The Weight of Heaven

by Thrity Umrigar

  Frank sighed. “It’s still almost a month away. Wish it was sooner. I could really use a long weekend off.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Ellie gritted her teeth and swore to herself. Edna was standing before her and wailing, beating her forehead and cursing her bad luck for marrying a stupid wreck of a husband. Despite the fact that the woman’s anguish seemed genuine enough, Ellie couldn’t dismiss the feeling that some of the high drama was for her benefit, that Edna was trying to cover up her embarrassment at her husband’s obstinacy with her wailings and mutterings.

  Prakash was being an ass, no question about that. It was three days before they were to leave for Bombay, and the man had suddenly changed his mind about letting Ramesh accompany them. Edna had crept up to Ellie about a half hour ago with the news. “What to do, madam? The fool is becoming more-more stubborn in his old age. God only knows what got into his head last night, but he saying he won’t let Ramesh go.”

  “Have you told Ramesh?”

  Edna wailed even louder. “No, madam. If that mule wants to break his son’s heart, let him tell him. That boy has been excited as a firecracker over this for weeks.”

  “I see.” Ellie didn’t know which would be harder, Frank’s despondency or his rage when she told him the news. She suddenly felt fed up with the whole situation, this weird dance in which she was caught between the egos and insecurities of two warring men. And Edna was getting on her nerves. Such drama, so early in the morning. Now Edna was evoking the memory of her mother, wishing she had listened to her admonishments about marrying a non-Christian. “These Hindus, madam,” she sniffed. “Not the same as us. Sooner or later, they show their true nature. My mama was correct. This man is a total loss.”

  Despite herself, Ellie laughed. “Edna, please,” she said. “This is a simple case of a father not wanting his son to go with us because he’s—well, who knows why? Let’s not turn this into a religious war.”

  Edna looked injured and continued to mutter darkly about Prakash’s ways. But at least the wailing had stopped. In that silence, Ellie decided to act. “Is Prakash home?” she asked Edna.

  “Of course, madam.”

  “I want to speak to him,” she said. “Can we go to your house?”

  She caught Edna’s startled look. She had never before crossed the courtyard and entered Edna’s house. The realization that she had no idea what her servant’s home looked like, despite the fact that they shared an address, made Ellie blush. “Let’s go,” she said gruffly.

  The one-room shack had two cots on either end. A third mattress lay on the floor beside one of the cots. A half-partition made way for a little kitchen, and Ellie surmised that the bathroom was behind a yellow door at the far end of the room. Two decrepit-looking chairs were propped against a wall, and a small television set rested on one of them. Even though she knew that Edna’s living quarters were much better than those of many of the villagers, Ellie was shocked at how spartan a life her housekeepers lived. No wonder poor Ramesh was always looking for an opportunity to spend time in their home. She wondered what the boy thought of their house. She also felt a twinge of apprehension at taking Ramesh to the Taj, where they would be staying during their time in Bombay. The five-star hotel would be something beyond what the boy’s imagination could conjure up. She half wondered if insisting on the boy going with them was a mistake, but then she saw Prakash sitting on his haunches in the kitchen area, and her temper spiked.

  Prakash stayed on his haunches, but Ellie caught the murderous look that he flung at his wife at this intrusion. She knew Edna would pay for this barging-in, but right now she couldn’t think of that. She just wanted the matter resolved before Frank found out about it. “Prakash,” she said sharply. “Edna told me you were against Ramesh going with us. I was so shocked, I knew there had to be a 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.

  “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 good-proper. What you say about cutting pay was very clever.” And despite Edna’s exuberance, Ellie thought she detected something, a 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, 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 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, open-hearted, 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, 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.”

  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 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 procession of humanity in motion. You enter the city from the suburbs, which have none of the green tranquillity of the American ’burbs, and pass street a
fter street of small restaurants and shops selling everything from jeans to gold jewelry to the ubiquitous betel leaf concoction known as paan, which every Indian male of a certain class background seems to chew. Occasionally, there is a shop with a name you recognize—Sony, Wrangler, Nokia—and it is impossible not to notice the billboards that say Coke or Pepsi, part of the Cola Wars being fought across the country. But mostly, nothing registers because your attention is pulled in multiple directions—here is a taxi coming up to your right and about to hit your Camry and you try to control your reaction, bite down on your tongue, but at the last minute yell to Satish to watch out and feel the quiet press of embarrassment when the taxi misses your car by inches—as they always seem to—and Satish flashes you a grin in the rearview mirror. And here you are stopped at a traffic light and your car is surrounded by scores of tired-looking young women with children on their hips, beating on the windows with their open hands as they beg for money, and you feel hot and flushed and don’t know where to look, know it is dangerous to make eye contact but staring straight ahead feels pretty untenable, also, and on top of this Satish is admonishing you not to weaken, not to toss out a few coins because there are always more beggars than coins. So you sit in your air-conditioned car, ignoring the sound of hands beating on the window, feeling like a chimp in a zoo, remembering that other time a couple of months ago when other, angrier hands had beaten on your car, feeling that lethal combination of pity and aggravation that India always seems to arouse in you. And then, at the last minute, you sense that your wife can’t take this anymore and she reaches into her purse for a few one-rupee coins and, watching this, the crowd outside your car gets frantic, you can feel it even though you’re safely inside, and suddenly their numbers seem to double, just like that, like ants at a picnic. And Ellie lowers the window just as Satish starts moving, and now the outstretched hands are in the car, grasping at the money that Ellie is tossing out, and some of them are running after the moving car, in and out of the heavy traffic, fixated on the single coin, with no thought to the safety of life or limb. “Put the window up, madam,” Satish yells, even as he handles the control of the automatic window himself. And not a moment too soon, because the lowered window has let in more than the dark, desperate faces of the women and children, it had let in the stench of the city, a peculiar eye-stinging, nose-filling, throat-gagging combination of urine and exhaust and sweat and black smoke. This burning, rubbery smell is everywhere, though it dissipates a bit as you make your way from the inner rings of hell—Parel, Lalbaug, Bhendi Bazaar—into the outer rings—Crawford Market, Flora Fountain, Colaba.