Ghost Letters (2 page)

Gil let Kipling off his leash as soon as they crossed the street into the town forest. The old dog put his nose to the ground and headed straight for the trees. A scruffy mix of English setter and bloodhound, Kipling was fourteen years old, the same age as Gil. Though the dog was completely deaf and almost blind, he had a nose that could find anything from a half-eaten tuna sandwich to a chipmunk hiding in a brush pile.

It was about three in the afternoon and there was nobody else in the park, except for a dozen geese near the old ice pond. The birds raised their necks and gawked at Kipling as he raced off across the uncut grass.

Gil whistled for the dog, though he knew it wouldn't do any good. Kipling had a habit of searching out anything that smelled bad and rolling in it. A few days back, he had discovered a rotten blue jay's egg that must have fallen out of its nest. Throwing himself upon the cracked white shell, he had writhed about with dogged pleasure, grunting in delight and covering
himself with its stench, as if it were the sweetest perfume. Bits of greenish yolk and eggshell clung to the fur around his neck. Walking Kipling back home, Gil almost threw up, it stank so bad. Worse than skunk. He and his grandfather had to hose the dog off in the backyard, then shampoo him twice before they could let him back in the house. Even then, the faint odor of rotten egg lingered on his fur.

After that, Gil had decided to keep Kipling on a leash whenever they went out for a walk. But today he'd given in and unclipped him, knowing how much the dog liked to run free. Now he wished he hadn't.

“Kip!” he shouted, chasing the dog. “Hey, Kip! Come back here, boy … Kipling, you stupid mutt!”

Gil knew there wasn't any point in calling. Kipling couldn't hear him from even three feet away, and by now he was a hundred yards ahead, a shaggy brown torpedo with a ragged tail. Maybe he'd caught the scent of a deer, or a coyote. Gil wrapped the leash around his fist as he ran, cursing the dog under his breath.

As he reached the edge of the woods, dead leaves crackled under his shoes. Pushing aside branches, he tried to spot Kipling in the underbrush. There was no sign of the dog.

“Kip!” he shouted again, more out of frustration than from any hope of being heard.

A moment later Gil heard a bark. It wasn't the gruff baying noise that Kipling usually made, but higher pitched, an exclamation of alarm. Hurrying in the direction of the sound, Gil had to climb over a fallen oak and wade through blueberry
bushes. He hoped there wasn't any poison ivy. Where the trees ended stood a rusty, chain-link fence with a large sign.

DANGER
NO ENTRY
CARVILLE TOWN DUMP
POLICE TAKE NOTICE

Beyond the fence lay a marshy area full of swamp grass and ferns. Fifty yards farther on rose a humpbacked hill overgrown with vines and weeds. Gil could see Kipling sniffing about near the foot of the hill. He tried calling again but knew it was pointless. Moving along the fence to his left, he found a place where the wires had been torn open, a hole just large enough to scramble through. Glancing back at the sign with hesitation, Gil got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside.

By this time Kipling had stopped barking. Because of the marsh, Gil circled around until he found a section that wasn't as muddy as the rest, though his shoes squelched as he jumped across. When Gil reached the dog, Kipling was standing still, one forepaw raised. Even though he wasn't a trained hunting dog, his nose and tail pointed straight out, quivering with excitement. Coming up beside him, Gil clipped the leash to his collar.

“Come on,” he said. “Crazy pooch!”

But Kipling wouldn't move. He gave another bark and Gil looked up to see what the dog was pointing at. By this time, he had realized the hill was actually a garbage heap, a huge
mountain of rubble and discarded junk. It looked as if it had been years since anyone had dumped things there, and most of the mound was covered in creepers. Bushes were growing out of old tires, and a stunted birch tree had taken root in a cracked bathtub half filled with dirt. One corner of a rusting refrigerator jutted out from under an avalanche of rotting leaves and dead branches. There was even an old sofa half buried in the hill, moss growing on the cushions. Kipling was pointing to the left of this, at a dented tin mailbox with a red plastic flag. It was attached to an iron stand and leaned precariously to one side, sticking out of the junk pile.

