Ganesh Page 13

  Slowly the girl left the porch and joined her mother, who without looking back led her firmly by the elbow down the walk. At the gate Mrs. Hoving said, “I will sign a petition on your behalf!”

  Mrs. Hoving turned briskly on her heels and led Ruth away.

  Ganesh had never seen his aunt so fiery, so exercised by anything. Her face, diffused by the ruddiness of anger, looked younger. Watching her stride into the yard alone, he followed and in a few minutes joined her.

  “Did Mr. Hoving owe Uncle Henry money?” he asked.

  Aunt Betty, bending to smell a yellow rose in a flower bed, turned and smiled grimly. “He sure did — and never paid. He was a young mechanic who wanted to start his own garage. Though it would compete with Henry’s, Henry wanted to help him out. Now this woman has the audacity to come here and claim she wants to help me! Sign a petition? Respect Henry? That woman and that man? They thought he was weak because he was generous.” Aunt Betty cleared her throat to make a declaration. “We are going to fight for this house. Henry lived in this house for years; he loved it too!”

  Uncle Henry. And Father. Some people didn’t care about handling money with caution, but just the same, they endured in the memory of people who had loved them. Uncle Henry had given his aunt the strength to stand up against Mrs. Hoving. From now on, Ganesh figured, his aunt would not waver in defense of the house. She moved with the power of two.

  *

  They decided to post nightly guards. It was Tom’s idea, since the Satyagraha was in a sense a military operation. Having stood the first duty and then relinquishing the porch to Tom, Ganesh trudged upstairs to his room, which the two boys shared. Through the open window he could hear the rustling of poplars, the ticking of oak limbs against the side of the old house. His house. The house of many people, then and now. Tonight more than a dozen were sleeping within its walls. That was how his great-grandfather had designed the house: to contain many! It was the Indian way with a house too. When he used to stay overnight with Rama, more than a dozen had been there.

  Getting up, he walked over to the desk and peered through the moonlight at the elephant-headed god. He did not pray or chant, but reached out and gently touched the bronze figure: Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles. Was this really happening? Were these American kids helping him defend a house against their own government? Then he lay down and fell quickly to sleep.

  *

  Tom suggested the next morning that Ganesh hold a Yoga class. Most of the kids wanted to try it, so Ganesh had them fan out on the lawn and taught them some basic positions, standing, sitting, and lying. While he gave instructions, he thought of Tom — not even Rama could have helped him more. Tom had understood that giving Yoga lessons was a way for Ganesh to show his appreciation to the Satyagrahis. A few months ago Ganesh would not have believed such a friend would appear in his new life. He was grateful to Tom, as he surveyed the kids trying Yoga.

  After the class, Lucy Smith approached him. “Listen, you better talk to your aunt. She stayed awake all night, sitting on the stairway, to protect us from you boys. We don’t need protecting from you guys, okay? We can do our own policing.”

  Having overheard her angry outburst, Tom Carrington laughed — and laughed harder at Ganesh’s confusion and embarrassment. “I guess Indian girls aren’t so independent, right?”

  Ganesh nodded vigorously. There had been few things harder to adjust to than this easygoing self-reliance in American girls. Back in the village the girls had spoken with quiet restraint, averted their eyes, moved silently in a room almost as if they were not there.

  A few minutes later Aunt Betty came onto the porch with a large tray full of paper plates and a serving dish of eggs and bacon. The kids cheered. When she came out the second time, however, bearing the tray with more food, looking puffy-eyed and frazzled from her sleepless night, Lucy Smith stood in her path and spoke sharply. “Mrs. Strepski, we are going to start helping in the kitchen.” It was a declaration. “And another thing, Mrs. Strepski. We girls will take care of ourselves.”

  The eyes of girl and woman met. Then Aunt Betty smiled. “Yes, I guess you can.”

  This exchange had scarcely ended before someone called out, “Here comes trouble again!”

