A Walk Across the Sun (46 page)

Ahalya began to sob, her body shaking like a sapling in a stiff wind. Thomas took a deep breath, wondering whether Sister Ruth had been right to question his intentions. Perhaps he shouldn't have come.

He looked at the fledgling lotus plant, searching for a way to buoy her spirits.

“I sent your picture to my friend at the Justice Department,” he said at last. “I told him that Sita is in the United States. I'm sure he will notify the FBI. People will be looking for her.”

Ahalya continued to stare at the surface of the water, but slowly she regained control of her emotions. She turned to him again, her eyes redrimmed and her cheeks wet with tears.

“I have a message for your friend,” she whispered.

He nodded. “I'll pass it along.”

She put her hand on her stomach. “Tell him there are two of us waiting for Sita now.”

With that, she started up the path toward the schoolhouse.

Thomas turned toward Sister Ruth in confusion.

The nun preempted his question. “She is a brave girl. Most would not have told you.”

“Told me what?”

“She is pregnant.”

He took a sharp breath. “From the brothel?” he asked.

The nun nodded. “It is common. But we were hopeful because she wasn't there long.”

A wave of vertigo washed over him. “She's going to keep the baby?”

Sister Ruth stared at him. “It is a life,” she said, too harshly. Then she softened her tone. “Right now the child is her only family.”

Thomas watched Ahalya disappear into the grove of trees. She looked like every other adolescent Indian girl in her pale-green churidaar and sandals. She was lovely, bright, and educated and spoke excellent English. Before the tsunami, she had been destined for great things—college, perhaps medicine or the law, at minimum a favorable marriage. Now she was carrying the offspring of a man who had stolen her innocence. If before her future had been precarious, now it lay in tatters.

“Do you think Sita will be found?” the nun asked.

“It's possible,” he said. “But probably not.”

Sister Ruth made the sign of the cross. “Sometimes I do not understand the ways of God.”

“That makes two of us.”

The Jet Airways flight to Goa was mercifully brief. Priya had booked them a room at a hideaway in Agonda, far to the south of the tourist crowds of North Goa. He told her little about his encounter with Ahalya, and for once she didn't seem curious. It had been so long since he had seen her joyful that he had no intention of spoiling the mood.

The taxi ride to Agonda Beach took the better part of the afternoon. Thomas rolled down the window and allowed the passing landscape to distract him from the burdens crowding his heart. In the blur of bungalows and eucalyptus groves, he found it possible not to think about Ahalya's baby and Sita and the bracelet on his wrist. Or Tera and Clayton and the lies he had spoken to his wife. His only consolation was the restraint he had showed in Paris. In the bedroom of a beautiful woman who desired him, he had stood his ground.

A little after four in the afternoon, the taxi turned down a dirt road lined with shops and beach huts. The driver deposited them at the Getaway Resort and Hotel at the end of the strand. The place was exactly as advertised—clean, unpretentious, and close to the sea.

The proprietor, a pleasant white-haired man in a loud Hawaiian shirt, greeted them in fluent English. “Honeymoon?” he asked.

“Yes,” Priya replied, surprising Thomas. “Our second.”

“Here's to new beginnings,” he said and gave them their keys.

They walked hand in hand to the bungalow and stored their things in an armoire at the foot of the bed. Priya used the bathroom to change and emerged in a white linen shirt and a floral print sarong. She looked Thomas up and down, taking in his surf shorts, Birkenstocks, and Russell Athletic T-shirt. She crossed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his chest, nuzzling into him. He embraced her with a passion that made him realize how much he had missed her.

After a while, she stepped back and said, “Let's go for a walk.”

“Where?”

“The beach.”

They walked down a rutted dirt path in the shade of palm trees. The path led to a bluff and across dunes to the sea. They shed their sandals and walked barefoot to the waterline. The sand was thick and luxurious under their feet. The tropical sun hovered above the horizon, speckling the water with gold.

Priya took his hand and they strolled toward a cluster of boulders. She climbed to the top of the largest one. Thomas followed. They sat down side by side on a flat spot at the top of the rock, looking at the sunset. He put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him.

“Why does life have to be so difficult?” she asked.

“Life is what it is,” he replied. “But what we tried to do isn't easy.”

“I have so many regrets,” she said quietly.

“Shh,” he said, putting his finger to her lips.

