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opportunity to take his family with him on a return trip. The last leg of their journey was to carry them into a steppe region, high in the mountains of the Punjab.
    Without warning, the weather turned severe, and they had to delay their flight for twenty-four hours. Finally they boarded the plane; a small twin-engine commuter aircraft built by the Russians thirty years ago. There were fifteen passengers and a single crewmember. The flight was to last forty-five minutes. The article said that the weather was clear when they took off, but there were high winds in the area where they were headed. Then, unexpectedly, clouds moved in. It was a very dark night because there was no moon. The plane must have lost power because as they neared their destination radio contact became sporadic, and a few minutes before the crash the pilot said he was flying without the aid of instruments. He didn't have enough fuel to go back. Just as the plane was approaching the landing strip it started to rain. He was on course, and would have made it if he had maintained altitude, but from the crash pattern it appeared he'd either mistaken a field for a runway or decided to ditch the plane. The ground was soft and uneven. Upon impact the plane flipped over and broke into pieces. The people died of trauma, either from being thrown great distances outside the plane, or tossed violently about inside.
    The girl smiling at me from the newspaper page was pretty, and I detected keen intelligence in her eyes. The brother was uncommonly handsome, with finely etched eyebrows and a strong jaw. Both parents were good looking, though the father was fleshy with a soft chin. The article went on to enumerate the contributions that each had madeto their community. I had never met any of these people, and yet I sensed a general diminishment, as if the quality of my own life was sure to suffer as a consequence of these four deaths. I felt silly as tears came into my eyes and overflowed on to my cheeks, and I quickly wiped them away. I had come to the cafeteria for coffee, which I had finished a while ago, but I remained seated, staring at the same page, the four photos. Then, before I could lower the paper and fold it up, a colleague from my department, Paula, with whom I had not spoken since the accident, joined me.
    â€œI can barely stand to think about it,” she said as she took a seat across from me. “It's so terrible.”
    I laid the paper flat on the table, still open to the page I had been reading. “So did you know her? Was she in any of your classes?”
    Paula nodded and sipped her coffee. “I had her in all three of my classes. So you can imagine what it's been like. It's impossible to look around the room and not think about her. And this picture,” she tapped the newspaper where it lay, “doesn't do her justice. She was beautiful. Radiant. You couldn't help noticing her. But… You know how some women carry their beauty differently than others? Well Anitra was beautiful in a way that was sophisticated without being flashy. Or maybe what I mean is that she was casual about it, like it wasn't important to her. She didn't build a persona around the way she looked. She let her actions do that for her.”
    â€œAre you going to the memorial service?”
    â€œI think we're all supposed to go. Isn't that how you read the announcement?”
    I shrugged. “I'm not sure. I didn't think it was mandatory. And since I didn't know her…”
    â€œI think you should come. You're new and it would be a good idea for you to be seen there with the rest of us.”
    I nodded and looked at the newspaper again. The moment I saw Anitra's picture my throat tightened and tears surged back into my eyes. I felt ridiculous, but Paula didn't say anything as I wiped them away. She reached across the table and turned the paper so the photograph was facing her. I watched as she regarded the dead girl's image. A faint smile appeared on