The Five-Dollar Smile By Shashi Tharoor

“MAKE THIS CHILD SMILE AGAIN," the black type on the crumpled, glossy news weekly page read. "All it takes is five dollars a month."

Joseph stared at the picture sandwiched between the two halves of the caption. He had seen it a thousand times - the tattered clothes, the dark, intense, pleading eyes, the grubby little fingers thrust tightly into a sullenly closed mouth. The photo that had launched the most successful, worldwide appeal in HELP's history, four years ago. His picture.

As usual, he viewed it once more with that curious detachment that had come to him during those last four years. He could not see it as a photograph of himself, a record of his past, a souvenir of his younger childhood: It was not personal enough for that; it was in the public domain, part of an advertisement, a poster, a campaign, and now an aging magazine clipping in his hand. The little boy who stared out at him was not him, Joseph Kumaran; he was part of a message, defined by a slogan, serving a purpose, and the fact that he was Joseph Kumaran did not matter. It never had.

Joseph looked once more at the picture, as he had five times already during the flight, as if to reassure himself that he knew what he was doing on this large, cold, humming monster hurtling him towards a strange land he had known only in postage stamps. That's what this is all about, he wanted the picture to say. That's who you are and the reason why you are on an unfamiliar thing called an airplane and why your feet don't touch the ground but your toes feel cold and you have to put a belt around your waist that stops you from leaning forward comfortably to eat the strange food they expect you to get at with plastic forks and knives, sealed impossibly in polyethylene, while you wish you could pluck up the nerve to ask the poised, distant, and impossibly tall, white lady to help you, help you with a blanket and two pillows and some real food you can eat without trying to gnaw at sealed packages of cutlery. . . .

He folded the picture again and pushed it into the pocket of the tight little blazer he had been given the day he left the HELP office with Sister Celine to go to the airport. It had been sent with a bundle of old clothes for the disaster relief collection, he had learned, and though it was a little small for him it was just the thing to smarten him up for the trip to the United States. "Always be smart, Joseph," Sister Celine had said. "Let them know you're poor but you're smart, because we knew how to bring you up."

Joseph sat back, his feet dangling from the airplane seat, and looked at the largely uneaten food on the tray. When he thought of food he could remember the day of the photograph. He had been seven then: that was the day he had learned he was seven.

"How old's that little kid? The one in the torn white shirt?"

"He's about seven. No one's really sure. He came here when he was a little child. We couldn't really tell when he'd been born."

"About seven, eh. Looks younger." Click, whirr. "Might be what I'm looking for. Get him away from that food, Sister, will you please? We want a hungry child, not a feeding one."

Suddenly, a large, white hand interposed among the tiny, outstretched brown ones crowded at the table, pulling Joseph's away. "Come here, Joseph. This nice man wants to see you."

"But I want to eat, Sister." Desperation, pleading in his voice. He knew what could happen if he was too late. There would be no food left for him: it had happened before. And today was his favorite day, with crisp papadams in the kanji gruel. He had watched the cooks rip up and fry the papadams from behind the kitchen door, and he'd tried to get to the table early so he wouldn't miss out on his share. He'd had to fight the bigger boys to stay there, too. But what determined resistance had preserved, Sister Celine was taking away.

"Please, Sister, please."

"Later, child. Now behave yourself." He was dragging his feet and she was pulling him quite firmly by the left hand. "And if you don't walk properly I shall have to take the cane to you." He straightened up quickly; he knew the cane well and did not want it again.

Would the stewardess take a cane to him if he asked her for a fork and knife? Of course she wouldn't, he knew that. He knew his nervousness was silly, unnecessary. He was suddenly hungry, but he didn't know how to attract her attention. She was giving a man a drink several rows in front of Joseph.

"Miss!" he called softly. His voice came out huskily, tripping over dry obstacles in his throat. She didn't hear him; he wished desperately that she would catch his eye, and he trained his look on her with such fearful intensity it was unbelievable she should not notice. "Miss!" he called again, waving his hand. She was sticking a pin into the headrest of the man who'd bought the drink, and she still didn't hear.

"Miss!" This time it was too loud. It seemed to Joseph that everyone in the plane had turned to look at him, as if he had done something very odd. There were a couple of smiles, but for the most part people looked disapproving, frowning their displeasure at him and making comments to their neighbors. Joseph's dark cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

The stewardess straightened up, controlled her irritation, and smiled sweetly but briskly as she walked down to him. "Yes, what is it?"

"Can-I-have-a-knife-and-fork-please?" The words came out in a rush, Sister Angela's diction lessons forgotten in his anxiety.

