The Lowland

Gauri?
    She has a place here if she chooses.
    What do you mean, if she chooses?
    She could go somewhere to continue her studies. She might prefer it.
    What makes you think that?
    She’s too withdrawn, too aloof to be a mother.
    His temples were throbbing. Have you discussed any of this with her?
    There’s no point in worrying her about it now.
    He saw that already, coldly, sitting on the terrace, his mother had plotted it out. But he was just as appalled at his father, for saying nothing, for going along with it.
    You can’t separate them. For Udayan’s sake, accept her.
    His mother lost her patience. She was angry with him, too. Shut your mouth, she said, her tone insulting. Don’t tell me how to honor my own son.
    That night, under the mosquito netting, Subhash was unable to sleep.
    Perhaps he would never fully know what Udayan had done. Gauri had conveyed her version to him, and his parents refused to discuss it.
    He supposed they’d been lenient regarding Udayan, as they’d always been. Intuiting that he was in over his head, but never confronting him.
    Udayan had given his life to a movement that had been misguided, that had caused only damage, that had been ruthlessly dismantled. The only thing he’d altered was what their family had been.
    He had kept Subhash, and probably to a great degree also his parents, deliberately in the dark. The more his involvement had deepened, the more evasive he’d turned. Writing letters as if the movement no longer mattered to him. Hoping to throw Subhash off the trail as he’d put together bombs, as he’d sketched maps of the Tolly Club. As he’d blown the fingers off his hand.
    Gauri was the one he’d trusted. He’d inserted her into their lives, only to strand her there.
    Like the solution to an equation emerging bit by bit, Subhash began to perceive a turn things might take. He was already eager to leave Calcutta. There was nothing he could do for his parents. He was unable to console them. Though he’d returned to stand before them, in the end it had not mattered that he had come.
    But Gauri was different. Around her, he felt a shared awareness of the person they’d both loved.
    He thought of her remaining with his parents, living by their rules. His mother’s behavior toward Gauri was insulting, but his father’s passivity was just as cruel.
    And yet it wasn’t simply cruelty; their treatment of Gauri was deliberate, intended to drive her out. He thought of her becoming a mother, only to lose control of the child. He thought of the child being raised in a joyless house.
    The only way to prevent it was to take Gauri away. It was all he could do to help her, the only alternative he could provide. And the only way to take her away was to marry her. To take his brother’s place, to raise his child, to come to love Gauri as Udayan had. To follow him in a way that felt perverse, that felt ordained. That felt both right and wrong.
    The date of his departure was approaching; soon enough he would be on the plane again. There was no one there for him in Rhode Island. He was tired of being alone.
    He had tried to deny the attraction he felt for Gauri. But it was like the light of the fireflies that swam up to the house at night, random points that surrounded him, that glowed and then receded without a trail.
    He mentioned nothing to his parents, knowing that they would only try to dissuade him. He knew the solution he’d arrived at would appall them. He went to her directly. He’d been afraid of how his family might react to Holly. But he was no longer afraid.
    This is for you, he said, standing in her doorway, giving her the shawl.
    She lifted the cover of the box and looked at it.
    I’d like for you to wear it, he said.
    He watched her step into the room and open her wardrobe. She placed the shawl, still folded in the box, inside.
    When she turned to face him again, he observed that a mosquito had landed at the very edge of her forehead, close to the hairline. He wanted to reach over and brush it away, but she stood, unbothered, perhaps unaware.
    I hate how my parents treat you, he said.
    She was silent. She sat down at her desk, in front of the book and the notebook spread there. She was waiting for him to go.
    He lost his nerve. The idea was ridiculous. She would not wear the turquoise shawl, she would never agree to marry him and go to Rhode Island. She was mourning for Udayan, carrying