Bagdogra Airport
By Nod Ghosh
I swear there's a fly's wing in my pistachio ice cream.
"Take it back," Alice says, cupping my hand in hers.
I pull away from her, and beckon to the waitress. The woman hitches up her green sari and waddles over like a lettuce on wheels.
When I show her the wing, she takes my spoon and scoops the appendage out. The rest of the insect's body follows. The woman wipes the spoon on a green cloth that's tucked into her waist, returns it, looking at me like I'm an incompetent child.
"There," she says, only it sounds like dare. She walks away.
"Let's get out of here," Alice says.
I take a sip of tea before we leave. It's the worst cup of tea I've tasted in my life.
Alice grabs her backpack, and I follow her into the searing green light that filters through the canopy outside the cafeteria.
Everything is green.
I haven't seen so much green in all the time we've been in India. Apart from the cotton wool snow-peaked Himalayas in the distance, there is green everywhere. The terraced tea plantations, the glint of it in the trees, even the liver-coloured turds in the long-drop toilets are tinged a sappy green.
In the market, a tarpaulin flaps as a hot wind blows through. It offers little protection to the scarves and shawls that sit beneath it like folded butterflies. It stopped raining half an hour ago, and immediately everything was engulfed in a steamy heat. Grey clouds hover in the distance, and water trickles through roadside channels, reminding us things might change at any moment.
"Gen-u-in Dar-ji-ling tea," a boy shouts. He runs between potential targets, tugging at their clothes. He's luring them the cafeteria Alice and I just left, where they'll be served polystyrene containers of over-stewed cha with obligatory sugar and milk. And flies. The boy nearly runs into me when I stop to light a beedi.
"Chale jao," I order, and he skitters away. I need the toilet.
Alice pushes through a crowd of locals towards a stall displaying a kaleidoscopic array of T-shirts. I follow. Her familiar laughter jars, and that's when the urge I've felt all week gets stronger. She hands the vendor some notes and coins, tosses her head, throwing a halo of dreadlocks into the air, an irritating gesture, but how can you tell someone to stop doing something like that? She pushes her sequined purse back into the pocket of her faded blue jacket. The effort required to manoeuvre her backpack onto her shoulders is a reminder of her condition. I could offer to help, but I don't. She's deep in conversation anyway, likely being persuaded to part with more cash.
A hawker shouts. "Take? You will take? Give good lucks for new Millennium." He pushes a laminated sheet onto my chest. "Two rupee." The sheet has images of Ganesh, Kali and Michael Jackson printed on it. At least it looks like Michael Jackson. I walk away. A tiny girl no higher than my thigh jingles dancing bells at me. Her bare feet splash through puddles. Her tattered frock is several sizes too big, and circles of brown skin show through the holes.
I place my fingers over my groin to feel the pulse of my passport bag under my jeans, to check it is still there, to push on the satisfying bulk of it. The pressure on my abdomen reminds me I need a slash. The child holds out a set of bells, and smiles. I turn away to see what Alice is doing. She's still talking. Her silhouette against the yellow-green light emphasises her pregnancy.
She looks very different these days.
When I met Alice, she was working at the Carrington1 bar. She reached up for the optics, revealing inches of bare belly, taut and tanned. I knew then, that she'd be coming home with me that night. I wanted to crush her slight body under my own.
Alice is one of those women who become broad rather than curvaceous when pregnant. An old woman in Delhi said it meant she was carrying a boy. I think it makes her look dumpy. Her dreadlocks are matted and fraying. They were sleek and shiny the night we met. She'd handed me a glass and our eyes locked. The buzz and bustle of the Carrington1 had continued around us, but it was like we were the only ones there.
***
I run my fingers through my dreads. Wish I had the gear to look after them properly. My body is changing. I put my fingers to my lips, and there's a musty smell from my scalp. I work hard to suppress the retching and nausea.
Mac's been looking at other girls recently, even some of the locals, wearing little more than a band of fabric around their brown bodies. There was a time when he looked at me like that. Hungrily. I need something to make me feel beautiful again. Something special.
