The Lowland

But Drew’s pickup wasn’t in the driveway. There was a small white car looking brand-new, parked behind Bela’s. She looked through the peephole, but the visitor was standing to the side.

  She opened the door, wondering what would be asked of her, a signature or contribution for what cause. The glass of the storm door had been recently replaced for the coming cold.

  A woman stood behind it, putting a gloved hand to her mouth.

  They were the same height now. Hair flecked with gray, cropped close to her head. Diminished in build. The skin was softer around the eyes, subduing their intensity. She seemed slight enough to push away.

  She had devoted some attention to her appearance. A layer of lipstick, earrings, a scarf tucked into her coat.

  Bela was barefoot. Wearing the sweatpants she’d slept in, an old pullover of Drew’s. She reached for the handle of the storm door. She felt for the catch, locking it from the inside.

  Bela, she heard her mother say. She saw tears on her mother’s face. Relief, disbelief. The voice she remembered, muted through the glass.

  Meghna approached. Mama, she asked. Who is that lady?

  She didn’t answer.

  Why don’t you open the door?

  She unlocked the door, opened it. She watched her mother enter the house, her movements measured, but instinctively knowing the arrangement of things. Down the short set of steps, to the living room.

  Here, where guests were received, they sat. Bela and Meghna on the sofa, her mother across from them in a chair. Her mother was taking in the dirt under Bela’s fingernails, the roughened skin of her hands.

  Some of the furniture, Bela knew, was the same. The pair of standing lamps on either side of the sofa, with cream-colored shades and little tables wrapped around their midsections, on which to put a cup or a glass. A cane-backed rocking chair. The batik wall hanging of an Indian fishing boat, stretched over a frame.

  But proof of Bela’s life was here also. Her basket of knitting. Her plant cuttings on the windowsill. Her jars of beans and grains, her cookbooks on the shelves.

  Now her mother was looking at Meghna, then back at Bela.

  She is yours?

  Yes, I can see that, she continued, answering her own question after some moments had passed. Bela said nothing. Bela was unable to speak.

  When was she born? When did you get married?

  They were simple questions, ones that Bela did not mind answering when posed by strangers. But coming from her mother each felt outrageous. Each was an affront. She was unwilling to share with her mother, so casually, the facts and choices of her life. She refused to utter the words.

  Her mother turned to Meghna. How old are you?

  She raised her hand, showing four fingers, saying, Almost five.

  When is your birthday?

  November.

  Bela was shivering. She could not control it. How had this happened? Why had she yielded? Why had she opened the door?

  You look just like your mother when she was a girl, her mother said. What’s your name?

  Meghna pointed to a drawing she’d made, on which her name was written. She turned it around, so that it would be easier to read.

  Meghna, do you live here? Or are you visiting?

  Meghna was amused. Of course we live here.

  With your father?

  I don’t have a father, Meghna said. Who are you?

  I am your—

  Aunt, Bela said, speaking for the first time.

  Now Bela was looking at Gauri, glaring at her. With a single shake of her head, silencing Gauri, the admonishment slicing through her, reminding her of her place.

  Gauri felt the same suspension of certainty, the same unannounced but imminent threat, as when the walls in California would tremble during a minor quake. Never knowing until it was over, as a cup rattled on the table, as the earth roiled and resettled itself, whether or not she would be spared.

  This lady was a friend of your grandmother’s, Bela said to Meghna. That makes her your great-aunt. I haven’t seen her since your grandmother died.

  Oh, Meghna said. She went back to her drawing. She was kneeling at the coffee table, her head tilted to one side. A stack of white paper, a wooden box containing a row of crayons. She was focused on her work, regarding it from an angle of concentration, also of repose.

  Gauri sat, perched on an armchair, in a room whose views had remained constant. But everything had changed, the decades collapsing but also asserting themselves. The result was an abyss that could not be crossed.

