It was Asha’s turn to smile. “Yes, among other things. You’ve studied?”
“Me? No. No, I just listen. I listen to everyone, wherever I go. You learn to listen really well when you can’t see.”
“I know a little something about listening,” she said. “A dragon bit me once because I didn’t listen when I should have.”
“A dragon? Really?”
“Oh, yes.” She touched the scaly skin of her right ear. “I also have a blind friend with me who knows how to listen pretty well. Maybe later you two can trade techniques and secrets for eavesdropping on me.”
He smiled a little wider. “I’d be honored. So, are you on your way into town?”
“No. Well, maybe later. In a few days. I thought I might stay here and explore the lake for a while to see what’s growing around here. There might be something I can use.” She glanced up at the fiery tips of a palash tree reaching out toward the lake above them. “And if not, then at least I can enjoy these trees and the water for a few days. We’ve been in the hills for ages, or so my feet are telling me.”
Rama nodded. “Well, you’re welcome to stay here. There’s plenty of room. I live alone. And I don’t mind sleeping outside.”
“Thank you. We’d be honored to be your guests. But please stay inside. I wouldn’t dream of…” She trailed off.
“Of making a blind man sleep on the ground?” He shook his head. “It’s nothing, really. Although I suppose I’d rather not wake up outside, forget where I am, and begin walking the wrong way. It might be a very long time before I reach another lake and realize it’s not mine.”
Asha laughed. “You think you could tell one lake from another?”
“Of course,” Rama said with a mock seriousness. “This is my lake. My home. Everything I care about is here. My life is here, in these waters.”
Asha nodded to herself. “Nisha said you used to live in the east before you came here and built this house.”
“That’s right.” He carefully rolled up his nets and set them aside. “I was born in a very large village on the banks of a very large lake. I loved it there. There was more trouble than any boy has a right to get into in a place like that. Fishermen, merchants, foreigners, weavers, tinkers, farmers, herders, priests. And then the real fun, the water and the boats, the nets and fish and clams and frogs and birds. So much to see and do. So many people to push into the water.”
Asha smiled. “Really? That’s what you did for fun?”
“Well, we spent most of our time in the water anyway,” Rama said. “But we had to grow up eventually, and the village was becoming a town, bigger and noisier. And one day I looked around and realized it wasn’t home anymore. So when I heard about this place from a man selling pepper, we packed our things and came here.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, we didn’t have many things to pack.” He lifted his face toward her and smiled. It was a genuine smile, broad and beautiful. “Those were the best days.”
Asha felt guilty for breaking the spell of that moment, the spell of his smile, but she had to ask the question. “What happened after that?”
Rama’s smile contracted, his mouth tense, a faint wince around his lidded eyes. “My wife, Vina, died shortly after we arrived here.”
“Nisha told me. I’m sorry.” She reached over to squeeze his hand.
He didn’t seem to notice as he sat nodding slowly to himself. “These things happen.”
“I know. But it doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Have you ever lost someone?” he asked quietly.
“I lost everyone,” she said. “When I came home from my training, my father was dead and my mother and brothers had left the city. I never learned what happened to them. I suppose they might still be out there, somewhere.”
“Do you miss them?”
She shrugged. “I barely remember them now.”
“I’m sorry.”
Asha waited a few minutes for the melancholy shadow to pass. The wind rose, whipping the surface of the lake into a sparkling frenzy of sunbursts and water-jewels in the afternoon light. “Nisha also told me about how you lost your sight.”
Rama’s enigmatic smile returned. “She’s a little protective of me, I think.”
“Yes.” Asha dragged her toes back and forth through the cool water. “But I was hoping you might tell me what happened. There might be something I can do for you.”
“Ah. The herbalist wants to heal me. Well, I think you’re going to be disappointed. I didn’t eat a bad fish, or step on a nettle, or poke myself in the eye.”
Asha shrugged as she shifted a little closer to him. “Maybe not. But I’d still like to hear about it.”
4
Rama said, “It began like any other day. I woke up, washed up, ate a mango, and threw my nets in my boat. I paddled out to the southeast. There are some rocks out there that make a sort of shoal where I can usually find a catfish or two. The water is murky and there’s a lot of grass on the bottom around there. I cast my nets for a few hours, but didn’t catch anything worth keeping. I dove to the bottom a few times and spotted a few big ones, but I didn’t catch them. So I moved on. I think I paddled sort of northward, out toward the center of the lake. Somewhere that way.” He raised his arm to point out across the lake, though he didn’t turn his face to look where he pointed.
Asha noted the direction, but saw nothing out there beside the bright flashes on the waves.
“I threw my nets a few more times. I dove a few more times.” Rama sighed. “It was a lazy day. Hot. Still. All the birds were sitting in the shallows, in the shade. Even the children were lying on the banks. I was still mourning Vina then, I suppose. I felt so lost, and angry, and empty. I remember sitting out there on the water, staring at the nets in my hands, asking myself why I bothered to keep working. What was I working for? To feed myself? To stay alive? It all seemed so pointless.
“I tossed my nets in the water one more time and watched them sink down into the darkness. I stared at the line in my hand, debating with myself over whether I should bother to pull it back up or just let it stay down there and rot.” Rama reached up to ease his long fingers back through his thick hair. “But of course I didn’t. I felt a tug, a shudder in the line. I pulled up the net and it was full of fish. Full.”
“Full.” Asha nodded slowly. “Sounds like a good thing.”
Rama laughed. “I guess it would be, normally. But we’ve never pulled up a full net. None of us. Not ever. But my net was full. I almost fell into the water wrestling it all into the boat. Catfish, carp, loach, and trout. I just sat there for a minute, staring at all that life squirming and wriggling and flopping in my net. And then I rolled it over to dump them all out again into the water. The net snagged on something. Probably my own foot. So I sat there trying to shake myself free and get the fish out the boat and as I looked down, a flash of gold in the net caught my eye. I reached down into the net, into all those fish, and just for a second, I saw her.”
“Her?”
“Vina. I saw her face in a blaze of light, like fire, like the sun. I saw her,” Rama said, smiling. “She was alive, and happy, and waiting for me. She was so beautiful.”
Asha chewed her ginger. “But then you were blind.”
Rama nodded. “But then I was blind.”
“Any other symptoms?” Asha took a moment to look him over again. Perfect skin, straight white teeth, clean nails, and healthy lips. Such beautiful lips.
“You mean pain or something? No. No, I feel fine. I feel wonderful.”
“Good.” She looked down the floating dock at the two narrow canoes tied there. “Can I use one of your boats tomorrow?”
