ILEFT India in 1964 with a certificate in commerce and the equivalent,in those days, of ten dollars to my

name. For three weeks I sailed on theS.S. Roma, an Italian cargo vessel, in acabin next to the ship’s engine, across theArabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Med-

iterranean, and finally to England. I livedin London, in Finsbury Park, in a houseoccupied entirely by penniless Bengalibachelors like myself, at least a dozenand sometimes more, all struggling toeducate and establish ourselves abroad.

I attended lectures at L.S.E. andworked at the university library to get by.We lived three or four to a room, shareda single, icy toilet, and took turns cookingpots of egg curry, which we ate with ourhands on a table covered with newspa-

pers. Apart from our jobs we had few re-sponsibilities. On weekends we loungedbarefoot in drawstring pajamas, drinkingtea and smoking Rothmans, or set out towatch cricket at Lord’s. Some weekendsthe house was crammed with still moreBengalis, to whom we had introducedourselves at the greengrocer, or on theTube, and we made yet more egg curry,and played Mukesh on a Grundig reel-to-reel, and soaked our dirty dishes in thebathtub. Every now and then someonein the house moved out, to live with awoman whom his family back in Cal-cutta had determined he was to wed. In1969, when I was thirty-six years old, myown marriage was arranged. Around thesame time, I was offered a full-time jobin America, in the processing departmentof a library at M.I.T. The salary was gen-erous enough to support a wife, and I washonored to be hired by a world-famousuniversity, and so I obtained a green card,

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and prepared to travel farther still.By then I had enough money to go by

plane. I flew first to Calcutta, to attendmy wedding, and a week later to Boston,to begin my new job. During the flight Iread “The Student Guide to NorthAmerica,” for although I was no longer astudent, I was on a budget all the same. Ilearned that Americans drove on theright side of the road, not the left, andthat they called a lift an elevator and anengaged phone busy. “The pace of life inNorth America is different from Britain,as you will soon discover,” the guidebookinformed me. “Everybody feels he mustget to the top. Don’t expect an Englishcup of tea.” As the plane began its de-scent over Boston Harbor, the pilot an-nounced the weather and the time, andthat President Nixon had declared a na-tional holiday: two American men hadlanded on the moon. Several passengerscheered. “God bless America!” one ofthem hollered. Across the aisle, I saw awoman praying.

I spent my first night at the Y.M.C.A.in Central Square, Cambridge, an inex-pensive accommodation recommendedby my guidebook which was within walk-ing distance of M.I.T. The room con-tained a cot, a desk, and a small woodencross on one wall. A sign on the door saidthat cooking was strictly forbidden. A

bare window overlooked MassachusettsAvenue. Car horns, shrill and prolonged,blared one after another. Sirens and flash-ing lights heralded endless emergencies,and a succession of buses rumbled past,their doors opening and closing with apowerful hiss, throughout the night. Thenoise was constantly distracting, at timessuffocating. I felt it deep in my ribs, justas I had felt the furious drone of the en-gine on the S.S. Roma. But there was noship’s deck to escape to, no glitteringocean to thrill my soul, no breeze to coolmy face, no one to talk to. I was too tiredto pace the gloomy corridors of theY.M.C.A. in my pajamas. Instead I satat the desk and stared out the window. Inthe morning I reported to my job at theDewey Library, a beige fortlike buildingby Memorial Drive. I also opened a bankaccount, rented a post-office box, andbought a plastic bowl and a spoon. I wentto a supermarket called Purity Supreme,wandering up and down the aisles, com-paring prices with those in England. Inthe end I bought a carton of milk and abox of cornflakes. This was my first mealin America. Even the simple chore ofbuying milk was new to me; in Londonwe’d had bottles delivered each morningto our door.

IN a week I had adjusted, more or less.

I ate cornflakes and milk morn-ing and night, and bought some bananasfor variety, slicing them into the bowlwith the edge of my spoon. I left mycarton of milk on the shaded part ofthe windowsill, as I had seen other resi-

dents at theY.M.C.A.do. To passthe time in

the evenings I read the Boston Globedownstairs, in a spacious room withstained-glass windows. I read every articleand advertisement, so that I would growfamiliar with things, and when my eyesgrew tired I slept. Only I did not sleepwell. Each night I had to keep the win-dow wide open; it was the only source ofair in the stifling room, and the noise wasintolerable. I would lie on the cot withmy fingers pressed into my ears, but whenI drifted off to sleep my hands fell away,and the noise of the traffic would wakeme up again. Pigeon feathers drifted ontothe windowsill, and one evening, when Ipoured milk over my cornflakes, I sawthat it had soured. Nevertheless I resolvedto stay at the Y.M.C.A. for six weeks,until my wife’s passport and green cardwere ready. Once she arrived I wouldhave to rent a proper apartment, andfrom time to time I studied the classifiedsection of the newspaper, or stopped in atthe housing office at M.I.T. during mylunch break to see what was available. Itwas in this manner that I discovered aroom for immediate occupancy, in ahouse on a quiet street, the listing said,for eight dollars per week. I dialled thenumber from a pay telephone, sortingthrough the coins, with which I was stillunfamiliar, smaller and lighter than shil-lings, heavier and brighter than paisas.

