“No. Nipa first.”
With great effort, the old woman pushed out of the way some of the items that had fallen around her.
Kusum stared down in surprise. Nipa was not the driver, either. She was a child, no more than a year old, tucked against the old woman’s side. The baby was awake and looked scared to death.
Kusum looked over to where the others had stopped to watch.
“Get down! Now!” her father yelled. “You’re putting the rest of us in danger.”
“I need help,” she said. “There’s a baby here.”
“What?” her mother said, stepping out from the group. Without waiting for a response, she turned back to the others. “Jabala, come with me.”
“But Darshan,” Jabala said.
“Leave him. Darshan, Panna, you stay with masi.”
The two children nodded.
As Kusum’s mother and sister passed her father, he said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To help,” her mother said. “And you’re coming, too.”
Knowing they were on the way, Kusum climbed onto the side of the sedan, reached through the half-open window, and found the handle. Quickly, she rolled the glass the rest of the way down.
The opening was now more than large enough for her to fit through. The trick now was to do it without dropping onto the old woman and the baby. She slipped her legs in first, and eased herself down until only her shoulders and head were not inside the car. She stretched out her foot, caught the top of the front seat, and used it to guide her all the way down.
Kneeling, she found herself closer to the woman behind the wheel than the older one in back. Not really wanting to, but knowing it had to be done, she put her fingers against the driver’s neck. She wasn’t really sure about the right spot to check for a pulse, so when she didn’t feel one, she moved her fingers around, but still found nothing. She looked at the woman’s chest. It wasn’t moving. If the driver was still alive, it was by the thinnest of threads, and there was nothing Kusum could do for her.
As she moved over into the back part of the car, the child, Nipa, looked up at her and tightened her grip on the old woman.
“It’s okay,” Kusum said. “I’m here to help you.”
“Save her,” the old woman whispered. “Please.”
“I will save both of you.”
The woman tried to smile, but ended up coughing. This caused Nipa to start crying.
“It’s okay,” Kusum said, touching the girl’s cheek. “Everything will be fine.”
“Nipa first,” the woman managed to say between coughs. She moved like she wanted to hand the girl to Kusum, but she had little strength.
Kusum reached out and put her hands under the baby’s arms. As she started to lift the girl away, Nipa panicked and tried to grab the old woman again.
“Don’t worry,” Kusum said, pulling the girl to her. “I won’t hurt you.”
She hugged the baby to her chest, but Nipa turned her head so she could look at the old woman and continued to cry.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Kusum said over and over.
After several seconds, she heard a noise above, and her father’s head appeared in the open window.
“Hand her up,” he said, once he’d taken a look at the situation.
Kusum stood as best she could and raised the girl toward his outstretched hands. Nipa screamed in protest.
“She’s just scared,” Kusum said.
“Of course she’s scared,” her father replied as he grabbed hold of the baby. “I raised two girls, remember? I have seen scared before.”
As he pulled Nipa out of the car, Kusum knelt back down next to the old woman. “Your turn,” she said.
The old woman didn’t move.
“Hey. Come on. Time to get you out of here.”
No response.
Worried, Kusum put her fingers on the woman’s neck. This time she did feel a pulse, though it wasn’t strong. She put a hand on the woman’s chest to check her breathing, and instantly pulled it up again, looking at her palm. Blood covered the pad at the base of her thumb. She pulled back the cloth that had fallen over the woman’s midsection, and stifled a cry.
The tip of a piece of metal was sticking up right below the woman’s ribs. Blood was soaked into the clothes around the wound.
“Kusum,” her father said.
She looked up.
“There is nothing we can do for her. We can’t move her and we can’t stay.”
“Take care…of Nipa,” the old woman whispered. “I will stay here with my…daughter.”
Kusum fought back the tears of frustration that had suddenly gathered in her eyes, knowing her father was right.
Carefully, she covered the wound back up, and wiped her palm on the cloth.
“Rest now,” she said. “I will take care of Nipa.”
Though the woman’s eyes were closed, she seemed to relax.
“Come,” her father said. “Let me help you up.”
With a nod, she stood and took his hands.
Darkness fell before Kusum and her family reached the edge of the city, which meant they were still a very long way from where they were supposed to meet Sanjay.
They had checked every abandoned vehicle they passed, but soon discovered each had been left behind for a reason. As for traffic, it had dwindled to a trickle, and the cars they did see never once slowed as they passed Kusum’s family walking along the side of the road. Unless they found another ride soon, there was no way they would reach Sanjay that evening.
“You want me to take her?” Kusum’s mom asked.
Kusum held the sleeping Nipa against her chest, the girl’s head lying on her shoulder. They had barely restarted their journey when Nipa insisted that Kusum carry her. The girl then clung to her like she was afraid Kusum would disappear at any second, until she finally passed out.
“I’m okay,” Kusum said.
In truth, she liked holding the girl. She had promised to keep Nipa safe, so that’s what she would do until they could reunite her with her family.
That task would not be easy. She’d realized not long after they left the accident that she should have grabbed the old woman’s — and perhaps the driver’s — identification. That way she would have had information about Nipa’s family. But by the time she’d thought of it, they were too far away.
Once everything is back to normal, I’ll go to the police and tell them where the accident occurred. Surely, they’ll have information about who was involved.
The good thing was that Nipa appeared to have suffered only a few scratches and bruises in the accident. How the incident would affect her mind, only time would tell. Of course, given the situation they were all going through, the girl wouldn’t be the only one mentally bruised.
“They’re still there,” Jabala whispered a few minutes later.
Kusum glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, the three figures that Jabala had first noticed over an hour ago were passing beneath several lights about one hundred and fifty meters behind them. At first Kusum had dismissed them as just being others trying to get away from the city, but the distance they kept never changed, even after Kusum’s family stopped for a few minutes to rest.
“Who do you think they are?” Jabala asked.
“I don’t know.”
The shortest of the trio was probably a child, but the distance made it hard to tell whether they were men or women, let alone what age they were. Really, the only important question was, were they trouble or not?
“Do you think you can take Nipa without waking her?”
Jabala eyed her suspiciously. “Why? What are you going to do?”
Kusum nodded toward the people following them. “Find out who they are.”
“You could get hurt. You don’t—”