Children of the Wolf

  “Do not worry, Mohandas,” he said, taking my chin in his hand and slowly forcing my face up toward his. I stared into his bright blue eyes. “Do not worry. They will say more. One’s name, it is thought, is the first thing learned and the last forgot. Names are powerful, my boy. That is why in the Bible God hides from Moses His own ineffable name.”

  The blue eyes were as wide as pools. I felt myself drowning in them. I blinked several times.

  Mr. Welles patted my head. “My boy, my boy, these two babes of the wood shall be your special charge now. Since they have spoken only to you, they have—for whatever reason—singled you out. You must write in your English journal about them so that when they begin to tell their great and wonderful story, we shall have it all set down.”

  “I have already begun writing of them,” I said, the words, as usual, difficult to say.

  “Good boy,” Mr. Welles answered. He turned from me and sat down behind his desk, took out his pipe and began the long ritual of lighting it. “Will you let me see what you have written?”

  “It is…it is in cipher,” I said, all my shame welling up. I was certain he could see the lies.

  “If I give you another book, will you translate it for me—the part about the wolf-girls only?” His brief smile stumbled across his mouth again.

  I nodded, Indian style, somewhere between yes and no, and did not even attempt to smile back.

  THE GILLIE

  AMALA AND KAMALA. IT is strange how those two took up my days. I was rarely with Rama and the other children except at meals, and I did not miss them, although until the arrival of the wolf-girls they had been my only companions. Instead I followed the wolf-children around, followed as closely as I dared, watching as they crawled or scuttled around the compound, in the part of the courtyard shaded by the giant jackfruit tree.

  Their loincloths were continually soiled with dirt and dog droppings and their own untended filth. As fast as Mrs. Welles changed them, she was never fast enough. and I was not allowed to do that office for them. Yet I found that their filth did not offend me. Amala and Kamala were like infants or baby animals, blissfully unaware that what they did might wrinkle the noses of fastidious human beings.

  Indira openly mocked them. Rama made his abhorrence clear by the way he walked around them, never looking directly at them, not even letting his eyes slide toward the corner they had made their own. But the open hatred of Indira and Rama and the others did not trouble me. I simply did not care what they thought. Amala and Kamala had been put in my charge. I was Mr. Welles’ gillie, eager for my duties.

  After a while the wolf-girls became used to me. I was a part of their surroundings, and they accepted me as they accepted their dish of food or the lantana bushes or the gate that shut them away from the gardens.

  By the second week of my gilliehood, the little one, Amala, came onto my lap. I was sitting quietly near them, and suddenly, without warning, she bounded playfully up to me and settled herself on my outstretched legs. She was very light. Carefully I patted her head, then her bare shoulder. Neither girl would yet accept the cotton shift without ripping it off, though they tolerated the loincloths, which were firmly sewed, rather than pinned or tied, into place.

  Amala began to hum under her breath, a sound that was part purr and part tune. She shoved her face under my arm, sniffing and snuggling—the kind of thing I had seen her do with her sister, the most basic animal communication.

  I ran my hand along her backbone. It was knobby and bumpy, full of ridges. There were scars, too, all along her back.

  Suddenly she became wet and, without thinking, I shoved her off my lap. She lifted her face to mine, and though there was little expression there, she managed to look hurt and scurried back to the wall. But she was to come up to me and snuggle frequently after that. Wet or dry, she made no distinction, though I tried to teach her the difference.

  Kamala, though, retained a certain aloofness, a kind of quiet dignity. She felt—I am sure of it—that she resided in that gulf between animal and human. She seemed puzzled by it, moving her head from side to side, considering. Often I would look at her as she rested, head on arm. Unlike Amala, who had moments of great playfulness mixed with long hours of sleep, Kamala was almost always alert, her eyes open and interested in everything. There were wrinkle lines on her forehead, as though she were thinking about how she was different from the dogs and different, as well, from me.

  I helped her the only way I could. I would creep on hands and knees to within a foot of her and sit silently for a long, still moment until she was no longer restive. I would say my name, say hers, in a clear but gentle voice, then pat the ground.

