Chapter 14 — The Recursion

Her face.Entirely her face.She felt something release in her chest that she had not known was clenched, because it had been clenching so long she had forgotten what unclenched felt like. A relief so specific and physical that she had to sit down on the floor of the flat, on the dusty floor, and put her back against the bed and look at the ceiling for a while.The door opened.Poorvi came in. And then Mrs. Rane, in the doorway."Tanvi," Poorvi said. Her voice was doing the thing it did when she was trying not to let emotion into it and couldn't quite manage."I'm here," Tanvi said, from the floor."You've been in here twenty-three minutes," Poorvi said."I know," Tanvi said."Did it—""Yes," Tanvi said.Poorvi looked at the mirror."Is it—""Yes," Tanvi said. "I think so. I think it's gone."She looked at Mrs. Rane in the doorway. The older woman was looking at the mirror with the specific expression of someone who has been carrying a forty-year-old fear and is in the process of setting it down."Is it gone?" Poorvi said to Mrs. Rane.Mrs. Rane looked at the mirror for a long time.Then she crossed the room — very deliberately, the walk of someone who has decided to go somewhere and is not stopping — and she stood in front of the mirror and she looked at her own reflection.She looked at it for a long time."Yes," she said. "Just a mirror." She touched the teak frame. Just wood. Very old wood. "Just a mirror."