When Anil leaned back the old woman was weeping; she put her hands out and ran them over Anil’s hair. Anil held her arms. There was a lost language between them. She kissed Lalitha on both cheeks, having to bend down to her because she was small and frail. When Anil let go, the old woman seemed stranded and the young woman-who was she?-stepped forward and led her to a chair, then left. Anil sat next to Lalitha and held her hand in silence, feeling an ache in herself. There was a large framed photograph on the table beside them, and Lalitha picked it up and passed it to Anil. Lalitha at fifty, and her ne’er-do-well husband, and her daughter, who held two babies in her arms. Her finger pointed to one of the babies and then into the darkness of the house. So the young woman was her granddaughter.
The young woman brought out a tray of sugar biscuits and tea, and for the next while the granddaughter talked in Tamil to Lalitha. Anil could understand only a few words when it was spoken, relying mostly on the manner of speech to understand what they were saying. She’d once said something to a stranger who had met her sentence with a blank stare, and had then been told that because of her lack of tone the listener didn’t understand the remark. He could not tell if it was a question, a statement or a command. Lalitha seemed embarrassed to be talking in Tamil and was whispering. The granddaughter, who barely looked at Anil after the first shaking of hands, was speaking loudly. She looked at Anil and said in English, ‘My grandmother wants me to take a picture of the two of you. To remember that you came here.’