She hardly seemed to pause in her stride. "It's on your tray - here, on the side, see? In this packet." And she lifted the packet, placed it on top of the napkin for him to see, and before he could say anything more, strode off down the aisle.

"Hold it there, kid." Joseph, seven, wanting papadams, confronted American slang for the first time in the person of a large, white man with a mustache and a camera. To little Joseph, everything seemed large about the man: his body, his mustache, his camera. A large hand pushed him back a little and a voice boomed: "Seems rather small for his age."

"Infant malnutrition. Mother died in childbirth and his father brought him through the forest alone. These tribals are astonishingly hardy. God knows how he survived without any permanent damage."

"So there's nothing really wrong with him, right? I mean, his brain's okay and everything? I've gotta be sure I'm selling the American public poverty and not retardation, if you see what I mean. So he's normal, huh?"

"Just a little stunted." Sister Celine, quiet, precise. Click, whirr. Lights exploded at him. His eyes widened.

"Let's take him outside, if you don't mind. I'd like to use the sun - I'm not too sure of my flash."

"Yes, of course, Mr. Cleaver. Come, Joseph."

He squirmed out of the nun's grasp. "But, Sister, I want to eat."

"Later. Now if you're difficult there'll be no lunch at all for you."

Resentfully, he followed them out into the courtyard. He stood there sullenly, staring his quiet hatred at the large man. Click, whirr, click. "Move him to this side a bit, won't you, Sister?"

It was being pushed around that made him thrust his fingers into his mouth, as much in self-protection as in appeasement of his palate. The photographer clicked again.

Joseph turned to look at the stewardess' retreating back in profound dismay. Why hadn't he told her that he knew he had a knife and fork, but he didn't know how to get at them? Why hadn't he made clear what exactly was the help he needed? Why had he been so scared?

He drew himself even more deeply into his seat and looked around nervously. His neighbor, staring out the window, smiled briefly, mechanically, at him. Joseph could not ask him to help. Or could he? The man turned from the window to a magazine he was reading over dinner. Joseph's resolution faded.

That day, after the photographs, there had been no papadams left for him. Only cold kanji; the papadams were already finished. "See - I told you you could have lunch later," the nun said. "Here's your lunch now."

But I wanted the papadams, he wanted to scream in rage and frustration. And why did you need to take me away from my papadams? What was so important about that man with the camera that you had to deprive me of something I've been waiting a month to enjoy? But he did not say all that. He could not. Instead, the lump in his throat almost choking him, he flung the tin plate of gruel to the ground and burst into tears.

"Good heavens - what's the matter with him today? Very well, no lunch for you then, Joseph. And you will clean this mess off the floor and come to my office as soon as you have done so, so that you may be suitably punished for your ingratitude. There are many little boys not as fortunate as you are, Joseph Kumaran. And don't you forget it."

Sniffing back his misery, Joseph knew he would not forget it. He would have six strokes of the cane to remember it by.

How could he ask his neighbor to help open the packet? He was so engrossed in his magazine. And he was eating. It seemed so wrong, and so embarrassing. Joseph tried to speak, but the words would not come out.

At the head of the aisle, another stewardess was already bringing tea or coffee around. The other passengers seemed to be finishing their meals. They would take his tray away from him and he would not even have eaten. A panic, irrational but intense, rose to flood him.

He struggled with the packet. He tried to tear it, gnaw at it, rip it open. It would not give way. The cutlery inside the packet jangled; at one point he hit a cup on his tray and nearly broke it. Joseph's attempts became even wilder and he made little noises of desperation.

"Here," his neighbor's strong voice said. "Let me help you." Joseph turned to him in gratitude. He had hoped his desperation would become apparent and attract assistance. It had worked.

"Thank you," he managed to say. "I didn't know how to open it.

"It's quite easy," his neighbor said.

The first copies of the photographs arrived at the HELP Center a few weeks after the photographer had left. Joseph had almost forgotten the incident, even the caning, though the frustration of the papadam-less gruel remained. One of the nuns called him to Sister Eva's office excitedly.

"Look, Joseph - these are the pictures the nice man took, the day you were so bad," Sister Celine told him. "This is you." Joseph looked at the black-and-white image without curiosity. He would rather not have seen it, rather not have been reminded of their perverse cruelty to him that day. He stared at the picture, made no comment, and looked away.

"It's going to be used in a worldwide appeal," Sister said. "Your picture will be in every important magazine in the world. Helping us get money to help other children. Doesn't that make you happy, Joseph?"

