Chapter Thirty-Nine
We land in Bagdogra just as the sun is starting its descent over the Himalayas. I was the last person on the plane. There was a moment when I almost turned around and went back to the hotel. It was a short-lived moment. I almost called Rumi and Saket, even Druv. Needing a sign, a piece of advice to tell me what to do. To know what was right.
In the end what made me heed that last boarding call was the realization that no matter what Rumi, Saket, or Druv said to me, I would get on the plane. I was looking for validation, for permission to do something I already knew I was going to do.
Krish’s expression when he saw me come down the aisle is something I’ll remember till the day I die. Everything that’s happened this past month is going to stick with me forever. Krish was right in clearing the air because now I can relax. He’s developed feelings for me, which, given the circumstances, is natural. Every time I take a patient’s chronic pain away, they get emotionally attached to me. That’s how humans work. People meet for a reason. Krish and I met so Vasu and Reva would be reunited and Krish could know his birth story. Druv is my fiancé. My life is in Chicago.
Finding the ring and tracking it to Reva and Vasu has given me back parts of myself I had buried so deep I’d forgotten they existed. Not finishing that journey is not an option.
Ever since I got on the plane, Krish has kept his promise. He’s been friendly while giving me space. It’s almost as though we didn’t have that conversation. We’re friends again, and our friendship feels like the bedrock we’re going to need to stand on to get through what comes next.
We find a taxi at the airport to take us up the mountain roads. Even in the waning light the magnificent scale of the Himalayas is almost impossible to wrap my head around. The winding road takes us up seven thousand feet in two hours. The road is narrow and the pine trees majestic and abundant. Rhododendrons grow to full-size trees, twenty feet tall, and dot the slopes with flaming-red blooms. Thick pine forests break at intervals, giving way to endless terraced slopes covered in velvety green tea gardens.
Our taxi driver, Norbu, keeps up a steady stream of conversation, naming trees and settlements and giving us historical anecdotes from when the British colonizers settled this area as an escape from the heat of Calcutta and started tea plantations to combat China’s tea production. He fills us in on why Darjeeling tea is the world’s most flavorful, his voice filled with pride and belonging. We stop at a tea store on a cliff so we can try some, and Norbu demonstrates how tea tastes better when you make slurping sounds when you drink it because of the extra air that oxidizes the tannin. He’s right, and I wonder how I’ll ever go back to sipping tea soundlessly.
As we enter the Darjeeling area, the air turns light and misty, ambient twilight paints the skies, and the temperature drops a good twenty degrees. Krish pulls a Columbia Journalism sweatshirt from his backpack and hands it to me. “I’m sorry it doesn’t say Barely Fancy Journalism School ,” he says.
“It does, though,” I say.
I want to not take the sweatshirt, but the other option is to let my teeth chatter, so I pull it over my head and try not to notice how comforting it smells.
As we pass the town of Darjeeling and enter Ghoom, the roads become narrow enough to barely fit one car. There’s a train track almost touching the side of the mountain and taking up part of the road. I can’t imagine how a train could possibly fit on a road this size. The mountains feel as magical and majestic as the fantastical lands from the books I read as a child. The town wedged into the slopes is wretchedly decrepit, but that does nothing to take away from the mythical quality of floating above the world on clouds. As we pass homes and shops along steeply sloping streets, our cab almost touching the walls and verandas, ruddy-cheeked children wave at us and old people with lined faces smile at our bafflement at being mere feet from them in the car.
Just as the layered scallops of a pagoda come into sight and Norbu tells us we’re looking at the Ghoom monastery, the car stops. There’s another car on the road. Norbu and the driver of the other car stick their heads out of their windows and devise a strategy of reversing and navigating so the two cars can pass each other. I’ve never known driving to be a team sport, and it fills my heart with something I’ve never felt before.
