The Sandalwood Tree (26 page)

“Nonsense.” His silly tongue flashed and disappeared. “Relieved to find the little fellow.”

Martin shook Edward’s hand, a firm, honest shake, during which some sort of manly comprehension seemed to pass between them.

Lydia’s lips and cheeks were flushed, and somehow she seemed younger than I remembered. She gave us a distracted greeting and beamed at Billy. On the tea table, she had set out a pitcher of limeade, a platter of ginger cookies, and a few children’s books. The room had a small bookshelf stocked mostly with out-of-date magazines and an ancient set of
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. Lydia had combed the shelves, pulling out anything she thought Billy might like.

Martin squatted and said, “Mom and I are going out for a while, Buddy. You’re going to stay here with Mrs. Worthington.”

Billy glanced at Lydia. “OK, I guess.”

“Do you like limeade, young man?” Lydia smiled like a girl.

He looked at the frosty pitcher. “
Nimbu pani?
I sure do!”

“I suspected as much.” She waved us away. “Push off, then,” she said. “We’re going to have a grand time.”

Our rickshaw jolted us into the destitute area of dilapidated shacks on the outskirts of Simla. I had often passed the place, but I had never ventured into the throng of tumbledown sheds and sagging shelters made of rags and paper and rusted tin. A haze of smoke from dung fires hung low over the bustee, and the air smelled like burning sewage. Women sat on their heels to stir their rice pots, and unemployed men sat in disgruntled clusters and stared as we passed, eyeing the basket of apples and toys on my lap. Others smoked or slept; no work, no money, no hope; why not smoke or sleep?

A grimy, half-naked toddler sat in the dirt, crying and slapping her knees, and the rickshaw went around her. Now and then the rickshaw-wallah called, “Matar?” and someone pointed the way. We passed a woman veiled in black, sitting on her haunches, grilling kebabs over a dung fire. The rickshaw-wallah shouted something at her, and she looked over, long-faced and bitter, and shook a charred kebab at him. The rickshaw-wallah glanced over his shoulder at Martin and me and smiled grimly with paan-stained lips. “They eat cows,” he said. Then he leaned sideways and spat a stream of red saliva.

We halted in front of a collection of frayed and filthy rags thrown over bamboo sticks with a dung fire smoldering at the front. Martin and I got out and stared at the home of the family named Matar. It looked like the tattered remains of a tent after a bad storm. The front gaped open to the elements, and I wondered what the family did for warmth in the winter. We stepped past the dung fire and Martin put his palms together, saying, “ram ram,” the country version of “namaste.” The woman sitting on the ground
inside narrowed her eyes at us, furtive and suspicious. A yellowing bruise covered her cheek. Her face was rough and bleak, and her neck was stringy as beef jerky. She’d been slicing an apple into a clay bowl, and at the sight of us she moved it behind her, as if we might try to take it.

A spindly man in a stained dhoti tottered out of the gloom. His right arm dangled crooked and useless at his side, and his eyes swam, unfocused. He said something, but his speech was so slurred Martin couldn’t understand him. The rickshaw-wallah said, “He asks what you are wanting.”

I had imagined walking into a spare little hut and seeing Spike lying on a rough wooden shelf or even on a charpoy, but these people had nothing. A battered tin pot and a covered basket sat next to a jumble of blankets in a corner. That was all. The place smelled of dung and arrack and smoke, and I set our basket of bribes on the ground.

Martin spoke to the man in his heavily accented Hindi, and when he got no response he called to our driver. “Tell him we want to buy the American doll. The toy dog.”

The rickshaw-wallah relayed the information, and the drunken man looked befuddled; red saliva dribbled from his bottom lip, and the woman laughed. She got up heavily and walked over to the jumble of blankets. Only then did I see the little boy who had harassed Billy. He sat in a dark corner with his head down, thin arms around bony knees. I remembered sitting like that in the bathtub, scared to death when Billy was missing.

The woman cuffed the boy’s head, but he made no sound. She kicked his ribs hard enough to make him rub his side, and that’s when I caught a glimpse of red plaid and blue denim in the boy’s lap. The woman reached down and wrestled it away then gave him one more kick for good measure, but the boy only put his head down on his knees, and his shoulders heaved. The woman gloated in listless approval as she threw Spike at Martin’s feet. The cowboy hat and
boots were gone and the toy was filthy. One eye was missing and one leg torn off; I imagined the boy having to fight the other children to keep it for himself. The woman put out her hand and said, “Rupee.”

“We can’t give it back to Billy like that.” I picked up what was left of Spike and glanced at the boy in the corner. He was small and pitiful, still crying, but one hand had crept into the basket next to him. His skinny arm moved as if he were playing with something inside.

His mother followed my gaze and when she saw his hand in the basket she marched over and kicked it away. The boy covered his head and turned his face to the wall. But the lid had been thrown off, and the basket rocked back and forth. I heard scrabbling, and a tawny head with a black nose peeked over the side. The puppy had floppy ears and liquid brown eyes, both too big for his small face. I grabbed Martin’s arm, and he said, “Yeah, I see it.” He said something to the woman, and she squawked, “Neh, neh,” and waved her arms. She chattered angrily while she pushed the puppy down in the basket and replaced the lid.

Martin said, “Usually she gets blankets and shawls from up north, but now and then she gets a Kashmiri sheepdog. That’s a big deal for her. She sells them to traders going to Delhi. They’re good pets, trainable and immune to mange. But only the rich keep dogs for pets and there’s no market in Masoorla.”

“Can we—”

“She says she already has a buyer.”

“Offer her more.”