He had learned to be dutiful. "Yes, Sister," he said.

The man in the seat next to him turned the polyethylene packet around, slipped out a flap, and deftly extricated a fork and a knife. He handed them to Joseph with a cordial smile.

"There - you see, easy."

"Thank you." Joseph, taking the implements from the man, felt his ears burning with shame. So there had been no need to try and tear open the packet after all. There was a flap. He turned single-mindedly to the food, wanting to shut the rest of the world, witness to his humiliation, out of his sight and hearing.

The first MAKE THIS CHILD SMILE AGAIN poster was put up in the HELP office just behind Sister Eva's desk, so those who came in would be struck by it as soon as they entered and looked for her. It was put up without any fuss or ceremony, and Joseph only knew it was there because the door to Sister Eva's office had been open when he and a group of boys had been walking down the corridor to their daily classes. It was one of the other boys who had noticed it first and drawn everyone else's attention to it.

The slogan soon became a joke. "Smile, Joseph, smile," his friends would tease him. And if he was in a particularly angry mood; one of the boys would ask with mock gravity, "Has anyone got five dollars?" Sometimes Joseph would only get angrier, but sometimes he would be provoked to smile at them. They used to call it the five-dollar smile.

The food was terrible. It was totally unfamiliar to Joseph's taste buds, anyway, and he did not enjoy it. There was, however, a bowl of fruit salad on the tray that contained little diced apples. He ate those, spilling some on the seat and the floor. He did not know whether to be happy about the pieces he had eaten or sad about the ones he had lost. He looked around to see if anyone was watching him. No one was. He tried to pick up a little piece of apple from the floor, but the tray was in his way and he couldn't reach down far enough. It was frustrating. On balance, he felt miserable.

The stewardess swished by to collect his tray. Would he like some tea? Joseph said, "Yes." Actually he wanted coffee, but he was scared that if he said "no" to the tea he might not be offered any coffee either. Why couldn't they have offered him coffee first? he thought, as the pale, brown liquid filled his cup. It was so unfair.

He was, not surprisingly, the first child to be "adopted." Other people who responded to the campaign had sent in their five dollars for the first month, and their pledges for a year or two years or a decade or a lifetime, for any child HELP wanted to rescue. But three couples insisted their money go to one specific child - the child in the photograph. They had seen his sad, little face, and they wanted to make him smile again. No one else. Their five dollars were for Joseph Kumaran's tiny little fingers to come out of his hungry little mouth. And they insisted on being allowed to adopt him alone.

The nuns had sighed when those letters came in. "Oh, what a nuisance some people are," Sister Eva said. "I have half a mind to return their money to them. It's none of their business to tell us where their money should go." But Sister Eva had kept the money and the pledges anyway-from all three couples. Joseph Kumaran's five-dollar smile was actually netting HELP fifteen dollars a month.

So every month Joseph would have to sit down and, in his neat, strained little hand, write a letter to each of his foster parents, thousands of miles away, telling them how good and grateful he was. "Today we had catechism, and I learned the story of how Lot's wife turned into a banana tree," he would write to one couple. (Salt was an expensive commodity in those parts, and the nuns didn't want the children to derive the wrong lessons from the Bible.) Then he would copy the same line out neatly onto the other two letters. As he grew older, Sister Celine would no longer dictate the letters, but let him write them himself and correct them before they were mailed. "Sister Angela has told me about America," he wrote once. "Is it true that everyone is rich there and always has plenty to eat?" Sister Celine did not like that, scored it out, and was later seen speaking sternly to Sister Angela.

The steward was coming down the aisle selling headphones. Joseph had seen him doing that as the flight began, and though he did not know what headphones were, he had discovered that they cost money and that people put them into their ears. He shook his head vigorously when asked whether he wanted one. But his anxious eyes rolled in curiosity as his neighbor, who had also declined the first time, looked at the movie handbill in approbation, produced green notes and silver coins, and was rewarded with a polyethylene packet. From this emerged a contraption even stranger at close quarters than it had seemed from a distance.

The curtains were being drawn across the airplane windows; a screen was lowered at the head of the cabin; images flickered on the whiteness ahead. Joseph stared, transfixed, rapt. His neighbor had plugged in his headset and was obviously listening to something Joseph could not hear. Titles began to appear on the screen.

Joseph desperately wanted to hear the movie, too.