***
This has been a difficult journey. Alice picks over shirts and holding them up to the citrus light. We started travelling six months into the relationship. I was tentative about coming away with her so soon, but I liked the feel of her back curving against my chest in bed, and thought I might miss it.
Now it's turned into a different sort of adventure.
If I'd come on my own, I could have seen more, done more, tried more. I could have disappeared into unknown territory, but there's no point dwelling on that now.
I told Alice I loved her before we came away. The words slipped through my lips at the peak of my orgasm, before I could stop them.
Her sickness started soon after we reached Thailand. She lost weight, and felt tired all the time. Her face puffed up and was covered in spots. We put it down to the change in climate, the water, anything but the obvious.
We carried on travelling.
After she saw the doctor in Delhi she came back to the hotel glowing. She showed me a sonogram. I'd suppressed the fear that crept up my gullet, and forced a smile.
I dip into the side street, look behind me once, and quicken my pace. I untie my ponytail hoping it will release the tension that creeps across my scalp.
About three streets from the market, a crowd pours out from a white building, leaving a concert. The women are dressed in colourful silk, a flotilla of turquoise, magenta and lime green. The men wear white linens, which contrast with the leathery brown of their skins. My khaki shirt is conspicuous for its drabness, and offers little camouflage. The crowd thins, and I look back over my shoulder, walk a little faster. There's a hole in my shoe, and my sock is wet. In the distance, the bass boom of a temple gong resonates, and the reek of incense penetrates the air.
I walk toward a line of auto-rickshaws, and signal a driver who's leaning against a post. Squeezing my pack into the cavity of the yellow and turquoise vehicle, I climb into what is little more than a bloated scooter. The driver hawks a red line of paan-stained spit onto the ground, and mounts his seat. His chest rattles so badly I think he should have died years ago. Other rickshaw-wallahs crowd around me offering discounted prices to temples and markets. I hand my guy a wad of rupees, and shout at him.
"Go, go now."
He twists the throttle, and we set off.
"Where you go?"
I tell him my destination. "Can you take me?" He doubles back and heads back in the direction we came from. A back packer in a faded blue jacket is negotiating with another driver near the post, and I almost piss myself, I need to go that badly.
"It too far," he says. "I take you to truck stop. You get car there to take you."
The driver pulls into a stream of belching lorries. The backpacker turns to look at me. I look straight into her − but it's a guy, a guy with missing teeth. I rummage in my pocket for the pack of beedis.
***
When I hold the shirt up to the strange greeny-yellow light, the intricate embroidery stuns me. Swirling zodiac patterns. Seventeen different threads the vendor says, eager to make a sale. It's so beautiful. I hand him the cash. I want to wear it now, so I throw my pack on the ground, slump the blue jacket over it.
"You are liking?" the stallholder says.
"I love it," I tell him.
"Hey Mac, check this out," I say stretching the purples, blue and crimson stiches over my abdomen, over our baby. I look around. Mac's wandered off somewhere. "Mac," I shout, struggling to be heard over the din of the market.
Where's he gone?
***
I really need to pee, so when we get to the truck stop, I jump out of the rickshaw without tipping the driver. I probably gave him a week's wages already anyway. It's warmer and drier at the truck stop than it was in town. A bunch of local guys thread in and out of the shacks where you can buy anything; anti-malarial pills, monkey curry, hashish or a cheeseburger with no burger in it. It's been hours since I ate, but I have no appetite. I sneak into a gap behind the stalls, pull my cock out and piss into the dusty earth. A small girl creeps out of one of the huts and stares me. I shake drips off my penis and stare back at her.
It doesn't take long to strike a deal. A guy wearing a Manchester United shirt will take me. It's stinking hot in his truck, but I have to wait for him to load packages onto the roof. I hope there's air-con, but there probably won't be.
Maybe I should go back − but no. That would be stupid.