“No, I need to get this out.” She choked up. “I hurt you. I was terrible to live with. I had no idea how to handle the pain. I thought that coming home to India would make things easier. But it didn't. Every morning I hear her voice. I see her tiny face and I feel the softness of her hair. I remember what it was like to give birth to her.”

Thomas felt as if he had been cleaved in two. He was still in love with her, he realized. He had never stopped loving her. Even when their child had died. Even when her eyes had become cruel and her tongue had cut him. He would marry her all over again. She was the best thing in his life.

“I don't think that feeling will ever go away,” he said. “She's a part of us.”

Priya pondered this. “Do you have nightmares?”

He nodded. “I wake up in a cold sweat and hear her crying. It was worse at home. It felt like I was living with ghosts.”

They watched as the sun fell into the sea, painting the sky with rose blush.

“They say it's possible to begin again,” she said, taking his hand and running her fingers across his palm. “I'm not sure I believe it.”

“We won't know unless we try.”

They sat together on the rock until the sun became a memory and the first stars appeared.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Whenever you are,” he whispered, turning to her and inhaling the jasmine and lilac scent of her perfume. It brought back memories, every one of them good.

She looked into his eyes and her lips parted. He kissed her, hesitant at first and then needful, drawing her into his embrace.

“Why don't we forget about dinner?” she murmured.

He took her face in his hands. “More welcome words I have never heard.”

The land of Goa brought out all the shine in their world. The sea had never been bluer, the sand had never been softer, the sun had never been more radiant than in those three days. They spent almost as much time in their bungalow as they did outdoors. Priya seemed never to tire of Thomas's touch, and he found no difficulty obliging her. Each time he drew his wife to himself, he felt as if they were unraveling another strand in the knot of lost time.

On the morning of the second day, they rented a moped from a shop in Agonda. Priya sat sidesaddle and held his waist loosely. Growing up in Bombay with a brother who loved motorcycles, she was at home on the back of a two-wheeler. They rode north along the rugged coastal road to Coba de Rama Fort. The air was moist and salt-laden and the sky traced a towering arc between horizons green and blue.

They followed the signs to Margao and wound their way through rice paddies and palm groves. Eventually they ascended to an arid plateau above the tree line. To the west was the indistinct blue of the sea. The fort was fourteen kilometers from Agonda, but the two-stroke engine ate up the distance quickly. At the end of the road, they found the ruins of centuries-old battlements occupied at various times by Hindu, Mogul, and Portuguese monarchs.

They parked their moped at a dirt turnaround and scaled the crumbling walls to an abandoned cannon emplacement overlooking a bay. The land plummeted hundreds of feet to a shore of black basalt. Waves crashed against the rock, sending spray high in the air. They stood on the parapet for long minutes, enjoying the scene.

“In places like this, it's hard to imagine that the world can be so ugly,” Thomas said.

“This is how it was meant to be,” Priya replied. “The ugliness is our own fault.”

Around five o'clock, they took the coastal road south to Palolem, a seaside community four kilometers past Agonda. The entrance to the beachfront was lined with shops and vendors hawking their wares. They parked at the end of the road and walked onto the beach toward a line of fishing boats sitting on the sand.

The beach at Palolem was wider than Agonda and more crowded. Goans dressed in long sleeves and saris walked with their children, while vacationers from Europe, Australia, and America roamed about in swimsuits and danced to loud music in beach shanty bars. The contrast could not have been more marked, but no one seemed to notice or care.

They took seats on the porch of a cocktail bar and ordered piña coladas. The molten sun sank slowly toward the peninsula that embraced the bay. Out on the beach, an Indian boy swung a cricket bat beside a wicket impaled in the sand. He turned and waved wildly toward the shore, shouting words drowned out by the wind. Soon a motley crew of boys assembled around the wicket. They talked and then separated, one boy to bowl, another to bat, another to catch, and the last to field.

The makeshift cricket game captivated Thomas. He took out a pad of paper from his backpack and scribbled a description of the scene.

When he read it to Priya, she said, “You should take up writing. Forget the law. The world has enough lawyers.”

He took her hand, laughter in his eyes. “I just might take you up on that.”

They watched as lights began to appear on the strand.

“It is good to be here with you, Thomas,” she said simply.

He turned toward her. “Does this mean I'm making progress?”

Her eyes twinkled. “What do you think?”