Anderson had felt himself suffocating in that dark room. He thanked Preeta’s parents, feebly, apologetically, for taking the time to tell him their story, and stumbled outside, right into a monsoon. He stood there letting the skies fall down on his head. In a moment of confusion he thought that it was his child who had done this. His child that he had lost.
If he hadn’t come to them, they would never have gone to the village, and the girl would have forgotten.
There was some follow-up to do in the village, taking down the villagers’ accounts of the death. He did his research, he took it all down, every witness, his hand writing out the descriptions in careful blue ink on yellow paper while his inner eye was always trained on that muddy river, that bobbing head. He couldn’t look at the river directly; he was afraid he might hurl himself in.
He went on a bender that night, seeking to bathe in oblivion, but the questions flew at him like crows that had been waiting only for him to open the door, crows flying at his face.
It was his fault.
His fault that the child’s remains lay somewhere at the bottom of the river. His fault she would never have her own children, her own life.
His research was useless. Worse.
He had always believed in lucidity: in looking as clearly as possible at what was, despite the desire to veer off into comforting illusion and projection, and to follow the results rationally. So he couldn’t protect himself now from the questions that followed: What did it signify, to be reborn only to relive the previous life’s anguish? What was the sense in that? What was the meaning?
He could see, suddenly and for the first time, the appeal of escape, of nihilism. And yet some part of him, even then, the scientist in him, held him together, speaking clearly and steadily under the cacophony of blame and grief: Could the suicidal urge pour like a phobia or a personality characteristic from one life to the next? Could there be grief so unresolved and potent that it continued on, flowed into the next life as powerfully as a birth defect or a birthmark, where still it could not be shaken?
He was not a praying man, not at all, never, but he said a prayer anyway, standing on the bank of the river he couldn’t bring himself to look at, that her next life would be far from here.
He had pulled himself out of his despair only with brute will. He had gone cold turkey on the long train ride back to Calcutta, the craving pecking at his nerves, hands trembling in evidence of an addiction he had only dimly realized.
When he emerged at last, shaken and sober, he had known that there were questions he couldn’t ask himself. That there were attachments he couldn’t make. It was the only way to continue. And he had continued in this way, steadily working.
Until now.
In the motel minibar, there were more tiny bottles—a whole row of them. Anderson turned the key and opened the door again and stared. It seemed only days earlier that he had stopped drinking, not decades. Oblivion had been waiting patiently for him all these years. All right then, he thought. He reached for another little vodka.
No.
He ran to the bathroom and spat and washed his mouth out, brushing his teeth twice. Not that way. Not after all this time. He threw the key to the fridge in the toilet and flushed, but it remained in the basin, glinting like treasure at the bottom of the sea.
He made his way back to the bed and stretched his body out, trying to revive the feeling of warmth the vodka had generated under his skin. He could taste the alcohol on his lips under the Crest. On the other side of the wall, the boy was still sobbing.
Damn.
He liked him. The boy. Noah.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
*
When Anderson dozed off at last, he dreamed of Owen. He dreamed that his son was whole. Owen was whole and Sheila was happy and there was no need to go to Thailand, no matter what Angsley had said on the telephone. He could stay in Connecticut with his family and his lab rats.
He awoke suddenly, to a feeling of loss so pure that at first he couldn’t speak.
He sat up in bed. The room was still dark. His mind was clear.
I can help him, he thought. I can help this child. I got it wrong, but it’s not too late to change that. So we had the wrong previous personality. Okay. That’s happened before. I have the information I need now. I’ll convince his mother. For Noah, I’ll get it right.
But he had given up. Hadn’t he?
He got up and opened the blinds, looking out the window at the dawn beginning to assert itself across the indifferent parking lot, pale light illuminating the street. Another day, whether anyone liked it or not. Yet he felt himself despite all his apprehensions hungry to begin it.
He walked over to his computer and turned it on. He could hardly wait for it to boot up. He opened the search window and typed in Tommy Asheville Road.
Twenty
Janie buckled in Noah and then herself with a feeling of grim determination.