The Weight of Heaven (11 page)

was a common enough occurrence—Europeans coming to Goa for

a visit and falling in love with the beauty of the place and the warm

friendliness of the people, which they mistook for a childlike innocence. Next thing you knew, they were buying up beachfront prop-Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n

6 9

erty on their accountants’ and nurses’ and plumbers’ salaries. They

lived in Goa for years until one day, a sudden urge to eat fish and

chips at the Blackheath pub or to see the Seine at dawn or to revisit

the Cologne cathedral came over them, and they heard themselves

tell a nephew or a niece they had last seen thirty-five years ago that

they were coming home.

“Why you looking like someone dead, men?” Edna had said to

Prakash. “The old man has to go home, no?”

Prakash shook his head. “I thought his home here.”

Edna laughed. “He live here twenty-five years and never speak

the language. And you think this his home? At least Olaf is a decent

fellow—told me today he giving us ten thousand rupees. The British gent my mama cook for for years, you know what he leave her?

A picture of himself. Say he not want to insult their friendship by

giving money. Can you imagine?”

Before leaving, Olaf also told them in his broken English that

he’d sold the house to an American company called HerbalSolutions

and that someone from the company would soon be living there.

He had highly recommended Prakash and Edna to the new owners.

The ten thousand rupees was to tide them over in the eventuality

that there would be a delay in the arrival of the new occupants.

Now, thinking of Olaf as Edna finished sweeping the kitchen,

Prakash said to her, “Do you remember—”

“Do you remember, do you remember?” she mimicked him.

She got up from the floor and straightened herself. “All I remember is you come home at eleven last night, like an ordinary ruffian.

Drunker than the devil himself.”

He had to look away from the fury he saw in her eyes. How to

explain to her what had made him stagger out of the house and head

to the bootlegger’s joint, last night? He had been in the courtyard

pruning the bushes when Ramesh had returned to their shack after

knocking and knocking on the door of the main house. “
Arre, bewa-

koof
, I told you they not home,” he’d called out to his son.

7 0 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

Ramesh’s forehead was creased with worry. “But I am needing

help on a maths problem, dada,” he said. And then, “How come you

cannot help me?”

The shame had risen in him, like acid from the stomach. Unable

to speak, he had instead smacked his son on the head. “Go inside

and study,” he said. He lingered in the courtyard for a few minutes,

knowing that he was not going into their one-room shack, that he

was too embarrassed to face his son. He gave the bush one savage

clip, put away the shears, and walked to the village instead.

Edna was still staring at him. “In Goa they at least have AA

meetings,” she said. “In this godforsaken place, nothing.”

“Goa, Goa,” he said, forgetting to keep his voice down. “If your

Goa so good, pack your bags and go. See who will marry an old

boodhi
like you.”

“And who made me an old
boodhi
, you rascal? So young and

plump I was when I met you . . .” And Edna was down the road

that she walked at least once a week, a path full of recriminations

and accusations and blame and nostalgia for the Goa of her youth.

Usually, he simply ignored her, made his mind fly like a kite to some

other place, but today he felt pity for his wife, heard in her lament

for her lost youth something that he himself was feeling. Stopping

her mid-sentence, he put his arms around her. “
Chup, chup
, Edna,”

he said softly. “I understand the reason for all this
gussa
. You is just

missing your mummy and papa.”

Her eyes filled immediately with tears, and he knew he had diagnosed the problem accurately. But how to solve it, he didn’t know.

Not for the first time, he cursed the pigheaded father-in-law he had

never met.

Feeling her relax and soften, glad that he had been able to interrupt her tirade, he continued. “Listen, my bride,” he said to her in

Hindi. “Our son doesn’t lack for anything, does he? Together, we

provide him with all the love in the world.”

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7 1

She pulled away from him. “Yah, and what are you knowing

about family love, you stupid orphan?”

He flinched and moved away from her, the same expression on

his face that the stray dogs wore after they had been kicked in the

ribs by one of the village children. “Prakash,” Edna began, but he

shook his head fiercely.

“Go,” he hissed. “Get out of the kitchen. Take your sad face out

of my sight.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You go, I say. Before I lift my hand to you.”

She picked up the broom and left the room. He stood in the

kitchen for a few moments, forcing the sting of her words to lessen.

He noticed that the rice was done and turned off the burner. He

heard Edna and Ellie in the living room. It sounded like Ellie was

giving Edna some instructions. He eyed the door.

It would take only a minute to cross the courtyard to their shack

and take a long swig of the
daru
bottle that he had hidden in the

kitchen. He could come back and finish cooking the rest of the food

before Edna was done talking to the memsahib. He moved stealthily

across the floor and shut the door quietly behind him.

Chapter 7

Ellie crossed the courtyard behind the house and opened the wooden

gate that led to the driveway where Nandita was waiting in her car.

Edna followed behind her. “What time will you be home, madam?”

she called.

Ellie felt a wave of irritation. She hated how Edna kept track of

her all the time. “I don’t know,” she said.

Nandita leaned over to give her a peck on the cheek after she

climbed into the car. “You know, I think you’re wise to not have

live-in help,” Ellie grumbled as Nandita backed out of the driveway.

“Why? What happened?”

“Oh, Edna’s so fucking controlling at times. And witnessing this

hostility between her and Prakash gives me a headache. It’s like—

shit, it’s hard enough to run my own marriage, without having to

watch those two every morning.”

“Uh-oh. What has happened to my kind-hearted, high-minded

friend this morning? How come she’s sounding like the rest of us

mortals?”

“Oh, shut up.”

