The Weight of Heaven (3 page)

Edna and Prakash to have you take over their son’s life?”

“Edna and Prakash? I don’t believe this. You think either one of

them has a clue about anything? Hell, if I could work with that boy

for two years, he’d be MIT-bound, someday. Why doesn’t Prakash

drink less if he cares so much for his son? And why doesn’t Edna

stand up to him? All I’m trying to do is improve the kid’s life.”

“That’s not all you’re trying to do.” The phone was ringing

again, but this time they scarcely heard it. They were staring at each

other, breathing heavily like boxers in a ring.

“What— ?”

“Frank, Ramesh is not Ben—”

“Shut up,” Frank interrupted. “Don’t say it. If you know what’s

good for you, don’t say it.”

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

Ellie stared at him for a long second. Then, as if she’d lost some

battle, her shoulders sagged. “Okay.” She shrugged.

But it was too late. She had stripped him naked, Frank thought.

With four indiscreet words she had torn off his clothes, removed

the layers of resisting muscle and skin, and gotten to his heart. His

heart that had been so dead until a dark-haired, sharp-eyed Indian

boy had restored a few of its beats. A boy he had grown close to precisely because he was the opposite of his dead son—dark-skinned

in contrast to the light-skinned Benny, noisy and shiny where Ben

had been serene and thoughtful. Ramesh was sunshine to Benny’s

moonlight. Benny had been good at art and history and English and

lousy at math and science; Ramesh declared that history was boring,

that most books were too long to read, but was a natural at science

and math. The first time Frank had helped Ramesh with his math

homework, he was blown away by the boy’s smarts. Within months

he had insisted that the boy be transferred to the missionary school

and that he would pay the monthly fees. Edna had been grateful at

the time.

“Frank, I’m sorry.” Ellie’s voice was soft, muffled by the harsh

patter of the rain. “I don’t want to hurt you. Dear God, we have to

stop hurting each other like this. Please, hon. I don’t know how to

do this alone.”

He fought the urge to respond to the pleading in her voice. This

time, Ellie had gotten too close, had left too deep a gash with her

words. There was a time when he had thought of Ellie as his second

self, someone who knew his deepest yearnings and thoughts. But

everything that Ellie had given him—love, companionship, a home,

and above all, Benny, holy God, above everything she had given

him Benny—she had also taken away. Taken away by her carelessness, her thoughtlessness. He couldn’t forget that. And now she was

doing it again, with Ramesh. With the only thing in his life that

gave him any solace, any sense of normalcy in this chaotic country

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

1 5

that Ellie had come to love and that he was constantly confused and

repelled by.

Well, he knew how to turn his heart into a rock. For most of his

years with Ellie he had not needed to use that trick. She had softened

him, made him believe that it was okay to lean on another person,

to trust, to not carry himself in a constant state of war and wariness.

In the years that they were a family all the old, ancient feelings—

of being on guard, of believing that everything valuable had to be

earned, that nothing was freely given, nothing was grace—all those

feelings had vanished. But now he knew they had just gone below

the surface. That he could access them, as easily as a file on an old

computer.

His father had walked out on them when he was twelve. But

Gerald had lived with them long enough to teach his younger son

some invaluable lessons. Of how to turn his eyes blank so that no

hurt would show in them. Of how to swim deep within himself,

and not bob to the surface until the storm of Gerald’s violence had

ebbed. Of how to turn his heart into a rock so that Gerald’s flinty,

ugly words would bounce lightly off its surface.

Frank called on that knowledge now. Ignored his wife’s upturned

hand, not-seeing the sadness in her eyes or the heartbreaking curve

of her mouth, not-hearing her plea for reconciliation, for going back

to the way they used to be. Deliberately, he got up from the swing.

“I’m going in,” he said.

“You don’t have to.”

“Ramesh will be here soon, anyway.” He collected their coffee

mugs, aware of Ellie’s eyes on him, knowing without looking the

sadness and hurt and confusion that they held. It tore at him, this

knowledge that he was responsible for the light going out of his

wife’s eyes, but his grief was paradoxical—it seemed to abate only

if he duplicated it in Ellie, only if he caused more of it. Any moment

that he spent berating himself for what he was doing to Ellie was a

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

moment he didn’t remember that he had to face the rest of his life

without Benny.

The phone rang again the instant he walked into the living room,

and he glanced at the clock. Eight o’clock. Could be Ellie’s friend

Nandita. Or Scott, for that matter. He remembered his earlier resolve to phone Scott tomorrow. Let it be Scott, he thought. He could

take the call in the guest bedroom. Maybe Scott would say something that would allow him to approach Ellie again tonight, to salvage the evening.

“Hello?” he said, and knew immediately from the texture of the

connection that it wasn’t an overseas call.

“Sir?” the voice at the other end said. “This is Gulab Singh.

Sorry to disturb at home, sir, but there’s trouble at the factory.”

Frank’s stomach muscles clenched involuntarily. “What kind of

trouble?” He hoped it was nothing serious enough to require him

to go in tonight even as he knew that Gulab, who was the head of

security at the factory, would not have called him at home over a

trivial matter.

There was a pause, long enough for Frank to wonder if he’d lost

the connection. Then Gulab said, “It’s about that union chap—

Anand. You remember him, sir? Anyway, sir. Problem is—Anand

is dead. Unfortunately.”

Chapter 2

Trouble’s coming.

Frank had been gone for at least ten minutes, but still Ellie sat

cross-legged on the swing. A dull fear was creeping up her limbs,

but she was doing her best not to fan its flames, willing her mind to

ignore what her body was trying to tell her. That trouble was on its

way.

