The Lowland Read online

  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 Newpo
rt 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.

  His satisfaction was in watching: its breast feathers drooping as it dipped its head toward the water, as it took slow strides on long, backward-bent legs.

  He wanted to sit in the car and watch as the bird stood there, staring out toward the sea. But on the narrow dirt road, which was normally empty, a car approached from behind, wanting to pass, forcing Subhash to drive on. By the time he circled back, the bird was gone.

  The next afternoon he returned to the same spot. He walked along the edge of the marsh, searching for the bird’s outline. He stood watching the horizon as the light turned golden and the sun began to set. He wondered if perhaps the bird had flown off for the season. Then suddenly he heard a harsh, repetitive croaking.

  It was the heron taking flight over the water, its great wings beating slowly and deliberately, looking at once encumbered and free. Its long neck was tucked in, dark legs dangling behind. Against the lowering sky the silhouette was black, the tips of its primary feathers distinct, the forked division of its toes.

  He went back a third day, but was unable to see it anywhere. For the first time in his life, he felt a helpless love.

  A new decade began: 1970. In winter, when the trees were naked, the stiff ground covered with snow, a second letter came from Udayan, in an envelope this time.

  Subhash tore it open and found a small black-and-white photograph of a young woman, standing. Her slender arms were folded across her chest.

  She was at ease, also a little skeptical. Her head turned partly to one side, her lips closed but playful, her smile slightly askew. Her hair was in a braid, draped over the front of one shoulder. Her complexion was deep.

  She was compelling without being pretty. Nothing like the demure girls that his mother used to point out to Udayan and Subhash at weddings, when they were in college. It was a candid shot, somewhere on the streets of Calcutta, in front of a building he did not recognize. He wondered if Udayan had taken the picture. If he’d inspired the playful expression on her face.

  This is in lieu of a formal introduction, and it will be as formal an announcement as you will get. But it’s time that you met her. I’ve known her for a couple of years. We kept it quiet, but you know how it is. Her name is Gauri and she’s finishing a degree in philosophy at Presidency. A girl from North Calcutta, Cornwallis Street. Both her parents are dead, she lives with her brother—a friend of mine—and some relatives. She prefers books to jewels and saris. She believes as I do.

  Like Chairman Mao, I reject the idea of an arranged marriage. It is one thing, I admit, that I admire about the West. And so I’ve married her. Don’t worry, apart from running off with her there’s no scandal. You’re not about to be an uncle. Not yet, anyway. Too many children are victims of our defective social structure. This needs first to be fixed.

  I wish you could have been here, but you didn’t miss any type of celebration. It was a civil registration. I told Ma and Baba after the fact, as I am telling you. I told them, either you accept her, and we return to Tollygunge together, or we live as husband and wife somewhere else.

  They are still in shock, upset with me and also for no reason with Gauri, but we’re with them now, learning to live with one another. They can’t bear to tell you what I’ve done. So I’m telling you myself.

  At the end of the letter, he asked Subhash to buy a few books for Gauri, saying that they would be easier to find in the States. Don’t bother putting them in the mail, they’ll only get lost or stolen. Bring them with you. You will show up to congratulate me one of these days, won’t you?

  This time he didn’t reread the letter. Once was enough.

  Though Udayan had a job, it was hardly enough to support himself, never mind a family. He was not yet twenty-five years old. Though the house would soon be big enough, to Subhash the decision felt impulsive, an imposition on his parents, premature. And he was puzzled that Udayan, so dedicated to his politics, so scornful of convention, would suddenly take a wife.

  Not only had Udayan married before Subhash, but he’d married a woman of his choosing. On his own he’d taken a step that Subhash believed was their parents’ place to decide. Here was another example of Udayan forging ahead of Subhash, of denying that he’d come second. Another example of getting his way.

  The back of the photograph was dated in Udayan’s handwriting. It was from over a year ago, 1968. Udayan had gotten to know her and fallen in love with her while Subhash was still in Calcutta. All that time, Udayan had kept Gauri to himself.

  Once more Subhash destroyed the letter. The photograph he kept, at the back of one of his textbooks, as proof of what Udayan had done.

  From time to time he drew out the picture and looked at it. He wondered when he would meet Gauri, and what he would think of her, now that they were connected. And part of him felt defeated by Udayan all over again, for having found a girl like that.

  Part II

  Chapter 1

  Normally she stayed on the balcony, reading, or kept to an adjacent room as her brother and Udayan studied and smoked and drank cups of tea. Manash had befriended him at Calcutta University, where they were both graduate students in the physics department. Much of the time their books on the behaviors of liquids and gases would sit ignored as they talked about the repercussions of Naxalbari, and commented on the day’s events.

  The discussions strayed to the insurgencies in Indochina and in Latin American countries. In the case of Cuba it wasn’t even a mass movement, Udayan pointed out. Just a small group, attacking the right targets.

  All over the world students were gaining momentum, standing up to exploitative systems. It was another example of Newton’s second law of motion, he joked. Force equals mass times acceleration.

  Manash was skeptical. What could they, urban students, claim to know about peasant life?

  Nothing, Udayan said. We need to learn from them.

  Through an open doorway she saw him. Tall but slight of build, twenty-three but looking a bit older. His clothing hung on him loosely. He wore kurtas but also European-style shirts, irreverently, the top portion unbuttoned, the bottom untucked, the sleeves rolled back past the elbow.

  He sat in the room where they listened to
the radio. On the bed that served as a sofa where, at night, Gauri slept. His arms were lean, his fingers too long for the small porcelain cups of tea her family served him, which he drained in just a few gulps. His hair was wavy, the brows thick, the eyes languid and dark.

  His hands seemed an extension of his voice, always in motion, embellishing the things he said. Even as he argued he smiled easily. His upper teeth overlapped slightly, as if there were one too many of them. From the beginning, the attraction was there.

  He never said anything to Gauri if she happened to brush by. Never glancing, never acknowledging that she was Manash’s younger sister, until the day the houseboy was out on an errand, and Manash asked Gauri if she minded making them some tea.

  She could not find a tray to put the teacups on. She carried them in, nudging open the door to the room with her shoulder. Looking up at her an instant longer than he needed to, Udayan took his cup from her hands.

  The groove between his mouth and nose was deep. Clean-shaven. Still looking at her, he posed his first question.

  Where do you study? he asked.

  Because she went to Presidency, and Calcutta University was just next door, she searched for him on the quadrangle, and among the bookstalls, at the tables of the Coffee House if she went there with a group of friends. Something told her he did not go to his classes as regularly as she did. She began to watch for him from the generous balcony that wrapped around the two sides of her grandparents’ flat, overlooking the intersection where Cornwallis Street began. It became something for her to do.

  Then one day she spotted him, amazed that she knew which of the hundreds of dark heads was his. He was standing on the opposite corner, buying a packet of cigarettes. Then he was crossing the street, a cotton book bag over his shoulder, glancing both ways, walking toward their flat.

  She crouched below the filigree, under the clothes drying on the line, worried that he would look up and see her. Two minutes later she heard footsteps climbing the stairwell, and then the rattle of the iron knocker on the door of the flat. She heard the door being opened, the houseboy letting him in.