The Weight of Heaven (45 page)

they’d woken him out of an undisturbed sleep. He looked at the

clock again. It was only midnight. He would not sleep tonight. He

would lie awake, keep a kind of deathbed vigil while Ryan O’Neal

and Ali MacGraw frolicked in the snow. The icy feeling in his stomach grew. Our Father who art in heaven, he caught himself praying.

He turned on his side to face Ramesh. Tomorrow morning the sun

will rise, he thought, and there will be two less people in the world.

A wild, sharp feeling that he could not name tore through his heart.

He eyed the boy sleeping trustingly next to him. “I’ll take care of

you,” he promised. “I’ll give you a great life.”

His lips were moving as he fell asleep. Thy kingdom come, thy

will be done, he chanted to himself.

The hotel phone rang at four thirty. Frank turned in bed, hit the

snooze on the alarm clock, muttering in his sleep. Nothing happened. The ringing got louder. He suddenly sat up in bed. A spasm

of pain bolted through his entire body. His jaw ached—he must’ve

been grinding his teeth. He fumbled for his phone. “Hello?” he

said.

“Mr. Frank?” a male voice said.

“Yes,” he said. His heart was beating so hard he thought he was

going to pass out.

“This is Inspector Sharma speaking. From Girbaug, sir. Sorry to

say there’s been an accident, sir.”

“Accident?”

Sharma cleared his throat. “Um, yes. That is to say, two murders

have occurred on your premises, sir.”

He closed his eyes. So Gulab had done it. He was shaking with

relief—and remorse. He was triumphant—and terrified.

3 3 8 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

There was a sound in the background, as if there was a scuffle

going on. He heard Sharma say something in Hindi, and then there

was a gasping noise on the phone. “Hello?” he said cautiously.

The nasal voice was immediately familiar. “Frank sahib,” the

voice sobbed. “We brothers now.
Arre bhagawan
. We have both entered the Age of Darkness,
seth
.”

There was a roaring in Frank’s ears. Prakash. Prakash was not

dead? “Speak clearly,” he ordered. “Give the phone back to—”

Prakash wailed in his ear. “We both widowers now,
seth
. We

both—”

Maybe Prakash had been shot in the head. “Prakash,” he said.

“Stop talking rot. Give the phone to the inspector.”

There was a pause—and Frank died and was reborn a hundred

times in that pause—and then Sharma was back on the phone. “I’m

so sorry, sir. He grabbed the phone—”

In the background, he could hear Prakash’s sobs. “Inspector,”

Frank said, his eyes filling with tears. “What has happened? Who—

who is dead?”

There was a crackle on the line. “The servant girl, sir. And—

and your missus, sir. I’m desperately sorry, sir. Routine robbery, it

appears to be.”

He laughed out loud with relief. “That’s impossible. My wife is

out of town, traveling to Delhi tonight.” She’s safe, he thought, Ellie’s safe.

“Beg pardon, sir. This chappie here says she didn’t go. It—it definitely is your wife that is dead, sir. We have positively identified.”

He hung up on Sharma. Ignored the urgent ring of the hotel

phone as his fingers raced through the numbers on his cell phone.

Shashi. He had to call Shashi. He would know what was going on.

He glanced over at Ramesh. The boy was snoring with his mouth

open. How the fuck can he sleep through this commotion? he

thought with distaste. He looked away.

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 3 3 9

“Hello?” It was Nandita. A sleepy Nandita, but Nandita all the

same. His stomach dropped.

“Nan? Why are you home? Why aren’t you—”

“Who’s this?” Nandita still sounded sleepy.

“It’s Frank,” he yelled. “Why are you home? Where’s Ellie?”

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t recognize. El’s home. We didn’t go today.

Shashi’s joining us. Last-minute decision. We’re all leaving tomorrow instead.”

He listened in horror, unable to take in what she was saying.

“Frank?” Nandita said. “What’s going on? Why’re you calling me?”

His whole body began to shake. “You didn’t go to Delhi?” he

repeated. “Ellie was home tonight?”

