The Lowland (15 page)

I’ll be upstairs in a moment.

Don’t bother today, her mother-in-law said.

Why not?

You won’t be of help.

She shook her head, confused.

An intelligent girl. This is what he told us after he married you. And yet, incapable of understanding simple things.

What haven’t I understood?

Her mother-in-law had already turned to leave the room. At the door she paused. Careful from now on, not to slip in the bathroom, or on the stairs.

From now on?

You’re going to be a mother, Gauri heard her say.

From the beginning of their marriage he did not touch her for one week out of every month. He had asked her to keep track of her periods in the pages of her diary, telling him when it was safe.

After the revolution was successful, he’d told her, they’d bring children into the world. Only then. But in the final weeks before his death, when he was hiding at the house, they had both lost track of the days.

She had been born with a map of time in her mind. She pictured other abstractions as well, numbers and the letters of the alphabet, both in English and in Bengali. Numbers and letters were like links on a chain. Months were arrayed as if along an orbit in space.

Each concept existed in its own topography, three-dimensional, physical. So that ever since she was a child it was impossible for her to calculate a sum, to spell a word she was unsure of, to access a memory or await something in the coming months, without retrieving it from a specific location in her mind.

Her strongest image was always of time, both past and future; it was an immediate horizon, at once orienting and containing her. Across the limitless spectrum of years, the brief tenancy of her own life was superimposed. To the right was the recent past: the year she’d
met Udayan, and before that, all the years she’d lived without knowing him. There was the year she was born, 1948, prefaced by all the years and centuries that came before.

To the left was the future, the place where her death, unknown but certain, was an end point. In less than nine months a baby would come. But its life had already started, its heart already beating, represented by a separate line creeping forward. She saw Udayan’s life, no longer accompanying her own as she’d assumed it would, but ceasing in October 1971. This formed a grave in her mind’s eye.

Only the present moment, lacking any perspective, eluded her grasp. It was like a blind spot, just over her shoulder. A hole in her vision. But the future was visible, unspooling incrementally.

She wanted to shut her eyes to it. She wished the days and months ahead of her would end. But the rest of her life continued to present itself, time ceaselessly proliferating. She was made to anticipate it against her will.

There was the anxiety that one day would not follow the next, combined with the certainty that it would. It was like holding her breath, as Udayan had tried to do in the lowland. And yet somehow she was breathing. Just as time stood still but was also passing, some other part of her body that she was unaware of was now drawing oxygen, forcing her to stay alive.

Chapter 3

The day after speaking to Gauri, Subhash went out, alone, into the city for the first time. He took the material his parents had given him, his share and Udayan’s, to a men’s tailoring shop. He didn’t need new shirts and trousers, and yet he felt obligated, not wanting the material to go to waste. The news that there was nowhere to have clothes tailored in Rhode Island, that American clothing was all ready-made, had come to his parents as a surprise. It was the first detail of his life there they’d openly reacted to.

He took the tram to Ballygunge, walking past the hawkers who called out to him. He found the small shop owned by distant relatives, where he and Udayan always went together, once a year, to be measured. A long counter, a fitting room in the corner, a rod where the finished clothing was hung. He placed his order, watching the tailor sketch the designs quickly in a notebook, clipping a triangle of the material and stapling it to the corner of each receipt.

There was nothing else he needed, nothing from the city he wanted. After hearing what Gauri had told him, after picturing it, he could focus on little else.

He got on a bus, riding with no destination in mind, getting out close to Esplanade. He saw foreigners on the streets, Europeans wearing kurtas, beads. Exploring Calcutta, passing through. Though he looked like any other Bengali he felt an allegiance with the foreigners now. He shared with them a knowledge of elsewhere. Another life to go back to. The ability to leave.

There were hotels he might have entered in this part of the city, to have a whiskey or a beer, to fall into a conversation with strangers. To forget the way his parents behaved, to forget the things Gauri had said.

He stopped to light a cigarette, Wills, the brand Udayan smoked. Feeling tired, he stood in front of a store that sold embroidered shawls.

What would you like to see? the owner asked. He was from Kashmir, his face pale, his eyes light, a cotton cap on his head.

Nothing.

Come have a look. Have a cup of tea.

He had forgotten about such gestures of hospitality from shopkeepers. He entered and sat on a stool, watching as the woolen shawls were spread out one by one on a large white cushion on the floor. The generosity of the effort, the faith implicit in it, touched him. He decided to buy one for his mother, realizing only now that he’d brought her nothing from America.

I’ll take this, he said, fingering a navy-blue shawl, thinking she would appreciate the softness of the wool, the intricacy of the stitch.

What else?

That’s all, he said. But then he pictured Gauri. He recalled her profile as she’d told him about Udayan. The way she’d stared straight ahead at nothing, telling him what he’d wanted to know.

It was thanks to Gauri that he knew what had happened: that she and his parents had watched Udayan die. He knew now that his parents had been shamed before their neighbors. Unable to help Udayan, unable in the end to protect him. Losing him in an unthinkable way.

He sifted through the choices at his feet. Ivory, gray, a brown that was lighter than the tea he’d been given to drink. These were considered appropriate for her now. But a vivid turquoise one with a border of minute embroidery caught his eye.

He imagined it wrapped around her shoulders, trailing over one side. Brightening her face.

Also this one, he said.

His parents were on their terrace, waiting. They asked what had taken him so long. They said it still wasn’t safe, to wander so late on the streets.

Though their concern was reasonable it annoyed him. I’m not Udayan, he was tempted to say. I would never have put you through that.

He gave his mother the shawl he’d bought for her. Then he showed her the one for Gauri.

I’d like to give her this.

You should know better, she said. Stop trying to befriend her.

He was silent.

I heard the two of you talking yesterday.