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7 3

“Wow. You
are
a grouch today. But speaking of marriages . . .

you and Frank seemed pretty lovey-dovey last night.”

“It was the weed.”

“Bullshit. You two were making eyes at each other from the

moment he walked in.” She looked away from the road to glance at

Ellie. “So. Did you get some action last night?”

Ellie laughed. “You’re baaaaad.”

“Avoidance of a question is not the same as answering it.”

“And what is that? Something you read in a Chinese fortune

cookie?”

“Yup. Confucius say: Avoidance of a question is not the same as

answering it.”

Ellie laughed again. “You must’ve been one heck of an investigative reporter.”

“That I was. Guilty as charged.” Nandita paused for a moment.

“Speaking of which. I got a call from a journalist in Mumbai this

morning. He works for a small political weekly. I’m sorry to tell you

this, El, but he was asking me what I’d heard about the death of a

young political worker in police custody. And what the mood in the

village was and all that.”

Ellie suddenly had a sour feeling in her stomach. “What did you

say?”

“I didn’t know what to say. So I told him I was a friend of yours

and that it would be a conflict for me to talk about the situation. He

wasn’t too happy.”

Ellie knew what it must’ve cost Nandita not to help a fellow journalist, not to weigh in on an incident that ordinarily she would have

done her best to publicize. She felt a lump form in her throat and

waited for it to clear before she spoke. “Thank you, Nandita,” she

said. “I know that must have been really hard for you. And I’m sorry

you’re getting dragged into this mess.”

Nandita shrugged. “I’ve been dragged into worse messes, believe

7 4 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

me,” she said lightly. “And anyway, I never took a pledge to help

every journalist who comes looking for me. So to hell with it. I’m

sitting this one out.” She patted Ellie’s thigh. “Now, cheer up, won’t

you? Otherwise I’ll regret having said anything to you.”

“Don’t. You know me. I don’t care how painful the truth is—I’d

rather know something than be in the dark.”

“I’m the same way.” Nandita smiled, swerving to avoid an oncoming car. “I think that’s why I became a reporter.”

As always, a crowd of children gathered around the car as they

pulled into the dirt road that led to the NIRAL clinic. “Hello, Binu,

hi Raja,” Ellie called as she recognized some of the children who

had come to greet them. “How are all of you?”

In reply, she heard a chorus of voices say, in that singsong manner

of theirs, “Fine.” The way they stretched the word out into two syllables made Ellie laugh. She was happy to be here, had missed this

place and these children more than she’d known, she realized.

Several of the kids grabbed her forearm so that they looked like

a round cloud of dust as they made their way into the classroom at

one end of the building. Ellie looked over to where Nandita was

standing with her own young charges. “Shall I run the class with

the children first?” she called. “Meet with the women later?”

“Sure. I have to do some paperwork, anyway. Ordered the vaccines this week, and I want to make sure they’re here. I’ll send

Rakesh out to let the women know you’re in today.”

“Make sure he informs Radha,” she called as she opened the blue

wooden door that led to the small classroom. “She was really having

a hard time the last time I saw her. I want to follow up with her

today.”

It was hot inside the room. Ellie opened the single window and

turned on a table fan. “Haven’t you been meeting in here last week?”

she asked and was greeted by a chorus of, “No, miss.”

“So Asha didn’t run the class?” Asha was a shy nineteen-year-Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n

7 5

old villager who had finished high school and was now employed by

NIRAL to tutor the younger kids.

“No, miss.”

“Well, then we have a lot of work to do.” She looked over the

class, which had students ranging from four to twelve. She sorted

the children according to their reading proficiencies and began with

the first group. Some of the kids were learning the alphabet; others

were reading on their own; a few of the really bright ones were able

to comprehend the science and history textbooks she had purchased

for them. Anu, one of the older girls, raised her hand and asked for

permission to work on a jigsaw puzzle while Ellie was tending to

the younger kids. Ellie hesitated, loath to give up any more valuable

reading time, but the pleading look on Anu’s face made her say yes.

“Ten minutes on the puzzle,” she instructed them, ignoring their

groans of protest. “Then, start reading.”

An hour and a half later, Asha entered the classroom and stood

in the back, Ellie’s cue to wrap up the class. “Okay,” she said. “See

you all on Wednesday.”

She and Asha walked out of the stuffy classroom into the bright

light of the day. “How come there was no class last week?” Ellie

asked.

Asha looked at her dust-covered feet. “We were too busy with

the AIDS prevention class, miss,” she mumbled.

Shit. She had forgotten. Last week had been AIDS education

week. And Nandita had been too decent to mention it to her.

“Shall we start our rounds, miss?” Asha asked. “Many-many

women waiting to see you today.”

“Sure,” Ellie replied. “But listen, did you find Radha? She was

here two weeks ago. I need to spend some extra time with her.”

Radha had come to the clinic bearing black marks on her chocolate

brown skin, signatures of her husband’s violence. Those big, dark

eyes, glistening with unshed tears, had haunted Ellie, had made her

7 6 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

want to confront Radha’s husband, even while she knew that doing

so would only make life harder for the girl.

“She afraid to come to the clinic, miss. Says we should come to

her house.”

Ellie glanced at her watch. “Okay. Let’s attend to the women at

the clinic first. I’ll make sure to keep some time to go see Radha

after that.”

It was almost three thirty by the time they got done at the clinic.

As always, Ellie left the building drained in a way she never had

been even after spending a full day at her practice in Ann Arbor.

The problems of the women of Girbaug seemed so intractable to

her—impoverished mothers-in-law demanding more dowries from

the penniless girls who married into their families; drunken husbands who routinely beat their wives and children to relieve their