The Weight of Heaven (46 page)

good, Prakash thought, and so much more fun than drinking alone

at home, under the shadow of Edna’s disapproving looks. The men

were friendly with him today, drawing him into the fold, and the

lonely feeling that he usually felt around the villagers vanished. He

was one of them tonight, not the orphan who usually stood at the

outskirts of their lives. It was a powerful feeling, this sense of belonging, this camaraderie, and it made him want to drink to rejoice.

When he finally staggered out of the joint, he was stunned to realize

it was ten o’clock. He pedaled home as fast as his wobbly legs allowed him to.

He had braced himself for the gust of Edna’s wrath as soon as he

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 3 4 5

walked through the tin door. What he was unprepared for was the

sight of his wife curled up in a fetal position on the rope cot. Her face

was flushed and her forehead covered with sweat.

“Prakash,” she gasped as she saw him. “Where have you

been?”

“I went to see a film. What is wrong?”

“I don’t know. Horrible stomach cramps I’m having. Maybe

something I ate. Though truth to tell, not much I’m eating today.”

Her voice was so low, he had to drop to his knees to hear her.

Panic seized him. He wished his head wasn’t spinning so much,

so he could think of what to do. “Shall I call doctor sahib?” he said,

even as he remembered that they owed the doctor two hundred

rupees.

Edna lifted her head. “No,” she gasped. “No doctor, I beg you.”

She had a deep fear of doctors, he knew.

“Wait,” he said. “I be right back.”

“Prakash, stay here,
na
.”

“I come right back. Two minutes, total.” He pulled his hand from

hers.

The lights were turned out in the big house, and for a minute he

worried that Ellie was not home, had left to meet Nandita memsahib

for dinner, perhaps. Or maybe she had gone to bed. He banged hard

on the kitchen door, and when there was no answer, banged again.

To his relief, a light turned on. A second later, Ellie opened the door

and blinked at him.

“What the— ?” And then, screwing up her nose, “You’ve been

drinking, haven’t you?”

“Ellie madam, come quick-quick. My Edna is most sick.” The

words came out slurred, despite his best efforts.

He watched her forehead crease with worry. “What’s wrong?”

she asked, but before he could answer, she disappeared. When she

appeared again, she had thrown a robe over her pajamas. “Let’s go,”

she said and they hurried across the courtyard.

3 4 6 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

Edna was holding her stomach and moaning lightly. “Turn on

the lights,” Ellie ordered, and he did. Ellie sat at the edge of Edna’s

cot. “Tell me what’s happening,” she said gently.

Edna licked her upper lip. “I don’t know, miss,” she gasped.

“Stomach is paining a lot.”

“Do you have a fever?” And before Edna could reply, she turned

to Prakash. “You have a thermometer?”

He stared at her, his drunken brain trying to conjure up the image

of a thermometer. Ellie made an exasperated sound. “Never mind,”

she said, stood up, and left the shack. She was back a moment later.

“Here we go.” She smiled at Edna. “Let’s stick this under your

tongue, okay?”

There was no fever. “That’s good,” Ellie said. “And here are

some pills for a tummy ache. Can you sit up to take these?” She

looked to Prakash. “Go get me a glass of water.”

She helped ease Edna back onto the cot. “Boil a pot of water,” she

instructed Prakash. “I’ll be back with a hot water bottle.”

By quarter to midnight the spasms had diminished, but Edna still

looked terrible. Prakash sat propped up in one corner, trying his

best to stay awake.
Ae bhagwan
, he prayed. Let my Edna be okay,

and I will not touch this vile
daru
for one whole week.

Ellie sat on the cot across from Edna’s. “Are you asleep?” she

whispered.

“No, miss,” Edna answered immediately. “Pain is better but still

there.”

Ellie looked around helplessly. “I think we should have Dr.

Gupta come in.”

Edna looked to the ceiling. “No, miss. I beg you. No doctor.”

“But why . . . ?”

Edna folded her hands. “I beg you. No doctor.”

“Listen,” Ellie said. “Let me at least phone him, okay?” She was

walking to the door before Edna could respond.

Prakash got up off the floor and sat holding his wife’s hand. He

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 3 4 7

didn’t know how much time had passed before Ellie came back.

“Okay,” she said loudly. “I reached Dr. Gupta. He says as long as

you don’t have a fever, that’s good. But he wants you to take two

more of these.” She held out the big pink tablets.

“Thank you, madam,” Edna said. “You go home, madam. It’s

late.”

In response, Ellie turned to Prakash. “Listen,” she said. “I’m

going to spend the night here with Edna. I—I’ll sleep on the cot and

keep an eye on her. You go into the main house. Take some sheets

and go to sleep in the kitchen. Understand?”

He staggered to his feet without protest. As he rose, the veil of

alcohol lifted for a second, and he saw his home clearly—saw how

empty and shabby it looked compared to the opulent main house.

He took in the filthy sheet that he covered himself with at night, the

lack of a pillow on the rope cot. “Excuse, please,” he mumbled and

stumbled out of the house. Outdoors, he went behind the house,

walked a distance, and took a piss against a tree on the street. He

would’ve been too embarrassed to use the tiny bathroom in his own

home with Ellie there, knowing it was separated by the rest of the

shack by a flimsy door that didn’t hide many sounds or smells. Next,

he entered the main house and opened the linen closet. He picked

out two sheets—one to drape over the cot, which he knew Ellie

would find uncomfortable to sleep on, and the other to cover herself

with. He wondered whether to fetch her her pillow but was afraid

of touching her bed without her permission. He hurried back to the

shack. Ellie was again crouching near Edna, stroking her hair. He

used the time to make the bed.

“Shall I stay, also?” he whispered to Ellie. “I can sleep in the

corner,” he added hastily.

