Little Princes by Conor Grennan Page A

Nepal. But I knew that he was a foster child. I knew that he did not know his own father, an Algerian who had returned to his own country. I knew that he hoped, one day, to find him. He spoke of these things only in passing, as if he was protecting himself from thinking on it too deeply, from putting too much significance in the fact that he, a young man who had been given up as a child, had spent the last year of his life taking care of eighteen orphans on the other side of the world. So we stood on the roof, watching the village and describing, in dizzying detail, our favorite meals.
    F rom a distance, there was nothing unique about the woman walking toward the orphanage.
    Farid and I were on the roof. We all were; it was a Saturday afternoon, the floors inside were freshly mopped and would take an hour to dry properly. The children had used chalk to draw a hopscotch board and were lined up, each clutching a small stone. I saw her first, approaching from the path leading from the single paved road that connected Godawari to the rest of the world. That was strange. There was a bandha that day—no minibuses had been on the road. Wherever she had come from, she had walked.
    She came closer. There was something else strange about her. Women in the village often walked with their heads down, because either they were carrying a heavy load or they were intent on getting home. Not this woman. She walked slowly, her eyes fixed on the orphanage. I worried that she would trip on the uneven trail. As she got closer, I realized she was staring at the children. Stranger still, I saw that the children had stopped their game and were staring right back at her.
    She stopped outside the gate of the orphanage, not knocking, just standing calmly, waiting.
    Farid was in the middle of describing a dish his mother made for his birthday one year, when he realized I was staring past him. He turned to see what I was looking at.
    “Who is that wom—” he started, and stopped. He stared at her, then said, “Conor, I think I know who this woman is.”
    I saw what he saw. Unmistakably, in her distinctively angular features, her wide face, her Tibetan eyes, was a face that we had somehow seen before. On one of the Little Princes.
    This woman was Nuraj’s mother.
    Nuraj was frozen to the railing, hands gripping it tightly. Krish, his brother, had pushed through the other boys and put his arm around his little brother, but said nothing. Farid said nothing to the boys, but ran to the stairs leading down. I followed him, stopping only to pull Santosh aside.
    “Santosh, I want you and Bikash to keep the boys on the roof—you understand?”
    “I understand, Conor Brother,” he said. I hurried downstairs after Farid.
    Farid was already outside when I reached him. He had opened the gate and was facing the woman. She did not enter, but only murmured “Namaste,” putting the palms of her hands together. We returned the greeting, and continued to stare at the woman. Farid asked her, in Nepali, if she was here to see the children.
    Her head wobbled back and forth on her head. In the United States it was a gesture that signified uncertainty. In Nepal, it was an emphatic yes . I could not understand what she was saying to Farid, but two words needed no translation: “Nuraj” and “Krish.”
    We invited the woman inside and offered her tea; it was custom in Nepal to offer tea to any guest who crossed your threshold. I went to look for Hari, and found him in our small office downstairs, going over our weekly food budget.
    “Hari—we need you in the other room to translate for us. A woman just arrived—the mother of Nuraj and Krish. She’s here,” I said.
    Hari put down his pencil. “I do not think so, Conor Brother—their mother is dead.”
    “I know, but . . . you have to see this woman.”
    He pushed back his chair and followed me into the living room. Farid sat on a small stool, the mother sat on the floor, her legs tucked beneath her.
    Hari