  They all turned to watch the squad car pull up in front of the house. This time, when Chief Halstead got out, he was wearing a gun belt and dark glasses, giving him a more ominous look than on his first visit. At his side was a policeman dressed in the blue gray uniform of the State Police; he was even taller than Chief Halstead and wore a cowboy hat in the style of a Western marshal.

  The Satyagrahis stopped eating and put down their paper plates when the policemen reached the invisible wall about ten feet from the porch.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Strepski,” said Chief Halstead, both men doffing their caps. “This is Officer Baxter of the State Police.”

  “Good morning, ma’am.”

  Aunt Betty nodded at them and sat in the rusty swing; it went back and forth, thought Ganesh, with the grating sound of crows outside his window in the village.

  Chief Halstead searched for Ganesh, who came forward and took his favorite position on the top step. “Well, Jeffrey, what do you have to say this morning?” the chief said jovially.

  “The same as yesterday, sir.”

  This caused the policeman to frown; he glanced at his companion, as if to say: “This is the kid I told you about.”

  The State Police officer repeated everything that had been said yesterday about the eviction order. “You,” he concluded, looking at Aunt Betty hard, “are in fact now trespassing on state property.”

  “Sir,” began Ganesh, “this is the house where my aunt and father were born. My great-grandfather built it with his own two hands.”

  The officer ignored Ganesh, keeping his eyes fixed on the woman in the swing. “I think Chief Halstead has given you until noon to vacate. You will be gone then.”

  “No, sir,” said Ganesh from the top step.

  The state policeman turned to Chief Halstead. “His name is Jeffrey?”

  The chief nodded solemnly.

  “Jeffrey,” said the state officer, “we have the authority to carry you out.”

  “Carry us out,” said Ganesh with a bland smile, “and none of us will be eating.”

  The state officer smiled too. “Yes, that’s what you told Chief Halstead yesterday.”

  “And still am meaning today.” Ganesh moved his legs into the full lotus position, giving himself stability, sending his spine by imagination down, down, down into the earth like an oil drill.

  “You’re going to a lot of trouble for nothing,” the state officer said glumly.

  “Not for nothing, sir. You can leave this house and still be having your road, can’t you?”

  “Tell ’em again what we’ll do,” whispered Tom, who had seated himself directly behind Ganesh.

  “We will eat nothing until the government is listening,” said Ganesh. “We will take only water and maybe some bicarbonate of soda. But nothing more.” He took a deep decisive breath. “We will start this noon.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Chief Halstead, with a faint but perplexed smile.

  “At noon we have our last meal, don’t we. No more food until the government is listening.”

  The officers stared at him a moment, then Chief Halstead stepped forward, hands in his back pockets, studying the kids through his dark glasses.

  Suddenly he pointed a thick finger at a small girl. It was Helen Soderstrom, who was a member of the debating team but otherwise rarely spoke. “You,” he said. “Will you stop eating like he says?”

  Every eye turned to her. Helen had a small mouth, a birthmark on her chin. She didn’t weigh a hundred pounds and stood less than five feet. Helen’s lips trembled, but in a barely audible voice she said, “Yes, officer.”

  He thundered, “I can’t hear you!”

  Her blue eyes blinked rapidly. In a louder voice she said, “Yes, I will!”<
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  For a moment Chief Halstead absorbed that defeat, then walked alongside the porch, studying the faces. “You,” he pointed.

  “Yes!” another girl affirmed.

  “You!”

  “Yes!” a boy shouted.

  “You!”

  “Yes!”

  “You!”

  “Yes!”

  Throwing his arms up in a little gesture of frustration, Chief Halstead did not complete the roll call, but spun on his heel and angrily rejoined the other policeman on the cement walk. They conversed in whispers, then, without another word to the Satyagrahis, returned to the squad car. It moved away from the curb slowly.

  *

  “Do you mean it, Ganesh?” someone asked him at noon, when everyone congregated for lunch on the porch. “You aren’t going to eat after this?”

  Ganesh nodded casually, as if agreeing that the weather was good.

  “Neither is anybody else going to eat,” Tom said.

