I look down at my blackened fingernails and shove my hands behind my back.
“And one more thing,” he says seriously. “You know anyone else who can do this?” He wiggles his ears and his eyes spin around at the same time. He ruffles Jeevan’s messy hair. “You want to learn this?”
“He’s funny,” laughs Jeevan, copying Raj.
“I think we can trust him,” I giggle. “Let’s get in.”
I let my shoulders slump against Jeevan and wipe my cheeks.
“We can pay.”
“I’ll charge you a cheap price … All relaxed now? Get steady and go!”
Raj zips around the busy roads beeping his horn, even though there doesn’t seem to be any need. It’s like he’s on parade and wants everyone to look at him.
He clicks his GPS and we take a sharp turn off the main road into a smaller street, which seems to go on forever.
“Nearly there,” he calls from the front. “This is where the factories are.”
“I know Papa’s working in a factory,” I say to Jeevan. “But surely he doesn’t live in one as well?”
“What these men do for their families,” says Raj, twisting to talk to us. “Here is 58,” says Raj, slowing the taxi down and peering at the buildings on his side of the road. “74 … 100 … Oh …” His voice trails off and sounds all wrong. “There it is.” He slows right down and stops.
My chest thuds as if it’s going to break; 102 Connaught Place is a charred husk of a building with blackened windows, which stare back at me like dark, hollow eyes. The ground in front is littered with lengths of half-burnt fabric.
Has Papa been caught in a fire? Was he trapped inside?
I fling the rickshaw door open and hurtle toward the building. “No!” I cry. “No … !” My voice is strangled, everything is blurred. The stinging smell of fumes clings to the air. I feel Jeevan’s arms holding me, hear Raj trying to talk to me, soothing me.
I pull myself away from their grip and hurl myself on the filthy charcoal-covered ground.
“Papa!” I scream. “Papa!”
Papa, what’s happened? Where are you?” I cover my face with my hands, tears seeping through my fingers. Raj’s and Jeevan’s far-off voices are dull in the background.
Jeevan puts his arm around my shoulder. “Asha.”
“I know he’s alive … I have to find him.”
“We … We don’t know,” says Jeevan, moving closer to me.
I stare at the burnt-out factory in a daze, trying to figure out what to do. “But someone must know … They must have seen something.” I grab hold of a passing man’s sleeve. “Help me.”
Raj pulls me back and holds the rickshaw door open. “Oh, betay, you poor thing. These factories are not fit for anything.”
“Asha, look what I found.” Jeevan leaps into the rickshaw next to me, waving a dirty piece of paper in the air. He squeezes my arm. “Look,” he says, showing me the small poster. “I found this pasted to the side of the building.”
Raj starts the engine. “You’ve had such a shock … I’ll take you home. My wife, Lakshmi, and I can look after you.” We drive back along the road, away from Connaught Place.
The paper trembles between my fingers.
Jeevan holds it steady. “It says that this charity is campaigning for better working conditions in factories, and helping the survivors of this fire … Look, there’s an address.”
“Raj can take us!” I cry.
I shout to him over the noise of the traffic, showing him the poster. “Raj, look what Jeevan found. This charity might know something about the fire … Do you know where it is?”
He slows the rickshaw down, and I push the poster toward him.
“Yes … but listen”—he gives it back to me—“it is so dark, so late … Come to my home. Lakshmi will look after you and then tomorrow you can find it … Is it an idea?”
Everything comes crashing down, the exhaustion of the brutal weeks at the dump finally ripping into my spirit. “Yes,” I murmur, covering my face with my hands, tears escaping through my fingers. “Can you take us home, please?”
I can feel Jeevan’s thin arm around me, but everything else is like a terrible nightmare. The inside of the taxi feels unreal, like I’m sleepwalking, with all the animals climbing off the cushions … Then they fade away and I can’t hear or see anything other than a deep, deep darkness, like a noiseless cave in the depths of a turbulent sea.
When I wake, my clothes feel soft and smell of washing powder. Someone’s changed me into pajamas and I’m tucked into a small wooden bed. Cries of parakeets squawk through an open window. As I prop myself up on my elbow I notice a fringe of green banana leaves poking into the room.
Then I drag it all back—the dump, the factory … Papa!
A rap on the door makes me jump as it springs open and a large woman dressed in a bright blue sari stands in the doorway.
“I’m Lakshmi … Raj’s wife,” she says, smiling. “I’ve brought you some fruit and something to drink.” She stretches over to rearrange the covers, lifting me gently so I’m sitting upright.
“My papa!”
“Shhh,” she says, putting her finger to her lips. “No need to speak.”
She passes her hand over my short, clean hair and fusses over me.
“The other children have told me all about you.” She spoons pieces of orange into my mouth. “And all about that disgusting junkyard.”
“Th-they’re all here?” I let the fruit slip down whole without tasting anything. I know that Lakshmi’s only being kind but I don’t want to hear any more, I just want to get out and find Papa.
Jeevan bursts into the room. “Asha … Raj and Lakshmi run the
