Follow the Elephant (10 page)

“Do not be discouraged,” their driver said, calling over his shoulder, pedalling fast. “I am certain this next place which has nice bungalows will be the place you seek.” After half an hour they reached the outskirts of the city where a row of new wooden cottages sat at the edge of a park. A sign said:
THE REAL VISHNU GUEST BUNGALOWS
.

“The poor man has been working hard to bring us all this way,” Gran said.

“And this is our last hope,” Ben said.

Gran mopped her brow as she got down from the rickshaw. “This looks like the kind of place an older couple would retire to. I can just imagine Shanti coming to visit here with her children and grandchildren.”

Gran told her story to the young man who opened the door, but before she was finished the owner shook his head. “Madam, the friends you seek could not be living here. You see, these fine bungalows are new, finished only last year, and my father and I are the first owners. Perhaps you could try the Vishnu Lodge near the river.”

“But that’s the place we’re staying!” Ben said. His heart sank. They’d come full circle. Their last hope in Varanasi had evaporated.

Ben realized how tired he was. Gran must be even more worn out. The day had started at dawn after their sleepless night on the hard train bunks, then there had been the boat trip on the Ganges, Ben’s terrifying time in the temple and Gran’s search for him and now this hopeless ride across town and back.

Back in the guest house, Gran sank in her seat in front of a cup of tea. “Well, that’s that. The search in India is over. We have nowhere else to go.”

“Maybe not, Gran. You never know.” It was hard, but Ben kept his promise to himself not to tell his grandmother about the message he’d left on the school site. If it didn’t work out, he wouldn’t have caused her another disappointment.

Gran took a last swallow of her tea and stared into space. “I’m sorry I brought you on this wild goose chase. I’m a stupid old woman.”

It was terrible to see his grandmother so discouraged. “Remember what Padam told us about Gandhi, Gran. Patience and persistence.”

Gran gave Ben a weak smile. “I remember Madhu teasing Padam that he didn’t have much of either. But now there’s nowhere else for us to look, Ben. You know, if I could change our tickets today and go back home, I would.”

Ben realized he was ready to go home too.

Once Geoffrey Bonder saw Gran and Ben’s faces, he didn’t need to ask their news.

Over dinner, Martha, who had changed into another long, flowered skirt, asked, “What will you do now?”

“Frankly, I don’t know,” Gran said.

“Why not forget your search and just enjoy India? Be tourists like us?” Martha said. “We just came from a beach town called Mahabalipuram.”

“There are so many carved temples that it’s been declared a world heritage site,” Geoffrey added. He rummaged through his vest pockets until he found a card. “Here’s where we stayed. The Ideal Beach House.”

Ben perked up. “Good swimming?”

“Fabulous swimming in the Bay of Bengal,” Martha said.

Gran was thoughtful. “Maybe that’s what we need, Ben. We’ve got eleven more days before we fly back, and a stay near the beach sounds like heaven.”

“It’s just an hour by plane to Madras and then an hour by taxi south of there. You could be there tomorrow afternoon,” Geoffrey said.

“What do you think, Ben? Should we go to the beach?”

“As we say in India, no problem.”

Later that evening Gran was lying down in their room. “We’ve come to a complete dead end. It’s like the game of Snakes and Ladders we used to play when you were little. You and I have been climbing ladders and sliding down one snake after another until we’re right back where we started.”

She seemed so depressed that Ben could hardly wait to get out of the room. “I’d better email Mum and tell her what’s happened,” he said. “I saw an internet shop down the street.”

“Come right back, Ben. When I woke up this morning and you weren’t here and the desk clerk didn’t know where you were, I thought I’d lost you. It was a terrible feeling. I’m responsible for you in India and you were simply gone.”

On his way out the door, he said, “I won’t be long, Gran. Don’t worry.”

In the internet shop, Ben took a seat in front of the only computer.

Ben keyed in the URL of the school’s site. It had been four days since he’d sent a message to the site and there was an excellent chance that by now someone would have answered. He had a lucky feeling. Ganesh had saved him in the temple today. They were definitely on the same wavelength. Shanti could be living somewhere near them right now. Gran was going to flip when he told her.

