The Weight of Heaven (21 page)

stepped in, pulling Ramesh out of the circle of laughing, screaming

children.

“Look at you,” he mock-admonished the boy. “You’re soaking

wet.”

Ramesh was still looking back at the girl, who had resumed her

playing. “She’s angry at me,” he said.

“Forget about her,” he said. “She’s just a spoiled brat.” He caught

Ellie flashing a warning look at him and heeded her silent message

1 4 4 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

not to aggravate the situation further. “Anyway. Are you hungry,

you walking-talking puddle of water? How are we ever going to

dry you off?”

“Let’s throw him in the dryer,” Ellie teased. “He’ll be dry in no

time.”

“Nooooooooooo,” Ramesh yelled. “If I’m in the dryer, I’ll be

like the clothes, I’ll go like this-like this,” and shaking off Frank’s

hand, he did a couple of somersaults on the lawn. Droplets of water

fell from him onto the grass.

Frank turned to Ellie. “You started this,” he said as she lunged

for Ramesh and grabbed his hand. “Okay, now,” she said. “Behave

yourself.” She turned toward the food area. “Let’s go eat,
achcha
?”

she said. “I’m starving.”

“I want some tandoori chicken,” Ramesh said. They had introduced him to the grilled chicken dish at the restaurant at the Shalimar, and now this was his favorite meal.

“You ate that at Khyber last night,” Frank chided. “In any case,

this is an American picnic. I want you to try some American food.”

He stopped, struck by a thought. Ramesh was a Hindu and didn’t eat

beef. What on earth would he eat here? But as they walked toward

the grills, he noticed that one of the cooks was grilling chicken.

They were halfway through their meal—chicken, hamburgers,

hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans, corn on the cob—when they

saw a flurry of activity and sensed that the U.S. ambassador to India

had arrived. Frank groaned. “Guess I’d better go stand in line to

say hello.”

“Just sit here and finish your meal,” Ellie said. “What do you

care about the stupid ambassador?”

“It’s good for business, Ellie. Some face time.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. But the line’s gonna be so long,

you may as well keep eating.”

He eyed the jostling that was going on around the tall, silver-Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 4 5

headed man, and decided Ellie was right. He took a big bite of his

hot dog and closed his eyes in pleasure.

“What’re you thinking?” Even with his eyes closed, he could

hear the smile in her voice.

“Detroit Tigers,” he said promptly. “Best seats in the house, right

behind home plate. Scott buying me one of those big stadium dogs

with mustard, ketchup, the works. The Tigers beating the pants off

the Yankees that day.” He sighed. “I was fifteen years old.”

“My dear Frank,” Ellie said. “You sound homesick.”

And suddenly he was. He wanted to feel the cool, summer breezes

off Lake Michigan, wanted to walk with Ellie on their Ann Arbor

street taking in the mad, riotous colors of October, wanted to celebrate, as always, Christmas in New York with Scott and his mom and

New Year’s Eve with Ellie’s family in Cleveland. Suddenly, he wanted

baseball games and movie multiplexes and spotlessly clean malls. He

wanted art house movies, good theater, poetry readings at the U of

M. He was dimly aware of the fact that his nostalgia was for a life he

had not actually lived in a long time. But he didn’t care. He was happy

missing the Michigan of his youth, of his college days, of his early life

with Ellie when he had graduated with an MBA and gone to work for

a small company while she worked on her Ph.D. They had planned on

waiting until she was done with her degree before getting pregnant,

but life had a different plan for them, and Benny had been born two

weeks after Ellie had earned her doctorate.

“Remember Alex?” Frank now said, and Ellie spluttered with

laughter. “Oh, boy, do I ever,” she replied.

“What, what?” Ramesh asked, looking from one to another.

“What is LX?”

“Not LX. Alex. It’s a person’s name. He was a babysitter—he

used to come watch our son when we were at work. He was this

goofy musician guy—he could do all these tricks. He used to play

music using our broom and dustpan.”

1 4 6 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

Ramesh was excited. “How he do that, Frank?”

“I dunno. It’s hard to explain. He could also make these noises

that sounded like a whole band was playing.”

Ellie grinned at him. “Remember my mom’s face when we first

introduced her to Alex? You know how he used to dress, in those

pink and purple jeans. And that hair. Jesus, that hair. I think she was

this close to reporting us to Children’s Services.”

“Yeah, I’ve always thought Delores had something to do with

Alex deciding to seek his fortune in Alaska.”

Ramesh pulled at Frank’s sleeve. “Stop talking about old things,”

he said. “I’m feeling alone.” His tone was peevish, but it tugged at

Frank.

“Sorry, bud,” he said. “We’re losing our party manners.”

“My dada and ma do this, also,” Ramesh said. “Talking about

things before I was born. It’s boring.”

For a moment Frank pictured Edna and Prakash discussing their

youth, the early days of their romance, before life coarsened their

love. He remembered Ellie telling him that Edna had eloped with

Prakash and that her family had disowned her as a result. He felt a

sudden flash of sympathy with the couple but fought the temptation

to soften his hostility toward Prakash.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about instead?”

The boy didn’t have to think. “About me,” he said.

Ellie burst out laughing. “I diagnose a budding narcissist in the

making,” she said. And before Ramesh could react, “Now, calm

down, Ramesh. Remember, we’re at a party.”

The boy was about to respond when a young man with a harried

expression trotted up to the tent where they were eating. “Excuse

me,” he called. And when no one paid him any attention, he raised

his voice. “Excuse me,” he said again. “The Honorable Bill Richards is here. He would like to say a few words, starting in two minutes. Can you kindly follow me into the house?”

Frank looked at the food on his plate longingly. “Lousy timing,”

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 4 7

he whispered to Ellie, but he was already rising to his feet, his eyes

imploring his wife to get up also.