  “Mohandas,” I said, pointing to my chest.

  “Kamala,” I answered myself, pointing to her, adding in a fair imitation of Mr. Welles’ voice, “Everything has a name.” Then, patting the ground beside me, I would end, “Home. Home.”

  Her forehead would wrinkle again, and she would blink, but she did not speak.

  It was a strange time for me. The wolf-girls and I were left alone by the other children. Except for meals, which I still took with the others, and high tea under the ansh tree, and brief chats with Rama at bedtime about insignificant things, I led a separate life. I wrote down what I saw and read it out loud to Mr. Welles each evening. If he was distressed at the slow progress the wolf-children made, he did not say, and he did not ask again about their ability to speak. He listened with a quiet concentration, smoking his pipe, his forehead as wrinkled as Kamala’s, as I read, and only once or twice commented on my grammar or corrected my sentences in a perfunctory way.

  The weeks of the dry season passed quickly, but the monsoon did not start until June fourth. Then we were all forced to stay indoors much of the time, listening to the battering rain shake the orphanage roof. Our gardens turned into jungles and every night it was hard to sleep because of the sweet, cloying scent of jasmine that covered us like an unwanted blanket. On the east side of the house the acres of mango and jackfruit and palm blossomed. The coleus and poinsettias overflowed their earthenware tubs. Only the section of English flowers, which Mr. Welles tended so carefully—violets and nasturtiums and phlox—suffered in the rain and heat, turning brown or growing in wild and irregular straggles of stem, leaf, and flower.

  Amala and Kamala stayed out in the compound under a sheltering roof, but whenever the rains stopped, they would leave their little net-covered lean-to to lie outside, a rain cloud of mosquitoes buzzing over their heads.

  Amala began to sleep more and more. She stopped eating, drank but little. After two days of it I spoke fearfully to Mrs. Welles.

  “She does not wake up,” I said.

  “It is this rain,” said Mrs. Welles, dabbing at her forehead with a handkerchief and sighing. Everything in the house seemed damp. “How the good Lord made a country with such weather is beyond me. I have always wondered that you Indians have prospered at all. Weeks of battering rains, months of stifling heat.”

  “She has not awakened at all today,” I repeated.

  Mrs. Welles looked down at me. “Not at all, Mohandas? Are you sure?”

  “Not once,” I said, only slightly exaggerating. Amala had looked up—once. Her eyes had been glazed over. I did not think she had recognized me.

  Mrs. Welles hesitated no longer, but gave a running commentary on her own faults as she saw them as we strode along the corridor. “I should not have left their care so much to you, Mohandas, but there were the accounts to do. And the quarter-year report to help Mr. Welles with. Oh, you have done well, and you have been infinitely patient with the wolf-children. I would not have thought it possible of an adolescent boy. But you are a boy. And a native at that, for all you are intelligent and a Christian now. But I should have set aside the reports. Oh, Mohandas, she has not waked once?”

  Amala was awake when we got to the wall. She was moaning and thrashing convulsively. Mrs. Welles picked her up and carried her into the house. Amala was so weak she did
not seem to notice.

  Kamala followed us to the doorway. The sound of her howling protest followed us down the hall.

  Mrs. Welles brought Amala into the sickroom and laid her down in one of the cribs.

  “Quick, fetch Mr. Welles,” she said. Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “And some ice from Cook.” She looked down at Amala and shook her head.

  Suddenly I was afraid. I ran swiftly to Mr. Welles’ study, practicing what I would say, and so great was my worry I entered without knocking. He looked up, surprised at my intrusion.

  “Mohandas!”

  “Your lady wife bids you come at once,” I said. “To the sickroom. It is Amala.”

  “The younger one?” he asked, rising.

  I nodded. “Ice,” I managed, my voice breaking on that single word. Then I turned and ran down the hallway, turned right and then right again into the kitchen. Behind me, I knew, the other children were gathering. I could hear their bare feet pattering along the floor.

