Amrita looked up as the baby finished nursing. The dim light from the window illuminated Amrita's strong cheekbones and soft brown skin. Her dark eyes seemed luminous. Sometimes she was so beautiful that I physically ached at the thought we might not have met, married, had our child together. She lifted Victoria slightly, and I caught a glimpse of a soft curve of breast and raised nipple before her blouse was back in place. "I don't mind going," said Amrita. "It will be nice to see Mother and Father again."

"But India," I said. "Calcutta. Do you want to go there?"

"I don't mind, if I can be of help," she said. She put a folded, clean diaper on my shoulder and handed Victoria to me. I rubbed the baby's back, feeling her warmth, smelling the milk and baby smell of her.

"You're sure it won't be a problem with your work?" I asked. Victoria wiggled in my grasp, reaching a chubby hand toward my nose. I blew on her palm and she giggled and then burped.

"It won't be a problem," said Amrita, although I knew it would be. She was to start teaching a new graduate-level math course at Boston University after Labor Day, and I knew how much preparation lay ahead of her.

"Are you looking forward to seeing India again?" I asked. Victoria had moved her head closer to my cheek and was happily drooling on my collar.

"I'm curious to see how it compares with what I remember," said Amrita. Her voice was soft, modulated by her three years at Cambridge, but never clipped in the flat British manner. Listening to Amrita was like being stroked by a firm but well-oiled palm.

Amrita had been seven years old when her father moved his engineering firm from New Delhi to London. The memories of India that she had shared with me supported the stereotype of a culture rampant with noise, confusion, and caste discrimination. Nothing could have been more alien to Amrita's own character; she was the physical essence of quiet dignity, she despised noise and clutter of any sort, she was appalled by injustice, and her mind had been disciplined by the well-ordered rhythms of linguistics and mathematics.