The Lowland

The weight of the quilts when chills overtook them.
    He remembered turning to his younger brother, both of them shivering. He remembered the unfocused glaze in Udayan’s eyes, the flush of his face, the nonsensical things he’d said.
    My parents were worried that it was typhoid, he told Holly. They were worried, for a few days, that we might die, the way another young boy in our neighborhood recently had. Even now, when they talk about it, they sound afraid. As if they’re still waiting for our fevers to break.
    That’s what happens when you become a parent, Holly told him. Time stops when something threatens them. The meaning goes away.
    4.
    One weekend in September, when Joshua was visiting his father, Holly suggested that the two of them go to a part of Rhode Island he hadn’t seen. They took the ferry from Galilee to Block Island, traveling more than ten miles out to sea, and walked together from the harbor to an inn.
    There had been a last-minute cancellation, and so they were given a room on the top floor, nicer than the one Holly had booked, with a view of the ocean, a four-poster bed. They had come to see the kestrels, starting to fly south now over the island. Unpacking their things for the weekend, she presented him with a gift: it was a pair of binoculars, in a brown leather case.
    This is unnecessary, he said, admiring them.
    I thought it was time to stop passing mine between us.
    He kissed her shoulder, her mouth. He had nothing else to give her in exchange. He studied the little compass that was affixed between the lenses, and placed the strap around his neck.
    The island would soon be shutting down for the season, the tourists disappearing, only one or two restaurants remaining open for the tiny population that never left. The aster was in bloom, the poison ivy turning red. But the sun shone and the air was calm, a perfect late summer’s day.
    They rented bikes and cycled around. It took him a moment to regain his balance. He had not been on a bicycle since he was a boy, since he and Udayan had learned to ride on the quiet lanes of Tollygunge. He remembered the front wheel wobbling, one of them on the seat, the other one pedaling the heavy black bicycle they’d managed to share.
    Folded in his pocket was a letter from Udayan. It had come the day before.
    A sparrow got into the house today, into the room we used to share. The shutters were open, it must have hopped in through the bars. I found it flapping around. And I thought of you, thinking how much this nuisance would have excited you. It was as if you’d come back. Of course it flew away as soon as I walked in.
    Being twenty-six feels fine so far. And you, in another two years, will turn thirty. A new phase of life for us both, more than halfway now to fifty!
    I have already grown quite boring, spending my days with students. Let’s hope they’ll go on to accomplish greater things than I did. The best part of the day is coming home to Gauri. We read together, we listen to the radio, and so the evenings pass.
    Did you know twenty-six was the age Castro was imprisoned? By then he’d already led the attack on the Moncada Barracks. And did you know, his brother was in jail with him at the same time? They were kept isolated, forbidden to see one another.
    Speaking of communication, I was reading about Marconi the other day. He was just twenty-seven when he was sitting in Newfoundland, listening for the letter S from Cornwall. His wireless station on Cape Cod looks close to where you are. It’s in a place called Wellfleet. Have you been there?
    The letter consoled Subhash, also confused him. Invoking codes and signals, games of the past, the singular bond he and Subhash had shared. Invoking Castro, but describing evenings at home with his wife. He wondered if Udayan had traded one passion for another, and his commitment was to Gauri now.
    He followed Holly along curving narrow roads, past the enormous salt pond that bisected the island and the glacial ravines. Past rolling meadows and turreted properties. The pastures were barren, with boulders here and there, partially framed by stone walls. He noticed that there were hardly any trees.
    Quickly they traveled from one side of the island to the other, only about three miles across. The kestrels glided over the bluff and out to sea, their wings motionless, their bodies seeming to drift backward when the wind was strong. Holly pointed to Montauk, at the tip of