She took a small pouch from her bag. “Ginger?”
“No, thank you.”
She poked a tender sliver into the corner of her mouth and began to chew as she examined the man more closely. She had expected someone younger, or thinner, or older, perhaps with tufts of white hair on his shoulders or a spotty beard, a weak chin, or gnarled hands. She had no idea why she had thought he would have any of those things, but when she first saw the cluster of houses on the edge of the lake, she had not thought to find a man who looked like this.
Rama was tall and lean, and hard muscles rippled under his smooth skin as his hands worked. She didn’t see a hair on him except for the thick black waves hanging from his head to his shoulders, and the dark shadow on his chin. He wore mud-spattered cotton trousers and a colorless shirt of the same material lay at his side, pinned under a small stone. Instead of wearing a blindfold, Rama merely kept his eyes closed. Not squinting, not half-lidded. Just closed, as though he was only resting his eyes and at any moment he might opened them again.
She saw the long black lashes skirting his lidded eyes, and the sharp black brows stretching above them, and the sharp brown cheek bones below them. And his smooth cheeks, and his long straight nose, and his strong square jaw.
And his lips. Asha inhaled slowly, hoping to catch some of his scent, hoping to hear some quickening in his heart. Her eyes lingered on his lips.
His lips moved. “That’s a strange habit you have.”
Asha blinked and turned back to gaze at the lake. “What?”
“Chewing ginger. I haven’t heard of that.” He smiled, his face still angled down toward his nets, his fingers still dancing through their knots.
“Oh. Just something I picked up when I was younger. It’s good for a lot of things, which is important in my line of work.”
“Which is?”
“Medicines.”
“The Ayurveda?”
It was Asha’s turn to smile. “Yes, among other things. You’ve studied?”
“Me? No. No, I just listen. I listen to everyone, wherever I go. You learn to listen really well when you can’t see.”
“I know a little something about listening,” she said. “A dragon bit me once because I didn’t listen when I should have.”
“A dragon? Really?”
“Oh, yes.” She touched the scaly skin of her right ear. “I also have a blind friend with me who knows how to listen pretty well. Maybe later you two can trade techniques and secrets for eavesdropping on me.”
He smiled a little wider. “I’d be honored. So, are you on your way into town?”
“No. Well, maybe later. In a few days. I thought I might stay here and explore the lake for a while to see what’s growing around here. There might be something I can use.” She glanced up at the fiery tips of a palash tree reaching out toward the lake above them. “And if not, then at least I can enjoy these trees and the water for a few days. We’ve been in the hills for ages, or so my feet are telling me.”
Rama nodded. “Well, you’re welcome to stay here. There’s plenty of room. I live alone. And I don’t mind sleeping outside.”
“Thank you. We’d be honored to be your guests. But please stay inside. I wouldn’t dream of…” She trailed off.
“Of making a blind man sleep on the ground?” He shook his head. “It’s nothing, really. Although I suppose I’d rather not wake up outside, forget where I am, and begin walking the wrong way. It might be a very long time before I reach another lake and realize it’s not mine.”
Asha laughed. “You think you could tell one lake from another?”
“Of course,” Rama said with a mock seriousness. “This is my lake. My home. Everything I care about is here. My life is here, in these waters.”
Asha nodded to herself. “Nisha said you used to live in the east before you came here and built this house.”
“That’s right.” He carefully rolled up his nets and set them aside. “I was born in a very large village on the banks of a very large lake. I loved it there. There was more trouble than any boy has a right to get into in a place like that. Fishermen, merchants, foreigners, weavers, tinkers, farmers, herders, priests. And then the real fun, the water and the boats, the nets and fish and clams and frogs and birds. So much to see and do. So many people to push into the water.”
Asha smiled. “Really? That’s what you did for fun?”
“Well, we spent most of our time in the water anyway,” Rama said. “But we had to grow up eventually, and the village was becoming a town, bigger and noisier. And one day I looked around and realized it wasn’t home anymore. So when I heard about this place from a man selling pepper, we packed our things and came here.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, we didn’t have many things to pack.” He lifted his face toward her and smiled. It was a genuine smile, broad and beautiful. “Those were the best days.”
Asha felt guilty for breaking the spell of that moment, the spell of his smile, but she had to ask the question. “What happened after that?”
Rama’s smile contracted, his mouth tense, a faint wince around his lidded eyes. “My wife, Vina, died shortly after we arrived here.”
“Nisha told me. I’m sorry.” She reached over to squeeze his hand.
He didn’t seem to notice as he sat nodding slowly to himself. “These things happen.”
“I know. But it doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Have you ever lost someone?” he asked quietly.
“I lost everyone,” she said. “When I came home from my training, my father was dead and my mother and brothers had left the city. I never learned what happened to them. I suppose they might still be out there, somewhere.”
“Do you miss them?”
She shrugged. “I barely remember them now.”
“I’m sorry.”
Asha waited a few minutes for the melancholy shadow to pass. The wind rose, whipping the surface of the lake into a sparkling frenzy of sunbursts and water-jewels in the afternoon light. “Nisha also told me about how you lost your sight.”
