The Lowland (21 page)

Some nights he, too, fell asleep briefly beside Bela. Carefully he removed her hands from the collar of his shirt, and adjusted the blanket on top of her. Her head was thrust back on the pillow, in a combined posture of pride and surrender. He’d experienced such closeness with only one other person. With Udayan. Each night, extracting himself from her, for a moment his heart stopped, wondering what she would say, the day she learned the truth about him.

On Saturdays he and Bela went to the supermarket; this was their time alone together outside the apartment, a time he looked forward to more than any other in the course of the week. She no longer fit into the seat at the front of the cart, and now she hung on to the back as he steered, hopping off to help him choose the apples, a box of cereal, a jar of jam.

Faster, she would insist, and sometimes, if the aisle was empty, he obliged, sprinting forward, playing along. In this sense Udayan had marked her, leaving behind an exuberant replica of himself. And Subhash loved this about her; that there was such a liberal outpouring of who she was.

Standing with him at the deli, she ate little cubes of cheese speared onto toothpicks, the spoons of potato salad set out on trays, pink wedges of ham. There was a cafeteria at the back of the supermarket, and here he treated her to a hot dog and a cup of punch, a plate of onion rings to share.

One day, crossing the parking lot after they’d finished shopping, pushing the cart filled with brown paper bags, he saw Holly.

Bela was still clinging to the back of the cart, facing him. It was a cold autumn day, the sky bright, the wind off the ocean strong.

For so many years he had been careful to avoid places where he might run into her, no longer visiting the salt pond that was closest to her house, making sure her car was not parked at the beach where they’d first met.

But now he saw her, in a place he came every week without fail. She was accompanied not by Joshua but by a man. He had his arm around Holly’s waist.

The man was her husband, the same face in the photograph in Joshua’s room. Older now, going gray, his hairline receding.

She appeared relaxed with this man who had once forsaken her, who had betrayed her. She was unaware of Subhash. He heard her laughter as they crossed the parking lot, and saw her tossing back her head. He’d been in his twenties when he knew her. She would be over forty now; Joshua would be fourteen, old enough to stay at home by himself while his mother and father went shopping.

The years between them hadn’t mattered to Subhash. But he wondered if she’d broken it off because of this; because he’d been immature, in no position to replace the man now once more at her side.

They began walking together toward the supermarket, Holly slowing down, seeing him, waving now in recognition, still approaching. Her blond hair was cut differently, in layers around her face. Wearing clogs, flared trousers, a cowl-necked sweater, clothing for colder weather. Otherwise she was unchanged.

What are you looking at, Baba?

Nothing.

Let’s go, then.

He was unable to move forward. And it was too late to avoid her now.

Bela stepped off the back of the cart and stood next to him. He felt her leaning against his hip. He smoothed her hair, and sought the warmth at the base of her throat. Her face was still small enough for him to cup most of it in his hand.

Subhash, Holly said. You have a little girl.

Yes.

I had no idea. This is Keith.

This is Bela.

They shook hands. Subhash wondered if Keith knew about the time he and Holly had spent together. Holly was taking Bela in, admiring her.

How long have you been married?

About five years.

You decided to stay here, after all.

I did. Joshua is well?

Up to here on me, she said, indicating his height with her hand.

She reached out, touching his arm for an instant. She looked genuinely pleased to see him, to have met Bela. He remembered how much she’d loved listening to him talk about his childhood, about Calcutta. What had she remembered? He’d never told her that Udayan was dead.

Good to run into you, Subhash. Take care.

Though jealousy should not have flared, he felt its hold as they walked past him, as he pushed the cart loaded with groceries toward his car. He saw that it had not simply been for Joshua that she’d forgiven her husband. That they loved one another still.

Subhash and Gauri shared a bed at night, they had a child in common. Almost five years ago they had begun their journey as husband and wife, but he was still waiting to arrive somewhere with her. A place where he would no longer question the result of what they’d done.