A little girl in a faded blue sweaterdress watches me with fascination from the veranda of her home. A thickly furred stray dog sits next to her and watches her with worshipful eyes. She waves to me, and I wave back. Emboldened, she reaches out and touches the window, and I lower it. She smiles and touches a springy curl that’s escaped my ponytail.
“Noodle hair,” she says, then points at Krish’s hair. “Noodle hair,” she says again. I laugh. Something about her sweetness brings tears to my eyes. Her own hair is straight as silk.
“Silk hair,” I say, and she smiles.
Our car moves again, and we wave goodbye. My heart feels wobbly. Krish looks at my wet cheeks and looks away.
I want to reach out and hold his hand. I don’t. And I never will. My time with him feels close to its end, and suddenly my heart squeezes painfully at the thought.
The car bounces to a stop next to a crumbling arch that’s blocked by bamboo scaffolding. Every building in town appears to be unfinished and in need of repair, but the purity of the air makes the state of the buildings seem insignificant.
Krish pays Norbu and takes his number so we can call him for our return.
“Ready?” Krish asks, and I feel like it’s been an age since I heard his voice.
I’ve never felt this exposed and defenseless. We’ve made it here and something about that makes it impossible to hold on to my shields. Everything I’m feeling is reflected in his eyes, and I step closer. “You?”
He shakes his head. He’s not ready, but he’s going to do this anyway. Whatever is happening in my heart, I don’t think I’m strong enough to bear it.
There’s a narrow gap between the arch and the scaffolding, and we turn sideways and slide through it. It’s not safe, but it’s the only way to get inside the monastery compound. There’s an open courtyard with two low buildings on each side of us and a temple with a pagoda roof on the far side. Its walls are lined with rotating brass bells.
There’s not a soul in sight. Clouds hang low over the golden steeple. The silence feels spiritual.
We walk toward the temple. Just as we get there, a monk in maroon robes with a shaved head steps out.
He bows, and we bow back. “Time closed,” he says in English.
“We’re looking for someone,” Krish says. “Vasu Sawant?”
He looks blank.
“Vasu Patil?” I say.
“Time closed,” he says again and points to Krish’s watch.
“Vasudha?” Krish says. “We’re looking for a Vasudha Patil? Sawant?”
Still nothing.
“Maybe she goes by a different name now,” I say. “Reva used to be Sureva. So maybe Vasu goes by, I don’t know, Sudha now?” I say to Krish. It’s common in India to use parts of names and turn them into nicknames. “Sudha?” I say to the monk.
His eyes narrow. “Sudha?” He says it differently than I did, elongating the u . Then he shakes his head and makes a tsking sound. “Ati dhila.”
“We don’t know what that means,” Krish says. “Where can we find her?”
The monk closes his eyes and makes a dead face or a sleeping face. Krish and I exchange a glance.
He studies Krish’s face, and something in his expression changes. He grabs Krish’s arm above his elbow and starts walking.
We take a path past the building to the left of the courtyard and follow a dirt trail along the edge of a cliff that drops into an endless abyss. I’m struck yet again by the scale of these mountains. What must it feel like to live in the shadow of something so untenably vast?
I feel insignificant, and it’s a beautiful feeling.
The monk’s steps are quick. The walk isn’t a short one.
I’m a step behind them, and Krish throws a look over his shoulder every few steps to make sure I’m still there. I don’t know if it’s the thinness of the air or the idea that the monk might be taking us to Vasu, but I’m short of breath. We come upon a cluster of cottages with clay roofs, plastered walls, and cement verandas. A young woman in a sweater and what looks like a cross between a sari and a sarong is standing outside one of the cottages.
The monk and she start talking. The word Sudha is repeated a few times. It’s the only word I recognize.
Finally, she turns to us, and the monk walks away. “Can I help you?” she says in perfect English.
“We’re looking for Vasudha Patil,” I say.
“For what reason?” she asks.
Krish and I look at each other. If there ever was a question that didn’t have an easy answer.