Rama’s enigmatic smile returned. “She’s a little protective of me, I think.”
“Yes.” Asha dragged her toes back and forth through the cool water. “But I was hoping you might tell me what happened. There might be something I can do for you.”
“Ah. The herbalist wants to heal me. Well, I think you’re going to be disappointed. I didn’t eat a bad fish, or step on a nettle, or poke myself in the eye.”
Asha shrugged as she shifted a little closer to him. “Maybe not. But I’d still like to hear about it.”
4
Rama said, “It began like any other day. I woke up, washed up, ate a mango, and threw my nets in my boat. I paddled out to the southeast. There are some rocks out there that make a sort of shoal where I can usually find a catfish or two. The water is murky and there’s a lot of grass on the bottom around there. I cast my nets for a few hours, but didn’t catch anything worth keeping. I dove to the bottom a few times and spotted a few big ones, but I didn’t catch them. So I moved on. I think I paddled sort of northward, out toward the center of the lake. Somewhere that way.” He raised his arm to point out across the lake, though he didn’t turn his face to look where he pointed.
Asha noted the direction, but saw nothing out there beside the bright flashes on the waves.
“I threw my nets a few more times. I dove a few more times.” Rama sighed. “It was a lazy day. Hot. Still. All the birds were sitting in the shallows, in the shade. Even the children were lying on the banks. I was still mourning Vina then, I suppose. I felt so lost, and angry, and empty. I remember sitting out there on the water, staring at the nets in my hands, asking myself why I bothered to keep working. What was I working for? To feed myself? To stay alive? It all seemed so pointless.
“I tossed my nets in the water one more time and watched them sink down into the darkness. I stared at the line in my hand, debating with myself over whether I
should bother to pull it back up or just let it stay down there and rot.” Rama reached up to ease his long fingers back through his thick hair. “But of course I didn’t. I felt a tug, a shudder in the line. I pulled up the net and it was full of fish. Full.”
“Full.” Asha nodded slowly. “Sounds like a good thing.”
Rama laughed. “I guess it would be, normally. But we’ve never pulled up a full net. None of us. Not ever. But my net was full. I almost fell into the water wrestling it all into the boat. Catfish, carp, loach, and trout. I just sat there for a minute, staring at all that life squirming and wriggling and flopping in my net. And then I rolled it over to dump them all out again into the water. The net snagged on something. Probably my own foot. So I sat there trying to shake myself free and get the fish out the boat and as I looked down, a flash of gold in the net caught my eye. I reached down into the net, into all those fish, and just for a second, I saw her.”
“Her?”
“Vina. I saw her face in a blaze of light, like fire, like the sun. I saw her,” Rama said, smiling. “She was alive, and happy, and waiting for me. She was so beautiful.”
Asha chewed her ginger. “But then you were blind.”
Rama nodded. “But then I was blind.”
“Any other symptoms?” Asha took a moment to look him over again. Perfect skin, straight white teeth, clean nails, and healthy lips. Such beautiful lips.
“You mean pain or something? No. No, I feel fine. I feel wonderful.”
“Good.” She looked down the floating dock at the two narrow canoes tied there. “Can I use one of your boats tomorrow?”
5
When Asha woke at dawn, Rama was already gone. She stepped outside and spotted the man far out on the lake, a slender line snaking out across the water from the dock to his boat. Priya stood in the doorway behind her holding Jagdish in the crook of her arm. The mongoose stood up and squeaked.
“So, do you think you can help him?” the nun asked.
“Maybe. What do you think about him?”
Priya smiled. “I think he’s a very nice person. And considering how happy and content he is after losing his wife and his sight, I’d say he has a remarkable soul.”
“Maybe.” Asha paced down the wobbling, floating dock and untied the remaining fishing boat. She sat down in the bottom of the boat and pushed away from shore.
“What are you looking for?” Priya called from the house.
“Actually, it’s something I’m hoping to not find.” Asha picked up the paddle and began drawing long slow strokes across the surface of the lake. The little boat glided swiftly into the rising sun that flashed and glared in her eyes. She shaded her eyes as she dragged her paddle and let the boat come to a stop above the wavering shadows on the lakebed below. Leaning over, Asha could make out the shapes of the rocks and the slithering tangles of the long grasses on the bottom. A dark fish drifted past.
She shuffled her feet and hips, trying to get comfortable. After a few minutes, a second dark fish drifted past. It might have been the same fish.
Asha closed her eyes and put her left hand over her left ear. In her right ear, the life of every fish in the lake, every bird in the rushes, and every blade of grass on the shore resonated through her head. She heard whispers and sighs, gurgles and bubbles, and the occasional high-pitched warble. Nothing she hadn’t heard before. Just grebes and carps and green things growing in the earth.
With her right hand idly sweeping through the water, she drifted wherever the wind and waves carried her. Listening.
That evening she paddled back to the dock with a mild sunburn and a growling stomach. Priya and Rama were steaming rice in a clay pot and cooking fish in grass bundles on a pile of coals in the sand. They were talking about their favorite shades of black and laughing.
