The Weight of Heaven (6 page)

before becoming a union leader. Conditions in jail are such they resulted in his untimely death.”

“You think they’ll buy it?” And then he caught himself, heard

himself becoming an accomplice in the death of a youth he barely

knew, a man who had come into his office a few weeks ago with a

petition demanding better pay for the workers and longer breaks.

There had been nothing exceptional about Anand, no trait that had

snagged itself onto Frank’s memory, and it was that everydayness,

that ordinariness, that filled Frank with a deep sorrow and revulsion

at the conversation he was now having. “Listen,” he said, faking

a resoluteness he wasn’t feeling, “there’s got to be a better way to

handle this. We can simply come clean. Say that the police tortured

Anand, and that we had nothing to do with that.”

“Frank, sahib. Just think. If we do this, our involvement with

the police becomes clear, no? Why did they arrest him at all, sir?

It’s because we—I—asked them to. He had done nothing criminal.

Still, they went into his house in the evening and pulled him out for

questioning. And secondly, if we finger the police this time, what do

you think happens when we need their help next time? For the last

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

3 5

year the villagers have been disputing our rights to the trees that are

HerbalSolutions’s lifeblood, sir. You know that. Who do you think

helps us keep those ignorant villagers from claiming the trees for

themselves?”

Frank was aware of the simmering discontent among the villagers

about the fact that HerbalSolutions had signed a fifty-year lease to

thousands of acres of forest land from the Indian state government.

The villagers had traditionally brewed, chewed, and even smoked

the leaves of the girbal tree—the same leaves that HerbalSolutions

was now harvesting and processing to use in its SugarGo line as

an alternative treatment to control diabetes. The villagers were also

used to chopping what they thought of as their trees for firewood.

After signing the lease, HerbalSolutions had posted guards to protect the trees against poachers. But there were constant disputes and

run-ins between the hired guards and the people who believed that

despite what the government said, the trees belonged to their forefathers and were to be passed on to their children. Several times, the

police had been called to quell the unrest.

“So what do we propose we do?” Frank said, hating this feeling

of being boxed in.

“Just leave things to me, sir. I’ll take care of everything.”

“No, thanks. I won’t make that mistake again. The last time I

asked you to take care of things, I end up with a dead man on my

hands.” The words shot out of Frank, fired by the anger and resentment he felt.

Gulab stiffened imperceptibly, and his eyes went flat and hollow.

Frank could tell that he had drawn blood. He felt a small satisfaction

followed by a twinge of regret. Gulab was not someone he wanted

to turn against himself. “I’m sorry,” he began. “That was—”

“No harm done, sahib.” Gulab’s smile was stiff, perfunctory.

“And sir. I honestly thought I was following your instruction. When

you told me to take care of the situation with Anand, I thought—”

Was the fellow trying to implicate him? Trying to ensure that

3 6 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

his hands were dirty—hell, bloody—too? And what
had
he meant

when he’d told Gulab to handle the situation? Just the reflexive mutterings of a harried executive? Or had there been something more

sinister—a desire for the problem to go away, to be solved by any

means necessary—in that command? He could barely remember

saying those words to Gulab. But even if he had, dear God, surely

he had not meant
murder
, had not even meant torture. Frank remembered when he had first read about the Abu Ghraib scandal. He had

felt physically sick. This is so not us. This is not what Americans

do, he’d thought. Ellie, of course, had been characteristically more

cynical. C’mon, Frank, she had said, what do you think happened

in Vietnam? Hell, what do you think happens in U.S. prisons every

day? But he had been genuinely shocked, repulsed by the pictures

on television. He looked at Gulab now, trying to think of a way to

explain all this to him, to make him see that his was not a world

of police torture and beatings and prison deaths. For a moment

he thought with longing of the house in Ann Arbor, the animated

dinner parties with friends who shared their political views, the easy

conversations where they all vowed to move to Canada if Bush won

a second term and never mentioned it again after he did. But it was

like looking into that world from a thick sheet of ice, as if his former

life was encapsulated inside one of those snow globes, delicate, fragile, lovely, and he was holding it in the palm of his hand, looking at

it from the outside. After living in India for the past year and a half,

he felt closer to the American soldiers who were up to their ears in

shit and muck in Iraq, felt that he could comprehend their lost innocence and their confusion and irritation, even their contempt and

hatred for a culture they had come to save but that was destroying

them. All his liberal beliefs—that people were the same all over the

world, that cultural differences could be bridged by goodwill and

tolerance—seemed dangerous and naïve to him at this moment.

The man who sat before him right now was as unknowable as a

mountain, as impenetrable as a dense forest. The distance between

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

3 7

them was greater than the geographical distance between their two

countries.

“Listen, Gulab,” he said. “You know damn well that whatever

I said, I didn’t intend any violence. That’s not how we do business.” He looked at Gulab and thought again of how he didn’t want

this man as an enemy. Forcing himself to lighten his tone, he said,

“Anyway. It’s a shitty situation, but we’ll have to face up to it. I’ll

back you in this. And you’ll just owe me big, won’t you?”

Gulab looked puzzled at this last, unfamiliar Americanism.

Then, he nodded. “I’m in your debt, sir.” He opened his mouth to

say more, but just then there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Frank called, and Deepak Mehta, Frank’s second-incommand, walked in. “Hi, Frank,” he said, ignoring Gulab. “What

a tragedy, hah? I just now only got the news. Roads were bad, but I

came as quickly as I could.”

“You shouldn’t have come in at all, Deepak. I could’ve handled

it.” Frank realized that he had not even thought of calling Deepak.

You’re not thinking clearly, he chastised himself. You’ve got to do

better than this.