  “Count me out then,” declared Ron Merril, who was a plump, ruddy-faced boy. “I will sit here but I won’t fast. Not me.”

  “If you sit,” Ganesh said coolly, “you must fast.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Because the government must know we are all denying ourselves. That will show them we are serious.”

  No one commented for a long while. Then Ron Merril said in a low, exasperated voice, “Okay, I’ll give it a try. For a day.”

  Aunt Betty and two girls emerged from the house carrying paper plates of potato salad and hot dogs. Coming to Ganesh, a girl handed him a plate without hot dogs.

  He shook his head. “Please, I will have one of those too.”

  Everyone stared at him.

  Ganesh shrugged. “If you sit with me, I can be eating your food.” Soon he looked down at a hot dog steaming on his plate. Slowly, meticulously, cautiously, he cut through it and speared a bite-sized piece of frankfurter on his fork. With the same slow deliberation he lifted it to his mouth.

  Then with a little sigh of decision Ganesh opened his mouth and quickly popped the meat in — the first meat he had eaten in his life. For a few moments he didn’t chew — dared not — but then taking courage began tentatively to masticate. He forced his jaws to move against the yielding mass. The taste was strong and unappetizing, yet he chewed and chewed and finally, bracing himself and squinting his eyes, swallowed. Sweat broke out on his forehead at the effort it cost him to eat half a hot dog.

  “How did you like it?” Tom asked, with his own mouth full of meat.

  Ganesh tried to smile, but his discomfort was so obvious that some of the kids giggled in embarrassment.

  “You’re okay!” a boy exclaimed. It was the one who had angrily questioned Ganesh yesterday about declaring their determination to quit eating.

  “After this lunch,” Ron Merril said wistfully, “we have nothing but water?”

  “And bicarbonate of soda,” Ganesh said reassuringly, as if that solved everything.

  “Why that stuff?” someone asked.

  “Gandhi used it when he fasted because it helps settle an empty stomach.”

  “Didn’t Gandhi almost die fasting?” a girl asked.

  Ganesh nodded. It was something every Indian knew about their great national leader. “After a while when you fast, you burn up the fat of your body and start consuming protein. My father was telling me that.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You eat up your own body.”

  There was a long, thoughtful silence. “How long does it take to get to that?” someone else asked.

  “That is depending on health and age.” Ganesh glanced quickly at his aunt in the swing.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she declared. “I am going to fast. Remember, Jeffrey, you told me Gandhi fasted when he was in his late seventies, so I guess I can do it too.”

  That afternoon the Satyagrahis continued to lounge on the grass of the yard and play games. Some went inside to watch television. A few boys, including Tom, threw a football around. At intervals throughout the rest of the day, they called home to explain to their parents that they were staying on, at least for another night. No one mentioned the fast. They debated when it would be a good idea to make the fast public. Ganesh sat on the step smiling and listening. He did not tell them that until the fast was public it was of little use. “One thing at a time.” His father used to mutter those words when going into the fields to teach farmers about new agricultural methods.

  It was during the afternoon that they noticed a few people cruising past the house in slow-moving cars, sticking their heads out of the windows to stare at eleven kids and a middle-aged woman who were defying the law. Public notice began to affect the Satyagrahis. At the outset they had laughed and behaved the way they did during the school recesses; now with a solemn procession of onlookers passing the house, they became quiet, thoughtful. It was what Ganesh wanted. He knew from his father what they did not know: that the success of Satyagraha depended on absolute earnestness, total commitment, and the steadfast ability to suffer. Soon they would understand the consequences of their decision to help him, but not yet. He had eaten meat to become one of them. Now they were going to fast on his behalf. Something very important was beginning to happen between them and him. Ganesh remembered the funeral pyre, approaching it in the procession, his heart beating rapidly, a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, the hard set of his jaw. It was the same now: he was entering upon something new and difficult, but with the same resolution. As the afternoon waned, he glanced at one after another of the Satyagrahis. He had confronted the funeral pyre on his own, whereas now he had these people of his own age to help him confront a whole government. Never again would he feel lonely in America; not when such people lived here.

