Follow the Elephant (12 page)

When they came out of the water, Rani put on her beach coat and they sat under the tree watching men cast fishing lines from the two catamarans floating offshore. It all seemed unreal. Was it really Ben Leeson sitting beside a girl on a white sand beach in India? His old life in Vancouver felt a world away. Of course when you thought about it, Vancouver
was
half a world away.

Then he remembered Gran. “Tell me about Dr. Dhaliwal,” he asked Rani. “He said he was from the Punjab. Where’s that?”

“The Punjab is a state in the north where most Sikhs live, though many Sikhs live here in Tamil Nadu too. I believe Dr. Dhaliwal did his residency here and fell in love with Mahabalipurum. The doctor and his family are a respected part of our community.”

“Is he a good doctor?”

“Oh, yes, your grandmother is fortunate to be in his care.”

“I hope so. It just seemed strange to have a doctor wearing a turban.”

“I can see it would seem strange to you. I’m thinking you must be Christian, Ben?” Rani asked.

“Well, sort of. We’re Unitarian, which is kind of a non-religion, but Lauren and I went to Sunday school for a couple of years. I never thought about religion until I got over here where it’s so important. What about you? You’re Hindu, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You must believe in reincarnation?”

“Yes, we believe that when we die our souls are reborn and we come back to earth as other people.”

“Really?”

“And we return many times until we reach enlightenment. It might take thousands of years.”

“You mean a person could come back and live other lives?”

“Yes.”

Ben picked up a fistful of sand and tossed it in the air. “I just can’t go for that. It’s too weird.”

Rani didn’t say anything. Ben picked up another handful of sand. “I’d like to believe that a person’s soul or their spirit could live on, but not inside another person. Say my father came back as someone else. I’d recognize him, wouldn’t I? If the person had my dad’s soul, I think I’d know.” He dropped the sand.

“You shouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

“The reincarnation stuff is just too crazy for me to believe.”

Rani stood up. “Ben, I’m not saying you have to believe.” She looked angry and turned away in the direction of the bungalows.

Ben hurried after her. He’d made her mad; he was just like Gran who’d judged Shanti about her arranged marriage. He called, “Rani, I’m sorry. Please wait.”

Ben caught up to her. “I’m a lame jerk. Sorry if I seemed to be criticizing your beliefs. I’m just trying to figure it all out. I need to know what happens when someone dies. There’s got to be more than being buried and eaten by worms or burned and turned into ashes. Tell me about what you believe.”

Rani nodded. “It’s hard to understand another culture and hard for me to explain. Hinduism is complicated.”

They reached a shady bench under a row of large trees and sat down.

“Have you heard about karma?” Rani asked. “It’s something else for you to think about.”

“What’s karma?” Ben asked.

Rani took a breath. “In our religion everyone is responsible for their own behaviour. Karma is what comes from our actions. Good ones and bad ones. The deeds people do in their lifetimes determine their destiny in the next life.”

Ben thought about it. Of course. It made sense that you were responsible for the way you behaved in life. In a flash he saw the rumpled Tilley hat lying in the taxi. The skin on his back prickled. He’d simply walked away and left it there. What kind of a deed was that? Then into his mind came the picture of strangers carrying his grandmother’s stretcher through the door of the hospital. Right at this moment, while he was sitting here talking to Rani, Gran could be dying.

Rani’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I can see you’re worried about your grandmother.”

“Yep.”

“Ben, it’s a fine hospital. Last year I had my appendix taken out there.”

“You did? You seem to have survived okay.” He’d never get tired of a smile like that. “You know there’s another thing. I’ve been mean to my grandmother ever since we left Varanasi. I feel terrible about it.”

“Being mean hasn’t made her sick, Ben,” Rani said.

“What if she dies?”

“She won’t. Just tell her you’re sorry when you see her.”

“I’m not so mad anymore. It was stupid of me. I blamed her for my dad dying, because she didn’t make him stop smoking. It wasn’t her fault.”

A burst of fresh wind off the ocean travelled across the grass. It stirred the palms, rustling the long branches and clearing away the guilty storm in Ben’s head. He knew what to do. “I’ll get my grandmother a new hat in town.”