Ellie eyed all the abandoned plates as everyone around them rose

and followed the young aide. “Our tax dollars at work,” she muttered but accompanied Frank and Ramesh as they crossed the front

lawn and climbed the marble steps again.

The ambassador had already started speaking as they made their

way into the foyer and stood against the doorway. A light breeze

blew in from the open front doors and played with the corners of

Ellie’s cotton skirt. Thinking of the burger getting cold on his plate,

Frank prayed that the speech would be short. Judging from the periodic bursts of laughter from the crowd surrounding the ambassador, the speech was funny. There was a moment of uncertainty after

Richards got done speaking, a low rumble rising from the crowd

as people resumed their conversations and shuffled on their feet,

unsure of protocol. Frank was about to turn to Ellie and ask whether

they should return to their tent when they heard it—a voice as clear

as glass singing words as familiar as a loved one’s name. “Oh, say

can you see?” the voice sang and they all turned their heads to see

a slender young boy, no older than eighteen, dressed formally in a

white linen shirt and dark pants, strolling toward where the ambassador stood, parting the crowd with the clarity of his voice, with

the sincerity on his face. In a moment, the crowd joined in, singing

the words in a low pitch, careful not to douse the sweet flame of that

single voice. Frank found his spine straightening, felt goose bumps

covering his arms. His right hand automatically made its way to his

heart. He felt Ramesh tug at him, but he ignored the boy, swept up

in the delicacy of the moment. And at his favorite juncture—that

juncture when the anthem took that delicious turn and became a

poem and a prayer, that plaintive, wistful moment when it asked

the question of the ages, “Oh, say does that star-spangled banner

yet wave?” he turned toward Ellie, wife and fellow citizen, his

heart aching with love for his country, for all the people gathered

1 4 8 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

here. And was shocked by her posture. He noticed immediately that

Ellie stood with her hands by her side. And that there was a curious, academic look on her face, as if she were studying a natural

phenomenon. Dammit, Frank thought. She looks like a goddamn

anthropologist or something. More than anything she had said earlier today, this passivity, this silent irony, offended him. He knew

she found expressions of patriotism to be simple and easy, almost

farcical. But there was nothing cheap or easy about the powerful

emotions that had coursed through him at the first recognition of

his country’s national anthem. He felt defensive and hated her for

making him have to defend his pride in his country.

“Could you at least pretend?” he hissed at her.

“Pretend what? That we’re not committing terrorism in the

world? That we’re really the land of the free? Do you ever read the

newspapers?”

She had done it. She had succeeded in shocking him, repelling

him in a way she’d never been able to do when she’d engaged in

spirited debates with his brother, when she’d denounced the very

idea of business management while having dinner with the dean

of U of M’s business school, when she had chastised him for what

HerbalSolutions was doing to Girbaug’s economy. Their marriage

had been a long intellectual conversation—over the years he’d

argued with her, sometimes been scandalized by her, often been

amused by her, had called her a damn Communist when she went

too far. Mostly, he’d agreed with her, and even when he didn’t, had

been proud of his independent, rebellious wife. But he’d never felt

the kind of seething anger that he felt right now. All these years,

Ellie’s critiques and criticisms of America had felt tolerable because

they felt like the angst-filled laments of a mother whose brilliant

child was not living up to its promise. But this was something different, something new. He didn’t recognize this cold, ironic Ellie. And

he knew that it was their location, the soil they were standing on,

that made all the difference. India had done more than radicalize his

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 4 9

wife. It had embittered her and positioned her differently. She now

saw America the way the rest of the world did. It was no longer a

critical but maternal look at a wayward child. Now, it was the accusing, harsh look of a stranger.

“What?” she said. “You have nothing to say?”

He turned away, apprehensive of the resentment that he was feeling. He had only hated her like this one other time—the day Benny

had died. Now, all his old feelings from that day came rushing back.

“Let’s just drop it,” he said brusquely. “There’s no point in talking

to you when you’re in this mood.”

They walked back to the picnic area. Frank got a fresh plate of

food, but the corn now tasted insipid and the meat was charred and

chewy. He was suddenly self-conscious of the conspicuous consumption—the mounds of grilled meat, the steady flow of alcohol,

the piles of discarded plastic plates and glasses—all around them,

and he hated Ellie for forcing this awareness upon him. He pretended

to listen to Ramesh’s nervous chatter, exchanged banter with Bob,

the ruddy-faced businessman sitting next to him, but his heart was

not in it. For an unguarded moment, his eyes lingered on Georgie,

Bob’s skinny, peroxide-blond wife, who had the kind of hair and

figure that he had lusted after when he was fifteen. As he grew into a

serious young man, he had been turned off by women like Georgie,

had felt a desperate loneliness when confronted by their empty, vacuous chatter, but today he thought—Jesus Christ, at least Bob never

had to worry about his wife insulting the consul general. Ellie had

satisfied him in every way—sexually, intellectually, emotionally—

but for a moment he wondered what being with Georgie would be

like, how it would feel to be in the kind of marriage where he could

turn around after a good fuck and fall asleep instead of living with

a woman who spoke of terrorism and genocide at a friggin’ Fourth

of July picnic. He looked up and saw that Ellie was looking at him.

As their eyes met, she raised one eyebrow and threw him a slow

smile. He flushed, knowing she’d read his mind. He felt flustered

1 5 0 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

and exposed. He wanted to wipe that smile off her face—wipe it off

with the whack of his hand.

He got to his feet abruptly, cutting Bob off mid-sentence. “I’m

sorry, we’ve got to go,” he said.

Bob stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding. Man, the party’s

just getting started.”

“I know.” He pulled Ramesh up. “But we’ve got another engagement.” He looked at Ellie, imploring her to play along. She rose to