The Lowland

Subhash leaned forward in his seat and drove on, sending up great sprays of water from the rolling tires of the car, until the small brick hospital, set on a hilltop, came into view.
    It was a girl, as she was certain it would be. She was relieved that her hope had been fulfilled, and that a young version of Udayan had not come back to her. And in a way it was better to give the child a name Subhash had thought of, to grant him that claim.
    As she’d pushed she’d clenched her teeth, her body convulsed, but she had not screamed. It was eight in the evening, still light outside, no longer raining. The cord was clipped and suddenly the child was no longer a part of Gauri. Others were bundling her, cleaning and weighing and warming her. A little later, when Subhash was called up from the waiting room, Bela was placed in his arms.
    She dreamed of gulls on the beach in Rhode Island, screeching and attacking one another, blood and feathers, dismembered wings on the sand. Again, as it was after Udayan’s death, there was an acute awareness of time, of the future looming, accelerating. The baby’s lifetime, so scant, already outdistancing and outpacing her own. This was the logic of parenthood.
    After bringing her home they tended to her, Subhash in his way, Gauri in hers. At first a part of her resisted sharing Bela with him, including him in the experience that had been solely hers. It was one thing for him to be her husband; another to be Bela’s father. For his name to be on the birth certificate, a falsehood no one questioned.
    Seeking only the milk from her body, Bela rested, burrowed against Gauri’s breast. Her child’s mind contained nothing. Her heart was simply an instrument for pumping blood.
    She demanded little, and yet she demanded everything. The awareness of her was all-consuming. It absorbed every particle in Gauri’s body, every nerve. But the nurse in the hospital had been right, she could not do it all by herself, and every time Subhash took over, so that she could get some rest or take a shower or drink a cup of tea before it turned cold, every time he picked Bela up and comforted her when she cried so that Gauri did not have to, she could not deny the relief she felt at being allowed, however briefly, to step aside.
    Framed between two pillows arranged on either side of her, Bela slept. When she was awake, she would slowly twist her neck and her cloudy eyes would intently search the corners of the room, as if already she knew that something was missing.
    When she was sleeping, she breathed with her whole body, like an animal or a machine. This fascinated Gauri but also made her anxious: the grand effort of each breath, one after the next for as long as she would live, drawn from the air shared by everyone else in the world.
    While pregnant she had felt capable. But now Gauri was aware of how the slightest oversight on her part could cause Bela to be destroyed. Carrying her out of the hospital, through the lobby that led to the parking lot, where people streamed by briskly without a glance, she had felt terrified, aware that America was just as dangerous a place as any. Aware that there was no one, other than Subhash, to protect Bela from harm.
    She began to imagine scenarios, unbidden but persistent. Grotesque images of Bela’s head snapping back, her neck breaking. When Bela fell asleep at her breast, Gauri imagined falling asleep also, forgetting to unlatch her from her nipple, Bela’s capacity to breathe put to an end. At night, alone with her in the bedroom, Gauri started to worry that Bela would fall to the floor, or that Gauri would roll on top of her, crushing her.
    The day they took her for a walk through campus, Gauri stood on the terrace of the student union, with Bela in her arms, waiting for Subhash to bring them some Coca-Colas. At first she stood at the edge of the terrace, but then she backed away, afraid of losing control of her muscles, afraid of dropping her daughter. Standing still on a sultry late summer’s day, without a trace of breeze, she was nevertheless afraid that a sudden wind would pry Bela from her grasp.
    Later that evening, in the apartment, knowing she shouldn’t, wanting to see what would happen, she loosened her grip ever so slightly behind Bela’s neck, relaxing her own shoulders. But Bela’s instinct for survival was reflexive. Instantly she stirred from a deep sleep, protesting.
    There was only one way for