Seahorse by Janice Pariat Page B

were nowhere in sight—and clad in a white shirt, loose yet soft and light as smoke, and a pair of long pajamas that pooled around my feet. Who had changed me? How much, I wondered, had they seen?
    I stepped out of bed and stood in front of the mirror.
    A dull ache ran down my arms, spreading across my back, my thighs. I was in pieces. Somehow held together by skin. When I peeled away the shirt, I saw it—a deep, greenish-purple bruise on my right shoulder. At the very crest, a finger-width of scraped flesh that had been cleaned, carefully bandaged. Eventually, it healed, but I carry the scar, a flat, lightened reminder, a sliver of white.
    Today, I’d awoken. Lenny never would.
    If I could, I would have stayed in that room always. The room with no calendar, no clocks. To confront no one. The people whose voices I’d heard. My family. My loss.
    From the window, through the leaves of an overhanging neem, I could see a patch of grassy lawn, edged by a sprinkling of flowers—cosmos and begonias. The kind my father planted back home. I would have liked to stay there, swaddled in the comfort of the unfamiliar. The utter newness of things. All around me a blank slate, the fantastic lightness of the unknown. It was a relief. These clothes, this room, the furniture, the paintings, the table, all bearing imprints not my own.
    There wasn’t any requirement to leave; I could stay here until someone came looking for me. But how long would that be? I supposed Imustn’t overreach my welcome.
    Yet if I could, I’d climb back into bed, its own kingdom, and pull the covers, cool and smooth, over my head, and pretend, for days, and years, to be asleep.
    Finally, I pushed the door open and stepped into a corridor.
    To my left, an empty dining room, with the table set for ghosts. On my right, an archway that opened into a spacious drawing room.
    This is what I would do: I’d find my host, say thank you, and leave. And ask for my clothes, of course. I couldn’t walk away in these.
    Yes, I’d say, I was fine now, thank you.
    Yesterday… well, I’d come up with an explanation when asked for one. Something probable if I could manage it, fittingly credulous. I ventured into the forest for a walk, and decided to explore the tower. No, I hadn’t noticed the sign. How silly of me.
    Feeble, but I wasn’t sure I could do any better.
    I greatly appreciated their kindness, I’d add, the much needed rest, and now I must be on my way back.
    Out the door, through the lawn, and the gate. Down the wide, quiet road. The forest. At the other end, the college building. At the back of the campus, the residence hall in which I shared a room with a boy from Tibet. No one else need to know. I’d attend classes, sit for tutorials, write my assignments, speak when spoken to, drink and eat, get into bed and out, one foot in front of the other. Like I was doing now. Like I’d keep doing until I missed a step, or found, like yesterday, that there wasn’t any ground to stand on.
    I wandered through the bungalow, larger than my house or Lenny’s back in my hometown, and different in almost every way—the high ceilings, the bare, cool stone floors, the large, airy windows. Our houses were braced against the weather, long rains and cold winters, everything compact, sternly economic.
    Perhaps my impression was reinforced by the emptiness.
    Where could everyone be?
    Was I the only one there?
    It didn’t feel right to walk around someone else’s house—even if it wasn’t done in stealth and secrecy. So instead, I decided, I would wait, politely, in the drawing room, until someone showed up. Surely they’d remember they had an unusual, unlikely guest?
    The drawing room windows overlooked the lawn, where a gardener wielded a shovel in one hand and a wicker basket in the other. The length of a large wall was crammed with knick-knacks—souvenirs, I presumed, from journeys around