***
It's so hot, but a cold chill racks my body. My new shirt is circled with sweat under the arms. I need to control my breathing, but it's hard, so hard. Did I walk down this alley already? Fuck, I'm back where I started. There's the shop where I − must stop breathing so fast − bad for the baby − where is he? The distance. The distance between us. I didn't imagine it. He's been looking at other girls recently. My breathing. Hungrily. I − I must stop breathing − breathing so fast. I didn't imagine the distance between us. It's real.
He has all our money.
***
My eyes are dry and sandy. The truck pulls away, and I step into the belly of Bagdogra airport. It's as warm inside as out. I shrug off my jacket strap it to my pack. A skinny guy with a canker over his eye mumbles something and tugs at my pack and tries to take it off me.
"What? No. Leave it."
"I for you carry. I help." He's surprisingly strong for his scrawny build. The man tries to wrest my luggage from me, but I shoo him away, like he's a fly.
"No. I want no help. I can do it myself." I buy a fizzy drink and extinguish the furnace in my throat. Then the battle to change my flight begins.
***
I trudge up the hill towards the back-packers we stayed at last night, and god − my pack is so heavy. Someone outside the entrance speaks to me, and my voice cracks when I try to reply. I'm breathing so fast. There's laughter and Western pop music coming from inside the building.
When I describe Mac to the receptionist, and ask if he's been back, he rolls his head from side to side like a bobblehead doll.
"No, Madam." The guy smiles. "You will take a room?"
"I need," I begin, but I have no idea what I need. That's when the tears come.
Mac's been looking at other girls recently.
Shafts of sunlight trace patterns onto the foyer floor. They appear blurred through my teared-up eyes. The receptionist sits me down behind the counter, and barks an order to a skinny man. Minutes later, he returns with the proprietor.
"You not fly Kolkata today, Madam?"
"Kolkata? No."
"Your husband, he telephone Bagdogra airport this morning, but line is bad."
My husband? Kolkata?
"I need a taxi. Get me a taxi now." My voice is petulant and strained. I sound like my mother.
But then I remember. I grab my sequined purse, and pull out a roll of notes. A shower of coins falls to the floor. There's barely enough in there for a meal, let alone a taxi. Two ragged children materialise to help pick up the money I dropped. It's only when I start to thank them that they run off with my coins. I'm still breathing fast, and my hysterical laughter is a rabid animal noise that splits the air. I wipe hot tears with the back of my hand.
The hill was really steep on the way here. I had to stop three times.
***
I walk away from the counter scratching at my chin. The airport lounge is heaving. There is a low murmur from a hundred conversations. I've been travelling for months and am covered in grime, but still I'm reluctant to put my luggage on the ground. Brown and grey stains tar the airport floor. The hot human smell in the terminal suggests the airport's army of cleaners fight a losing battle. My hair is in my face, so I pull it back into a ponytail.
I'm close to the front of the queue, and it's time to get my passport out. A tattered photograph falls out of it. Two smiling faces. I have my arm around Alice in the picture. A haggard mother to my right struggles to calm a screaming child. Does Alice know I'm gone yet?
Do I care?
The mother lays her child on the filth of the airport floor. The wriggling toddler tries to roll away as she begins the ritual of changing it. The stink adds to the aroma of stale curry, sweat and cigarette smoke that chokes Bagdogra airport. The toddler smiles at me, and there's a glint of creamy new teeth in its mouth. I look away, and try to stop thinking about the rancid brown mess that is pancaked onto the child’s arse. Though I turn away, but I can't escape the oniony smell. My stomach lurches.
An emaciated woman with a humped back shuffles past. She wears minimal underclothing beneath her holed sari, and wields an ineffectual jhatta over the debris on the floor producing a swirl of dust. A cacophony of blowflies circles the globes that illuminate the lounge. I screw up the photo and toss it into an overflowing litterbin. It misses and bounces onto the blotched white tiles.
***
The woman is from Berlin. I swear I'll pay her back some day, though fuck knows if I ever can. I insist I will though, as I wave through the open window of the taxi. Stupid, as I haven't taken note of her address, and will never be able to find her.
What if I'm making a mistake? Could he have become disorientated? Is Mac still wandering the streets of Darjeeling?
