The Weight of Heaven (30 page)

“So you’re going to go to this peace rally thing?” he asked.

She wavered for a moment, wondering if this was his way of

reaching out to her, asking her to spend the evening with him. But

then she remembered the conversation she’d had with herself earlier today, about wanting to be enlarged by tragedy rather than

shrunken, about using her loss to connect her to the lives of others.

Besides, if Frank needed her to stay, he had to learn to ask.

“Yes,” she said, and turned away first.

Book Four

Autumn and Winter 2007

Girbaug, India

Chapter 19

The drumming was thrilling—loose and wild and yet totally controlled. It brought out something in Ellie that she hadn’t felt in a long

time—a nervous excitement as well as a deep happiness, the kind

she normally felt only when faced with the vastness of the ocean or

in Big Sky country. This is India, she kept saying to herself, I’m in

India. As if she had just arrived.

Before her, Asha, carrying a short red stick in her hand, danced

with a man from the village. All traces of the demure, shy girl who

acted as Ellie’s translator were gone. In her place was a whirling,

twirling, gyrating seductress who rhythmically struck her baton or

dandiya
against the one her dance partner was holding, who moved

and swayed to the incessant pounding of the
dhols.
Along with maybe

two dozen other villagers, the couple was dancing in the clearing in

front of Nandita’s school and clinic.

All of Girbaug’s residents seemed to have turned out in their

finest clothing for the Diwali celebration this November. Ellie snuck

a sidelong glance at Frank. He had been reluctant to come, afraid

of the reception he would get from the villagers. But Nandita had

marched into their home a few nights ago and told him sternly that

he had to attend, that the villagers would take his absence from their

2 1 8 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

most important holiday celebration as a slight. “Besides, Frank, you

might actually have a good time,” she’d added sarcastically. And

Frank had grinned and told Nandita that she sounded exactly like

Ellie and that he could fight one of them at a time but once they

ganged up against him, he had no goddamn choice but to acquiesce.

Ellie was glad he was here. And, judging from the way his fingers were involuntarily tapping against his thigh as he kept time to

the music, so was he. In his open white shirt and dark green pants

Frank looked gorgeous, she thought. The sun was setting behind

them, and it lit up Frank’s golden hair like a streetlamp.

She wasn’t the only one who had noticed, apparently. A cry went

up from the crowd as Mausi, the village’s oldest resident at ninetytwo, got to her feet and hobbled her way to the clearing where the

dancers were gathered. She was supported on either arm by two

boys who were Ellie’s students and whom she assumed were Mausi’s grandsons. But as the three-person procession moved up to the

front row, where Frank and Ellie were sitting with Ramesh, Nandita, Shashi, and a few other westerners who were visiting Shashi’s

resort, Mausi stopped. Shaking off the boy who was holding her

right arm, she reached out one bony hand and ran her gnarled fingers through Frank’s hair. Frank froze, his eyes darting toward Ellie

for help. But then Mausi removed her hand, gathered her fingers

together, put them to her lips, and flung a kiss at Frank, who had

turned three shades of red. All around them, the crowd roared with

laughter. Hoots and whoops rose in the air.

But Mausi was not done. Still standing beside Frank, she pantomimed that she wanted him to escort her to the dance floor. Frank

looked as if he’d been drilled into his chair. It didn’t help matters

that Ramesh, sitting between Frank and Ellie, was bouncing up and

down yelling, “She is wanting you to do
dandiya
with her, Frank.”

“I can’t,” Frank said finally. “Tell her, I can’t—I don’t dance.”

But just then two of the drummers strayed from the clearing and

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 2 1 9

made their way to where they were sitting.
“Chalo ji, chalo,”
one of

them chanted, and the pounding got even more fervent and loud.

Nandita leaned over. “Guess you have no choice, Frank,” she

grinned over the noise of the drums. “Mausi always gets to choose

her first partner.”

Mouthing a silent
fuck
that only Ellie could hear, Frank let one

of the drummers pull him to his feet. The crowd roared. Mausi

grinned, showing all of her three teeth. The dancers opened up a

space for the newcomers. One of the men handed Frank a baton and

showed him a few steps.

He looks like a clumsy-footed white man, Ellie thought with bemusement as she watched her husband struggle to clink the baton in

time with Mausi’s. It didn’t help that Mausi, bent with osteoporosis,

came up to his waist. What Ellie had always loved about Frank was

his lithe, catlike surefootedness, which made him a wonderful dance

partner. But here, dancing in the open air under a darkening sky,

surrounded by brown-skinned men and women dressed in a dazzling array of reds and greens and yellows, he reminded her of an

elderly man in those checked green pants at a golf outing.

Nandita must have read her mind. “You have to go help him,”

she said. “He looks miserable out there.” And before Ellie could

answer, Nandita was pulling up both Shashi and Ellie. “Come on.

I’m dying to dance.”

Ellie didn’t need to be asked a second time. From the time they’d

arrived here for the feast and celebration, from the second she had

heard first the Bollywood music over the loudspeakers and later the

beating of the
dhols
, from the instant she had taken in the dazzling

beauty of the village women and seen the laughing excitement of the

children as they set off their fireworks—the rockets that raced in a

zigzag line toward the sky, the fountains that erupted in a shower

of red and blue sparks, the spirals that spun in an orbit of light and

color before dying out—she had felt something relax within her, felt

an expansive, giddy joy. Also, a sense of belonging that she didn’t

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

quite understand. Yesterday, while visiting the homes of some of the

village women who couldn’t come to the clinic, she had noticed that

each mud-baked hut had a clay
diva
at its entrance. The simplicity of

the tiny earthenware oil lamp had brought a lump to her throat. She

thought of them as emblematic of the quiet, simple dignity of the

people who lived in those homes.

