Follow the Elephant (9 page)

Ben checked his grandmother and saw the grim set of her mouth as she watched the burning pyre. No one spoke. When he turned back, the outline of the corpse was lost in the fire, which now sent long orange fingers into the sky, like a Halloween bonfire. Only it wasn’t Halloween. In front of their eyes, a body with skin and bones, arms and legs was being transformed into ashes.

Ben reached to take his camera from around his neck, but before he could open the case, Anoop put his arm out to stop him. “Respectfully sir, you must be putting your camera away. To Hindus it shows dishonour to photograph the dead. Our boat could be rammed and we would be seriously harmed.”

Anoop was funny the way he talked, but it wouldn’t be funny to end up in this water. Ben looked up and saw four large grey birds winding in low circles over the river bank. He heard Martha shriek, “Vultures!”

“Yes,” said Anoop. “The vultures have much work here in Varanasi.”

Gran and the others turned their eyes away, but Ben watched the birds as they circled endlessly around the pyres. Ugly birds, he thought, caught up in a gruesome death cycle.

A short distance downriver, two men and two young boys carrying a brass pan started to wade into the water. “Watch as they are scattering the ashes of their loved one for the journey to the afterlife,” Anoop said.

The boys threw handful after handful of ashes onto the water, then ducked their heads under, lifting their faces up into the floating ashes.

“They are having the bath of purification,” Anoop explained.

What would it be like to be a Hindu boy and feel your own father’s ashes in your eyes and your mouth? Ben shuddered. He couldn’t do it.

“I’ve seen enough, Anoop,” Gran said. “Is anyone else ready to go back?”

Ben had seen enough too. Seen enough, and remembered enough.

Anoop bowed in thanks when Gran and Geoffrey Bonder each gave him a tip and they all watched as he hurried across the ghats in search of new passengers.

Now the large square was a crowded scene full of more amazing sights. Barbers stood behind stools as they cut men’s hair and shaved their faces. Vendors with boom boxes blaring from their stalls sold coloured powders as cures for every illness. At long tables, women offered hot breakfasts of steaming chapatis and fried triangles of parathas.

“Will you look at that!” Martha pointed to a man who was lighting the tops of long thin candles and inserting them into his customer’s ears.

Geoffrey said, “I’ve read about them. They’re ear cleaners, if you can believe it.”

In the middle of the chaotic square, tawny-coloured cows pushed freely through the crowds. In one corner a man, so thin that his stomach had sunk almost to his backbone, lay on a bed of nails. His eyes were closed but his palm was outstretched, waiting for donations. A dwarf standing beside him also had his doll-like hand out, and farther along another man balanced on one leg. A rough sign in English said he hadn’t rested on a bed for twenty years.

“He wants us to give him money because he’s been standing on one leg for twenty years!” Martha said. “It’s unbelievable.”

Ben, who was behind Martha, saw that her long skirt was caught up between her legs. Gross. He hurried on ahead.

Geoffrey and Martha were also staying at the Vishnu Lodge, and Gran decided they’d have breakfast together. As they turned into an alley, four men came down the narrow passageway toward them. Above their heads they carried a bamboo stretcher; laid out on it was a small body wrapped in white cotton. The smell of musty cedar hung in the air as the men’s raised arms brushed Ben’s shoulder.

Ben realized with horror that he could have reached up and touched the dead body. This was the closest he’d been to a dead person since his father had died. And this body was so small you could tell it was a child. Here in Varanasi Ben found it impossible to pull the curtain down on his thoughts. He was in a city of death.

Farther along, a skinny pig rooted in garbage beside two black rats that fought over the scraps, their long tails flicking over the sow’s feet. The smell was worse than the rotting egg sandwich Ben had left in a plastic bag in his locker for three weeks. Worse than five thousand rotting egg sandwiches. Gran and Martha kept their hands over their mouths.

The streets widened and they heard the sound of tinny bells coming from a courtyard. Around the corner, Ben saw a large stone temple, and outside it, an elephant in a dirt enclosure. The shocking thing was that the elephant was chained by one of its front legs to a stake in the ground. The elephant was small and probably young, though it was hard for Ben to know. As he watched, the sad creature lifted his plate-sized foot, straining to get free. Raising his trunk, the elephant began to bellow plaintively.

“That poor elephant!” Ben said. He went closer.

“Don’t go in there,” Geoffrey said. “I’ve read that only Hindus are allowed to enter temple grounds.”

“It’s terrible. That poor elephant can’t move. He needs to get free,” Ben said.

“Ben, come with us,” Gran called.

Reluctantly, Ben followed the adults as they made their way to the Kwality Restaurant next to the guest house.

“Hope you two are taking your malaria pills,” Martha said. “A friend of ours got a bad case of malaria down here. Forgot to take his pills. He was one sick man.”

