by Rishi Reddi
13 July 1914
Padma-ji, my life,
I write to you from a place far south of Hambelton, in a farming colony called Fredonia in California State, in a desert valley named Imperial. I have come here to visit a friend. It is not that I have grown lazy—no, please do not think so, my dear—it is only that I need a short rest. Be assured, 10 days back I sent Uncle $30 and he telegraphed that he received it and he is happy. Perhaps he has told you that himself?
I have come to stay for a short time with Karak Singh. I wrote to you about him before—the man whom I met in the gurdwara in Hong Kong. For three weeks we stayed there together, waiting for the ship to carry us to Seattle, then we were together for six weeks more as we journeyed across the sea. We became great friends, although you will laugh to know that I do not always trust him.
Karak Singh is from Ludhiana District, from a farming family that somehow lost their lands. When the family was desperate, he joined with the British Indian Army and served in Shanghai, then in Hong Kong. For a few years he worked as a security guard in Manila. I do not know what sort of family he is from, but he has been generous to me. He has joined up here in a farming venture with his cousin-brother, an older man of 50 or so, Jivan Singh, who seems very honorable, and to whom I’ve taken a great liking. Jivan Singh is here with his wife and very young daughter and also his nephew. Altogether, they are good people. Can you believe that there are other Punjabis in the Valley, Padma, perhaps 200 or so, and that among them is a woman? It is true what they say—wherever the earth can sustain life, the potato and the Sikh will reach there sooner or later. Please give a kiss to my son. Every day, every moment, I think of you both.
Thera,
Ram
The next morning Karak showed Ram around the farm. The large field bordering Jivan Singh’s home would be planted in a few weeks with cantaloupe, and there were smaller fields of strawberries, date trees and a grapefruit orchard. Farther away were acres of alfalfa and barley. One hundred and sixty acres that bordered the other side of Jivan Singh’s home were sharecropped by a Japanese family, the Moriyamas. When Karak and Ram stood on the roadway near the entry to Jivan’s fields, they could see the Moriyamas’ house, three-quarters of a mile away.
The home that stood across the cantaloupe field from Jivan’s house belonged to the owner of the entire property, Stephen Eggenberger, a Swiss immigrant who had married the daughter of a wealthy family based in Los Angeles. Eggenberger lived in Los Angeles permanently now, Karak said.
To Ram, the home seemed a luxury: clay brick that would keep the heat outside and leave the inside cool, so different from the wooden boards that formed Jivan’s home, the metal screens framing his porch. Through the window in the door Ram could see several rooms, well swept and clean.
“Why doesn’t he live here?” Ram asked.
“His wife suffers from an ailment and cannot tolerate the heat.” Karak explained more: Eggenberger had helped Jivan settle here when he came in 1905. Jivan had come to find work fighting the flood, but after the waters receded, he had wanted to stay. Eggenberger hired him to help on the farm. When Jivan wanted to grow a field of melons, Eggenberger offered him a crop share and some seed to get started. “They are generous people, bhai. Once Eggenberger’s wife nursed Jivan Singh through an injury. He will not forget that.”
Ram did not know what to say. The thought of an Anglo woman nursing a Punjabi man back to health seemed impossible. Now he realized: that was why the shrubs were watered, why the doors and windows remained shuttered against scorpions, snakes, and desert creatures, why Kishen swept there every week.
“We use Stephen’s silo and his barn,” Karak said. “Jivan Singh built the packing shed and ramada. Jivan Singh pays Eggenberger some part of the crops. His land agent, Clive Edgar, reviews the books every month and takes payment. Twice a year Eggenberger visits the land office, pays his taxes and water rights, and stays a night in his home.”
Ram was quiet. He was thinking of how the bosses at the lumber mill spoke to the members of the work gangs, calling them ragheads, towelheads.
“You did not expect this,” Karak said. “That we have so much independence.”
“No.” He heard his voice crack with emotion.