Ben waited for the site to come up. When it did, the screen read: No messages.

So much for Ganesh. Now he was the one who needed cheering up.

THEIR LOCAL PLANE
left at eleven, and the small airline terminal was packed with people; men talked loudly in groups and women in flowing saris clustered together to chat, while children chased each other between the groups. Loud announcements crackled down from large speakers, and stale air hovered over the waiting room, grey and heavy with cigarette smoke. Gran found a seat and opened her book.

Too hot to sit, Ben wandered around. Under the backpack, his t-shirt stuck to his skin. His hair dripped, so he took his cap off and stuffed it in his pack. He checked to make sure the wallet was in his pocket, then shifted his pack again to flick the thermometer on the zipper. Forty-six degrees. This place was a steaming fire pit.

Ben dropped down hard into the seat beside his grandmother. “Did you ever smoke, Gran?”

His grandmother looked up from her book, her face wet with perspiration. “I’m sorry to admit it, but I did. I quit before your father was diagnosed.”

“I guess my dad learned to smoke from you.”

“Don’t think I haven’t felt guilty about that, Ben.” She took a deep breath. “Any mother would.”

“So it’s your fault Dad died.”

“Ben!” Gran said, shocked.

Knowing he was being mean, Ben still kept going. “You could have stopped him smoking. He was your son.”

“A mother can’t stop a grown child from doing anything they want to do.” She wiped her forehead. “You should know that. You’re still a teenager, and your mother can’t stop you from wasting all your time at the computer.”

Ben folded his arms across his chest, burying his fists in his armpits. He looked around the steamy room. This heat was unbearable. His father’s death was unbearable. Everything was unbearable.

Neither Ben nor his grandmother spoke during the flight. The attendant passed lemon candies and Gran took four. As the pilot announced their descent, Ben had his first glimpse of the wide rim of the Bay of Bengal stretching across the horizon. The Ganges River emptied into this bay. This is where the ashes from the corpses he’d seen at Varanasi ended up. Everyone ended up dead. Everyone ever born would end up dead. Ben had never thought about it before, but it was a fact.

A sign said:
WELCOME TO CHENNAI
.

“Chennai? Where are we?” Gran asked. “I thought the plane was taking us to Madras. We’ve come to the wrong city!”

“Gran, you remember Madhu told us some cities have new names,” Ben said. “Chennai is probably the new name for Madras.”

“Let’s hope so,” Gran said. “Otherwise we’re in big trouble.”

Carrying their backpacks, Gran and Ben were the first out of the terminal to reach the row of waiting taxis. Ben stayed behind his grandmother, where he didn’t have to watch the fanny pack bounce against her stomach.

“Funny,” Gran said, calling back, “when I saw the taxis, I thought of Madhu and Padam.”

Ben had thought about their two friends from Delhi too, but right now he was too hot and angry to agree with his grandmother about anything.

They found a taxi driver who assured them that Chennai was the new name for Madras and told them that the drive to Mahabalipuram would take two hours and would cost a thousand rupees.

Ben sat in the back seat beside his grandmother. He realized he’d have to find a computer as soon as he could. If Madras was now called Chennai, maybe Calcutta had a new name too. If he’d been using the wrong name on the school site, it could explain why there’d been no response.

Gran, who seemed to feel she had to carry on a long conversation with everyone she met, had leaned forward to talk to the driver. “I’m not sure I pronounced the name of the place we’re going properly. How do you say it?”

Her constant chatter was driving Ben crazy, but the driver seemed pleased to talk. “Here in India we say names just the way they are written. Maha-bali-purum.”

“Maha-bali-purum,” Gran repeated. “Maha-bali-purum, Maha-bali-purum.”

Ben gritted his teeth. He’d hurl himself out the car door if she said it one more time.

The driver manoeuvred the taxi onto the first wide highway they’d seen in India. “Speaking of names,” he said, “my name is Ashok, a name from the ancient Sanskrit language that means ‘happy one.’”