Geoffrey added, “Guess you heard the one about Indian hospitals not being so bad?”

“No, don’t think we have,” Gran said.

“It’s a good one,” Martha said, leaning toward her husband.

Geoffrey puffed himself up. “Well, it seems a man got sick in India and went to the door of an Indian hospital. He took one look inside and turned away. Cured.”

Ben frowned and looked at his grandmother.

“Funny, eh.” Geoffrey said. “Get it?”

“I don’t,” Ben said, turning toward Gran.

Gran explained. “It means the sick man took one look inside the hospital, and things were so terrible, he said he was cured so he wouldn’t have to go inside.”

Ben wasn’t certain he understood, but he decided to let it go.

“Remember you heard it here,” Geoffrey said, laughing with Martha.

“We’ll be sure to remember,” Gran said.

Ben bent his head to his breakfast while Gran told the Bonders how the search for Shanti had taken them from Delhi to Agra and now Varanasi. “As soon as we finish eating we’re meeting the new owner to see if he knows anything about Shanti’s parents.”

They found Mr. Gupta at the reception desk. It turned out that he’d purchased the lodge from a young couple who’d moved to Calcutta. Mr. Gupta thought for a minute. “You know, there is another guest house called the Old Vishnu on the other side of town. I suggest you try there.”

Ben wrote down the address. “We should go there now, Gran.”

Gran answered. “Ben, I’m beat. After that sleepless night on the train I have to lie down awhile before we go anywhere.”

Ben followed her, noticing how slowly she climbed the stairs. He went into the bathroom and washed his face in cold water. Gran was lying down when he came out.

What a morning. A bloated cow with its legs sticking up in the air. The smell of the body burning on the pyre. The little corpse being carried so close to him in the alley. But it was the elephant tied up beside the temple that kept returning to Ben’s thoughts. “I’m not tired, Gran,” he said. “I’d like to go back and find out about the elephant we saw.”

“Forget that,” Gran said, lifting her head from the bed. “There’s no way I’m letting a boy your age wander around alone.” Her head slipped back and she closed her eyes.

Ben went to the window and looked down at the labyrinth of narrow streets. It was not yet noon. He checked his grandmother. Her steady snores told him she had fallen asleep. How could anyone sleep with so many amazing things just a step away? He could see the dome of the temple and could almost hear the pitiful bellow of the chained elephant.

Ben opened the door and stepped out.

IT WASN’T FAR TO
the temple. Ben hurried through the gate and over to the enclosure that roped off the small elephant. The elephant grunted, short frustrated grunts, as it strained to be free of the chain around his foot. Ben stepped close. “Easy, easy.”

The elephant’s wrinkled skin was mottled with dirt from its struggles. It had no tusks and his grey ears were freckled right out to the ragged edges. Ben reached over to run his hand along the elephant’s trunk. The trunk was warm and leathery, only about as thick as a mountain bike tire.

The elephant stopped pulling and turned its sad eyes to watch Ben. It was those eyes, Ben thought … There was something so ancient and knowing about them that made you feel an elephant really saw you. You were communicating with an animal who really knew who you were.

Ben picked up a handful of hay at the edge of the enclosure and held it out. The pink tip of the elephant’s trunk curled around the straw and swung it into his mouth. Ben watched him chew.

“At least you’re eating,” Ben said. He gave the elephant more hay and stroked its trunk. It was a great feeling.

He took a photograph of the elephant, then scanned the courtyard to see if anyone seemed as if they were responsible for it. People were rushing in from the entrance talking among themselves, but no one cast a glance at the elephant. No one seemed to care that the poor thing was suffering.

Again, the elephant lifted his foot and strained at the chain. He could only move such a short distance that his struggles traced a circle in the dust around the post.

Maybe there was a caretaker nearer the temple. Ben joined the crowd heading up the wide stone steps, past a row of pillars onto the wide porch. People were taking off their sandals and handing them to an old man who seemed to be a shoe guard.

The man held out his hand for Ben’s runners, and with a shock Ben saw that the man had shrivelled hollows instead of eyes.

Pouring through the temple door into a gloomy corridor, the crowd swept Ben along with them. No one noticed him and no one stopped him. The dirt under his bare feet was wet and slippery. He could be infected with some horrible foot disease.

The smoky smell of incense made Ben light-headed. The dark passageway twisted and narrowed; rough stone walls pressed in on either side. Ben could see only as far as the cotton shirt of the man ahead of him. Drums began to beat, and as he went farther, the beating became a louder, more insistent throbbing. The crush of people behind pressed him forward. It was impossible to turn back.

