours.'

She disappeared inside, banging the window shut.

The men knocked again.

The window flapped open.

‘You don't want to make me angry,' she said.

‘Mrs. Mukerjee, look!'

I was made to move away from the door and out into the alley where she could see me.

‘What in the world is that?' the woman asked.

‘It's a girl.'

‘I don't believe you.'

She started to go back inside.

‘She has no parents!'

She stopped and leaned out the window again, taking a hard look at me. I waved a bit and tried to smile. She made me nervous, but I wanted to make a good impression.

‘My name is Valli,' I said. ‘Good morning.' I made the namaste, pointing my fingers together and giving a little bow.

‘The only good morning is mid-afternoon,' she said, lighting up a cheroot. She breathed out a puff of smoke. ‘I'm coming down.'

She disappeared. Then after a moment she opened the green door.

‘How do I know you didn't steal her?' she asked. ‘I have enough trouble with the police.'

‘I climbed on the back of their coal truck,' I said. ‘They didn't know. I wanted to get away from Jharia.'

‘Wanted the bright lights of the big city, did you? Looks like you brought Jharia with you.' She stared at me some more. ‘What were you doing in Jharia?'

‘Picking up coal,' I said. ‘That's all there is to do. But I can read and write and I can speak a little English.' I started to recite the English alphabet, to impress her. I was prepared to go on to Bible verses if necessary. The bicycle teacher had taught us a few of them.

Mrs. Mukerjee waved me to a stop after the letter j.

‘And where are your parents?'

‘Dead,' I said, even though I didn't know about my father. ‘I was living with my aunt but she turned out not to be my aunt, so I left.'

She bent down and stared at me, eyeball to eyeball.

‘I don't like liars.'

I didn't even blink. ‘Neither do I.'

She straightened up and talked to the men.

‘All right, boys. What do you propose?'

‘We thought a finder's fee might be in order,' Kam said.

‘A fee? You want me to pay you? For taking a runaway off your hands?'

‘We should have taken her to the nuns,' Raj said. ‘We should have dropped her off at a temple.' He took my hand.

‘Not so fast.' Kam stopped him. ‘We brought her to you because we know you'll treat her right. She seems intelligent. She could work for you. And for that, a little thank-you is not out of the question.'

‘Intelligent?' Mrs. Mukerjee repeated. ‘I'm not so sure. See how she's looking at me, like I'm from the moon or something. Girl, why are you looking at me like that?'

‘You look like a butterfly,' I said. ‘A beautiful butterfly.'

She did, too. The robe she was wearing was loose with wide arms like wings, and the colors were bright and swirly. I hadn't seen many butterflies, but now and then one would stray into Jharia, just for a quick visit.

The men snickered. Mrs. Mukerjee's hand went up to smooth her hair. With the other, she patted her robe.

‘We could work out some arrangement,' she told the men, ‘but I'm not giving you cash. That's too much like buying a child, and I'm against that.'

‘How about we take it out in … trade,' Kam suggested.

‘I could use a bit of that right now,' Raj said.

‘I told you, my girls aren't up yet,' Mrs. Mukerjee said. ‘And I need to wash this child off first and see what I've got. There may be nothing but more coal under that coal dust. What do you think, girl? Do you want to come work for me?'

‘Will I have to carry coal?' I asked.

‘Heavens, no. You'll wear nice clothes and lie around all day. Maybe do a few little household chores, but you won't mind doing your share of those, will you?'

‘It sounds good,' I said. ‘But just my share.'

‘Come back later,' Mrs. Mukerjee told the men. ‘I'll let you know then how much trade she's worth. Go. Your big truck is clogging up the alley.'

‘Thank you,' I said to them again as they walked away.

I wanted to watch them drive away so I could wave goodbye, but Mrs. Mukerjee took me inside and closed the door.

‘I'm going back to bed,' she said. ‘Human beings were not meant to be awake this early. My goodness, you are filthy. I'm going to stick you on the roof for now. Don't touch anything.'

We climbed up the stone steps, higher and higher. I thought of the woman who was not my aunt, making the long climb up out of the coal pit.

I had never been in a building with so many stairs! I smiled and waved at the sleepy women I saw as I looked into the rooms that opened out onto the landing. Some were sitting on mats and drinking tea. I saw children sweeping floors and being fed by their mothers. I smiled and waved. We were climbing stairs too fast for me to know if any of them waved back.