The Lowland (6 page)

The bus crossed over a winding estuary, to an area that felt more remote. Here the air was never still, so that the windows of the bus would rattle. Here the quality of the light changed.

The laboratory buildings were like small airplane hangars, flat-topped structures made of corrugated gray metal. He studied the gases that were dissolved in the sea’s solution, the isotopes found in deep sediments. The iodine found in seaweed, the carbon in plankton, the copper in the blood of crabs.

At the foot of the campus, at the base of a steep hill, there was a small beach strewn with gray-and-yellow stones where he liked to eat his lunch. There were views of the bay, and the two bridges going to islands offshore. The Jamestown Bridge was prominent, the Newport Bridge, a few miles in the distance, more faint. On cloudy days, at intervals, the sound of a foghorn pierced the air, as conch shells were blown in Calcutta to ward off evil.

Some of the smaller islands, reachable only by boat, were without electricity and running water. Conditions under which, he was told, certain wealthy Americans liked to spend their summers. On one island there was space only for a lighthouse, nothing more. All the islands, however tiny, had names: Patience and Prudence, Fox and Goat, Rabbit and Rose, Hope and Despair.

At the top of the hill, leading up from the beach, there was a church with white shingles arranged like a honeycomb. The central portion rose to a steeple. The paint was no longer fresh, the wood
beneath it having absorbed so much salt from the air, so many storms that had traveled up the Rhode Island coast.

One afternoon he was surprised to see cars lining the road where it crested. For the first time he saw that the front doors of the church were open. A group of people, a mix of adults and children, no more than twenty, stood outside.

He glimpsed a couple in middle age, newly married. A gray-haired groom with a carnation in his lapel, a woman in a pale blue jacket and skirt. They stood smiling on the steps of the church, ducking their heads as the group showered them with rice. Looking like they should have been parents of the bride and groom, closer to his parents’ generation than to his own.

He guessed that it was a second marriage. Two people trading one spouse for another, dividing in two, their connections at once severed and doubled, like cells. Or perhaps it was a case of a couple who had both lost their spouses in midlife. A widow and widower with grown children, remarrying and moving on.

For some reason the church reminded him of the small mosque that stood at the corner of his family’s neighborhood in Tollygunge. Another place of worship designated for others, which had served as a landmark in his life.

One day, when the church was empty, Subhash walked up the stone path to the entrance. He felt the strange urge to embrace it; the narrow proportions were so severe that it seemed scarcely wider than his arm span. The only entrance was the rounded dark green door at the front. Above it, the windows, also rounded, were as thin as slits. Space for a hand to poke out but not a face.

The door was locked, so he walked around the building, standing on the balls of his feet and looking into the windows. Some of the panes were made of red glass, interspersed with clear ones.

Inside he saw gray pews, edged with red trim. It was an interior at once pristine and vibrant, bathed with light. He wanted to sit inside, to feel the pale walls around him. The simple, tightly angled ceiling overhead.

He thought of the couple he’d seen, getting married. He imagined them standing next to one another.

For the first time, he thought of his own marriage. For the first time, perhaps because he always felt in Rhode Island that some part of him was missing, he desired a companion.

He wondered what woman his parents would choose for him. He wondered when it would be. Getting married would mean returning to Calcutta. In that sense he was in no hurry.

He was proud to have come alone to America. To learn it as he once must have learned to stand and walk and speak. He’d wanted so much to leave Calcutta, not only for the sake of his education but also—he could admit this to himself now—to take a step Udayan never would.

In the end this was what had motivated him. And yet the motivation had done nothing to prepare him. Each day, in spite of its growing routine, felt uncertain, improvisational. Here, in this place surrounded by sea, he was drifting far from his point of origin. Here, detached from Udayan, he was ignorant of so many things.

Most nights Richard was out at dinnertime, but if he happened to be home he accepted Subhash’s invitation to share a meal, bringing out his ashtray and a packet of cigarettes, offering one of his beers as Subhash cooked curry and boiled a pot of rice. In exchange, Richard began to drive Subhash, once a week, to the supermarket in town, splitting the cost of the groceries.

One weekend, when they both needed a break from studying, Richard drove Subhash to an empty parking lot on campus, teaching him to shift gears so that Subhash could apply for a driver’s license and borrow the car when he needed to.

When Richard decided Subhash was ready, he let him take the car through town, navigating him toward Point Judith, the corner of Rhode Island that abutted no land. It was a thrill to maneuver the car, slowing down for the odd traffic light and then accelerating again on the abandoned seaside road.

He drove through Galilee, where the fishing boats came and went, past mudflats where men waded in rubber boots to harvest clams. Past closed-up shacks with menus of fried seafood painted like
graffiti onto the facades. They came to a lighthouse on a grassy hill. Dark rocks draped with seaweed, a flag that writhed like a flame in the sky.

They had arrived in time to see the sun setting behind the lighthouse, the white foam of the waves pouring over the rocks, the flag and the choppy blue water gleaming. They stepped out to smoke a cigarette, and feel the salt spray on their faces.

The talked about My Lai. The details had just appeared. Reports of a mass murder, bodies in ditches, an American lieutenant under investigation.

There’s going to be a protest in Boston. I have friends who can put us up for a night. Why don’t you come with me?

I don’t think so.

You’re not angry about the war?

It’s not my place to object.

Subhash found that he could be honest with Richard. Richard listened to him instead of contradicting him. He didn’t merely try to convert him.

As they drove back to the village Richard asked Subhash about India, about its caste system, its poverty. Who was to blame?

I don’t know. These days everyone just blames everyone else.

But is there a solution? Where does the government stand?

Subhash didn’t know how to describe India’s fractious politics, its complicated society, to an American. He said it was an ancient place that was also young, still struggling to know itself. You should be talking to my brother, he said.