  Cook was sitting in the rocking chair Mrs. Welles had given her as a peace offering, a gift to make her stay despite the burden of the wolf-children. Cook took many rockings during her day now, and meals were even scantier and less appetizing than before. She looked up as I ran in, but only the widening of her eyes showed she was disturbed.

  “Mrs. Welles needs ice,” I said.

  She grunted and gestured with her hand toward the icehouse outside, signaling me to get it myself.

  I went through the door. It was raining again, but I ran quickly to the little house that lay under the mounds of dirt insulation. Until I had come to The Home, I had never seen ice. Opening the door, I was engulfed in the cool air. I coughed, and my breath plumed out before me. I took the ice pick from its hook on the wall and managed to chip off several large pieces, which I wrapped with some linen cloth hanging by the door.

  I raced back to the sickroom, trailed by most of the children.

  Mr. Welles was there. And Rama. There was now a stick of incense burning in the holder by the door. From outside came the sound of Kamala’s ceaseless howls and the patter of rain.

  Taking the ice from me, Mrs. Welles spoke to the three of us, her former mood of self-condemnation gone. “Mohandas, you must go outside and do what you can to comfort that child. She knows something is wrong, though I doubt she understands. Rama, you must run into town and fetch Dr. Singh. Hurry! David, my dear, I will need your help. We must bathe her with ice to bring down the fever until the doctor gets here. She is burning up. And we must get liquids down her, too. Barley water will be best.”

  No one moved.

  “Now!” said Mrs. Welles.

  Rama leaped away, and I, with a backward glance at the huddled figure in the crib, pushed through the knot of children at the door.

  “Is she dying?” asked Indira, her eyes glittering.

  I did not answer her with words; my look was enough. She scattered the others with the same sounds and hand movements she used to chase the guinea fowl from their eggs. I ignored them and went outside.

  When Kamala saw me coming, she scampered back to her hut and was quiet for a moment. Then, when she realized I did not have Amala with me, her howls began anew, and I felt, with a longing so intense it burned in my chest, that I wanted to howl along with her.

  KAMALA ALONE

  DR. SINGH CAME AND stayed all night, and Mr. and Mrs. Welles kept watch with him.

  As the oldest boys, Rama and I were ordered to take turns being the runners for whatever the doctor might need, but Rama, after waiting up the first hours, woke me and spoke urgently.

  “I will help those evil creatures no longer,” he said. “She whimpers like a dog, and the other one howls.” His eyes looked haunted.

  I stared at the floor as I answered him. “I will do it all.”

  He had the good grace not to thank me.

  And so it happened that I was the only child who kept the long vigil. Twice I was actually sent to fetch something—once for a fresh basin of water and once for more ice. The rest of the time I crouched, unnoticed, in the corner of the sickroom and watched while Dr. Singh bent over Amala, ministering to her. She lay knees to chin, sweat beading her body. Mrs. Welles bathed her frequently with the ice water, and Mr. Welles read psalms from the Bible and begged God not to let the little miracle die.

  Occasionally Amala convulsed, her arms and hands and legs reaching out in shaking spasms. Then it took all three of them to hold her. At each convulsion, Kamala outside the sickroom window set up a tremendous howling, and I, too, shook in response.

  Mr. Welles said sharply each time, “Go to her, Mohandas. Keep her quiet. Her howls are frightening this little one,” although it was quite clear by then to all of us that Amala was long past caring or hearing.

  I ran outside and sat as close to Kamala as I dared, crooning, “It will be all right, Kamala. It will be all right. Mohandas promises, everything will be all right.”

  But it was not all right. Amala died before dawn.

  Dr. Singh’s pronouncement was cold and clinical. “Worms,” he said. “And dysentery, which has led to dehydration. Possibly nephritis as well. And goodness knows what else.” He wiped his hands on a towel as he spoke, then rubbed sleep from his eyes. His pointed beard waggled as he talked.

  The incense burning fitfully did little to disguise the smell of sickness and death or the sharp odor of disinfectant in the room.

