Authors: Jhumpa Lahiri
Bela told Drew that her mother was dead. It was what she always said when people asked. In her imagination she returned Gauri to India, saying her mother had gone back for a visit and contracted an illness. Over the years Bela had come to believe this herself. She imagined the body being burned under a pile of sticks, ashes floating away.
Drew began to want her to spend the nights with him. To wake up together on a Sunday morning, and to eat breakfast in the barn he’d restored. Where, on a soft bed, she made love with him some afternoons. From the top rung of a ladder, that led to the cupola, one could see a small wedge of the sea.
She said it was too soon. At first she said that it was for Meghna—not wanting to take that step casually, wanting to be sure.
Drew said there was a bedroom for Meghna; that he wanted her to be there, too. He could build her a loft bed, an area to play underneath, a tree house outside. Toward the end of summer he told Bela he was in love with her. He said he didn’t need more time, that he was old enough to know what he felt. He wanted to help her raise Meghna. To be a father to her, if this was something Bela would allow.
That was the day she told Drew the truth about her mother. That she’d left and never returned.
She said it was the reason she’d avoided ever being with one person, or staying in one place. The reason she’d wanted to have Meghna on her own. The reason, though she liked Drew, though she was almost forty, she didn’t know if she could give him the things he was seeking.
She told him how she used to sit inside the closet where her mother had kept her things. Behind the coats she hadn’t taken with her, the belts and purses on hooks that her father hadn’t yet given away. She would stuff a pillow into her mouth, in case her father came home
early, and heard her crying. She remembered crying so hard that the skin beneath her eyes would swell, marking her for a time with two inflated smiles that were paler than the rest of her.
Finally she told him about Udayan. That though she’d been created by two people who’d loved one another, she’d been raised by two who never did.
Drew held her as he listened. I’m not going anywhere, he said.
It was an hour’s drive to Providence, a little less after that. She entered the zip code in the car’s GPS, but soon found that directions weren’t necessary. The names of the exits leading to the different suburbs and towns came back to her: Foxborough, Attleboro, Pawtucket. Wooden houses, shingles and siding, a glimpse of the State House dome. She remembered, after passing through Providence, then Cranston, that the exit to the town was to the left—that otherwise the interstate led to New York.
She’d flown to Boston, renting a car at the airport to drive the rest of the way. It was how Subhash had first brought her, along the same section of highway. How she used to travel twice a week to go to graduate school. It was autumn in New England, the air bracing, leaves just starting to turn.
Soon after the exit, another left at the set of traffic lights would have taken her to him. There was the wooden tower among the tall pines that looked out over the bay. A picture in Gauri’s drawer in California showed Bela standing at the top of this tower, squinting in the bright cold, wearing a yellow quilted jacket with a fur-trimmed hood. Gauri had lifted it hastily out of an album, before leaving.
She had tried, at first, to write to Subhash. To grant what he’d requested, and to send a letter in reply. For a few days she’d worked on the letter, dissatisfied with her attempts.
She knew a divorce made no difference; their marriage had run its course long ago. And yet his request, reasonable, rational, had upended her. She felt the need to see him.
Even apart, even now, she felt yoked to him, in unspoken collusion with him. He had taken her away from Tollygunge. He remained the only link to Udayan. His enduring love for Bela, the stability of his heart, had compensated for the deviance of her own.
The timing of the letter had felt like a sign. For she supposed he could have wanted a divorce ten years ago, or two years from now. She was already committed to traveling over the East Coast, to London,
to attend a conference. She arranged for a connecting flight, a one-night stay in Rhode Island. She would give him what he was seeking. She only hoped to stand before him, and sever their connection face-to-face. In his letter he’d said he was open to this.
But it had not been an invitation. And without asking him, without warning him, unable even now to conduct herself decently, she’d come.
