Read The Weight of Heaven Online
Authors: Thrity Umrigar
Tags: #Americans - India, #Murder, #Psychological Fiction, #Married People, #India, #Family Life, #Crime, #Psychological, #Family & Relationships, #General, #Americans, #Bereavement, #Death; Grief; Bereavement, #Adoption, #Fiction
such a terrible history of—”
“I know. God, Nandita, you think I don’t know that? Even this
poor, ignorant man, her husband, even he made some reference to
our involvement in Iraq. And there’s nothing I could say to him.
Except that I don’t think I’m a dirty imperialist pig. And I don’t
think my husband is, either. And that I’m every bit as appalled at
what my country is doing in Iraq as, as, any of you.”
She was close to tears now, her body shaking as she recalled the
contempt on the man’s face as he’d entered his home and found her
sitting on the floor next to his wife, his angry, accusatory words, the
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8 3
embarrassed, conflicted look on Asha’s face as Ellie had forced her
to translate sentiments that, it now occurred to Ellie, Asha probably
agreed with.
“Hey, hey,” Nandita said, coming around her desk and crouching low so that she could hug Ellie. “Come on now. You can’t work
at NIRAL if you have a thin skin. Nobody’s blaming you for this
situation, El. This—this stuff is bigger than any one person.”
But the complicated combination of guilt and defensiveness followed Ellie home that evening. In the car, the two women rode in
almost total silence, each one lost in her thoughts. Ellie had a terrible
headache by the time she got out of Nandita’s car and went into the
house to wait for Frank to get home.
At exactly six a.m. the following morning, there was a tentative
knock on the door. Frank leapt to his feet and threw the door open
before Ramesh could knock a second time. “Shhh,” he whispered,
holding his index finger to his lips. “Ellie is sleeping. We have to
be quiet.” He led the boy through the living room and toward the
porch. Flinging open the wooden porch door, they stepped down
onto the lawn. It was a pleasant morning, with a weak sun and a
cool breeze blowing off the sea. The tall, stately coconut trees were
rustling in that breeze, but Frank and Ramesh didn’t hear them. The
dew on the grass tickled their ankles as they moved quickly to the
left of the front yard and then climbed the seven stone steps that
led to the beach. Ramesh bent and picked up a pebble to fling at a
crow who was pecking at something inside a brown paper bag on
the sand. “Hey,” Frank said putting out a restraining arm. “Throw
that stone away.”
“I hate crows,” Ramesh replied. That was a big difference between Ramesh and Benny—Benny was forever wanting to nurse
sick squirrels and birds and wanted to bring home every puppy
or kitten he saw. Ramesh’s attitude toward the natural world was
more—well, more utilitarian.
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8 5
“Anyway,” Frank continued. “You’re here to train so that you
can be on the school soccer team, right? Or do you want to be a
champion crow-killer, instead?”
It worked. Ramesh tossed the pebble away. Frank permitted himself an imaginary pat on the back. He had come to know this boy’s
psychology really well, knew how competitive and vain Ramesh
was about doing well in school as well as in athletics.
“What do we do?” Ramesh asked.
“First you do some push-ups,” Frank said. “Move to the flat part
of the sand—it’ll be easier. Okay. Like so.”
He watched the little bulge in Ramesh’s triceps as he lifted and
lowered himself. This kid is strong, he thought and felt a kind of
parental pride, as if the boy had inherited
his
muscular structure,
his
genes.
“Good,” he said. “Okay, ready to jog? Let’s go.”
He had first grown aware of Ramesh over a year ago, after they’d
been in Girbaug for about four months. It was a Sunday, and Ellie
was out with Nandita. Frank was in his bedroom taking an afternoon nap when he was disturbed by the steady thud of a ball in the
driveway outside his window. Occasionally, a thin voice cried out,
“Score!” He tossed and turned for a few minutes, gnashing his teeth
in frustration, and finally threw back his covers and leapt out of bed.