You have a brother?

He nodded.

You’ve never mentioned him. What’s his name?

He paused, then uttered Udayan’s name for the first time since he’d arrived in Rhode Island.

Well, what would Udayan say?

He would say that an agrarian economy based on feudalism is the problem. He would say the country needs a more egalitarian structure. Better land reforms.

Sounds like a Chinese model.

It is. He supports Naxalbari.

Naxalbari? What’s that?

A few days later, in his mailbox at his department, Subhash found a letter from Udayan. Paragraphs in Bengali, dark blue ink against the lighter blue of the aerogramme. It had been mailed in October; it was November now.

If this reaches you destroy it. No need to compromise either of us. But given that my only chance to invade the United States is by letter, I can’t resist. I’ve just returned from another trip outside the city. I met Comrade Sanyal. I was able to sit with him, speak with him. I had to wear a blindfold. I’ll tell you about it sometime
.

Why no news? No doubt the flora and fauna of the world’s greatest capitalist power captivate you. But if you can bear to tear yourself away try to make yourself useful. I hear the antiwar movement there is in full swing
.

Here developments are encouraging. A Red Guard is forming, traveling to villages, propagating Mao Tse-tung’s quotations. Our generation is the vanguard; the struggle of students is part of the armed peasant struggle, Majumdar says
.

You’ll come back to an altered country, a more just society, I’m confident of this. A changed home, too. Baba’s taken out a loan. They’re adding to what we already have. They seem to think it’s necessary. That we won’t get married and raise families under the same roof if the house stays the way it is
.

I told them it was a waste, an extravagance, given that you don’t even live here. But they didn’t listen and now it’s too late, an architect came and the scaffolding’s gone up, they claim they’ll be finished in a year or two
.

The days are dull without you. And though I refuse to forgive you for not supporting a movement that will only
improve the lives of millions of people, I hope you can forgive me for giving you a hard time. Will you hurry up with whatever it is you’re doing? An embrace from your brother
.

He’d concluded with a quotation.
War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war
.

Subhash reread the letter several times. It was as if Udayan were there, speaking to him, teasing him. He felt their loyalty to one another, their affection, stretched halfway across the world. Stretched to the breaking point by all that now stood between them, but at the same time refusing to break.

Perhaps the letter would have been safe among his possessions in Rhode Island. It was written in Bengali, it could have been something Subhash kept. But he knew Udayan was right, and that the contents, the reference to Sanyal, in the wrong hands, might threaten them both. The next day he took it to his lab, lingering on some pretense at the end of the session, waiting to be alone. Ceremonially he placed it on the dark stone counter, striking a match, watching the edges blacken, his brother’s words disappear.

I’ve been studying chemical processes unique to estuaries, sediments that oxidize at low tide. Strips of barrier beach run parallel to the mainland. The ferrous sulfide leaves wide black stains on the sand
.

As strange as it sounds, when the sky is overcast, when the clouds are low, something about the coastal landscape here, the water and the grass, the smell of bacteria when I visit the mudflats, takes me home. I think of the lowland, of paddy fields. Of course, no rice grows here. Only mussels and quahogs, which are among the types of shellfish Americans like to eat
.

They call the marsh grass spartina. I learned today that it has special glands for excreting salt, so that it’s often covered with a residue of crystals. Snails migrate up and down the stems. It’s been growing here over millennia, in deposits of
peat. Its roots stabilize the shore. Did you know, it propagates by spreading rhizomes? Something like the mangroves that once thrived in Tollygunge. I had to tell you
.

The lawn of the campus quadrangle was covered now as if with a sea of rust, the dead leaves scuttling and heaving in the wind. He waded, ankle-deep, through their bulk. The leaves sometimes rose around him, as if something living were submerged beneath them, threatening to show its face before settling down again.

He had obtained his driver’s license, and he had the keys to Richard’s car. Richard had taken a bus to visit his family for Thanksgiving. The campus had shut down and there was nowhere to go; for a few days even the library and the student union were closed.

In the afternoons he got into the car and drove with no destination in mind. He drove across the bridge to Jamestown, he drove to Newport and back. He listened to pop songs on the radio, weather conditions for those on land and on sea.
North winds ten to fifteen knots, becoming northeast in the afternoon. Seas two to four feet. Visibility one to three nautical miles
.

Evenings came quickly, headlights on by five. One night when it was time for dinner he decided to have eggplant parmigiana at an Italian restaurant he went to sometimes with Richard. He sat at the bar, drinking beer, eating the heavy dish, watching American football on the television. He was one of the only customers. He was told, as he paid his bill, that the restaurant would be closed for Thanksgiving.

That day the roads were empty, the whole town at rest. Whatever happened on the occasion, however it was celebrated, there was no sign of it. No procession that he knew of, no public festivity. Apart from a crowd that had gathered for a football game on campus, there was nothing to observe.

He drove through residential neighborhoods, areas where some of the faculty members lived. He saw smoke rising from chimneys, cars with license plates from different states, parked along the leaf-strewn streets.

He continued out to the breachway in Charlestown, where the
spartina had turned pale brown. The sun was already low in the sky, its glare too strong. Approaching a salt pond, he pulled over to the side of the road.

Blending into the grass was a heron, close enough for Subhash to see the amber bead of its eye, its slate-colored body tinted with the late afternoon light. Its neck was settled into an S, the sharp length of the bill like the brass letter opener his parents had given him when he left India.

He rolled down his window. The heron was still, but then the curved neck extended and contracted, as if the bird were aware of Subhash’s gaze. The egrets in Tollygunge, stirring the muddy water as they hunted, were scrawnier. Never as shapely, as regal as this.