Gran introduced herself and her silent grandson. My name is Ben, he said under his breath and it means “miserable one.” Ben closed his eyes and tried to close his ears to his grandmother’s endless babbling.

At last the taxi turned into the treed driveway that led to the Ideal Beach Resort where a circle of bungalows sat around a wide grassy garden. Beyond the bungalows, Ben could see the ocean.

Ashok stopped at the building marked “Office” and got their backpacks from the trunk. As Ben was about to step out of the taxi he saw that Gran had left her hat on the floor of the back seat. Ben stared at the hat, paused, then closed the door, leaving the hat in the car. He picked up his backpack and said goodbye to the driver.

“Come on, Ben,” Gran said, walking up the path. “Why are you so grumpy today?”

Ben didn’t answer.

A tall young man came to the office door and answered Gran’s query. “Of course we have room for you. No problem. We have a bungalow with two bedrooms that should suit you perfectly.”

Apparently “no problem” was what everyone said in this part of India too.

The young man wore shorts and a white shirt and had a handsome face with a friendly smile. He told them he ran the resort with his mother and sister and his name was Prem Gurin.

Taking Gran’s backpack, Prem led them across the grass to a small bungalow with a hammock swinging from the wide veranda. Inside were two bedrooms separated by a narrow hallway and an adjoining bathroom. Pale green bedspreads and white wicker furniture made Gran comment that this was very different from their other hotels.

“My mother is serving tea at our own bungalow in half an hour so please join us,” Prem said before he left them.

Gran turned to Ben. “Your choice. Take the bedroom you want. And try to drop that bad mood.”

Ben picked up his backpack and took it into the room on the far side of the bathroom. He unpacked, put what clean clothes he had into the top drawer of a dresser and sat on the bed. It was too lame for a boy his age to be travelling with his grandmother. Everything he’d done in India had been with old people, including that gross couple, Martha and Geoffrey. He should be having fun with kids his own age. The only good thing about this place was that he’d never have to see the silly Tilley hat again.

Ben lay back on the bed, clasped his hands behind his head and looked up. A small green lizard clung to the ceiling directly above him, not moving. If that lizard let go, it would drop right onto his face. Ben turned his head and rolled on his side, curling up like he always did in his own bed at home.

Right now Mum and Lauren would be sound asleep on the other side of the world. He pictured the two of them waking up and walking around the Vancouver house. It was strange to think that his father wouldn’t be there, reading the newspaper or cooking up his favourite porridge. Would his father’s spirit still be in the house? Would Lauren and Mum be able to sense it? What was a person’s spirit anyway?

Again, as he had so often in the last months, Ben tried to recollect what his dad had looked like. In all this time, he simply hadn’t been able to “see” his dad’s face. Try as hard as he could, no picture of his father ever came into his head.

Then, staring at the ceiling, he realized he could see a face and it was his father. Dad was smiling his crooked smile. The picture was strong and clear, and with it came memories. Memories of standing at the bathroom sink while his dad shaved, of Dad letting Ben squirt the shaving cream on his own cheeks, of being lifted up so he could make funny faces in the mirror. “Now there’s a handsome lad,” his father would say.

Ben could smell the peppermint shaving cream; he could feel Dad’s arms around him. His father was here with him in this room. Not like a ghost, but a real person. And then the familiar ache came back. It came when you believed that someone was still alive and you were with them, and then you shook yourself and remembered it wasn’t real. The person was gone, and you had that awful hollow ache in your chest when you knew you’d never be able to see them or hear them or touch them again.

Ben didn’t know what to do with the hurt. It almost stopped him from breathing, until, as always, it flipped and twisted into anger. He knew what to do with anger. His father had let him down. He used to think his dad was smart, but he’d been wrong. His dad hadn’t been smart enough to quit smoking, not smart enough to make sure he’d be around when his son was growing up. Ben was burning up with anger and breathing hard.

He heard his grandmother call, “Are you going to stay in your bad mood forever or are you coming for tea?”

