The Lowland

in America, now he told her that her priority should be Bela.
    She’s not your child, she wanted to say. To remind him of the truth.
    But of course it was not the truth. At Bela’s ballet recital a few weeks before, Gauri saw the change in her as soon as Subhash, arriving a few minutes late, had taken his place and waved; Bela filling with the awareness of him, her chin tucked into her shoulder, bashfully performing only for him.
    A few days later she brought it up again.
    This is important to me, she said.
    Willing to compromise, he told her he would try to rearrange his schedule. He began to leave earlier on certain mornings, and return, a few days a week, by late afternoon. She registered for the class and went to the bookstore, filling a basket with books. On the Genealogy of Morals. The Phenomenology of Mind. The World as Will and Idea. She bought a packet of pens and a dictionary. A wire-bound notebook bearing the university’s seal.
    With Bela, she was aware of time not passing; of the sky nevertheless darkening at the end of another day. She was aware of the perfect silence in the apartment, replete with the isolation she and Bela shared. When she was with Bela, even if they were not interacting, it was as if they were one person, bound fast by a dependence that restricted her mentally, physically. At times it terrified her that she felt so entwined and also so alone.
    On weekdays, as soon as she picked up Bela from the bus stop and brought her home, she went straight to the kitchen, washing up the morning dishes she’d ignored, then getting dinner started. She measured out the nightly cup of rice, letting it soak in a pan on the counter. She peeled onions and potatoes and picked through lentils and prepared another night’s dinner, then fed Bela. She was never able to understand why this relatively unchallenging set of chores felt so relentless. When she was finished, she did not understand why they had depleted her.
    She waited for Subhash to take over, to allow her to leave, to attend her class or to study at the library. For there was no place to work in the apartment, no door she could shut, no desk where she could keep her things.
    She begrudged Subhash’s absence when he was at work, his ability to come and go and nothing more. She resented the few moments of the morning he enjoyed with Bela, before leaving for his lab.
    She resented him for going away for two or three days, to attend oceanography conferences or to conduct research at sea. Due to no fault of his own, when he did appear, sometimes she was barely able to stand the sight of him, or to tolerate the sound of the voice that, in the beginning, had drawn her to him.
    She began to eat dinner early, with Bela, leaving Subhash’s portion on the stove. So that almost as soon as he was there, Gauri was able to pack up her book bag and go. She felt the fresh air of early evening on her face. Bright in springtime, dark and cold in fall.
    At first it was just the evenings she had class, but then it was every evening of the week that she spent at the library, away from them. Happy to spend time with Bela, Subhash let her go. And so she felt antagonized by a man who did nothing to antagonize her, and by Bela, who did not even know the meaning of the word.
    But her worst nemesis resided within her. She was not only ashamed of her feelings but also frightened that the final task Udayan had left her with, the long task of raising Bela, was not bringing meaning to her life.
    In the beginning she’d told herself that it was like a thing misplaced: a favorite pen that would turn up a few weeks later, wedged between the sofa cushions, or discreetly sitting beneath a sheaf of papers. Once found, it would never be lost sight of again. To look for such a misplaced item only made it worse. If she waited long enough, she told herself, there it would be.
    But it was not turning up; after five years, in spite of all the time, all the hours she and Bela spent together, the love she’d once felt for Udayan refused to reconstitute itself. Instead there was a growing numbness that inhibited her, that impaired her.
    She knew that she was failing at something every other woman on earth did without trying. That should not have proved a struggle. Even her own mother, who had not fully raised her, had loved her; of that there had been no doubt. But already Gauri feared that she had drifted down to a place where it was no longer possible to