Moving swiftly across the living room and kitchen, he threw open
the door that led to the courtyard that divided the main house from
the housekeepers’ shack. Pushing the small wooden gate, he went
out into the driveway, barefoot and dressed only in a white T-shirt
and shorts. Ramesh was racing the length of the driveway, dribbling a basketball, occasionally reaching high and jumping to throw
the ball into an imaginary net. “Hey,” Frank yelled. And when the
boy didn’t hear him, “HEY, you.” Remembering the boy’s name,
“Ramesh. Stop.”
Hearing his name, the boy froze in place, cradling the ball in
his open palm, his eyes wide and startled. Frank saw that he had
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scared him, and the realization drove away his anger. Walking up
to the boy he said in a softer voice, “I was trying to sleep. You woke
me up.” He imitated the dribbling of the ball. The boy stayed motionless. “Oh, forget it,” Frank said almost to himself. “You don’t
speak any English, do you? The few times he’d seen Ramesh he had
been with Prakash, speaking to him in Hindi as he helped his father
around the yard.
He was about to turn away when the boy said, “I speak goodgood English, teacher say. Best in class.”
Frank smiled. “You do, huh? So you go to school?”
The boy looked offended. “Yes, of course.”
Something about his affronted expression made Frank laugh. It
reminded him of the look Benny used to get when Ellie or he teased
him. “Well, are you a good student?” he said.
“The bestest in my class.”
“That’s the best in my class. Not bestest.”
The boy threw his basketball down and flexed his muscles, looking like a scrawny body builder. “But I am better than best,” he
cried. “Bestest.”
This kid was a hoot. Frank was laughing out loud now. “Oh,
yeah? What are your favorite subjects?”
The boy didn’t have to think. “Maths,” he declared.
“That was my favorite subject in school, too,” Frank said. “What
else? What about reading and writing?”
Ramesh screwed up his face. “I hate geography. And readingwriting is boring.” His face brightened. “I love history. And
sports.”
“What sports? Cricket?”
“Cricket, yes. But also basketball. You know Michael Jordan?”
“Sure I know Michael Jordan.” Frank crouched low so that he
was almost at eye level with the boy. “But can I tell you a secret? I’m
better than Michael Jordan.”
Ramesh’s eyes grew wide. “Better than Michael Jordan?” he
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8 7
breathed, his voice hoarse with wonder. He stared at Frank, his eyes
searching his face. “No,” he said finally. “Impossible.”
Frank pretended to be outraged. “Impossible?” He straightened
to his full height. “Them’s fighting words, my man.”
“Challenge,” Ramesh said.
“Challenge?” Frank walked slowly toward the ball, picked it up
swiftly, and leapt up to the rim of an imaginary net. “There. Did
you see that? The beauty of that dunk? And that? And that?”
Ramesh was squealing with joy as he tried to hit the ball out of
Frank’s hands. Frank pretended to defend the ball but yielded it to
the boy after a few seconds. “Oops,” he said. “You really are very
good.”
Ramesh looked magnanimous. “Best of ten, best of ten,” he
yelled. He pointed to a medium-sized tree to the side of the driveway. “Hit top of that tree. First person to hit ten, is winning.”
So that’s what the boy had been doing while he had been trying
to take a nap. Remembering the well-lit basketball courts that he
had played on as a teenager in Grand Rapids and the hoop that he’d
installed on the top of their garage in Ann Arbor, Frank was touched
by Ramesh’s desperate ingenuity. He realized that he had no idea
how much money Ramesh’s parents earned—they had simply come
with the company-provided house and were paid by HerbalSolutions. He resolved to supplement their income with an occasional tip
here and there. And first thing tomorrow he would send Satish to
buy a basketball hoop for this boy.
Ramesh was tugging at his T-shirt, trying to get his attention.
“Scared?” he said.
“Scared?” Frank roared in mock indignation, knocking the
ball out of Ramesh’s hands. “Not me.” He rose on his bare toes and
threw the ball high so that it touched the top of the tree. He grabbed
the ball and did it a second time. But before he could get his hands
on the ball again, he felt a sharp elbow in his side. “Oww,” he yelped.
