Exiles by Cary Groner

Author:Cary Groner [Groner, Cary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-679-60491-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-07T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

“I have another volunteer for you,” Peter said.

Franz wandered among his potted plants with a green plastic watering can, giving them each a little shower and inspecting the undersides of their leaves. During Peter’s absence the office had begun to resemble an abandoned temple, its musty bookshelves overrun with tendrils. On the shelf under the south window, Wittgenstein lay in the sun, watching with large green eyes and twitching his tail.

“Who?”

Peter explained about Usha. “She’s smart,” he said. “She wants to be a doctor.”

Franz shrugged. “If you can sell it to Mina it’s fine by me. But speaking of stray children, a boy’s been by, asking for you.”

“He knows my name? What does he want?”

“He won’t say. He goes by Raju.”

Peter remembered then: the boy with the stick who’d fended off the dogs. “When was he here last?”

“A few days ago. I told him you’d be back today.”

When Peter asked Mina about Usha, she arched an eyebrow skeptically. “You bought her?”

“As an alternative to where she was headed.”

Mina startled him by laughing. “It’s fine with me,” she said. “Bring her in tomorrow.”

| | |

That afternoon Raju appeared. Peter shook his hand and explained to Mina what had happened.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked. “Are you sick?”

“No, sir. My father is ill these two months and now will not get up.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

“I came to find you, but this other man, he said you were not here. It was not possible for me to walk to Jorpati so I have returned just now.”

Peter and Mina exchanged a look. “You didn’t need to see me personally,” Peter said. “Franz or Mina could have helped.”

“I understand this,” Raju said. “However, when my father heard you are being American, he declaimed he will see no one but you.”

Peter expected Mina to say something cutting about how this illustrated the deleterious effect of foreign doctors, but she didn’t. She just said they’d be done soon and asked Raju to show them the way.

“You want to come?” Peter asked.

“If he’s the oldest son, he may be the only one in the family who speaks English.”

In the car, he watched her out of the corner of his eyes. She chatted with Raju, who seemed to take an immediate liking to her. She seemed transformed—looser and more open. Peter had thought of her during his exile, when he was plumbing the depths of patience and sanity, and had realized that much of her prickly aversion to him was probably justified. Nepal had exposed him for a fraud, and he too was calmer now, partly because his pride had been so thoroughly crushed under the wheels of experience that he no longer had much left to defend.

As if she could read his thoughts, she asked, “How goes the karma purification?”

He looked at Raju, who was staring rapt out the window, and it occurred to Peter that the boy might never have ridden in a car before.

“I feel like a mashed bug, but I’m still crawling,” Peter said. “How goes it with you?”

“Still crawling along,” she replied.

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