by Rishi Reddi
“What does that mean, ‘removed’?” Pala asked.
Lying on his back, gazing at the men standing above him, Ram saw Satish and Pala exchange a glance.
“Ram,” Satish said, “what did those men look like?”
He felt a stab of fear. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. He heard footsteps coming from the kitchen, then the scrape of wood against wood. Jodh was dragging a chair across the threshold of the back door, into the pantry. Ram was alarmed, but he was so tired. When the men left him, he was aware of his eyes closing.
When he opened them again sometime later, the sky had gone dark. Jodh was sitting quietly in the chair, his eyes half-closed, softly reciting Kirtan Sohila. Jodh’s deep voice, the familiar chants invoking God’s protection, all this comforted Ram. His mind traveled to an evening when he had fallen asleep on his mother’s lap as she chanted the same prayers. His mother was not Sikh, and neither was he, but it did not matter. Everyone knew the prayers of the Guru. His aunt was giving birth in the next room. Yet, despite his mother’s invocation, despite the visit from the village midwife and the town doctor, his aunt had not lived through the night, although the baby survived. He shifted position painfully. Moonlight streamed through the open back door and splayed across Jodh’s shoulder.
Ram could hear Pala’s voice outside near the stove, the clatter of metal pots being gathered up after their meal. He heard a beat begin on the dholki; that would be Hussein, the boy from Amritsar. A voice began to sing. Someone strummed the tumbi. The men would soon begin to dance. Some of them would be seated on the wooden benches in the side yard, some would sit on the chairs in the back. Their house had the largest yard and the men always gathered there. Almost one hundred of his countrymen lived on that street, a fifth of the total number of Hindustanees hired at the mills. He could hear their voices thick with whiskey, debating on and on: why they didn’t call the police, why they were waiting to fetch the doctor . . . their voices were unguarded, and he knew they thought he couldn’t hear. They did not know what Satish had said about the labor leaders’ demand that the Hindustanees be fired. About the threat to remove the Hindus themselves, if they remained by week’s end.
Ram heard one of the men advise Pala to report the attack to the police by Tuesday, otherwise their foreman would wonder why Ram was missing. The men jeered. Most agreed with Pala—why tell the police? They knew that the locals thought they were dirty, that they were a threat to family life, that their turbans were dirty and smelled foul. They knew most women in town stepped away if they encountered a Hindu on the street. What would the police do? And who would be told? That large deputy with the huge jowls who could not sit a horse properly? They laughed.
They cursed the mill boss who paid them $2.00 per day, while paying the Negros $2.10, while paying the Italians $2.75. They spoke in Punjabi and it did not matter who overheard them from the road. Most had fought in the British army. They were accustomed to living under a soft shadow of danger. They were used to making the unfamiliar into the familiar. The whiskey was flowing. Pala’s cooking was good. What mattered was the money; the well-worn route to the Western Union booth behind the post office, the dollars they wired to Patiala or Hoshiarpur or Lahore that would transform a mud hut into a brick cottage, or pay for a sister’s wedding, or release a peasant father’s mortgage from an urban moneylender. They measured their lives $2.00 at a time. Despite the letters that assured them that they were missed, loved even—these men with dreams and secrets and childhoods and wives and mothers for whom they yearned—they could not avoid that accounting, their value at home and abroad: $2.00 a day. They did not question it.
They sent Hussein inside to fetch another bottle from the kitchen. Ram heard the boy’s footsteps approach, the sound of the open and shut cupboard. If Ram breathed lightly and lay on the side that did not pain him, folding an extra blanket between his legs, it did not hurt so much. Perhaps he might report at the mill in the morning. Jodh bent toward him to offer a tumbler of water, and Ram drank. He offered Ram roti and chicken and Ram refused. He was tired. Sleep came again quickly.
