Finding Arun (14 page)

‘One day we woke up and she didn’t,’ finished Hanara
stonily, her eyes watering with the threat of tears that seemed too
afraid of her to fall.

Aaron bowed his head solemnly, taking in the moving
story and trying to understand the strange, empty feeling that now
possessed his body. The memory of their loss had silenced Hanara
and Lucky, and though he wasn’t sure whether he had a right to,
Aaron shared in their pain. The sadness he felt unexpectedly bound
him to them in a way that he hadn’t imagined would be possible with
Kalpana gone. Though he hadn’t known her personally, or even been
present to witness the suffering that she had endured in the final
days of her life, he too felt that he had lost something
irreplaceable. Worse still, the heaviness in his chest was
resurrecting feelings about his adoptive mother’s death, feelings
that he thought he had laid to rest.

There were inescapable parallels between the end of
his mother’s life and the end of Kalpana’s, though the first event
magnified the greater injustices of the second. His mother had
received the best care possible, with no expense spared, whilst
Kalpana, worried about money, had deliberately eschewed the basic
level of care that she was entitled to. It seemed so unfair to him,
especially in light of everything that he had learned so far, but
the more that he thought about it, the more he realised that even
money couldn’t guarantee anyone a happy ending. People, not things,
were what counted and when it had mattered, both Hanara and Lucky
had been there to support Kalpana, whilst Aaron had been there for
nobody at all.

‘What … what happened to our father?’ croaked Aaron
hoarsely, clearing his throat. ‘Where was he while all this was
going on?’

‘He left us,’ replied Lucky simply.

‘When?’

‘About seven or eight months before you were
born.’

‘Why did he leave? If you don’t mind me asking,’
Aaron continued, remembering his manners.

‘I don’t know. Mata-ji never wanted to say.’

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘Why do you care so much?’ snapped Hanara.

‘Hanara –’

‘No, Lucky. He thinks that he can just show up here
in his fancy clothes, with his fancy accent after all these years.
Asking us all these questions, making us remember everything that
has happened and making us all sad. He has no right,’ she screamed
violently.

‘I … I didn’t mean to –’

‘
Oh of course you didn’t
mean
to. Poor little Aaron, so young and so innocent,
just looking for his Mata-ji, isn’t it?’ she continued
sarcastically. ‘You could have come back at any time,
any
time
, but you never
tried to find us.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know …’

‘Sorry? You think sorry will make it all better?
Even when she was asking you to come back you were too busy at your
expensive schools and with your exotic holidays to care about us,
isn’t it?’

‘Hanara, I think that’s enough,’ intervened
Lucky.

‘
She asked you. She asked you to come and you
didn’t,’ spat Hanara, pointing her finger threateningly at Aaron.
‘All she wanted was to see your face again only.
Just once,
Aaron
. Lucky and I,
whatever we did, everything that we did, it was never enough to
make up for missing her precious Aaron.’

‘Hanara, stop this right now.’

‘I WON’T,’ she screamed, scrambling clumsily to her
feet. She glared down at Aaron, her eyes glowing with a hatred, the
likes of which he’d never seen before.

‘You want to know what really happened, Aaron? I’ll
tell you. It wasn’t a sickness that killed Mata-ji at all. If she
had gone to the hospital then they could have saved her only, but
do you know why she didn’t go?’

Aaron felt a hard lump forming in his throat.

‘It’s because of you, in case you came back. She
died waiting for you.’

THE house was mute in the wake of Hanara’s violent
verbal assault. Aaron and Lucky remained seated in the living
quarters, immobilised by the harsh reality that her words had
brought, whilst Hanara had quietly concealed herself behind the
wall to her bedroom. The revelation hung ominously over them like a
dark black cloud and Aaron could not escape the deprecating
thoughts that raced through his mind, dragging him down, deeper and
deeper, until he was replete with guilt. He was the reason that
Kalpana had died, the reason that she had refused to attend the
hospital, but he hadn’t known that she was waiting until his
accidental discovery. He racked his brains, wondering whether he
ought to have done anything differently. Should he have asked more
questions about her when growing up? Could he have come to India
any sooner than he did? Would she have gone if he’d written to her,
to let her know when he would be coming?

