It has been six months since he smiled. Six months is a long time for an eight-year-old boy not to smile. Not a grin or a laugh, not a funny face to his friends. It is July of 1943 and Sunny knows nothing of the Japanese occupation of Burma. He doesn’t understand how rice imports to the princely state of Travancore in southern India have plummeted because of war. He’s never heard the word famine before, but knows his family often has little to eat and instead of rice, they now use tapioca to fill their bellies. He counts himself lucky since he sees boys half his age fighting for scraps from food vendors. Customers throw leftovers on folded banana leaves into the street, only to be pounced on by emaciated dogs and starving toddlers with protruding ribs.

In the last six months, Sunny has received a larger share of the food in his family, but still, he doesn’t smile. Now he walks to church, a walk he has taken every day by himself. He limps. He trips on his dragging foot and falls. He is not sure if he can get up on his own. He lifts his face off the ground with his palms beside his shoulders and sees something shiny in the dirt. He reaches and picks it up. It’s a bottle cap. Holding it takes him back to a time when he hadn’t always walked alone.

One year ago, he walked home from school with his older brother, Varkey, who was three years his senior. The two boys looked like twins with their scrawny limbs, navy blue shorts, white shirts, short black hair, except for the six-inch height difference and the different way they parted their hair. Varkey from the left, Sunny from the right. A reflection of sunlight from the ground caught Sunny’s eye. He stepped toward the shiny object in the dirt. His right leg dragged behind his left with each step. The kids at school made fun of him for his funny walk. His brother told him he didn’t always walk like that. He used to run like the other kids until he spiked a fever at age three. The doctor told their mother the weakness in his leg would never fully recover. Polio, he called it. Sunny bent down slowly and picked up the object from the red mud. He rinsed it in a small puddle left over from last night’s rain. He wiped it on his shorts, then

wiped his fingers on his school shirt. Varkey warned him that Amma would kill him when she saw the mud stain on his shirt, but Sunny paid no attention.

In between his thumb and forefinger, he held a coin. It wasn’t the first time he had handled money. Once in a while, his mother sent him and Varkey to the market to sell eggs—he had to be careful not to break them—or buy a vegetable or spice that they didn’t grow in their small piece of land. Travancore was known as the spice coast, but one couldn’t live on spices alone.

Varkey grabbed the coin from Sunny’s hand and looked at it in the light. The older brother looked around to see if they could return it to its rightful owner. Their father had taught them that what you did when no one was looking said more about you than what you did when people were watching. Yet now, the owner of the coin was nowhere to be found. In that case, it seemed reasonable to keep it. The two boys veered from their usual route home, discussing how they might spend their newfound fortune.

A single coin couldn’t buy much. They had seen older boys smoking and considered buying a beedi, but then realized they didn’t have any matches and the smell would land them with a beating from Amma. A toy? Too expensive, plus they’d have to explain where they got it from. This left the only option of mittai—candy. Cheap enough that they could buy some and consumable, so that it wouldn’t leave any evidence for their parents to find. A boy had told them

once about caramel candy, sweeter than mango, even sweeter than sugar cane. So, they decided that’s what they would buy.

When they arrived at the roadside stall, there were newspapers and magazines stacked on a shelf, some displayed hanging from a string. The candy sat in a few small glass jars in the front. The man behind the counter had a thick black mustache that overhung his upper lip. His hair was slicked back. His hands rough. His fingernails were trimmed short, except for the nail on his right pinky that extended for an inch. He used it to brush the edges of his mustache and

clean out wax from his ear. He barked at them, trying to shoo them away. He didn’t like kids lingering in front of his stall, he said, especially kids that didn’t walk straight.

Varkey didn’t like that last part. No one disrespected his little brother. He said Sunny walked just as straight as any kid, just a bit slower, then he added that they had money and wanted to buy a caramel candy. The shopkeeper used his pinky finger to tap on the jar of what they were looking for – each candy wrapped in golden foil with purple stripes. Sunny pulled the coin from his pocket to confirm they weren’t lying about the money. The man snatched it away. He brought it to his eye and inspected it with suspicion, like a jeweler inspecting a gem. Then, he eyed the boys, as if they were suspects in a police lineup. He barked at them again.

Sunny explained that they found the money on the ground. The shopkeeper barked once more. He knew their father, he said. A respectable man, he added. Take the money and go home before they get into trouble, he told them. Sunny turned to leave, when Varkey replied that the coin was real money and they wanted real candy. The man shrugged and reached into the jar, pulling out one candy and then another. The second one slipped, but he pinned it against the glass with his long pinky nail and dragged it up until he scooped it into his hand and put one into each boy’s open palm. They were delighted. Not just one candy, but two. They skipped along, praising the heavens for their good fortune. They ran until they were out of sight of the roadside stall and down a small lane, lined with a short wall of large stones.

Varkey climbed three or four feet to the top of the wall and pulled Sunny up until they both dangled their legs over the side. Behind them lay a grove of rubber trees, dripping white sap into half coconut shells pinned to their trunks. Varkey was about to open his candy when Sunny stopped him. They should share one and save the other for tomorrow. Varkey agreed and slid his candy into his pocket, while Sunny began trying to unwrap the one in his hands. The heat had melted the candy somewhat, forming a glue that stuck the wrapper tight to the candy inside. He fidgeted with it, trying to unfold it from its center, but no luck. He decided to give Varkey a try, but just as he was about to put it into Varkey’s palm, Sunny felt a foot on his back, shoving him off of the short wall and onto the red soil. In an effort to catch his younger brother, Varkey fell off too.