I might be wrong, but I'm probably not. We were heading for Sikkim, not Kolkata.
"What is your destination, Madam?" the taxi driver smiles through paan-stained teeth.
"Bagdogra airport." I look for a seatbelt, but there isn't one. "Quickly, please."
***
The tannoy announces my flight's departure. My leg jumps, and I suck hard on the stub of my fag. A family dressed in identical tracksuits comments about the places they're planning to visit, until someone behind them interrupts. Accusations fly about stealing places in the queue. I clench my teeth and toy with the boarding pass poking from my worn passport.
On the tarmac, I head towards the metal steps of the aircraft. Beside the runway, the green grass is vibrant and exhilarating. Something inside me relaxes, like a long exhalation. I climb into the plane without looking back.
***
When I burst into the departure lounge, my eyes are sore, and my breath comes in short bursts. My backpack is still too heavy, even though I dumped half my stuff in the taxi. I'm not even running, but I'm out of breath.
At the information desk, my tongue fails to articulate. I sound incoherent. A little less like my mother now, a little more like a woman who's suffered a stroke, or is deranged. Eventually I tell the clerk what I need to, but she says she can't help me. I bang my fist on the desk. Even if I had memorised Mac's passport number, she says, she couldn't do anything for me.
I slump into one of the rigid seats and cradle my head in my hands, feel the tears wash through my fingers. I need a plan. I need a plan, but right now I can't think.
I take the torn and faded photograph from the side section of my sequined purse. Mac's smiling face, so carefree. A protective arm wrapped around me. I look so young, so happy.
Mac's been looking at other girls recently. There was a time when he looked at me like that. Hungrily. I need something to make me feel beautiful again. But I know I'll never find it.
The tannoy announces the departure of a flight to Kolkata.
My sequined purse is on my knee and I rummage through it, but don't really know what I'm looking for.
Through the window I see a miniscule dot of a retreating aircraft. It fades into the distance, beyond my reach.
"Take it back," Alice says, cupping my hand in hers.
I pull away from her, and beckon to the waitress. The woman hitches up her green sari and waddles over like a lettuce on wheels.
When I show her the wing, she takes my spoon and scoops the appendage out. The rest of the insect's body follows. The woman wipes the spoon on a green cloth that's tucked into her waist, returns it, looking at me like I'm an incompetent child.
"There," she says, only it sounds like dare. She walks away.
"Let's get out of here," Alice says.
I take a sip of tea before we leave. It's the worst cup of tea I've tasted in my life.
Alice grabs her backpack, and I follow her into the searing green light that filters through the canopy outside the cafeteria.
Everything is green.
I haven't seen so much green in all the time we've been in India. Apart from the cotton wool snow-peaked Himalayas in the distance, there is green everywhere. The terraced tea plantations, the glint of it in the trees, even the liver-coloured turds in the long-drop toilets are tinged a sappy green.
In the market, a tarpaulin flaps as a hot wind blows through. It offers little protection to the scarves and shawls that sit beneath it like folded butterflies. It stopped raining half an hour ago, and immediately everything was engulfed in a steamy heat. Grey clouds hover in the distance, and water trickles through roadside channels, reminding us things might change at any moment.
"Gen-u-in Dar-ji-ling tea," a boy shouts. He runs between potential targets, tugging at their clothes. He's luring them the cafeteria Alice and I just left, where they'll be served polystyrene containers of over-stewed cha with obligatory sugar and milk. And flies. The boy nearly runs into me when I stop to light a beedi.
"Chale jao," I order, and he skitters away. I need the toilet.
Alice pushes through a crowd of locals towards a stall displaying a kaleidoscopic array of T-shirts. I follow. Her familiar laughter jars, and that's when the urge I've felt all week gets stronger. She hands the vendor some notes and coins, tosses her head, throwing a halo of dreadlocks into the air, an irritating gesture, but how can you tell someone to stop doing something like that? She pushes her sequined purse back into the pocket of her faded blue jacket. The effort required to manoeuvre her backpack onto her shoulders is a reminder of her condition. I could offer to help, but I don't. She's deep in conversation anyway, likely being persuaded to part with more cash.