“Who is speaking?” a woman demanded. Her voice was bold andclamorous.

“Yes, good afternoon, Madam. I amcalling about the room for rent.”

“Harvard or Tech?”“I beg your pardon?”“Are you from Harvard or Tech?”Gathering that Tech referred to

the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology, I re-plied, “I workat Dewey Li-brary,” addingtentatively, “atTech.”

“I only rent

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rooms to boys from Harvard or Tech!”“Yes, Madam.”I was given an address and an ap-

pointment for seven o’clock that eve-ning. Thirty minutes before the hour I set out, my guidebook in my pocket,my breath fresh with Listerine. I turneddown a street shaded with trees, per-pendicular to Massachusetts Avenue. Inspite of the heat I wore a coat and tie,regarding the event as I would any otherinterview; I had never lived in the homeof a person who was not Indian. Thehouse, surrounded by a chain-linkfence, was off-white with dark-browntrim, with a tangle of forsythia bushesplastered against its front and sides.When I pressed the bell, the womanwith whom I had spoken on the phonehollered from what seemed to be justthe other side of the door, “One minute,please!”

Several minutes later the door wasopened by a tiny, extremely old woman.A mass of snowy hair was arranged likea small sack on top of her head. As Istepped into the house she sat down ona wooden bench positioned at the bot-tom of a narrow carpeted staircase.Once she was settled on the bench, in asmall pool of light, she peered up at me,giving me her undivided attention. Shewore a long black skirt that spread like astiff tent to the floor, and a starchedwhite shirt edged with ruffles at thethroat and cuffs. Her hands, folded to-gether in her lap, had long pallid fin-gers, with swollen knuckles and toughyellow nails. Age had battered her fea-tures so that she almost resembled aman, with sharp, shrunken eyes andprominent creases on either side of hernose. Her lips, chapped and faded, hadnearly disappeared, and her eyebrowswere missing altogether. Neverthelessshe looked fierce.

“Lock up!” she commanded. Sheshouted even though I stood only a fewfeet away. “Fasten the chain and firmlypress that button on the knob! This isthe first thing you shall do when youenter, is that clear?”

I locked the door as directed and ex-amined the house. Next to the bench was a small round table, its legs fullyconcealed, much like the woman’s, by askirt of lace. The table held a lamp, atransistor radio, a leather change pursewith a silver clasp, and a telephone. Athick wooden cane was propped against

one side. There was a parlor to myright, lined with bookcases and filledwith shabby claw-footed furniture. Inthe corner of the parlor I saw a grandpiano with its top down, piled with pa-pers. The piano’s bench was missing;it seemed to be the one on which thewoman was sitting. Somewhere in thehouse a clock chimed seven times.

“You’re punctual!” the woman pro-claimed. “I expect you shall be so withthe rent!”

“I have a letter, Madam.” In myjacket pocket was a letter from M.I.T.confirming my employment, which Ihad brought along to prove that I wasindeed from Tech.

She stared at the letter, then handedit back to me carefully, gripping it withher fingers as if it were a plate heapedwith food. She did not wear glasses, andI wondered if she’d read a word of it.“The last boy was always late! Still owesme eight dollars! Harvard boys aren’twhat they used to be! Only Harvardand Tech in this house! How’s Tech,boy?”

“It is very well.”“You checked the lock?”“Yes, Madam.”She unclasped her fingers, slapped

the space beside her on the bench withone hand, and told me to sit down. Fora moment she was silent. Then she in-toned, as if she alone possessed thisknowledge:

“There is an American flag on themoon!”

“Yes, Madam.” Until then I had notthought very much about the moonshot. It was in the newspaper, of course,article upon article. The astronauts hadlanded on the shores of the Sea ofTranquillity, I had read, travelling far-ther than anyone in the history of civi-lization. For a few hours they exploredthe moon’s surface. They gathered rocksin their pockets, described their sur-roundings (a magnificent desolation, ac-cording to one astronaut), spoke byphone to the President, and planted aflag in lunar soil. The voyage was hailedas man’s most awesome achievement.

The woman bellowed, “A flag on themoon, boy! I heard it on the radio! Isn’tthat splendid?”

