I ran. Screams chased me through the train, echoing out the windows and across the tunnel into crescendos of laughter. The train curved toward the light and the yelling stopped — it always stopped. I kept running. The passengers pretend it is an amusement ride. As soon as the blue locomotive bursts into the light, the ride is over and the yells subside.
When I was younger, my brothers would hold my feet so I could stick my head out the window and listen in the tunnels. We were young, naive and foolish, but full of energy and life. Now I ran alone as the train heaved up into the lush mountainous tea fields, past plantations and villages where farmers waved; they stopped their hoeing and gardening to lift their dirty faces, wiping the sweat from their brows, and they waved at the train, at no one in particular — at me. And I waved back to them as they watched me glide through their fields on a journey they envied and dreamed of not knowing that I dreamed back at them.
I’d grown up in one of those villages, but I’m not sure which one. I remember smiling and waving, and dreaming from our garden. My brothers and I saved money whenever we could to ride the train. That’s when we began to steal, but we didn’t think of it as stealing. We stole for a higher purpose: to ride the train across our country. We stole to live, not literally, but figuratively. We had food, but we longed to taste and devour visual nourishment. Like any young men, we wanted to travel – to escape.
We began thieving at the markets; we stole when vendors weren’t looking. We stole small things then we stole big things. One day, we stole a pig, but we didn’t know what to do with it so we let it go. I watched it run until it knew it was free; my brothers dragged me away from the sight.
“Let’s go Menaka,” they said, “it’s just a silly pig.”
“I know,” I said. But I kept looking and the pig stopped running and looked back at its captors – at me.
Now, in the last car of the train, I stopped running. I checked my pockets to see what I’d acquired during the tunnel – I always made my moves during the tunnels. The genocides had ended and tourists came now in masses; they were overstimulated during the tunnels: the darkness, the screaming and the laughter were too much for them to handle and simultaneously pay attention to their belongings. They had to make a choice. Most of them chose to forget material things in those moments; they smiled and gazed into the walls of the tunnels through the windows of the train, listening to the reverberating yells. I wondered if that’s what travel meant — forgetting, because that’s the same way I looked and felt the first time I rode the train. But now I used the knowledge of that feeling to my advantage. I took their cameras, their wallets and their phones, whatever valuables they left unguarded and I moved toward the caboose.
With my brothers I stole to travel. Once they left me, I stole to eat. Now I stole for purpose.
The first time I got caught, the conductor beat me with a hose until I bled. He made me give him half the proceeds and distribute the rest to the last, third class car of the train.
“You can give it all to one person, or one family,” he said, “or you can give some to everyone. I don’t care, just give it.”
I went to the back of the train — the seats were full of mothers and babies, the aisles were crowded with fathers. Some of them slept and all of them shared what food they had. One mother had a baby boy with skin like coal, it was purple and garish. Along his arms, loose skin bubbled and peeled. A filthy bandage wrapped the top of his head. At first I was disgusted and terrified; I assumed the child was infected.
“What happened?” I asked, nodding towards the woman’s son. The conductor stood over my shoulder and the woman looked up at us. Her face was worn and sullen, but composed and strong.
“My son fell,” she said, “he fell into the fire. I was cooking dinner.”
She didn’t blink as she spoke. That day I decided to give all of my earnings to the woman, but I really gave them to her son. Or for her son I suppose. The conductor gave half of his share to her too. He couldn’t bear to part with it all.
From then on, the conductor and I had a pact.
“What’s your name boy?” he said.
“Menaka.”
“Where do you live?”
“Nowhere. My brothers and I left a long time ago.”
“Where are your brothers?”
“They took another train,” I said.
He nodded, understanding.
“Have you been to Colombo?” he said.
“No.”
“Well, until we get there, you can stay with me.”
“But I don’t want to go there.”
“Well, where do you want to go?”
“To the Rock Fortress.”
“Alright,” he said, “but the train doesn’t go there. Ride with me and we’ll come as close as we can.”
True to his word, he let me stay with him. He shared his books and his stories with me. And we kept our plan. I stole, we always gave away half and split the rest.
Now I stood in the back of the train again with two cameras and a wallet, looking around for potential beneficiaries. I walked between the overcrowded wooden booths, searching for the telltale signs of poverty that I’d come to recognize – dirty fingernails and torn clothes, weary smiles and hungry eyes.
The train stopped at the station, wheels churning to a steady grinding halt. Before the train came to a standstill, a small girl jumped from the platform through the window and into a booth to save a seat. She sprawled herself across the bench and placed her arms across the table in a grand attempt to secure the location for the duration of her ride. Moments later, an elderly woman fumbled her way through the aisle toward the girl, who relinquished her ownership so the woman could sit adjacent to her. They fit the profile. Their faces were worn by the sun and their clothes were tattered and filled with holes.
I walked toward them with my offering.
“Here,” I said, “take these.”
They looked down at my bounty.
“No,” the girl said.
The simplicity of her defiance shocked me.
“They’re free,” I said, “I don’t want anything for them. I found them and I want you to have them. Sell them, use them, throw them out the window you came from, I don’t care. Just take them. As a gift.”
“No,” she repeated.
“‘No thank you’ she means,” the elderly woman said, “we don’t need them.”
“Of course you do,” I said, “you need to eat and rest. If you sell these, you can eat well and sleep well.”
“We’ve eaten already,” the girl said, “we don’t need your help.”
“Everyone needs help,” I said.
She paused to think for a moment.
“That’s true,” she said, “what help do you need?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “I guess, I guess I need to feel useful.”
“We all need that too,” she said.
“Well, if you don’t accept these things, I won’t feel good about myself today. I want to feel good. I want to feel useful.”
The girl looked at the elderly woman next to her. The woman’s fingers were as wrinkled as the ocean. Her eyes sunk into her face and her mouth stretched to the side like a fish hook had snared it.
“We’ll take them then,” she said, “but only if you come with us.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To the Rock Fortress.”
The conductor came down the aisle and sat down across from the old woman, smiling at nothing in particular – at me.
“Are you ready?” he said, “it’s the next stop.”