A hawker shouts. "Take? You will take? Give good lucks for new Millennium." He pushes a laminated sheet onto my chest. "Two rupee." The sheet has images of Ganesh, Kali and Michael Jackson printed on it. At least it looks like Michael Jackson. I walk away. A tiny girl no higher than my thigh jingles dancing bells at me. Her bare feet splash through puddles. Her tattered frock is several sizes too big, and circles of brown skin show through the holes.
I place my fingers over my groin to feel the pulse of my passport bag under my jeans, to check it is still there, to push on the satisfying bulk of it. The pressure on my abdomen reminds me I need a slash. The child holds out a set of bells, and smiles. I turn away to see what Alice is doing. She's still talking. Her silhouette against the yellow-green light emphasises her pregnancy.
She looks very different these days.
When I met Alice, she was working at the Carrington1 bar. She reached up for the optics, revealing inches of bare belly, taut and tanned. I knew then, that she'd be coming home with me that night. I wanted to crush her slight body under my own.
Alice is one of those women who become broad rather than curvaceous when pregnant. An old woman in Delhi said it meant she was carrying a boy. I think it makes her look dumpy. Her dreadlocks are matted and fraying. They were sleek and shiny the night we met. She'd handed me a glass and our eyes locked. The buzz and bustle of the Carrington1 had continued around us, but it was like we were the only ones there.
***
I run my fingers through my dreads. Wish I had the gear to look after them properly. My body is changing. I put my fingers to my lips, and there's a musty smell from my scalp. I work hard to suppress the retching and nausea.
Mac's been looking at other girls recently, even some of the locals, wearing little more than a band of fabric around their brown bodies. There was a time when he looked at me like that. Hungrily. I need something to make me feel beautiful again. Something special.
***
This has been a difficult journey. Alice picks over shirts and holding them up to the citrus light. We started travelling six months into the relationship. I was tentative about coming away with her so soon, but I liked the feel of her back curving against my chest in bed, and thought I might miss it.
Now it's turned into a different sort of adventure.
If I'd come on my own, I could have seen more, done more, tried more. I could have disappeared into unknown territory, but there's no point dwelling on that now.
I told Alice I loved her before we came away. The words slipped through my lips at the peak of my orgasm, before I could stop them.
Her sickness started soon after we reached Thailand. She lost weight, and felt tired all the time. Her face puffed up and was covered in spots. We put it down to the change in climate, the water, anything but the obvious.
We carried on travelling.
After she saw the doctor in Delhi she came back to the hotel glowing. She showed me a sonogram. I'd suppressed the fear that crept up my gullet, and forced a smile.
I dip into the side street, look behind me once, and quicken my pace. I untie my ponytail hoping it will release the tension that creeps across my scalp.
About three streets from the market, a crowd pours out from a white building, leaving a concert. The women are dressed in colourful silk, a flotilla of turquoise, magenta and lime green. The men wear white linens, which contrast with the leathery brown of their skins. My khaki shirt is conspicuous for its drabness, and offers little camouflage. The crowd thins, and I look back over my shoulder, walk a little faster. There's a hole in my shoe, and my sock is wet. In the distance, the bass boom of a temple gong resonates, and the reek of incense penetrates the air.
I walk toward a line of auto-rickshaws, and signal a driver who's leaning against a post. Squeezing my pack into the cavity of the yellow and turquoise vehicle, I climb into what is little more than a bloated scooter. The driver hawks a red line of paan-stained spit onto the ground, and mounts his seat. His chest rattles so badly I think he should have died years ago. Other rickshaw-wallahs crowd around me offering discounted prices to temples and markets. I hand my guy a wad of rupees, and shout at him.
"Go, go now."
He twists the throttle, and we set off.
"Where you go?"
I tell him my destination. "Can you take me?" He doubles back and heads back in the direction we came from. A back packer in a faded blue jacket is negotiating with another driver near the post, and I almost piss myself, I need to go that badly.
"It too far," he says. "I take you to truck stop. You get car there to take you."
