The Weight of Heaven (8 page)

truth that when she’d retired to her room, the aspirin seemed to

have worked—Benny’s fever was under control, and there was not

a trace of the rash that would spread like an evil lace over his body

a few hours later?

There was no answer to a question like that. And the mortification she saw on Frank’s face made clear that there was no need for

her to answer, that even if she’d tried, her reply would’ve been covered up by his stricken, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean that. I

don’t know where that came from.”

She thought she’d buried that memory, but when in the days following Anand’s death Frank gave her that same blank look, Ellie

found it hard to play the role of the loving, supportive wife. Also,

India had changed Frank. Ever since the labor unrest began, he came

home day after day railing about how slow the workers were, com-Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n

4 9

plaining about their lousy work ethic and their lack of initiative, his

voice brittle with contempt. The final straw came when Frank had

missed a day of work because of the stomach flu and found out the

next day that they had all taken the afternoon off because nobody

could figure out how to fix one of the machines that broke down and

disrupted the production line. “Can you friggin’ believe it, Ellie?”

Frank had cried. “Even the foreman acted all helpless, like he’d

never heard the word
repair
in his life. These people have no concept

of deadlines or meeting orders. God, what a country.”

It was that last comment, that generalization that indicted a billion people, that had made the words shoot out of Ellie’s mouth,

“Well, if you paid them a little better, maybe they’d care more.”

Frank had turned on her, his eyes wide with hurt. “You can’t help

yourself, can you? It’s a bad habit, right, always siding with others

against me?”

The memory of that hurt made Ellie watch what she said to

Frank this time. We’re all alone in this country, she said to herself a

hundred times a day. I’m all he has here. She had been lucky to have

formed a friendship with Nandita that had in short order become as

strong as any friendship she had in Michigan. Nandita had talked

her into volunteering at the NIRAL health clinic and school, which

she did several days a week. From the moment they had landed in

Girbaug, Ellie had felt at home here, seen something on the faces

of the local women that felt timeless and universal to her, seen in

those brown, sunbaked faces the faces of her own sister, mother,

and aunts, although she knew that her ruddy-faced Irish-American

family would be shocked if she ever told them this. The fact was,

India fit Ellie like a garment cut to size. Frank, she knew, found the

garment too tight and oppressive, and she was sorry for him.

In the beginning, she had hoped that Frank and Nandita’s husband Shashi would form a close friendship, and indeed the men

spent some time bicycling together and playing table tennis at

Shashi’s bungalow. But somehow the friendship didn’t take. Frank

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

found Shashi too mild, not competitive enough, and Shashi—well,

it was hard to know what Shashi really thought of Frank. He always

seemed happy enough to see him, but there was a faint air of superiority in the way Shashi carried himself that made Frank grouse.

Once, when the labor trouble at HerbalSolutions was first heating

up, Frank had tried talking to Shashi about it.

“So how does one handle the labor situation in India, Shash?”

he’d asked. “Any special tips?”

Shashi had turned toward him, the usual smile on his lips. “What

do you mean, special tips?”

“Well, you know. You’ve run a successful hotel around here for

many years. You must have some insight into the minds of the workers. What makes them tick, that kind of thing.”

“What makes them tick is—good pay and good working conditions. Same as workers all over the world.” Shashi laughed. It was

impossible to know if he had just mocked Frank or mocked the

entire labor class.

Frank’s jaw tightened. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and then

the women had taken over, filling the strained silence with their

patter until the mood at the table lightened again.

The doorbell rang, and Ellie skipped toward the kitchen door.

“Oh, God, how I’ve missed you,” she cried when she saw Nandita,

flinging her arms around her.

“Wow.” Nandita grinned as she stepped in. “That’s a nice welcome.”

Ellie had already put the kettle on, and now she poured them

each a cup of tea as the two women sat at the kitchen table. “Hmm,”

Nandita sighed. “You’ve certainly learned how to make a great cup

of
chai
, El.”

Ellie made a face. “Well, we’ve only been in the country, what,

sixteen months. At least I have something to show for it.”

Nandita tilted her head. “What’s wrong?”

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5 1

“Nothing.” She took a sip of tea. “Edna says they’re now saying

that Anand was a terrorist,” she blurted out.

Nandita gave a short laugh. “Yah, this is the new India. Every

two-bit criminal is now accused of being a terrorist—not that that

poor kid was even a criminal,” she added.

“This is not the India I’d imagined when I urged Frank to take

this job, I’ll tell you that,” Ellie said. She could hear the bitterness

in her own voice.

Nandita’s tone was bemused. “What did you imagine? Cows on

the streets and a guru and a snake charmer at every corner?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Ellie said. But the fact was, she had not

thought much about it at all. What she had pictured was simply a

country that would be the backdrop, the wallpaper before which she

and Frank would enact their family drama of estrangement, healing,

and reconciliation. She had certainly not imagined a teeming, heaving country that would become a player in their domestic drama.

India, she now knew, would not be content staying in the background, was nobody’s wallpaper, insisted on interjecting itself into

everyone’s life, meddling with it, twisting it, molding it beyond recognition. India, she had found out, was a place of political intrigue

and economic corruption, a place occupied by real people with their

incessantly human needs, desires, ambitions, and aspirations, and

not the exotic, spiritual, mysterious entity that was a creation of the

Western imagination.

“How was work at the clinic today?” Ellie asked, but before

Nandita could reply, “I’m so tired of being stuck at home. I want to

start work at NIRAL again.”

