The Weight of Heaven (17 page)

mistake. So I wanted to hear it from your own mouth.”

Prakash stared at the floor. “No mistake,” he mumbled. Then,

looking up at her he repeated more loudly, “No mistake.”

Ellie heard the defiance in his voice. “I see,” she said, stalling for

time. “May I ask why?”

Now, Prakash was openly sneering. “What the world come to,”

he said to nobody in particular. “Father must give reason for something concern his own son.” Behind her, Ellie heard Edna gasp.

“Prakash,” Ellie said. “You’ve known for weeks about this. We

have made arrangements, booked hotel rooms.” She did a quick calculation and decided to call his bluff. “Who will pay for the hotel

rooms?” she asked with fake indignation. “Hundreds of rupees it

will cost us.”

Still the man did not budge. “That not my
mamala
,” he muttered.

His insolent manner was getting on her nerves. “Every time

we take Ramesh somewhere these days, you make a fuss. Do you

want us to wash our hands of him? We’ll be happy to do so.” She

could tell from Prakash’s face that he had not understood her

meaning. But Edna did, and she emitted something that sounded

like a growl.

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“Look at him sitting there with his dung face,” Edna said. “Not

caring for own son’s future.” She prodded him with her bare foot.

“I’ll go,” she cried. “I take Ramesh, and in the middle of the night,

we’ll run away from you.”

Prakash threw her a malicious smile. “Where will you go?” he

said to her in Hindi.

Edna exploded. “Anywhere. To Goa. I’ll beg my mother to take

us back. Or I’ll drown Ramesh and myself in a well. But away from

you.”

Prakash raised his hand and made to get up off the floor. Seeing

this, Ellie’s frustration developed a muscle and hardened into anger.

“If we lose our hotel money, I’m going to dock you for it,” she cried.

“I’ll take it out of your salary until you’ve paid the whole amount,

you understand? Is that what you want?”

The cook sat down with a heavy thud, as if pushed back to the

floor by the gust of rage coming from both women. “You cannot

take salary,” he mumbled. “That our money.”

Ellie could tell that the spirit had gone out of him, and she felt a

faint triumph. “But I will, Prakash,” she said. “If you push us too

much.”

Edna came and stood between her and Prakash. “
Chalo
, don’t waste

more of madam’s time,” she said. “What’s your decision, you?”

Prakash stared at the wall. “Whatever you wish,” he said finally.

But Ellie was not done. “This is not a game, Prakash. Now, no

more of this nonsense,
achcha
? You understand?”

“Understand.”

“Okay.” Ellie exited from the house with Edna walking a pace

behind. The two women crossed the courtyard and entered Ellie’s

kitchen. “Madam,” Edna said excitedly. “You showed him goodproper. What you say about cutting pay was very clever.” And despite Edna’s exuberance, Ellie thought she detected something, a

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

thin thread of anxiety, as if the woman wanted assurance that Ellie

had just made an idle threat.

“I was just fooling about that,” she said. “Y’know, calling his

bluff.”

Edna nodded vigorously. “I know, I know. Good you did that,

madam. That lump of dung was afraid he wouldn’t have moneys for

his bottle. He care more about his drink than food for his family.”

Edna went on and on, expressing delight at how Ellie had knocked

Prakash out, deflated him like an old tire, but Ellie felt none of the

exhilaration that Edna apparently did. Reviewing her performance,

the imperial manner in which she had spoken to the cook, the way

she had used the whip of wealth and power to flay Prakash into submission, she felt nauseous. How easily she had slipped into the role

of mistress, of the white memsahib. She remembered all the times

she had chastised Frank for doing the same thing with his minions,

had turned away in embarrassment when he had exercised his power

over his workers. And here she had done exactly the same thing.

She tried to imagine a situation where someone—a neighbor in Ann

Arbor or a teacher or a relative—could’ve bullied Frank and her

into reversing a decision they had made about Benny. She couldn’t

come up with one plausible scenario. Surely Prakash had the same

rights to decide what was best for his family, surely fatherhood gave

him at least that authority, to decide whether his son should go on an

out-of-town trip with people he barely knew or liked? Why had she

so easily trampled on that right? What made it so easy? But even as

she asked that last question she knew the answer: it was her wealth

and privilege.

But surely there was also the issue of being correct? Surely it

was okay to expect Prakash to keep his word, to let the man know

that he could not exploit their affection for his son, that they would

not be tossed around on the winds of his whims? Surely that was

what they would’ve said to anyone—a neighbor in Ann Arbor,

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

say—who treated them with such little regard? Ellie tried to sink

into the comfort of this line of thinking. But she was shaken by the

memory of the tone of her voice, the stiffness of her manner, her

threatening words. She had sounded more like Frank than herself,

she realized.

Frank. He was the reason behind the whole confrontation with

Prakash, anyway. It was her fear of Frank’s distress at the thought of

Ramesh not joining them on their holiday that had made her speak

to Prakash in the first place. For a second she resented her husband

for turning her into a person she didn’t want to be. Then her sense

of fairness corrected that impulse. He had not asked for Ramesh to

accompany them to Bombay, had in fact tried hard to conceal his

desire from her. And he had not urged her to barge into Prakash’s

house and have her little temper tantrum. No, Frank’s manner of

dealing with Prakash would’ve been much cleaner, less psychologically fraught—he would’ve grabbed the man’s scrawny neck in his

clean, white hands and choked him. Ellie grinned and then, seeing

Edna’s curious expression, stopped.

She shook her head. “I’m tired, Edna,” she said. “Can you come

to clean in maybe an hour? I just want to rest.”

Edna was immediately solicitous. “Of course, madam, of course.

