Leaving Varkala in a taxi as old as he was, Edward had the impression he had gone back to the beginning, his own beginning. He had started over and taken the fast track. He was so close. Almost to Nayana, as long as she hadn’t slipped away yet again. If she had, he wasn’t sure he could follow. This might have to be where his search would end. With the window rolled down, he breathed in the passing landscape in its entirety, the good and the bad. The sweet smell of burning coconut, which gave way to the noxious odors of melting plastic, black clouds of exhaust from unregulated vehicles, thick and metallic. A cluster of sacred cows as pungent as cattle on a ranch. He was leaving behind the green waxy leaves of coconut trees, wet with sea-salt air. He observed the passing motorcycles and scooters with their helmetless riders: a family of four, a family of five, two men transporting plumbing pipes twenty feet long—they all tested the center line of traffic as they bypassed whatever slowed them down ahead. In fact, the lines on the road served no purpose at all. And if there were two vehicles in any kind of proximity—and he couldn’t imagine that there ever wouldn’t be—their horns sang. As the warm wind blew against his face, stench and all, Edward embraced it with a stupid grin.
The farther he traveled, the denser the jungle grew. He hadn’t known it would be so lush. So green. At a certain point, the asphalt road stopped and dirt roads continued, full of potholes, forcing the cars, trucks, and motorbikes to come to a crawl and choose circuitous routes, crossing the entire width of the road if necessary. The sign for the ashram at the last turn promised only one more kilometer. But Edward wasn’t convinced his taxi was going to make it up this hill. He felt that he should offer to get out and walk the rest of the way. Or maybe get behind and push. The old car crawled and sputtered as they slowly climbed, as the trees grew denser, and the sun disappeared behind them. Edward leaned forward, scooting to the edge of the cracked vinyl bench seat, as if to urge them along the final stretch.
A lake came into view on the right. Across the road was an orange wall. He had to duck his head to see beyond to the temple gate. Bag in hand, he climbed out of the taxi and up the steps, passing under an archway. On the other side, he had the feeling he had left the world behind. Here, time itself moved slowly; a droning voice reverberated throughout the courtyard, the same two words repeated, though Edward couldn’t decipher them at first through the elongated, nasal delivery. Then he understood: “Inhaaaale…Exhaaaale.” It was coming from an open-air structure at the center of the complex: a yoga class in progress. He removed his sunglasses and could see the inverted bodies under the shade of the tile roof. He wondered if yoga was mandatory there. If one of those bodies was Nayana. No one seemed to be walking around.
A large metal rack stood to the side of the steps that led up to the reception office, but it was mostly empty, and many sets of sandals and flip-flops and two pairs of sneakers were scattered around the base of the steps. Edward removed his shoes and his socks, which he rolled up and slipped into the mouth of one sneaker, then placed them on the rack. His feet were grateful for the air and the cool earth and the even cooler tile floor at the top of the stairs.
A couple was seated at a table filling out a form, their burgundy passports at the ready. Edward felt for his own passport in his front pocket. A man with glasses and black curly hair approached him with his hands in prayer. He spoke with a strong Italian accent and introduced himself as Dario. When Edward was asked how long he would be staying, he answered that he was unsure. They had a three-day minimum stay, and yoga was strongly encouraged; there were mats he could rent or buy if he didn’t have one. When he’d finished signing in, he took his rented mat and his suitcase and followed Dario to what was to be his bed in the men’s dormitory. It was almost dinnertime, he was told, and he could join the others when he heard the bell.
He did as he was told, silently following the others into the hall where he’d seen the yoga class. He fell in line. The guests took their seats on the long woven mats that lined the hall, each finding a place behind one of the round metal trays placed in front of the mats. Two men in yellow shirts chanted at the front. There were six mats in all, stretching from the stage at the front to the middle of the room. And dozens of trays were already placed in front of each row. The trays looked like something from a hospital or military cafeteria, perhaps a camping store, with several compartments for food and a little metal cup off to one side. Were there this many guests? He looked behind him and saw a steady flow of people still entering the hall. If Benji hadn’t warned him it was a place that catered mostly to Europeans, he would have been shocked to see so much white skin in one place.