Gran had been right. He didn’t belong here with the sickening smell, the pounding drums, the bodies hemming him in so that he had no choice but to go where they took him. Deep in an underground maze, he was being led closer to something or someone, he didn’t know what.

At the next turn, the passageway opened onto an alcove lit by the flare of oil lamps against the damp walls. This must be the inner sanctuary, the home of the god who ruled this temple. Ben pushed his way to the front of the crowd. What he saw appalled him.

It must be Black Kali, the goddess of destruction. The goddess even Padam had been scared of, the one who demanded sacrifices. About three metres high, the statue sat on a platform draped in dark cloth. The black face had bulging white eyes and a protruding tongue dripping with what looked like blood. Kali’s dark hair was tossed in all directions and her ten twisting arms held knives and swords, and in one, a bleeding head. A necklace of bony skulls circled her shoulders, and at her feet, visitors had placed bananas and coconuts. The throbbing of the drums was so loud that Ben’s head spun; he felt he was smothering at the centre of the transported worshippers.

A bare-chested Brahmin priest appeared from behind the god. He carried a brass tray spread with burning coals and a container of red powder. A smell as strong and sickly as rotting fruit leapt up from the flames. The priest reached into the flames with his finger, then into the red powder and pressed a mark on the forehead of each worshipper. Ben tried to step back, but couldn’t. He felt the priest’s hot finger press between his eyes. At that very moment Kali’s huge eyeballs turned on Ben, and her flailing arms reached out to draw him closer. He swayed, pitching toward the statue. Kali’s hooked red fingernails stretched out to touch him.

Ben heard his breath become shallow, faster. It felt as though he were running, but he wasn’t. This was what fear felt like. He was more scared than he’d ever been in his life. With all his strength, Ben backed through the crowd, turned and ran, fled as fast as he could, away from Kali’s bulging eyes and red tongue and the reaching arms, away from the smells and the burning coals and, most of all, away from the incessant drumming.

Alone now in the dark corridor, Ben gasped for breath, stumbled and kept running. He struck a sharp corner, his feet slipped in the mud and he fell to his knees. Struggling to stand, Ben reached to the stone wall for support. His hand touched something moist and slimy, something horribly like a swollen slug. He snapped his hand back and stood up, trying to wipe the stickiness away on his pants. He could feel cold mud from the floor on his legs. Nothing he could do about that now. He had to get a grip on himself so he could find a way out.

What was he doing inside a temple? He wasn’t a Hindu. He was just a kid. Why hadn’t anyone stopped him? A stab of pure terror pierced Ben’s stomach. He was alone in an endless black tunnel. Not one person knew where he was.

He strained to see ahead into the darkness. He had to find a way out. Was that a light? Another alcove? Or had he been running in a circle and come back to the terrifying Kali?

Ben took a few cautious steps until he was close enough to see light coming from a smaller sanctuary. He looked inside and saw a statue of Ganesh with a garland of yellow marigolds draped over the god’s round belly. Here was the god Ben knew, the elephant god who listened to children.

Ben looked into the almost human eyes of the elephant.
Help me
, he pleaded silently … and then it happened. In the dim light, the elephant’s stone trunk swayed, lifted and dipped, dipped away from the passage Ben had been following toward a dark narrow tunnel he hadn’t noticed.

Ganesh’s eyes: they were eyes you could trust. Against all reason, the stone trunk had moved to show him the way out. Yes, he could trust Ganesh. Ben turned in the direction of the pointing trunk to the dark opening. He began to run, faster and faster. Then, without warning, he burst out into bright sunshine and stepped onto grass.

His chest hurt. He strained to gulp the fresh air as he looked around. There were no crowds of people, no piles of shoes. Maybe he was at the back of the temple, and if he followed the temple wall, he might reach the front entrance. Steadying himself by pressing his hands against the stone, his bare feet pricked by the coarse grass, Ben hurried along the wall. He could breathe again, he was safe, but he knew that, just like the time he’d been pulled into the centre of the elephant procession, he’d been taken far away into a mysterious place inside himself.

Ben saw a few tourists and slowed. He brushed the mud off his legs. As he came around a corner he was close to the front entrance with its high steps and the porch with the rows of shoes and the blind guard. At the top of the stairs, to Ben’s astonishment, the guard was holding out Ben’s runners. A blind man had found his shoes. How could you explain that?

Ben crossed the courtyard to where the dusty elephant was still pulling at the chain that held his foot. How long was it since he’d stood there and fed straw to the elephant? Was it still afternoon?

Ben stared at the elephant’s eyes. They seemed remarkably like the powerful eyes of the stone Ganesh inside the temple. Was some part of this small elephant linked to the statue? Could it be that the stone Ganesh moved his trunk to show him the way out because he’d fed this poor chained elephant? Did such things happen?