The leaves had not yet fallen, she could not see the bay. She turned down the long undulating two-lane road that had been cut into the woods, leading to the main campus of the university. Homes set back on their properties, giant azaleas, flat stone walls.
She pulled into a gravel drive. Grounds covered with ivy. A painted wooden sign hung from hooks, swinging in the breeze, with the name of the inn, the year it was built. This was the bed-and-breakfast where she’d booked a room.
She carried her suitcase to the front door and tapped the knocker. When no one came she tried the knob and found the door unlocked. After adjusting to the dark interior she saw a living room past the entrance, a desk with a little bell on it, and a sign asking visitors to tap it.
A woman about her age came to greet her. Silver hair, side-parted, worn loose. Ruddy skin. She was dressed in jeans and a fleece jacket, a paint-stained canvas apron. A pair of clogs on her feet.
You’re Mrs. Mitra?
Yes.
I was in my studio, the woman said, wiping her hand on a rag before extending it. Her name was Nan.
The living room was full of things, enamel pitchers resting in matching platters, glass-fronted cabinets filled with porcelain and books. On a separate table were works of pottery, platters and mugs, deep bowls glazed in muddy shades.
Those are all for sale, Nan said. Studio’s out back. More stuff in there, if you’re interested. Happy to ship it.
Gauri handed over her credit card, her university ID. She watched as Nan entered information into a ledger.
Might get some rain tonight. Then again, might not. First time out here?
I used to live in Rhode Island.
What part?
A few miles down this road.
Oh, you know it, then.
Nan didn’t ask why she’d returned. She led her up the staircase, to a hallway lined with doors. Gauri was given a key to her room, another key to the front entrance were she to come in after eleven at night.
The bed was high, the headboard thin, the double mattress covered with a white cotton spread. A small television on the dressing table, lace curtains in the window, filtering a quiet light. She looked at the bookcase by the bed. She pulled out a volume of Montaigne and put it on the nightstand.
Those were my father’s books. He taught at the university. Lived in this house until he died at ninety-five. Refused to leave it. Had to get him a child-sized wheelchair in the end, because the doorways are so tight.
The professor’s name, when Gauri asked, sounded familiar, but only vaguely. Perhaps she’d once taken a class with him, she couldn’t recall.
She freshened up, putting on the sweater she’d packed. The room was drafty, the fireplace just for show. Downstairs there was a real fire burning, and a young couple standing with their backs to her. On the coffee table was a tray with a teapot and cups, cookies and grapes. The couple were looking at Nan’s pottery display, wondering which of the large platters they wanted to buy. Gauri listened to their discussion, how carefully they considered the choice.
The couple turned around, introduced themselves. They came from Montreal. She leaned over to shake their hands, their names sliding instantly off Gauri’s brain. They were not her students, it did not matter. Neither of them was the person she’d come to see.
They settled together on a champagne-colored sofa. The husband refilled their teacups.
Will you join us?
No, thank you. Enjoy your evening.
You as well.
She went out to the car. The day was ending, already the sky was turning pale. She pulled out her cell phone, scrolled down to Subhash’s
number. Something had catapulted her back here, a motivation as unstoppable, also as egregious, as the one that had caused her to leave.
She was trespassing, breaking the rule they’d long come to obey. He might be busy this weekend. He might have gone somewhere. Though his letter had been friendly, of course he might not want to see her at all.
Now the absurdity, the great indiscretion, of what she’d done permeated her. She’d always felt like an imposition in his life, an intrusion.
She told herself she did not have to do it right away, that there was time. Her flight to London was not until the following evening. She would go to him tomorrow, in the light of day, then go straight back to the airport. Tonight she would simply confirm that he was there.
She drove to the campus, past buildings where she had taken classes, paths where she had walked with Bela in her stroller. She drove past the mix of stone buildings and sixties architecture, the buildings that had gone up since. Past the apartment complex where they had first lived, where they’d brought Bela home from the hospital. She turned around by the little outbuilding where she had learned to do the laundry. Then she drove into the town.