“Yes, Madam.”But she was not satisfied with my

reply. Instead she commanded, “Say‘Splendid!’ ”

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I was both baffled and somewhat in-sulted by the request. It reminded me ofthe way I was taught multiplication ta-bles as a child, repeating after the master,sitting cross-legged on the floor of myone-room Tollygunge school. It also re-minded me of my wedding, when I hadrepeated endless Sanskrit verses after thepriest, verses I barely understood, whichjoined me to my wife. I said nothing.

“Say ‘Splendid!’ ” the woman bel-lowed once again.

“Splendid,” I murmured. I had to re-peat the word a second time at the topof my lungs, so she could hear. I wasreluctant to raise my voice to an elderlywoman, but she did not appear to beoffended. If anything the reply pleasedher, because her next command was:

“Go see the room!”I rose from the bench and mounted

the narrow staircase. There were fivedoors, two on either side of an equallynarrow hallway, and one at the oppo-site end. Only one door was open. Theroom contained a twin bed under a slop-ing ceiling, a brown oval rug, a basin withan exposed pipe, and a chest of drawers.One door led to a closet, another to atoilet and a tub. The window was open;net curtains stirred in the breeze. I liftedthem away and inspected the view: asmall back yard, with a few fruit treesand an empty clothesline. I was satisfied.

When I returned to the foyer thewoman picked up the leather changepurse on the table, opened the clasp,fished about with her fingers, and pro-duced a key on a thin wire hoop. Sheinformed me that there was a kitchen atthe back of the house, accessible throughthe parlor. I was welcome to use thestove as long as I left it as I found it.Sheets and towels were provided, butkeeping them clean was my own re-sponsibility. The rent was due Fridaymornings on the ledge above the pianokeys. “And no lady visitors!”

“I am a married man, Madam.” Itwas the first time I had announced thisfact to anyone.

But she had not heard. “No lady vis-itors!” she insisted. She introduced her-self as Mrs. Croft.

MY wife’s name was Mala. The

marriage had been arranged bymy older brother and his wife. I re-garded the proposition with neither ob-jection nor enthusiasm. It was a duty ex-

pected of me, as it was expected of everyman. She was the daughter of a school-teacher in Beleghata. I was told that shecould cook, knit, embroider, sketch land-scapes, and recite poems by Tagore, butthese talents could not make up for thefact that she did not possess a fair com-plexion, and so a string of men had re-jected her to her face. She was twenty-seven, an age when her parents hadbegun to fear that she would nevermarry, and so they were willing to shiptheir only child halfway across the worldin order to save her from spinsterhood.

For five nights we shared a bed.Each of those nights, after applyingcold cream and braiding her hair, sheturned from me and wept; she missedher parents. Although I would be leav-ing the country in a few days, customdictated that she was now a part of myhousehold, and for the next six weeksshe was to live with my brother and hiswife, cooking, cleaning, serving tea andsweets to guests. I did nothing to con-sole her. I lay on my own side of thebed, reading my guidebook by flash-light. At times I thought of the tinyroom on the other side of the wallwhich had belonged to my mother.Now the room was practically empty;the wooden pallet on which she’d onceslept was piled with trunks and old bed-ding. Nearly six years ago, before leav-ing for London, I had watched her dieon that bed, had found her playing withher excrement in her final days. Beforewe cremated her I had cleaned each ofher fingernails with a hairpin, and then,because my brother could not bear it, Ihad assumed the role of eldest son, andhad touched the flame to her temple, torelease her tormented soul to heaven.

THE next morning I moved into Mrs.

Croft’s house. When I unlocked thedoor I saw that she was sitting on the pi-ano bench, on the same side as the pre-vious evening. She wore the same blackskirt, the same starched white blouse,and had her hands folded together thesame way in her lap. She looked so muchthe same that I wondered if she’d spentthe whole night on the bench. I put mysuitcase upstairs and then headed off towork. That evening when I came homefrom the university, she was still there.

“Sit down, boy!” She slapped thespace beside her.

I perched on the bench. I had a bag

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of groceries with me—more milk, morecornflakes, and more bananas, for my in-spection of the kitchen earlier in the dayhad revealed no spare pots or pans.Therewere only two saucepans in the refrig-erator, both containing some orangebroth, and a copper kettle on the stove.

“Good evening, Madam.”She asked me if I had checked the

lock. I told her I had.For a moment she was silent. Then

suddenly she declared, with the equalmeasures of disbelief and delight as thenight before, “There’s an American flagon the moon, boy!”