Should have, could have and would have; the three
distant cousins of a fait accompli taunted and teased him
relentlessly, until he was certain, no matter which angle he looked
at it from, that Kalpana’s death was his fault. He had lost a
mother that he had never known, but worse still he had robbed
Hanara and Lucky of the only mother that they had ever known.

‘You mustn’t believe what she said,’ whispered Lucky
gently, finally finding his voice again.

‘I think she might be right.’

‘Oh, Aaron, no, you must never think that. It was
Mata-ji’s wish only not to go to the hospital.’

‘But if I had come sooner, then she would have
gone.’

Lucky sighed loudly.

‘Even if you had come last year it is no guarantee
that she would have gone; she was a very stubborn woman. Believe
me, she was really in a very bad health, Aaron. I think it was
God’s wish only to bring her peace.’

‘It’s just … I can’t … I can’t believe this is
happening … again,’ he replied, fighting back tears.

‘What do you mean “again”?’

Aaron looked at his brother gravely, unsure whether
to share the full extent of his thoughts for fear of judgement, but
Lucky’s thus far unwavering kindness and understanding had
unwittingly created a bond that conferred an innate sense of trust
between them.

‘My mother, my adoptive mother,’ Aaron began,
immediately correcting himself, ‘she also died … about six weeks
ago.’

‘Oh, Aaron,’ breathed Lucky, his eyes wide with
surprise, ‘what happened?’

‘She was sick too. I was away travelling and I … I
didn’t get back in time before she … you know.’

Lucky regarded Aaron with warmth and compassion in
his eyes and unexpectedly lurched forward, pulling his brother into
a tight embrace against his bare chest. Aaron was stiff at first,
unfamiliar with the experience of men freely expressing their
emotions, but he soon relaxed and allowed Lucky to comfort him in
the way that he had always imagined family might in the wake of
such news.

‘I am so very sorry to hear this, Aaron,’ he
muttered sombrely, releasing his grip until he held Aaron at arm’s
length by the shoulders. ‘She was a very lovely woman.’

‘You remember her?’

‘Of course. How is it I could forget the lady who
gave me my smile?’ he shrugged nostalgically, the crooked,
signature smile spreading across his face once more.

‘I … I don’t understand.’

Lucky relinquished his grip on Aaron’s shoulders and
pointed to the faint, fleshy, pink scar above his top lip.

‘Dr Cathy did this. Before, my lips were trapped in
my mouth only, but she fixed it,’ he finished brightly.

Aaron peered closely at Lucky’s face, inspecting the
relic of his brother’s cleft lip surgery. It was strange to think
that his mother had made such a physical and emotional impact on
him, that he still remembered her after all these years.

‘Did she do this for you at Rachna Hari?’ he
continued curiously. Though he had viewed it in a somewhat
dilapidated state, he couldn’t imagine the old Rachna Hari building
ever being sterile enough, or sufficiently equipped, to handle such
an operation.

‘Oh no, we had left Rachna Hari a long time before
that. We were staying in a big house in the hills only, a fancy
house with painted shutters. Hanara and I could have had ten rooms
each to ourselves, but Mata-ji wanted to keep us close by, so we
stayed together all in one room. Dr Cathy did it there only, a
little while after you were born.’

‘Wait,’ cried Aaron, desperate to piece together the
fragments of the story surrounding his birth, ‘are you saying that
I wasn’t born at Rachna Hari?’

‘Of course you weren’t born at Rachna Hari; didn’t
Dr Cathy tell you any of this?’

Aaron shook his head, feeling uncomfortable in the
wake of Lucky’s question. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Lucky
the awful truth about how he had discovered Kalpana’s existence; it
seemed too cruel to shatter his illusions about his mother’s
character and Aaron knew from personal experience how disheartening
that felt.

‘Dr Cathy looked after all of us at Rachna Hari, but
she was not like the other doctors,’ Lucky explained, ‘she was more
like a friend only. Always checking that we were okay and making
sure that we didn’t need anything. She used to give Hanara and I
help with our English, even though she was not giving the proper
lessons with the other teachers. Her and Mata-ji became very close;
they were always talking together like women do. I think Dr Cathy
gave Mata-ji a hope that everything would be okay again after
Bapu-ji left.’