The driver pulls into a stream of belching lorries. The backpacker turns to look at me. I look straight into her − but it's a guy, a guy with missing teeth. I rummage in my pocket for the pack of beedis.
***
When I hold the shirt up to the strange greeny-yellow light, the intricate embroidery stuns me. Swirling zodiac patterns. Seventeen different threads the vendor says, eager to make a sale. It's so beautiful. I hand him the cash. I want to wear it now, so I throw my pack on the ground, slump the blue jacket over it.
"You are liking?" the stallholder says.
"I love it," I tell him.
"Hey Mac, check this out," I say stretching the purples, blue and crimson stiches over my abdomen, over our baby. I look around. Mac's wandered off somewhere. "Mac," I shout, struggling to be heard over the din of the market.
Where's he gone?
***
I really need to pee, so when we get to the truck stop, I jump out of the rickshaw without tipping the driver. I probably gave him a week's wages already anyway. It's warmer and drier at the truck stop than it was in town. A bunch of local guys thread in and out of the shacks where you can buy anything; anti-malarial pills, monkey curry, hashish or a cheeseburger with no burger in it. It's been hours since I ate, but I have no appetite. I sneak into a gap behind the stalls, pull my cock out and piss into the dusty earth. A small girl creeps out of one of the huts and stares me. I shake drips off my penis and stare back at her.
It doesn't take long to strike a deal. A guy wearing a Manchester United shirt will take me. It's stinking hot in his truck, but I have to wait for him to load packages onto the roof. I hope there's air-con, but there probably won't be.
Maybe I should go back − but no. That would be stupid.
***
It's so hot, but a cold chill racks my body. My new shirt is circled with sweat under the arms. I need to control my breathing, but it's hard, so hard. Did I walk down this alley already? Fuck, I'm back where I started. There's the shop where I − must stop breathing so fast − bad for the baby − where is he? The distance. The distance between us. I didn't imagine it. He's been looking at other girls recently. My breathing. Hungrily. I − I must stop breathing − breathing so fast. I didn't imagine the distance between us. It's real.
He has all our money.
***
My eyes are dry and sandy. The truck pulls away, and I step into the belly of Bagdogra airport. It's as warm inside as out. I shrug off my jacket strap it to my pack. A skinny guy with a canker over his eye mumbles something and tugs at my pack and tries to take it off me.
"What? No. Leave it."
"I for you carry. I help." He's surprisingly strong for his scrawny build. The man tries to wrest my luggage from me, but I shoo him away, like he's a fly.
"No. I want no help. I can do it myself." I buy a fizzy drink and extinguish the furnace in my throat. Then the battle to change my flight begins.
***
I trudge up the hill towards the back-packers we stayed at last night, and god − my pack is so heavy. Someone outside the entrance speaks to me, and my voice cracks when I try to reply. I'm breathing so fast. There's laughter and Western pop music coming from inside the building.
When I describe Mac to the receptionist, and ask if he's been back, he rolls his head from side to side like a bobblehead doll.
"No, Madam." The guy smiles. "You will take a room?"
"I need," I begin, but I have no idea what I need. That's when the tears come.
Mac's been looking at other girls recently.
Shafts of sunlight trace patterns onto the foyer floor. They appear blurred through my teared-up eyes. The receptionist sits me down behind the counter, and barks an order to a skinny man. Minutes later, he returns with the proprietor.
"You not fly Kolkata today, Madam?"
"Kolkata? No."
"Your husband, he telephone Bagdogra airport this morning, but line is bad."
My husband? Kolkata?
"I need a taxi. Get me a taxi now." My voice is petulant and strained. I sound like my mother.
But then I remember. I grab my sequined purse, and pull out a roll of notes. A shower of coins falls to the floor. There's barely enough in there for a meal, let alone a taxi. Two ragged children materialise to help pick up the money I dropped. It's only when I start to thank them that they run off with my coins. I'm still breathing fast, and my hysterical laughter is a rabid animal noise that splits the air. I wipe hot tears with the back of my hand.
The hill was really steep on the way here. I had to stop three times.
