Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

“Sorry.” He steps back and holds up his hands. His nose has been broken and mended and his eyebrows angle down, as if he’s thinking. “You don’t want to drink that. Unless you’re bulimic or something.”

I make a face. “Bulimic?”

He bends down and scoops my bottle out of the mud. “Yeah. You know . . .” He pretends to gag and vomit into the river.

I stare at him.

He gives me an embarrassed smile. “Sorry. I guess maybe that wasn’t the best way—” He stops himself, takes a breath, and holds out a hand. “Let me start over. Hi, I’m Rushil. You don’t want to drink the canal water. It’ll make you sick.”

I take his hand. “Ava.” I glance over at the people swimming. “What about them?”

“It’s all right for swimming and washing and all that,” Rushil says. “But for drinking, you really want the filtered stuff from the stores.”

I drop down onto a rock jutting out from the bank and stare at my muddy feet. “That’s what everyone says.”

Rushil peers at me as if he’s taking me in for the first time. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”

I think about lying, but I’m too tired. I shake my head.

“You just get here?”

I raise my eyebrows. “It’s that clear?”

“Well, you’re not dressed like a Mumbaikar.” He looks pointedly at Perpétue’s leather jacket tied around my waist. “Most people around here don’t go in for the whole dead cow thing.”

I look down. Any leather we had aboard the Parastrata was goat hide, and I’d thought this was the same. “How do you know it’s . . .” What did he say again? “Cow?”

“Point taken,” he says. “If anyone asks, I’d just say it’s synthetic.”

I cover my eyes with a hand. “Look, as much as I’d like to sit around talking about cows . . .”

“Of course. I’m sorry.” He holds out a hand to help me up. “Come on, I’ll show you where you can get water.”

I shake my head. “We don’t have any money. We used the last of it to dock our ship.”

Rushil raises his eyebrows. “Your ship?” I can’t tell if the look on his face is surprise or alarm. “Where is it?”

“Navi Flightport?” Why does everything I say turn into a question?

“Navi?” Rushil grimaces and sucks air past his teeth as if he’s stubbed a toe. “You’d better get it out of there before they make you start paying in blood.”

My skin goes cold, despite the sun. “Blood?”

He catches the look on my face. “Oh . . . no.” He laughs. “It’s just a . . . you know, an expression.”

“Oh,” I say.

“But you really should take your ship out of there,” Rushil says. “Especially if you’re staying awhile.”

He looks out over the water at the boys jumping into the canal and then down at his feet. “I’ve got a shipyard. You can dock with me for much less.”

Ah. So that’s it. I couldn’t figure why some strange boy would want to help me for nothing, but this makes more sense.

“I told you.” I sigh. “We’re out of money.” So piss off, I want to add, but I hold my tongue.

“Wait.” Rushil looks up, unfazed by my tone. “We?”

“Me and Miyole.”

“Miyole?”

“She . . .” I falter. How much do I want him to know about us? “She lost her mother. I’m looking after her.”

“A kid?” He blinks. “Where is she?”

I nod to the buildings at the top of the bank. “She’s asleep back there in the alley.”

“In the alley?” His face darkens, and suddenly he changes from a boy hanging out by the canal to a young man full of purpose. “Come on. Get up.”

My hand creeps down to Perpétue’s knife. “Why?”

“Because you can’t leave a kid asleep in an alley.” He rolls his eyes. “That’s why.”

I lead him quickly back up onto the street. I can’t help staring at the ink scrolled around his arms. A horse and its rider. A tiger savaging a soldier. A formless, blossoming design some like the intricate ironwork on the doors and balconies we’ve passed. A name around his wrist. His arms are strong beneath the tattoos. Not bulky, but muscled in a way that makes me think he works with them.

“No offense, but what are you doing in the Salt?” Rushil interrupts my thoughts.

My face flames. I look down, away from his arms. “The Salt?”

Rushil waves his hand at the streets around us. “The Salt. Well, Old Dharavi on the maps, but no one calls it that except the transit authority.”

“We got lost,” I say. “We were looking for my modrie, and—”

“Your what?”

“My . . . my . . .” I sift through my memory, trying to think of the word Perpétue used for Soraya. “My tante?”

Rushil shakes his head.

“My mother’s sister,” I say.

“Your auntie?” he says. “Shouldn’t she have met you at the flightport?”

“She didn’t know we were coming.” I swallow. “In fact, I’m not even sure she knows I exist.”

That makes Rushil shut his mouth. We walk the rest of the way to the alley in silence.

I kneel down beside Miyole and shake her shoulder. “Mi?”

She starts awake. “Manman?” She blinks the sleep from her eyes, and I watch her face contort as the memory of the last days falls back over her.

My throat tightens. “It’s me, Miyole.” I look behind me. “And that’s Rushil.”

Something tender and stricken plays across Rushil’s face, and I realize it’s pity. A shudder of anger passes through me. I don’t want his pity. I don’t want anyone’s.

“Listen, my house is only a few blocks away.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets and tilts his head back in the direction of the canal. “You lot look like you could do with sitting down. Maybe get some food in you.”

The part of me still shaking wants to refuse, give him that sign with the finger Perpétue taught me and stalk off on my own. That’s what I would do if it was just me, but it’s not. There’s Miyole. I’ve got to keep her alive, keep her fed, find water.

“Right so,” I agree. “Lead the way.”

We pass back along the same dusty streets Miyole and I walked the night before. Now that the sun is out, men and women squat on squares of bright-colored cloth in the small space between the shops and the road, hawking jewelry, painted shells, bolts of cloth, scuffed handhelds, and other trinkets. More of the little green street sweepers whirr around the crowd’s feet. I have to jump over one that darts in front of me. The pipe hovers overhead, its dripping-paint shapes scrawled on the underside. Juice vendors have set up shop in its shade, propping up colorful umbrellas to protect them from the constant dripping.

When we reach the landing fields, the dogs come back, barking and snarling as we pass the fences.

“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Rushil says to them. “You’re terrifying. You’re the most vicious creatures on Earth.” He grins over his shoulder at me and rolls his eyes.

We stop beside a wire-link fence with a keypad lock. Razor wire curls along the top. Rushil taps in the access code and holds the gate open for us.

“Mademoiselles, welcome to my humble estate.”

We duck through to the other side. A dirt-and-concrete lot covered in a jumble of ships and spare parts stretches back as far as I can see. Sun-reflecting tarps cover some of them, but others are clearly junkers.