Chapter 12 — The Bridge

Bhim Singh Rawat was sitting on the hood of his car at the Langsi bridge when she came around the last turn, and he stood up when he saw her, and the specific quality of his expression — not surprise, not relief, but the look of a man who has been waiting for four days and is not surprised to see her but is glad — told her that he had not been sure she would come back at all.She got in the car without slowing down."Drive," she said.He drove.They were two kilometers down the hill when she turned and looked through the rear window. The road behind them was empty. The bend in the path where the Sunderkhal track met the road was visible — nothing on it.She turned back to the front."You knew," she said. "Yesterday. You knew I'd come today."Bhim drove. His hands were steady on the wheel. "I knew if you were coming, it would be today," he said. "Tomorrow would have been too late.""Why today?""Because today was the third day. Three days is how long it takes." He paused. "For what, I don't know. My father said three days. He said the man from the district health office stayed three days. Rajan Sood—" He stopped."How do you know about Rajan Sood?""I drove him there," Bhim said. "I was the last person who saw him. The police know this. I have told them everything I know, which is very little." He paused. "He called me from the village on the second day. He said he was fine, he'd drunk the tea but he was fine. He said the children were interesting." A pause. "He didn't come back on the third day. He didn't call. I drove to the barrier. I called his phone. Nothing. I went to the police." He shook his head. "They said he had probably gone onward to another village. Lost his way. They didn't investigate."Meera looked at the road. The mountains on either side, the valley opening below, the ordinary world coming back in pieces — a powerline, a distant rooftop, a phone tower that her satellite phone had been receiving from."He drank the tea on the second day," she said. "Not the first.""Yes.""It takes two days to trust them enough to drink the tea," she said. "And then three days is too late.""Or he had already drunk the water," Bhim said. "The well. The cooking water. It is possible to drink it without being offered tea."She thought about this. The cooking water. The washing water. Three days in a village where the only water source was the well. She had not drunk anything. She had not eaten."Had I washed?" she said. It was not quite a question for Bhim. It was a question she was asking herself.She had washed her hands. At the well pump in the community hall. She had washed her face on the first morning, filling the basin from the community hall tap.She had washed her face in the village water."Stop the car," she said.Bhim stopped.She sat very still and thought about Dr. Amrita Bhardwaj writing: the compound does not need to be ingested. I believe it also absorbs through mucous membranes. I believe it absorbs through skin. I believe this because I have been careful about what I drink and I am still here.She thought about her face. Her eyes. The mucous membranes of the eyes.She thought about the children and their open, unblinking eyes.She thought about the fact that she had washed her face in the village water every morning for three days.She sat in the car."Dr. Vashisht," Bhim said. His voice was quiet."Keep driving," she said. "I need to get to a hospital. I need blood work. Now." She picked up her phone. "Keep driving, please."He drove.