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confront so many real gems is, well, unnerving. Take me back to the costume jewelry counter at Target, she thinks.
      Tina is standing now, smiling happily with Ayan Dutta.
      “Come,” Tina says playfully. “We’ll take a small excursion.”
      Before Monica can protest, she’s atop a bicycle rickshaw, her driver speeding ahead of Tina’s.
      Giggling, Tina manages to instruct, “Hold on to the sides. Keep your feet on the floor board. Don’t lean forward too much.”
      “Right, thanks.” She’s laughing too, despite her terror.
      “The Red Fort,” Tina directs her driver.

    *****
      The Mission House staff practice silence at breakfast. Monica sips tea, recalling Father Koreth’s sermon. Christ’s suffering is a model, a reminder that we serve God on this earth so we may glorify him in heaven.
      She’s distracted by the letter from Beata she noticed in her box after Mass. She’s torn between her appetite for the idili and sambhar and her longing for home. Discipline: as a child she was never as good at physical restraint as Jeanne. Is that pious restraint what drove her sister to alcohol? Clearly the alcohol intensified her righteous dismissal of Monica’s revived Catholicism.
      She glances at her companions—the nuns and Father Koreth all absorbed in meditative reflection. For a week now, she’s been the only lay person at Mission House. All the other docs and nurses have departed for postings.
      Contemplate the journey ahead, she tells herself. Instead, she wondering about Beata’s new boyfriends, about whether she’s seen Eric and how he is. Discipline, she’s never had enough. Not for the first time, she worries she’s a fraud at this religious community business.
      A big bell rings. The harsh metal sound carrying profound relief. Saying farewell to the others, she leaves the table.

      Monica settles on the veranda wearing her new parrot green shawl. Tina’s Bon Voyage gift. The sari is next, her friend promised.
      Morning is almost warm. Birds call. Across the street two elephants lumber along the pavement, half-adorned in satin and tinsel for a Hindu wedding.
      Wonderful that Beata prefers old-fashioned correspondence to email. You can be so much more reflective on the page than on the internet.
    My Dear Monica,
      Great to hear about your arrival. I wish I could join you on those fascinating streets, at those delicious meals. A much more inviting scenario than Minnesota life at the moment: tentatively picking my way over ice to the car, driving through the unplowed streets (seven inches of snow last night!) to work. Your life is adventurous and worthwhile. OK, some days my job is useful, but on others I feel I’m just doing admin work.
      Monica loosens the shawl. Beata always underestimates her own contributions.
      It’s another lavender morning in Minnesota: that brief blush of pastel against the white sky, land, flakes. I headed straight for the Coffee Shack which was heated with laughter and conversations of a dozen people who awoke earlier than I.
      Espresso. Monica still often wakes up yearning for a half-hour chat with Beata at the Coffee Shack before work. They had such good conversations there—about jobs and men and Mom’s illness and Jeanne’s kidnapping Mom to Duluth and Mom’s death and returning to the Church and breaking up with Eric. And preparing for India.
      Clumsily, I dropped my change on the muddy floor and Alfred, the wiry blond youth who beams friendly greetings each morning, handed me a warm, wet rag for my hands. I felt genuinely happy for the first time today because I remembered the compensations of winter: people taking your coat, asking about your health, telling you to watch the ice. Damn, I’m getting carried away with Mundane Minnesota. By the time this is forwarded from Mission House, you’ll be settling into your clinic. What are the patients like? And your colleagues?
      Monica laughs at the questions, which she’s