Children of the Wolf (9 page)

The other children admired it on cue.

Rama, when he heard her, only laughed. “Girls!” he said. “How silly.”

But I dared to look directly at Indira, speaking so only she and I could hear. “It is just rags,” I said. “Just rags.”

She hit me with the doll and went inside.

Kamala was more careful around Indira after that, but she was still fascinated by the children and followed them, always a beat behind. She even took her turn hauling on the rope that pulled the
punkah
that kept Mr. Welles’ study cool. In fact, she loved to do that so much that we all let her take our turns, for it was, in truth, a dull and boring chore.

Anyone seeing her or hearing her push out the few words she could manage would have known her for a moon child, slow in the mind.

Even Mr. Welles ignored her, forgetting the miracle he had prayed for, or at least changing his mind about its character. It was clear to everyone, and especially to me, that she would never tell us stories about her life with the wolves. Indeed three words together were the most she ever managed, though it was also clear that she could understand considerably more than she could express.

But as Mr. Welles ignored her and I left her alone, more and more often Rama began to seek her out. It almost appeared that he was paying her court for, in the season of the winter sun, with the help of Cook’s nourishing—if unappetizing—meals, she began to blossom into a real woman. Her mind might not have developed much, but her body did. Her silences, so different from Indira’s ceaseless sarcasm and Veda’s whispered confidences, appealed to Rama. And she was so biddable. If he wanted her to fetch something for him, all he had to do was ask and she scampered off to get it. He no longer saw her as evil but as saved, and he was fascinated by her pliant nature, her eagerness to please.

Once I found him sitting with her just outside the gate, on the edge of the
maidan
. She was catching lizards. Her fingers, like quick brown vines, flashed out and trapped one of the little reptiles as it climbed the wall, then as suddenly set it free.

“Look, look,” he said to me. “See how quick she is.”

“See, see how slow you are,” I retorted. “I am halfway through our chores, yours and mine.”

He did not apologize but got to his feet. Kamala followed and, to my chagrin, took his hand, walking sedately by his side.

“Ram, Kmmmmla in,” she said.

I was secretly pleased to see that when she walked she still held her shoulders hunched over. No sooner had that thought formed than I was ashamed of it. Rama did not seem to notice the succession of emotions crossing my face, and for that I was thankful.

Another time I heard him leave at night, out the window. I thought he was off to Tantigoria again after weeks of remaining at home. I resolved to wait up and speak with him when he returned. But when I heard whispering from outside, I knew he had gone only as far as Kamala’s hut. And though I could not make out what he was saying, I could clearly hear her peculiar laughter, echoing, “Hoo—hooo—hoo.” Since she did not understand word jokes, I knew he had to be tickling her, and when I heard him laughing back, I did not know whom I hated most—Rama or Kamala or myself.

I was not the only one who noticed Rama’s interest or guessed at the reasons for it. Although she made no mention of it, Indira knew, and her anger began to grow.

I reveled in it. If I could not do something about my own private shame, I knew Indira would.

At first she showed her anger in subtle ways. She took to pulling the flowers from Veda’s hair. When Veda complained, Indira pinched her above the elbow. Veda carried many little black-and-blue pinch marks, a tattoo of bruises, on both her arms for days.

Then Indira began to imitate Krithi unmercifully, walking beside him and limping. When he asked her to stop, she walked away from him, exaggerating the limp even more and sticking her thumb in her mouth so there was no doubt who was the butt of her mimicry. When Krithi turned to me for help, I looked away.

The little ones were soon in terror of her attacks, and not a one would be in a room alone with her. They ran out screaming the moment she entered.

And then she stole my notebook. I did not see her do it, but it could not have been anyone else.

Why did I say nothing? I think my shame and anger and pain were too great, and I believed I deserved to be weak and unhappy. For a week we all bore the brunt of Indira’s dark anger, all except Rama and Kamala. Indira never once menaced them, though it was they, not the rest of us, who were the cause of her ire.

Mrs. Welles took Indira aside and spoke strongly to her. Krithi told me of it, for he had listened at the door.