  She’d come seeking Bela, and here she was. Three feet away, unattainable. She was a grown woman, nearly forty years old. Older than Gauri had been when she’d left her. The proportions of her face had altered. Wider at the temples, longer, more sculptural. Inattentive to her appearance, her brows unshaped, her hair twisted messily at the nape of her neck.

  Will you play tic-tac-toe with me? Meghna asked Bela.

  Not now, Meglet.

  Meghna looked up at Gauri. Her face was brown like Bela’s, her hazel eyes just as watchful. Will you?

  Gauri thought Bela would object, but she said nothing.

  She leaned over, taking the crayon from the child’s hand, marking the paper.

  You and your mother live here with your grandfather? Gauri asked.

  Meghna nodded. And Elise comes every day.

  She could not prevent the question from forming, escaping her mouth.

  Elise?

  When Dadu marries her I’ll have a grandmother, Meghna said. I’m going to be the flower girl.

  Blood was draining from her head. She gripped the armrest, waiting for the feeling to pass.

  She watched Meghna draw a line on the sheet of paper. Look, I won, Gauri heard her say.

  She pulled the envelope of signed documents out of her bag. She set the envelope on the coffee table and slid it toward Bela.

  These are for your father, she said.

  Bela was watching her as one watched an infant just learning to walk, as if she might suddenly topple over and cause some form of damage, even though Gauri was sitting perfectly still.

  He is well? His health is good?

  Still she would not answer her, not speak to her directly. There was no indulgence in her face. No change, from the moment Gauri had arrived.

  All right, then.

  She was burning with the failure of it. The effort of the journey, the presumptuous chance she’d taken, the foolish anticipation of coming back. The divorce was not to simplify but to enrich his life. Though she took up no space in it, he was still in a position to eradicate her.

  She thought of the room that had once been her study. She wondered if it was Meghna’s room now. Back then she had only wanted to shut the door to it, to be apart from Subhash and Bela. She’d been incapable of cherishing what she’d had.

  She stood up, adjusted her bag over her shoulder. I’ll be on my way.

  Wait, Bela said.

  She walked over to a closet and put a jacket on Meghna, a pair of shoes. She opened the sliding glass door off the kitchen. Will you pick some new flowers for the table? she said to her. Pick a big bunch, okay? And then go check the bird feeders. See if we need to give them more food.

  The sliding door was shut. Now she and Bela were alone.

  Bela walked over to where Gauri was standing. She came up close, so close that Gauri took a small step backward. Bela raised her hands, as if to push Gauri away further still, but did not touch her.

  How dare you, Bela said. Her voice was just above a whisper. How dare you set foot in this house.

  No one had ever looked at her with such hatred.

  Why have you come here?

  Gauri felt the wall behind her. She leaned against it for support.

  I came to give your father the papers. Also—

  Also what?

  I wanted to ask him about you. To find you. He said he was open to our meeting.

  And you’ve taken advantage of it. The way you took advantage of
him from the beginning.

  It was wrong of me, Bela. I came to say—

  Get out. Go back to whatever it was that was more important. Bela shut her eyes, putting her hands over her ears.

  I can’t stand the sight of you, she continued. I can’t bear listening to anything you have to say.

  Gauri walked toward the front door. Her throat was raw with pain. She needed water but she didn’t dare ask for it. She put her hand on the knob.

  I’m sorry, Bela. I won’t bother you again.

  I know why you left us, Bela said, directing the words at Gauri’s back.

  I’ve known for years about Udayan, she went on. I know who I am.

  Now it was Gauri unable to move, unable to speak. Unable to reconcile hearing Udayan’s name, coming from Bela.

  And it doesn’t matter. Nothing excuses what you did, Bela said.

  Bela’s words were like bullets. Putting an end to Udayan, silencing Gauri now.

  Nothing will ever excuse it. You’re not my mother. You’re nothing. Can you hear me? I want you to nod if you can hear me.

  There was nothing inside her. Was this what Udayan felt, in the lowland when he stood to face them, as the whole neighborhood watched? There was no one to witness what was happening now. Somehow, she nodded her head.