“Yes, Madam.”“A flag on the moon! Isn’t that splendid?”I nodded, dreading what I knew was

coming. “Yes, Madam.”“Say ‘Splendid!’ ”This time I paused, looking to either

side in case anyone was there to over-hear me, though I knew perfectly wellthat the house was empty. I felt like anidiot. But it was a small enough thing toask. “Splendid!” I cried out.

Within days it became our routine.In the mornings when I left for the library Mrs. Croft was either hiddenaway in her bedroom, on the other sideof the staircase, or sitting on the bench,oblivious of my presence, listening tothe news or classical music on the radio.But each evening when I returned thesame thing happened: she slapped thebench, ordered me to sit down, declaredthat there was a flag on the moon, anddeclared that it was splendid. I said itwas splendid, too, and then we sat in si-lence. As awkward as it was, and as end-less as it felt to me then, the nightly encounter lasted only about ten minutes;inevitably she would driftoff to sleep, her head fallingabruptly toward her chest,leaving me free to retire to myroom. By then, of course,there was no flag standing onthe moon. The astronauts, Iread in the paper, had seenit fall before they flew back to Earth.But I did not have the heart to tell her.

FRIDAY morning, when my first week’s

rent was due, I went to the pianoin the parlor to place my money on theledge. The piano keys were dull and dis-colored. When I pressed one, it madeno sound at all. I had put eight dollarbills in an envelope and written Mrs.

Croft’s name on the front of it. I wasnot in the habit of leaving money un-marked and unattended. From where Istood I could see the profile of her tent-shaped skirt in the hall. It seemed un-necessary to make her get up and walkall the way to the piano. I never saw herwalking about, and assumed, from thecane propped against the round table,that she did so with difficulty. When Iapproached the bench she peered up atme and demanded:

“What is your business?”“The rent, Madam.”“On the ledge above the piano keys!”“I have it here.” I extended the enve-

lope toward her, but her fingers, foldedtogether in her lap, did not budge. Ibowed slightly and lowered the enve-lope, so that it hovered just above herhands. After a moment she accepted it,and nodded her head.

That night when I came home, shedid not slap the bench, but out of habitI sat beside her as usual. She asked me ifI had checked the lock, but she men-tioned nothing about the flag on themoon. Instead she said:

“It was very kind of you!”“I beg your pardon, Madam?”“Very kind of you!”She was still holding the envelope in

her hands.

ON Sunday there was a knock on

my door. An elderly woman in-troduced herself: she was Mrs. Croft’sdaughter, Helen. She walked into theroom and looked at each of the wallsas if for signs of change, glancing atthe shirts that hung in the closet, theneckties draped over the doorknob, the

box of cornflakes on thechest of drawers, the dirtybowl and spoon in the ba-sin. She was short and thick-waisted, with cropped silverhair and bright pink lip-stick. She wore a sleevelesssummer dress, a necklace of

white plastic beads, and spectacles on achain that hung like a swing againsther chest. The backs of her legs weremapped with dark-blue veins, and herupper arms sagged like the flesh of aroasted eggplant. She told me she livedin Arlington, a town farther up Massa-chusetts Avenue. “I come once a weekto bring Mother groceries. Has she sentyou packing yet?”

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“It is very well, Madam.”“Some of the boys run screaming.

But I think she likes you. You’re thefirst boarder she’s ever referred to as agentleman.”

She looked at me, noticing my barefeet. (I still felt strange wearing shoesindoors, and always removed them be-fore entering my room.) “Are you newto Boston?”

“New to America, Madam.”“From?” She raised her eyebrows.“I am from Calcutta, India.”“Is that right? We had a Brazilian

fellow, about a year ago. You’ll findCambridge a very international city.”

I nodded, and began to wonder howlong our conversation would last. But at that moment we heard Mrs. Croft’selectrifying voice rising up the stairs.

“You are to come downstairs immediately!”

“What is it?” Helen cried back.“Immediately!”I put on my shoes. Helen sighed.I followed Helen down the staircase.

She seemed to be in no hurry, and com-plained at one point that she had a badknee. “Have you been walking withoutyour cane?” Helen called out. “You knowyou’re not supposed to walk withoutthat cane.” She paused, resting her handon the bannister, and looked back atme. “She slips sometimes.”

For the first time Mrs. Croft seemedvulnerable. I pictured her on the floor infront of the bench, flat on her back, star-ing at the ceiling, her feet pointing in op-posite directions. But when we reachedthe bottom of the staircase she was sit-ting there as usual, her hands folded to-gether in her lap. Two grocery bags wereat her feet. She did not slap the bench, orask us to sit down. She glared.

“What is it, Mother?”“It’s improper!”“What’s improper?”“It is improper for a lady and gentle-

man who are not married to one an-other to hold a private conversationwithout a chaperone!”

