Please, Take My Baby?

The bizarre was loud with the sound of street vendors and the stench of manure was rife. It rained earlier that morning which settled the dust, but the unsealed ground was soft and squelchy. Mud stuck to Eloise’s flip flops, weaselled between her toes, splashed her ankles — the only part of her leg she was allowed to show — and up her red harem pants. In a place with open sewage, she knew the brown sludge was more than just soil. The rubber soles of her open shoes made a slurping sound as they suctioned too and from the ground with each step. It’s dirt, she told herself. Plain, boring old dirt. Before she left home four months ago, she expected to be greeted by the smell of spices, flowers and incense at the markets across India, but she quickly realised that was a very westernised view of the place. Those aromas were definitely there when standing next to a stall that sold any of those things but, first and foremost, the air was dominated with the scent of rubbish, livestock, and excrement of cows that survived on a diet of binned vindaloo.

‘Can I show you around?’ a male voice asked.

Eloise and Peter wheeled around to find a smiling elderly man standing by them, holding his hands out invitingly.

‘No, thanks,’ Peter replied, warmly.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Nothing really, we’re just looking around.’

‘Scarves? Incense? There is real saffron — I can show you,’ he said, beckoning them to follow him.

‘No, really, we’re not looking for anything in particular. Just browsing,’ Eloise interjected. They had taken up offers such as these before, only to find they were rushed around to every scarf stall on the site and offered ‘a good price’ which they later realised was exorbitant, and included a hefty commission for the tour guide. ‘Have a good day,’ Peter quickly told the man, yanking Eloise away into the sea of moving bodies before the man had a chance to see where they went. They splashed their way through alleyways with every kind of fabric and type of bead imaginable, around large bulls standing obtusely across pathways, and into what appeared to be the flower section of the market where women draped in dazzling saris, bangles and earrings were standing behind piles of carefully arranged marigolds. Mud suddenly flew at Eloise’s knees. She screamed, startled by the cold liquid oozing down her shins.

Peter threw his head back and laughed. Eloise frowned. They watched a middle-aged western couple dressed in white linen whiz by on a cycle rickshaw — sending sludge flying everywhere. Eloise looked down at her feet. Her flip flops were brown in color anyway, but today they were looking particularly crusty. She wished she hadn’t looked down. Three more rickshaws passed carrying what looked like a whole school group. Eloise fruitlessly tried to listen to their accents to work out where they were from, but all she could hear were street vendors, the Hindi top 40 blaring from a nearby radio and the chatter of passers by. The sounds were deafening, but the scent of fresh flowers was a welcome change.

‘I can show you around,’ a voice asked.

Eloise closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before turning to look for the source of the question. ‘No, it’s okay,’ she replied.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Australia,’ Peter answered.

‘Oh Australia,’ the man smiled. ‘Ricky Ponting!’

They both chuckled. Ricky Ponting hadn’t played cricket for Australia for many years, but most locals still belted his name at any mention of their nationality. They didn’t have the heart to admit they didn’t follow cricket at all, and would sooner watch paint dry or grass grow than sit through a match.

‘Are you from Melbourne?’ he asked.

‘From Sydney,’ Peter said casually, relieved the man wasn’t still asking to be their tour guide.

‘Very nice. Do you have children?’

When they first arrived in India, Eloise was taken aback by the very personal barrage of questions they were asked daily, but she read in travel guides and blogs that this line of enquiry was quite normal.

‘No,’ they answered in unison. The man lingered.

‘Do you?’ Peter asked.

‘Yes, I have five.’

‘You have five,’ Peter sounded surprised.

‘Yes. My brother died years ago and left his wife with the children.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Peter said, sincerely. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Gordeep. My brother’s wife had no money, no job. I married her to help but the children cost too much.’

Eloise considered herself a terrible conversationalist and never knew what to say in moments such as these. They had been confronted with so many tales of tragedy throughout their trip, but she still stared blankly at Gordeep and wished she could say something. He married his sister-in-law because his brother died, she thought.

Gordeep continued: ‘I think I found someone to take two, but I don’t know.’

Eloise hoped her expression didn’t show her surprise.

‘Oh, I see. That’s really tough,’ Peter offered.

‘Yes,’ Gordeep nodded. ’Will you take one?’

Peter smiled warmly and Eloise laughed lightly. Gordeep joined in.

‘Yes,’ he smiled. There was an awkward silence. Gordeep’s expression changed. ‘Take one.’ Eloise studied his face for a lip curl or any flicker of humor, but there was nothing. They were wrong to laugh. It wasn’t a joke at all. She looked around the market awkwardly, focusing on the piles of orange and yellow marigolds. She wondered where they came from — what fields of marigolds looked like, how they would smell, and wished she could be there. Anything to escape this conversation.

‘It will be better for her if you take her to Australia,’ Gordeep continued, unable to hide his desperation. His dark eyes filled with sadness. He was pleading.

Peter, who was a far better conversationalist that Eloise, stumbled. ‘I, I mean, we can’t.’ His tone full of apologies.

‘Yes, please,’ Gordeep said.

‘We really can’t,’ Peter replied. ‘Legally, we just can’t.’

‘You can, just take her with you.’

The sound of the markets faded away. Could we take her? Eloise mused, but Peter was right — the legal implications came flooding in. She had visions of border control asking who the little girl was, where her passport was, whether she had a visa and how a girl from Delhi who probably didn’t speak English came to be in the apparent possession of an Australian couple in their 20s. The likelihood of her having a passport was low so they would have to organize one in a bureaucratic system and a language they didn’t understand, but even then they would somehow have to get her permanent residency in Australia, which would mean adopting her, but that would have to be through an agency and they couldn’t afford it. Peter was studying and didn’t have a job, Eloise worked part-time and rent in Sydney was expensive. Where would they put her? How would they pay for her schooling? Eloise’s head spun. Gordeep didn’t seem to understand — money carried weight in India in a way it didn’t in Australia. Weeks earlier, they had been on a tour and watched the guides pay off three policemen who threatened to take the whole group to jail for being in the Thar desert without a permit. Peter and Eloise later found out a permit wasn’t needed for the area they were in. The idea of trying to pay off border force at Sydney Airport was absurd. She couldn’t envisage what Gordeep’s life must be like if he was trying to offload his niece to foreign strangers in the street. India was beautiful, but in sunny Sydney where the sky was electric blue and the streets were clean and the welfare system allowed for single mothers to stay single, giving your child away was unthinkable. Marrying your sister-in-law was frowned upon. The life Gordeep and his family lead was unimaginable. Eloise felt disgusted at her own privileged upbringing where opportunity comparatively projectiled itself in her direction.

She looked at Gordeep sadly and said: ‘We really can’t, I’m really sorry.’

He seemed crestfallen. His shoulders slumped and he nodded briefly.

‘I’m really sorry,’ Peter offered, but Gordeep was walking away.