At some point, he must have fallen asleep, an uneasy sleep full of twinges and cramps. He could no longer sustain both consciousness and illness. And in this sleep, he heard, as if in the distance, children babbling, luggage being shifted, yawning from mouths unknown. Dev asked, “Are you able to get up?” and Ted swung his feet onto the floor. He looked for his bag, but Dev said, “I’ve got it.”
Off the train, the full force of morning hit him, like epilepsy: the overwhelming light, the inability to take it all in. He realized how strange it was not to be moving, how each stage of travel required its own adjustment. People avoided him, even those desperately selling him something. He had the aura of contagion.
Dev summoned a taxi. Dev knew where they were going, Ted told himself. But this was less reassuring than it might have been a day earlier. There was too much everything, everywhere. When they reached the hotel, Dev argued with the man behind the desk while a boy, probably the man’s son, led Ted to his room. The interior was dark and cool, and the boy turned on the light, but Ted quickly flicked it off again. Two twin beds, on opposite sides of the room. The morning through the curtains made the room glow blue. Ted collapsed onto the nearest bed.
Nausea and fatigue blurred distinctions of time: a second-long ache stretched out over a minute, and a minute of rest reduced to a blink. Wood scraped along the floor. Ted tried not to take heed of the movement around him. He had stopped thinking of this as a vacation; it was now something to survive.
Dev sat beside Ted. Rustling sheets, squeaking bedsprings, untying shoes. He could feel Dev gauging if he was awake or not. Dev whispered, “Lift your head,” and pulled the pillow from beneath Ted’s head. He supported it with his hand until he had slid his own legs beneath. “Relax,” Dev said, and he stroked Ted’s hair, fingers tracing a line across Ted’s forehead, along his temple, coming to rest behind his ear, Dev murmuring, all the while, “Poor thing. Poor thing.”
III. Fire Ceremonies
Ted slept through his first day in Varanasi. Sickness cast a haze over the room; he felt like an insect, held fast in amber. He was dimly aware of the world outside: occupants in other rooms discussing plans and adventures, footsteps trundling away, a radio playing incomprehensible ragas. In Le Méridien, he could shut everything out; the only sounds he heard were the ones he made. But the outside encroached here. Not unwelcome, merely unexpected.
Then, sometime during the afternoon, the air conditioner sputtered off. It clanked and regurgitated internal fluids, and the wall shuddered from its exertion. The ceiling fan slowed and, off balance, shook in its socket. It could come loose and crush him. Decapitate him. The breeze died. No radios, no televisions. The alarm clock plugged into the wall had shut off. The world was still, and Ted lay, aware of its stillness. The air. The noise. His own breaths, growing very, very calm.
Dev returned that evening. By then, the air-conditioning and ceiling fan had resumed, and the alarm clock blinked red midnight. Dev pushed the beds together again. He felt Ted’s forehead with the back of his hand, the way a mother might, and took a bottle of water from his bag. He reached into his jacket pocket.
“This,” he said, holding up a small white pill, “is an antidiarrheal.” Ted hadn’t realized how dry his mouth was, the way his lips stuck together, gummy. “This one,” Dev continued, holding a second pill, “is a salt tablet to help you retain water.” Ted expected the harsh burn of table salt, but it left only a tingle on his tongue. “And finally, this,” he said, “is for what ails you.”
“It’s huge,” Ted said. Something you would give a horse. It wasn’t a pill at all, but a capsule: inside, thousands of tiny dots, which, for some reason, reminded Ted of bullets. Or of Crixevir.
“Open wide.”
The capsule did not go down easily, but Dev massaged Ted’s throat, and even after he had swallowed it, it felt stuck in his craw.
“Here,” Dev said, tucking his fingers under Ted’s side. “Lie on your stomach.”
“Does it disperse the drugs faster?” Ted asked. Something to do with body weight, maybe. The gentle pressure on the digestive tract.
“When I was young,” Dev said, “whenever I had a tummy ache, my father told me to lie on my stomach.”
Dev lay next to Ted, an arm draped across Ted’s back.
“Feel better?” Dev asked.
“Not yet,” Ted said.
“You will,” Dev said, rubbing his nose against Ted’s neck. “You will.”
By the next morning, there was still pain, but this was familiar pain — hunger. Familiar and bone deep. His insides rumbled like a herd of mice. Dev was already separating the beds.
“You’re a miracle worker,” Ted said.
Dev turned, as if surprised to hear another voice. “You’re awake.”
Ted arched his back. How good it felt to stretch the skin on his stomach. “What did you give me? Cipro?”
“Diloxanide furoate.”
“Don’t know that one.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Dev said. “It’s banned in the United States. Carcinogenic in high concentrations, but the best and quickest treatment for your condition.”
“My condition?”
“Amoebas,” Dev said. He placed the pill bottle on the nightstand. “You must take another dose in two days.”
Just the thought made him feel unclean, contaminated. “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. I tested a sample at the lab yesterday.”
“A sample?”
“You know,” Dev said quickly. He trailed off, but pulled the sheet from its tuck. Ted no longer had anything to hide. Dev knew him inside and out. The intimate secrets of his body, revealed.
“Thank you,” Ted replied, more a reflex than actual thanks.
“I need to go to the clinic today, so I must leave you,” Dev said. “You should explore, if you feel well enough. I asked the desk clerk to bring breakfast.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“When we arrived yesterday, the clerk thought I was your driver. He demanded that I rent servant’s quarters for myself.”
“I guess you showed him.”
“As a matter of fact,” Dev said, “I did.”
Ted ate toast and jam — the jam jar giving a satisfying, hermetically sealed pop as he opened it — in bed. He showered and dressed. The leather chairs and high-count sheets in Le Méridien couldn’t compete with the simple luxury of clean clothes.
The desk clerk, a mustachioed, obsequious man, gave Ted a poorly photocopied map that had been folded in fourths. A business card was stapled to the corner. This wasn’t a hotel; it was a guesthouse.
The clerk traced the path to the Ganges.
“You are here,” he said. “Assi Ghat.” He pointed at a dot on the map and another farther up, where the page creased to a point. “North. Burning ghats. No pictures.”
“How far should I go?”
The man shrugged. “Until you turn back.”
The Ganges didn’t give off the gentle roar of a seaside, but a constant lapping, like an unquenchable thirst. But even before he saw the water, children accosted him. One girl, no older than eight, clutched a basket filled with bowls made from leaves. Each bowl had a tea light surrounded by pink flower petals. Ted shook his head. She followed barefoot, as if tethered to him.
The river appeared: as wide, at least, as a highway, and moving just as fast. The dun-colored water reflected the sun in wave glints. This was Hinduism’s holiest river, the Great Mother. Should he have felt more respect, more reverence?