“Does she need a new hat?” Rani asked.

“Yes, if I’m going to have some good karma,” Ben answered.

“Always a good idea,” Rani said.

He couldn’t believe how fast time passed when he and Rani talked. She seemed to have forgiven him for being critical of her beliefs and was back to being friendly. Ben checked his watch. “Almost time to go to the hospital. I’d better get ready.”

In the bungalow the sheets were pulled tight across Gran’s bed; the afternoon breeze billowed the white curtains halfway across the room. Ben put on a clean shirt and was waiting by Prem’s car before four o’clock.

Prem drove along the dusty streets, past the shops lining the main road to the three-storey brick hospital on the other side of the village. Ben was nervous, not knowing what he’d find as he neared the stone entrance.

Inside, it smelled like the hospital where his father had surgery. Prem asked one of the nurses hurrying along the hall where they could find Norah Leeson. She pointed to a long room with frosted windows and rows of beds. A nursing sister took them to the far end of the room near the nursing station.

The first sight of his grandmother scared Ben. She seemed to have shrunk and lay with her eyes closed, her arms stretched out along her body. A white sheet was pulled up tightly to her chin. From a bottle above the bed, a tube led to a needle in the back of her hand.

“How are you, Gran?” said Ben, bending over. “It’s me.”

Gran opened her eyes. “Oh, Ben. Good to see you.”

She shifted her head on the pillow. “The nurses here are taking good care of me, and Dr. Dhaliwal is an excellent doctor.”

“I was worried.” Ben grabbed his grandmother’s free hand.

Gran reached up and stroked Ben’s cheek. “Have you been all right without me?”

“Yes, I’m with Prem and Rani. I haven’t emailed Mum yet because I wanted to wait until I’d seen you. I’ll do it tonight.” He squeezed hard on Gran’s hand. “I feel terrible, Gran.”

“You haven’t lost the money, have you?”

“It’s in your fanny pack, right here. See?” Ben patted his waist. He had to wear it and Prem hadn’t said anything about it. Ben was getting up his courage to explain to his grandmother that it was her hat he was feeling terrible about, when a nurse came by and reported that Dr. Dhaliwal was pleased at how Mrs. Leeson was responding to treatment. There had been no more diarrhea or vomiting and the intravenous drip was working. She added, “Because of her age the doctor wants your grandmother to stay overnight to get her strength back.”

“Ben can stay with us, Mrs. Leeson,” Prem said. “We’ll take good care of him.”

“Thank you, Prem,” Gran said, her eyes closing.

“Visiting hours start again at four o’clock tomorrow. I’ll be here, Gran.” Ben gave her hand a final squeeze, but it seemed his grandmother was already asleep.

On the way home, Prem stopped at the market to buy fish and vegetables for his mother to make a curry. Ben bought a green baseball cap that said DELHI DEVILS over the visor.

When they got back to the resort, Prem went into his bungalow with the groceries and Ben went into the office to use the computer. Surely there would be a message on the school site finally to cheer up Gran. First he’d email home.

Then he keyed in the school address. The screen flashed, then: No Messages. He’d been so certain this time. Ben turned off the computer and left the room.

Rani met him at the door. “Any luck?”

“No, and I was sure there would be a message.”

“Well, do you know what Gandhi said?”

“Yes, everyone in India knows. Patience and persistence!”

“We must remember that.” Rani smiled.

On the way to the Gurins’ bungalow, Rani asked, “I was wondering if you play chess?”

“My dad did start to teach me, but I can hardly remember,” Ben said.

“I could teach you.”

“You’re on! Thanks.”

Rani won both games, but the second one was close. After the fish curry dinner, they played another game. “You’re a fast learner,” said Rani. “By the way, I have permission from my mother to take you to see the cobra farm near here tomorrow.”

“Cobra farm?”

“Yes, it’s famous. They milk the cobras for live venom and make an antidote to save the lives of people bitten by cobras.”

“Wicked!” exclaimed Ben.

Rani laughed. “We can swim first and go on bikes. I’ll lend you a spare one we have here.”