  You’re as dead to me as he is. The only difference is that you left me by choice.

  She was right; there was nothing to clarify, nothing more to convey.

  There was a knock on the sliding glass door, and Bela went to open it. Meghna wanted to come in.

  She saw Meghna standing at the dining table with Bela, seeking approval for the flowers she’d chosen. Bela was composed, attentive to her daughter, behaving as if Gauri were already gone. Together they were taking old flowers out of a mason jar and replacing them with new ones.

  Gauri could not help herself; before leaving, she crossed the room, walked over to the table, and placed her hand on the girl’s head, then on the cool of her cheek.

  Good-bye, Meghna. I enjoyed meeting you.

  Politely, the child looked up at her. Taking her in and then forgetting her.

  Nothing more was said. Gauri walked toward the front door, briskly this time. Bela, not looking up from what she was doing, did nothing to detain her.

  She opened the envelope as soon as her mother was out of the house, before she’d even started the ignition of the car. She made sure she’d signed and agreed to what her father had asked. What he’d told Bela, a few months ago, he was ready to do.

  There were the signatures, all of them in place. She was thankful for this. As bewildering as it had been, she was thankful that it was she, not her father, who’d had to confront Gauri. She was thankful that she’d shielded him from that.

  Her mother’s brief presence had shocked Bela as a dead body might. But already she had vanished again. She listened to the sound of the car fading, then disappearing, and then it was as if her mother had never come back, and those few moments had never happened. And yet she’d returned, stood before her, spoken to her, spoken to Meghna. Bela had dreamed it so many times.

  This morning, seeing her mother, the force of her anger had crushed her. She’d never felt such violent emotion before.

  It twisted through the love she felt for her father, her daughter, her guarded fondness for Drew. Its destructive current uprooted those things, splintering them and flinging them aside, shearing the leaves from the trees.

  For a moment she was flung back to the day they’d returned from Calcutta. The ripe heat of August, the door to the study left open, the desktop nearly bare. The grass sprouting to her shoulders, spreading before her like a sea.

  Even now Bela felt the urge to strike her. To be rid of her, to kill her all over again.

  Chapter 6

  VIP Road, the old way to and from the airport in Dum Dum, had once been remote enough for bandits, avoided after dark. But now she passed high-rise apartment buildings, glass-fronted offices, a stadium. Lit-up malls and amusement parks. Foreign companies and five-star hotels.

  The city was called Kolkata now, the way Bengalis pronounced it. The taxi traveled along a peripheral artery that bypassed the northern portion of the city, the congested center. It was evening, the traffic dense but moving quickly. Flowers and trees were planted along the sides of the road. New flyovers, new sectors replacing what used to be farmland and swamp. The taxi was an Ambassador. But most of the other cars were imported, smaller sedans.

  After the bypass, turning after a fancy hospital, a few familiar things. The train tracks at Ballygunge, the tangled intersection at Gariahat. Life pouring out of crooked lanes, seated on broken steps. Hawkers, selling clothes, selling slippers and purses, lining the streets.

  It was Durga Pujo, the city’s most anticipated days. The stores, the sidewalks, were overflowing. At the ends of certain alleys, or in gaps among buildings, she saw the pandals. Durga armed with her weapons, flanked by her four children, depicted and worshiped in so many versions. Made of plaster, made of clay. She was resplendent, formidable. A lion helped to conquer the demon at her feet. She was a daughter visiting her family, visiting the city, transforming it for a time.

  The guesthouse was on Southern Avenue. The flat was on the seventh floor. Overlooking the lake. A women’s fitness club below. The elevator seemed hardly more spacious than a telephone booth. Yet somehow she and the caretaker and her suitcase managed to fit.

  You’ve come for Pujo? the caretaker asked.

  She’d been on her way to London, not here. Somewhere over the Atlantic, the destination had become clear.

  In London she hadn’t left the airport. The lecture she was supposed to deliver, the printed pages in a folder in her suitcase, would go unheard.

