The Lowland

enclave, seeking food. For those people she had done what she could. She had collected the starch in her rice pot and given it to them. But no one pays attention to Bijoli.
    Come forward, she calls out to those who are watching from their windows, their rooftops. She remembers the voice of the paramilitary, speaking through the megaphone. Walk slowly. Show your face to me.
    She waits for Udayan to appear amid the water hyacinth and walk toward her. It is safe now, she tells him. The police have gone. No one will take you away. Come quickly to the house. You must be hungry. Dinner is ready. Soon it will be dark. Your brother married Gauri. I am alone now. You have a daughter in America. Your father has died.
    She waits, certain that he is there, that he hears what she tells him. She talks to herself, to no one. Tired of waiting, she waits some more. But the only person who appears is Deepa. She rinses Bijoli’s soiled hands and muddied feet with fresh water. She puts a shawl over her shoulders, and places an arm around her waist.
    Come have your tea, Deepa says, coaxing her away, taking her indoors.
    On the terrace, along with her plate of biscuits, her cup of tea, Deepa hands her something else.
    What’s this?
    A letter, Mamoni. It was in the box today.
    It is from America, from Subhash. In it he confirms his plans to visit this summer, informing her of the date of his arrival. By then nearly three months will have passed since his father’s death.
    He tells her it’s not feasible to come any sooner. He tells her that he will bring Udayan’s daughter with him, but that Gauri is unable to come. He mentions some lectures he intends to give in Calcutta. He tells her they will be there for six weeks. She regards me as her father, he writes in reference to the girl they’ve named Bela. She knows nothing else.
    The air is still. Government quarters, built recently behind their house, obstruct the southern breeze that used to course the length of the terrace. She returns the letter to Deepa. Like a spare packet of tea she doesn’t need at the moment, she stores away the information, and turns her mind to other things.
    2.
    They arrived at the start of the monsoon season. In Bengali it was called barsha kaal. Each year around this time, her father said, the direction of the wind changed, blowing from sea to land instead of from land out to sea. On a map he showed her how the clouds traveled from the Bay of Bengal, over the warming landmass, toward the mountains in the north. Rising and cooling, unable to retain their moisture, trapped over India by the Himalayas’ height.
    When the rain came, he told Bela, tributaries in the delta would change their course. Rivers and city streets would flood; crops would thrive or fail. Pointing from the terrace of her grandmother’s house, he told her that the two ponds across the lane would overflow and become one. Behind the ponds, excess rain would collect in the lowland, the water rising for a time as high as Bela’s shoulders.
    In the afternoons, following mornings of bright sun, came the rumble of thunder, like great sheets of rippling tin. The approach of dark-rimmed clouds. Bela saw them lowering swiftly like a vast gray curtain, obscuring the day’s light. At times, defiantly, the sun’s glow persisted, a pale confined disc, its burning contours contained so as to appear solid, resembling a full moon instead.
    The rooms grew dark and then the clouds began to burst. Water seeped in over the windowsills, through the iron bars, rags wedged beneath shutters that had to be quickly closed. A maid named Deepa rushed in to dry what leaked onto the floor.
    From the terrace Bela watched the thin trunks of palm trees bending but not breaking in the maritime wind. The pointed foliage flapped like the feathers of giant birds, like battered windmills that churned the sky.
    Her grandmother had not been at the airport to welcome them. In Tollygunge, on the terrace where she sat, on the top floor of the house where her father had been raised, Bela was presented with a short necklace. The tiny gold balls, like decorations meant for holiday cookies, were strung tightly together. Her grandmother leaned in close. Saying nothing, she fastened the necklace at the base of Bela’s throat, then arranged it so that the clasp was at the back.
    Though her grandmother’s hair was gray, the skin of her hands was smooth, unmarked. The sari wrapped around