THEY ARRIVED AFTER MIDNIGHT. He woke to pounding on the front door, deep thuds that overwhelmed his ears and shuddered through his fragile chest, the screeches of torn wood. They must have used axes, or small logs retrieved from the river. He heard yells, shattered glass, the toppling of the shelf that stood by the stairs. Jodh’s chair stood vacant, staring back at him like an omen. When he realized he was alone, panic overtook him. He knew that they could not see him from the front of the house. That he could escape out the back door if none of them were outside. Except that he could not move. His limbs were frozen.
He heard their boots on the stairs and he was thankful. But the shame came in a wave, overwhelming him. He should go up after them; he should help Pala. Gurbinder Singh used to keep a pistol near the mantel on the first floor, but he had left for San Francisco in June, taking the gun with him.
Something other than his injuries, other than his pain, did not allow him to go. He stayed in the pantry while they thundered on the stairs above him, walls shaking, footsteps bold and threatening on the thin wood floor. He breathed shallow breaths and wrapped his arms around himself, shivering, willing his breath to be silent. He closed his eyes, though it was dark. Glass crashed. The ceiling shook. Men spoke in a strange language. English words were barked out: You dirty. You garbage. You raghead. There were sounds he could not recognize. Were they throwing things? Bags, lamps? He heard the tremor of tumbi strings. Take your blankets and get out of our mills. Voices shouted back in Punjabi. He heard the fierce beating of the dholki, then the crash of axe against wood and the drum was silent. A man yelped in pain. He heard Pala shouting, a bang against the wall. Twelve people lived upstairs; who was hurt? How many? Ram’s heart hammered against his fragile ribs. He swallowed again and again, lying on his side, frozen.
Heavy boots clattered down the steps and it seemed all the men followed, some of them stumbling, sliding, trailing out the front door. There were more shouts outside. Other Hindustani houses must have been violated too. Men gathered in the yard where the Punjabis had just danced and talked. Above the fray, Ram heard a man shout, “That’s the one from the movie house! Lookin’ at my girl today!” Ram gasped. Had Ram brought this cruelty upon all of them? Which of the Punjabis had they mistaken for him? Perhaps Mohamed Khan, who also did not wear a dastar? The thought horrified him. Then he heard a club hit muscle and skin and something more. A man screamed an animal sound of pain. A voice full of rage, “What was—” Pala’s yelling high-pitched, childlike, in Punjabi, pleading with someone, then a jump into loud broken English, pierced by sobs, “Don’t hurt, don’t hurt,” as if he had forgotten the language in his shock. “Please!”
“I told you, not their legs. Fool!”
Ram’s mind snapped into focus. He opened his eyes. Moonlight shone through the small window above him, illuminating the pantry. He uncurled his body slowly, coaxing himself to keep going. Pain shot through his left side. He continued anyway. He stepped onto the shelf and put his weight on the leg; his shin burned. But he clenched his teeth, leaned against the wall, and peered through the window. He was hidden in shadow and he could see out on the yard.
Forty or fifty men stood gathered in the moonlight. How could there be so many? A man wearing a dastar rolled on the ground, whimpering, holding his arm. Another lay near him, unmoving. Fear gripped Ram again, and he could not breathe. Who was that man? Was he dead? Behind him stood the other Hindustanees. The two groups stood facing each other. His countrymen were outnumbered almost four to one.
He heard a loud crack and an explosion, and heard it again. His mind made sense of it: a gun had been fired. A man yelled, “March! Walk!” Now he understood—they were driving the Hindustanees out of town. Ram’s head began to swim. His legs gave way and he sank, slowly, to the floor.
IN THE MORNING, the house was empty. He woke to birdsong, sunlight. Had the events of the evening really ha
ppened? Looking out again through the window, then slowly opening the back door, he saw no sign of his companions or the locals. Benches and chairs had been toppled. Cooking dishes were strewn everywhere. Shards of glass lay over the dirt, glistening. There was a dark brown stain, still moist, on the dirt and grass where the fallen men had lain. He felt a chill in his gut. Later, in Jivan Singh’s home, he would read in the Ghadar paper that the man on the ground had been Uday Singh. That he had died in a hospital in another town, ten miles south of Hambelton, two days after the attack. Ram had not known him well; he had arrived only a week before.