“Why, you dirty little cheat.” He pretended to nurse his injured
8 8 Th r i t y U m r i g a r
side while Ramesh giggled his pleasure and took four consecutive
shots.
Now, knowing how competitive Ramesh was, he told himself
that if they were to stop jogging, he’d have to be the one to call
it quits. The boy had done well keeping up with him as they ran
along the shore, but his breathing was getting more ragged and the
sweat was pouring off his face. Also, Ramesh was running barefoot,
having shaken off his plastic sandals at the base of the stone steps.
“Where’re the sneakers I bought you last month?” Frank gasped.
“Dada said too good to wear on beach.”
Frank felt the familiar wave of irritation whenever he thought of
Prakash. Typical stupid advice. “I want you to wear them for jogging, okay?” he said. “They will help you run faster.”
Ramesh shot him a cocky look. “I running very fast, already,”
he said.
Frank tapped him lightly on the back. “Very clever.” He stopped.
“Okay. Let’s head back. I have to be at work and you have to be at
school. I don’t want you to be late.”
Ramesh shrugged. “I can run more and more.”
“Yeah, I know.” He glanced up to where the sun was heating up
the day and wiped the sweat off his brow. “But take pity on an old
man, okay?”
Ramesh got that solicitous, serious look on his face that Frank
had come to love. Benny used to get that gentle, absurdly adult look
also, when he thought somebody needed his care or protection.
“Okay,” Ramesh said. “We stop.” He took Frank’s hand, as if he
was helping an elderly man cross the street.
They were far away from the house, so he didn’t have to care
about Ellie or Prakash being jealous of the fact that he was walking
on the beach holding Ramesh’s hand. Ramesh’s grip was tighter,
different from Benny’s, but it made him miss his dead son with a
sharpness that took his breath away. Still, it felt good to hold a child’s
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8 9
hand again. Something softened and relaxed within Frank, and he
realized how stiffly he had been holding himself ever since Anand’s
death. He was thankful that upon seeing Ramesh in the courtyard
last evening, he had suggested this morning’s run.
As they walked back toward the house, Frank determined to get
back into the routine of helping Ramesh with his schoolwork. The
child should not have to suffer because of the chaos of the adults
around him.
A few hours later Frank picked up the phone to call Peter Timberlake from his office. He didn’t want to go through another day
without getting Pete’s permission to give in to some of the workers’
demands. He was hoping Peter wouldn’t put up much of a fight, but
somehow he didn’t think so. Pete had been stunned when Frank had
called to report Anand’s death and the ensuing furor. “Jeez,” he’d
breathed. “How the hell did that happen?”
He was dialing the country code for the United States when he
found his fingers dialing Scott’s number instead. Scott was a broker
on Wall Street, and Frank trusted his business acumen even more
than Pete’s. Plus, he needed his big brother’s help in rehearsing what
exactly to say to Peter when he spoke to him.
“Hello?” Scott said.
“Hey, possum,” Frank replied. “How are you?”
“Well, hi there, squid. What’s new with you?”
They had called each other by these nicknames for so long that
neither one of them remembered when or why they’d come up with
them. Frank felt his neck muscles relax at the sound of his brother’s deep baritone. “I can’t talk too long,” he said. “Gotta call Peter
before he zonks out for the night. Whatcha doing? How’s Mom?”
“She’s fine. Says she tried calling you this week but there was
no answer. Anyway, I took her out to dinner last night. Oh, and I
finally met the mysterious Barney.” After not dating anyone in all
9 0 Th r i t y U m r i g a r
the years since their father had left, Lauretta was now dating a man
who lived in her apartment building. Neither Scott nor Frank could
quite get over this recent turn of events.
“How is he? Does he treat her nice?”
“He’s nuts about her. And she—she seems happier than I’ve ever
known her to be.”
Frank laughed. “Goddamn. Wait till I tell Ellie.”
“How is El?”
“She’s fine. She’s great.”