She peered at him. “It’s too tight and hot in here,” she said. A

look of annoyance crossed her face. “Besides, you’re too drunk to be

of help. Better if you sleep this off and be fresh in the morning. I’m

sure she’s going to need your help tomorrow.”

3 4 8 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

“As you wish,” he mumbled. He went over and kissed Edna’s

forehead and received the slightest of smiles. “Go rest,” she said to

him. “So late it is.”

As he crossed the courtyard, resentment at having been banished

from his own home wrestled with gratitude at Ellie’s willingness

to spend the night with Edna. Not too many mistresses do this, he

reminded himself. And by the time he placed a clean, lavenderscented sheet on the cool kitchen floor and fell asleep in the spotless,

airy room, only gratitude remained.

The pressure of his bladder woke him up a few hours later. He

was getting up off the floor to go pee when he heard it:
pop
. Followed by a woman’s scream. And then, in rapid succession:
pop
.

Pop
-
pop
. A pause and then, another
pop
. Something crashed. Followed by an abrupt silence, louder than what had gone before. He

had no idea what the popping sounds were, but his heart was pounding as he rose to his feet and rushed to the kitchen window. And

he saw it: a man as tall as a tree emerged from the shack and disappeared into the black of the night. Prakash blinked a few times,

wanting to decipher whether the shadowy presence was a
daku
or a

bhoot
, a dacoit or a ghost. But then, to his terror, he saw the figure

moving slowly toward the main house. Prakash’s trembling hands

instinctively moved toward the light switch. He flipped it on, flooding the room with brightness. The figure stopped dead in its tracks

and then moved away, heading rapidly toward the driveway. A

ghost for sure, Prakash’s alcohol-soaked, superstition-riddled brain

told him. A ghost chased away by the purity of light. He thought he

saw the figure leap over the low brick wall and onto the driveway,

but it was too dark to be sure. He stood at the window a few more

minutes. Then he remembered the scream. As he hurried across the

courtyard, he heard the engine of a car fire up in the distance. He

paid it no mind.

The door of the shack was open. He walked in. “Edna?” he

whispered. No response. And then he heard it—a moan so low and

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 3 4 9

horrible, it made the hair on his body stand up. He turned on the

light. And saw the scene that he would still see when he was a

seventy-year-old man waking up from his nightmares each night.

Edna was in a fetal position, cradling her stomach. But now there

was a river of blood emerging from her stomach. In place of the red

bindi she always wore on her forehead, was a bullet hole, the size of

a rupee coin. Her eyes were closed.

He looked over to his right. Ellie was sitting up on his cot, leaning against the plastered walls. Her head was slumped against her

collar bone. Her mouth hung open, a thin stream of blood trickling

out. Her legs were splayed in front of her. The wall behind her was

splattered with blood and some yellow—
ae bhagawan
—what was

this puslike, yellow, alive-looking thing that was pouring out of her

head?

And one of them had moaned. Who had moaned? One of them

had been alive when he’d entered the room. “Ednaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,”

he screamed. “Madaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam.” There was no response.

He fell to his knees in front of his wife. He picked up her hand,

and when he lowered it, it dropped lifelessly away. She was dead.

In his shell-shocked mind, the realization registered as fact, not as

grief. Not yet. Still on his haunches, he scrambled his way toward

Ellie. The floor was hot and slick and slippery with blood. “Miss

Ellie,” he cried. “Miss.” He went to lift her arm, but something

about its angle, the unnatural way in which it was bent, gave him

the answer he needed.

Police. He needed to phone the police. He scooted away on his

buttocks toward the door. He felt like he was being marinated in

their boiling, steaming blood. For the first time, he became aware

of the slaughterhouse odor filling this tiny room. Immediately, he

began to retch and gag. Get away. He needed to get away. Call

police. Breathe fresh air. He rose to his feet. And slipped on the slick

floor. He steadied himself. He was almost to the door when his bladder betrayed him. With that release came another: he emerged from

3 5 0 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

the protective shell of numbness that he had built around himself,

into the dark continent of grief.

And so Prakash stood at the door, tears streaming down his

blood-streaked face, hot piss streaming down his trembling legs,

eyeing the mutilated female bodies that would haunt him the rest of

his days.

Chapter 36

He ran. Down the steps of the porch leading to the front yard and

across the lawn and to the steeper flight of stone steps that led to

the beach. Onto the brown sand and directly toward the blaze of

the mid-morning sun as it glowered like a scold over the protesting

waves. And then, a sharp right away from the house and he was

running on the dark, muddy flatness of the beach where the waves

scuttled and lapped, timid as mice.

He ran. His shirt was hanging on the rocker on the porch back at

the house, fluttering like a white flag in the breeze. The sun broiled

the skin on his back, turning it a salmon red. By tomorrow he would

be sunburned and the burns would feel delicious, an addition to the

litany of ways in which he was trying to punish himself since Ellie’s

death. He focused now on how the sneakers were tight on his feet,

how they were pinching his little toe, sending occasional sparks of

pain that his brain hungered to register. Later, he would find the

bloom of a red blister and he would cherish it, pick at its red heart to

feel the lovely, tortured sensation. How clean, how uncomplicated,

how free of irony, physical pain was. And what a great diversion

from the mental anguish that he fought every second of his life to

keep at bay.

3 5 2 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

He ran. Waited for that moment when his lungs would be bursting, when rivulets of sweat would fall from him, when exhaustion would make his calf muscles quiver and his mind would turn

blank, mercilessly blank, a white sheet of nothingness. That magical

moment when he would enter the zone, where he would stop being

a thinking, tortured man and simply become an animal, a mechanical being, a sum of moving body parts—a heaving chest, a burned

back, a straining thigh muscle, a pair of eyes watering from the sun’s

glare.