Karak walked to the house and knocked on the door. “Not like our huts back home, is it?” Ram could see how much he admired it, running his hands along the edge of the doorway. “If I had a place like this, and so much land, I would not have gone back to Los Angeles where my in-laws could dictate to me,” he said, laughing.
So now Ram knew: Karak was jealous. Jealous of a white man living in America, as if he had the right to something this white man had.
Karak went on: Jivan knew other farmers, shippers, bankers, the district official for the water company, many zanjeros by name—everyone needed to plant and harvest a crop and make a profit. People trusted him. He purchased seed, hired the pickers and the packers. He kept the books. “I think he should share more of these responsibilities with me, but he doesn’t want to give up the power,” Karak said.
Ram did not respond. Karak was jealous of Jivan too. Suddenly he did not want to hear more. “How did he manage to bring Kishen Kaur?”
“Things were not so strict in 1910,” Karak said. “If she is unhappy, I don’t know. She never complains. Leela was born here.”
He was not the same man Ram had known on the steamship. He was more serious, more jealous. In the past year, the desert wind had etched lines around his lips and on his forehead. A tanned border on his neck and wrists was prominent; his teeth flashed whiter than before. His letters had told of large crops of cantaloupe and melons, another of barley, two fields made level after the grazing cattle had been moved off. Seeing the farm, comparing it with what Ram knew from his uncle’s lands, Ram had no reason to think he was lying. But Karak did not appear relaxed. Ram knew he was mulling something; when their eyes met, Karak knew that Ram saw this too.
“Eggenberger has more land, bhai,” Karak said. “A half section just two miles from here. He gave one hundred and sixty acres to a man named Roubillard. The other one hundred and sixty acres are free. For cotton—perfect.” Karak raised his eyebrows, accentuated the word with his hand.
Ram nodded, nothing more.
“I have not yet seen it,” Karak said. He was looking carefully at him. “Would you like to come with me?”
“Now?” Ram gave a little laugh.
“Now. Why not?”
“The sun is high,” Ram said, and the wound in his side felt raw today, but he did not want to reveal that to Karak.
“It’s still morning. We’ll go and return before noon. In the wagon, it won’t feel so hot.”
Ram wanted to please Karak, and Karak was eager, and they both knew Ram was flattered that Karak wanted to show him something. They hitched the mules to the wagon and shared the driver’s seat. The sun beat through the fabric of their shirts and stung their backs. Ram, still recovering from his injuries, felt light-headed. He grasped the side of the wagon but said nothing.
They passed fields of lush green separated by sand and smoke tree and creosote. Karak egged the mules into an irrigation canal. The wagon dipped and rattled forward and up. Water splashed from the wheels and the bellies of the mules, sloshed at the soles of his boots. Ram closed his eyes against the motion and swallowed hard, willing his stomach to remain calm. They turned south and stopped under the mottled shade of a mesquite tree. Every bump of the wagon had vibrated through Ram’s wounded chest. When he stepped onto the sand, his leg buckled and he grabbed the side of the wagon. Slowly, he followed Karak.
They stood at the corner of an alfalfa field that lay in neat strips of vibrant green and chocolate brown. On one side lay the road they had just traveled, on the other, sand and scrub stretched, uninterrupted, to the west. Gazing out at the horizon, the endless sky, the white slivers of cloud above Mount Signal, Ram forgot about his unsettled stomach. He had seen this moment before, felt this heat before, sm
elled the sandy loam and dust-wind since he was a child. For a moment, the sky spun above him, but it was not only dizziness that he felt. If he looked past Karak’s dastar, past this sparse cluster of trees, he would see his uncle’s farm near the edge of the lower Chenab Canal. Water running from Himalayan snow and Shivalik rains, thundering, tremendous, toward the Indus River and the Arabian Sea. At the southeast corner of his uncle’s land stood this same mesquite tree that sheltered tired travelers. The village women would send them water in tin cups, rotis and chole served on leaves. On the far side, in blessed privacy, stood the hut where he and Padma spent their nights. A gust of wind lifted sand into Ram’s eyes. His vision skewed; he saw a single point of light surrounded by darkness.