Gil couldn't understand why Kipling was pointing at the rusty old mailbox. Maybe a raccoon had its burrow in the hill. Tugging impatiently at the leash, Gil was startled to hear a voice behind him.

“Does your dog bite?”

Swiveling around, Gil saw a girl about his age, sitting astride a mountain bike. She had black windblown hair and dark brown skin. The sleeves on her sweatshirt were rolled up to her elbows, and the knees on her jeans were torn. She had one foot on the ground and the other rested on a pedal. The wheels and sprockets of the bike were covered in mud.

“I heard him barking,” the girl said. “What's his name?”

“Kipling,” said Gil. “Don't worry, he doesn't bite.”

“Do you live nearby?” the girl asked.

Gil nodded, eyeing her cautiously. “I just moved here last week.”

“I'm Nargis,” she said.

“Hi. My name's Gil,” he said, winding Kip's leash around his hand self-consciously.

“How did you get in here?” Nargis asked. She had a blunt way of speaking but seemed friendly enough.

“There's a hole in the fence,” he said, wondering how she had entered the dump. “I guess we're not supposed to be inside this place.”

“Well …,” said Nargis. “There really isn't anybody to stop you. The dump has been closed for years. There's a new recycling center and mulching station on the other side, over there beyond the trees.”

“Must be a whole lot of junk buried here,” Gil said.

“Yeah. I call it Trash Hill. If you climb to the top, you can see the ocean.”

Kipling let out an impatient whimper.

“Why's he pointing at that mailbox?” said Nargis. “Do you think there's something inside?”

“Maybe.” Gil shrugged. “He sure smells something.”

“Why don't we take a look?” Nargis suggested.

She lowered her bike to the ground and stepped over the handlebars. Climbing up the side of the hill, Nargis opened the mailbox to peer inside. Almost immediately, she recoiled, wrinkling her nose.

“Gross! That's totally disgusting …” Nargis made a face. “It stinks … Take a look!”

Gil wasn't sure he wanted to find out what was inside the mailbox, though he climbed up beside Nargis and leaned over to see what it contained. The stench was both sweet and
rotten at the same time, like a combination of lilacs and rancid cheese, an odor of perfumed decay. But worse than that was the source of the smell—a skeleton's hand, cut off at the wrist.

“Whoa!” said Gil, stumbling back in horror. “Omigod, that's sick! Let's get out of here!”

In the Name of the Empress of India, make way,

O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam,

The woods are awake at the end of the day—

We exiles are waiting for letters from Home.

Let the robber retreat, and the tiger turn tail—

In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!

“Doggerel,” muttered Prescott Finch to himself as he set aside a well-thumbed copy of Rudyard Kipling's verses, “but poetry nonetheless.”

He turned back to the half-written stanzas scrolling out of his Remington. Prescott had used the same typewriter for forty-five years—an ancient portable, with a battered case. Everyone else was using computers now, but he still composed his poems on a typewriter. Lifting the paper, he read over what he had just written:

A letter goes undelivered,

Words written but unread.

We always blame the postman …

By air, by sea, by snail

“Let the robber retreat, and the tiger turn tail—/ In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!” Prescott recited under his breath. Kipling's rhyme and rhythm stuck to his mind like chewing gum on the seat of your pants.

The postman knows his route

Names, numbers and address

His own words didn't sound right, even as a first draft. Impatiently, Prescott stripped the half-written page from the typewriter, crumpled it into a ball, then fed another sheet into the roller, lining it up carefully.

He started again:

Trudging out of history, one slow stride at a time,

He shoulders a mailbag full of letters unreceived,

Lost missives, postcards gone astray, an errant rhyme.

Sore of foot, numb-kneed, the postman seems aggrieved.

