The Lowland

Udayan wanted a shortwave radio. He wanted more news of the world than what came through their parents’ old valve radio, encased in its wooden cabinet, or what was printed in the daily Bengali paper, rolled slim as a twig, tossed over the courtyard wall in the mornings.
    They put it together themselves, searching in New Market, in junk shops, finding parts from Indian Army surplus. They followed a set of complicated instructions, a worn-out circuit diagram. They laid out the pieces on the bed: the chassis, the capacitors, the various resistors, the speaker. Soldering the wires, working together on the task. When it was finally assembled, when they snapped on the case, it looked like a little suitcase, with a squared-off handle. Made of metal, bound in black.
    The reception was often better in winter than in summer. Generally better at night. This was when the sun’s photons weren’t breaking up molecules in the ionosphere. When positive and negative particles in the air quickly recombined.
    They took turns sitting by the window, holding the receiver in their hands, in various positions, adjusting the antenna, manipulating two controls at once. Rotating the tuning dial as slowly as possible, they grew familiar with the frequency bands.
    They searched for any foreign signal. News bulletins from Radio Moscow, Voice of America, Radio Peking, the BBC. They heard arbitrary information, snippets from thousands of miles away, emerging from great thickets of interference that tossed like an ocean, that wavered like a wind. Weather conditions over Central Europe, folk songs from Athens, a speech by Abdel Nasser. Reports in languages they could only guess at: Finnish, Turkish, Korean, Portuguese.
    It was 1964. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized America to use military force against North Vietnam. There was a military coup in Brazil.
    In Calcutta Charulata was released in cinema halls. Another wave of riots between Muslims and Hindus killed over one hundred people after a relic was stolen from a mosque in Srinagar. Among the communists in India there was dissent over the border war with China two years before. A breakaway group, sympathetic to China, now called itself the Communist Party of India, Marxist: the CPI(M).
    Congress was still running the central government in Delhi. After Nehru died of a heart attack that spring his daughter, Indira, entered the cabinet. Within two years, she would become the Prime Minister.
    In the mornings, now that Subhash and Udayan were beginning to shave, they held up a hand mirror and a pan of warm water for one another in the courtyard. After plates of steaming rice and dal and matchstick potatoes they walked to the mosque at the corner, leaving their enclave behind. They continued together down the busy main road, as far as the tram depot, then boarded different busses to their colleges.
    On separate sides of the city, they made different friends, mixing with boys who’d gone to English medium schools. Though some of their science courses were similar, they took exams on different schedules, studying with different professors, running different experiments in their labs.
    Because Udayan’s campus was farther away it took him longer to get home. Because he started to befriend students from North Calcutta, the chessboard stood neglected on the study table, so that Subhash started to play against himself. Still, each day of his life began and ended with Udayan beside him.
    One evening in the summer of 1966, on the shortwave, they listened to England play Germany in the World Cup at Wembley. It was the famous final, the ghost goal that was to be disputed for years. They took notes as the lineup was announced, diagramming the formation on a sheet of paper. They trailed their index fingers to mimic the moves being relayed, as if the bed were the playing field.
    Germany scored first; in the eighteenth minute came Geoff Hurst’s equalizer. Toward the end of the second half, with England leading two to one, Udayan turned off the radio.
    What are you doing?
    Improving the reception.
    It’s good enough. We’re missing the end of the match.
    It’s not over.
    Udayan reached under the mattress, which was where they stashed their odds and ends. Notebooks, compasses and rulers, razor blades to sharpen their pencils, sports magazines. The instructions for putting the radio together. Some spare nuts and bolts, the screwdriver and pliers they’d needed for the