The Lowland

Bela’s origins. A version of what had brought Gauri to him, years ago.
    After dinner, after clearing the table and washing the dishes, Bela told him she wanted to take a drive.
    Where?
    I want to watch the sunset from Point Judith.
    You don’t need to rest?
    I’m full of energy. Will you come with me?
    But he said he was tired from the trip to Boston and back, that he preferred not to go out again.
    I’ll go, then.
    On your own?
    He could not help it, the thought of her driving the car, something she’d done capably since she was sixteen, worried him now. He had an irrational impulse not to let her out of his sight.
    She shook her head as he handed her the keys. I’ll be careful. I’ll be back in a little while.
    And though they had not seen each other in a year, though she’d asked him to accompany her, he felt, as she must have felt, the need to be alone, to think privately about what she’d said.
    He turned the lights on outside. But inside where he sat, after she left, he did not bother. He watched the sky turn pale before deepening, the silhouettes of the trees turning black, the contrast acute. They looked two-dimensional, lacking texture. After a few more minutes their outlines were indistinguishable from the night sky.
    Gauri had walked out on her. But he knew that his own failing was worse. At least Gauri’s behavior had been honest, definitive. Not craven, not ongoing, not stealthily leeching her trust, like his.
    And yet this child, their child, was now determined to be a mother. Already he knew she would be a different mother than Gauri. He sensed the pride, the ease, with which she carried the child.
    Her refusal to reveal who the father was, her insistence upon raising a child without one; he could not set this concern aside. But it wasn’t the prospect of Bela being a single mother that upset him. It was because he was the model she was following; that he was an inspiration to her.
    A conversation between them rose to his memory, from long ago.
    Why aren’t there two of you? she’d asked, sitting across from him.
    The question had startled him. At first he had not understood.
    I have two eyes, she’d persisted. Why do I see only one of you?
    An innocent question, an intelligent one. She’d been six or seven. He’d told her that in fact each eye did take in a different image, at a slightly different angle. He’d covered one of her eyes, then the other, so she could see for herself. So that he’d appeared to double, shifting back and forth.
    He’d told her the brain fused the separate images together. Matching up what was the same, adding in what was different. Making the best of both.
    So I see with my brain, not my eyes?
    She would have to see with her mind now. Somehow, she would have to process what he would say.
    He was still sitting in the dark when, about an hour later, he heard the car’s approach. The sharp croak of the emergency brake, the soft thud of the door.
    He walked to the entry, opening the front door before she rang the bell. He saw her on the other side of the screen that was covered with moths. For years he had worried about how much the information would upset her, but there was now a doubled worry, for the child she was carrying. She had returned to him, seeking stability. Now was the worst time. And yet he was unable to wait another moment.
    The presence of another generation within her was forcing a new beginning, also demanding an end. He had replaced Udayan and turned into her father. But he could not become a grandfather in the same surreptitious way.
    He was afraid Bela would hate him now, just as she hated Gauri. Because she had not married, he had not given her away, symbolically or otherwise, to another man. But this was what he felt he was about to do. He prepared himself to give her back to Udayan. To push her away at the very moment she wanted to come back to him. To risk letting her go.
    What are you doing, Baba? she said, causing the insects to scatter, stepping into the house. It’s getting late. Why are all the lights off? Why are you standing here like this?
    In the darkened hallway, she could not see the tears already forming in his eyes.
    All night they stayed up. Until it grew light again, he attempted to explain.
    I’m not your father.
    Who are you, then?
    Your stepfather. Your uncle. Both those things.
    She refused to believe him. She thought something had happened to him,