The hotel room in New Delhi wasn’t quite dark due to the bright security lights that had come on outside. The whistle of the watchman woke her again. This time at three-thirty AM. Dogs, some owned some refusing to be owned and nearly feral, barked in chorus to the whistles. There were shouts and the rattle of the watchman’s lathi as he pounded on the metal gate that parted the high cement fence of the neighboring business establishment added to the din. She had been dreaming of mountains, but whether the Rocky and Cascade ranges of the west coast of Canada or the Himalayas of northern India she was unsure. Despite some relatively superficial resemblances, the landscapes were dramatically different to her conscious mind yet in dream she saw only peaks, snow, rock and clouds shrouding the narrow passes.
It was too early to be awake. She shuffled around the hotel room in that middle of the night foggy state of mind that jet lag brings on. She opened and closed the drawers in the bedside table and the desk of the room. She looked out the window several times. She opened the door and peered out into the hall. No one was about. Finally she decided to take one of the sleeping pills she had packed. As she rummaged through the zippered pockets inside her large suitcase she came across an old letter that she had written to Michael years ago. She had meant to send it but now was glad she hadn’t. It was a confession of sorts of an affair she had while they were married.
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