A minuscule pause. “You guys doing all right?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Frank exhaled heavily. “It’s only that—things are
tough here right now, Scott. In fact, if you have a minute, I wanted
to run something by you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, we had a situation here where this young guy—he was
a bit of a troublemaker, a union leader type—well, we had him arrested. I guess one of our men told the police to, y’know, rough him
up a bit and they got carried away or something. And the guy died
in police custody and—”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Exactly. And needless to say, everybody’s tempers are
inflamed, and I don’t know, the whole situation is pretty explosive.”
“I’ll say.” Frank could tell that Scott was thinking, could picture
him with his eyes closed and forehead creased. “Have you made any
overtures to the family?”
“We did. We sent the mother a check for ten thousand rupees,
and she refused to accept it. Said it insulted her son’s memory.”
“Ten thousand . . . that’s like what? Two hundred dollars or
something? Well, can’t say I blame her. I’d be insulted, too.” Scott
cleared his throat. “Fact is, kiddo, your company’s profits are soaring. I follow the stock daily. I think you guys can afford to be more
generous, don’t you? And what exactly are their demands?”
Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n
9 1
“Oh, the usual—a pay raise, more breaks during the day. That
sort of thing.”
“I don’t see what the problem is. So give in to some of their demands, squid. I mean, this situation sounds untenable.”
Frank was surprised to find that he had tears in his eyes. He
clung to the phone, not daring to speak. Scott sounded as reasonable, as calm and responsible, as ever. Frank remembered the day
after Benny’s funeral, when Scott asked him to go to lunch. But instead of lunch, Scott had driven to a state park and they had walked
for two hours in almost complete silence. On the way back, in the
car, Scott had turned to face Frank, his eyes steady on his younger
brother’s face. “You will survive this,” he said. “I know you think
you won’t, but you will.”
“You still there?” Scott was now saying.
“Yes,” he whispered, not daring to say more.
“Listen. Call Peter and tell him—don’t ask him, tell him—you’re
gonna give them part of what they want. You’re in charge there, it’s
your ass on the line, not Peter’s. So you make the decision, okay?”
“I miss home,” Frank blurted out. “I just miss—you know, life
in the States.”
“So come back. How much longer are you two gonna stay there,
anyway?”
“I don’t know. Until things are stable, I suppose. And Ellie loves
it here. She’s built a life for herself here, Scotty. Whereas me”—he
was teary again—“I don’t know if I’ll ever be at home anywhere
again, Scott.” Now he was sobbing, silently but hard. “Oh, God,
Scott. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’d really hoped that
being in a new place would help me heal. Just when I think I’m getting better, getting over him, I—I miss him, Scott. I feel like they
buried me alongside him. I’m trying so hard, but I don’t think it’s
getting any easier.”
“Frankie,” Scott said, his own voice hoarse. “Frankie, don’t.”
“I just keep
remembering
things. Like what the hair on his forearms
9 2 Th r i t y U m r i g a r
felt like when I caressed him. Or that bump on the side of his head,
remember? He had that since birth. And that squeaky giggle that
he had? Remember how you used to play that silly game with him
when he was little, Scotty?”
“Stop. Don’t do this to yourself, kiddo.”
But he couldn’t stop. He talked about Benny so rarely. And Scott
was one of the few people whom he trusted with Benny’s memory,
one of the few who knew how sacred that memory was and how one
wrong statement could defile that. “I can’t talk to Ellie about this,”
he said. “I don’t know why—God knows she tries. But I can’t, Scott.
I think I still blame her for her negligence. If only she’d—”
“Frankie, that’s bullshit. She did nothing wrong. The doctor
said there was no way she could’ve possibly known. I heard him
myself. In any case, how does it help your marriage, man, to blame
Ellie?”
“Well, she blames me, too. Hell, just the other day she accused
me of using Ramesh—the little servant boy who lives with us,
Scott—to get over Benny.” He felt fresh outrage as he remembered
Ellie’s words.
“Frank. Ellie’s your wife. She adores you. She’s all you got. And
vice versa.”