A smell of urine hung in the air, of men in terror.
So much had gone wrong for him: his father’s death before he was born, his mother’s lowly place in her brother’s home, his own status in that house, among the children his uncle truly loved. Who would he have been if his father had lived, and had loved him in that way? If he had not been sent off to America? It was clear now: he was only meant to be the victim of men’s malice, to suffer; his adventure abroad was always destined to end like this. An ocean separated him from all that he knew, and he was stranded here, among strangers who took pleasure in savagery.
He heard Pala’s voice tell him to go north, cross the boundary into British Columbia, assert his rights as a fellow subject of the empire; the English king owed it to him. But no, Ram wanted to return to Punjab. He had twelve dollars in his pocket. It was not enough for passage home, but it was enough for a train ticket to the Imperial Valley. He had been ignoring Karak’s letters, his invitations, but he knew the man would forgive him. Perhaps Karak would lend him money for the journey home. Perhaps Karak would look after him awhile . . . the way he had in Hong Kong, the way he had on the steamship during their passage west. He could go to Karak and take some time to plan his next step.
He heard Padma’s voice: Yes, my life, this is what you must do.
He picked up his bag and his blanket. He would slowly make his way to the trolley, which would take him to the train, which would take him to Karak Singh. He would know what to do next.
Letters
15 December 1918
My husband, Father of Santosh,
By the time you receive this letter it will have been almost two months since I stepped on American soil. I am writing, ashamed, on the ship traveling back to India. Shankar’s telegram will have given you the news that we were not allowed off the ship to join you. But now I will give you the complete explanation. If you no longer want to call me your wife, I do not blame you. But it is not my fault, Father of Santosh. I fear that I will never again see you.
I was so relieved when we docked in San Francisco, for while we were at sea in the belly of the ship, I was sick every day. In San Francisco, we were taken to a building on an island, where Shankar and I were asked to talk with the officers separately. It is a type of jail there, my husband. I took Santosh with me and followed a man to a room that was unkempt, and without sunlight.
He left me by myself there for a few minutes and another man, looking like an inspector, came and sat behind the desk. I was scared to be alone with that inspector. He looked so odd—his skin was so pale, I did not get a good feeling. He kept speaking with me in Bengali. Did he think that is my language? You know I have never been alone with a strange man, much less one that cannot speak my language. He kept looking at some papers and I sat in a chair in front of him.
I sat there for a long, long time. Poor Santosh was unhappy and wanted a toilet. I asked the man but he shook his head. I thought perhaps he did not understand our language, so I pointed to Santosh and with my gestures showed what our son needed. He is five years old and he is a brave boy but I could see how scared he was there. But still this strange man would not show us the toilet. Has he never known a child?
Then poor Santosh, his face full of shame, relieved himself right there. Now the man was quite upset and he started scolding me. I cleaned as best as I could, but afterward there was a slight smell. He made a face—but the fault was his own.
Finally, he called in one of our people. This man spoke to me in Punjabi, but he had a strange way of pronouncing the words, and some of the words were completely different altogether, so the sum result was that I could only understand a portion of what he was saying. He must have been from some other district. Father of Santosh, you would have recognized his Punjabi language, and you would have known these strange words, because you have seen the world, you know how to do things that I do not know.
The white man would say something, looking straight at me, even though he knew that I would not understand, and our countryman would speak to me in his strange Punjabi, of which I understood only a part. He asked me if I knew how to read and write. I said that I do. I said that my father believed that even a woman should know these things. I said that not only myself but my husband knows how to read and write and he is a very prosperous farmer and making lots of money.
He asked me to prove our marriage. I showed him the paper, the one issued by the village panchayat, but he didn’t believe me. He asked why it did not have the king’s seal. I answered that in the village, we do not use it, although in Lyallpur proper it is used. He said that without the correct marriage paper I would have to prove that I could read, in English would be preferable, but Punjabi would suffice.