Outside his office window, Prescott could see afternoon sunlight filtering through the last yellow leaves on the hickory tree at the edge of the lawn. Farther off, in the distance, lay the
warped surface of the Atlantic reaching toward a clouded horizon. Prescott's eyes drifted up the curtains and across the wall to a black-and-white photograph in an oval frame. It was a portrait of an elderly woman. She had gray hair pulled back in a bun and wore a black dress over a high-collared lace blouse. Though her features were sad and wrinkled, there was a melancholy beauty about her, and her eyes seemed to be searching for something, or someone, beyond the camera.

Just then, the kitchen door banged and Prescott heard footsteps running through the house. His fingers were still touching the Remington's keys when Gil burst through the office door with Kipling on his leash.

“Grandpa!” Gil could barely talk, after running all the way. “Grandpa. We found something …”

“What?” said Prescott.

“There's an old mailbox in the town dump … Kipling found it … When we opened the mailbox, there was a skeleton's hand inside.”

Gasping for breath, Gil leaned down and pressed his stomach to get rid of a stitch in his side.

“Hold on,” said Prescott, rising from his chair. “Easy now!”

In his excitement, the dog had wrapped the leash around Prescott's leg. While getting himself untangled, he noticed a girl standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“This is Nargis,” said Gil. “She lives down the street. We both saw the hand …”

Prescott nodded in Nargis's direction, then asked, “Are you sure it's a skeleton?”

“Yeah,” said Gil. “I think we should call the police.”

“Slow down a moment,” said Prescott. “It's not some kind of practical joke, is it?”

“No way. It's real,” said Gil.

Nargis added, “Just the bones of the hand with no arm attached. And it smells really bad.”

Sikander is surprised to see the calligrapher writing in English. Most of the poems Ghulam Rusool transcribes are written in Farsi or Urdu, with the script flowing from right to left. Today, however, the calligrapher pens the verses from left to right. Edging closer, Sikander peers over the old man's shoulder, curious to see what he is writing with the magical ink. Urdu is Sikander's mother tongue, but he has taught himself English with the calligrapher's help. He also has a friend named Lawrence, the son of a tea planter, with whom he speaks English. Sikander scans the verses on the page as each word emerges from Ghulam Rusool's pen.

Awake! For Morning in the bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo! The Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's turret in a Noose of Light …

The moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it …

When the calligrapher finishes writing these stanzas from the
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
, he takes a green glass jar full of sand and dusts it on the page to blot the ink, shaking it slightly. Pouring the sand back into the jar, he chooses a blank envelope from his writing desk and addresses it with ordinary ink. Ghulam Rusool folds the single sheet of verses and slips it into the envelope. After gluing the flap shut, he seals it with red wax, melted over a candle flame. Using his signet ring, the calligrapher leaves the impression of an eight-pointed star.

Once all of this is done, he hands the envelope to Sikander, along with a silver four-anna coin, and tells him to run to the post office and mail the letter immediately. Hurrying down the lane, the boy feels an important urgency, knowing the letter contains a vital message for someone far away. He often posts letters for Ghulam Rusool's clients, but today there seems to be a greater purpose in his step as he dodges through the crowded lane, pushing past fruit vendors and donkeys, loiterers and women shopping for spices.

The Central Post and Telegraph Office has always been a mysterious and marvelous place for Sikander, with high arched ceilings and a counter that he can barely reach. It seems as if the post office is a link with the world outside of Ajeebgarh, places
Sikander can only dream of visiting. China. Persia. Africa. Europe. America. Behind the polished brass grille sits a clerk with spectacles balanced on the end of his nose. As Sikander hands the letter over to him, the clerk glances at the clock on the wall.

“Twenty-two minutes past four,” he says with a smile. “You got here just in time … Eight minutes to spare.”

“And what if I'd been late?” asks Sikander with a grin.

“I would have told you to come back tomorrow.”

“No, sir. This letter must go today.”