Page 57 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Interesting. Maybe Elsie had been like a coat she’d carried from her other life, a way to keep warm until she found new clothes. The idea carried a soft kindness. Thanks, Elsie, she thought.

“Maybe we can wander back here,” Henry suggested. “You could bring some fabric home and have something made.”

“Why don’t we just go in now?” Mariah asked.

“Of course,” Veronica responded, but she really wanted to keep going with her quest, find the shop owner who might remember Café Guli. She quelled her impatience.

They wandered, admiring, stopping at this or that fabric.

Veronica found herself forgetting the quest, she was so immersed in beauty.

Such color! So many gorgeous patterns. Her mind made pillows and skirts and bedspreads and curtains and wallpaper.

When she realized she was envisioning them in her old house, it was deflating.

She remembered she had no money, that she didn’t live there, that she actually didn’t have a home at all.

Mariah wanted to buy three different fabrics, and then asked Veronica if she was going to get one. “No, not now,” she said.

“Oh, let me buy you that green one. Please?”

She glanced back at the delicate print. Henry regarded her calmly, arms crossed. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

Purchases made, they headed back out. It was definitely getting hotter now, the sun hard and high overhead. The street bustled with humans and vehicles and animals, all weaving around each other easily. Dizzying.

They walked awhile longer, and then Veronica looked up.

“I think this is the block.” It was a shady street with big trees.

It was busy everywhere they’d walked, but this was more so, with lines of motorcycles parked, and shops offering paper products of many kinds.

“Is this the stationery district?” She squelched a yearning to go inside and explore them all, one at a time.

Then her attention caught on a building across the street. “Oh! It’s the Faravahar!”

Directly across from them was an impressive stone building with carved decorations and two massive, beautiful silver statues of the man with wings behind him.

“It must be an agayris ,” Henry said. “A fire temple.” He shot a series of photos. “That’s a good sign for the café being close.”

They stopped, looking around. Veronica thought of the conversation Henry had with the man in Brick Lane. “I guess we can just start asking, right?”

“Yes.” He gestured for her to lead the way.

Nervous but determined to do it herself, she stepped inside a shop. She was glad when it was a woman about her age, wearing a green-and-yellow cotton sari. “Hello,” Veronica said.

“Hello, madam. How may I help you?”

“I’m looking for a place that might have been on this street once. The Café Guli.”

The woman pursed her lips, thinking, then bobbled her head. “I don’t know that one.”

Veronica nodded, then, “Who might have the oldest shop along here, do you know?”

“That will be Mr. Gupta in the print shop.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem, madam.”

Henry touched the middle of her back on the way out. “Well done.”

On the street again she looked around. People were pouring through the street, on bicycles, on motorcycles, on foot, in the street, and on the sidewalk.

They talked on their phones, or not, marched with purpose and ambled along with a shopping bag dangling, eating fruit or chips.

The day was heating up, and Veronica wiped sweat from her forehead.

She looked at the shops carefully, trying not to be distracted by Hindi lettering, little signs advertising everything, and the obscuring nature of soot. “There,” she said.

This time, they were in luck. A man stood outside a print shop, watching the world. “Hello,” Veronica said. He looked past her to Mariah, who stood out like a lime in the midst of oranges.

He gave her a nod, and Veronica took this to mean she should continue.

“I’m looking for someone who might have known the family who ran Café Guli,” she said. “Did you know them? Was it around here?”

He looked at Veronica, then back to Mariah. “I did. The Irani family.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“They left.”

“Do you know why? We know they left, and the daughters ended up in Europe, but we don’t know about the brother.”

For a long minute, he measured her, his dark eyes unreadable. “Darshan,” he said, shaking his head. “He died.”

Veronica felt a shimmer of warning. Getting closer now. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you know what happened?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t bear speaking of,” he said. “Now if you do not wish to have something printed, please go.”

Mariah stepped forward, all luminous youth and earnestness, her hand on her cane. “Please,” she said. “I’m looking for something my mother wanted me to know. The sisters might be the only ones who know what it was.”

He stared at her without pity for a long moment.

“The café was there,” he said, pointing across the narrow street, and from here, the old letters were visible.

Café Guli in faded blue paint behind a more recent sign declaring it to be a Chinese takeaway.

“The sisters live in Delhi, but I don’t know where. ”

“And the brother?” Veronica pressed.

“I told you. He died.” With a firm gesture, he picked up a package. “Now you will allow me to return to my work.”

Darshan dead, Veronica thought, and a scandal that forced the restaurant to close, the family to scatter. A hollowness lodged in her belly. Rachel, what did you do?