The flight, where I was crammed into a corner beside an overweight man who spilled onto my seat, snoring energetically, had seemed interminable. The recycled air made my eyes itchy and dry. Unable to sleep, I had obsessed over all the things that might go wrong in America—and it seems that already the first of them has come true. Mitra, who was supposed to pick me up, is nowhere to be found. Minutes pass; half an hour; my flightmates reunite joyfully with their families and go off to their various destinations. Panic forms a lump in my throat. What if Mitra has been in an accident? What if he’s dead? I force myself to breathe slowly; I get coins from a money changer and phone Mitra’s home and then his cell phone. No one picks up. I long to call Rajat. But it’s 2:00 a.m there. I push the thought out of my mind before it can take hold. He can’t help me from halfway across the world, and it would only make him crazed with worry. I’m not such a weakling as to subject him to that, not this soon.
