The Lowland

slightly forward, elbows on the railing, chin cupped in her hand? She was unable to picture herself, suddenly, standing there.
    Using a cell phone, they rang Manash in Shillong. She heard his voice on the phone. Manash, whom she’d followed to this city, who’d been the conduit to Udayan; Manash, the first companion of her life.
    Gauri, he said. His voice had deepened, also weakened. An old man’s voice. Thick with the emotion she also felt.
    It’s really you?
    Yes.
    What finally brings you here?
    I needed to see it again.
    Still he addressed her in the affectionate mode, the diminutive form of exchange reserved for bonds formed in childhood, never questioned, never subject to change. It was how parents spoke to their children, how Udayan and Subhash had once spoken to one another. It conveyed the intimacy of siblings but not of lovers. It was not how either Udayan or Subhash had spoken to her.
    Come to Shillong for a few days. If not, wait for me to come back to Kolkata.
    I’ll try. I’m not sure how long I can stay.
    He told her she was the only one of his sisters still living. That their family had dwindled to the two of them.
    How is my niece, my Bela? Will I meet her? Will I know her one day?
    She assured him he would, knowing it would never happen. She said good-bye. The driver headed south again. Toward Chowringhee, Esplanade. The Metro Cinema, the Grand Hotel.
    She sat in the car, in snarled traffic, the atmosphere heavy with smog. She saw a version of herself, standing on one of the crowded busses, hanging on to a strap, wearing one of the cotton saris she’d worn to college. Going to meet Udayan somewhere he’d suggested, some tucked-away restaurant where no one would recognize them, where he would be waiting for her, where they could sit across from one another for as long as they liked.
    Should I take you to New Market? the driver asked her. Or to one of the new shopping centers?
    No.
    When the driver approached Southern Avenue she told him to continue.
    To Kalighat?
    To Tollygunge. Just after the tram depot, not too far in.
    Past the replica of Tipu Sultan’s mosque, past the cemetery. There was a metro station now, opposite the depot, cutting through the city underground. It traveled all the way to Dum Dum, the driver said. She saw people rushing up the shallow steps, people old enough to work, young enough to have grown up with the metro all their lives.
    She saw the high brick walls on either side of the road, shielding the film studios, the Tolly Club. Forty years later the little mosque at the corner still stood, the red-and-white minarets visible.
    She told the driver to stop, giving him money for tea, asking him to wait for her there. It would be a brief visit, she said.
    People were glancing at her now that she was out of the car. Taking in her sunglasses, her American clothing and shoes. Unaware that once she, too, had lived here. Cell phones rang, but the rubber horns of the cycle rickshaws still squawked on the main roads.
    Behind the mosque there was a cluster of huts with walls of woven bamboo, sheltering those who still lived there.
    She continued down the lane, stepping past the stray dogs. Some of the houses were taller now, blocking out more of the sky. They had windows made of glass, wooden trims painted white. Rooftops thick with antennas. Patios with terrazzo floors. The older homes were more derelict, constructed from narrow bricks, sections of filigree missing.
    All of it was yoked tightly together. Not a single empty plot, no space for children to play cricket or football. The lane remained so narrow that a car could barely fit.
    She came to the house in which she was once destined to grow old with Udayan. The home in which she had conceived Bela, in which Bela might have been raised.
    She’d expected to find it aged but standing, as she was. In fact it looked younger, the edges smoother, the facade painted a warm orange shade. The swinging wooden double doors had been replaced by a cheerful green gate, to match the terrace grilles.
    The courtyard no longer existed. The proportions of the building had extended forward, so that the facade abutted the street. That area was perhaps now a living room, or a dining room, she could not tell. In one of the rooms a television was playing. The open drain at the threshold, that she’d stepped over to come and go, had been closed.
    She walked past the house, across the lane, and over toward the two