“You been here for most of a week and I’m tired of looking at ya.” He was balding. Wisps of gray hair floated about his head. “Here, you can see for yourself,” he said, “I’m not so good at reading these strange names.” He tossed the list across the desktop. Ram leaned over the paper. “Be quick about it.”

“If her name is not there, what is the meaning?” Ram asked.

“That she wasn’t on the boat, mate. Everybody on that boat is on that list.”

Ram’s stomach clenched in fear. “If the name isn’t there, then the person didn’t come?”

“That’s how they do.”

But he saw her name. It had always been there, he knew now, only misspelled: Saker, male; Pudam, female, with one child. His throat went dry.

“Why does an ‘X’ appear by their names?” he asked. “And this—‘SI’?”

“Means they were questioned.” The clerk did not meet his eye.

“When will they be released?” Ram could hear the alarm in his voice. “Three days have passed. It is too long.”

The man looked at him. He was not being unkind, Ram would think later. “Steamer left this morning, mate,” the man said slowly. “Early, right at dawn. That means they were not allowed in.”

The building swayed, as if the earth had moved beneath him. Later, he would not know why he ran. What did he think he could do? In a cold mist he arrived again at the outcropping where he had seen the ship pass on the way to the island. Of course, the ship was not there. The rain pelted his face, pooled at his collar, saturated his boots. He stood at the rock, leaning against the lighthouse rail for more than an hour.

In despair, he walked back to the city. He was a pragmatic man; he found a telegram office. They would have to be told: his uncle in Punjab, Padma’s parents. The third one he sent to Jivan: RETURNING P.M. TRAIN TOMORROW. He returned to Yugantar Ashram.

Years later, he would allow himself to forget his desperate return to the rock outcropping, looking for the steamer. If ever asked to tell the story, he would say, I went to collect her, and she was not there, and that was that.

IT WAS FAMILIAR TO HIM: The mesquite, the dunes, the ocotillo, the desert, the fierce sun, the boy waving at the gate. The crooked sign at the Fredonia depot, AMERICA’S DREAM. He watched without feeling as the scene flashed past the train window. Then with anger. So much anger.

They all came, as would have been proper and loving to welcome his wife to her new home, emerging from Karak’s gleaming black car. Was it so obvious in the way that Ram walked, or stood, or looked at them through his tired eyes? They did not need to ask. He felt the weight of their collective gaze and wished he could escape it. His muscles were too heavy to move. He had lost all strength. Grief devours everything. Hadn’t she died? Hadn’t she?