In college, when people looked at me I felt scalded. I was fat and wore large eyeglasses, but there was something else going on, some deep sense that I wasn't enough and that people could see this. For some reason, I believed that if I could be involved with a beautiful woman I would stop being me.
In my junior year, I did a semester abroad, volunteering for a nonprofit organization in Udaipur, India. Udaipur may be the most beautiful city in a country full of beautiful cities. Situated in the desert state of Rajasthan, a landscape with mountaintop fortresses and villages unconnected by roads, Udaipur contains several man-made lakes.
When you arrive in the city and suddenly discover one of these, it can seem like a hallucination. Elizabeth was working at the same nonprofit, and was also doing research for her Ph.D.
I started translating for her when she interviewed villagers. Sitting beside her and producing the Hindi equivalent for "green fertilizer" or "microclimate," I felt the force of her intelligence. I used to watch her bike to and from work, her blond ponytail bouncing behind her.
She had blue eyes and was often laughing. One night, we went out to dinner. Then we walked back to the room she rented, in a mansion with a walled garden.
In her room, with the door closed, speaking softly, I had the feeling that we were hiding. Touching her was, unfortunately, an out-of-body experience. Afterward, I walked home along Fateh Sagar Lake.
It was late and the road was empty of t.
