The Weight of Heaven (32 page)

on one hand, I’m dreading any reference to Benny, any expressions

of sympathy. On the other hand, if my parents try to sweep it under

the carpet, if they don’t speak his name, that will infuriate me even

more. It’s like I’m not being fair to them, you know?”

“It will be almost two years since we were home, Ellie,” he said

quietly. “We have to face up to what has happened to—to the fact

that America is home.”

Easy for you to say, she wanted to say. I see how well you’re

doing facing up to reality, losing yourself in the company of a

2 3 0 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

nine-year-old boy we are practically stealing from his parents, unable

to bear the thought of going home without having him by your side.

But she could not, would not, say this out loud. She wanted Frank

to retain whatever delusions brought him comfort, wanted to allow

him to decorate his life with whatever streamers of hope he could.

“You’re right,” she said. She felt tired, unable to capture the

thrilling excitement she had felt earlier this evening.

Frank put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. “Don’t

worry, Ellie,” he murmured. “It’s only a short visit. And it will be

good to be with family again.”

She rested her head on his shoulders, allowing herself to be lulled

by the promise of his sweet lie.

Chapter 20

Ellie heard it first. A chattering, a sound that appeared to be organic, part of the natural world, like crickets in the dark or birds at

dusk. Only, it was now dawn. She and Frank were still in bed, but

she awoke sensing something outside their bedroom window, a disturbance, an unrest, an uneasy shift of the wind. She sat up in bed,

rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and looked out the open window.

And saw nothing except for the green expanse of the front lawn and,

beyond it, the sea.

But then came a different noise, and as if in response, the hair on

Ellie’s arm stood up. It was an unearthly sound, loud and continuous, a keening that hung in the air. And under the high-pitched wail

was accompaniment—a deep rumble that provided the percussion

to the wailing. Ellie’s feet hit the ground. Grabbing her robe around

her, she walked through the living room to the front porch. Her

stomach dropped, and she gasped. For a split second, she thought

that perhaps she was still asleep and the scene before her belonged in

a nightmare. Then she smelled the salty sea air, felt the sweat forming on her forehead, looked at the woman who was keening, and

knew it was the worst kind of nightmare—one that was real.

2 3 2 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

A crowd of about thirty had gathered on the front lawn of her

bungalow. She recognized many of the men from the Diwali celebration just a few days ago. On that day, their faces had been slack

with pleasure and warmth. Today, they were looking at the house

as if debating whether to burn it down, their faces pinched and tight

with anger and resentment. All except for the woman who had collapsed on the grass, slithering on the ground like a snake, occasionally raising her head toward the heavens to let out another cry.

Despite her shocked reaction, some part of Ellie took in the painterly

quality of the scene in front of her—the pale gray morning light and

the trembling sea in the far distance, a still life of tight-jawed, frozen

men and in the close-up, a writhing, wailing woman half singing

her grief to the disinterested heavens.

One of the men spotted her on the porch, and the painting splintered and then rearranged itself. The man let out a cry and pointed

toward her, and within a second, at least a third of the men had struck

the same pose, pointing at her. Despite being inside her house, being

separated from them by a good twenty feet, Ellie suddenly felt exposed, naked, as if the house was built of paper and rags and one

angry breath by the mob could bring it crashing down. She watched

in horror as one of the villagers bent down and picked up a small

rock and then hurled it toward the house. Toward her. She ducked,

although the stone missed its mark by several feet. But the attack

brought her to her senses, and she fled indoors, screaming for Frank

to wake up. The mob jeered her as she retreated into the house and

then the chanting began.

“HerbalSolutions
murdabad
,” they shouted.

“Shame, shame, ’Merica go home.”

“Down, down with HerbalSolutions.”

“Long live Mukesh bhai.”

And soaring above their political slogans, as if giving the truest

expression to their anger and sorrow, the keening.

“Frank,” Ellie yelled as she raced through the house. She reached

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 2 3 3

the bedroom and saw that he was still asleep. “Frank,” she said shaking him roughly. “Wake up. Wake up. We have a riot outside our

house.”

His eyes flew open and he sat upright in bed. “Huh? What?

What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but you better come see.” Ellie could hear the

hysteria in her voice and struggled to control it. “Come see,” she

repeated.

Frank stumbled into the coffee table on the way to the porch,

gnashed his teeth, and followed his wife. He gasped at what he saw.

The crowd had swelled by another ten men. But what arrested their

attention was the body laid out on their lawn, to the right of the

wailing woman, who had crawled over to the dead body and was

sobbing over it, beating her breast with her open hand. As the crowd

spotted Frank, a shout went up. “Frank sahib
murdabad
,” a few of

them shouted.

“Frank,” a stunned Ellie stammered. “What’s happening? I think

that man is—dead.”

Frank’s face was white. He looked more scared than Ellie had

ever seen him. “I don’t have a fucking clue,” he replied hoarsely.

A youth broke out of the crowd, his face twisted with rage. He

stepped around the prone body and approached the porch. Instinctively, Ellie took a step backward. But even in her terror, she noticed

that Frank was standing his ground. As the young man came closer,

Ellie recognized him as one of her students. But her brain wouldn’t

unfreeze long enough to remember his name.

The student was pointing to the body of the man. “Look,” he

spat. “Mukesh dead. Kill himself by hanging. From
girbal
tree

belong to us. But your guard not allowing him to pick leaves. He

and his family starving. He kill himself.”

And suddenly, in an awful moment, it all fell into place for Ellie

as she recognized the keening woman. It was Radha, her client, the

domestic abuse victim whose house she had visited. She remembered

2 3 4 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

the encounter with the woman’s husband a few months ago. What

had Asha told her about what he’d said? That he had earned his

livelihood plucking and selling the leaves of the
girbal
tree, which

was now off limits to the local people.