“Yup. Are you trying to reach her?” Nandita sounded baffled.

“She should be there. You can call her.”

Why hadn’t she phoned him yesterday to tell him about her

change of plans? But even as he wondered, he knew the answer—

Ellie had not wanted to intrude on his time with Ramesh.

The hotel phone was still ringing. He ignored it. “Frank,” Nandita said again. “You can reach Ellie at home.”

“I can’t. I can’t call her. I just got a call from the police. There’s been

a break-in at the house. Nandita, Ellie’s dead. My wife is dead.”

He woke Satish up, told him to drive as fast as he could back to the

Taj to pick them up. They would leave for Girbaug tonight. Next, he

went into the shower and turned on the water. He forgot to remove

his clothes. Steam filled the bathroom, the heat scalding his skin.

He leaned his face against the moist bath tile and bellowed. Beat

the walls with his fist. Fell to the floor; banged his head against tile.

He raised his wrist to his mouth and bit into the flesh. He wanted to

inflict pain on his penitent body; wanted to experience such strong

physical pain that he would forget for a blessed second, the agony

of his soul.

3 4 0 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

He had killed her. Murdered the most precious thing in his life.

The old Christian God, the one who kept track, kept score, the one

who punished the wicked, had won. It was a moral universe, after

all. He had tried to play his hand, winner take all. And instead he

was left with nothing. Nothing. Just this empty void of a universe,

emptied of the one person who had loved him, stood by him as

steadily as a candle flame in the night.

He came dripping out of the shower, peeled off his clothes, which

clung to him like skin, and got into a bathrobe. He walked into the

bedroom, eyed the sleeping Ramesh with as much interest as one

would a pile of bills. He tried to muster up pity for what had happened to this innocent boy, guilt over what he had stolen from him.

But he felt nothing. More precisely, he felt a kind of anger at Ramesh.

He had lost his Ellie in his bid for this boy. Had he gone mad? This

sleeping, snoring boy didn’t feel remotely worthy of the trade. The

sacrifice had been too great.

He went to wake Ramesh up, but the thought of telling the boy

what had transpired in Girbaug froze the words in his mouth. He let

him sleep. Ramesh would wake up soon enough into an irrevocably

altered world.

Chapter 35

Ellie miss was to have left for the train station at six in the evening,

but at three thirty the phone rang. “Hi, Nandita,” Prakash heard

Ellie say. “I’m so excited—what? Oh, really? Well, I guess that’s

okay.”

She spoke for a few more minutes and then came into the kitchen

where Prakash was preparing the mutton cutlets she was to carry on

the train for dinner. “Sorry for all this work,” she said. “But there’s

been a change of plans. We’re leaving tomorrow instead of today.”

He was careful to keep the disappointment out of his face. This

morning, Edna had told him that she’d been looking forward to a

few days of rest while Frank and Ellie were away. “A little holiday

for us, also, no?” Edna had said, “without having to do cookingcleaning for them.”

He had been anticipating spending the evening with his wife.

Now, he would have to take care of Ellie miss. “Shall I put away

the
kheema
in the fridge, madam?” he asked. “Or fry the cutlets for

tonight?”

Ellie sighed. “We’ll take them on the train tomorrow. But you may

have to make a few more, Prakash. Shashi is joining us, also. And

don’t worry about dinner for tonight. There’s plenty of leftovers.”

3 4 2 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

“Yes, madam,” he said.

“She not going to Delhi today,” he announced as he walked into

their hut a half hour later.

Edna was crouched in the corner of the shack, lighting the kerosene stove. “Don’t talk nonsense,” she said grumpily. “Of course

she’s going. All packed-pooked, she is.”

“She change her mind. Going tomorrow instead.”

“What for?”

He shrugged. “Because she American.”

Edna curled her lip. “Don’t you be starting today, you stupid,”

she said. “I’m not feeling well. No time for your nonsense.”

