The Lowland

wall.
    You are our daughter now, her in-laws said, accepting her though they had not wanted her, placing their hands in a gesture of blessing over her head. What is ours is yours. Gauri bowed down, to take the dust from their feet.
    The courtyard had been decorated with patterns in her honor, painted by hand. At the threshold of the house a pan of milk was simmering on a coal stove, coming to a boil as she approached. There were two stunted banana trees, one on either side of the door. Inside there was another pan of milk, tinted with red. She was told to dip her feet into the red liquid, then walk up the staircase. The staircase was still under construction, there was not a banister to hold.
    The steps had been covered loosely with a white sari, like a thin slippery carpet laid over the treads. Every few steps there was an overturned clay cup she had to crush, bearing down with all her strength. This was the first thing asked of her, to mark her passage into Udayan’s home.
    Because the lane was so narrow there was rarely the sound of a car or even a cycle rickshaw going past. Udayan told her it was easier, when returning to the enclave, to get out at the corner by the mosque and walk the rest of the way. Though many of the houses were walled off, she could hear the lives of others carrying on. Meals being prepared and served, water being poured for baths. Children being scolded and crying, reciting their lessons. Plates being scoured and rinsed. The claws of crows striking the rooftop, flapping their wings, scavenging for peels.
    Every morning she was up at five, climbing stairs to a new portion of the house, and accepting the cup of tea her mother-in-law poured, a biscuit stored in the cream cracker tin. The line for the gas hadn’t been hooked up yet, so the day began with the elaborate process of lighting the clay stove with coals, dung patties, kerosene, a match.
    Thick smoke stung her eyes, blurring her vision as she fanned the flame. Her mother-in-law had told her, the first morning, to put away the book she’d brought with her, and to concentrate on the task at hand.
    The workers arrived soon afterward. Barefoot, with soiled rags twisted around their heads. They hollered and hammered throughout the day, so that studying in the house was impossible. Dust coated everything, bricks and mortar brought in by the barrowful, additional rooms completed one by one.
    After her father-in-law brought back a fish from the market, it was her job to cut the pieces, coat them with salt and turmeric, and fry them in oil. She sat in front of the stove on the flats of her feet. She reduced the sauce they would put the fish into for evening, seasoning it according to her mother-in-law’s instructions. She helped cut up cabbage, shell peas. Rid spinach of sand.
    If the servant was late or had a day off she had to grind the turmeric root and chilies on a stone slab, to pound mustard or poppy seeds if her mother-in-law wanted to cook with them that day. When she ground the chilies her palms felt as if the skin had been scraped off. Tipping the rice pot onto a plate, she let the water drain, making sure the cooked grains didn’t slip out. The weight of the inverted pan strained her wrists, steam scalding her face if she forgot to turn it away.
    Twice a week she accomplished all this before bathing and packing her books and taking the tram back to North Calcutta, to visit the library, to attend lectures. She hadn’t complained to Udayan. But he had known, telling her to be patient.
    He told her that one day, when his brother, Subhash, returned from America and got married, there would be another daughter-in-law to do her share. And from time to time Gauri had wondered who that woman would be.
    In the evenings she waited for Udayan to return from his tutoring job, watching from the terrace of her in-laws’ home. And when he pushed through the swinging wooden doors he always paused to look up at her, as he used to look up from the intersection below her grandparents’ flat, she hoping he would stop by, he hoping to find her there. But now it was different: his arrival was expected, and the fact that she stood waiting for him was not a surprise, because they were married, and this was the house where they both lived.
    He would wash up and have something to eat, and then she would put on a fresh sari and they would go out for a walk. Behaving at first like any other recently married couple. She enjoyed