Asha cleared her throat and plopped down on the warm grass beside them.
“Catch anything?” Rama asked as he handed her a cup of tea.
“No,” Asha said. “Nothing unusual out there at all. Just a beautiful lake.”
“Oh, never underestimate a lake,” he said. “Certainly not one like this.”
“What do you mean?” asked Priya.
“Well, I’ve only lived here a short time, but I know something about living on the water, and no matter how much you think you know about a place, there is always more to find. Everything is always moving, always changing. The fish find new places to hunt or hide. A shift in the seasons will wake up some poor creature that’s been sleeping in the mud for years and years. Things fall in and get lost. Things wash up and are found.” Rama smiled his beautiful smile. “A lake is a living thing.”
After supper, Priya took Jagdish to one of the neighboring houses to play with the children as the first pale stars began to appear in the blue-black sky. Asha and Rama went to sit on the little walkway around the edge of his dark house with their feet dangling in the cool water. A warm breeze spiced with pepper and sweetened with mangos blew across the water, and from the other houses the soft sounds of laughter and off-key singing mingled with the rustling of the fiery palash blossoms above them.
“So this is your life?” he said. “You travel the world listening to peoples’ stories and floating around in their boats?”
“Sometimes I climb mountains to find rare flowers, or cross deserts for strange fruits, or stalk through forests for strange beasts.” She smiled. “But mostly, yes, I float around in strangers’ boats to enjoy the sun. Speaking of which.” Asha reached back into the house to fumble through her shoulder bag in the dark. A moment later she leaned forward again with a small jar in her hand. “You’ve been alone here for a long time, haven’t you? I’ve been alone for a long time, too. It comes with the job, I suppose. I don’t mind it, usually. But sometimes, well…” She began gently spreading the lotion on her arms and face.
“That smells good.”
“It’s just aloe, but I mixed in some rose petals.”
He shifted closer. “Can I help you with that?”
“To rub the lotion on my skin?” Asha smiled. “We’re not that young anymore, Rama.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t want to waste time going through the motions.” She reached over and pressed her lips to his. He tensed for a moment, and then kissed her back, slipping his hand through her hair to cradle her head and hold her close. Asha pulled her legs under her to kneel beside him, holding his face with both her hands. She led him through the kisses, pressing hard and pulling back, opening and closing her mouth to taste the traces of pepper and mango still clinging to his lips.
When his hands began to roam down her neck and chest, she wrapped her fingers around his and pulled him up to his feet and led him into the dark house. They stood together on the tangled blankets, slowly undressing each other. She untied his trousers. He unwound her sari. Their clothes fell silently to the floor and she pushed him gently down onto his back. Kneeling over him, she eased down against his warm flesh, and felt his hands exploring her hips and belly and breasts.
His hands continued to rove across her shoulders and neck and face, but only when his fingers grazed her right ear did she move his hand back down to her chest. They rocked gently together in the darkness, in the silence. Asha closed her eyes and listened to the crickets chirping and frogs croaking and the children singing just down the shore. Rama’s breathing was long and deep, his hands hot and strong holding her tightly against him as he quickened and moaned in the dark.
She held him tightly, still rocking and gliding her hips until she shuddered, and exhaled.
For a moment she sat very still, letting the night breeze caress her body and carry away the heat in her skin. Then she lay down beside him, wrapped herself up in his long arms, and closed her eyes.
“Asha?”
“Mm?”
“Would you stay here with me, if I asked you to?”
She listened to the rhythm of her heart beating and his heart beating, and to the world
outside laughing and sighing and gathering in to rest for the night. “You barely know me.”
“I know. But life is so short, and joy can be so rare.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about staying anywhere in a long time.” She sighed in the dark. “I take what little joy I can find, but I’m not looking for more than that. Not now, anyway.”
“Oh. I see.” There was a hint of disappointment in his voice, but his warm arm didn’t move from her belly, and she put her hand on his to keep it there.
Asha had almost fallen asleep when she heard a soft trilling in the distance like tiny bells ringing in a faraway shrine. But she could only hear it in her right ear.
6
Asha opened her eyes and saw the soft dawn’s light on the wall. Rama was gone and his boat was gone with its line stretched out far across the lake. She sat up and saw Priya sitting just outside the door.
The nun stroked her mongoose’s head and smiled. “That was fast.”
Asha shrugged and stretched. “Life is short, or so I’m told.”
“For some more than others.” Priya offered her a cool cup of tea. “Will we be staying a while longer to study the local wildlife, or will we be moving on to a certain nearby temple?”
“Not yet,” Asha said. “There’s something I need to do, something I need to check. I’m going out on the lake again.”
“I thought you already looked. Or listened, as it were.”
“Maybe not enough.” Asha untied the second boat and paddled out across the sparkling waters of the lake. She leaned down to place her right ear near the water and closed her eyes, but this time she went on paddling, driving the boat back and forth across the lake again and again all day long. But the lake was massive. It took nearly an hour to cross once and return, and she knew that anything swimming in the deep might easily slip past her on her long trips here and there and back again.
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