She had tried describing Diwali, or the Festival of Lights, to her

parents last year. Imagine July Fourth lasting for a week, she’d said,

but she knew that didn’t quite capture the sheer lavishness, beauty,

and generosity of the festivities. Just the universality of the offering

of food—there was no way to explain that to her middle-class parents. Every home in Girbaug bought or made sweetmeats for Diwali

and distributed them among neighbors, friends, and visitors. All the

women who had come to see her at the clinic yesterday brought her

a few pieces of sweets. All of them, no matter how poor. The mothers of the children who came to school also sent an offering of some

kind. In one case, a child had simply given her a single piece of rock

sugar. It was like Christmas, except you exchanged gifts with the

whole town.

Now she was trying to control the sway of her hips, trying hard

to resist the tug of the pounding drums that were making her lose

her inhibitions, making her want to dance manically, the way she

used to in nightclubs when she was in her teens. But that was the

beauty of the
dandiya
dance—it celebrated the paradoxical joy of

movement and restraint, of delirium within a structure. This was

not about individual expression but about community.

Frank turned to her with something akin to relief. She saw the

beads of sweat on his face. “Hey,” she yelled, above the music, tapping his baton lightly with hers. “Having fun?”

“I’ve had better dance partners before,” he said wryly, but then

he grinned, as if he was having a good time despite himself.

Nandita and Shashi made their way up to them, Shashi shaking

his hips in such an uncharacteristically uninhibited way, it made

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

Ellie giggle. There was something nerdy and a little absurd about

Shashi, and she loved that about him.

Nandita, on the other hand, was all business. “Come on, Frank,

move,” she said, striking her stick smartly against his. “You’re dancing like a fucking mortician.”

They danced in a small circle for a few minutes and then were

joined by the other westerners. They expanded the circle to let

them in, but Ellie almost immediately lost interest, felt a kind of

deflation. She also became aware that they had unwittingly formed

a cocoon, their own private circle that excluded the villagers. As

soon as she could, she stepped away and began to dance with some

of her younger students. Frank followed her in a few minutes. She

saw that he had abandoned his stiff posture and was genuinely enjoying himself now, sweating freely, loosening the buttons of his

shirt. “Boy, do they ever let up and take a break in between numbers?” he grinned. “This is like dancing at one of those techno

clubs.”

“Close your eyes,” she yelled back. “Just dance with your eyes

closed. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

“And risk clobbering that old lady on the head with my stick?

No thanks.”

“No,” she said, looking closely at him. “Just dance with me.

You’ll be able to do it, you’ll see.”

So they did. For a full five minutes they danced with each other

with their eyes shut. To their astonishment, they were completely

in sync, never rapping each other on the knuckles with their sticks,

never missing a beat. Ellie opened her eyes first. She took a step

closer to him, and as if sensing that movement, his eyes flew open.

“You see?” she said, as if she’d scored an important victory, transmitted some essential information to him.

“I see,” he replied. “And I love you. Very much.”

“You’re my guy.” She felt she was being maudlin, sentimental,

about to cross that thin line between happiness and melancholy. But

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

she didn’t care. It suddenly seemed like the most important thing on

earth that Frank knew what he meant to her.

“I know,” he said quietly. And then, “Thanks for bringing me

here. This is quite wonderful.”

She flung her arms wide open, smacking the man dancing next to

her. “This is my India,” she said dramatically. “Now you see why I

love it here.”

Even above the music she heard the envy in his voice. “You’re

lucky. The India I deal with every day is nerve-wracking.”

“Don’t think about that tonight. Just . . . enjoy.”

A rocket whizzed over their heads and landed on the ground just

past the dancers. Frank looked nervously over to where a group of

teenaged boys were setting off the firecrackers. “I hope these kids

know what they’re doing,” he said. “That was a little too close for

comfort.”

Just then, one of the boys lit a cone-shaped firecracker. A shower

of blue and red erupted from its mouth and came cascading down

in colorful streams. “God,” Ellie shouted. “I love these fireworks so

much more than the ones back home. These are so much closer to

the ground and—I don’t know—this feels more democratic, somehow.”

Frank smiled. “Methinks you’re in love with India.”

She smiled. “I am.” She waved her arms again. “Look around.

How could you not be in love with a country with so much color

and vigor?”

Ramesh came dancing up to them. The boy was wearing a white

cotton kurta and pajamas with a maroon vest. Ellie thought he

looked more beautiful than she’d ever seen him. The boy was carrying himself with a self-consciousness that she knew came from

wearing new clothes, and she was glad Edna had bought him this

outfit for Diwali. She resolved to use Christmas as a pretext to buy

Ramesh a bunch of new outfits. Now she turned her head and looked

around for Edna and Prakash, but they were lost in the crowd that

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

sat behind them. She had offered to have the housekeepers ride with

them earlier this evening, but Edna had whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “No, thank you, miss. Prakash is in a foul-foul mood

today. Better you go alone, only. Just take Ramesh.”

“I love this jacket,” she now said to the boy over the music, and

was gratified to see Ramesh beam.

“It’s velvet,” he replied seriously, fingering the soft material.

“Yeah, you look like a young prince,” Frank said. His tone was

light, teasing even, but Ellie could detect the pleasure in his voice as

he inspected the boy dancing next to him.

“When I grow up, I want to be a prince,” Ramesh said. He cast

Frank a mischievious look. “I know, I know. In order to be anything