Ben grabbed the pillow and threw it across the room. The lizard scampered along the ceiling and disappeared behind the gauze curtain. Ben stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. Same old feelings, same old Ben. He ran a brush through his messed-up hair, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and went down the hall and out the door calling to his grandmother, “Let’s go.”

Gran hurried after him across the lawn to the Gurins’ bungalow.

Mrs. Gurin had a wide face and hair tied in a bun at the back of her head. She wore a white sari and Ben noticed a blue dot in the middle of her forehead as she introduced her daughter Rani, who came up behind her.

Ben found himself staring at the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Rani had a mark on her forehead like her mother, long loose dark hair and brown eyes that were almost too big for her face. She wore blue jeans and a white t-shirt, just like a Canadian girl.

“Why don’t you two take some lemonade outside while we have tea?” Mrs. Gurin said.

Rani carried two glasses of lemonade and pointed to chairs on the porch. Neither Ben nor Rani spoke, and then they both talked at once.

“I’m wondering why you and your grandmother have come to India —”

“I can’t believe everyone here speaks such good English—”

They laughed awkwardly and Ben said, “You first.”

“We study English in school,” Rani answered. “But here in Tamil Nadu, we speak Tamil. I am also studying Hindi. Your turn.”

Ben smiled. “We’re here because we’re looking for someone who lives in India, but it isn’t working out.”

“Tell me about it.” Rani leaned forward eagerly.

“Well, my grandmother is determined to find a woman called Shanti who used to be her pen pal. We’ve tried everything. We went to the registry office in Delhi, then two great taxi drivers took us to Agra and we found the street where Shanti’s parents used to live. People told us they’d moved to Varanasi, so we took the overnight train and went all over town trying to find the right Vishnu Lodge. We went to four different places, all called Vishnu!” He stopped for breath.

Rani was laughing. She had the whitest teeth he’d ever seen. “I can believe it. Vishnu is a popular god.”

“I figured that, but Gran was sure discouraged. She said coming to India was a stupid idea. Now she’s given up, and that’s why we’re here.”

“Do
you
think coming to India was a stupid idea?”

“I don’t know. I’ve seen some awesome things, but travelling with my grandmother bugs me sometimes. She talks too much to everyone we meet and she gets upset if I don’t do everything the way she wants it done.”

Rani seemed surprised. “That’s not so bad. Prem and I have one grandmother and she lives in Darjeeling in the north. We can visit her only once a year.”

“Being with a grandmother twenty-four hours a day is different from visiting,” Ben said. “My grandmother’ll spaz if I’m out of her sight for a minute.”

“My mother has to know where I am too. I always ask her permission to go into town.”

He didn’t want Rani to think he was too critical of his grandmother. She should know he was an okay person. “I’m working on a way to find Shanti for Gran. I have a secret plan.”

“Can you tell me?”

“Yep. I’ve put a message on the site of the school Shanti went to fifty years ago. I’m sure it will work because a woman we met in Delhi told us that’s how former students get in touch with each other. I haven’t told my grandmother because I want to surprise her.”

“I’ve heard of those school sites. My brother will let you use the computer in the office.” Rani stood and picked up their glasses.

Prem showed Ben the office computer and Rani sat beside him in front of the screen. “I think I know why this hasn’t worked before,” Ben said. “First I want to try something.” He keyed in the site for the Calcutta Senior Girls’ School.

“Any responses?” Rani said.

“No, not one. Tell me, is there a new name for Calcutta?”

“Yes, it was changed to match the languages spoken in our states. Calcutta’s new name is Kolkota.”

“I bet that’s why I haven’t had a response,” Ben said. He decided to try searching for the school under Kolkota. He typed in Calcutta Girls’ School but this time added Kolkota to his search terms, and found that yes, there was another website for the school. “CGS Alumni: Tell us what you think of our new website,” read a message on the home page. The one he had used earlier must be an old one and had not yet been taken down. He wrote a new message asking any former students who knew Shanti to leave a message, and pressed Send. “That should do it!”