They looked up from the ground to see Mathai. The boy was a few years older than Varkey. He was the only boy in school who boasted about pulling the legs off of frogs while they were still alive or throwing chickens into dung piles behind cow sheds. His menacing ways didn’t stop at animals.

Mathai jumped down from the wall and kicked each of them. The two boys climbed to their feet. Sunny limped away as fast as he could. He looked back to see Mathai scoop the candy from the ground. Varkey didn’t run. Instead, he stood there, demanding the candy from Mathai. The older boy laughed, spit at Varkey’s feet. Sunny watched his brother yell at Mathai, telling him to give back his brother’s candy. Mathai couldn’t just steal from them, Varkey explained. Stealing was wrong. Mathai laughed again, imploring Varkey to come and take the candy if he really wanted it.

Sunny wasn’t sure what came over Varkey at that moment. Perhaps it was the months of empty, gurgling stomachs, but they had always known hunger. Perhaps it was the endless meals of tapioca, steamed, then boiled, then roasted, week after week, but Varkey never complained. No, Sunny knew it was the fact that Mathai had crossed a line when he laid a foot on him and Varkey never let anyone, not even Mathai, disrespect his little brother like that. Varkey lunged at Mathai with a fury that Sunny had never seen before. The two boys were a mess of tangled, bony limbs. They punched and kicked and rolled around in the crimson dirt until breathless and beaten, Varkey lay on the ground. His shirt was soiled and his face scraped up. Sunny watched from afar as Mathai stood over Varkey, now with a small knot on the inside of his cheek. The golden wrapper floated down empty and landed on Varkey’s chest. Sunny wanted his brother to stay down, let the bully leave, so they could go home at last, but there was a rage in Varkey’s eyes that scared Sunny. Varkey pushed up off the ground, spat blood and implored Mathai for another round. Mathai saw the same crazy look that Sunny saw and knew it was time to leave. He had his bounty, so instead of fighting, Mathai scaled the wall and ran off into the grove of rubber trees. Sunny limped back to help his older brother. He wrapped his arm under Varkey’s armpit and they hobbled home.

When they arrived home, Varkey was careful to take the one candy out of his pocket that Mathai didn’t steal. They washed their clothes in well water and hung them in the forest behind the house. They smiled at each other, knowing they were so close to tasting the candy. Not now though, not yet, because if Amma found them sitting in the grove without their school clothes on, Mathai’s beating would pale in comparison. They ran into the house and changed into clean clothes, careful to avoid their mother’s attention. When she emerged from the kitchen and questioned them about their scrapes, they explained that they fell off the wall near the rubber trees. She gave them a questioning look but was too busy preparing the evening meal to bother. Finally, they retreated to their bedroom and sat on the floor where they slept.

They could hear Amma in the kitchen, clinking pots and pans. This was their chance, safe from Mathai and their mother, and the accusing eyes of the roadside shopkeeper. Varkey held the candy up in front of their eyes. They both stared at it until they went cross-eyed. The wrapper was wound so tight, keeping the sweet, hard candy safe inside. This was the moment they had been waiting for. Despite Mathai’s assault and theft, they had persevered for a chance to eat the candy that the universe had gifted them. Varkey started to pull at one end and glimpsed the hard, brown candy underneath when the door swung open.

It was their father. He wore a lungi that hung down to his ankles but flew up powered by a gust of air from the swinging door. He grabbed the bottom end and tied it up towards his waist. His voice was heated. His chest was bare and heaving. His veins bulged from his neck. On his way home, the shopkeeper told him that his sons spent money on some candy. Their father was a kind man, but he would not tolerate unruly children. He asked where they stole the money from. Sunny tried to explain. Someone must have dropped the money while boarding a ricksha or it fell from their pocket on the way back from the market, but their father only yelled louder. He wouldn’t believe their word over that of an adult, even if it was the roadside shopkeeper. He raised his hand to strike Sunny when Varkey stepped in. He admitted to stealing the coin from a teacher—a believable story, but one that if their father tried to confirm would only deepen the shame to the family. Varkey held the candy out to his father. It was still wrapped in gold and purple foil. Their father slapped it to the floor and crushed it with his foot over and over and over again. Sunny felt each stomp of his father’s foot crushing his small dream. Each stomp felt like a blow to his gut, but it couldn’t have hurt as much as the blows Varkey received. First to his face, then his back side, then his leg. Three swift blows—not with anger, but with firm, quick discipline—and just like that their father left. Sunny shook. Varkey groaned, prostrate on the floor.

Sunny turned his brother over, expecting a bloody nose and broken teeth. Instead, Varkey smiled and laughed. In his hand he held the purple and gold wrapper, still intact, but flatter than before. Sunny helped his brother sit up and they carefully undid the wrapper. Inside was the caramel candy, crumbled into pieces. They shared it, as promised. Varkey handed Sunny the opened wrapper so he could lick up every last morsel. They laughed and felt satisfied, as if they had eaten an entire jackfruit in one sitting.

Lying on the ground, with the bottle cap in his hand, Sunny knows now that he can get up on his own. He walks alone to the church and the cemetery beside it. A brown, rectangular clay plate in the ground reads February 25, 1931 - January 10, 1943. Varkey’s name is etched into the clay. Smallpox is an unforgiving and random scourge. The name and date don’t explain Varkey’s life. How he sacrificed. How he was brave. How he was strong in the face of overwhelming odds. But Sunny knows. He remembers the coin. He flips the bottle cap up and catches it in his hand. He places it on the clay plate. He knows that he’ll fall again and again but now, remembering his brother, he knows he can get up and keep walking. He knows he can keep going. He smiles.