***
I walk away from the counter scratching at my chin. The airport lounge is heaving. There is a low murmur from a hundred conversations. I've been travelling for months and am covered in grime, but still I'm reluctant to put my luggage on the ground. Brown and grey stains tar the airport floor. The hot human smell in the terminal suggests the airport's army of cleaners fight a losing battle. My hair is in my face, so I pull it back into a ponytail.
I'm close to the front of the queue, and it's time to get my passport out. A tattered photograph falls out of it. Two smiling faces. I have my arm around Alice in the picture. A haggard mother to my right struggles to calm a screaming child. Does Alice know I'm gone yet?
Do I care?
The mother lays her child on the filth of the airport floor. The wriggling toddler tries to roll away as she begins the ritual of changing it. The stink adds to the aroma of stale curry, sweat and cigarette smoke that chokes Bagdogra airport. The toddler smiles at me, and there's a glint of creamy new teeth in its mouth. I look away, and try to stop thinking about the rancid brown mess that is pancaked onto the child’s arse. Though I turn away, but I can't escape the oniony smell. My stomach lurches.
An emaciated woman with a humped back shuffles past. She wears minimal underclothing beneath her holed sari, and wields an ineffectual jhatta over the debris on the floor producing a swirl of dust. A cacophony of blowflies circles the globes that illuminate the lounge. I screw up the photo and toss it into an overflowing litterbin. It misses and bounces onto the blotched white tiles.
***
The woman is from Berlin. I swear I'll pay her back some day, though fuck knows if I ever can. I insist I will though, as I wave through the open window of the taxi. Stupid, as I haven't taken note of her address, and will never be able to find her.
What if I'm making a mistake? Could he have become disorientated? Is Mac still wandering the streets of Darjeeling?
I might be wrong, but I'm probably not. We were heading for Sikkim, not Kolkata.
"What is your destination, Madam?" the taxi driver smiles through paan-stained teeth.
"Bagdogra airport." I look for a seatbelt, but there isn't one. "Quickly, please."
***
The tannoy announces my flight's departure. My leg jumps, and I suck hard on the stub of my fag. A family dressed in identical tracksuits comments about the places they're planning to visit, until someone behind them interrupts. Accusations fly about stealing places in the queue. I clench my teeth and toy with the boarding pass poking from my worn passport.
On the tarmac, I head towards the metal steps of the aircraft. Beside the runway, the green grass is vibrant and exhilarating. Something inside me relaxes, like a long exhalation. I climb into the plane without looking back.
***
When I burst into the departure lounge, my eyes are sore, and my breath comes in short bursts. My backpack is still too heavy, even though I dumped half my stuff in the taxi. I'm not even running, but I'm out of breath.
At the information desk, my tongue fails to articulate. I sound incoherent. A little less like my mother now, a little more like a woman who's suffered a stroke, or is deranged. Eventually I tell the clerk what I need to, but she says she can't help me. I bang my fist on the desk. Even if I had memorised Mac's passport number, she says, she couldn't do anything for me.
I slump into one of the rigid seats and cradle my head in my hands, feel the tears wash through my fingers. I need a plan. I need a plan, but right now I can't think.
I take the torn and faded photograph from the side section of my sequined purse. Mac's smiling face, so carefree. A protective arm wrapped around me. I look so young, so happy.
Mac's been looking at other girls recently. There was a time when he looked at me like that. Hungrily. I need something to make me feel beautiful again. But I know I'll never find it.
The tannoy announces the departure of a flight to Kolkata.
My sequined purse is on my knee and I rummage through it, but don't really know what I'm looking for.
Through the window I see a miniscule dot of a retreating aircraft. It fades into the distance, beyond my reach.
Nod Ghosh lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. Published work can be found in: Love on the Road 2015 (Liberties Press), Landmarks (UK 2015 NFFD), Sleep is A Beautiful Colour (UK 2017 NFFD), Horizons2 (NZSA), Leaving the Red Zone (Clerestory Press, NZ), and various online and print journals. Further details: http://www.nodghosh.com/about/