She never expressed any unhappiness, she did not complain. But the smiling, carefree girl in the photograph Udayan had sent, that had been Subhash’s first impression of her, that he had also hoped to draw out—that part of her he’d never seen.

And another thing was missing, something that troubled him even more to admit. He hated thinking about it. He hated remembering the terrible prediction his mother had made.

But somehow his mother had known. For the tenderness Subhash felt for Bela, that was impossible for him to ration or restrict, was not the same on Gauri’s end.

Though she cared for Bela capably, though she kept her clean and combed and fed, she seemed distracted. Rarely did Subhash see her smiling when she looked into Bela’s face. Rarely did he see Gauri kissing Bela spontaneously. Instead, from the beginning, it was as if she’d reversed their roles, as if Bela were a relative’s child and not her own.

On the beach with Bela, he was aware of families who traveled to Rhode Island to reinforce their closeness. For so many it seemed a sacred rite.

Subhash and Gauri had never gone on vacation together, with Bela. Subhash had never suggested it, perhaps because he knew that
the idea wouldn’t appeal to Gauri. He spent his time off with Bela, driving with her here and there for the day. He couldn’t imagine the three of them exploring a new place together, or renting a cottage with another family, as some of his colleagues did.

He’d hoped that by now Gauri would be ready to have a child with him, and to give Bela a companion. He’d gone so far as to suggest it one day, saying he did not want to deny Bela a sibling. He believed it would correct the imbalance, if they were four instead of three. That it would close up the distance.

She told him she would think about it in another year or two; that she was not yet thirty, that there was still time to have a child.

And so he continued hoping, though every month, in the medicine cabinet, was a new packet of birth-control pills.

At times he feared that his one act of rebellion, marrying her, had already failed. He’d expected more resistance from her then, not now. He wondered sometimes if she regretted it. If the decision had been made in error, in haste.

She’s Udayan’s wife, she’ll never love you, his mother had told him, attempting to dissuade him. At the time he’d stood up to her, convinced it could be otherwise, and that he could make Gauri happy. He’d been determined to prove his mother wrong.

In order to marry Gauri he’d compromised his ties to his parents, perhaps permanently, he did not know. But he was a father now. He could no longer imagine a life in which he had not taken that step.

Chapter 6

Play with me, Bela would say.

If Subhash was not there she sought out Gauri’s companionship, instructing her to sit on the floor in Bela’s room. She wanted her to move pieces along a board, or help to dress and undress her dolls, tugging the clothes on and off their unyielding plastic limbs. She spread dozens of identical cards facedown, a memory game in which they were supposed to locate matching pairs.

At times Gauri capitulated, holding on to a book she was reading, stealing glances while it was Bela’s turn. She played, but it was never enough.

You’re not paying attention, Bela protested, when Gauri’s mind strayed.

She sat on the carpet, conscious of Bela’s reproach. She knew that a sibling might relieve her of the responsibility to entertain Bela this way. She knew that this was partly what motivated people to have more than one child.

She did not tell Subhash, when he brought it up with her, what she already knew: that though she had become a wife a second time, becoming a mother again was the one thing in her life she was determined to prevent from happening.

She slept with him because it had become more of an effort not to. She wanted to terminate the expectation she’d begun to sense from him. Also to extinguish Udayan’s ghost. To smother what haunted her.

Nothing in their lovemaking had reminded her of Udayan, so that, in the end, the fact that they had been brothers was not so strange. There was the focus of seeking pleasure, and the numbing effect, once they were finished, removing all specific thoughts from her brain. It ushered in the solid, dreamless sleep that otherwise eluded her.

His body was a different body, more hesitant but also more attentive. In time she came to respond to it, even to crave it, as she had craved odd combinations of food when she was pregnant. With Subhash
she learned that an act intended to express love could have nothing to do with it. That her heart and her body were different things.

She’d seen signs in the student union advertising babysitters, services provided by students and professors’ wives. She began writing down some names and phone numbers.

