Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri [54]
“I’m sorry, Meg. The drinks went straight to my head. I don’t even remember having that many. I didn’t mean to abandon you.”
She didn’t acknowledge his apology. Instead she said, “I’ve had breakfast. I can go get the car before the rain starts, while you pack up. The hotel restaurant’s not bad. You should probably eat something. I’m tired, and I want you to be able to drive back.”
“You’re always tired,” he wanted to tell her. “The only time you haven’t been tired in years was last night.” But he knew that he was in no position to accuse her.
“Well?” she said.
“There’s a brunch,” he remembered, and suddenly he felt hopeful, that there was still a bit of the wedding left, that he could make an appearance, make up for what he’d missed. “I can eat there. I’d like to go and say good-bye to Pam and Ryan,” he said. “Let’s go over together. Please.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. His head was pounding and his voice was cracking, and from the sad look in her eyes he knew that he looked pathetic, that it was out of pity that she refused to raise her voice, to berate him. Eventually she said, “If that’s what you want.”
“You’ll go with me?”
“I’ve spent enough time at this wedding by myself.”
She sat on the balcony reading the local paper while he changed out of his suit and into his ordinary clothes. Then he packed up their things, throwing all the tourist brochures into the garbage. They walked across the road and across the field to Langford. They were halfway there when the rain started. It was an undramatic drizzle, filling the air with the faintest sound, but by the time they reached the edge of campus their hair was damp, their feet drenched and cold. At one point they paused to take in a view of the lake. In spite of the rain, a man swam in the dark gray water, quite far out.
They went past the small cemetery on the grounds of the school, along a path that led them to a sign taped to a stake that said BRUNCH, with an arrow. They headed in that direction, keeping their eye out for another sign. The tents under which people had dined and danced were still up, empty now, the tables folded and stacked in piles. The chairs on which they’d sat to watch the ceremony were still arranged more messily, on the lawn. There was a truck parked in front of the alumni building, where two maintenance men in overalls were clearing up.
“Is the brunch in here?” Amit asked.
“Don’t know anything about a brunch,” one of them said.
They walked in the direction of the chapel and the observatory. They passed the parking lot, where a few cars stood, including their own. They reached the front gates of the school, then turned back again.
“I don’t see any other signs,” Megan said. “Did she say which building?”
Amit shook his head, and they continued on. United in their quest, he wondered if her rage was dissipating. And yet they did not walk side by side; she was ahead of him, leading the way even though she did not know it. When doors were open they entered, wandering down musty carpeted hallways, into naked stairwells, past empty classrooms with clean blackboards and the round wooden tables at which Langford students always sat. In less than a month students would return to those tables. He was free of the school, it no longer touched his life in any way. But instead of feeling grateful, he wanted to relive those confused days, that life of discovery, to be bound to those round tables and lectures and exams. There were things he had always meant to understand better: Russian history, the succession of Roman emperors, Greek philosophy. He wanted to read what he was told each evening, to do as he was told. There were the great writers he had never read, would never read. His daughters would begin that journey soon enough, the world opening up for them in its awesome entirety. But there was no time now, not even to look at the whole paper on Sundays.
In the music complex, they found a room