Helen said she was sixty-eight yearsold, old enough to be my mother, butMrs. Croft insisted that Helen and Ispeak to each other downstairs, in theparlor. She added that it was also im-proper for a lady of Helen’s station toreveal her age, and to wear a dress sohigh above the ankle.

“For your information, Mother, it’s

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1969. What would you do if you actu-ally left the house one day and saw agirl in a miniskirt?”

Mrs. Croft sniffed. “I’d have her arrested.”

Helen shook her head and picked up one of the grocery bags. I picked up the other one, and followed herthrough the parlor and into the kitchen.The bags were filled with cans of soup,which Helen opened up one by onewith a few cranks of a can opener. Shetossed the old soup into the sink, rinsedthe saucepans under the tap, filled themwith soup from the newly opened cans,and put them back in the refrigerator.“A few years ago she could still open the cans herself,” Helen said. “She hatesthat I do it for her now. But the pianokilled her hands.” She put on her spec-tacles, glanced at the cupboards, andspotted my tea bags. “Shall we have a cup?”

I filled the kettle on the stove. “I begyour pardon, Madam. The piano?”

“She used to give lessons. For fortyyears. It was how she raised us after myfather died.” Helen put her hands onher hips, staring at the open refrigerator.She reached into the back, pulled out awrapped stick of butter, frowned, andtossed it into the garbage. “That oughtto do it,” she said, and put the unopenedcans of soup in the cupboard. I sat atthe table and watched as Helen washedthe dirty dishes, tied up the garbagebag, and poured boiling water into twocups. She handed one to me withoutmilk, and sat down at the table.

“Excuse me, Madam, but is itenough?”

Helen took a sip of her tea. Her lip-stick left a smiling pink stain on the rimof the cup. “Is what enough?”

“The soup in the pans. Is it enoughfood for Mrs. Croft?”

“She won’t eat anything else. Shestopped eating solids after she turnedone hundred. That was, let’s see, threeyears ago.”

I was mortified. I had assumed Mrs.Croft was in her eighties, perhaps as oldas ninety. I had never known a personwho had lived for over a century. Thatthis person was a widow who livedalone mortified me further still. Wid-owhood had driven my own mother in-sane. My father, who worked as a clerkat the General Post Office of Calcutta,died of encephalitis when I was sixteen.My mother refused to adjust to lifewithout him; instead she sank deeperinto a world of darkness from whichneither I, nor my brother, nor concernedrelatives, nor psychiatric clinics on Rash Behari Avenue could save her.What pained me most was to see her sounguarded, to hear her burp after mealsor expel gas in front of company with-out the slightest embarrassment. Aftermy father’s death my brother aban-doned his schooling and began to workin the jute mill he would eventuallymanage, in order to keep the householdrunning. And so it was my job to sit by my mother’s feet and study for my exams as she counted and recountedthe bracelets on her arm as if they werethe beads of an abacus. We tried to keepan eye on her. Once she had wanderedhalf naked to the tram depot before wewere able to bring her inside again.

AT TIVOLI BAYS

In Tivoli Bays, where the rapes happened that spring,tide pools shine in the crisp tracks of the deerwhere I saw an island, thin as a tongue, its cargoof bare saplings, mud-bound, paraded like captives,moored in the shallows, standing room only, with barelyspace for two women to walk. See the moon’s thumbwhorled on the noon sky? Now the tide’s turningthe Hudson out of its bed. Can you see the road?Then you haven’t walked far enough. If you come at duskyou’ll find the deer leaving their ample rooms,their ears twitching, legs cocked to explode.

—NANCY WILLARD

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“I am happy to warm Mrs. Croft’ssoup in the evenings,” I suggested. “It isno trouble.”

Helen looked at her watch, stood up, and poured the rest of her tea intothe sink. “I wouldn’t if I were you.That’s the sort of thing that would killher altogether.”

THAT evening, when Helen had gone

and Mrs. Croft and I were aloneagain, I began to worry. Now that Iknew how very old she was, I worriedthat something would happen to her inthe middle of the night, or when I wasout during the day. As vigorous as hervoice was, and imperious as she seemed,I knew that even a scratch or a coughcould kill a person that old; each dayshe lived, I knew, was something of amiracle. Helen didn’t seem concerned.She came and went, bringing soup forMrs. Croft, one Sunday after the next.

