The Lowland

academics, but not always. There was the man whose name she’d forgotten, who’d built the bookshelves in her apartment. There was the idle husband of a musicologist at the American Academy in Berlin.
    Sometimes she juggled lovers, and at other times, for extended periods, there was no one. She’d grown fond of some of these men, remaining friendly with them. But she’d never allowed herself to reach the point where they might complicate her life.
    Only Lorna had unraveled her. She had knocked on Gauri’s door during her office hours one day, a stranger introducing herself, tilting her head against the doorframe. A tall woman in her late thirties, her center-parted hair in a small chignon. Nicely dressed, in fitted trousers, a white button-down shirt. So that at first Gauri thought she was another professor at the college, wandering in from some other department, with a question to ask.
    But no, she was a graduate student at UCLA, she’d driven in and found Gauri, she’d read everything Gauri had written. She’d worked for years in advertising, living in New York, in London, in Tokyo, before quitting her job and going back to university. She was seeking an outside reader for her dissertation, a study of relational autonomy, holding a partial draft of it in her hand. She was willing to help Gauri with any research or grading in exchange for the privilege.
    Please say yes.
    Her beauty was sober, in its prime. A long neck, clear gray eyes, abbreviated brows. Earlobes so scant they seemed almost to be missing. Slightly visible pores on her face.
    I heard your talk last month at Davis, Lorna said. I asked you a question.
    I don’t remember.
    You don’t remember the question?
    I don’t remember your asking it.
    Lorna reached into her satchel and pulled out a PowerBar.
    It was about Althusser. I’m sorry, I haven’t had lunch. Do you mind?
    Gauri shook her head. She watched as Lorna unwrapped and broke apart and chewed the PowerBar, explaining, between bites, the genesis of her project, the particular angle she wanted to pursue. Her hands seemed small for her height, the wrists delicate. She told Gauri she’d been working up the nerve to approach her for nearly a year.
    Gauri felt disoriented in the little office that was so familiar to her. At once ambushed and flattered. How could she have forgotten such a face?
    The topic interested her, and they set up a schedule, exchanging e-mails, meeting at restaurants and coffee shops. Lorna worked in fits and starts, distracting herself for days, then suddenly producing coherent chapters. She called Gauri when she felt stuck, whenever she doubted herself, whenever it was not going well.
    Attraction motivated Gauri to pick up the phone, to allow the conversations to extend beyond a reasonable arc. Images of Lorna, fragments of their exchanges, began to distract her. When they met in person she began to dress with care. She had no recollection of crossing a line that drove her to desire a woman’s body. With Lorna she found herself already on the other side of it.
    There were times, as they sat together at a table, scrutinizing a page of manuscript, that the sides of their hands, each holding a pen with which to mark the text, brushed together. Times their faces were close. There were times, as Lorna talked and Gauri listened, the two of them alone in a room, perhaps standing a few feet apart, that Gauri felt her balance faltering. She feared that she would not be able to control the temptation to take one step closer, then another, until the moment the space between them was obliterated.
    She acted on none of these impulses. Whatever had induced them, whatever continued to provoke them, she could not be certain whether Lorna thought of her in the same way.
    One evening Lorna showed up at her office without calling first. She did this often enough. She’d just finished the final chapter, the pages tucked in a thick manilla envelope that she cradled in one arm.
    The floor of the department was quiet, the students in their dorms, only the janitors and a few scattered professors were in the building at that hour.
    Lorna handed the envelope to Gauri. She looked exhausted, exultant. For the first time she was dressed casually, in jeans, a T-shirt. She’d not bothered to put up her hair. She had been to a grocery store. Inside the tote bag she set on the desk were wrapped wedges of cheese, grapes, a box of crackers. Two