‘Bapu-ji?’

‘Our father.’

‘Oh, I see. Is that why you went to Rachna Hari?
Because Bapu-ji left?’

‘I think so. I don’t remember everything exactly;
Hanara will be better for that because she is a bit older, isn’t
it? I can remember being in Rachna Hari and afterwards moving to
the big house with Dr Cathy only. Sometime after that you were born
and then maybe a small time after that, Dr Cathy fixed my smile. We
stayed together for a while, all five of us in the big house, and
then we left to come here.’

‘So I lived here for a while too?’ Aaron asked,
looking around the room with a newfound affinity for the place.

‘No, no, you stayed with Dr Cathy. Mata-ji told us
that she was going to adopt you, so that you could go to a proper
fancy school in England, and one day become a doctor too. Are you a
doctor now?’ asked Lucky excitedly.

‘No, no, I’m not … not yet.’

‘But you are going to be, yes?’

‘I am going to start studying to become a doctor in
October, yes.’

Lucky’s eyes lit up brightly once more.

‘You are so very fortunate to have this opportunity,
Aaron. Mata-ji would have been so proud to know that you will
become someone so respectable.’

But Aaron had to wonder whether he had really been
fortunate at all. Was fortune being torn away from your real family
and home, denied the chance to know them both? Was fortune having
all of the things that money could buy, but little of what it could
not? And was fortune growing up in a world where nobody truly
accepted you for who and what you were, except for the deceitful
woman that you had called your mother? He swallowed hard,
struggling to digest the new information that Lucky had given him.
He knew that it was ugly, but he felt bitter and inexplicably
jealous of Lucky and Hanara. How could Kalpana have thought that a
life with her, a life good enough for his brother and sister, was
so bad that he would be better off with strangers? He didn’t
dispute that becoming a doctor was a huge accomplishment, but he
wasn’t convinced that the ends justified the means either.

With such limited knowledge of Kalpana’s character
and life, it was difficult to judge her for the decisions that she
had made, but there was someone else whose actions did not tally up
for Aaron. There was simply no way that the great Dr Catherine
Rutherford, revered so highly by everyone from Lucky to her peers,
could have believed that the best place for a newborn baby was
millions of miles away from his real family in a foreign place.
Even if Aaron were to trust that her intentions had been
honourable, the secrecy and lies, and her denial of Kalpana’s final
wish, only led Aaron to the conclusion that there was still
something that he didn’t know. Yet with his mother and Kalpana both
gone, there was every chance that he may never uncover what that
something was.

It was only late afternoon, but Aaron was physically
and mentally exhausted. There were so many questions, so much more
that he wanted to know, but he was afraid that any more revelations
might cause his head to explode. He had found their discussion
insightful, but now he needed some time alone to process his
thoughts and feelings.

‘I think I’d better get going, Lucky,’ he said
hesitantly, unsure how to excuse himself without causing
offence.

‘Oh, but you can’t go,’ moaned Lucky, ‘you must stay
here, with us. We have so much more to catch up on.’

‘If he wants to go, then let him go,’ said Hanara as
she reappeared in the doorway.

Lucky scowled at her unpleasantly.

‘Don’t listen to her, Aaron. You must stay here with
us, I insist it. Mata-ji would not have allowed you to leave just
yet, not now that you are home finally.’

‘Thanks, Lucky, that’s very kind of you, but I
really must get back to Puri. I just need a little time on my own,
if that’s okay? Besides, all of my things are there, I don’t have
anything with me.’

‘Ahh,’ nodded Lucky, ‘okay, but then please, you
must at least eat something before you go. How rude of us not to
feed you anything.’

‘I’m not going to cook anything for him,’ Hanara
pronounced defiantly.

‘That’s so kind of you, but really I’m not very
hungry.’

Lucky looked heartbroken.

‘I’ll come back tomorrow, I promise,’ Aaron offered,
desperate to bring back Lucky’s charming crooked smile.