Parasols

Of the young Sherpa’s father, only the photos remain. All the ones his mother treasures in a thermal boot box, filed away above the wardrobe, and the three that are framed and displayed for all to see.

In one of these, his parents are on one of the beaches of Digha. Their honeymoon. In the background, coloured parasols, people lying in the sand. Multitudes. Beyond, the sea, the horizon, clouds. There is something about the arrangement of their bodies that suggests that his mother and his father barely knew each other when the photograph was taken. That it had only been a few months since the first time they spoke in the hallways of Namche’s administration building: he as a worker for the Directorate of Roadways and Paths; she as a clerk at the Tourist Information desk. The young Sherpa, of course, had not been born the day that photograph was taken. His older sister hadn’t, either. These absences disturb him.