The Lowland

breakfast, to brew the tea. She looked up at Gauri, holding up a bunch of bananas, a small packet of detergent, a loaf of bread. In her other hand was the newspaper.
    She called up. What else for today?
    That’s all, nothing else.
    At the end of the week she would leave Kolkata and return to her life. When Abha rang the bell, Gauri left the balcony, and let her in.
    Several months later, in California, a second letter arrived from Rhode Island.
    This time it was in English. Light blue ink, the address heedlessly scrawled—how had the mailman deciphered it? No longer the neat penmanship Bela had learned in school. But here it was, legible enough to reach her, the closest she’d ever come to visiting.
    Gauri studied the envelope, the illustration of a sailboat on the stamp. She sat at the table on her patio, and unfolded the page. There was a second sheet folded within it, a drawing Meghna had made and signed: a solid strip of blue sky, another strip of green ground, a colorful cat floating in the white space between.
    The letter bore no salutation.
    Meghna asks about you. Maybe she senses something, I don’t know. It’s too soon to tell her the story now. But one day I’ll explain to her who you are, and what you did. My daughter will know the truth about you. Nothing more, nothing less. If, then, she still wants to know you, and to have a relationship with you, I’m willing to facilitate that. This is about her, not about me. You’ve already taught me not to need you, and I don’t need to know more about Udayan. But maybe, when Meghna is older, when she and I are both ready, we can try to meet again.

VIII
    1.
    On the western coast of Ireland, on the peninsula of Beara, a couple come for a week’s stay. They drive from Cork through the drowsy countryside, arriving late in the afternoon to a terrain that is mountainous, stark. The region’s valleys conceal evidence of prehistoric agriculture. Field patterns, stone-wall systems, buried under deposits of peat.
    They have rented a house in one of the few towns. White stucco, the door and shutters painted blue. The entire town feels hardly larger than the enclave of homes in which, long ago, the man was raised.
    The street is narrow and sloping, lined with blossoming fuchsia, parked cars. They are two doors from a pub, an arm’s reach from a yellow church that serves the residents of the village. From the post office, which is also a general store, they buy their provisions: milk and eggs, baked beans and sardines, a jar of blackberry jam. It is possible to sit outside the post office, at a table for two on the sidewalk, and order a pot of tea, fresh cream and butter, a plate of scones.
    At night, after the long journey, a pint of beer at the pub, the man’s sleep is shallow. He wakes up in the bed where he lies with his new wife. She sleeps peacefully beside him, her head turned away, hands crossed below her chin.
    He goes downstairs and opens the door at the back of the house. He steps barefoot onto the wooden porch that overlooks the garden, the pastures beyond, running down to the Kenmare Bay. His hair is thick, snowy white. His wife likes to run her fingers through it. He sees the wide beam of the moon’s light over the water, pouring down. He is overwhelmed by the sky’s clarity, the number of stars.
    A strong wind courses over the land, mimicking the sound of the waves. He looks up, forgetting the names of the constellations he’d once taught his daughter. Burning gases, perceived on earth as cool points of light.
    He returns to bed, still looking out the window at the sky, the stars. He is startled anew by the fact that their beauty, even in daytime, is there. He is awash with the gratitude of his advancing years, for the timeless splendors of the earth, for the opportunity to behold them.
    The following morning after breakfast they set out for their first day’s walk, on paths that edge the sea. They cross rough pastures where sheep and cows graze in silence against the horizon, fields of foxglove and ferns. The day is overcast but luminous, the clouds holding. The ocean washes up into stony inlets, lies calm beyond steep cliffs.
    The man and woman take in the immensity of their surroundings. The stillness of the place. On this outcrop of land, after walking for hours, climbing up and down little ladders that separate one property from the next, they are less than halfway to where they thought