“I could not hear all the words, Mohandas,” he said. “But Mrs. Welles was loud and angry. Buzz-buzz-buzz like a mosquito.” He popped his finger back into his mouth, a cork in a bottle.

“It is not Indira’s fault,” I said. “She is unhappy.”

“
She
is impossible,” whispered Veda. “
I
am unhappy.” It was then she uncovered her arms and I saw the pattern of bruises that Indira’s fingers had imprinted on her flesh.

Did I resolve then to champion the other children? I did, but I need not have worried. After Mrs. Welles’ lecture, Indira kept to herself, nursing her unhappiness, letting it grow. She was still sickly sweet to Rama, and I knew she would turn her abilities for mischief toward Kamala. I tried to guess what she might do. As it turned out, my guesses were too feeble, my change of heart too late. Indira had a positive genius for torture, and in Kamala she had discovered a victim who could not easily tattle.

W
E KNEW INDIRA WAS
a bully and a sneak, but no one was ever to know the full extent of her anger. Even after, for Kamala never had enough words to tell—only grimaces and tears—we could only imagine what she had been through. But what I did not know I reconstructed, and what I did not see I guessed.

Indira organized the other children against Kamala, and to be free of Indira’s torments themselves, they gladly followed her lead. Only Rama and I were left out.

Indira urged Krithi to put curry powder on Kamala’s meat though we all knew she ate her meat without spices, even without salt. Indira supplied Veda and Preeti with soap shavings for Kamala’s drinking water. She gave the little ones sticks, promising them candies, which her parents sent her each month from Calcutta, if they would shake the sticks in Kamala’s face whenever they could. I know all this to be true, for the others confessed it later. But these were only skirmishes in Indira’s war.

The real battle lines were drawn between Indira and Kamala. And only Indira knew the reasons why.

It was a week after Rama began paying attention to Kamala that the bruises started showing, little strings of them like beads, along the insides of Kamala’s arms. When questioned, she shook her head and hummed a wordless little tune, like a mantra, sworn to a strange kind of secrecy by her tormentor. The only thing she said, when Mrs. Welles questioned her about the bruises, was, “Bhoo, bhoo, bhoo,” which meant nothing to us.

Then one morning she had two enormous bruises on each ankle, and the next day a black eye.

Mrs. Welles discussed it with her husband in his study, and I, crouched down behind the desk, looking over books on the lowest bookshelf, listened.

“I don’t like it, David,” she said, her hands clasped together.

“Children do get bruises, my dear,” he answered. “Look at Krithi—he is constantly black-and-blue. And didn’t Veda recently have an armful of bruises? And Preeti spent much of last rainy season immobilized from a fall? These things happen. Kamala is a tough little thing, though. She has had to be. I expect she is just going through a stage.”

“David, I have questioned the children thoroughly on this, and they profess to be as puzzled as I. And Kamala only hoots mournfully when I ask her. But these bruises—new ones appear every day. I am worried that she may have some disease, some illness that manifests itself in bruising first. I am going to send for Dr. Singh.”

Mr. Welles stood up, almost tripping over me, but otherwise ignoring my presence. Opening the door, he ushered Mrs. Welles out. “Very well, my dear, the health of the children is your concern, as their minds and souls are mine. Do what you think best. I must get back to my report for the
Diocesan Record
. I am mentioning the wolf-children in the hope that interest in their story and conversion will stimulate an interest in our work here at The Home and secure us better funding for the coming year.”

He closed the door after her and returned to his desk, busying himself with the papers there. Quite soon I heard the scratching of his pen across the page. Holding the copy of
A Thousand and One Nights
, which Mrs. Welles had read to us and which I had chosen to read for myself, I stood up quietly, prepared to go out.

“Mohandas,” Mr. Welles said, never looking up from the paper on which he was writing.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know anything about these bruises?”

“No, sir.”

“If you learn anything, will you tell me at once?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Now you may go.”

I reached the door.

“Mohandas.” His voice stopped me.

I turned. He was looking at me, and when our eyes met, he put down his pen, took off his glasses, and reached into his pocket for the handkerchief.

