Quarter Year

In the station he rose and followed a man to a ticket counter where others stood. He waited for them to finish. Hand prints smeared the window. A customer walked away and two more slid in and another man pressed against the counter. Mike waited patiently behind, above them. A dark man with fresh-smelling hair shouldered Mike’s ribs and nudged him farther back, so he was now separated from the counter by a crowd. Victoria station would not suffocate the young traveler, he was determined. Mike grew into his frame, his wide shoulders and thick chest. He was much larger than the Indian men. He leaned into each shift of the crowd and carved a path to the front.

Later, on the ground again, Mike stared beyond his book at a child’s dirty toes wiggling at him from bare feet. She held out an open hand. He ignored the beggar and he ignored the metallic ache that arrived in his ribs and coiled there. She stood for a minute, hand out, looking at a strand of brown hair curled over Mike’s pink ear.

Bombay is fine during the day, but I haven’t gotten used to the night. I feel so vulnerable then. Really, at night, I wonder whether I’ll make it three months, and at dusk I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I pine to see Westerners; I understand why blacks in the US say there’s a race problem – when you’re the minority it’s so apparent and jarring. Each day feels like a week, that, honestly, I just want to be over. The poverty here is relentless and my wealth is relentless and I can’t close my eyes on either. What am I supposed to do with this? What good is relative fortune? I can pose all the theories I want about giving to beggars but when I shut the hotel door I’d better have it sorted out because I’m tested before I reach the street. Were I brave enough to be vulnerable I’d talk with locals and justify this travel, but I only talk to beggars. I tell them, “No,” because I don’t know what else to say.

The dirty toes turned away and she walked like a ghost with her hands down. What haunts that girl’s body is the want for little and the expectation of nothing. If only she’d be at peace, he thought. The ache smoldered.

He looked past his book now into the eyes of an Indian man suddenly seated on the ground in front of him. The beggar didn’t extend his hand; he examined Mike’s blue eyes. The man’s black hair curled over his dark ears and he looked strong in his frame with wide shoulders and thick chest, though his legs had been cut off below the knees. Crutches lay beside him. Mike knew the man was 25-years-old, and they studied each other.