“Nonsense. Wouldn’t think of letting you deal with this alone.

Have you seen the crowd at the gate? There’s about fifty people

there. Including the mother.”

“What mother?”

Deepak blinked. “Why, the man’s—that is, Anand’s mother.”

“She’s outside the factory?”

“Yah. I got out and talked to her. But she’s not satisfied. She

wants to talk to you, only.”

Frank blanched, and from the slightest movement of Gulab’s

head, he knew that the man had seen his fear. But he was beyond

caring. The thought of meeting Anand’s mother, of answering her

accusations, of looking her in the eye, was beyond what he could

physically do. He knew his limits. Less than two years ago, he had

attended his own son’s funeral, had avoided eye contact with another

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

bereaved mother, who happened to be his own wife. He couldn’t do

it. He couldn’t.

“Frank,” Deepak was saying. “It will probably help a lot if you

could, y’know, go out and address the crowd. Say a few sorrys to

the mother.”

“I can’t.” Instinctively, Frank turned to Gulab for support. The

man was staring at Frank in fascination, as if he was solving a puzzle.

Slowly, a look of understanding spread across his face. But Frank

was too anguished to register much of this. He felt like a cornered

animal, actually rubbing his hand over his neck, where he felt the

unmistakable bite of a noose being tightened.

“It’s customary here.” Deepak seemed oblivious to Frank’s discomfort. “Mark of respect. You have to pay condolence to—”

“Deepak babu,” Gulab said, jutting out his right arm as if to

stop the flow of words. “Not a good idea for Frank sahib to face the

crowd tonight. Maybe we can give the mother a few hundred rupees

and send her home tonight. Later on, we shall see.”

Deepak’s mouth tightened. “A twenty-two-year-old boy has

died here,” he said. “I don’t think a few hundred rupees will appease

the mother.”

Gulab laughed. There was something dismissive and frightening about his laugh, and it had the desired effect. Deepak looked

uncertainly from one man to the other. “I’ll deal with those
junglee

villagers outside, sahib,” Gulab said. “Once they see that both of

you have left, they will leave, also. And I’m going to make arrangements for both of you to leave from the back road, okay? No need to

face that crowd again.” Although he was addressing both of them,

his eyes bore into Frank’s, who sensed that a subtle, imperceptible

shift had occurred between him and Gulab, that Gulab had spotted

some essential weakness in him and was protecting him.

“Okay,” Frank said. His mouth was dry, his voice weak.

Gulab shot him another look. “I’ll go find your driver,” he said

and left the room.

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

3 9

“What the hell is going on, Frank?” Deepak turned to him as

soon as Gulab was out of the door. “What are we going to do?”

“It turns out the boy had some kind of heart condition. Being

in jail probably stressed him out. It’s very unfortunate.” Even to

Frank, his voice sounded wobbly and untrue. But he already had the

premonition of saying those words over and over again, until they

would finally set, harden, become true.

Deepak gave him a long, thoughtful look. “I see. Is that what

we’re saying?”

Frank’s tone was wooden. “That’s what’s true.”

“I see,” Deepak said again. He too sounded flat, his natural exuberance leveled into a kind of bleariness. And then, in a sudden,

savage burst, “These greedy bastards. Everything was going so

well. And then they had to start wanting more money and this and

that.”

Frank appreciated what Deepak was trying to do, incite himself,

convince himself that the crowd waiting for them to appear outside the gate was to blame for the tragedy that had occurred. Out

of the blue, he remembered an interview with a young soldier in

Iraq whose buddies had been accused of slaughtering innocent civilians. “These mofuckin’ rag-heads are treacherous, man,” he had

told the reporter. “One moment they’re smiling at you and shit and

the next they’re pelting you with stones. So they bring a lot of this

shit on themselves, man.” Watching the interview, Frank had been

ashamed and repulsed. But now, he was grateful for what Deepak

was doing, understood that he would have to start thinking the same

way himself.

“Deepak,” he said urgently, taking advantage of Gulab’s absence. “Whatever happens, I don’t want to face the mother, okay?”

He tried to find a lighter tone. “That wasn’t part of the job description,” he added, but it came out wrong, thin and whiny instead of

casual and jocular.

“I already met with the mother,” Deepak mumbled, shifting in

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

his chair, averting his gaze. “Also, there will be a funeral. Someone

from the factory will have to attend.” His expression made it clear

that he wasn’t volunteering for the job.

Frank sighed. “It’s late. Let’s get home for a few hours and meet

again in the morning, okay?” He got up from his chair to indicate

the meeting was over and opened the door. Together, they walked

down the hallway, only to run into Satish, who was hurrying toward

them.

“You need a ride, Deepak?” Frank asked.

“No, thanks. I drove myself.”

“Okay. Be careful going home.”

“You, too.”

In the Jeep, Frank climbed into the back seat, ignoring Satish’s

quizzical look. The driver expertly steered the vehicle down the

side road behind the office, until they were off the HerbalSolutions

grounds and could loop around again on the main road, thereby

bypassing the crowd.

The rain had slowed down and the air-conditioning was on, but

the vehicle still felt stuffy and hot. Frank tapped on the driver’s seat.

“Satish,” he called. “Pull over.”

He had jumped out of the Jeep before Satish could even come

around to open the door for him. Running to the side of the road,

he bent over and threw up. It was too dark to see the contents of

tonight’s dinner, but Frank had the inescapable feeling that he was

throwing up more than food—that he was bringing up bruised and

beaten flesh, gallons of spilled blood, the unbearable, inexpressible

anguish of a bereaved mother and the lost promise of a life that he

may have unwittingly taken with his careless words.