In this manner the six weeks of thatsummer passed. I came home each eve-ning, after my hours at the library, andspent a few minutes on the piano benchwith Mrs. Croft. Some evenings I satbeside her long after she had drifted offto sleep, still in awe of how many yearsshe had spent on this earth. At times Itried to picture the world she had beenborn into, in 1866—a world, I imag-ined, filled with women in long blackskirts, and chaste conversations in theparlor. Now, when I looked at her handswith their swollen knuckles folded to-gether in her lap, I imagined themsmooth and slim, striking the pianokeys. At times I came downstairs beforegoing to sleep, to make sure she was sit-ting upright on the bench, or was safein her bedroom. On Fridays I put therent in her hands. There was nothing Icould do for her beyond these simplegestures. I was not her son, and, apartfrom those eight dollars, I owed hernothing.

AT the end of August, Mala’s pass-

port and green card were ready. Ireceived a telegram with her flight in-formation; my brother’s house in Cal-cutta had no telephone. Around thattime I also received a letter from her,written only a few days after we hadparted. There was no salutation; ad-dressing me by name would have as-sumed an intimacy we had not yet dis-covered. It contained only a few lines. “I

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write in English in preparation for thejourney. Here I am very much lonely. Isit very cold there. Is there snow. Yours,Mala.”

I was not touched by her words. Wehad spent only a handful of days in each other’s company. And yet we werebound together; for six weeks she hadworn an iron bangle on her wrist, andapplied vermillion powder to the part inher hair, to signify to the world that shewas a bride. In those six weeks I re-garded her arrival as I would the arrivalof a coming month, or season—some-thing inevitable, but meaningless at thetime. So little did I know her that, whiledetails of her face sometimes rose to mymemory, I could not conjure up thewhole of it.

A few days after receiving the letter,as I was walking to work in the morn-ing, I saw an Indian woman on Massa-chusetts Avenue, wearing a sari with itsfree end nearly dragging on the foot-path, and pushing a child in a stroller.An American woman with a small blackdog on a leash was walking to one sideof her. Suddenly the dog began barking.I watched as the Indian woman, star-tled, stopped in her path, at which pointthe dog leaped up and seized the end ofthe sari between its teeth. The Ameri-can woman scolded the dog, appearedto apologize, and walked quickly away,leaving the Indian woman to fix hersari, and quiet her crying child. She didnot see me standing there, and eventu-ally she continued on her way. Such amishap, I realized that morning, wouldsoon be my concern. It was my duty totake care of Mala, to welcome her andprotect her. I would have to buy her herfirst pair of snow boots, her first wintercoat. I would have to tell her whichstreets to avoid, which way the trafficcame, tell her to wear her sari so thatthe free end did not drag on the foot-path. A five-mile separation from herparents, I recalled with some irritation,had caused her to weep.

Unlike Mala, I was used to it all bythen: used to cornflakes and milk, usedto Helen’s visits, used to sitting on thebench with Mrs. Croft. The only thingI was not used to was Mala. Neverthe-less I did what I had to do. I went to thehousing office at M.I.T. and found afurnished apartment a few blocks away,with a double bed and a private kitchenand bath, for forty dollars a week. One

last Friday I handed Mrs. Croft eightdollar bills in an envelope, brought mysuitcase downstairs, and informed herthat I was moving. She put my key intoher change purse. The last thing sheasked me to do was hand her the canepropped against the table, so that shecould walk to the door and lock it be-hind me. “Goodbye, then,” she said,and retreated back into the house. I didnot expect any display of emotion, but I was disappointed all the same. I was only a boarder, a man who paid hera bit of money and passed in and out of her home for six weeks. Comparedwith a century, it was no time at all.

AT the airport I recognized Mala

immediately. The free end ofher sari did not drag on the floor, butwas draped in a sign of bridal modestyover her head, just as it had draped mymother until the day my father died.Her thin brown arms were stacked withgold bracelets, a small red circle waspainted on her forehead, and the edgesof her feet were tinted with a decorativered dye. I did not embrace her, or kissher, or take her hand. Instead I askedher, speaking Bengali for the first timein America, if she was hungry.

She hesitated, then nodded yes.I told her I had prepared some egg

curry at home. “What did they give youto eat on the plane?”

“I didn’t eat.”“All the way from Calcutta?”“The menu said oxtail soup.”“But surely there were other items.”“The thought of eating an ox’s tail

made me lose my appetite.”When we arrived home, Mala opened

up one of her suitcases, and presentedme with two pullover sweaters, bothmade with bright-blue wool, which shehad knitted in the course of our separa-tion, one with a V neck, the other cov-ered with cables. I tried them on; bothwere tight under the arms. She had alsobrought me two new pairs of drawstringpajamas, a letter from my brother, and apacket of loose Darjeeling tea. I had nopresent for her apart from the egg curry.We sat at a bare table, staring at ourplates. We ate with our hands, anotherthing I had not yet done in America.

“The house is nice,” she said. “Alsothe egg curry.” With her left hand sheheld the end of her sari to her chest,so it would not slip off her head.