A few of the guests walked along the rows serving food from one metal container or another—scooping or ladling their offerings onto the trays. There was a spongy white rice, a thin red broth with root vegetables and tomatoes, a sliced-carrot and purple-cabbage salad, and a white liquid flecked with green, which he assumed was some kind of yogurt sauce. The chanting finished, and a few prayerlike phrases were called and repeated. Hands were clasped together and swiftly raised to foreheads. Edward was too slow and uninitiated to follow along, so he watched. They were finally asked to eat in silence. There were no utensils. Those around him quickly and expertly set to work on their trays, using their fingers to create bite-size mounds. The servers circled perpetually, refilling as necessary. The steel cups remained empty, but he noticed a woman in the next row pouring an almost clear liquid he thought might be herbal tea. He reached for a carrot slice and brought it to his mouth. The woman seated across from him was smiling at him. He’d only seen her agile hands before, but now he saw her unruly frizz of hair, her tanned skin. She was young—much younger than Edward—and she looked like she’d probably been touring around India for a while, like her skin had resisted the sun until it could no longer do so. He returned her smile and felt suddenly very far from home and everything familiar. He was thirsty more than hungry. The teapot was slowly making its way up his own row now, and he tried again to determine what was coming out of it. When the person beside him reached out his cup, he thought maybe it was water despite its rosy hue. He’d been studying it so intently he forgot to lift his own cup when it was his turn, making it harder for the woman to reach, so she paused and waited for him. And then he looked at her, and he knew it was Nayana standing before him. It wasn’t that she shared some feature in particular with Birendra, but somehow the whole of the relationship was immediately clear. Edward felt himself go pale. He must have had a horrified look on his face because she shrank away, visibly confused, ready to move on down the line if he wanted none of what she had. He thrust his cup forward.
“Thank you,” he said.
She nodded once and looked around because, he realized, he’d broken the silence. Then she moved on. Now he flushed with embarrassment and grew nauseated. He sipped from the metal cup. It was an infused water, slightly herbaceous and warm but not hot. It quenched his thirst and settled his stomach, which was tied in an empty knot, both wanting food and rejecting the very idea. Edward watched Nayana carry on down the line. She was wearing the long sturdy white cotton pants that so many of the guests wore here and a thin long-sleeved shirt that revealed the outline of her spine as she bent to serve tea to each guest. He couldn’t stop watching her. She was thin, perhaps even too thin for a pregnant woman, and this reminded him that she’d recently been in the hospital. He could see that she might be unwell, yet she remained absolutely beautiful. He didn’t know if he found her so striking because she was his nephew’s aunt and he’d gone through so much to find her or if she was simply a stunning woman. She reached the end of the row, checked her pot, and disappeared through a door.
Edward had barely touched his food. The woman with the hair across from him was being served rice yet again. And then more of the vegetables. She seemed to empty her tray just as quickly as the servers filled it. She acknowledged this, rubbing her belly, when she caught him staring in amazement. After he’d eaten his salad and a few mounds of the bloated rice, he brought his tray to the wash area outside, as he’d seen some of the others start to do. He hadn’t touched the liquid yogurt, which filled a compartment at the tray’s edge, so he had to be careful not to spill it as he left the hall. He wanted to lie down and sleep. He wasn’t ready to talk to Nayana yet. Knowing she was there was enough for the moment. He would rest before they were called to come together again later that evening. Under the cover of darkness, he would find her and tell her who he was and why he had come. His head was spinning, and he felt slightly feverish. At the end of the dormitory, he found his bed again. His head touched down on the pillow, his eyes closed, and he slept through the night.
Nayana wasn’t serving water or food at breakfast, and he hadn’t seen her anywhere in the hall during morning yoga. He felt slightly less clumsy eating today and was able to sop up half his yogurt with a couple of the fried disks they were passing around. The woman with the hair and the big appetite was two rows over today, with her back to Edward, but he liked that she was there, that there were distinct individuals whom he had noticed and who had noticed him. And he felt rested after a long sleep. He thought of Jane, of his sister and nephew, of his life in Los Angeles, all so far away. What would they think of his being in this place? Not a single person, he realized, had a clue where he was, including Jane. He hadn’t even told Nayana’s husband in the end. His throat clenched, and he reached for his cup, but he couldn’t swallow. He was going to cry, not knowing exactly why, only that nothing would prevent it. He picked up his tray and quickly walked out of the hall, the tears wet on his cheeks against a warm breeze.