“Sweet,” Ben said.

“Sweet! Wicked! We don’t use those strange words in India,” Rani said, laughing again.

“That’s the way kids talk back in Canada.”

“It’s like a special language,” Rani said, laughing.

Feeling brave, Ben turned down the offer of a bed in Prem’s room, assuring the family he’d be fine in the bungalow not too far away.

Somehow the bungalow didn’t seem quite as safe as it had when he and Gran first arrived. Ben turned on the light and leapt into bed as fast as he could. He thought about the visit to the cobra farm. He wrapped the covers around his shoulders. If there were cobras so near, who’s to say there wasn’t one curled up in the corner or climbing onto the end of this bed? What are you supposed to do if you have a cobra in your bed?

Ben told himself not to be a jerk. He was thirteen, old enough to go to India. He was old enough to take care of himself.

“WHY DO ALL THE
bungalows have this raised step in the doorway?” Ben asked.

“It’s to keep scorpions and other crawlers out,” Rani said.

“You mean snakes? A snake could crawl over it?” Ben asked.

“Guess so. And it could crawl all over YOU!” she said, running away, her hair flying out behind her.

Ben had the fanny pack wrapped in his towel again where he could see it from the water. The swimming was even more fun than the day before. When they were too tired to jump the waves anymore, Rani suggested they build sand temples.

“Sand temples? I’m there!” Ben said.

On their hands and knees, they cleared a wide area, scooping up the top sand to get at the deeper wet sand. Then, like six-year-olds, they set to work. Gulls cried out in a shrill chorus above them, and gusts of wind flicked at the tops of waves, throwing cool water along their backs.

“How’s that?” Rani said, leaning back to admire her creation.

What Rani had built was like no other sandcastle Ben had ever seen. A large dome with towers on the corners, it was just like the Taj Mahal.

“It’s awesome,” he said.

“Yours is like an English castle,” Rani said.

“I guess it is,” said Ben. He’d never seen an English castle and wondered why, like every other kid in Canada, he’d always built a sandcastle that looked like one.

Rani put the finishing touches on the river behind her temple. “Tell me about your school.”

“Not much to tell. The kids are okay. A few of the guys are into cigarettes or dope. I’m not.” Ben sat back on his knees.

“It’s good you don’t want to smoke.”

“Yep. I worry I might have inherited the smoking genes from my dad. Anyway, it doesn’t appeal to me.”

“Me either,” Rani said. She thought for a minute. “I guess you have girls at your school?”

“Yep, but we don’t talk much,” Ben answered.

“Mine is a residential school. It’s all girls, so I don’t talk to boys at all.”

“But you’re so easy to talk to.”

“You too,” Rani said. She gave Ben a shy smile. “You know Indian girls are often chaperoned when they’re with a boy. I’m lucky my mother lets me go with you to show you around.”

“My grandmother hasn’t been letting me go anywhere on my own until we came here.”

“Tell me about your mother.”

“Oh, she’s okay, but lately she’s after me because I play computer games all the time. The games I like all have a kind of battle and a quest. You can spend hours playing them, but when I think about it now, they’re sort of lame compared to this real life search for Shanti. I just wish someone from Shanti’s school would answer my email.”

“I have an idea, Ben,” Rani said. “Do you know about Ganesh?”

“I do. I like Ganesh. In fact, he’s the god who showed me the way out of the temple where I was lost in Varanasi.”

“Ganesh has already helped you then!” Rani said.

“It felt like we connected.” Ben smoothed the sand in the moat around his castle.

Rani said, “Lots of young people in India call on Ganesh for help to overcome obstacles.”

“How do they do that?”

Rani seemed pleased with herself. “I’ll show you when we get to town.”

“Hindus have so many gods and goddesses. The temple I was lost in was Black Kali’s temple.”

“How scary for you! Kali is frightening.”

“Why do you have a goddess like that? A goddess of destruction with blood and everything?”

“Well, Christians have a hell, and as I understand it, there is a red devil that is scary. And people can burn in hell.”

“Sure, but most people think they won’t go there.”

“Right, and I guess Kali scares people into being good.”