He gave me some book and asked me to read it. It was in formal Punjabi language and the words all were strange to me but I pronounced them slowly. The white man looked skeptical and he directed the Punjabi man to take the book from me and he did so. I sensed that they were both against me—perhaps our countryman was even more against me than the white man. I grew frightened again. Santosh must have sensed my uneasiness for he started to cry. Our countryman told me that the book was the Christian Bible. Then he said that he didn’t think I could read at all, even in Punjabi.
I protested. I asked them if I could read a book that I brought. You know that I always keep the Gita with me, that small one. So I opened my bag and showed it to him and told him that I could read it. He shook his head.
But I read it, my husband. You would have been proud of me. There were portions that I knew well, because my father and I used to read them together. When I was finished, the Punjabi man said it seemed I did not know how to read, that I had merely memorized some lines. I told him that he could point at any part of the text and I would read it. But he said no. We were arguing like this as Santosh wandered to the other side of the room and suddenly pulled a few papers from the shelves, and some books fell. I felt so bad I immediately got up to check him.
That is when everything stopped. As I walked to Santosh, that white man saw me, and asked something which the Punjabi man stated to me—he asked why do I have a limp? I told him that I had a disease as a child. He told me then that it would not be a matter of whether I could read or not, the U.S. would not allow persons such as me into the country.
I felt that he had plunged a knife in my heart. I told him that I was your wife, that your son was there with me in that same room. But he would not listen, my husband, he would not listen. All humanity was gone from him. It was only after they made me leave the room and could not see me anymore that I allowed the tears to come. I kept thinking that they would call me back in, that they would recognize their mistake and realize that I was your wife and that I should be with you, but no one came. By the end of the day, all life had gone out of me.
Five days I stayed there on American soil, in the filth of that jail. I don’t know how I withstood the sadness of boarding the ship again. I think I did only because Santosh was with me, and because I was always under my brother’s watchful eye. It is still not clear why he was not allowed in. Perhaps he was, but he refused to enter because I would be all alone. I have not asked him, and he has not told me. It is not clear, my husband. Did you not say that I would be allowed to enter because I am your wife? I should be able to join you whether I could read or no? Whether I walk with a limp or no? Two days after we left, a Chinaman ju
mped off the ship into the water. Do you know a secret, my husband? Despite Santosh, despite you, I wanted to jump too. I am ashamed to say it. And probably Shankar felt the same, although he did not confide it to me.
I will not tell Uncle when I return. I can no longer tolerate that house. I will go straight to my parents’ home. Please forgive me. Santosh will miss his cousins but how would they treat me in Lyallpur now? Everything has been spoiled and I do not know how to fix it. I can only ask, as a supplicant, can you inquire if anything can be done? I feel this has the finality of death, and that your inquiry will be in vain.
Your hapless wife,
Padma
Part Four
With tears in my eyes
I turn back to my homeland
taking one last look.
—Author unknown, from The Japanese American Family Album
When all the Japanese are forced out of the country, the cantaloupes may thrive as they do today, and a lettuce ranch may be as green as today and the American nation will prosper with great power, but the American history will not be so glorious as it is today with the words of Liberty.
—M. Shigematsu, Secretary, Japanese Farmers Association of Imperial Valley, 1920
24
November 1918
AT FIVE O’CLOCK ONE MORNING IN NOVEMBER, THE FREDONIA POWER Company blew its emergency whistle and the fire department rang its bell in the cool dawn. People knew what that meant. They had been eagerly awaiting the end of the war; the United Press had made a false announcement four days earlier. By sunrise, paperboys had situated themselves on street corners around town, holding bundles of the Fredonia News, shouting its headline: PEACE! and in smaller letters underneath: KAISER IS OUT! GERMANY SURRENDERS! GREATEST WAR OF ALL TIME OVER!
When they heard the bells sound, Jivan and Karak and Ram drove into town. Kishen had no wish to come with them. “What do I have to do with that war?” she asked. “I only want Amarjeet to come home.” The men could not disagree. But they went anyway, parking on the outskirts of town and walking to city hall.