He would get letters in reply from his foster parents. Initially, they were as frequent as his monthly letters to them, but later their interest seemed to flag and he would get only occasional replies. One couple seemed the nicest-they would always apologize profusely whenever their letters were too late, and they would always ask about him, his schoolwork, his games. At Christmas they would send little gifts that Sister Celine would let him open but which he would have to share with the other children. Joseph liked their colored notepaper, the lady's handwriting, which was so easy to read, and the lingering smell of perfume that still clung to each sheet of stationery. Frequently he would hold it up to his face, smothering his nose in it, smelling America.

One day, after several letters to this couple, he became bolder. "It is very hot here at this time of year," he had written in the version approved by Sister Celine "I suppose it is cooler in America." But while copying the corrected draft out neatly on to an aerogram, he added: "I think I would enjoy America very much." He told no one about the addition, sealed the aerogram, and waited excitedly for a reply.

When it came, there was no reference to what he had written. But Joseph did not give up. "I often wonder whether America has trees like the ones in my drawing," he hinted while enclosing a precocious crayon sketch. And in the next letter, "If I came to America, do you think I might like it?" He was so enamored of this approach that he copied that line into each of his three letters and sent them away.

It worked. His favorite "parents," the ones who sent him Christmas presents, wrote to Sister Celine to say that they'd often wanted to see the little boy they'd "adopted" but they'd never been able to manage a trip to India. Would it not be possible for young Joseph to be sent to America instead? As soon as they heard from Sister Celine, they would be happy to enclose a plane ticket for the little boy. Of course, they were not suggesting that he should stay with them always. Obviously, his place was among "his people" in India, and "with you all at HELP." They would send him back, but they did so want to see him, just once.

Sister Celine seemed a little taken aback by the letter. It was not customary for foster parents to evince such an interest in their protégés. When they were old enough the children were simply taught an elementary trade and packed off to earn their keep. Foreign trips, for however short a duration, were highly unusual.

Sister Celine showed Joseph the letter and asked, "You haven't been up to anything, have you?" To his excited protestations she merely responded, "We'll see." And then she went to talk to Sister Eva.

Joseph had only seen one movie before. That was a documentary about HELP's activities among orphan children in the wilds of Bihar, and it had been shown one evening after dinner by the man who made it, so that the nuns could all see what the outside world was being told about their work. Sister Eva, in a spirit of generosity, had suggested that the boys, at least those over five, be permitted to sit on the ground and watch it too. It might teach them a few things, she told the other nuns, make them realize how much we do for them, maybe instill some gratitude in them. Joseph had fallen asleep halfway through that movie. He didn't want to see starving Adivasi children and warm-hearted nuns; he saw them every day. The black-and-white images, the monotonous, superimposed voice of the commentator, blurred in his mind; the nuns danced tiptoe through the crevices of his brain, and the pictures pulsed and faded in his eyes. Firm but gentle hands were rousing him.

"Get up - it's time to go to bed."

In the background, Sister Eva's high-pitched voice rang through the clear night: "Look at them! Give them a special treat like this and half of them go off to sleep! Don't ever let me catch any of you asking to see a movie again. I mean it!"

But what a movie this was. Bright, vivid colors, pretty, white women in short dresses; fast cars racing down broad, foreign streets. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. And he wanted to hear it; hear the loud roar of the car engines, the soft, tinkling laughter of the women, the shouts and the screams and all the sounds of bullets and people and whizzing airplanes.

"Sir." The steward who had dispensed the headphones was standing at the end of the aisle, just behind Joseph, watching the movie too.

"Yes?"

"May I have some headphones too?"

"Of course." The steward disappeared behind the partition and emerged with a polyethylene packet. He handed it to Joseph.

Joseph reached out to take it with an ineffable feeling of awe, wonder, and achievement. He pushed aside the flap, put in his hand, and touched the cold plastic. The sensation was indescribably thrilling.

"Two dollars and fifty cents, please."

"But ... but ... I don't have any money," Joseph said miserably. His eyes pleaded with the steward. "Please?"

The steward had a why-are-you-wasting-my-time-you-dumb-child look on his face. "I'm sorry," he said, taking the packet out of Joseph's hands, "IATA regulations."

And then he was gone, having invoked an authority higher than Joseph's longings, more powerful than philanthropy. When he reemerged from the partition it was on the other side, on the aisle away from Joseph's.

Sister Eva had taken some time to decide. It was not that she minded in principle, she told Sister Celine, but this could set a dangerous precedent. The other children would be wanting to go too, and how many had rich American foster parents who would be willing to mail them plane tickets?