“Worked for me. I’ve been good. Most of the time,” Ben said, and they both laughed.

Ben brushed the sand off his hands and got out his camera. “Wait a minute. I want to take pictures of your sand temple … and you.”

Ben showed Rani the photographs on his memory card. She liked the ones of the Red Fort and the ghats at Varanasi, and she agreed that the poor elephant outside the Kali temple looked neglected. “You’ve got some good pictures there, Ben,” Rani said.

“Hope so. I have to put them into a project for school when I get home.”

Later they went to the resort office so Ben could check his email. Again, even with the new website, the screen showed the disappointing: No Messages. That was the end of the trail. If no one had contacted him by now, it meant that there was no one out there who knew Shanti.

He might as well forget about finding her. Maybe now he could tell Gran he’d been trying, but not until four o’clock when he saw her again. As he sat there, a new message popped up. It was from his mother.

Ben had a funny cut-off feeling after reading his mother’s message. It gave him a nervous flutter in his stomach. He could see the North Shore mountains covered in snow. And the snow in their front yard. The house always looked so tidy against all the whiteness. He could see his mother’s face, feel her smooth cheek when she hugged him. He really was far away — far away from his mother, from the snow and from her hugs.

With Gran in the hospital, he was more or less taking care of himself. That was fine. He could do it. Gran would be better soon, and in a week, they’d be flying home.

Ben put on the fanny pack and rushed to meet Rani. She’d probably think he looked ridiculous.

But Rani didn’t comment on it when she saw him, just showed him a bike and asked if he was ready to see cobras. He was. Rani led the way as they cycled through the town and onto a bumpy gravel road. The road wound past small farm houses with goats tethered in the yard and children playing in the shade of coconut trees. She signalled to Ben. “We turn here.”

On either side of the narrow path, long fan-shaped leaves flopped through the undergrowth onto the trail. Overhead, tall trees blocked the sun. The chattering of parrots filled the air, and Ben caught flashes of their bright green plumage, like Christmas lights, up among the branches.

“Up there,” Rani said, pointing to the tallest trees. “See the family of howler monkeys?”

Ben heard the monkeys before he saw them. Their deep whoops and howls echoed across the swaying treetops. Ben counted eight monkeys of all sizes swinging from branch to branch, one arm stretching over the other and their long curled tails acting as a third arm. His bike wobbled as he tried to watch the monkeys overhead and navigate the narrow path at the same time.

Then Rani stopped at a grassy clearing and pointed to some clay-coloured rocks. Beside the rocks, three men crouched on the ground, giving their attention to something between them.

“They’re the venom collectors,” Rani whispered. She and Ben lowered their bikes onto the grass and moved closer. One of the men held onto the mid-section of a cobra about two metres long. It had a thick body ringed with black and yellow bands and a creamy yellow underbelly. The snake’s wide hood flared around its head. Ben saw a second man cupping his hand behind the hood with his fingers on either side of the cobra’s head, immobilizing it.

“He presses milk out from the poison glands beside the eyes,” said Rani.

Ben saw the snake’s eyes flash. “Not a happy snake,” he whispered.

A third man held a glass dish under the snake’s open mouth. Ben saw the two pale fangs, like long hypodermic needles.

“Those fangs puncture the skin of a victim and the poison goes into their blood stream. I did a project on cobras at school,” Rani said. “See the yellow serum coming from the fangs into the dish.”

Shivers rippled up Ben’s entire body. “Do the men ever get bitten?”

“Sometimes, but watch how calm and slow their movements are. They are followers of the god Shiva, who protects them from snake bites.”

Ben remembered that Shiva was the father of Ganesh. He also protected people from snake bites? What next?

Ben took some photographs and caught a good one of the men carrying the snake back to the rocks after they’d finished the milking. As the snake was released, the men stepped back quickly and the snake slithered into a hole under the rocks.

“My grandmother and I saw snake charmers in Delhi, at the Red Fort. They looked dangerous,” Ben said. “My grandmother spazzed.”

Rani laughed. “Oh, those snakes are harmless. I see them often in shows and they’ve had their poison sacs removed. When they strike out at the crowd, it’s effective for the shows, but it’s just a trick to make money.”

