afterward

It is my last day in Calcutta. Our bags are packed and the apartment is ready to be abandoned for another year. My traveling clothes are laid out on my bed and there is nothing to do but wait.

Inside, our cook is waiting with us for the taxi to arrive. Ma's Aunt has also come and they are sitting with us on chairs from the dining table set. They are clustered together in the middle of the room and all are talking in soft, funeral-service voices. Echoes of their Bengali conversation bounce off the plaster walls and cold marble floor. The dining table lays beneath a white cloth like a dead body. A chair at either end raises the shroud, like the head and feet of the dearly departed.

I pace through the flat and onto the veranda. The street is quiet as most people are resting in the late afternoon. I see our neighbor Boa, the former call-girl with enormous breasts, watching me from her veranda across the street. She looks at me with sympathetic eyes. She may have heard that I am leaving, which is very possible since there are few secrets in our neighborhood. I’ve been seeing her for the last sixteen years, but I don’t know her well enough to wave. If the size of her breasts is any indication of her maternal instincts, she must be feeling very sad for me.

Finally the car arrives and we begin to move our bags down the three fights of stairs. The doorman is off today and the dead weight of luggage is difficult to manage. Everyone chips in and carries what he can, pallbearers moving in slow synch one step at a time.

The Ambassador car is white and has curtains in the windows, like a hearse. Our neighbors, headed by Mini and her mother, slowly come out of their flats to see us off. Everyone is very emotional and tears flow as we enter the car. Pulling away from the curve, I turn and wave to our relatives and neighbors. I alone have dry eyes.

Dusk descends as we travel through Calcutta. Now that it is early December, the cooler air causes the pollution to hang in a thick veil over this great city. Like a black stage curtain, darkness closes over the grey buildings and colorless streets. The city that had looked so alive to me just weeks earlier appears like the two-dimensional set of a passion play. Silhouettes of buildings, cars, and pedestrians are now only cardboard cutouts.

Arriving at the airport, I go through the motions of checking-in. After receiving my boarding pass, I look for a place to sit. As I approach the row of black seats, I choose the corner one for myself. Closer, I notice that there are coins on the seat that have fallen out of another traveler’s pocket. When the British ruled India from this very city, they would place coins on the eyes of the dead before burial. I count two coins on my seat. Perfect. My payment to the ferryman for taking me across the river.

On the rear wall of the waiting area, near the bathroom, I find a water fountain and a stack of disposable cups. Filling one, I hold it high above my lips and tilt it forward to release its contents into my mouth. The water is icy cold and I feel it descend my throat and enter my stomach, from where it will be distributed through my body like an undertaker’s embalming fluid.

Once aboard the plane, I lock myself in the seat and relax while waiting to take off. After a short while, we pull away from the terminal and begin to taxi. Within minutes we are tearing down the runway headed to America.

Several trips earlier I had been aboard a flight that was caught in a violent tropical storm just as we were approaching Calcutta. Having been struck by lightening, we very nearly crashed. Since that time, I have been terrified to fly. Taking off, landing, banking a steep turn, or even the most routine turbulence is enough to cause me to panic. My heart races and I sweat profusely. I want to scream and cry but only my pride prevents me from doing so. My wrists are normally sore after a flight from holding onto the arms of my chair so tightly.

Now I kick off my shoes and close my eyes.

I think of Shilpi. Today is her 31st birthday, but it is quite a different day for me. I think of my lover. I think of my friends, family, and neighbors I am leaving behind. I think of my beloved Calcutta.

“I should be praying,” I remember, and half-heartedly I repeat a Sanskrit mantra.

Tonight I am not afraid.

Dead men feel no fear.