  The other children were up and crowding into the doorway. Indira and Veda cried noisily, and Preeti, head cocked to one side, sniffled. Krithi and the other little ones merely stared. Rama had no readable expression on his face. But Cook, who bullied her way into the room, looked slightly pleased, as if to say, “I told you so.”

  “And the other one?” Mr. Welles asked, gesturing outside with his head.

  Kamala would not let the doctor near her until Rama held her legs and I her arms. Dr. Singh examined her teeth and her throat and listened to her chest.

  “Remarkable,” he said. “Remarkable,” though he did not say why. He left sulfa powder for the worms.

  “I would bury the child’s body as soon as possible because of the danger of infection. And away from here,” he said, looking pointedly at Kamala.

  “Oh, yes, yes,” Mrs. Welles said to him. “She digs up the dogs’ buried bones, you know.” Then, as if shocked at what she had just suggested, Mrs. Welles held her handkerchief to her mouth and sobbed.

  “We will bury her in the churchyard,” Mr. Welles assured him.

  They left the house and walked Dr. Singh to the gate under the protection of umbrellas. It was like a small funeral procession, the nodding black canopies marking the pace.

  I went back to the sickroom. Amala still lay on the crib mattress. Some part of me had been sure she was still alive, but she had not moved. She lay straight in her death as she had never lain in her life.

  I heard footsteps behind me as I began to cry. Turning, I saw it was Mr. Welles.

  “Perhaps,” I said, stumbling over the words, “we should never have taken them from the jungle.”

  “Nonsense, Mohandas,” he answered sternly, his voice slightly ragged with emotion, “they are humans, not animals, and therefore possess a soul. It is our duty to see that their souls glorify God.”

  I looked over at the pathetic corpse laid out in the crib. I saw no glory there.

  Amala was buried by the carters at noon, and none of us was allowed to witness it.

  Though Kamala’s face was devoid of emotion, she spent the rest of the day ranging through the compound in obvious distress, sniffing places that her sister had frequented. When Mrs. Welles served her food, she only picked at it, though she drank the barley water, which Mrs. Welles had liberally laced with more of the worming medication. By evening she had stomach cramps and sat with her arms cupped around her belly, moaning. The next morning she passed a great mass of wormy stool with large red roundworms as thick as my little finger.

  Mr. Welles rejoiced a
t that. He called us out to inspect it.

  “Look, children, she is expelling her animal nature. Soon you will see a great change in her.”

  Exhausted by crying and by the continual pounding of the rains, I went to sleep that night much earlier than usual, but I was awakened around midnight by a strange, forlorn sound. It was not the sound of dholes, the wild dogs, on the hunt, though it had that same eerie quality. It was Kamala crying as she had done the first few nights after she had been brought to The Home. The sound went on and on and on.

  I tried putting the pillow over my ears, but managed to muffle the noise only slightly. I wondered that she had not awakened the entire household. At last I got out of bed, climbed over the windowsill, and dropped into the compound.

  The rain had stopped for a while, leaving an uncomfortable heavy mist and the profusion of flower smells. A thin, pale moon shone down.

  As my feet touched the ground, the clock in Mr. Welles’ study started chiming the hour.

  Kamala lifted her head at my coming.

  I stopped several feet away from her and squatted, waiting as usual for her to become used to me before venturing closer.

  No sooner had I settled on my heels than she crawled toward me and laid her head on my knees, making a sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh.

  Very slowly I reached out and patted her head.

  She did not move away.

  I let my hand rest on her head for a minute, counting the seconds under my breath. Then I moved my hand to her shoulder. Her skin trembled under my fingers.

  She breathed loudly once more, then suddenly sat up and stared at me, not into my eyes but taking in my face and body with a long glance.

  I did not dare move, but I could feel the tears once again welling up in my eyes as I thought of little Amala lying dead in the crib.

  Kamala’s face was in shadow, though I could see the blue glint of her night-shining eyes. The moon lit my face, and the tears must have glistened on my cheeks.