In the end, however, to Joseph's great relief, she agreed. She would write personally to the American couple making it clear Joseph was not to be spoiled. And that he was to be back within a month, before he could become entirely corrupted by American ways, to resume his place among those as unfortunate as he was. Unless they wanted to keep him in America for good, which they showed no intention of doing.

The next few weeks passed in a frenzy of preparation. The ticket had to arrive, a flight had to be booked, a passport had to be issued to Joseph, a visa obtained. He was given a little suitcase for his clothes, and he swelled with pride at his tangible evidence of possessions. He had things, he was somebody. With a passport, a suitcase, a ticket, he was not just a little brown face in a crowd around the gruel bowl; he was Master Joseph Kumaran, and he was going somewhere.

And finally, wearing the tight blazer he had been given on the morning of his departure, its pocket stuffed with the news-magazine clipping he had hoarded since it had been shown to him by Sister Celine four years ago, his passport nestling next to a glossy color photo of his hosts sent to him so that he would recognize them at the airport, Joseph was put on board the plane. Sister Celine was there to see him off, she smiled at him through misty glasses, and Joseph felt the wetness on her cheeks when she hugged him at the departure gate. But he could not cry in return; he was a little scared, but more excited than upset, and he certainly was not sad.

The man sitting next to him did not seem to care particularly for the movie after all. Twice, Joseph caught him dozing off, his eyes closing and his chin sinking slowly to his chest; twice, with equal suddenness, his neighbor's head would jerk awake, prompted no doubt by some startling sound on the headphones. The third time this happened, the man pulled off his headphones in disgust and strode off, clambering over Joseph, in quest of a sink.

Joseph could not resist this opportunity. It was too good to be true: headphones plugged in, next to him, unused. He eased himself out of his seatbelt and sat in his neighbor's chair. Then, tentatively, looking around him to make sure no one had noticed him, he raised the tips to his ears. Almost immediately he was assaulted by the sounds of the movie: brakes screeched as a car drew to a halt; a man dashed down some stairs with a gun in his hand; there was some panting dialogue; the gun went off, the bullet's report a deafening symphony in Joseph's ear; a woman screamed. And his neighbor returned from the toilet.

Joseph looked up, almost in agony. His pleasure had been so brief.

The man smiled down at him from the aisle. "Mine, sonny," he beamed.

Joseph had been well brought up. "Excuse me," he said, gently removing the headphones and placing them on the seat. He slid into his place again, his neighbor returned to his chair, the earplugs went back on, and Joseph found he could not see the screen through his tears.

Hoping his neighbor would not notice, he dabbed at his eyes with the clean, white handkerchief Sister Angela had pressed into his hand that morning. That morning - it seemed so long ago. He returned the handkerchief to his pocket, feeling once again the magazine clipping that, four years ago, had started him on this journey. Resolutely, he refrained from pulling it out. That was not him: he had another identity now. He took out his passport, and his eyes caressed each detail on the inside page, from the fictional birthdate ("it's easier than going through the entire 'birthdate unknown' business," Sister Eva had declared) to the inventory of his characteristics ("Hair: black; eyes: black; skin: brown") to the new, awkward photograph, Joseph staring glassy-eyed into the studio camera. And then, returning the passport at long last to his inside pocket, he touched the other photo, the glossy, color portrait of his new, albeit temporary, parents. After some hesitation, he took it out: these were the people whose house he would call home for the next month.

But would he really? He stared at their forms in the photograph. They had sent Joseph their picture so he would recognize them, but they had not asked for his. "We're sure we'll spot him as soon as he gets off the plane," the wife had written to Sister Celine. "We feel we've known him all our lives." Joseph had felt flattered then, deeply touched. Then one day, in a fit of temper, Sister Eva had threatened to replace Joseph with another little dark-skinned boy from the orphanage. "Do you think they'd be able to tell the difference?" she had demanded.

In silent, desperate misery, Joseph had not known what to say.

Looking at the photograph, Joseph tried to think of the magic of America, of things there he had heard about and dreamed of - movies, parties, delicious food of infinite variety, outings to the beach and to Disneyland. But his eyes dilated and the photograph blurred. He did not know why he felt suffused with a loneliness more intense, more bewildering in its sadness than he had ever experienced in the gruel crowds of HELP. He was alone, lost somewhere between a crumpled magazine clipping and the glossy brightness of a color photograph.

On the seat next to him, his neighbor snored peacefully, chin resting in surrender on his chest, headphones embedded into his ears. On the screen, the magic images flickered, cascaded, and danced on.

1978

---

Copyright © 1990 Shashi Tharoor

Arcade Publishing

Back to the top