  *

  Next morning he held another Yoga class, but only about half participated, the rest admitting they felt sore — even Tom, who limped around the yard like a wounded stork.

  Breakfast should have come next, but none came. Faces turned automatically toward the screen door from which Aunt Betty should have emerged with a huge platter of eggs and bacon. But no one said anything until Ron Merril appeared on the porch with his overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Wiping his chubby face with a handkerchief, he admitted that it wasn’t possible for him to go without food. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday noon — he was starving! And off he went, striding rapidly down the cement walk, bound for home and butter-soaked hotcakes. After Ron had vanished from sight, a few kids began to describe their own hunger symptoms. One said it felt like something crawling inside, another said he felt like throwing up, another felt lightheaded, another had a growling stomach. For all of them, a day had seemed like three or four. Missing one meal wasn’t so bad; missing two was still okay. But the worst was waking up in the morning and wanting breakfast, only to discover that the empty feeling would continue for minutes, hours, for the entire day! Someone said it was downright unhealthy. Another said they were still growing and needed more food than most people. What happens to the teeth, someone asked plaintively, if they don’t get enough calcium? Would their growth be stunted, their teeth fall out, their legs give way, their hearts stop beating? And how long would all that take? Ganesh, a few grumbled, had hardly been scientific in his estimate: “It depends on health and age.” Yeah, but what did that really mean?

  These bitter and anxious speculations passed among the Satyagrahis while the sun rose into the bright summer air and the tall weather vane, deprived of wind, stood motionless as a piece of cast steel (which it actually was) soldered into the blue sky atop the house.

  Ganesh hoped for something to happen soon. For a few days his companions would suffer terribly from hunger pangs — some more than others, but all would feel it more than they had ever expected. To keep their resolution firm and steady, something should happen that would bind them together, making their pain secondary to the commitment they had made.

  Fortunately, soon after what could have
been lunch time, something did happen.

  “Here comes that trouble again!” someone called out, and everyone, as a single body, moved onto the porch and sat down, facing the lawn, up which three men strode briskly after emerging from a black limousine that had pulled up at the curb.

  Two of the three men were familiar: Chief Halstead and the State Police officer. But the third wore a checkered business suit and carried a briefcase. Although the police were frowning, the third man smiled all the way up the walk, as if he had good news for everyone. Along with his companions, he stopped at the invisible wall and approached nearer only when Aunt Betty, sitting in the swing, beckoned. “Come, gentlemen, come.” The three men edged past the seated kids, both police officers giving Ganesh, who sat on the top step, a long, hard look.

  Chief Halstead introduced the man in the checkered suit as State Highway Commissioner Walton. The man grinned before saying, “We have corresponded by mail, but this is the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting you, Mrs. Strepski.”

  The woman smiled faintly, skeptically at the pretty speech. “Bring a chair for the commissioner.” A boy scooted inside the house and returned quickly with a straight-backed chair.

  “Thank you,” said Commissioner Walton, whose broad smile seemed fixed on his pleasant, ruddy face. The tall policemen flanked him, as he sat close to the swing. “I would like to explain something, Mrs. Strepski, if you don’t mind.” He opened the briefcase and hauled out a large hardback notebook. “This contains the proposal and plan of the new highway.” In a gentle, persuasive voice, he described the costs involved, the schedule of construction, the estimate of vehicles using the highway annually, the revenue expected from the toll road, the possible uses of such revenue: public service, welfare programs, civil improvements.

  Aunt Betty smoothed her old print dress across her lap and said, “I’m glad the state takes an interest in welfare. In his will my husband left a piece of land to this town for the purpose of charity. But this property, the one we are all sitting on, I own myself. When I go, it will be my nephew’s.”

  The commissioner, still smiling, leaned forward to say, “I must point out to you, Mrs. Strepski, what you and your lawyer already know: this property is no longer yours. In fact, we sent you a check in full payment for it according to its present land assessment.”