By Debjani Chatterjee
"But Forster doesn't live here any more."
I knew that of course. He died the year before
– before my passage. I told "Raised Eyebrows"
that I only wanted … to see his room,
to see the view. Why else would I have come?
"But this is not a museum, you know."
(Cambridge, not a museum?) I nodded.
"An ordinary room." Ordinary
is what it takes. I remembered my coach
journey from Canterbury. "I have come
all the way from India. He was my friend."
It worked. The brows subsided, defeated.
A bemused stranger occupied the place
– half apologised for everything changed.
The room was functional, anonymous:
he could not have lived here long. "I'm afraid
even the furniture is not the same."
What did I care, standing at the window.
Olive groves beside the forget-me-not
Mediterranean rolled below, with
a dust haze veiling the Marabar curves.
"It is the same," I said, "nothing has changed."
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I spent Monday decompressing with Cheryl, which was awesome. We picked up Elevation Burgers (and cheese fries and milkshakes) and watched several great British films, including Miss Austen Regrets, which I had never seen (like most Austen biopics, it was sad and a bit too obsessed with men, but also very well acted), and two very longtime Merchant-Ivory favorites, A Room With a View and Maurice.
Apart from a brief trip to the mall to buy the last two Harry Potter rings at the Alex and Ani store, that was our day. After Cheryl went home, I had faux fish sticks for dinner with Paul and Maddy, then we watched Monday night's The Gifted and Sunday night's Madam Secretary because the sports scores were not pleasing us. From the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn on Sunday, some of the indoor animals:
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