“Has she spoken to you about her life with the wolves at all?” He began cleaning his glasses.

“She can say words like
cat
and
ball
and
dress
and…” I began as a way of explanation.

He sighed and put the glasses back on. “And…”

“I think she has forgotten her days in the jungle, sir,” I ventured. “And she has no word for what is past.”

His hands folded together on the desk in front of him. He suddenly looked quite old. “There are those who say that without words there is no memory, Mohandas.”

“She has words now,” I said.

“
Cat
and
ball
and
dress
?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Not words for what she knew in the jungle, though,” he said. “And no word for yesterday either, sir.” Mr. Welles picked up his pen once again. “Tell me if you find out anything more about the bruises,” he said.

“We will not bother Mrs. Welles about how or where you get that information.” The pen started across the page again. It was a dismissal.

Although I had not stayed up at night for several weeks, I determined that this night I would. Rama’s stuttering snore was my signal. I got out of bed, slipped on my trousers, but left my
kharom
behind. Wooden slippers make too much noise.

I climbed over the windowsill and dropped silently to the ground, practice having perfected the movement. There was only a sliver of moon.

I told myself that I was acting on Mr. Welles’ direct orders, but in my deepest heart I knew it was more than that. I had acted foully, worse than a beast. Kamala had no one to protect her but me. I had to go and reclaim the heart of my dearest friend. The others had tried to make of her something she was not—a miracle, an enemy, a woman. I wanted her for what she was—my other self, different, full of unspoken words, and alone.

As I neared the corner where she slept at night, I heard whispering. I stopped.

It was Indira’s voice. The words became clearer as I crept forward.

“You are an evil
bhut
. You are wicked. You are an animal. You deserve to be punished. Eater of carrion, drinker of blood. Eater of carrion, drinker of blood. Say it. Say, ‘I am a
bhut
.’”

And the answering soft cry came, “Bhoo, bhoo, bhoo.”

I ran ahead with a scream. I do not remember what words I used, but they flowed out of me like great rivers of fire. I slapped Indira and screamed and screamed until the lanterns were lit throughout the house and Mr. Welles and his wife and Cook and the children and the carters all came running.

They found Indira with blood running down from her nose, and a swollen eye, and me at the gate looking out at the shadowy
maidan
, where a scuttling figure ran on all fours past the stunted trees, past the rice fields, stopping only once to look back at the walled house behind her and giving a single long, drawn-out howl before disappearing into the dark recesses of the sal.

“K
AMALA!” I CRIED INTO
the night, my voice and animal’s howl of despair, but she did not stop again, and she did not answer.

Mr. Welles’ deep boom of a voice called out after mine, and the children, like piping echoes, screamed her name as well.

Rama ran a few steps out onto the
maidan
; then he turned and looked hopelessly at us all crowded into the gate. “She is gone,” he said.

At that, Mrs. Welles thrust a kerosene lantern into my hand. “Mohandas, Rama, you will accompany Mr. Welles onto the parade grounds and search the outskirts of the jungle. She will not have gone far in.”

“You are right, my dear. The lights will call her out. She is just frightened. I cannot think how this could have happened.”

“Indira made it happen,” I said angrily.

“Mohandas made it happen,” Indira retorted, wiping her still-bleeding nose on her hand.

“Never mind,” Mrs. Welles said, skillfully shepherding Indira toward the house. “Veda, bring me the carbolic and a towel. Preeti, you take charge of getting the other girls to bed. Krithi, you are to do the same with the boys. Come, children. Do not let this upset you. It is long past the time you should be asleep.”

They were reluctant to leave the excitement but finally followed her inside. Only Cook and the two carters stayed by the gate.

And so Rama and I, trailing Mr. Welles, went across the
maidan
toward the great looming sal jungle. We carried lanterns, but Mr. Welles bore a more primitive rag and bamboo torch that gave even more light.

My feet found every stone and stick on the ground. I tried to ignore the hurt, thinking instead of how Kamala must have felt, fleeing alone into the dark, bewildered and betrayed.