Shankar, as always since my birth, has been my protector and my guard. Santosh runs after him, copies his gestures, his voice, eats his bananas in just the same manner. If he mimics his uncle in this way, I can only dream how he will be with you! With what adoration he will follow you!

I must tell you, my husband, without worrying you with too much detail. In the village, they were not kind to me when I left. No one came to wish me well. It’s true I am a woman and it would not have been proper to have too much hullabaloo. But I will say only this—I was happy to climb in the buggy after my goodbyes were complete.

It is too hot and wet here in Calcutta. Shankar tells me it will become more and more like that as we move along. I am looking out the window and thinking all the time that you saw all these same sights as you traveled across the country. I set eyes on the ocean for the first time yesterday. When I saw it, something happened to my heart, my mind—it is glorious and impossible. I cannot find words to describe it.

I cannot wait to sail upon it—what a marvel, to float on top of an ocean! More, I cannot wait to speak with you, so that you may tell me your thoughts on everything—the camels, the wet heat, the rude conductors, the motion of the train, the ocean, our son.

Your loving wife,

Padma

ON THE DAY OF PADMA’S ARRIVAL, Ram came to San Francisco alone, traveling north along the same railway that had brought him to Fredonia more than four years earlier. It seemed impossible that Padma would be with him on the way back. For these years, few things had assured him that she really existed: her letters, the photo he kept safe in his trunk, the sound of her voice that accompanied him everywhere since he first arrived, and never left him. To be with the body that belonged to that voice, to feel her warm whisper in his ear while standing on his cotton field, while eating his meals, to reach for the hand he had held as a child—impossible.

But the boy—his boy—he did not know at all. These were real and proper feelings, he believed. His thoughts of Adela receded into the background.

At the San Francisco train depot in late afternoon, with a December chill in the air, a ticket master directed him to the pier. He arrived there at dusk. He bought noodles from a Chinese vendor outside the terminal building and ate his dinner looking out over the wharf. The air hung wet and cold, so different from the dry wind of the Imperial Valley. Water splashed up against wooden pilings. Workers leaned against the warehouse buildings, smoking cigarettes. Gulls circled and called overhead. Several ships were in port and Anglo men, women, and children milled about the terminal building. In a corner, Negro porters gathered with their trolleys.