In the company of Grady I examined the architecture, searching for the key to its construction, which we couldn’t find. The buildings were bulbous and baroque, in their own way magnificent, but nothing man-made in this trembling furnace of a country seemed to belong, nothing could compete against the desert, which was inhospitably in command.

About six miles north of Coproliabad we followed a narrow valley and climbed a hill to see what was on the other side—more valleys and more hills tumbling, it seemed, forever. The high ground was contoured with rocks like great gnarly muscles and pocked with caves occupied by creeping beetles and unblinking newts and bats that beat about, dipping and soaring as if borne on waves. The sharp rise and fall of the topography made it unfeasible for a nuke site, and so we pushed on, always without a guide because Grady found covert operations irresistible. We asked about likely terrain of the country people who tried his patience with their unspecificity, for Assamans generally exhibited an emphatic carelessness about the passage of time and the fixity of space. His inquiries followed a precise pattern, first describing what he sought. “You know of such a place?” he would ask a native.

“Yes,” was the invariable reply.

“Where is it?”

“Around.”

Pointing a finger: “There?”

“Yes.”

“How far over there?”

“Not far.”

“How long does it take to get there?”

“Not long.”

Then Grady would thank the man with a peppermint candy, raise his glasses to their habitual resting place along the supraorbital ridge, shake his head, and say, “Jesus, these guys are fun to be with.”

Sometimes we’d start out before dawn, and walk all day without seeing anyone, for humanity in this pocket of the world maintained at best a vague and shallow enclave, made vaguer still by the impacted heat that obscured and distorted the landscape as if it were coated with a film of petroleum jelly. We slogged through it each morning, a solid suffocation as it thinned, faltered, and beat down again, the hot wind thrashing the trees and wailing like a prophet of doom. At times, on the north side of the mountains, lightning ripped open great channels in the sky. Thunder slammed them shut. Then it was gone for another twenty-four hours, leaving in its wake dripping messes of vegetation and the vision of a gem-splashed world.

Not for long. Even as the mold sucked softly under our feet, the garnet sun broke through, consuming all creation in its painful, unremitting fever.

While it is true, as you may have noticed, that I’ve never adapted to any clime, nor have I ever looked back with longing to wherever I’ve been before, yet in this roachy kingdom my mind in a curious warp of time and space kept reverting to New Haven. Something in this stagnant cesspool reminded me of Yale.