The Lowland

tell Claire about that curry you used to make. How you’d put onions in the blender.
    Richard had traveled to India, to New Delhi and to visit Gandhi’s birthplace in Gujarat. He’d wanted to include Calcutta, but hadn’t made it there. Maybe on the way back from Saigon, he said.
    The next question came innocently. That brother of yours, the Naxalite. What ever happened to him?
    He and Richard exchanged phone numbers and e-mails. They met up for a walk along the paths, or in town for a beer. Twice they’d gone fishing, casting their rods off the rocks at Point Judith, hooking sea robins, throwing back what they caught.
    Subhash would promise, whenever they parted, that the next time they’d meet would be at Subhash’s home, that Claire would come, and that Subhash would prepare a curry. He thought of planning it for one of Bela’s visits, so that Richard could meet her. But in two years this hadn’t happened. The friendship remained a loose but easy bond between them, just as it had always been.
    By now he was used to Richard’s mass e-mails, announcing lectures and rallies, quoting statistics about the cost of the Iraq War, directing him to a link to Richard’s blog. He was used to the number and Richard’s last name, Grifalconi, saluting him from time to time in the little window of his telephone.
    He saw it one Sunday morning as he watched a program on CNN. He turned down the volume with the remote. He did not expect the voice to belong to Richard’s wife, Claire, a woman he had not yet spoken to or met, telling him Richard had died a few days ago. A blood clot in his leg had traveled to his lungs the day after a bike ride Richard and Claire had taken together, out to Rome Point.
    Subhash put down the phone. He shut off the television. His eyes were distracted by a movement he saw through the window of his living room. It was the restlessness of birds, rearranging themselves.
    He walked to the window to have a better look. At the top of a tree in his yard, a group of them, small and loud and dark, were frantically coming and going. Taking, in winter, what nourishment the tree still had to give. There was a determined fury to their movements. An act of survival that now offended him.
    For the first time in his life Subhash entered a funeral home, kneeled down and regarded a body laid out in a coffin, neatly dressed. He observed the lack of life in Richard’s face, the facile betrayal of it, as if an expert had carved an effigy out of wax. He remembered his last glimpse of his mother, covered by a shroud.
    After the service he drove to the reception at Richard’s home, not so different from other American receptions he’d attended in his life. There was a long table with food laid out, platters of cheese and salads. People dressed in dark colors were drinking glasses of wine, carving slices from a ham.
    Claire stood at one end of the room, flanked by their children, their grandchildren, thanking people for coming, shaking their hands. Saying there had been no sign of distress until Richard complained that he felt short of breath. The next morning, he’d shaken Claire awake, pointing at the telephone, unable to speak. He’d died in the ambulance, Claire following in their car behind.
    The guests stood in circles, talking. Some photographs were taken by distant relatives for whom the gathering was a reunion as well as a funeral. For those who had traveled long distances it was an opportunity to explore Rhode Island, to drive to Newport the following day.
    Elise Silva was a neighbor.
    She came up to the sliding glass window where Subhash was standing, taking in the view of the descending birch-filled property behind Richard’s house. When he turned to look at her, she introduced herself.
    I saw Richard and Claire, just a few days ago, hand in hand like they’d just met, she said. She told him that there was a small pond behind the trees. When it froze over, Elise said, Richard and Claire would go skating with their elbows linked.
    She had olive skin, nearly as tan as his. Her hair had turned white but her brows were still dark. It was pulled back as Bela sometimes wore it, a single clip fastened at the back of her head so that it would not interfere with her face. She wore a black dress with long sleeves, sheer black stockings, a silver chain around her neck.
    They spoke of how long they’d both known Richard. But there was another