But no time now to think because amazingly, incredulously,

Frank was moving away from her and toward the mob. “Frank,”

she screamed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Phone Deepak,” he hissed at her. “Go in now and call him. Tell

him to send the police over
now
.” But Ellie couldn’t move. She stood

transfixed as she saw Frank move closer to the edge of the porch and

looked down at the crowd. “Listen,” he yelled. “I’m sorry for the—

for what has happened. But HerbalSolutions had nothing to do with

this. You need to go home now. We don’t want any trouble.”

Ellie moved indoors and toward the phone. “Come in, Frank,”

she called. “Get out of there.”

Her hands shook like birds in a rainstorm as she dialed Deepak’s

number. She hung up as soon as she’d asked him to send the police

over. Frank had followed her into the house, and they stood in the

living room, staring at each other, not pretending to hide the fear

on their faces. “What’ll we do if they come in?” she began to ask,

and then stopped as she heard Radha’s voice call her name. “Ellie

bai,” the voice said, followed by a long tirade in Hindi. Other, male

voices took up the chant. “Ellie bai, Ellie bai.” Then, a loud, “Miss

Ellie. Radha wanting to talk you.”

Frank read her mind. “Don’t you even think about it,” he said.

“You’re not stepping out there.”

The chanting started again. “HerbalSolutions, shame, shame.”

“Frank sahib
murdabad
.”

“Long live Mukesh bhai.”

“I know her,” Ellie gasped. “The woman who is . . . the widow.

Maybe I should go talk with her.”

“Don’t you dare,” Frank began. “You hear those stones pelting

the porch? There’s no telling—”

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 2 3 5

They huddled together on the couch, looking at each other in incomprehension. Just when the cacophony got unbearable, their ears

took in a new sound. For a moment, it sounded like whips striking

the air, and then there was screaming and someone yelled, “Po-lice.

Bhago, bhago
, run.”

Ellie felt her whole body shake. “Do something,” she cried.

“Make them stop.”

But Frank sat down heavily on the couch and held his head in his

hands. He looked small, diminished, as if something had collapsed

within him. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “We have a fucking

riot in our front yard.”

The screams got louder and more agonized. They heard a series

of piercing whistles and orders being barked. And then suddenly,

abruptly, it was silent. For a second Ellie was thankful, but as the

silence sustained itself, it began to sound creepy, ominous. “What’s

going on?” she said. She forced her legs to stop shaking and inched

closer to the porch again. She was in time to see a swarm of khakicolored policemen roughly herding the villagers down the stone

steps. She looked for Radha but couldn’t see her. They must’ve arrested her first. She flinched as she saw the indifferent, brutal way in

which two of the policemen wrapped the corpse in a white sheet and

carried it away. Her eyes fell on a tall, burly man in civilian clothes

who seemed to be orchestrating the whole scene. She watched as

he curtly spoke to the men removing the body, noticed the crook

of his index finger as he pointed toward the house. As if he had felt

her staring at him, the plainclothesman looked up and smiled. Ellie

shuddered. She felt voyeuristic, corrupt, implicated. Still, she stood

her ground, fighting the urge to scuttle into the house and get back

into bed and pull the covers over her head, pretending that the last

half hour had not happened. The India of the Diwali celebration—

the gentle, generous India, the country of red flared skirts and twirling dancers, of clay lamps and firecrackers that emitted light and

beauty—that India seemed as dead as the corpse in her front yard.

2 3 6 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

She suddenly saw India as Frank had grown to see it—corrupt, unpredictable, volatile, and even sinister. Like the man who was walking toward the porch, with lips that smiled and eyes that were as

cold as a January morning in Ann Arbor.

“Memsahib,” he said, nodding at her as he came up the stairs.

“Stop,” she said. She had no intention of letting this man into her

house. “Who are you?”

The lizard eyes grew colder even as the smile grew. “No need

to be afraid, Ellie memsahib,” he said. “I’m Gulab Singh. Head of

security at HerbalSolutions.”

Gulab Singh. Ellie racked her brain to remember why the name

sounded familiar. And then she remembered Nandita telling her

about Gulab’s reputation among the villagers. “I wish Frank hadn’t

hired this fellow to head security, Ellie,” she had once said. “He’s

a disgusting man. Grew up in the village and then went away for

a few years—I don’t know, says he was a big shot in the army or

something. In any case, all the village folks are terrified of him.”

Now, eyeing Gulab, Ellie felt her mouth twisting with dislike.

“What’s going to happen to those people?” she said, wondering

where Frank had disappeared. “Where have they been taken?”

Gulab made a dismissive cluck. “Don’t worry about them, memsahib,” he said. “They’ll be dealt with properly.” Something about

his manner, his refusal to make eye contact with her, told Ellie that

he had sensed her dislike of him. But before she could respond to

his contemptuous dismissal of the fate of the villagers, she saw him

straighten and smile broadly. “Good morning, Frank sahib,” he

said, and Ellie felt Frank behind her.

“Not a good morning, Gulab,” Frank said curtly. “Not a good

morning, at all. What is going on here?”

Gulab was on the porch now, and Ellie smelled a faint but cloying scent. Women’s perfume, she thought with wonder. This jerk

has women’s perfume on. “A thousand apologies, sir,” Gulab was

saying, his manner as cloying as his scent. “I was at the factory

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 2 3 7

when I heard the news. I had no idea these scoundrels were planning this. Would’ve bashed their heads, if I’d known. But it seems

they found him—the body—early this morning. What I am now

needing to find out is which mischief maker decided to come to your