The Lowland

afraid to walk across the lawn from which they’d come.
    Why are there so many?
    It happens sometimes. They come out to breathe when the ground is too wet.
    Will you carry me?
    You’re too big.
    Can I stay home, then?
    Gauri looked up to where the other children stood, under hoods and umbrellas. They seem to have managed, she said.
    Please? Bela’s voice was small. Tears formed, then slid down her face.
    Another mother might have indulged her. Another mother might have brought her back, let her stay home, skip a day of school. Another mother, spending the time with her, might not have considered it a waste.
    Gauri remembered how happy Subhash had been, those days last winter when it had snowed so heavily, and most everything was shut down. For a whole week he’d stayed home with Bela, making a holiday of it. Playing games, reading stories, taking her out to play on campus, in the snow.
    Then she remembered another thing. How, at the height of the crackdown, the bodies of party members were left in streams, in fields close to Tollygunge. They were left by the police, to shock people, to revolt them. To make clear that the party would not survive.
    The school bus was approaching.
    Come.
    But Bela shook her head. No.
    If you don’t get on the bus we’re going to walk to school. Over more worms than this.
    When Bela still refused to move, Gauri grasped her tightly by the hand, causing her to trip, dragging her across. Bela was sobbing audibly, miserably now.
    The other mothers and children, gathered at the bus stop, had turned their heads. The bus came to a stop, the door opening, the other children getting on. The driver was waiting for them.
    Don’t make a scene, Bela. Don’t be a coward.
    I watched your father killed before my eyes, she might have said.
    I don’t like you, Bela cried out, shaking herself free. I’ll never like you, for the rest of my life.
    She ran ahead. Abandoning her mother on the heels of summoning her. Not wanting Gauri to accompany her the rest of the way.
    It had been a child’s temper flaring. Posturing, grandiose. By the afternoon, when Bela came home, the incident was forgotten. But Bela’s words had pervaded Gauri like a prophecy.
    I want her to know, she told Subhash that evening, taking a break from typing a paper, after Bela was in bed. Subhash was sitting at the kitchen table, balancing the checkbook, paying bills.
    Know what?
    I want to tell her about Udayan.
    Subhash stared at her. She saw terror in his eyes. She remembered when Udayan was hidden behind the water hyacinth, and the gun was at her throat. She realized the weapon was in her hands now. Everything that mattered to him, she could take away.
    It’s the truth, she continued.
    He shook his head. His expression had changed. He stood up to face her.
    She deserves to know, Subhash.
    She’s too young. She’s only six.
    When, then?
    When she’s ready. Now it would only do more harm than good.
    She had been prepared to insist on it, to peel the false coating of their lives away, but she knew he was right. It was too much for Bela to absorb. And perhaps it would compromise the alliance between Subhash and Bela she’d come to depend on. It would cause Bela to regard Subhash in a different way.
    All right, then. She turned to go.
    Wait.
    What?
    You agree with me?
    I said yes.
    Then promise me something.
    What’s that?
    Promise you won’t tell her on your own. That we’ll do that together someday.
    She promised, but she felt the weight of it, sinking down inside her. It was the weight of maintaining the illusion that he was Bela’s father. A weight always settling instead of surfacing.
    She realized it was the only thing he continued to need from her. That he was beginning to give up on the rest.
    She became aware of a man who looked at her, turning his head slightly as she passed by. His glance shifting, though he never stopped to introduce himself—there was no reason for him to. She knew there weren’t too many women who looked like her on the campus. Most of the other Indian women wore saris. But in spite of her jeans and boots and belted cardigan, or perhaps because of them, Gauri knew she stood out.
    At first she found him unappealing, physically. A man in his fifties, she guessed, a little thickset at the waist. The eyes were small, cold, inscrutable. Pale hair that stuck up a little. A thin mouth, the skin of his face creased, seeming