For now, though, Amita seemed to be one of the leaders of this little group. She was whispering something to the skinny young boy next to her, a boy whose name, I would learn, was Dirgha. Dirgha, whose notable front teeth reminded me of Bugs Bunny, was despondent and stared at the dirt, drawing small shapes with a stick.
We sat and stared at one another for maybe twenty minutes. There was not much else to do. I had learned a kind of patience in Nepal that did not come naturally to me. There is less stimulation, fewer pressures to get things done, and the people in Nepal have a peaceful way about them that allows them to sit, quietly, for long periods of time, staring out at fields, or at their livestock, or at their infant children playing on the porch.
Wanting to interact with the children but not wanting to scare them off, I took a walk in the field beside the shack. The wheat field was small—about half the size of a football field—and bare. The mother had been stacking hay. As I suspected, the children followed me, though at a safe distance. When I turned around, they stopped their low chatter and froze, like a game I used to play as a child that we called Red Light, Green Light. I would start walking again, and each time turn around more quickly. After a few times they realized we were playing a game. Amita cracked a smile. It was hugely rewarding, despite the fact that the moment Dirgha saw that he was meant to be having fun, he returned to the shack, picked up his stick, and once again began drawing in the dirt.
Farid came back two hours later with Navin. The boy’s finger was now in a clean, tightly wound white bandage. We said good-bye to Krish and Nuraj’s mother and waved to the children. Only Amita waved back. We caught one of the buses on the Ring Road, leaping on as it slowed down enough for us to catch it, and made the ninety-minute commute back to Godawari.
Every few days we brought food to Krish and Nuraj’s mother and the seven children. The children warmed to us. On our third visit they ran to greet us. Dirgha still stayed behind in the shack. He kept his hands jammed in the pockets of his ragged pants as if to prove his point, dragging his bare feet through the dirt and rarely looking up.
I had brought along my small digital camera on the third trip. After leaving a sack of vegetables near the doorway, I took a few dozen photos of the children as they clowned around. I didn’t tell them what I was doing; they had never seen a camera before, and it was easier to get candid shots. In contrast, when the kids at Little Princes saw the camera come out, they would race to press their faces against the lens, ensuring that the majority of my photos were of Hriteek’s cheek or Nishal’s hairline. But eventually the seven became curious. They stood on their tiptoes and tried to see what I was looking at on the tiny screen.
On our fourth visit, I took out my camera again. The children were playing on a small haystack in the field. Dirgha, as usual, was sitting on a small pile of bricks at the side of the house, tying long blades of grass together, end to end, and holding them up, like a prayer flag strung between his two tiny arms. I walked over to him. He looked up at me and looked back down, defiant, concentrating on his task. I pointed the camera at his face, two feet away. His face filled the screen. I took the close-up. Then I turned the camera around, a few feet away from him, so he could see the mysterious little screen.
He couldn’t resist. He stood up and walked toward me, still sullen lest I think he was enjoying himself. He peered down at the screen. And his eyes widened. From behind me I heard excited shouts and the patter of bare feet across the dirt. The mystery was being revealed. The others plowed into me like a freeway pileup, cramming their heads together to see the screen. A second of silence as they took it in, then shouts. Those shouts became shrieks of glee. Amita was shaking Dirgha with breathless excitement, telling him what he did not yet understand. The picture on the screen was him—this was what he looked like.
It had not occurred to me that the boy had likely never seen his own face. He had come from a village with no mirrors, no glass, no reflective surfaces at all. As the others howled with delight and begged to have their own photos taken, Dirgha gripped the camera tightly and gazed at himself. For the first time, a toothy smile spread across his face.
Dirgha was never shy again. He was still defiant, but in small, almost adorable ways. When Amita, little tomboy that she was, found an old plastic ball, she decided we would play catch. She took a long running start and skidded to a stop three feet away from me and threw the ball with every ounce of strength she possessed. Dirgha, standing near me and evidently eager to impress his fellow seven-year-old, leaped to intercept the ball, presumably just to show that he was still in charge. It sailed through his hands and into mine. He turned to me, furious in his frustration, and stamped his foot. He sat down, arms crossed. Another boy to remind me of my younger self. I went to throw the ball back to Amita but pretended to drop it, right next to Dirgha. He pounced dramatically, as if athletic prowess alone had allowed him to steal the ball. He leaped up and was all smiles again. He even threw it back to me, a sympathetic toss so that I would still feel included. I gave him a grateful nod.
I looked forward to my visits with the seven children. The children at Little Princes were like brothers and sisters; going back to them felt like going home to family. But for the seven children, there were no volunteers. They had been abandoned. Nobody was looking out for them, sending them to school, collecting donations for them, reading them bedtime stories. They were not protected by any organization. These seven were off the radar, and in this country that meant they were at risk of not surviving.
So we still had reason to worry. Nepal’s political situation was getting worse. The Maoists were speaking openly of an uprising, of bringing the monarchy to an end no matter what the cost. Revolution was brewing. If there was a prolonged bandha, as rumors said, we would be unable to get food to the children. We needed a permanent solution if the children were going to survive.
