50
The envelope contains a single piece of paper, thin as tissue, folded into thirds, and something heavier and square, a photograph. Of Joan. Joan captured secretly by Willem Ackerman’s eye and lens, under a dome of blue sky, on the roof of the lodge at the Pong Wetland, looking into the distance, her notebook open to a clean page on the table, her pen in midair. She remembers that moment, when she knew she needed to resolve her own life, find a new iteration of herself. Up on that roof that late afternoon, she hadn’t yet shed her old self, the amorphous body that had carried her along, she had not yet fully hurled herself into the feast of the future, was not yet ready to saunter or gallop, was still just crawling. But she looks beautiful sitting there, balanced on the knifepoint of resolution, and she is pleased Willem took this picture of her. Other pictures have been taken, of the places she’s seen, of Eric’s cottage, of Eric and Amari, of Eric and her, of Ela and Camille, and the three of them sitting on the red silk pillows, their heads tipped together, at Darpan’s bookstore surrounded by people, but not a picture of her alone, in India. Willem Ackerman has caught the steel of her core, the tenderness with which she was binding herself together in those days. She unfolds his letter.
I am back from my professional travels and the months away allowed me to find my bravery and acknowledge that I fell in love with you the moment I read your words a long time ago, and saw your pictures on the back of those book covers. Perhaps my wife was right to be jealous, the way I returned to your stories again and again. I took this picture of you at the sanctuary, one of dozens I took without you being aware. When I printed this picture, these were my thoughts: Joan Ashby is ready to find herself again, and she is ready to experience a true and rare love. Even here in this land outside of time, the complications of life follow us, and I promise that I will not be such a complication, but know that I have missed you and my offer of that true and rare love will stand for all time.
She feels again like that giddy girl she never was, the way she felt with Willem in his orange jeep, the way she felt with him during every second of those three days, imagining something more between them, then saying no to his offer. And what she thinks next surprises her: she never tested Martin’s love, never learned how he would have reacted if she had said all those years ago, “We agreed on no children,” and held him to his vow. They were equally complicit, in turning conditional the pure love they once had.
A quiet rapping on the door of her pine suite—Kartar with three bottles of good French Chardonnay, two wineglasses, and a bucket of ice, all set out on one of the breakfast trays. An unexpected fresh flower for the end of day, a stalk with tremulous scarlet petals in a marigold vase—the colors of India—and French wine in Dharamshala. Two wineglasses because Kartar harbors hopes that Willem Ackerman will sweep Joan off her feet, that true love will be found at Hotel Gandhi’s Paradise, and if Kartar knew what was written in Willem’s letter, his romantic nature would zoom into overdrive.
Joan has learned that Kartar’s time in the United States altered him in only one way—he became an Americanized romantic. At twenty, he holds all those notions near. When he told Joan about the movies he watched when he lived there, he said, “Oh, Ashby, how much I loved those rom-coms. I learned so much about the broken hearts of people when they make mistakes in matters of love, how one must travel that long road to reach the heart that fits your own.” He was surprised when she gently explained that rom-com stood for romantic comedy, and he was not meant to take such movies seriously.
When he has placed the bottles, glasses, and ice bucket on the dresser, Joan asks how much she owes, and he shakes his head.
“Kartar, if you do not take what is owed to you, I won’t be able to ask you for anything else.”
“All right Ashby, I will do it your way. My father would say one must accept what one is rightfully owed.”
“Your father is right,” Joan says, and presses on him rupees for the wine and a large tip, as she always does, which he slips into his pocket. She kisses his cheek, sees him blush, and then he is out in the hall, and she barely hears the lock click closed. Two bottles into the bathroom fridge, the cork of the third pulled out. Joan fills a glass with the warm wine, scoops ice from the bucket, plunks in a few cubes.
She reads Willem’s letter a second, third, and fourth time, then puts it aside, her heart beating a wondrous and strange little tune.
*
Kartar’s corkscrew slices through the thick tape wound around the box from Martin. She pulls back the flaps, lifts out each item, places it down on the quilt.
Here is a thick letter from her husband sealed up in an envelope.
Here are three supersized bags of red licorice vines, which make her smile.
Here is a newly purchased tube of her lipstick, still in its box, the make and color exactly what she has used for years, a shimmery sort of blush shade. She is nearly out of the one she brought, and she feels a warm rush inside, that Martin would know what she puts on her lips, would think she may be running out.
Next a layer of clothing. She never thought to ask Martin to send her a few things, but he has: her white hat, gloves, scarf, and down jacket, three sweaters, including her favorite one the color of a blued icicle, a pair of her heavy-duty boots, wool trousers and jeans, a plastic bag with bras and underwear, two pairs of her warm pajamas, and her comfortable old sweatpants she wore on cold nights when they nestled together in bed watching a movie. This box seems to say he understands she doesn’t yet have any answers to his questions, that he is giving her all the time she needs.
At the bottom are several novels with Iger’s publishing imprint stamped on the spines, along with a handwritten note from Iger to Martin.
Martin,
I never realized how good a man you are. With Joan stomping through Nirvana, my thinking about you has altered completely. Sorry for doubting you all of these years. I wanted her to write, not bake bread and babies and backseat her own work. Apologies for the unkind thoughts I had about you in the past. I hope you won’t mind sending on these books. She might be in need of reading material, beyond what the Buddhists suggest.
Xoxo,