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“I don’t know many recipes.”She nodded, peeling the skin off

each of her potatoes before eating them.At one point the sari slipped to hershoulders. She readjusted it at once.

“There is no need to cover yourhead,” I said. “I don’t mind. It doesn’tmatter here.”

She kept it covered anyway.I waited to get used to her, to her

presence at my side, at my table and inmy bed, but a week later we were stillstrangers. I still was not used to cominghome to an apartment that smelled ofsteamed rice, and finding that the basinin the bathroom was always wiped clean,our two toothbrushes lying side by side,a cake of Pears soap residing in the soapdish. I was not used to the fragrance ofthe coconut oil she rubbed every othernight into her scalp, or the delicatesound her bracelets made as she movedabout the apartment. In the morningsshe was always awake before I was. Thefirst morning when I came into thekitchen she had heated up the leftoversand set a plate with a spoonful of salt onits edge, assuming I would eat rice forbreakfast, as most Bengali husbands did.I told her cereal would do, and the nextmorning when I came into the kitchenshe had already poured the cornflakesinto my bowl. One morning she walkedwith me to M.I.T., where I gave her ashort tour of the campus. The nextmorning before I left for work she askedme for a few dollars. I parted with themreluctantly, but I knew that this, too, wasnow normal. When I came home fromwork there was a potato peeler in thekitchen drawer, and a tablecloth on thetable, and chicken curry made with freshgarlic and ginger on the stove. Afterdinner I read the newspaper, while Malasat at the kitchen table, working on a car-digan for herself with more of the bluewool, or writing letters home.

On Friday, I suggested going out.Mala set down her knitting and disap-peared into the bathroom. When sheemerged I regretted the suggestion; shehad put on a silk sari and extra brace-lets, and coiled her hair with a flatteringside part on top of her head. She wasprepared as if for a party, or at the veryleast for the cinema, but I had no suchdestination in mind. The evening wasbalmy. We walked several blocks downMassachusetts Avenue, looking into thewindows of restaurants and shops.Then,

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without thinking, I led her down thequiet street where for so many nights Ihad walked alone.

“This is where I lived before youcame,” I said, stopping at Mrs. Croft’schain-link fence.

“In such a big house?”“I had a small room upstairs. At the

back.”“Who else lives there?”“A very old woman.”“With her family?”“Alone.”“But who takes care of her?”I opened the gate. “For the most part

she takes care of herself.”I wondered if Mrs. Croft would re-

member me; I wondered if she had anew boarder to sit with her each evening.When I pressed the bell I expected thesame long wait as that day of our firstmeeting, when I did not have a key. Butthis time the door was opened almostimmediately, by Helen. Mrs. Croft wasnot sitting on the bench. The bench wasgone.

“Hello there,” Helen said, smiling withher bright pink lips at Mala. “Mother’sin the parlor. Will you be visiting awhile?”

“As you wish, Madam.”“Then I think I’ll run to the store, if

you don’t mind. She had a little acci-dent. We can’t leave her alone thesedays, not even for a minute.”

I locked the door after Helen andwalked into the parlor. Mrs. Croft waslying flat on her back, her head on apeach-colored cushion, a thin whitequilt spread over her body. Her handswere folded together on her chest.When she saw me she pointed at thesofa, and told me to sit down. I tookmy place as directed, but Mala wan-dered over to the piano and sat on thebench, which was now positioned whereit belonged.

“I broke my hip!” Mrs. Croft an-nounced, as if no time had passed.

“Oh dear, Madam.”“I fell off the bench!”“I am so sorry, Madam.”“It was the middle of the night! Do

you know what I did, boy?”I shook my head.“I called the police!”She stared up at the ceiling and grinned

sedately, exposing a crowded row oflong gray teeth. “What do you say tothat, boy?”

As stunned as I was, I knew what Ihad to say. With no hesitation at all, Icried out, “Splendid!”

“I thought that sperm-bank donors remained anonymous.”

• •

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reason other than to be my wife. Asstrange as it seemed, I knew in my heartthat one day her death would affect me,and stranger still, that mine would af-fect her. I wanted somehow to explainthis to Mrs. Croft, who was still scruti-nizing Mala from top to toe with whatseemed to be placid disdain. I wonderedif Mrs. Croft had ever seen a woman in a sari, with a dot painted on her forehead and bracelets stacked on herwrists. I wondered what she would ob-ject to. I wondered if she could see thered dye still vivid on Mala’s feet, all butobscured by the bottom edge of hersari. At last Mrs. Croft declared, withthe equal measures of disbelief and de-light I knew well:

“She is a perfect lady!”Now it was I who laughed. I did so

quietly, and Mrs. Croft did not hear me.But Mala had heard, and, for the firsttime, we looked at each other and smiled.