With the country deteriorating around us, Farid and I worked with an urgency we had not had before. We looked for children’s homes to take the seven children to, but found none. We had underestimated how awful the situation was for trafficked and displaced children; every organization was already overcrowded. I was sympathetic—we had just taken in two more children at Little Princes, and only because they were the younger brothers of two of our boys (Santosh’s younger brother and the little brother of a boy named Mahendra). We were now at maximum capacity, twenty children; taking in any more would put us in violation of children’s home codes that limited the number of children per square meter of space. We could not take the risk. We needed another solution, fast.
My return plane ticket was for April 4, 2006. I could not have known it when I chose that date, but that would be the day that foreign nationals would be clamoring at the airport to get on any plane leaving the country. The Maoists had called for a large-scale bandha to run from April 5 to 9, with the threat that it would continue indefinitely until the king was ousted. It was now the end of March, and we were running out of time. Through my friend Devendra, a young Nepali guy who worked at CERV Nepal, the organization through which I had first volunteered, I set up a meeting with the head of the Child Welfare Board, a man named Gyan Bahadur. Devendra had cautioned me that Gyan Bahadur was quite possibly the busiest man in Kathmandu; but if we could be at the CERV offices in Thamel at 1:00 P.M. on Thursday, Gyan would try to meet us.
Farid and I arrived early. We were asked to wait in one of the small meeting rooms with cushions on the floor. Devendra came in thirty minutes later with a message from Gyan. He was running late. Could we meet at 4:00 P.M. instead? Farid and I went to a nearby local restaurant that served an excellent tandoori chicken—one of the things we craved almost daily in Godawari. We sat on the rooftop terrace of the restaurant and talked for the next few hours, brainstorming about strategies for the children, trading gossip about the political situation, and just sitting quietly, watching the river of people below, noting how few tourists there were at what sh
ould have been the height of the trekking season. Even the ones we spotted were getting into taxis with their bags and heading off in the direction of the airport. The world was leaving Nepal to its war. Soon we would be forced to do the same.
Back at CERV, Gyan Bahadur sat across from us on a cushion on the floor. Next to him sat Devendra, who had grown up in Bistachhap, the village near Godawari where we had had our initial orientation week. More important, he knew the situation with the seven children and wanted to help.
“Conor-ji, Farid-ji, it is my pleasure to meet you,” said Gyan, using the formal suffix to greet us. “How can I be of assistance to you?”
I told Gyan about Little Princes, about Golkka, about the seven children, about our current dilemma. He listened intently, never interrupting, never revealing any emotion.
“Conor sir,” he said when I gave a clear indication that I was finished. “Thank you for sharing this. I was very eager to hear your and Farid sir’s opinion. I am well aware of the activities of Golkka. As you have guessed, there are many more children besides your twenty children and the seven you have found near the Ring Road. I have been tracking this man for two years now. It is my estimate that he has trafficked close to four hundred children.”
He must have seen the astonishment on my face because he nodded at me as if to agree that this was the appropriate reaction.
“As you may be thinking, it is very difficult to arrest this man,” he continued. “Once before, he was arrested. He has very powerful relations, they allowed him to be free after three days. Evidence is not strong against him, not for Nepal system,” Gyan said with a sad smile. “But what you say gives me some hope. These children are evidence, in a way. They are evidence that he mistreats children, that he leaves them to starve, to die. Perhaps these children will be evidence enough to arrest Golkka. To stop him from taking more Humli children.”
Gyan stood up. “I am very sorry, I must go,” he said, looking at his watch. “You are looking for a home for these seven—I understand you correctly?”
“That’s right, yes, sir. And I leave in three days,” I told him.
“Then it must be done quickly, I think. You both should leave Nepal soon, before violence begins. I fear it will begin soon. And we must find protection for these seven. This is our top mission, the three of us, am I correct?” he said to Farid and me.
“It would be very good, yes,” Farid answered. “Nobody can take the seven children. I have called many places. It has been very difficult for the children—they are very young.” I could hear him struggling to control his emotions.
Gyan picked up his motorcycle helmet and tapped it lightly against his chin, thinking. At last he said, “Tomorrow or next day you will get a phone call. You will have a home for the seven children.”
With that, he pressed his hands together to bid us farewell, shook hands with Devendra, and walked quickly out to his motorcycle, kicking it to life before taking off, weaving between pedestrians.
Two days later the phone rang. I had never heard of the Umbrella Foundation. But when I did, it sounded like some kind of divine gift to the children of Nepal. Umbrella was founded by a woman named Viva Bell, a lovely Northern Irish woman who had been living in Kathmandu for fourteen years. Her partner, Jacky Buk, a Frenchman, with a rugged face and wild, gray, half-dreadlocked hair, ran the organization’s day-to-day operations. Together, they had under their care more than 150 children in four children’s homes, all next door to each other, in Kathmandu. Viva told me that Gyan had asked her to call me, that I had something to ask her.