He spoke to her again and they went back and forth; I recognized the ritualistic haggling I’d so often seen in the bazaar. Finally Martin said, “She can see we really want it. She’ll sell, but it’s going to cost plenty.”

“Can we cover it?”

Martin bit his lip. “Maybe. How much have we got?”

I gathered the rupees I had taken from the tea tin for Spike and added everything else I had in my purse, while Martin emptied his
pockets. He counted the money out on the woman’s leathery palm, and then she counted it again. The money disappeared under her dirty kameez, and she gestured with her chin at the basket. Martin walked over and picked the basket up, but she grabbed it away and pulled the puppy out by the scruff of the neck, his hind legs scrambling for a foothold. The basket wasn’t part of the deal.

Martin handed me the puppy and the soft little thing curled against my chest like a contented baby. I said, “Oh, he’s perfect.”

A long gut-wrenching sob came from the corner. I picked up what was left of Spike and offered it to the boy. He looked surprised, but only for an instant. He snatched it and hugged it to himself, staring at me, frightened that this might be some cruel joke.

We climbed into the rickshaw and the little dog coiled in my lap and slept. Martin scratched behind the puppy’s ear and said, “This little guy was probably headed for the life of Riley, napping on satin pillows and eating figs in Delhi.”

“Well, he’s going to have to settle for a dhurrie rug and a bone in Masoorla.”

As we mounted the stairs at the Hotel Cecil, I held the puppy behind my back—he was no more than a handful—and we found Lydia and Billy in the suite playing hide-and-seek, the pitcher of limeade empty and the ginger cookies gone. Lydia’s finger waves were mussed and frizzy, and her eyes sparkled. She prowled around the room peeking under tables and behind curtains, saying, “Is he here? No? Is he here?” A giggle came from behind the sofa, but she ignored it and lifted a pillow off a chair. “Is he here?” When she finally moved the sofa to expose him, they both squealed.

Martin said, “I’ll be damned.”

“Mom!” Billy ran to us. “Dad!”

“Have a good time, BoBo?”

“Mrs. Worthington makes the best nimbu pani. And she read me the best book about Big Boy Puffington.”

Lydia gave him a heartbreaking smile. “Big Boy Puffington is strong and brave, like you, my boy.”

They grinned at each other.

“Gosh. That’s swell.” I cast around for the shoebox and saw it abandoned in a corner. I said, “Billy? Look what we found.” I brought the puppy out from behind my back.

Billy stared. “Who’s that?”

“He doesn’t have a name.” I held him out to Billy. “You’ll have to give him one.”

Billy took the puppy carefully and whispered, “Wow.” The little dog planted his paws on Billy’s chest and shyly, tentatively licked his chin. When Billy kissed the wet black nose, the puppy’s stumpy tail wagged urgently. “Hey, he likes me! I’m gonna call him Pal.”

“My boy had a dog.” Lydia sidled up and petted the puppy. “We had such fun training him.”

I looked at Martin and he nodded; we could still talk without words when we needed to. I said, “Lydia, I wonder if you would be kind enough to help Billy train his puppy. I’m sure you know more about it than we do.”

Billy and Lydia grinned like two children who had been given permission to ride a flying carpet to a forbidden kingdom. Their joy was so naked it was embarrassing. She said, “I’d like that.”

Billy pointed to a couple of books on the table. “Mrs. Worthington said I could take those home.”

“Why, thank you, Lydia.”

I gathered up the books while she petted Billy’s hair. “Such a lovely boy,” she said. “Do bring him round again.”

One of the books was contemporary, a picture book about Big Boy Puffington, but the other looked old. I opened it and checked the copyright. “Why, Lydia, this is a first edition of
Uncle Remus
.”

“Is it? They have so few books here, and even fewer for children. Well, there really aren’t any children here, are there? Do
take it for him. Take one for yourself, if you like. They won’t be missed.”

“Thank you.” I went to the little bookshelf and ran my hand over the soft leather of the old
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. I said, “They don’t bind books like this anymore.”

“Too costly,” Lydia said absently. She couldn’t take her eyes off Billy.

Martin said, “We should be getting home. But thanks again, Lydia.”

“Pity.” Lydia petted Billy’s hair.

Martin picked Billy up and said, “Want your leprechaun?”

“Nah.” Billy held Pal next to his cheek and the puppy twisted to lick his face. “Pal might eat him. Will you keep my leprechaun, Mrs. Worthington?”

Lydia’s eyes and mouth softened and I saw the woman she might have been before she’d been crippled by grief. She said, “I’d love to.”

It had been a day of good surprises. I took in the staid, comfortable suite and felt no irritation with the English décor or with Lydia or even Edward. I ran a hand over the row of leather spines one more time and a title stamped in gold leaf caught my eye—
The Collected Poems of a Lady and a Gentleman, 1857
. Having been so immersed in 1857, I automatically slid the book out and riffled through the pages. Near the front, I saw a poem formatted like a letter. It was addressed “My Dearest” and signed “Felicity.”

Lydia said, “Please feel free to borrow any books you like.”

I closed the book and said, “Thank you, Lydia. I’ll take this one.”

T
he next day, Rashmi arrived in an uncharacteristically sour mood. “Those crazy lorry drivers are always playing the horn. So noisy, like Delhi Masoorla is sounding.”

“Have you ever been in Delhi?”

“No. Filthy place.”

“Then how do you know how it sounds?”

“I know. Full of Muslims who eat cows.”

“There are Muslims in Masoorla.”

“And all day they are playing the horn.”

“I’m pretty sure there are Hindu lorry drivers, too.”

“Hindus are not playing the horn.”