  She hadn’t bothered e-mailing the organizers of the conference to explain her absence. It didn’t matter to her. Nothing did, after the things Bela had said.

  She’d gone to the booking office in Heathrow, asking about flights to India. The Indian passport she continued to carry, the citizenship she’d never renounced, enabled her, the following morning, to board another plane.

  It took her to Mumbai. It was a direct flight, there was no longer a need to refuel in the Middle East. Another night at another airport hotel, cold white sheets, Indian television programs. Black-and-white films from the sixties, CNN International. Unable to sleep, turning on her laptop, she looked up guesthouses in Kolkata, booked a place to stay.

  The kitchen would be stocked in the morning. The durwan could send someone out to bring in dinner tonight, she heard the caretaker say.

  That won’t be necessary.

  Should I set up a driver?

  She could pay him a flat rate for the day, the caretaker told her. He would show up as early as she liked. He would take her, within the city limits, anywhere she wanted to go.

  I’ll be ready at eight, she said.

  She woke in darkness, her eyes open at five. At six she showered with hot water. She shed her clothes in a corner of the bathroom, brushed her teeth at a pink sink. On the pantry shelves in the kitchen she found a box of Lipton, lit a burner, and made herself a cup of tea. She drank it, and ate a packet of crackers left over from the plane.

  At seven the doorbell rang. A maid carrying a bag of fruit, bread and butter, biscuits, the newspaper. The caretaker had mentioned something about this.

  Her name was Abha. She was a woman in her thirties, a talkative mother of four children. The eldest, she told Gauri, was sixteen. In the afternoons she had a job, at one of the fancy hospitals, cleaning. She brewed more tea, set out a plate of biscuits.

  Abha’s tea was better, stronger, served with sugar and warmed milk. A few minutes later, she brought out another plate.

  What’s this?

  She’d prepared an omelette, sliced toast with butter. The butter was salty, the omelette spiced with pieces of chili. Gauri ate everything. She drank more tea.

  At eight o’clock, looking down from the small balcony off th
e bedroom, Gauri saw a car parked below. The driver was a young man with curly hair and a potbelly, wearing trousers, leather slippers. He was leaning against the hood, smoking a cigarette.

  She went to the north, up College Street, past Presidency, to visit her old neighborhood, to find Manash. But Manash was in Shillong, where one of his sons lived; he went every year at this time. His wife received her in her grandparents’ old flat, where the dark stairwell was still uneven, where the door opened for her, where Manash and his family continued to live.

  She sat with them in one of the bedrooms. She met his other son, the grandchildren from that family. They were incredulous to see her, welcoming, polite. They offered her sandesh, mutton rolls, tea. Behind her, beyond the shuttered door, she heard a constable’s whistle, the clanging of the tram.

  She was tempted to ask if she could step outside for a moment, onto the balcony that wrapped around the rooms of the flat, then changed her mind. How many hours had she spent staring down at the traffic, the intersection, her body bent slightly forward, elbows on the railing, chin cupped in her hand? She was unable to picture herself, suddenly, standing there.

  Using a cell phone, they rang Manash in Shillong. She heard his voice on the phone. Manash, whom she’d followed to this city, who’d been the conduit to Udayan; Manash, the first companion of her life.

  Gauri, he said. His voice had deepened, also weakened. An old man’s voice. Thick with the emotion she also felt.

  It’s really you?

  Yes.

  What finally brings you here?

  I needed to see it again.

  Still he addressed her in the affectionate mode, the diminutive form of exchange reserved for bonds formed in childhood, never questioned, never subject to change. It was how parents spoke to their children, how Udayan and Subhash had once spoken to one another. It conveyed the intimacy of siblings but not of lovers. It was not how either Udayan or Subhash had spoken to her.

  Come to Shillong for a few days. If not, wait for me to come back to Kolkata.

  I’ll try. I’m not sure how long I can stay.

  He told her she was the only one of his sisters still living. That their family had dwindled to the two of them.