“So then, what’s all this about a favor, Conor?” she asked in a thick Irish accent that reminded me of my summers in Ireland with my father.
I told her the abbreviated version of the story of the seven children. I concluded by assuring her, “We will of course be very happy to pay all their expenses, but I wasn’t sure if you might possibly have enough space for—”
Viva didn’t even let me finish.
“Sure we’d love to have ’em!” she said. “Just tell us where they are, we’ll round them up!”
I was unable to speak for a moment. When I did, I found my throat blocked by an enormous lump. I took a breath before saying, stupidly and instinctively, “Are you sure? Because I wouldn’t want to put you out at all—”
“Now don’t go gettin’ all polite and American on me, Conor, you’ve been here too long to do that. We’ll take the children, you’ve done very well to keep them safe this long. They’ll be grand with us—sure they’ll have a blast with the other kiddies!”
I stared out the window for several minutes after we had hung up. Then I found Farid on the roof, talking with some of the older kids.
“We found them a home,” I said, speaking over the heads of the growing boys.
“That’s good—how many can they take?” Farid asked, braced for disappointment.
“All seven.”
Farid said nothing at first. Then he shook his head in amazement. “That is very, very good news, Conor.”
The next day I gathered the children together to say good-bye to them. As was the custom, they had given me flowers and tikkas to stick to my forehead to wish me a safe journey. As I expected, they asked when I would return.
“In one year, yes, Brother?” asked Anish. “Same like last time, yes?”
I told them the truth. I told them I loved Nepal, I loved spending time with them and living here in the village. But I had to go home, and I would likely not be able to make it back for a few years, when they were all much bigger. I had to start a new career. I was completely broke, and I had to buy food and rent a home.
“And get married, yes, Brother?” said Santosh, smiling.
“Uh—yeah. Well, no—not really, to be honest. I think you will be married before me, Santosh,” I said, happy that the children took this as a joke.
Then the children started with a chorus of “What about me, Brother? You will be married before me?” and I had to go through the whole list of children, all the way down to assuring Raju that yes, even he would probably be married before me.
I waved good-bye to the children, not wanting to prolong it any longer. They were in good hands. We had a contingency plan in place at Little Princes for when we had no volunteers—it had happened before, a year earlier, when Farid had to return to France for a month when his visa expired. At those times, our Nepali staff would take over. Hari would stay at the house during the day, together with Bagwati and Nanu, our washing didi who lived next door. At night, Bagwati stayed with them. Hari, Bagwati, and Nanu had proven themselves a highly capable staff. They also had the support of the entire village, who watched out for the kids as they ran through the dirt paths and fields. The staff would take over for us when Farid left in a week. The older boys would have to take on more responsibility, getting the younger boys ready for school, for example. But, as always, I told myself, I had to trust that the children would be fine.
Farid walked me to the road to wait for the bus. He wished me a safe journey home and a nice time seeing my family, and he promised to let me know if he heard anything about the Umbrella Foundation picking up the seven children. He reassured me that they would be okay—they had survived for this long, they had enough food to last three weeks, let alone a few days. If it got bad, we could ask Hari to bring them more. All this made sense to me, I knew it was true. Still, it was good to hear it from Farid.
“I hope you can get your flight out, Farid. It is going to get ugly—I hope you get transportation,” I said. He laughed.
“This is Nepal, Conor. I take what it gives me,” he said.
My last view of Nepal was the Himalayan range, eye level with my window seat. I very much hoped I would see it again someday.
Part III
SEVEN NEEDLES IN A HAYSTACK
April 2006-November 2006
Three
&nbs
p; Stepping off the plane in Newark, New Jersey, the first familiar face I saw was my mother’s. As always, she was standing in the front row of the crowd, leaning into the railing, scanning the faces of the tired travelers emerging through the sliding doors. I saw her before she saw me; her face serious, her hands gripping the railing, eyes checking the screen to confirm that the flight from Delhi was—yes, there it was—on time. She recognized me instantly, never mind that my clothes hung off my skinny frame, that my hair had been hacked short, that I had not shaved in a month. Her eyes lit up and I knew what she would shout “Yes! Woo hoo!” startling the small Indian woman next to her. After all these years, her reaction still embarrassed me. But maybe this time it embarrassed me a little less than before.
We drove home to Jersey City, past the New York skyline. My mom first asked about the children, all of whom she knew by name from my e-mails home. Nepal was in the news, she told me. To prove it, she turned on National Public Radio. Sure enough, within fifteen minutes there was an update about Nepal. I soon realized that my mother knew far more than I did about the political situation in the country. She had absorbed every bit of information she could find. For ten minutes she gave me a rundown of everything that had happened, of the Maoist attacks and the Royal Nepalese Army’s counterattacks, of journalists being thrown in prison and citizens being beaten down by both sides.
She stopped in front of our house in Jersey City, turned off the car, and we sat quietly for a moment.