The Lowland

not met her sooner, that he had not known her every day of his life.
    He closed his eyes again, reaching for her hand, their fingers clasped together. As the morning steadily brightened, he did not let it go.
    At the guesthouse, in a microwave oven, she warmed up the meal Abha had left for her, eating fish stew and rice at an oval table that sat six. The table was covered with a flowered tablecloth, a sheet of plastic over that. She watched some television, then put the leftover food away.
    The bed was made, the cover smoothly spread, the nylon mosquito netting bunched up onto hooks. She lowered it, tucking in the sides. There was only an overhead light. Not possible to read in bed. She lay in darkness. Eventually, for a few hours, she slept.
    The crows woke her. She got out of bed and stepped onto the balcony that was off the bedroom. The milky dawn was opaque, as if she were high in the mountains and not at the base of a sprawling delta, the world’s largest delta, at the level of the sea.
    The balcony was small, just enough room for a plastic stool, a small tub in which to soak dirty clothes. Not a place to pass the time.
    The road was empty. The shopkeepers had not yet arrived to open their padlocks and raise their grates.
    Water was being poured from buckets, the pavement swept clean. A few people were entering the grounds of the lake for their morning walk, striding purposefully alone, or in pairs. She saw a stall across the avenue, selling newspapers and fruit, bottled water and tea.
    The street sweeper moved on to the next block. There was no one there now. She heard the sound of traffic, intensifying. Soon it would be constant. Soon nothing else would be heard.
    She pressed herself against the railing of the balcony. It was high enough. She felt desperation rising up inside her. Also a clarity. An urge.
    This was the place. This was the reason she’d come. The purpose of her return was to take her leave.
    She imagined swinging one leg over, then the other. The sensation of nothing supporting her, of no longer resisting. It would take only a few seconds. Her time would end, it was as simple as that.
    Forty years ago she hadn’t had the courage. Bela had been inside her. It wasn’t the emptiness, the husk of existence she felt now.
    She thought of Kanu Sanyal, and of the woman who’d found him. A woman like Abha who saw to his needs, who came and went each day.
    Who, coming back from a morning’s walk around the lake, feeling invigorated, might happen to see her fall? Who, realizing it was too late to save her, would shield his face, turning away?
    She closed her eyes. Her mind was blank. It held only the present moment, nothing else. The moment, until now, that she’d never been able to see. She feared it would be like looking directly at the sun. But it did not deflect her.
    Then one by one she released the things that fettered her. Lightening herself, the way she’d removed her bangles after Udayan was killed. What she’d seen from the terrace in Tollygunge. What she’d done to Bela. The image of a policeman passing beneath a window, holding his son by the hand.
    A final image: Udayan standing beside her on the balcony in North Calcutta. Looking down at the street with her, getting to know her. Leaning forward, just inches between them, the future spread before them. The moment her life had begun a second time.
    She leaned forward. She saw the spot where she would fall. She recalled the thrill of meeting him, of being adored by him. The moment of losing him. The fury of learning how he’d implicated her. The ache of bringing Bela into the world, after he was gone.
    She opened her eyes. He was not there.
    The morning had begun, another day. Mothers taking uniformed children to school, men and women hurrying to their jobs. The group of men who would sit playing cards all day had arranged themselves on a cot at the corner. The man who repaired sarods spread a bedsheet on the pavement, putting out the broken instruments he would restring and tune that day.
    Directly below Gauri a little produce stand had set up, selling tomatoes and eggplants from shallow baskets. Carrots more red than orange, foot-long string beans. The owner sat cross-legged under the shade of a soiled tarp, tending to customers who’d already begun to approach.
    He placed the weights on the scale. They were striking the plates. One of the customers stepped away.
    It was Abha, coming to cook her