He smiled. “You just missing our Ramu.” Frank and Ramesh

had left for Bombay early this morning.

She looked away. “Maybe.” She paused, struck by a thought. “So

this means I have to clean as usual?”

He took in Edna’s tired face. “You rest,” he said. “I will go over

and do everything today.”

Her face softened. “Many thanks, sweetie,” she said quietly.

Sweetie. She hadn’t called him that in a long time. His heart was

singing as he crossed the courtyard and went back into the main

house. Ellie, reading on the sofa, raised her head as he walked in.

“Yes?”

“I will do cleaning-washing today instead of Edna, madam. She

resting.”

“Don’t worry about it, Prakash. I don’t need any clothes washed

today.”

He stood before her uncertainly. “So no washing?” he asked.

“Nope. No other housework, either. I’d already told you guys

you’d have these days off. So enjoy.”

“I will clean before Frank
seth
return on Monday night,” he said,

his Hindu belief in cleanliness outraged at the thought of a dirty

house.

“Whatever.”

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 3 4 3

“Shall I prepare the tea now, madam?”

“Prakash,” she said. “I don’t need anything. Really. Actually, I

just want some priv—I want to be undisturbed the rest of the day.”

He sighed and left the house. Despite himself, he felt a grudging affection for Ellie. She was nice, he thought. Kept her promises.

Treated him and Edna as if she
saw
them.

Instead of going back into the shack, he decided to go for a walk

along the beach, wanting to jiggle and treasure this unexpected gift

of leisure, like silver coins in his pocket.

But the sea only made him miss Ramesh. He remembered bringing Ramesh to this beach the very first time, when he had been only

six days old. Despite Edna’s protests about the baby catching cold,

he had brought Ramu to the same spot where he was now standing

and held him up in his arm. “Look at this,” he’d said to his son.

“This all yours. Land, I will never possess. Your ma’s land in Goa,

you will not inherit. But this—this sand, this sky, this sea—this

belong to you. No one can ever take away. You remember this.”

During the Olaf years, the three of them would often come to

the beach and take their supper on the sand, returning home after

the sun went down. Or he and Ramesh would sometimes get a ride

on a fishing boat on a Sunday morning. They would return home

stinking of fish, and Edna would laughingly hold her nose while

heating up water for their baths. That was the good thing about Olaf

babu—he minded his own business. Give the man a clean house,

hot meals cooked on time, pour him his Scotch exactly at seven in

the evening, have that Gulab bring him a woman once a week, and

bas
—he was happy. Made no other demands on them. Didn’t try

and worm his way into their family life.

He was kicking up puffs of sand as he walked, resentment tearing

tiny holes into the contentment he’d felt when he’d left the house.

He decided to change tracks. He would walk to the market and buy

his Edna a box of
ladoos
. They were on a kind of holiday, after all.

They should celebrate.

3 4 4 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

Edna seemed touched but uninterested when he presented her

with the gift. Setting the box aside, she said, “I’ll eat these later. My

tummy is paining right now.”

“You want tea?” he asked but she simply shook her head. “I want

sleep.”

He sat watching her for half an hour while she slept. It felt strange

having time on his hands and no one to spend it with. He had a

sudden thought—he could go to a movie. He rose to his feet, wondering whether to wake Edna up. But she was sleeping so peacefully,

he decided to go without her. His bicycle rested against the corner

of the house, and getting on it, he pedaled toward the village’s only

theater. He spent the next three hours in the dark, his heart soaring during the romantic dance numbers, filling with outrage at the

villain’s chicanery. The man sitting behind him sang along with all

the songs, which Prakash didn’t mind, and recited all the dialogue

spoken by the villain, which he did.
“Chup re,”
he hissed a few times

but it didn’t make a difference.

It was dark by the time he left the theater. He began to ride home,

but as he passed the village bootlegger’s shop decided to have one

shot of
daru
before proceeding. There, he ran into Moti, the village cobbler’s son, who bought him a second drink. Etiquette demanded that he reciprocate. A few other men joined them. This is