— Is it true, one man asks the other, — that the jail has been destroyed? I heard that the Pakistani terrorists escaped.
— Pakistanis, his coworker mutters. He clears his throat, lifts the corner of the kerchief, and spits. — Hey, he calls to Dev. — What are you looking at?
— You are fortunate, Dev says, — to still have your house.
The man with the bucket shakes his head, and the one on the chair laughs. — This is not our house, the lower one says.
The world has returned to its mercenary ways, so soon. The looters, these workers, the kabari—the feeling of camaraderie from two days ago has dissipated. It seems as though while the dust was still in the air, individual desires were veiled off from the heart, but now that people can see what they had and what they did not, the desires have returned, stronger than ever — stronger, now, with survivor’s purpose.
Dev sees Ted first, but Ted speaks first.
— What I did last night was completely inappropriate and inexcusable.
Dev waves his hand, as if fanning away smoke. — It’s not important anymore, he says.
— I took advantage of your hospitality.
— Please, Dev says. — I have pressing matters I need to discuss with you.
— Go on, Ted says. — I’m listening.
But what is within Dev will not emerge. Sadness has no destination, only a sheer drop.
— I—, he says. Dev’s hands tremble, a quiver that runs throughout his body. — I—
— Take your time.
I am sorry for your loss. I offer my condolences. Ted is wrong; there is no time, and they sit next to each other, silent, for what seems like hours. Ted looks prepared to say something, and Dev prays that he doesn’t, because it’s too late, Dev thinks. Too late. If he was ever angry at Ted, it was not because of what Ted was or because of what Ted did; it was because of what Ted represents. Ted is a path Dev could never have chosen, a life he could never have led.
So be it.
Dev takes Ted by the hand and leads him away.
They walk to the cold storage unit. As Dev grasps the door handle, Ted holds his breath. Dev does the same.
The inside of the unit looks as though it’s draped with a red curtain. The blood is organized by type, from A+ on the far left to O— on the right. In the center of the floor is the unknown subject. The floor here is the same as the other field hospitals, black-and-white parquet over plywood. Near the walls, the parquet curls into a wave. A thin sheet of plastic keeps him from sticking. Someone must have replaced the sheet covering him. The one in which he had been brought was bloodied. This one is stark white, dusted with frost. The last evaporations from his body.
Dev can’t remember the boy’s face. When he tries to picture it, he only sees Ted. And then, unbidden, he sees Padma, then a gross aggregate of the two. It’s as if he wished them both dead. Ted’s breath coalesces in midair and dissipates, like his soul made visible.
Dev pulls back the sheet, like he’s preparing Arusha for bed. The boy’s hair has become hoary with ice crystals, and he is suddenly inexplicably older. Dev hears people say all the time, He’s lived a good, long life. No, Dev will not say that this boy lived a “good, long life,” or that anyone has lived a “good, long life.” He will not see death as something other than it is: a waste.
Without a word, Ted leaves.
Dev finds him outside, standing near the abutting generator. The generators stay on as a contingency. The low thrum prevents Dev from hearing Ted cry.
— Ted? Dev doesn’t dare touch him. The ground beneath Ted grows moist.
— Andy, Ted says.
Ted punches the wall of the trailer. Dev hears his hand crack.
Another priority patient.
Dev binds Ted’s hand in gauze. Ted sits impassively, but the tears don’t stop. He gives Ted an aspirin because morphine is no good for this type of pain. Dev knows only one cure for grief.
The cure for sadness is not happiness. No. Happiness, to Dev, is a balloon tied to the wrist of a child missing both her hands. Nor is the cure for sadness less sadness: after all, Dev feels less sad when Arusha sits in his lap and burbles sounds that might one day be words. He feels less sad when Padma presents him a meal after an excruciating day at the hospital. His sadness lessens, but remains.
No — the cure for sadness is the elimination of desire. This is the Buddhist ideal, a patient once told him. K___ had traveled to Delhi from Arunachal Pradesh for treatment. He was a scholar of the region’s endangered languages, and when he died, his knowledge of those languages — Digaru, Sherdukpen, Hruso, Puriok — died with him. Shortly before his death, he stayed awake twenty hours a day, feverish, writing in a notebook. He had told his colleagues at Rajiv Gandhi University that he was ill but not from what.
CMV retinitis had already taken his right eye, so Dev sat on his left side.
The antiretrovirals are no longer having an effect, Dev said.
K___ continued writing.
We have a few options—, but K___ shook his head.
No more, K___ said.
But your work, Dev said. His handwriting was steady, crisp, but the ink blurred.
It is here, he said.
Don’t you want to complete it?
K___ shook his head, no more than a shiver.
I cannot desire more than what I already have, K___ said, because the more I desire, the more I suffer.
Dev desires so much. He desires a life that had taken a different path. He desires the impossible, the unattainable, and these desires cause sadness. But, most of all, he desires to hold this crying man, whose hand is white with bandages. He desires to embrace him, comfort him. Right now, he desires nothing more than to avert someone else’s sadness, to limit it, reduce it. But that he cannot — this, too, is sadness.
NORMALCY BIAS
Normalcy Bias, Defined
A fact: most people underestimate the extent of disaster. Piotr is never surprised to hear victims delude themselves. They interpret ambiguities as optimistic signs. The Indian government, for example, promised to restore power eight days ago, and each flickering lightbulb seems proof of their success. But these brief illuminations are merely tests, random surges. The Central Electricity Authority is at least three days away from bringing the grid back on line.
But he understands the impulse to hope for the best. People make plans for when things get “back to normal.” They think their lives will be unchanged. Things will get better, won’t they? they ask, and they answer themselves, Things will be fine.
This is normalcy bias at work.
The Cold Room
Ted’s Indian doctor friend leads Lorraine and Piotr to where they store bags of blood. The body is a bag of blood. He and Ted are bags of blood. A bullet would drain them as surely as it would drain any other of these bags.