Maya by C. W. Huntington Page A

was far from the best of circumstances. An odd whining noise rose to a crescendo and then trailed off into the void.
    â€œStanley, I got a letter from Beth.” Beth was a good friend of ours, and I’d written to her several times. “She says you might be staying on in India.”
    â€œShe does?” I managed to sound astonished.
    â€œLonger than the time you were supposed to, I mean.”
    â€œShe told you that?”
    â€œBut is it true? Are you thinking about not coming back this spring?”
    I should not have written to Beth about my thoughts of staying on. But it was too late to think about that now. I couldn’t tell whether Judith sounded simply hurt, or incredulous, or both. Her voice was so small, so distant.
    â€œIt’s a different world here,” I stammered. “It’s been hard, you know, just getting used to everything.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    The line crackled and popped.
    â€œJudith?” More static. “Are you still there?”
    â€œYes, I’m here. Can you hear me now?”
    â€œYes, I can hear you.”
    â€œI said,” she repeated, “what do you mean?”
    I hesitated. “I don’t know what I mean . . . I mean it’s strange. By the time you adapt to life here . . . something inside you has changed. You’re utterly miserable, but you don’t want to leave after working so hard to get used to being miserable.” I pretended to laugh, but what came up was more like a snort.
    â€œYou don’t want to come back home?”
    I couldn’t think of how to respond to this, and for a while neither of us spoke. I listened to the static while precious seconds dropped like tiny sparks into the night air. At last her voice emerged from the steady hum of electrical silence.
    â€œDo you like it there?”
    â€œI don’t know, Judith.”
    This time she faked the laugh. “You don’t seem to know much of anything.”
    â€œYeah, I guess I do . . . I mean, yes. I suppose I do like it here. Somehow.”
    No response to that. Instead, she told me about a friend of ours who had recently moved to Chicago. They had gone to lunch together just the day before in an Indian restaurant not far from where he lived. She told me everything she had ordered: “some kind of mushy spinach and cheese, and tea with about a ton of sugar.”
    â€œBut it was good,” she added, in a faintly apologetic tone.
    She talked about her job. I told her I was changing the focus of my research from Vedanta to Mahayana Buddhism. We exchanged this sort of disjointed information for another few minutes, punctuated by cries of “Hello? Hello? Are you there?” while I strained to take hold of the familiar sound of her voice as if it were something tangible, something I could touch and smell and taste.
    In the end it was me who couldn’t go on.
    â€œIt’s hard to say goodbye,” she said. “Oh Stanley, I wanted this to work.” She was crying.
    â€œJudith . . . I love you.”
    â€œDo you? Do you really love me, Stanley?”
    â€œYes, of course.” Of course ? What a totally stupid thing to say.
    â€œPlease write,” she said. “The letters help.”
    â€œI will. I promise.”
    â€œSoon, okay?”
    â€œI’ll do it tonight. I . . .” But there was nothing left to say. “Goodbye, Judith.”
    â€œGoodbye, Stanley.”
    I let the receiver fall from my ear, then realized she was still on the line and snatched it back up just in time to hear a soft, feminine voice disappearing into the ionic haze.
    â€œ. . . you so much.”
    â€œJudith?” I pushed the receiver so tightly against my ear that it hurt.
    She was gone.

9
    S HORTLY AFTER MY PHONE encounter with Judith, there was a cocktail party at the Fulbright office, a reception honoring Frank Davis—the epigraphist who had been tagged for death