I’m not supposed to talk to her?

What did she tell you?

He didn’t say. Instead he asked, Why don’t you ever talk to her?

Now it was his mother who was silent.

You’ve taken away her colored clothes, the fish and meat from her plate.

These are our customs, his mother said.

It’s demeaning. Udayan would never have wanted her to live this way.

He was not used to quarreling with his mother. But a new energy flowed through him and he could not restrain himself.

Does it mean nothing, that she’s going to give you a grandchild?

It means everything. It’s the only thing he’s left us, his mother said.

And what about Gauri?

She has a place here if she chooses.

What do you mean, if she chooses?

She could go somewhere to continue her studies. She might prefer it.

What makes you think that?

She’s too withdrawn, too aloof to be a mother.

His temples were throbbing. Have you discussed any of this with her?

There’s no point in worrying her about it now.

He saw that already, coldly, sitting on the terrace, his mother had plotted it out. But he was just as appalled at his father, for saying nothing, for going along with it.

You can’t separate them. For Udayan’s sake, accept her.

His mother lost her patience. She was angry with him, too. Shut your mouth, she said, her tone insulting. Don’t tell me how to honor my own son.

That night, under the mosquito netting, Subhash was unable to sleep.

Perhaps he would never fully know what Udayan had done. Gauri had conveyed her version to him, and his parents refused to discuss it.

He supposed they’d been lenient regarding Udayan, as they’d always been. Intuiting that he was in over his head, but never confronting him.

Udayan had given his life to a movement that had been misguided, that had caused only damage, that had already been dismantled. The only thing he’d altered was what their family had been.

He had kept Subhash, and probably to a great degree also his parents, deliberately in the dark. The more his involvement had deepened, the more evasive he’d turned. Writing letters as if the movement no longer mattered to him. Hoping to throw Subhash off the trail as he’d put together bombs, as he’d sketched maps of the Tolly Club. As he’d blown the fingers off his hand.

Gauri was the one he’d trusted. He’d inserted her into their lives, only to strand her there.

Like the solution to an equation emerging bit by bit, Subhash began to perceive a turn things might take. He was already eager to leave Calcutta. There was nothing he could do for his parents. He was unable to console them. Though he’d returned to stand before them, in the end it had not mattered that he had come.

But Gauri was different. Around her, he felt a shared awareness of the person they’d both loved.

He thought of her remaining with his parents, living by their rules. His mother’s coldness toward Gauri was insulting, but his father’s passivity was just as cruel.

And it wasn’t simply cruelty. Their treatment of Gauri was deliberate, intended to drive her out. He thought of her becoming a mother, only to lose control of the child. He thought of the child being raised in a joyless house.

The only way to prevent it was to take Gauri away. It was all he could do to help her, the only alternative he could provide. And the only way to take her away was to marry her. To take his brother’s place, to raise his child, to come to love Gauri as Udayan had. To follow him in a way that felt perverse, that felt ordained. That felt both right and wrong.

The date of his departure was approaching; soon enough he would be on the plane again. There was no one there for him in Rhode Island. He was tired of being alone.

He had tried to deny the attraction he felt for Gauri. But it was like the light of the fireflies that swam up to the house at night, random points that surrounded him, that glowed and then receded without a trail.

He mentioned nothing to his parents, knowing that they would only try to dissuade him. He knew the solution he’d arrived at would appall them. He went to her directly. He’d been afraid of how his family might react to Holly. But he was no longer afraid.

This is for you, he said, standing in her doorway, giving her the shawl.

She lifted the cover of the box and looked at it.

I’d like for you to wear it, he said.

He watched her step into the room and open her wardrobe. She placed the shawl, still folded in the box, inside.

When she turned to face him again, he observed that a mosquito had landed at the very edge of her forehead, close to the hairline. He wanted to reach over and brush it away, but she stood, unbothered, perhaps unaware.

I hate how my parents treat you, he said.

She was silent. She sat down at her desk, in front of the book and the notebook spread there. She was waiting for him to go.

He lost his nerve. The idea was ridiculous. She would not wear the turquoise shawl, she would never agree to marry him and go to Rhode Island. She was mourning for Udayan, carrying his child. Subhash knew he was nothing to her.

The following afternoon, at a time no one was expected, the buzzer rang. Subhash was sitting on the terrace, reading the papers. His father was at work, his mother had gone out on an errand. Gauri was in her room.

He went down the staircase to see who it was. He found three men standing on the other side of the gate. Two policemen carrying guns, and an investigator from the Intelligence Bureau. The investigator introduced himself. He wanted to speak to Gauri.

She’s sleeping.

Go wake her.

He unlocked the gate and took them to the second floor. He asked them to wait on the landing. Then he walked down the corridor to Gauri’s room.

When she opened the door, she was not wearing her glasses. Her eyes looked tired. Her hair was disheveled, the material of her sari wrinkled. The bed was unmade.

He told her who had come. I’ll stay with you, he said.

She tied back her hair and put on her glasses. She remade the bed and told him she was ready. She was composed, betraying none of the nervousness he felt.

The investigator stepped into the room first. The policemen followed, standing in the doorway. They were smoking cigarettes, allowing the ashes to fall onto the floor. One of them had a lazy eye, so that he seemed to be looking at both Gauri and Subhash at the same time.

The investigator was observing the walls, the ceiling, taking in certain details. He picked up one of the books on Gauri’s table, thumbing through a few pages. He took a notepad and pen out of his shirt pocket. He made some notes. The tips of some of his fingers had lost their pigment, as if spotted with bleach.

You’re the brother? he asked, not bothering to look up at Subhash.

Yes.

The one in America?

He nodded, but the investigator was already focused on Gauri.

You met your husband in what year?

Nineteen sixty-eight.

While you were a student at Presidency?