After breakfast, he was to meet the Italian man who’d signed him in by the big tree in front of the hall. New guests would be informed of the duties they had to perform while staying at the ashram. Perhaps he’d serve food with Nayana in the evening. But what good would that do, being both silent and public? Dario was going around asking people what their professions were in their “other” lives. This apparently helped him decide what their jobs would be at the ashram. The nurse beside him would prepare and set up afternoon tea. The bank clerk would pick up trash on the road outside the gates of the ashram.
“A film scout, eh?” he said to Edward. “Then you are an important man.”
“Not really,” he insisted. But Dario ignored him and searched his clipboard. “It’s very low on the totem pole.”
Something about the exchange or the young man’s mannerisms made everything seem suddenly comical to Edward. He was practically giddy as he scrubbed the tile floors and toilets in the men’s dorm bathrooms. He was actually enjoying himself. Drinking the Kool-Aid, perhaps, or just happy to have a concrete task that didn’t involve broaching the subject of Birendra with his aunt. He worked up a sweat and felt hungry again. He would see what he could find to eat at the Health Hut.
True to its name, the “hut” had a dirt floor and a thatched roof. The perimeter had no permanent walls but was surrounded by a thin bamboo matting that had been nailed to several wooden posts in order to secure it. A small food-preparation area was partitioned off by a double stack of the matting, and there were several benches under the hut’s roof as well as a table with a parasol just outside, where Edward could see what looked like a valley and open sky. Despite his taxi’s struggle to arrive, he hadn’t realized how high up the ashram was. He wanted to see the view unobstructed and walked past his friend with the appetite and the hair behind the counter. She looked up from her book and waved as he passed.
The sun looked hot and white beside the gathering rain clouds that hung over a lush and vibrantly green valley. Exiting the hut at the other end, he closed his eyes and breathed in the open space, relieved to find the world again beyond the ashram walls. When he opened his eyes, he saw someone lying on the bench on the other side of the table and parasol, hiding behind a book. Nayana lifted her head to see who was there. She hadn’t been visible from inside the hut. Now he had to resist the urge to turn back around.
“Sorry. I didn’t know someone was here,” he said.
“I’m here,” she said.
He looked away, again at the view and the amassing clouds.
“A nice spot to read,” he said.
“Yes, it is.”
There was a nearly empty bowl and a spoon on the table. She must have skipped the morning meal and had her breakfast at the hut when it opened. In an effort to have something to say, he almost mentioned her skipping breakfast in favor of fruit, but realized that would be strange and demand the explanation he was suddenly at a loss to provide.
“Good book?” he asked instead.
She set the book on the table and looked up at him, either exasperated or indifferent—he couldn’t trust himself to know.
“That’s what everyone says. And, yes, it is. It’s also long. I’ve been reading it for ages now.”
“Would you mind if I joined you?”
She paused, then sat up on the bench.
“Feel free.” She was even more striking in this light. “You’re an American?”
“Yes. From California.”
“I think you might be the first American I’ve come across here.”
He could see their relation now—Birendra’s and hers—in the nose and mouth. That face he’d come to love, the reason he was here. He felt himself relax some.
“I was getting that impression,” he said. “I guess it is pretty far for us to come. So I’m the token American.”
“And I’m the token Indian,” she said, raising her eyebrow sardonically. “In India, no less.”
That she made a joke seemed a good sign. He felt a sudden relief for Ramesh. Perhaps she was proving more resilient than he’d given her credit for.
“Will you excuse me? I’m just going to get a juice. I’m a little low on blood sugar. Would you like one? Can I get you something? Anything?”
He was being awkward, but she smiled politely.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Would you mind if I came back and joined you?”
She regarded him, curious now. He’d already asked that. She simply extended her hand again in a welcoming gesture.
Staring at the handwritten list of fruit bowls and juices on offer, he contemplated telling the woman at the counter what he was about to do. She was watching him with a wry smile, probably wondering why it was so difficult for him to choose from among the four fruits that hadn’t been crossed out. Why he kept looking back to make sure Nayana wasn’t leaving.
“It’s complicated,” he said, and she laughed.
“Why is it complicated?”
It was a good question. There were answers, of course: because of Nayana’s grief; her sister’s death; Edward’s fear that his own sister was never going to forgive him for what he was about to do; that she might hate him if it somehow led to her losing Birendra; the fact that he couldn’t honestly say what had driven him to come all this way, despite knowing this possibility, and that this scared him most of all. But there was also the simple fact of Birendra, and now he had to walk over, sit down, and tell Nayana who he was.