ILIKE to think of that moment in Mrs. Croft’s parlor as the moment

when the distance between Mala andme began to lessen. Although we were

not yet fully in love, I like to think ofthe months that followed as a honey-moon of sorts. Together we exploredthe city and met other Bengalis, someof whom are still friends today. We dis-covered that a man named Bill soldfresh fish on Prospect Street, and that ashop in Harvard Square called Car-dullo’s sold bay leaves and cloves. In theevenings we walked to the CharlesRiver to watch sailboats drift across thewater, or had ice-cream cones in Har-vard Yard. We bought a camera withwhich to document our life together,and I took pictures of her posing infront of the Prudential Building, sothat she could send them to her par-ents. At night we kissed, shy at first butquickly bold, and discovered pleasureand solace in each other’s arms. I toldher about my voyage on the S.S. Roma,and about Finsbury Park and theY.M.C.A., and my evenings on thebench with Mrs. Croft. When I toldher stories about my mother, she wept.It was Mala who consoled me when,reading the Globe one evening, I cameacross Mrs. Croft’s obituary. I had not

Mala laughed then. Her voice wasfull of kindness, her eyes bright withamusement. I had never heard her laughbefore, and it was loud enough so thatMrs. Croft heard, too. She turned toMala and glared.

“Who is she, boy?”“She is my wife, Madam.”Mrs. Croft pressed her head at an

angle against the cushion to get a betterlook. “Can you play the piano?”

“No, Madam,” Mala replied.“Then stand up!”Mala rose to her feet, adjusting the

end of her sari over her head and hold-ing it to her chest, and, for the first timesince her arrival, I felt sympathy. I re-membered my first days in London,learning how to take the Tube to Rus-sell Square, riding an escalator for thefirst time, unable to understand thatwhen the man cried “piper” it meant“paper,” unable to decipher, for a wholeyear, that the conductor said “Mind thegap” as the train pulled away from eachstation. Like me, Mala had travelled farfrom home, not knowing where she wasgoing, or what she would find, for no

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thought of her in several months—bythen those six weeks of the summerwere already a remote interlude in mypast—but when I learned of her deathI was stricken, so much so that whenMala looked up from her knitting shefound me staring at the wall, unable tospeak. Mrs. Croft’s was the first death Imourned in America, for hers was thefirst life I had admired; she had left thisworld at last, ancient and alone, neverto return.

As for me, I have not strayed muchfarther. Mala and I live in a town abouttwenty miles from Boston, on a tree-lined street much like Mrs. Croft’s, in ahouse we own, with room for guests,and a garden that saves us from buyingtomatoes in summer. We are Americancitizens now, so that we can collect So-cial Security when it is time. Thoughwe visit Calcutta every few years, wehave decided to grow old here. I workin a small college library. We have a sonwho attends Harvard University. Malano longer drapes the end of her sariover her head, or weeps at night for herparents, but occasionally she weeps forour son. So we drive to Cambridge tovisit him, or bring him home for aweekend, so that he can eat rice with uswith his hands, and speak in Bengali,things we sometimes worry he will nolonger do after we die.

Whenever we make that drive, I always take Massachusetts Avenue,in spite of the traffic. I barely recog-nize the buildings now, but each time

I am there I return instantly to thosesix weeks as if they were only the other day, and I slow down and pointto Mrs. Croft’s street, saying to myson, Here was my first home in Amer-ica, where I lived with a woman whowas a hundred and three. “Remem-ber?” Mala says, and smiles, amazed,as I am, that there was ever a time that we were strangers. My son alwaysexpresses his astonishment, not at Mrs.Croft’s age but at how little I paid inrent, a fact nearly as inconceivable tohim as a flag on the moon was to awoman born in 1866. In my son’s eyesI see the ambition that had first hurledme across the world. In a few years hewill graduate and pave his own way,alone and unprotected. But I remindmyself that he has a father who is stillliving, a mother who is happy andstrong. Whenever he is discouraged, Itell him that if I can survive on threecontinents, then there is no obstaclehe cannot conquer. While the astro-nauts, heroes forever, spent mere hourson the moon, I have remained in thisnew world for nearly thirty years. Iknow that my achievement is quite or-dinary. I am not the only man to seekhis fortune far from home, and cer-tainly I am not the first. Still, there aretimes I am bewildered by each mile Ihave travelled, each meal I have eaten,each person I have known, each roomin which I have slept. As ordinary as itall appears, there are times when it isbeyond my imagination. ♦

“Not that it really matters, but how will this play out among the serfs?”