The Lowland

not riding with Subhash and his parents and other relatives who’d formed a small caravan from Tollygunge, but assuring him that he’d meet up with them on the platform. Subhash was already seated on the train, he had already said his good-byes, when Udayan put his head up to the window.
    He extended his hand through the bars, reaching for Subhash’s shoulder and pressing it, then slapping his face lightly. Somehow, at the final moment, they had found one another in that great crowd.
    He pulled some green-skinned oranges from his book bag, giving them to Subhash to eat on the journey. Try not to forget us completely, he said.
    You’ll look after them? Subhash asked, referring to their parents. You’ll let me know if anything happens?
    What’s going to happen?
    Well then, if you need anything?
    Come back someday, that’s all.
    Udayan remained close, leaning forward, his hand on Subhash’s shoulder, saying nothing else, until the engine sounded. His mother began weeping. Even his father’s eyes were damp as the train began to pull away. But Udayan stood smiling between them, his hand raised high, his gaze fixed as Subhash retreated farther and farther away from them.
    As they crossed Howrah Bridge the light was still gray. On the other side, the markets had just opened. The sidewalks were lined with baskets, displaying the morning’s vegetables. They traveled through the broad heart of the city, toward Dalhousie, down Chowringhee. A city with nothing, with everything. By the time they were approaching Tollygunge, crossing Prince Anwar Shah Road, the day was bustling and bright.
    The streets were as he remembered. Crowded with cycle rickshaws, the squawking of their horns sounding to his ears like a flock of agitated geese. The congestion was of a different order, that of a small town as opposed to a city. The buildings lower, spaced farther apart.
    He saw the tram depot come into view, the stalls where people sold biscuits and crackers in glass jars, and boiled aluminum kettles of tea. The walls of the film studios, the Tolly Club, were covered with slogans. Make 1970s the decade of liberation. Rifles bring freedom, and freedom is coming.
    Turning before the small mosque off Baburam Ghosh Road, he felt his prolonged journey ending too soon. The taxi fit but just barely, threatening to scrape the walls on either side. He was assaulted by the sour, septic smell of his neighborhood, of his childhood. The smell of standing water. The stink of algae, of open drains.
    As they approached the two ponds, he saw that the small home he’d left behind had been replaced by something impressive, ungainly. Some scaffolding was still in place, but the construction looked complete. He saw palm trees rising behind the house. But the mango tree that had spread its dark branches and leaves over the original roof was gone.
    He stepped across a slab set over the gutter that separated his family’s property from the street. A pair of swinging doors led to the courtyard. Mildew coated the walls. But it was still a welcoming space, with a tube well in one corner, and terra-cotta pots containing dahlias, and the marigold and basil his mother used for prayers. A vine with a tangle of yellow branches was in flower at that time of year.
    This was the enclosure where he and Udayan had played as children. Where they had drawn and practiced sums with bits of coal or broken clay. Where Udayan had run out the day they’d been told to stay in, falling off the plank before the concrete had dried.
    Subhash saw the footprints and walked past them. He looked at the upper portion of the house, rising out of what had first been there. Long terraces, like airy corridors, ran from front to back down one side. They were enclosed by grilles forged in a trefoil pattern. The emerald paint was glossy and bright.
    Through one of the grilles he saw his parents, sitting on the top floor. He strained to see their expressions but could make out nothing. Now that he was so close, part of him wanted to return to the taxi, which was backing out slowly. He wanted to tell the driver to take him somewhere else.
    He pressed the buzzer that Udayan had installed. It still worked.
    His parents did not stand or say his name. They did not come downstairs to greet him. Instead his father lowered a key through the ironwork, on a string. Subhash waited to retrieve it, and opened a heavy padlock at the side of the house. Finally he