The supermarket where Subhash had liked to buy groceries was now a large post office. There were more places to buy more things, more often: a pharmacy that stayed open twenty-four hours, a greater variety of places to eat.
She chose a restaurant she remembered, an ice cream shop where Bela liked to get a cone at the window. A flavor called peppermint stick, studded with red and green candies, had been her favorite. There was a counter with stools inside, a few booths at the back. It was a Saturday, and she sat among groups of high school students who were out without their parents, drinking milk shakes, joking with one another. A few older people were sitting alone, eating plates of fried chicken and mashed potatoes.
Again the discomfort she’d always felt in Rhode Island, whenever she set foot outside the university. Where she’d felt at once ignored and conspicuous, summed up, in the way. She ate quickly, burning her tongue on a bowl of chowder, gulping down a small dish of ice cream. She imagined running into Subhash. Had he become the type to go out to restaurants?
After dinner she drove to the bay, along a promenade where people were jogging and walking in the twilight. Through a stone archway, flanked by two towers, like the gateway of a castle by the sea. She continued on toward the house.
The lights were on. She slowed down, too nervous to come to a stop. There were two cars in the driveway; she was unprepared for this. Was there a third one in the garage? Who was visiting him? Who were his friends now? His lovers? It was the weekend, was he entertaining guests?
She drove back to the inn, exhausted though it was still early for her, evening just beginning on the West Coast. The couple from Montreal were out, Nan tucked away in whatever unseen part of the house she occupied.
She went upstairs to her room and saw that two gingersnaps had been left on a plate by her bed, and a mug with an herbal tea bag on the saucer, next to the electric kettle.
Nan’s hospitality was measured, and yet Gauri was grateful for the overtures, however impersonal. A stranger had received her, accommodated her. But Gauri had no way of knowing, tomorrow, if Subhash would do the same.
In the morning, after breakfast, she repacked her suitcase and settled the bill. Already it was over, she was departing, and yet the objective of the journey remained. She erased the temporary traces of herself from the room, smoothing the pillowcase she had creased, readjusting the piece of lace on the nightstand.
Handing over the key, she felt eager to go but also reluctant, aware that there was nowhere but the rented car to call her own. Nothing left to do, other than fulfill the purpose for which she’d come.
She drove back to the highway. The traffic light was her last chance to turn back toward Boston. Briefly she panicked, putting on her blinker. She irritated the driver behind her when she changed her mind again, continuing straight.
Today there was only one car in the driveway. A small hatchback that must have been his, though it surprised her to see how beaten-up it was, that at this stage of his life he would still drive the kind of car he
drove when he was a graduate student. A Rhode Island license plate, an Obama bumper sticker. Also one that said
Be a Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown
.
She saw the Japanese maple, a twig so tender one could snap it apart when Subhash had planted it; it was three times her height now, the branches spreading close to the ground, the gray bark as smooth as glazed ceramic. There were more flowers, black-eyed Susans and daylilies, defying the coming of winter, thickly growing at the front of the house. Chrysanthemums in pots decorated the steps.
Should she have brought something? Some offering from California, a bag of pistachios or lemons, to speak for her existence there?
She had already signed the divorce papers, granted her consent. She would hand him the documents in person. She would tell him she happened to be passing through.
She would agree that their marriage should be terminated formally, that of course the house in Tollygunge, and the one in Rhode Island, were his to sell. She imagined a strained conversation in the living room, a cursory exchange of information, a single cup of tea he might offer to prepare.
This was the scenario she’d mapped out on the plane, that she’d reviewed in bed the night before, and again during her drive that morning.
She sat in the car, looking at the house, knowing he was inside, knowing how much it would surely upset him to see her, unbidden. Knowing she was in no position to expect him to open his door to her.
She remembered looking for the policeman’s mailbox in Jadavpur. Terrified of what she was seeking, part of her already knowing what she’d find.