5
When Asha woke at dawn, Rama was already gone. She stepped outside and spotted the man far out on the lake, a slender line snaking out across the water from the dock to his boat. Priya stood in the doorway behind her holding Jagdish in the crook of her arm. The mongoose stood up and squeaked.
“So, do you think you can help him?” the nun asked.
“Maybe. What do you think about him?”
Priya smiled. “I think he’s a very nice person. And considering how happy and content he is after losing his wife and his sight, I’d say he has a remarkable soul.”
“Maybe.” Asha paced down the wobbling, floating dock and untied the remaining fishing boat. She sat down in the bottom of the boat and pushed away from shore.
“What are you looking for?” Priya called from the house.
“Actually, it’s something I’m hoping to not find.” Asha picked up the paddle and began drawing long slow strokes across the surface of the lake. The little boat glided swiftly into the rising sun that flashed and glared in her eyes. She shaded her eyes as she dragged her paddle and let the boat come to a stop above the wavering shadows on the lakebed below. Leaning over, Asha could make out the shapes of the rocks and the slithering tangles of the long grasses on the bottom. A dark fish drifted past.
She shuffled her feet and hips, trying to get comfortable. After a few minutes, a second dark fish drifted past. It might have been the same fish.
Asha closed her eyes and put her left hand over her left ear. In her right ear, the life of every fish in the lake, every bird in the rushes, and every blade of grass on the shore resonated through her head. She heard whispers and sighs, gurgles and bubbles, and the occasional high-pitched warble. Nothing she hadn’t heard before. Just grebes and carps and green things growing in the earth.
With her right hand idly sweeping through the water, she drifted wherever the wind and waves carried her. Listening.
That evening she paddled back to the dock with a mild sunburn and a growling stomach. Priya and Rama were steaming rice in a clay pot and cooking fish in grass bundles on a pile of coals in the sand. They were talking about their favorite shades of black and laughing.
Asha cleared her throat and plopped down on the warm grass beside them.
“Catch anything?” Rama asked as he handed her a cup of tea.
“No,” Asha said. “Nothing unusual out there at all. Just a beautiful lake.”
“Oh, never underestimate a lake,” he said. “Certainly not one like this.”
“What do you mean?” asked Priya.
“Well, I’ve only lived here a short time, but I know something about living on the water, and no matter how much you think you know about a place, there is always more to find. Everything is always moving, always changing. The fish find new places to hunt or hide. A shift in the seasons will wake up some poor creature that’s been sleeping in the mud for years and years. Things fall in and get lost. Things wash up and are found.” Rama smiled his beautiful smile. “A lake is a living thing.”
After supper, Priya took Jagdish to one of the neighboring houses to play with the children as the first pale stars began to appear in the blue-black sky. Asha and Rama went to sit on the little walkway around the edge of his dark house with their feet dangling in the cool water. A warm breeze spiced with pepper and sweetened with mangos blew across the water, and from the other houses the soft sounds of laughter and off-key singing mingled with the rustling of the fiery palash blossoms above them.
“So this is your life?” he said. “You travel the world listening to peoples’ stories and floating around in their boats?”
“Sometimes I climb mountains to find rare flowers, or cross deserts for strange fruits, or stalk through forests for strange beasts.” She smiled. “But mostly, yes, I float around in strangers’ boats to enjoy the sun. Speaking of which.” Asha reached back into the house to fumble through her shoulder bag in the dark. A moment later she leaned forward again with a small jar in her hand. “You’ve been alone here for a long time, haven’t you? I’ve been alone for a long time, too. It comes with the job, I suppose. I don’t mind it, usually. But sometimes, well…” She began gently spreading the lotion on her arms and face.
“That smells good.”
“It’s just aloe, but I mixed in some rose petals.”
He shifted closer. “Can I help you with that?”
“To rub the lotion on my skin?” Asha smiled. “We’re not that young anymore, Rama.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t want to waste time going through the motions.” She reached over and pressed her lips to his. He tensed for a moment, and then kissed her back, slipping his hand through her hair to cradle her head and hold her close. Asha pulled her legs under her to kneel beside him, holding his face with both her hands. She led him through the kisses, pressing hard and pulling back, opening and closing her mouth to taste the traces of pepper and mango still clinging to his lips.
When his hands began to roam down her neck and chest, she wrapped her fingers around his and pulled him up to his feet and led him into the dark house. They stood together on the tangled blankets, slowly undressing each other. She untied his trousers. He unwound her sari. Their clothes fell silently to the floor and she pushed him gently down onto his back. Kneeling over him, she eased down against his warm flesh, and felt his hands exploring her hips and belly and breasts.
His hands continued to rove across her shoulders and neck and face, but only when his fingers grazed her right ear did she move his hand back down to her chest. They rocked gently together in the darkness, in the silence. Asha closed her eyes and listened to the crickets chirping and frogs croaking and the children singing just down the shore. Rama’s breathing was long and deep, his hands hot and strong holding her tightly against him as he quickened and moaned in the dark.
She held him tightly, still rocking and gliding her hips until she shuddered, and exhaled.
For a moment she sat very still, letting the night breeze caress her body and carry away the heat in her skin. Then she lay down beside him, wrapped herself up in his long arms, and closed her eyes.
“Asha?”
“Mm?”
“Would you stay here with me, if I asked you to?”
She listened to the rhythm of her heart beating and his heart beating, and to the world outside laughing and sighing and gathering in to rest for the night. “You barely know me.”
“I know. But life is so short, and joy can be so rare.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about staying anywhere in a long time.” She sighed in the dark. “I take what little joy I can find, but I’m not looking for more than that. Not now, anyway.”
“Oh. I see.” There was a hint of disappointment in his voice, but his warm arm didn’t move from her belly, and she put her hand on his to keep it there.
Asha had almost fallen asleep when she heard a soft trilling in the distance like tiny bells ringing in a faraway shrine. But she could only hear it in her right ear.
6
Asha opened her eyes and saw the soft dawn’s light on the wall. Rama was gone and his boat was gone with its line stretched out far across the lake. She sat up and saw Priya sitting just outside the door.
The nun stroked her mongoose’s head and smiled. “That was fast.”
Asha shrugged and stretched. “Life is short, or so I’m told.”
“For some more than others.” Priya offered her a cool cup of tea. “Will we be staying a while longer to study