She asked Subhash if they could hire somebody, to give her time to take a survey of German philosophy that met twice a week. Though Bela was five now, in kindergarten, she still attended school for only half the day. Gauri said that this was a reasonable solution, given that Subhash was busy, given that they knew no one else who could help.

He told her no. Not for the money it would cost but on principle, not wanting to pay a stranger to care for Bela.

It’s common here, she said.

You’re home with her, Gauri.

Though he had encouraged her to visit the library in her spare time, to attend lectures now and again, she realized that he didn’t consider this her work. Though he’d told her, when he asked her to marry him, that she could go on with her studies in America, now he told her that her priority should be Bela.

She’s not your child, she wanted to say. To remind him of the truth.

But of course it was not the truth. At Bela’s ballet recital a few weeks before, Gauri saw the change in her as soon as Subhash, arriving a few minutes late, had taken his place and waved; Bela filling with the awareness of him, her chin tucked into her shoulder, bashfully performing only for him.

A few days later she brought it up again.

This is important to me, she said.

Willing to compromise, he told her he would try to rearrange his schedule. He began to leave earlier on certain mornings, and return, a few days a week, by late afternoon. She registered for the class and went to the bookstore, filling a basket with books.
On the Genealogy of Morals. The Phenomenology of Mind. The World as Will and Idea
. She bought a packet of pens and a dictionary. A wire-bound notebook bearing the university’s seal.

• • •

With Bela, she was aware of time not passing; of the sky nevertheless darkening at the end of another day. She was aware of the perfect silence in the apartment, replete with the isolation she and Bela shared. When she was with Bela, even if they were not interacting, it was as if they were one person, bound fast by a dependence that restricted her mentally, physically. At times it terrified her that she felt so entwined and also so alone.

On weekdays, as soon as she picked up Bela from the bus stop and brought her home, she went straight to the kitchen, washing up the morning dishes she’d ignored, then getting dinner started. She measured out the nightly cup of rice, letting it soak in a pan on the counter. She peeled onions and potatoes and picked through lentils and prepared another night’s dinner, then fed Bela. She was never able to understand why this relatively unchallenging set of chores felt so relentless. When she was finished, she did not understand why they had depleted her.

She waited for Subhash to take over, to allow her to leave, to attend her class or to study at the library. For there was no place to work in the apartment, no door she could shut, no desk where she could keep her things.

She begrudged Subhash’s absence when he was at work, his ability to come and go and nothing more. She resented the few moments of the morning he enjoyed with Bela, before leaving for his lab.

She resented him for going away for two or three days, to attend oceanography conferences or to conduct research at sea. Due to no fault of his own, when he did appear, sometimes she was barely able to stand the sight of him, or to tolerate the sound of the voice that, in the beginning, had drawn her to him.

She began to eat dinner early, with Bela, leaving Subhash’s portion on the stove. So that almost as soon as he was there, Gauri was able to pack up her tote bag and go. She felt the fresh air of early evening on her face. Bright in springtime, dark and cold in fall.

At first it was just the evenings she had class, but then it was every evening of the week that she spent at the library, away from them.
Happy to spend time with Bela, Subhash let her go. And so she felt antagonized by a man who did nothing to antagonize her, and by Bela, who did not even know the meaning of the word.

But her worst nemesis resided within her. She was not only ashamed of her feelings but also frightened that the final task Udayan had left her with, the long task of raising Bela, was not bringing meaning to her life.

In the beginning she’d told herself that it was like a thing misplaced: a favorite pen that would turn up a few weeks later, wedged between the sofa cushions, or discreetly sitting behind a sheaf of papers. Once found, it would never be lost sight of again. To look for such a misplaced item only made it worse. If she waited long enough, she told herself, there it would be.

But it was not turning up; after five years, in spite of all the time, all the hours she and Bela spent together, the love she’d once felt for Udayan refused to reconstitute itself. Instead there was a growing numbness that inhibited her, that impaired her.