In a world of diminishing mystery, the unknown persists. - Jhumpa Lahiri

She has given birth to vagabonds. She is the keeper of all these names and numbers now, numbers she once knew by heart, numbers and addresses her children no longer remember.

The future haunted but kept her alive; it remained her sustenance and also her predator.

"Is that what you think of when you think of me?" Gogol asks him. "Do I remind you of that night"?

"Not at all", his father says eventually, one hand going to his ribs, a habitual gesture that has baffled Gogol until now. "You remind me of everything that followed."