“You should,” Nandita said. “I mean, I don’t think the situation

is dangerous or anything. You may get a few dirty looks, but that’s

about it. I tell you, El, that’s what impresses me the most about

the poor—the amazing restraint that they show. Others call it fatalism, but I’ve worked among them for years now and I tell you,

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

it’s nothing as weak as fatalism. In fact, it’s—it’s fortitude. A kind

of dignity. How much shit these people take from”—Nandita waved

her hands to include the opulent surroundings they sat in—“from

people like us. And still they don’t fight back.” She shook her head

and managed a wan smile. “All right. Enough of my lecture
giri
, as

Shashi would say.”

Nandita is the only person in my life who says what I think,

Ellie thought. The old Frank, the man she had fallen in love with,

would’ve understood and felt the same way. But she knew that if

Frank were here right now, he would raise his eyebrows, ask both of

them if they weren’t sentimentalizing the poor, and wasn’t it possible

that the poor were adaptive, that they had learned the art of smiling

and bowing even while plotting murder against the likes of them?

What happened? she asked herself. India was supposed to humanize

us. Instead, it has made Frank cynical and bitter.

“Okay,” Nandita said. “Enough of this depressing talk.” She got

up and headed for the fridge. “What has that Prakash cooked? I’m

starving.”

Ellie leapt to her feet. “Would you like a chicken roll? Prakash

just made some more of his mayonnaise.”

They assembled the sandwich together. Nandita reached on top

of the fridge for a bag of potato chips. She took a big bite of the roll

and spoke with her mouth full. “Why the long face, darling? Are

you feeling down?”

Ellie nodded. “I think I am.”

“Well, the best antidote to depression is activity,” Nandita said.

“You need to be engaged in the world again.”

Ellie smiled ruefully. “That’s exactly what I would’ve said to

a client.” She cocked her head as she looked at the woman sitting

across from her. “Are you sure you’re not really a therapist?”

“Oh, God, I don’t have the temperament to sit still and listen to

the miseries of the bourgeoisie. I’d be bored out of my mind.” Nandita laughed. “No, you know what I am—a muck-raking, no-good

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5 3

journalist before I became a”—here Nandita made a doleful face—

“a hausfrau.”

Despite her light tone, Ellie could hear the regret in Nandita’s

voice. Armed with a master’s in journalism from Columbia University, Nandita had returned to Bombay and taken the world of journalism by storm, with numerous exposés of political corruption and

police brutality and bribery scandals. Although she was fêted by

human rights groups and some Bollywood movie stars, she began

to acquire a list of powerful enemies. Drummed-up charges by her

opponents had landed her in jail for three months before all accusations were dropped. She had walked out of jail triumphant, but the

damage was done—she suffered a breakdown a few months later.

She had known Shashi, the only son of a man who had made his

fortune making ball bearings, for many years but had never taken

seriously his occasional marriage proposals. For many years she

teased him for being the Son of Mr. Ball Bearings, conferred upon

him the mocking nickname Balls. She teased him for being wealthy,

for being a businessman, for having no social conscience. But while

she was recovering from the breakdown, it was Shashi more than

any of her other, progressive friends who stood by her. The next

time he proposed, she said yes. And seven years ago, when he and

his partners decided to build the Hotel Shalimar on the shores of

the Arabian Sea, she did not hesitate when he asked whether she

would consider relocating from Bombay to the small, sleepy village of Kanbar. Now she divided her time between working at the

clinic and school she had built in Girbaug and helping her husband

manage the forty-five-room resort.

Ellie leaned forward. “Can I ask you something, Nan? Are you

happy with Shashi? Are you still in love with him?”

Nandita clicked her tongue dismissively. “Shashi? Who knows?

Who cares? You Americans expect so much more from your romantic relationships, Ellie. All this talk of soul mates and all that

bullshit.” Seeing the look on Ellie’s face, she laughed. “Oh, God.

5 4 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

Forgive the blasphemy. You look, like, totally scandalized. No, but

seriously? I’m happy with Shashi. He’s an honorable man. I respect

him, and I guess, in my own fashion, I love him. But am I headover-heels with him? I’m not sure.”

“Were you ever madly in love with him? Or with anyone?”

For a second, something flickered in Nandita’s eyes. Then she

looked away. “I’m not sure. It wasn’t the way one was raised, with

these fairy-tale notions of Prince Charmings and knights in shining

armor. Anyway, one marries for companionship and, in the case of

most people, for children, right? And if one decides not to have any

children, then—”

Ellie had noticed this verbal tic before, how Nandita switched

to the third person anytime she talked about something personal

or emotionally difficult. If Nandita had been one of her clients, she

would’ve called her on it. But some instinct told her not to push that

hard, told her that Nandita was like one of those puffed, deep-fried

baturas
that deflated the instant you pierced the oily wheat exterior

with your thumb.

“What about you? Are you still in love with Frank?”

“Yes.” Her answer was so instantaneous it surprised even her.

“I mean, we’ve been together since our twenties. And the relationship has certainly—sustained some blows. But even today, he’s the

only man who can make my stomach flip just by walking into the

room.”

“Wow,” Nandita said. There was no envy in her voice, just interest. “Maybe it has something to do with meeting the other person

when you’re so young. Like what you hear about those birds—

cranes, maybe?—who consider the first person they see to be their

mothers. Imprinting, it’s called, I believe.”

“Well, we were both grad students. So we weren’t quite that

young,” Ellie laughed. “But God, Nan. You should’ve seen us then.

We were inseparable. Our first year together, it snowed like crazy

on Thanksgiving. Frank was visiting some friends in Grand Rapids.

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I had planned to cook us dinner, but one look out the window that