“Her childhood friend has been searching for her,” I say.
“You are her childhood friends?”
I smile. “No. We’re helping our friend. Her name is Reva. We think Vasu ... Sudha knows her as Suru.”
The woman gasps. “You know Suru?” she asks with some force. “Where is she? Did she come with you?” She sounds almost desperate.
“Not right now. But she’s on her way. We’ve been looking for Vasudha. We wanted to make sure we found her before Suru made the trip.”
The woman’s eyes fill with tears. “Come.” She starts walking, and we follow. “Tell your friend to hurry. There isn’t much time.”
I reach out and hold Krish’s hand, and he clutches mine like it’s a lifeline.
“Is she sick?” I ask.
The woman turns around, and there’s pain in her face. We approach a small cottage. Like all the other cottages in this cluster, it’s white-walled with a gray veranda and a red clay roof. This one has a bright-yellow door.
“The doctors said Didi had six months to live. That was two years ago. A month ago, she collapsed and has been in and out of consciousness. She hasn’t left her bed, and she barely talks. But she asks for Suru day and night.”
“Can we see her?” I ask, because Krish has gone utterly silent. He’s holding my hand in a vise grip.
With a nod, she leads us in through the yellow door.
A woman, so thin and slight she’s the size of a child, lies on a wooden cot. There’s an IV stand and a food trolley pushed against a wall. A faded plaid woolen blanket covers her lower half. Her face is skin and bones, and there’s a smattering of silver tufts of hair on her head. An astringent smell fills the air.
“Didi?” The young woman uses the term of affection and respect for a big sister. “Look who’s come to see you.”
Vasudha opens her eyes and turns her gaze on us. “Suru?” she says, and it’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life.
Her eyes, even in their sunken sockets, are beautiful. Every shade of gold and brown, and wide and heavy lidded. Krish’s eyes. They flicker from me to Krish.
“She didn’t come with you?” she says in Marathi.
“Nahi.” I tell her she didn’t. “She’s on her way.”
A thin smile pulls at her lips, and a crinkle of a dimple sinks into her hollow cheek. Then she closes her eyes and drifts away again.
Krish just stands there looking at her.
“Is it okay if he sits with her while I call our friend?” I ask the woman, who tells us her name is Janet.
“Of course.” She pushes Krish into the bed. “She likes when people sit with her. The villagers usually come sit with her for hours. They believe Didi’s presence will make everything better.”
Krish sits, and Janet takes his hand and places it in Vasu’s. At first he hesitates, but then he grabs it with both of his, and a tear slips from his eye.
I leave him and step outside to call Reva.
It takes Reva just over twenty-four hours to reach Darjeeling. Krish and I spend almost all that time sitting by Vasu’s bed. She doesn’t open her eyes again. Janet and the other people in the monastery community bring us food. A doctor comes by and connects her IV to fluids. Janet and a few others clean out her bedpan and sheets. Someone drags in another cot from one of the other cottages and puts fresh sheets on it so we can sleep. We take turns. I sleep first, then force Krish to sleep while I sit with her.
Throughout the day people stop by to visit with her, hold her hand, talk to her. The ones who can speak English tell us stories of how no one really remembers when she came here or from where. The local legend is that she’s always been here. She raised the children who were left at the monastery orphanage, like Janet. She led the chants at the monastery every morning and evening for as long as anyone can remember. Her singing voice is legendary. She cooked with the monks to feed anyone in town who needed food. When people got sick, she sat with them, and they always recovered. When people were suffering, they came to her for advice. It’s like she’s the soul of this place. Like she’s imbibed the power of these mountains.
When the doctor comes by, she tells us that it’s a miracle that Vasudha’s lungs are still pulling in oxygen, but no one here is surprised by it.
A month ago the doctor declared Vasu’s time was at its end.
A month ago Vasu told the doctor that she’s not going anywhere until Suru comes.
A month ago is when I found the ring.