“THIS IS WHERE IT STARTS—the boundary,” Karak said, pointing to a small flag set in the dirt. He had not seemed to notice Ram’s frailness. “That land belongs to Eggenberger but was just leased to Roubillard, who came out from Louisiana. Eggenberger tells me that Roubillard wants to try cotton too.”
Karak was disturbed by something; Ram could sense that. Karak pointed to figures in the distance, a team of mules pulling an implement, a cluster of men around them. “The water delivery ditch is being dug there. This land will be in great demand very soon.” Karak shaded the sun from his eyes. “The most important thing is land, bhai,” he said. “There is no other way to have wealth or to be settled. In Ludhiana, my father had good land. Very good land.”
“Then why did you leave Punjab?” Ram had known the man for almost a year and a half, and he did not know the answer to this question.
“The rains failed for two years in a row, but still the British government was taxing us. My father took a mortgage, but it did not go well. We lost everything. Only choice for me was joining the army.” Karak spoke lightly, as if that did not matter. “But this land can make us rich, Ram. The ditch will come right here, you see, right on the border. The soil has tested to be good for cotton. We must only level the land and plant it.”
Ram knew it was more complicated than that. “Karak-ji? You have seen this land before?” Karak looked at him. They both realized that Ram had caught him in a lie.
“I wanted you to come and see.” Karak held up his hand. “With an open mind.” In response to Ram’s silence he said, “It’s true. I came here for a short time about one month back.” He avoided meeting Ram’s eye.
Ram felt a small bubble of anger, then it burst and fizzled away. He allowed himself to feel flattered. After all, Karak had only wanted to show him something.
Karak pointed to a small structure a quarter mile away. “That’s the shack that Eggenberger built to prove the homestead to the government. So much land is still open, but we are foreigners. We cannot do the same.”
“Eggenberger isn’t a foreigner?” Ram asked.
“He is from Switzerland, bhai. That is different.”
Ram looked at him.
“Oye!” Karak sucked his teeth to show he did not really mind. “That is the law. In Punjab, we keep the city families away from the farming districts. It is the same, isn’t it? One can understand, of course. And what does it matter? We can farm and make a profit and grow rich. What do you say, Ram?”
Ram did not understand what he was asking. His heart began to thump inside his chest. “Bhai-ji?” he said.
“Come and work with me. We will grow cotton. Everyone says there will be war in Europe soon. The cotton market will be high. We Punjabis know how to grow it. You will have too much, Ram! Too much money to send to your uncle, you will have to spend some here just for entertainment! At home, everyone will be celebrating your name and honoring you.”
Ram felt a constriction in his chest. His wound began to burn. He had not earned much in the fifteen months he had been in Hambelton. And he dreaded going back. But to farm again, to earn enough money for his uncle to purchase land, how many harvests would that take? How long until he saw Padma and his son? “I want to go home in two years, bhai,” he said. “That is my only wish.”
“Yes, yes, you go home in two years.” Karak nodded. “Well, make it three,” he said. “We will take a three-year lease from Eggenberger.” Karak picked up a stone and threw it a distance, fast and hard. It bounced in the dirt near the shack. “You wanted to return in two years when you arrived. It has already been more than a year.”
Ram felt like a boy. He could not disagree.
“Make a good profit here and go home. Two years, three years, whatever you wish. The arrangement would be the same as Jivan’s—Eggenberger gets one-third profit. We will work the land together, rent mules when we need, hire the people to cultivate and harvest. I will take half of the crop. The rest is yours.”
“You take half the crop?” Ram was not sure that he heard correctly.
“I am putting the seed—”
“Half?” He did not want to farm again, but still, the word stung.
“I pay for the rental of mules and equipment—that is fair. You would get the remainder, bhai,” he said, turning toward Ram. “I said it already, didn’t I? Far more than two dollars a day?”
Ram’s cheeks grew hot. He stared at the outline of the far hills, trying to swallow the anger. Half? He had come to Karak seeking refuge, wanting to confide what had happened in Hambelton. He had hoped the man would lend him money for passage home. Even without knowing all this, Karak had betrayed him.