“That’s wicked!”

Rani went on. “I’ll tell you something else. People don’t know it, but cobras are deaf, so the music the snake charmers play on their flutes is just for dramatic effect.”

“Worked on me!” said Ben.

Ben stood in the clearing beside Rani. The sun was warm on his back, the scratchy-voiced parrots kept up their raucous calls, monkeys howled from high in the trees, and nearby two incandescent blue and orange butterflies chased each other in a flashing dance.

None of it felt real to Ben. Here he was, Benjamin Leeson from Vancouver, standing in the jungle beside an Indian girl, a metre away from men milking a poisonous snake! Somehow, the things you saw in India filled your head and didn’t leave space for anything else.

Rani interrupted Ben’s trance. “It’s after four o’clock, Ben. We’d better get back to your grandmother.”

He hadn’t given Gran a thought for hours. “You’re right. We have to go.”

Ben ran for his bike, Rani followed and they wheeled onto the path. Ben began to cycle furiously, glancing behind to be sure Rani was following. How could he be so selfish? He was the only person Gran knew in India and he’d said he’d be back at four. Now it was over twenty-four hours since he’d seen her. She could have started vomiting again. Or worse.

Bumping over ruts in the road and sliding too fast around corners, Ben heard Rani call out behind him. He braked and turned around. Rani had crashed her bike and was lying on the rough gravel road.

Ben dropped his bike and ran back, but as he reached her, Rani sat up and looked at Ben with startled eyes. There was dirt on her blouse and along the skin of her arm. She held her arm with her other hand, and her face was twisted in pain.

This was his fault. He’d rushed away in a panic, thinking that Gran might be dead, and poor Rani had been trying to keep up. His fault.

“Please help me stand, Ben.” Rani’s voice was unsteady. “Take my other arm.”

Once on her feet, Rani tried to brush the dirt off her blouse, but Ben could see it hurt too much. Not until she gave him a weak smile could Ben allow himself to speak. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I made you rush.”

“I wasn’t watching and I hit a dip in the road back there. I’m okay, Ben.”

“Your arm is hurt,” Ben stammered.

“Not badly. Let’s keep going to the hospital. The outpatient infirmary will take care of it. You should get to your grandmother. Come on, Ben.”

Ben picked up her bike. At least it was still working. Ben wheeled both bikes beside Rani as she set the pace for a quick trip to the hospital. Rani still used her left hand to support her right arm. She was pale; her arm was probably broken. Ben’s watch said it was almost five. He didn’t know who to worry about the most — his grandmother or Rani. But he knew who was to blame for everything.

He led Rani to the hospital infirmary, where a nurse told her to take a seat. Rani waved him away. “Leave me here, Ben. Go to your grandmother.”

“Okay,” Ben said, gratefully. “But I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

At the end of the long room Gran was sitting up in the hospital bed, eating from food on a tray. Her face looked normal, not the grey colour it had been the day before, but when she saw Ben her lips began to tremble. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, Gran. I’m sorry I’m so late. I forgot about the time and then —”

“Ben. I’ve been worried that something had happened to you.” She started to cry; when she tried to wipe her eyes with the hospital gown, she knocked over a bowl on the tray.

“All night and all day with only the nurses to talk to.” She was making a mess of wiping up the soup and sobbed even harder. “I saw you drowning. Or hit by a truck. And I wasn’t there to help you. I’m responsible for you and I was stuck here.”

Ben took the tray and put it on the side table. He put his hand on his grandmother’s arm. “I’m sorry. Really sorry. But you shouldn’t have worried. I was fine. Rani took me to watch cobras being milked —”

“You were watching
cobras
being milked? Oh, heavens, it scares me out of my mind to hear you say that!” There was soup all over her hospital gown and tears dripping down her face.

Ben moved closer. “It was so interesting. The snakes were so huge —”

“
Don’t say another word!
” Her face was getting red and she was waving her arms wildly in the air.

A nurse appeared at the bed and leaned over to Gran. “What happened, Mrs. Leeson?”