Chapter 19 Summary
A week before Shiva will give up his anklet, the family is driving into town. They are forced to the side of the road to allow His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie, and his motorcade to pass. They are near the Emperor’s Palace, which is lit for the Christmas season. It is 1963, the year in which America’s President Kennedy has been assassinated. Everything—pedestrians, cars, and horse-drawn carts—has come to a stop. A Land Rover, part of the Imperial Bodyguard, drives by; sitting on the tailgate are uniformed men with machine guns across their laps. After the Land Rover are eight roaring motorcycles followed by the royal Rolls Royce, green and polished. His Majesty sits inside to see and be seen as he drives past his people with his Chihuahua Lulu on his lap.
Under his breath, Ghosh mutters that the money spent on this royal display could feed every child in the country for a month. Next to Ghosh, an old man on his knees kisses the ground after the Rolls drives by him. The Emperor looks directly at Hema and puts the palms of his hands together, a gesture of admiration and respect. Ghosh teases her, but Hema says that he was simply admiring her sari and that she likes the old man. The front of the procession arrives at the gate and the guards dismount to present arms.
A single policeman is responsible for holding back the crowd, and suddenly an old lady begins waving a paper. The sight captures the Emperor’s eye and the Rolls stops. As the woman approaches and thrusts her paper at the window, Lulu begins barking at her. The woman appears to be speaking, and the Emperor appears to be listening. She is gesticulating as the Rolls begins to move; she tries to keep up with it, hollering “Thief! Thief!” She does not get any response and throws her shoe at the trunk of the Emperor’s car. The policeman, like the rest of the crowd, is stunned but finally acts. He clubs the old woman to the ground. Several of the motorcycle soldiers also start clubbing members of the crowd near the gate. Those near Ghosh and Hema’s family cannot believe anyone would treat an old woman in such a way, but no one acts.
As Marion’s family drives away, Marion turns around and sees the motorcycle riders turn their attack on the policeman. His mistake was not clubbing the woman down earlier, before she had a chance to embarrass the Emperor. Many years later Marion will still think of the policeman beating the old woman. Such an unexpected and brutal act following so quickly after the Emperor greeted them seems like a betrayal to Marion. And he feels none too happy with Lulu, who is part of the betrayal.
In Ethiopia, to name a dog is to save it. The Missing Hospital compound has two mangy dogs and Koochooloo. Sister Mary Joseph Praise began feeding her, and Almaz continues after the Sister’s death. A dog is not sacred, like a cow, so there is no question of Koochooloo coming into the house. No one in the family knows she is pregnant until the day after New Year’s. No one has seen her for two days when the boys find her behind a woodpile on their way to school. Koochooloo appears to be exhausted, and they understand why when they see the tiny fur balls “wriggling at her belly.” The twins run to give the good news to Ghosh, Hema, and Matron and share all the names they have chosen for the pups....
(This entire section contains 1237 words.)
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The adults’ lack of enthusiasm should have warned the boys.
As they crest the hill of Missing after school that day, Marion and Shiva are stunned to see a plastic bag containing the puppies tied to the exhaust pipe of a car. Koochooloo has regained her energy and is frantically trying to get to her pups. Marion is “numb and disbelieving.” A small crowd has gathered, and Marion wonders if this could really be an acceptable ritual of which he is unaware. He takes his cue from them, and he laughs at the gruesome sight. Shiva, on the other hand, takes his cue from no one and tries desperately to remove the bag from the exhaust pipe, burning his hands in the process. Only when Shiva realizes the puppies are dead does he quit battling. When Marion glances at Genet, he is shocked at the impassivity on her face; she is clearly well aware of the “undercurrents of the world” they live in, and she knows them before the boys learn them. Marion cannot understand how Koochooloo can bear to remain at Missing, a place where Matron has set a strict limit on dogs, a place that steals her newborns and destroys them—and has done so more than once.
In Casualty, Ghosh, Hema, and Matron treat Shiva’s skinned knees and burned hands. Marion asks how these adults could have let such a thing happen to innocent puppies. Hema says that Koochooloo will forget, that animals do not have those kinds of memories, that she will not miss her newborns. “Will you forget if someone kills me or Marion?” There is a stunned silence as it registers on all of them that it was Shiva who spoke. Hema asks Shiva, in a whisper, to repeat what he said. He says, “Will you forget about us tomorrow if someone kills us today?” It is even worse for the adults to hear it the second time.
With tears in her eyes, Hema reaches for Shiva and tries to hug him; however, the boy has backed up to the doorway and looks at all of them as if they are murderers. He bends down and snaps off the anklet. This is a shocking move because the anklet has been part of Shiva’s identity virtually every moment since he was born. It is as if he has placed his own finger on the table. Matron is the first to speak; she tries to explain the impracticality of keeping too many dogs on the compound. Shiva touches his brother’s shoulder and whispers into his ear. When Hema asks what he said, Marion tells them Shiva does not feel the need to speak to such cruel people. Shiva is sure that Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Thomas Stone would not have acted in such a way, and if they were here this tragedy would not have happened.
Hema sighs as if she knew such a moment would come, and she tells him he has no idea what they might have done. Shiva walks out of the room. Marion wonders how these people who have so much compassion for the motherless, the sick, and the poor could be so insensitive to the cruelty they had all just witnessed. Later, Marion is sure he can see disappointment in Koochooloo’s eyes. She avoids humans and only eats when no humans are near her. For weeks, the only friend the dog has is Shiva. Marion is beginning to see that ShivaMarion is no longer one entity. In their earlier years, the twins had complimented one another; now their identities seem to be slowly separating. Shiva is in tune with the distress of animals; at least for now, he is leaving human matters to Marion.