There was a knock on his door and before he could respond,
Rekha, his secretary, walked in. “Not now,” he barked, embarrassed
to be seen in this disheveled state. “How many times do I have to tell
you people? You don’t enter my office unless I ask you to.”
He heard Scott gasp at the other end, even while he registered
the look of startled fear on Rekha’s face before she slipped out of the
room. “Easy, easy,” Scott was murmuring.
He fought to control his emotions. “Sorry,” he said finally. “I just
lost it for a second.”
“Frank, listen to me. Here’s what you’re gonna do. First, nip this
whole labor thing in the bud. Fix it—and fast. That’s the first order
of business. Second, get out of town for a few days. Take Ellie and
Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n
9 3
go somewhere. You’re gonna have a breakdown if you go on like
this, kiddo.”
He felt more clear and resolute after he got off the phone. He immediately dialed Pete’s number, afraid of dissipating any of that resolution if he waited. To his relief Pete was amenable to a settlement;
the news of Anand’s death had rattled him up more than Frank had
realized.
He heaved himself out of his chair after he’d hung up and opened
the door to his office. Rekha was at her desk. “I’m sorry about yelling at you,” he said. “I . . . It was an important business call, you
know? But I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
Rekha looked so relieved and eager-to-please, it made him want
to cry. You’re a jerk, he told himself. You really scared her. “I’m
sorry,” he said again before making his way out of the building.
The workers were on their half-hour lunch break when he
reached the factory. He smelled the sharp, pungent smell of the
crushed girbal leaves as he entered. He inhaled deeply and walked
over to where Deshpande, the foreman, was sitting against a machine. The man, who was eating a simple lunch of a roti dipped in
daal, jumped to his feet when he saw Frank approach. “Good afternoon, sahib,” he said in his thickly accented English.
“Afternoon,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see
the other workers staring at him. “Listen, Desh. I have some good
news. I’ve decided to raise everybody’s salary by two rupees a day,
effective next week. And we’re adding an extra fifteen-minute break
to each day. Okay?” He waited for an expression of delight to cross
the man’s face, but Desh was expressionless. Damn poker-faced
bastard, Frank thought.
Desh finally spoke, lowering his voice. “We should also offer a
good sum to Anand’s mother, sahib. Will help tensions a lot.”
To his surprise Frank realized that the foreman was talking to
him as an equal, as if they were partners brainstorming a business
strategy. The guy really cares about this place, he thought, and found
9 4 Th r i t y U m r i g a r
the notion comforting and oddly touching. A feeling of good cheer
spread across him. “Tell you what,” he said. “You recommend what
you think is a fair amount. I’ll leave that to you.” He was rewarded
by a shy grin.
Desh waited until Frank exited the factory to break the news to
the others. On his way out, Frank heard the men erupt into cheers
and whistles. He smiled to himself. As he walked back to his office,
he couldn’t help but think that maybe he’d turned a corner.
That night, the chicken pot pie tasted delicious. “How does he do
it?” Frank gasped. “I mean, the guy looks like Howdy Doody but
cooks like Wolfgang Puck.”
Ellie giggled. “He does look a bit like Howdy Doody, doesn’t he?”
“Yup. He should teach Ramesh how to cook. Good skill to have
if the kid’s gonna study in the States someday.”
“You really think Ramesh is that good?” Ellie asked. “That he
could hold his own in the U.S.?”
He waited to see if he detected any hostility or sarcasm in her
voice and decided there was none. “I think the kid’s brilliant, Ellie,”
he said. His voice was sincere, even-keeled. “With the right kind of
parents, the sky would be the limit—”
“But that’s just it, babe,” Ellie said. “His parents are a bright but
passive mother and a father who seems more interested in booze
than anything else. Those are the cards he has to play.”
Not if I play a stronger role in his life, Frank wanted to say. And I
would, if I didn’t have to watch over my shoulder and gauge your reaction all the time. But he swallowed the words even as they formed
on his lips. As he did the thought that followed: How come Ellie is
so damn liberal about global issues—the rights of women, the obligation of rich countries to help poorer countries, even what should