“You have experienced a huge shock,” Karak whispered, his eyes traveling to Ram’s chest. Ram felt the gash burn again, as if Karak’s gaze had caused it. “Don’t take any hasty decisions now. And you are young. You may not realize the opportunity I am giving.”
Ram snorted; he could not help it. “I will think about it,” he said, and would not allow himself to say more, because his anger would be fully revealed.
“Of course you must look at the matter yourself. You must not trust me only because I am ten years senior to you.”
They mounted the wagon and Karak turned the mules toward Jivan’s home. But something dark and almost tangible had moved between the two men. Karak was talkative at first, pointing out more landmarks than he had previously, more enthusiastic than before; then he grew silent and they traveled the last minutes without speaking. Ram remembered a moment on the SS Minnesota when Karak had mocked a shipmate—a chappal maker from the Deccan—for not knowing that western women wore corsets. What, brother, do you think they are shaped that way naturally? Karak had spoken in Urdu so that everyone could understand. The fellow was known to be dim. The Hindustanees sitting in the steerage communal room had laughed loudly; the man himself had joined in. The joke had lasted for many days. It had helped to pass the time.
6
HE HAD PROMISED PADMA HE WOULD COME BACK. WHAT IF HE FARMED for two years, or three, and had three bad harvests; what money could he send home? Would he be required to stay longer? That was his worry.
They had argued on the last night that they had spent together, during the peace of day’s end, when the hut’s cool walls released their mud scent and he stretched his bare legs on the charpai. This time of day, this small space, was their haven from the searching eyes of his family. Padma stood with her back to him, lighting the oil wick before the small collection of deities, the flame reflecting off their metal frames. Goddess Durga fixed him with the sacred gaze, questioning, and he felt a spasm of anxiety, a shadow of conscience. But then it passed.
“It is not right that Chacha-ji is sending you away.” Her head was bent, her hand was by her cheek, and he wondered if she was smoothing away a tear. “My mind is disturbed about it.” Her voice was always beautiful to him, dark and deep, almost like a man’s.
He did not answer for a moment. She had never been so bold before. She spoke as if she believed that he did not want to go. He had said months ago—when Chacha-ji had decided to send him and Ishwar together, when twenty acres east of the canal were mortgaged to buy their passage—that he did not want to leave, but he suspected that she always knew the truth. It h
ad been a dishonest game between them: Ram acting as if he wanted to stay, Padma silently berating his uncle for sending him.
He wanted to go, he did not want to go; both were true. She still stood with her back to him, although the flame was lit. He could see her shape through the kurta: the square shoulders, the small waist. He suddenly remembered their wedding night, when she had laughed with him as they sat by the waterwheel. His longing felt like a blade in his belly, a wound.
“I will come back,” he said. He was standing now, because the statement required it.
“Will you?” she said. He was surprised by her bitterness.
“Ishwar and I will come back. We will make enough money to buy more land in Shahpur. Nothing can replace the village where our ancestors lived. Isn’t it true, Padma?”
“By your going, we can move back there in two years or three. If you stayed, maybe it would take five years, or six, even seven. What does it matter? I would rather have you stay here in the canal colony with me than return to the village sooner.”
This was true. Lyallpur was not like the districts to the east, where famine raged on and off. The British would not let Lyallpur fail, not when they had invested so much in the canals, not when the gins were always busy there, and the cotton was being carted out by wagon and boat. The family did not really need him to go, did they?
He had not dared question his uncle. With money Ram made in the U.S. they all would move back to Shahpur quickly. His uncle would give the land in the canal colony to Ram’s eldest cousin. The rest of the family would be settled back in Jullundur. Years later, when he was more American, he would wonder why he did not consider his own life in this calculation.
“I will bring great prestige on the family if we can settle back in our old village as wealthy people.”
“I did not marry you for the prestige.”
“Ishwar is going. Who will look after him?” It had been flattering that Chacha-ji had held him equal to his own son, when Ram was only his sister’s child. Ishwar too had been surprised that they were traveling together.