There was a Swedish family in the neighboring bungalow, with a boy and a girl who both sunbathed and swam in their underpants, as if they had forgotten to pack their swimsuits. The children were tall for their ages; he was startled to learn, overhearing the mother tell one of the women who served drinks at the resort, that they were only five and seven. The mother was attractive, with a lean, freckled face and closely cropped hair, and seemed to wear a new bathing suit every few hours. In the mornings she would sit at their little round table in front of the bungalow, peeling fruit, offering pieces of coconut and papaya to the children, wearing a thin robe that was the color of a watermelon's flesh. While the children played and chased each other on the sand she sat in a chair and read, swatting them affectionately with a magazine when they attempted to involve her in their games. The woman and her husband made an incongruous couple. The husband was a large man, his skin burnt, straw-blond hair to his shoulders, hair longer than his wife's, a face like a ham. He spent most of the days sleeping in a hammock strung up between two trees, straining the knots that held him. As far as Kaushik could tell, it was just himself and the Swedish family; the third bungalow at this end of the resort, down a path from the main hotel building, was empty.
He'd thought about moving around a bit, going down to Phuket after Christmas, but for now he wasn't inspired to go anywhere else. He'd taken a few pictures, of the view from his bungalow, longtail boats on the water, the Swedish children playing on the sand. He felt no inclination to go walking through the hillside to photograph the shrines or to take a boat to the Similan Islands. In three days he left the resort only once, walking to a strip of souvenir and dive shops that bored him. He found an Internet center, considered going inside to see if Hema had written. Then he remembered that he had not given her his e-mail address. Instead, he uploaded new pictures onto his Web site: of Volterra, where Hema had been standing pressed up next to him, her hair flapping in the wind, strands of it sometimes intruding in front of the lens, and a few pictures of the Andaman Sea.
He spent Christmas on the beach as he had every other day. The restaurant at the resort had put up a small fake tree. He had dinner on the patio as a full moon poured its shimmering light across the water. The Swedish family occupied the neighboring table, conversing, laughing, eating their meal. The children's long limbs were dark from the sun. The family had ordered an array of dishes, were messily picking at a whole curried fish. Kaushik thought of Hema and anger coursed through him, thinking of her about to enter the world of marriage, of children, of taking trips and sleeping for the rest of her life with someone she did not love.
The wife stood up when they were finished, kissed the husband on the forehead, and took the children away. "Join me for a drink?" the man called out to Kaushik after they'd gone.
They walked indoors into the air-conditioned bar and ordered whiskey. A band was setting up to play. The Swedish man, Henrik, worked as a film editor for a television station in Stockholm. They spoke about the press in Sweden and Italy, about the war in Iraq. "Our jobs, they are similar," Henrik said. "Our names, too."
Kaushik nodded.
It was the fourth Christmas the family had spent at this resort, Henrik said. "The first year, Lars was just a baby." "Your families don't mind?"
"What?"
"Your going to Thailand for Christmas?"
"My wife's parents complain. But we come anyway. They are in Stockholm, living across the street. My parents are divorced, both remarried." Henrik shook his big head. "Too many people to see. And you, where is your family?"
"My mother's dead. My father lives in the United States."
"But you are Indian, no?"
"Yes."
"You live in India?"
"I don't live anywhere at the moment. I'm about to move to Hong Kong."
"Married?" Henrik asked. He shook his head.
"But you are thinking of someone. My wife says so. Missing her."
He had not thought that he had been obvious, that the family had been paying attention to him. He thought about denying it. "Now and again."
"You will see her soon?"
"No."
Henrik shrugged. "Alone is good, too." He drained his whiskey.
Kaushik's mood darkened. As much as he'd wanted Hema to be with him now, he knew it would be easier to begin life in Hong Kong alone. He knew there was nothing for her to do there, that the move would have stripped her of her work, her world. The band started to play, the stale cover music grating. He wanted to be alone, to lie down and think. "I'm going to bed," he said.
"Goodnight," Henrik told him. He ordered another whiskey. "One last for me."
Once more the day was flawless. Kaushik got up, walked over to the restaurant for breakfast. Henrik was sitting at the bar where Kaushik had left him the night before, but he was freshly showered, dressed in swimming trunks and a Hawaiian shirt, drinking coffee, breaking apart his rolls. "You felt your bed shake this morning?" Kaushik shook his head.
"They said in the hotel, a small earthquake," Henrik said. "Over now."
Whatever had happened, Kaushik had slept through it. He thought back to the day in El Salvador when he'd taken his first real picture, and the tremor that had come just before: the stew spilling from its bowls, the young man in impeccably clean tan trousers lying in a pool of blood on the street.
"There is a shallow coral reef not far from here. Like to come? My wife and the kids want to buy things in town."
Kaushik looked out at the water. "I'm not a very good swimmer."
Henrik laughed. "Someone else will be doing the swimming for us." He pointed to a fishing boat resting on the shoreline. "I've arranged for a good price. When we get there, you can relax while I poke around."
After breakfast they walked over to the boat. The owner, a bare-chested teenage Thai boy wearing long red shorts, was clearing it of leaves and withered frangipani petals. Two small lime-colored frogs hopped out, leaping onto the sand. Henrik scooped up one in each of his large hands and brought them over to his children, who began chasing the frogs around in circles, their heads bent toward the ground. The Thai boy began to pull the boat into the water, Kaushik following, white foam like soap suds hissing around his ankles. He had brought one of his cameras, wearing it around his neck. Henrik had an extra set of snorkeling gear, in case Kaushik changed his mind.
They got into the boat, the boy taking his place at the front. On the beach Henrik's wife raised a thin arm from where she was sitting, gave a lazy wave. The children looked up briefly as Henrik and Kaushik settled themselves inside. There was plenty of room on board, and when Henrik called out to his wife and said something in Swedish, pointing to the empty seats, Kaushik guessed that it was to ask her and the children to join them. But she replied in the negative, shaking her head and retreating behind one of her magazines.
He experienced a moment's nervousness because Henrik was so large, but the boat absorbed their shared weight. The Thai boy lifted his oar and they began to move. Kaushik felt the swell of the sea beneath the hull, close to his body, not touching him but penetrating him at the same time. The resort retreated from view, the bungalows beneath the palms and the darting forms of Henrik's children turning to specks, the familiar coastline curving away like a flat smiling beast. The boy spoke a little English, told Henrik about a school of parrotfish he'd seen the day before. The morning sun was already strong, and after a while Henrik took off his shirt. Kaushik looked at Henrik's broad pink back, glistening with sweat. They were skirting an abandoned cove. "It's getting hot," Henrik said. He tapped the boy on the shoulder. "I take a dip here to cool off."
The boy nodded, rested his oar. Henrik dived over the edge of the boat and started to swim, his ungainly body turning graceful as it cut through the water with swift, skillful strokes. And alongside Henrik, for a moment, Kaushik saw his mother also swimming, saw her body still vital, a brief blur that passed as effortlessly as the iridescent fish darting from time to time beneath the boat. His torso cast a shadow into the sea. He thought of the thin bronze sculpture of the boy he'd seen with Hema in Volterra, in the Etruscan Museum. It was called L' Ombra della Sera: the Shadow of Evening. But in Khao Lak it was morning, the sun burning down on Kaushik, his shadow still in proportion to his body.