Dev opened the door twice: once to see who it was; then again, closing it quickly behind Ted. He laid his head on Ted’s shoulder, and again, it felt right.
“All packed?” Dev asked.
“I hate the last day of conferences. I always feel like I haven’t done enough.”
“But you have. Correct?”
“I just feel that I haven’t.”
“What you feel, what you feel,” Dev repeated. He had his hands on Ted’s waist.
“Listen,” Ted said. “I’ve decided to stay a few extra days in Delhi. Maybe a week—”
“You’re staying. Ah—”
This wasn’t the reaction he had expected. “Is this a problem?”
“Not at all. There’s much to see. It is a beautiful city. You’ll have a wonderful time.”
Maybe John was right after alclass="underline" Ted felt a door shutting — Pandora’s box had loosed its anxieties into the world and now closed on the only thing left inside. I’m so stupid.
“Tomorrow, I am traveling to Benares,” Dev said. “I’m conducting clinical trials there.”
“Benares?”
“Also known as Varanasi.”
“Will you be gone long?”
“It’s an overnight train ride. I’ll be gone for at least five days.” There was no reason to doubt Dev was telling the truth. He still had time to uncancel his flight, to return to New York with his tail between his legs. It had only been one night, after all. The gay equivalent to a handshake.
“I see I’ve disappointed you,” Dev said.
“No,” Ted said. “It’s OK.” This was the benefit of being safe: he didn’t open himself up to humiliation. The world loved risk takers. Man hikes across Antarctica. Girl flies around the world in a hot air balloon. Man falls for Indian doctor, wishes for a different life. But the rest of the world consisted of the shy, the safe, the stuck. If Ted had spun an alternative life out of a single evening, then it was his own fault that he was let down by it.
“I should let you pack, then,” Ted said.
“Wait.” Dev spoke very slowly. “You could — accompany me. To Benares.”
“It’s all right,” Ted said.
“No,” Dev said. “I would like you to come. Come see India outside this hotel. Outside of Delhi.” Dev smiled, though it seemed unsteady. Was Dev merely being polite? Was Ted supposed to insist that he didn’t want to go, even though he wanted to go so much? But even more, he wanted for Dev to want him to go. It was difficult for Ted not to pitch forward into the future, not to fall back into the past. What did it mean to live in the present moment?
“I’d like to go,” Ted said. “With you.”
“Get your belongings,” Dev said. “Spend the night with me. Tomorrow we travel.”
The present was a precarious balance, a toehold at the peak of a mountain. But Ted closed his eyes and stepped forward anyway.
II. The Shiv Ganga Express
The next morning, Ted felt the first twinge of pain at the Delhi train station. Dev had gone to get a first-class car with air-conditioning, and when Ted suggested that they take what the locals take, Dev replied, “Even the locals take first class. Anything more authentic would suffocate you.” It would only take a few minutes, Dev said.
The lines before the ticket booths folded back upon themselves until the station was a solid flume of people. Families spread blankets on the ground and slept on plastic bags stuffed with more plastic bags. People stepped over splayed arms as if they were spills. Men squatted with their backs against the marble columns. There was squawking like a large flock of birds, and people before the teller window fanned out their money, preening. The teller, her hair in a neat bun, tapped the keyboard, unperturbed.
Ted saw other tourists, young, adventurous ones, who carried their entire lives on their backs: bedrolls, water bottles, sneakers dangling by their shoelaces. They seemed jocular and carefree, unbathed, hair pulled back in bandannas, living as if the world had been created for their exploration. They made Ted feel very, very old.
An Indian fellow came up to Ted. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“Varanasi.”
He took Ted’s elbow. “Come.”
“I’m waiting for my friend.”
“Your friend is there,” he said.
Ted felt his stomach clench, as if someone had jabbed him. “Come,” the man said again. He took both his bag and Dev’s — an ant carrying ten times his own body weight. The man pulled Ted to the entrance of the train station, into the sunlight and the noise of Delhi. Ted couldn’t see the pavement for all the vehicles. The city beckoned—Come, come—and out there, Dev was waiting.
“Take auto rickshaw to tourist bureau,” the man said. “Pay no more than ten rupees for ride. Hurry, before the office closes!” The driver started his engine. A hot blast of exhaust blew up Ted’s pant leg.
But he heard Dev calling. Dev sprinted toward them, yelling, and the man dropped the bags with a thud and fled into the station. The rickshaw driver started to speak, but Dev cut him off with a curt word.
“I leave you alone for five minutes,” Dev said, “and you start following strange men. Is this what I should expect?”
“The man said he was taking me to you.” The pain in Ted’s stomach subsided, though a jagged remnant was lodged deep within. “I thought you’d sent him.” Ted felt disoriented. North, south, west: these had no meaning. Every direction he turned was an unknown and unknowable place. A city he had hidden from for a week. A labyrinthine train station where people waited to lead him astray.
“Come,” said Dev. He clapped Ted on the back. “Our train will be boarding soon.” Come—people told him to come, and he did. He excelled at following instructions. He had done so at work, he had done so with John, and now he did so with Dev. As long as he followed instructions, nothing that went wrong was his fault. The instructions said… There was safety in not having to decide. He followed Dev into the shade of the station, up metal staircases, around other passengers. An automated female voice announced incomprehensible comings and goings on the platforms, and afterward, a grandiose jingle rang through the station, as if each announcement were an accomplishment. Dev glanced behind him every so often to make sure Ted was there, and Ted nodded: Yes. I’m coming.
His nausea intensified as the train approached. He felt the train before he saw it: the engine’s surge of heat, the smell of grease and ozone, the metal screech of the brakes. Bodies pressed against him: women with armpit stains on their saris, men for whom personal space was a foreign concept, squealing children. The nausea, sudden and forceful as a punch, swept him. He balled his fists, put one into his mouth. Sweat broke out along his forehead. He tasted bile and bit his knuckles until the urge to vomit passed. He wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve.
It was just after six in the evening, and the sky glowed radioactive. The heat was a monstrous weight. The awnings of the station and the concrete around the tracks shined white-hot. Ted shielded his eyes.
When the train stopped, people swarmed the doors, like an ocean siphoned into a funnel. “We’re farther up,” Dev said. The third-class cars had no windows, only gaps through which people stretched their arms, as though they were oaring the train forward.
Ted walked slowly, to not upset his stomach further. The crowd flowed around him. Ted imagined tripping, getting crushed in the undertow. He’d heard about stampedes at Indian train stations, the deaths by trampling. He didn’t want to lose sight of Dev. He’d be stuck. Lost.