Beg pardon.” She hurried to the door and then stopped. “Madam,

please to forgive my husband.” She smiled softly. “He’s not a villain,

madam. He just—he loves his son and he’s scared.”

Scared of what? Ellie was about to ask, but she didn’t. She knew.

She had heard what Edna was too polite to say: my husband is scared

that your husband is making a claim on our son that he has no business making. He’s scared of his only child being seduced by your

wealth, by your world of privilege that we have no defenses against.

He’s scared of your introducing our son to a life of such finery and

luxury that he will never again be at home in our world. And what

will happen to Ramesh then? He will become a ghost, an exile, at

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

home in no place. And that is a subject that my illiterate, orphaned

husband knows a lot about. He will die before subjecting his son to

that fate.

A look passed between the two women. Ellie was the first to turn

away. She felt as if with the gentlest of touches, Edna had chided her,

accused her of stealing something. She was confused. A half hour

ago, Edna had been wailing in her kitchen, cursing Prakash and his

shortsighted ways. She had helped Ellie with the barrage of words

that had toppled Prakash from his perch of righteousness and inflexibility. And now, without saying a word, she was making Ellie see

into Prakash’s tormented heart. But suddenly, Ellie got it. Edna was

just like her, a conflicted woman—caught between the desires of her

own heart, and an overpowering, almost maternal need to mother

her husband and protect him from his own demons. She took in the

woman’s worried, sallow face, the creases on her forehead, the hair

prematurely turning gray. She tried to picture what Edna must’ve

looked like as a young bride and saw a jovial, warm, openhearted,

headstrong young woman who believed in the redemptive power of

love. And she saw Edna over the years, the soaring hope for family

reconciliation after the birth of her son and the graying of that hope

when it slowly became clear that Goa was a permanent paradise lost.

And Prakash, too, being cast away from the bosom of the community that had raised an orphan boy together, once he came home

with his new Goanese bride. Ellie felt their loneliness, their isolation,

their forced turning to each other for all sustenance and support and

the inevitable crumbling of a marriage from the weight of such insularity. And Ramesh becoming the vessel into which they poured all

their crumbling dreams, the only reason why their union still made

sense. Ellie imagined their pride and hopes when she and Frank

first exhibited an interest in their shiny boy. And she imagined that

pride turning into concern and then resentment and then hostility

as Frank overstepped his bounds, monitoring Ramesh’s homework,

1 2 0 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

playing basketball with him, taking the boy to the restaurant at the

Shalimar, where a meal cost more than what they earned in a month.

And now, the final insult—taking their nine-year-old boy to a city

that was a dream, a mythical place to them, as remote and impossible a place as Paris or England was, a city where they imagined

movie stars strolled along the streets, bursting into song whenever

inspiration hit them.

“Edna,” she said gently. “I know Prakash loves his son very

much. Of course, I—we—know that. And one thing you should

know. We will never do anything to harm your son. We know what

he means to you.”

Edna let out a small cry and crossed the length of the kitchen.

She took Ellie’s hand and held it to her wet eyes and then kissed it.

“God bless you, madam,” Edna cried. “May God be very kind to

you.”

Ellie felt a faint shock at this breach of etiquette. In all these

months, Edna had been very careful to maintain the distance that

all Indian servants kept from their mistresses. She was also moved

by the sincerity of Edna’s gesture. Hesitantly, she touched Edna’s

shoulder and then stroked her arm. “It’s okay,” she murmured.

“Don’t worry so much. Everything will be fine.”

But this was a mistake. Now Edna was sobbing almost uncontrollably. It tore Ellie’s heart up, to hear such deep sorrow. “So

lonely . . .” Edna was saying. “No one to talk to. Miss my family.

Your kindness. So happy you’re here, madam. Only person I can

talk to. My husband . . . has own worries. In marketplace, everybody say how kind you are, madam. God will reward you.”

Ellie sighed. She had so much to do. Counseling Edna had not

been on the agenda for the day. Neither had confronting and humiliating poor Prakash. She eyed the sobbing woman in front of her.

“Edna,” she said firmly. “Listen to me. You go sit in the living room.

I’ll make us a cup of tea.”

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 2 1

Edna stopped mid-sob, shocked at this unnatural reversal of

roles. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she said, “No,

madam. You sit. I make the tea.”

“Okay,” Ellie said. She went into the living room and sat on the

couch, holding her head in her hands. She stayed that way until she

heard the rattle of the tray that told her that Edna was heading into

the room.

Chapter 11

Bombay.

Such a deceptive word, so soft-sounding, like sponge cake in the

mouth. Even the new name for the city, Mumbai, carries that round

softness, so that a visitor is unprepared for the reality of this giant,

bewildering city, which is an assault, a punch in the face. Everything about the city attacks you at once, as you leave the green tranquillity of the surrounding hills and enter it—the rows of slums that

look like something built for and by giant, erratic birds rather than

humans; the old, crumbling buildings that have not seen a lick of

paint in decades and many of which are held up by scaffoldings; the

new, tall buildings that rise from the wretched streets and point like

thin fingers toward a dirty, polluted sky; the insane tango of auto

rickshaws and cars and bicycles and scooters and bullock carts competing for their inch of space, creating their riotous din of blaring

horns and yells and invective; the beggars—armless, legless, fingerless, eyeless, and the lepers, dear God, even noseless—darting

in between the vehicles, the legless ones perched on a homemade

skateboard, making it hard for the drivers to spot them; and above

all, the people, the constant, ever-present mass of people, thousands

of them on every street, spilling from the slum-invaded sidewalks

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 2 3

onto the roads, zipping in and out of traffic, curving around the hood

of a car to avoid being hit by it, and constantly moving, moving, a