The line didn’t move.

Clothes hung from open office windows, lifting and falling like flags in the air conditioning.

A booth opened.

Then closed.

A coworker stopped to talk to the attendant.

A vendor walked through the line carrying a pot of chai.

Someone waved a friend forward.

The line moved three feet.

Then stopped again.

When we finally reached the counter, the attendant took our passports and stamped them.

“Welcome to India.”

Half our day was already gone.

~

Outside, humid air wrapped around us like sticky blankets.

It was warm and strong, almost floral.

I’d forgot the smell.

Now it was unmistakable.

Taxi drivers followed us down the sidewalk.

“Taxi?”

“No, thank you.”

“Taxi?”

“No.”

We kept walking

Two men intercepted us at the train station entrance.

One sat on an upside down bucket in front of the ticket machine.

The other leaned against it.

“Where to?”

I looked at my notes.

“Lok Kalyan Marg.”

He held out his hand.

“Two hundred rupees.”

He then took my money, inserted it into the machine, pressed the buttons, and handed me two subway tokens.

Then he pointed away from the trains—back so where we’d come.

“This way. Follow me.”

I looked the signs.

They pointed downstairs.

He headed upstairs.

“Train?”

“Yes. This way”

He led us through a glass corridor going back to the road.

Twenty yards later, I stopped.

“Isn’t the train downstairs?”

He nodded.

“Yes. This way better. Come. Hurry.”

I looked Dani.

Then we turned around.

~

Four stops later, we reached New Delhi and transferred to the Yellow Line.

The signs led us to a row of gates.

We put our tokens into the slots.

The machine buzzed.

The tokens came back.

We tried again.

Behind us, commuters began pushing forward.

A security guard took one of our tokens and tried it himself.

“No good.”

He pointed toward a glass booth.

The woman behind the window spoke too quickly for us to understand. She held out her hand.

We gave her fifty rupees.

She gave us forty back.

Back at the gates, we put the tokens in again.

This time they opened.

We followed the signs.

Then the signs changed.

The Yellow Line became blue.

We followed the blue signs to another set of gates.

We needed another token.

At the ticket counter, six windows served six different distances.

“How far are we going?” Dani said.

I looked at the windows.

Nobody seemed to be standing in a line. People pressed against the glass, waving money and calling to the attendants.

“I have no idea.”

A college student approached.

“Where are you going?”

I showed him our destination.

“Ah, yes. Number two.”

He walked off, while I joined the crowd at window two.

Someone pushed in front of me.

I stepped around him.

Another reached across my shoulder.

I put both hands on the counter and held my place.

The attendant looked at me, then took my money and printed another ticket.

I stepped away.

In a calm corner of the station, Dani counted them.

“One. Two. Three tickets.”

“All for one trip.”

~

That night I lay in the sleeper berth, swaying with the train.

Dani sat across from me. Her face was expressionless. Dirt and sweat covered her skin.

I opened a bag of chips. It was the only food I’d found all day.

“Want one?”

She shook her head.

“How did we get to this? To India, I mean.”

“It’s the next step, isn’t it? After Scandinavia. After Europe.”

“After China.”

I shook the bag.

“But that thing with the rickshaw today… and the guys at the station. Even this train was four hours late.”

I looked down at the chips.

“It’s chaos.”

Dani leaned back against the wall.

“We always say that.”

The train rocked beneath us.

“Tomorrow?”

She smiled.

“Tomorrow.”