There was probably only a short window in which he could fill the prescription, before word of the ruling had disseminated. But he had time, just as, later, he had time to stare at the schedule in Varanasi Junction and to dismiss the hustlers trying to sell him a space in a retiring room with a magic word: nahi.
The sun rose above the east side of the river, the barren side, the side with ramshackle huts that no one noticed. Was the Ganges less holy on that bank?
A raging chasm, an unbreachable gulf.
This early, the Ganges was a different river. No crowds. Only the devout: a woman shaving her head with a straight razor; a gaggle of youngsters waddling by in duckling-white robes; a young man carrying his mother in his arms, dipping her in the water, and bringing her back up the steps. A man, chest-deep, filled and emptied a silver chalice. His long white beard floated in the water like cotton. These silent acts of devotion.
Ted threw Dev’s sock as far as he could into the river.
You left something behind in Varanasi, Ted told Dev. Two things, as a matter of fact.
And what will you leave behind?
I don’t know.
You do know.
The sun gathered strength. Flashes of heat skimmed off the water.
You know, Dev said, but you’re afraid.
I’m not afraid, Ted insisted. OK, maybe a little.
Let go, Dev said.
Ted stepped in. The water came to his ankle. He couldn’t see his foot. Pilgrims bathed in the Ganges to circumvent the cycle of rebirth. They would no longer need a physical body. Their souls rose directly to heaven. Even one drop, carried by the wind a thousand miles, was enough to purify someone.
If I do this, will you forgive me?
It is not a matter of forgiveness, Dev said.
Ted waded in waist-high. The ground shifted beneath his feet; his shoes felt as if they were coming loose. The sun pricked the crown of his head, the skin on his arms.
God, he prayed, or gods, whichever the case may be, I offer you my old life, slightly used, slightly worse for the wear. Its quotient of good deeds to bad deeds is running less than half-and-half, which is why I give it to you now. I want to ascend. Not all the way to heaven, but to a place with a little less suffering, a little less sadness. I want to be the one who reduces that suffering, that sadness. I want—
Dev interrupted: It is not a matter of want.
You’re right.
I will be, Ted continued, a better person.
He stretched his arms hallelujah wide. And though the reasons why he shouldn’t were many — E. coli, dysentery, cholera, hepatitis — he fell backward anyhow. The baptism was quick, warm, uneventful. He shook the water out of his hair and wiped it from his eyes. He still had Dev’s pill, a dose that both healed and poisoned. In that respect, it was indistinguishable from the Ganges.
Let go, Dev said, and Ted let go. Dev was gone. John was gone. The silt lodged beneath his fingernails was gone. He let go of what he saw around him and what he would never understand. He let go of his clothes and his job, his career and his expense account. He let go of Ann, who’d be fine without him. He let go of his Chelsea apartment and its high ceilings, its proximity to the trappings of his old life. He let go of the past and the future, of sad memories and unrealized possibilities alike. All gone. He let go: good-bye, good-bye, good-bye. A dam broke, and a flood washed the old Ted away. The river took him northbound, where he would mingle with the ashes of loved ones already freed from their bodies.
RECOVERY
VARIETIES OF HUNGER
Here’s the problem with food distribution in Bhuj:
Muslims don’t eat pork.
Hindus don’t eat beef, and a large number of Hindus are vegetarian.
Jains don’t eat meat of any kind, including fish or eggs. As well, no honey, no figs, no butter. Orthodox Jains also abstain from root vegetables, and the monks who believe in nonviolence — ahimsa — extend this to all living creatures. They cover their mouths with cloth to avoid inhaling mosquitoes or gnats and sweep the path in front of them as they walk to clear ants that might be crushed by their footsteps.
“Wait,” says Irina. “There’s more.”
The monks don’t eat from sunset to sunrise, as this is when bacteria flourish. No food that’s been left out overnight. Onion and garlic inflame the senses and increase sexual desire, so nix those too. Finally, there’s something about mixing raw grains with raw yogurt or milk, but Irina isn’t exactly sure what that’s about.
“Do we need to follow these strictures?” Ted asks.
Irina grabs her ponytail by its root and shifts it over to her left shoulder. Her nose is as sharp as a milk carton spout. “Obviously,” she says, “getting food into people’s mouths is our primary responsibility. But there’s no difference between someone starving because they don’t have food available and someone starving because they are unable to eat the food they have.”
Last week, this warehouse stored ammunition. The smell of gunpowder lingers, and the floor is black with tire treads. Fuel canisters line the walls, draped with sand camouflage tarps, their rotund bodies on the verge of exploding. All it would take is a spark. A match.
Irina doesn’t know how long the World Food Programme can store supplies here — over three hundred metric tons of food have passed through — but she hopes that they can establish a semipermanent facility. “At least until the emergency has passed,” she says.
But who knows when that will be?
Irina shrugs. “Better to ask God than me.”
She takes Ted on a tour. Grains here, prepackaged ready-to-eat meals here, perishables here. Ted tries to commit the layout to memory. He feels likes a new employee at a supermarket. The floor near the entrance is treacherous with spilled grain. People skid and leave streaks. All this food — enough to slide in — and so much hunger everywhere else.
“Most of the immediate need has passed,” Irina says, “so we’re transitioning from high-energy biscuits and BP-5s toward food baskets. Use your judgment.”
His judgment. Oh boy. Yesterday, several trucks repeated their routes, delivering to villages that had already received aid bundles. Some dumped the food on the side of the road: rice spilling out of burlap sacks; pallets of water bottles, full of brightness, covered beneath sand. This is now his problem.
“In the city itself, people have gotten accustomed to the distribution points,” Irina continues. “You shouldn’t have any trouble.”
“What sorts of trouble?”
“Crowds,” she says. “Riots.” She wipes a lock of blond hair off her face and tucks it behind her ear. “The ordinary.”
Trucks back up to wooden ramps set at the entrance, and workers wheel crates onto them. The engines’ rumbles bounce off the walls. A den of lions.
“Shall I go with the deliveries?” Ted asks.