A particularly rude clap of thunder shattered the cocoon of

mindlessness that she had built for herself and jolted her back into

the world. The road leading to the factory will be dark and muddy

at this time, she thought. Even though Satish was an expert driver,

she was worried. She thought of calling Frank to ask him to let her

know when he arrived at the factory, but the memory of the ugliness of their fight stopped her. Also, something terribly serious must

have happened for them to have disturbed Frank at this hour. He did

not need an anxious wife to add to his troubles.

She had had no time to ask him what was making him rush back

to work so late in the evening. After he’d gone in to answer the

phone, she’d heard him dial a second number—calling Satish to

come pick him up, Ellie now surmised—and then she’d heard him

fumble around in the bedroom before coming back to poke his head

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

in the door and announce that he’d be gone for a few hours. She

had merely nodded dully. A few minutes later, she heard the kitchen

door slam and later, the sound of a car pulling out of the driveway at

the side of the house.

Now, she cocked her head to hear better her body’s fearful mutterings. What kind of trouble? she wondered. And was this a premonition or simply the sour aftertaste of the argument she’d had

with Frank? What was frightening her so? Fear that Satish would

make a wrong turn in the dark and that the car would spiral out

of control? Fear that she and Frank were treading on dangerous

ground, drifting apart, so that this grand experiment, this hope

that India would heal them, would all be for naught? Ellie listened

deeply to her body, the way she’d always advised her patients to.

The body is wise, she’d often said to them. It often knows more—

and sooner—than our brains do. But you have to learn how to listen

to it, learn its language, the way you learn to understand an infant’s

gobbledygook.

But the rain and thunder were distracting her, throwing her

off. The scent of the earth, the coolness of the rain-soaked air, the

flashes of the lightning, were too overpowering, pulling her in too

many different directions, like Benny used to when they went to the

Michigan State Fair.

Still, those two words, steady as a knock in the dark.
Trouble’s

coming
.

I wish Frank would settle the labor dispute already, she thought,

and then she was backing into the source of her fear. Almost immediately, her body relaxed as if, having relayed its message to her

brain, it could now take the evening off. But what the fuck could be

so wrong that they had to call him at home tonight? She realized

she’d said the words out loud, but the rain coming down so hard

erased the distinction between thoughts and words. Besides, she was

annoyed now at how abruptly Frank had left, withholding information from her, leaving her to rock restlessly on the swing, her earlier

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

1 9

serenity replaced by agitation and fear. “Screw you, Frank,” she said

loudly, making sure that the rain could not drown out her words.

Fear had made her sit still; now, a simmering anger at Frank

replaced it and it made her restless. She pushed the button on the

large, cheap Timex men’s watch she had bought at Agni Bazaar

last month, and its dial lit up in green. Eight twenty, it read. She

thought quickly. If there was something going on at the factory,

surely Shashi would’ve heard about it. As the owner of a large fourstar hotel in the next town of Kanbar, Shashi employed the relatives

of many of the men who worked for HerbalSolutions. And his wife,

Nandita, Ellie’s best friend, also kept a close watch on the situation

at HerbalSolutions. Shashi went to bed early, but Nandita would

definitely be up. For the first time, Ellie was grateful that all the

relaxation techniques she had taught Nandita to help with her insomnia had not taken.

She had just gotten her feet into her slippers and was heading for

the phone in the living room when she heard the timid knock on

the door. She stopped. What the hell? And then she remembered.

Of course. It was Ramesh, coming over to do his homework with

Frank. In the unusual excitement of the phone call and Frank’s

abrupt leaving, she had forgotten all about Ramesh.

Before she could reach the kitchen, the door opened and Ramesh

walked in. Ellie felt a mixture of bemusement and irritation. A few

months ago, she had taught the boy that it was bad manners to walk

into someone’s home without knocking. So now he knocked in a perfunctory manner and then let himself in. She was debating whether

it was time for Lesson 2, but Ramesh had spotted her in the living

room and, dropping his books on the blue-painted kitchen table, he

skipped toward her. “Hi, Ellie.” He grinned. And before she could

reply, “Where’s Frank? I’m having
two
tests tomorrow and so much

homework.”

No self-respecting American boy would look so gleeful at the

thought of homework, Ellie thought. But then, she knew that the

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

enthusiasm was not so much for the homework as for the bliss of

spending another evening with his beloved Frank. She smiled ruefully to herself at the realization. Watching Frank and Ramesh

together made her feel like the odd man out, like the third wheel,

like—what was that Hindi expression Nandita used?—something

to the effect of the bone in the meat kebab. So different from the

close, joint-circuit feeling she used to have when she watched Frank

and Benny indulge in their usual horseplay or when all three of them

walked around their neighborhood together and Benny had eyes

only for his father, playing tag with him, racing up Fair Hill with

him, or playing that silly game where they counted the numbers

on the license plates of passing cars to see if they added up to 21.

They would cajole Ellie to join in, and she, wanting only to take a

relaxed, leisurely evening walk, would refuse. And father and son

would mock her for not being into competitive walking and climbing and counting. But somehow even their teasing, their mocking,

included her, made her feel part of a triangle, valued, a straight man

to their clowning around.

“Where’s Frank?” Ramesh said again, and she forced herself to

pay attention to the boy.

“He’s out, sweetie. I’m afraid he won’t be home until late tonight.”

Ramesh looked outraged. “Where he go?”

So direct, so blunt. It was a trait she had noticed in many of the

Indians she’d come in contact with. Was there an Indian Miss Manners, she wondered, someone who could teach them the virtues of