Ben picked up more straw and watched the elephant chew. He ran his hand over the warm swaying trunk. There was a connection. He could feel it.

Ben knew he had to get back to the hotel and said a sad farewell to the elephant. He hurried along the twisting streets hoping he’d remember the way. Then, ahead of him, down a lane Ben saw Gran with the Bonders, and he began to run. His grandmother looked goofy in her Tilley hat, and Geoffrey was even goofier in his bulging fishing vest, but since they were the only people he knew in Varanasi, Ben felt like crying with relief.

Gran was red in the face. “Ben, where have you been? What’s the mark on your forehead?”

Before he could answer she grabbed him by his shoulder and shook him. “I’m furious with you, Ben. You’ve been gone for hours. How could you worry me like this?”

Ben realized he must still be breathing hard because no words came out.

Geoffrey pointed to a bench in a small park. “Sit down. Let’s hear your explanation.”

Gran was angry. “He’d better have a good one.”

Ben studied his shoes as though he’d never seen them before. How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself?

Gran didn’t give him a chance. “Ben, I told you not to leave the hotel. I’ve been frantic. Thank heavens I had the Bonders to help me. We went all the way back to the river searching for you.”

Geoffrey was angry too. “You owe your grandmother an explanation, young man.”

Ben could hear his voice shaking. “I wanted to see the temple elephant again. I wanted to see if I could find someone to unchain his leg.”

He explained how he’d followed the crowd to the temple porch, how he’d found himself handing his runners to the blind man, and how, without ever making a decision, he’d been swept into the temple. He told them about the dark passages and the Black Kali and the burning coals and the priest. He tried to describe the smells and the loud drumming that had made it impossible to think. He tried to explain how he’d felt as if he were far away, that he’d been pulled to a place he didn’t understand.

Then he told them about the alcove with Ganesh and how the stone trunk of the statue had seemed to move to point the way out. How it
had
been the way out, a passage he’d never have found himself. Then how he’d found himself standing on grass at the back of the temple.

Gran and Martha and Geoffrey stared at him. Then Geoffrey spoke. “Do you realize we’d never have come looking for you
inside
a temple? Do you know how foolish you’ve been, what a risk you took?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ben, you disobeyed me when I specifically told you not to go out,” said Gran. And then she stopped and put her arms around Ben and squeezed him tightly. “I’m so relieved you’re safe.”

Ben allowed himself to be hugged for a minute, then backed away. No matter how good they felt, public hugs from a grandmother were embarrassing.

Geoffrey went to a nearby drink stand and came back with cold sodas for everyone.

Ben took a drink. “I’m sorry I worried all of you. But it was amazing the way Ganesh rescued me. I saw the statue’s trunk move. I know I did.”

“You’ve got some imagination, young man,” Geoffrey said.

Gran was thoughtful. “I’m not so certain. Strange things seem to happen in India.” Then, to Ben’s disgust, she spat on her handkerchief and tried to remove the mark on his forehead. He ducked and used the back of his hand to rub at the spot himself.

Gran ignored him and spoke to the Bonders. “Don’t know how I’d have managed without you, but now Ben and I have to get something to eat and find our way to the Old Vishnu guest house. Let’s all meet later for dinner.”

The cycle rickshaw driver in front of the hotel spoke good English. “Most certainly I know the Old Vishnu guest house,” he said, showing them to their double seat before jumping on his bicycle and heading up the street. His skinny legs pedalled furiously until he stopped in front of a large house on a street close to the centre of town.

Ben was excited and led Gran up to the doorway and rang the brass bell. The woman who answered told them she didn’t take in guests anymore. Her parents, she said, had been the original owners of the lodge. No one called Mukherjee had ever owned it.

Ben could see Gran was close to tears.

“You must not mind,” said their rickshaw driver. “I know of two more guest homes with the name Vishnu. There is the New Vishnu and the Real Vishnu. I am being certain that one of them will be the place you seek.”

Ben thought that every second lodge in the city must be called Vishnu. It was now mid-afternoon, and they had another long ride to the New Vishnu guest home, which was a small house with no sign.

At the front door, Ben nudged his grandmother. “This has gotta be it.”

Gran introduced herself to a young woman and her husband at the door who shook their heads. “Very sorry, Mrs. Leeson. We purchased the home from a couple who came from Kerala in the south.” The couple didn’t know who’d owned the house before them, nor did they have a forwarding address.

Ben felt as though he’d been kicked in the stomach. If he were his father he’d be saying “Damn.”

“Thank you for your trouble,” Gran said. This time Gran just seemed old and tired when she got back into the rickshaw. The plastic seat had been in the burning sun too long and it felt like sitting on a hot iron. Ben almost wished he hadn’t converted his long pants to shorts.