Dear Digs,
I’m sorry that I did not write. It will be clear to you why when I see you. If I see you. I’m writing in haste. Could not get a letter to you early on as you know because we were cut off by floods. Digby, the reason I stayed even after the monsoon is also why I must now leave. I just had a child, Digby. I want more than anything in the world to feed, and hold, and raise, and love my daughter. For her sake I must leave now. I will tell you all in person. She is in danger if I stay. She will be better off with her grandmother and those here who will love her, even though I love her more than all of them. But my staying endangers her.
Digby had to reach out a hand and lean on Cromwell, who stood before him. That’s my child, our daughter! It must be. But how was the child in danger if Elsie stayed? It meant Elsie herself was in danger. He wanted to jump in the car and race to her. He read on, still leaning on Cromwell, who stood there pillarlike, patient.
Don’t try to come here or write back. Please I beg you to trust me. Will explain when I see you. I plan to walk out of the house on March 8 at 7 p.m., around dusk. I will get into the river and float downstream to the Chalakura junction just outside the town. You can see it on a map. It’s about three miles from the house. There is a bridge leading out of that junction. Wait at the north side of the bridge. There are no shops or houses there and it should be deserted at night. I will walk across that bridge by 8 p.m. at the latest. I can only hope I will see your car. Please bring dry clothes. If you come, I will explain all. If you are not there, I’ll understand. You owe me nothing.
With love,
Elsie
March 8 was the following day. He left within the hour, driving alone, over Cromwell’s strenuous objections. He had told Cromwell everything.
A child. His child. The first time they made love they had been too caught up to think of pregnancy. After that, they’d tried to be cautious. But they were also lulled into a complacency, as though in the magical bubble of their being together at Gwendolyn Gardens, nothing could happen that they did not wish to happen.
But why hadn’t Elsie come away as soon as the roads were passable? A delay of two, even three months was understandable, but why eight? Was she a captive? Why would she not bring the baby? Why such a hazardous escape? The whys kept running through his mind. Surely at some point they must return for their child. Please trust me. He had to.
He reached the bridge late that night, stopped, and took a quick look around. Then he checked into a government traveler’s bungalow five miles away and tried to sleep. He returned to the bridge the next day at dusk. On one side of the bridge the town of Chalakura was buttoned down, its lights extinguished, just as it had been the previous night. The far side of the bridge was unlit, deserted. The river rode high, moving slowly, majestically, a full-figured goddess. He edged the car as close to the brush and reeds as he could. A laborer, head down, straining to pull an overloaded cart, came down the road, so focused on his effort that he never saw the black car or Digby in the shadow of the abutment.
Digby had no idea exactly where she would enter the water on leaving Parambil. He couldn’t imagine being in the river in the dark. He’d been standing there for fifteen minutes, his eyes glued on the water, when he spotted a floating object, a resurrected Ophelia, in the middle of the river, then a flash of arm as she angled for the shore. Then nothing. Minutes passed. At last, on the far side, a silhouette separated itself from the hulking, menacing mass of the bridge. In outline it appeared to be a peasant woman in a blouse and skirt. When she came closer, he could see she was dripping wet, the clothes clinging to her. He rushed forward and wrapped her in a large towel and guided her to the passenger side of his car. She was white with cold, her teeth chattering, her body shaking, her hair bedraggled, and the scent of the river still on her. Leaning on the car she peeled off her wet skirt and blouse and dried off hastily, then slipped into the shirt and mundu he’d brought her. He settled her in the front passenger seat and covered her in a blanket, shocked at her appearance under the car’s interior light: a pale ghost framed by black seat covers. Her face was incredibly weary, as though eight years and not eight months had passed. “Thank you for being here, Digs. Let’s go, please. Quick.”
As he pulled away, he saw no one in the rearview mirror. Elsie drank greedily from the bottle of water. He passed her a thermos of the hot whisky-chai they used to drink on the roof of his bungalow. Her feet were bleeding from her scramble out of the river.
“Are they looking for you?” he said.
She shook her head, biting her lower lip. “Not yet. I left my slippers and my towel by the river.” She looked across at him. “They’ll find it eventually. Then they’ll be looking. But a body can be carried for miles.” Her words chilled him. He was imagining the other reality in which she had drowned and wasn’t seated here because her corpse was on its way to sea.
“And the baby?”
She closed her eyes, curling into her seat like a kitten burrowing into the blankets, a portrait of fatigue, grief, and loss. “Please? I beg you, Digby, please let me tell you everything when we get home.” He reached under the blanket for her hand; her fingers felt stiff and rough with cold, waterlogged from her long immersion. He squeezed but she did not squeeze back. He heard a muffled “Digby,” as though he’d hurt her and she was cautioning him. All too soon she was in the deep slumber of someone who had not slept for days.
At three in the morning, he negotiated the last stretch, completing the harrowing drive up the ghat road in the dark—something he’d never done before because of the real danger of wild elephants. Only when he pulled up in front of his bungalow in Gwendolyn Gardens did he register the shrieking in his shoulders and the cramp in his neck and note his fingers clamped to the wheel like limpets. He switched off the engine; the profound silence didn’t wake her.
A figure peeled off from the shadows of the house. Cromwell. He’d been seated outside, wrapped in a blanket. He helped a stiff Digby out of the car, propping him up, and then shaking his shoulders, shoving him against the car as though picking a fight. “Much worrying, boss. Too much.” His eyes were red and heavy with sleep.
Digby put his hands on Cromwell’s forearms. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Cromwell took in the sleeping form of Elsie, concealing his shock at her appearance. “Missy is all right.” It was both a question and an aspirational statement.
“I don’t know. She’s been through hell.” A hell he didn’t quite understand.
Elsie came awake when he opened the passenger door. When she saw where they were, she turned to Digby with an expression of such relief that for the first time he sensed the depths of whatever horror she’d suffered. “Oh, Digby, the air feels so thin up here,” she said, taking a deep breath then shivering.