So it was decided: if she had left at four A.M. or thereabouts, she could’ve taken only one of two buses. Only two buses ran at that time of morning. One went south, to Tirupati, and the other went north, to Vijayawada. Now, here was another geographic mystery: Which one would she have taken?
Poornima considered the question, and then something floated back to her. Something so fine, so like gossamer, that it could hardly be considered a thought, or even a fragment of a thought, but it was there, she was certain it was there, and she brushed at it as if it were a spider’s web, caught in the deep recesses of her mind. Poornima was by now on the outskirts of Namburu. She was going to the bus depot that was on the highway, rather than the one in Namburu, so that no one would see her. As she approached it, she saw an advertisement for amla oil. On the advertisement was the green amla fruit, with sparkling oil, lit by the sun, dripping out of it and straight into a pale green bottle. Next to the bottle was a photograph of a woman with thick, lustrous hair, taken as she spun her head, her hair fanning out toward the viewer as she turned. Presumably, the amla oil had made her hair so lustrous and thick. Poornima stared at the advertisement—she studied the perfect amla fruit, and the drops of oil, and the woman—and then she looked again at the amla. The perfect fruit. She waved aside the gossamer web, and then she knew. She knew where Savitha had gone: she’d gone to Majuli. She had to have.
Poornima smiled; her entire face burst into pain, but she smiled anyway. And where was Majuli? She recalled her saying it was on the Brahmaputra, and Poornima knew this much about geography: she knew the Brahmaputra was north, and so, twenty minutes later, Poornima flagged down the bus to Vijayawada, going north, and she didn’t even notice when the driver and the conductor and the old woman she sat down next to gave her strange looks, revolted looks, as they stared at her face, her burns, no longer covered, but raw and pink like the sunrise.
*
When she got to Vijayawada, the first thing she did was go to a medical shop and buy bandages and iodine. She learned how to wrap the burns and apply the iodine from the man who was working there—an old man with glasses, who asked no questions at all about how she’d gotten the burns, as if he saw women with this exact injury every day, which Poornima figured he probably did. The only question in his mind, she guessed, was whether it was oil or acid. But even that he didn’t ask, though she thought he might’ve been able to tell just by looking at them. Regardless, she liked him; she liked how gentle he was when he showed her how to wrap the bandage around her neck and over her cheek, and then to tie it so it was snug but not too tight. He said, “It needs air,” referring to the burn, and then he said, “What else do you need?”
Poornima said she needed directions to the train station, and he nodded. This, too, he seemed to expect.
The walk, he said, was long, so it was better to take the bus. But Poornima decided to walk anyway, and along the way, she bought a packet of idlis, because they were all that she could manage to chew. Then she drank a cup of tea, standing next to the tea stall, with the men gathered around staring openly, or surreptitiously, but all of them with disgust—knowing what was beneath her bandages—and maybe a few, one or two, with shame.
When Poornima reached the train station, after an hour of walking, the sky was just beginning to lighten. The white marble floors, strewn with sleeping bodies, still shone between the array of arms and legs draped over the very old and the very young. She stepped gingerly between them, entered the vestibule, and studied the listing of trains. Obviously, Majuli wouldn’t be listed, since it was an island, so Poornima looked for all northbound trains. There were none. At least, none that left from Vijayawada.
She stared and stared at the listings, thinking she must be mistaken, but not one was going anywhere beyond Eluru. She turned and went to the ladies’ counter. It wasn’t open yet, and it wouldn’t be for another two hours. At this, Poornima considered waiting in the vestibule, but then she thought she might be able to find out more information on the platform.
She paid five rupees for the platform ticket, and when she walked through, the entire length of the first platform was bustling. An overnight train from Chennai had just arrived. The coffee and tea stalls were steaming, the puri wallah yelled through the windows of the train, running up and down its length, vada and idli packets were piled nearly to the rafters, and even the magazine and cigarette and biscuit shops were open, along with the sugarcane juicer shop across from it, already thronged with people. When she passed the water fountain, it was ten deep, with everyone pushing and trying to get to one of the six taps.
Poornima had never seen so many people. She stood for a moment, disoriented, and then realized she should be looking for someone to ask about the northern trains. There were hundreds of porters, everywhere it seemed, in their brick-colored shirts, but they paid her no attention, and in fact pushed her aside once or twice to make way. Poornima edged toward the wall, away from the train, and waited. Finally, after twenty minutes, the train pulled away, and everything, all of a sudden, stopped. Now the porters, the ones who hadn’t been hired, were standing around, listless, drinking a cup of tea or coffee, and waiting for the next train. Poornima pulled her pallu over her head and approached a group of three who were standing near one of the wide girders. They weren’t talking to one another, but they were definitely standing together.
“Do you know anything about the northern trains?” Poornima asked.
The slightest one, hardly older than an adolescent, looked her up and down and stopped just before her face. He said, “Do I look like the information booth?”
“It’s closed.”
“Then wait,” another one of them said.
“But there’s not a single one going north. Nothing past Eluru. Do you know anything about it?” she said, turning to the third man, older, with a graying mustache and a thick shock of salt-and-pepper hair.
He, too, looked at Poornima, mostly at her bandaged face, which she was trying unsuccessfully to obscure, and said, “The Naxals. They blew up the tracks past Eluru.”
“So there are no trains?”
“Did you hear me?”
“But no trains? None? How can that be?”
The young man laughed. “Take it up with Indian Railways. I’m sure they’ll be happy to explain.”
Poornima walked away from the porters and back to her spot by the wall. She slid to the ground.
How long would five hundred rupees last her? Not very long. And it was too soon to sell the jewelry. She decided to stay at the train station, sleep in the vestibule, with the others, or on one of the platforms, maybe the farthest one from the signaling office, until the northern tracks were fixed, or until they kicked her out. She could wash at the taps, eat from the stalls, and as for the latrines, well, the latrines were just the tracks, anyway. Why didn’t I bring a blanket? she thought, annoyed with herself.