Devika had looked at the small girl through the helicopter's side window as she was lifted in — the specific, wide-eyed experience of being winched into a helicopter that produced in most adults a very pronounced expression and which produced in this small girl a focused, intent, thoroughly present look, as if she were going to remember every detail of this and she wanted to make sure she got it right.
Fourth lift: the Class 7 and Class 8 students. Three runs. Twelve children, twelve minutes of flying time each way — thirty-six minutes of flying, twelve minutes on the ground. She was getting the mathematics of it clear in her head, the logistics of how many more runs and how much fuel and whether the weather was holding. The weather was holding — not improving, not deteriorating. The cloud ceiling was where it was, the winds were where they were. She could keep flying.
She came back for the last group: the Class 9 students, Vikram, and the teacher.
The teacher was the last person she lifted. This had not been arranged — it had simply happened, because Priya Nair had done what she had done all morning: she had put herself after the children in every queue. She had ensured each group was safely in the helicopter before she moved to the next task. When Devika arrived for the final lift, the Class 9 students went up and Priya Nair stood on the ledge alone for the ninety seconds it took to send the students up and rig the harness for the descent again.
Alone on the limestone ledge, above the gorge. The water below had come up another metre in the time they had been operating — the flood was still running, still at near-peak level, brown and fast and entirely indifferent. The bus was still on the ledge — the yellow bus, still tilted, still improbably there.
