Passage West

by Rishi Reddi

  The dealer signaled a bystander. Two men stepped toward Roubillard and stood on either side of his chair. “You’ll have to leave now, sir,” one of them said. Roubillard looked up at them.

  He started a lazy, drunken laugh. “If that don’ beat all—they takin’ me outta here ’stead of you.” He shoved his chair back and stood up, tottering. “Come on, Clive. They don’t want good Valley residents like you ’n’ me in here. Place is turnin’ into a shithole! El Owl! Rather have these ragheads.”

  Roubillard backed away; at the neighboring table he stumbled over a chair. A man bent to help him up. In that moment, Clive leaned forward and murmured, holding his palms out. “Sorry, Karak.” His expression made clear he felt he had no choice. Why would Clive believe that? What pull did Roubillard have on him? “I’ll see you next time.” Clive rose quickly and followed Roubillard out. Karak’s face flushed and his lips pursed. A vein appeared at his temple. Ram knew he was furious. But later, in the buckboard on the way home, Karak denied that it bothered him.

  November 15, 1915

  My dear nephew,

  You are like a son to me. That is known to all. Every day I pray to the Creator Parmatma for your good health. In your telegram, you stated you would like to come back. I think that is an excellent idea. Here all is well, very fine.

  Perhaps you have learned that I have found a match for your dear little cousin, none other than the eldest son of Gopal Singh, the sardar of the neighboring district. This is a great boon for us. What a fortunate alliance this will be, one that will benefit all of us long into the future, even after you return home. The boy is so desirable that they have asked us for a large dowry. No doubt they know that you are in foreign lands and can provide one. So I ask you, before you come back, please do the needful and send money for the wedding. Because the cotton is bringing so much, I trust that this is not too difficult—another six or twelve months, just one more planting. We must make the wedding a grand affair, as is suitable for Gopal Singh’s family, and we must not be seen to come up short. It is an important matter. Our standing in the community is at stake. All will know that it was made possible by you.

  Your son is growing beautifully. You will be quite pleased when you see him, and your wife is a blessing on the household.

  Your uncle,

  Chanda Lal

  14

  November 1915

  HE WAS REQUIRED TO STAY FOR ANOTHER SEASON, TO MAKE THE MONEY for his cousin’s dowry that would allow the marriage to go forward. Of course, Ram would do that. That was his duty. But.

  It was not that he disliked Karak; he had no reason for that. It was that he did not like him enough.

  Some days his longing for home sat inside him like an infestation, eating away at heart and brain. On those days, he could not tolerate seeing Karak pore over the accounting ledgers, planning coldly for the next season. Ram would not say out loud that he hoped he would not still be in the Valley then. That he longed to be back in his hut with Padma, that he yearned to meet his son. He felt he was neither here nor there. Nonexistent.

  When Jivan and Karak argued, this feeling only grew worse. Home loomed beyond his reach as the place of peace, the Valley as a place of division. He knew this was too simple to be true.

  Jivan and Karak’s melon crop was late that winter. So by February, they had joined the other Valley farmers desperately seeking workers, prowling past the labor office looking for the usual line of sun-weathered men. But no one was there. Lettuce had come up in the northern part of the Valley. The shipping companies sent their laborers out to their corporate land first, as they always had, ignoring contracts with the family farmers. Ram heard about it in town, he saw it himself: some small-farm lettuce wilted in the field, some cantaloupe turned soft, and a half year’s work was wasted.

  Jivan was known among the migrants to pay well, and once a foreman came to offer the services of his crew, two families who brought eight children between them, standing on the dirt path to the Eggenberger farm. Karak and Ram had just arrived from town, where they had been looking for workers too. When Jivan saw the children, he asked, “You are bringing them to work?”

  “They are better for you, señor,” the foreman said.

  “It is against the law,” Jivan said. But Ram knew that he had refused children working in his fields even before the new laws were passed.

  “They are cheaper.”

  “No,” Jivan said.

  “We can pick fast, señor.”

  “No.”

  Karak had been listening. “Bhai-ji, what are you thinking?” he said. The ride into town had been too hot, and unsuccessful, and Ram knew Karak’s frustration was mounting.

  But Jivan would not be swayed. “What will you do when the sheriff comes and sees the children working here?”

  The workers had begun to walk away. “The sheriff will not come!” Karak screamed.

  “No,” Jivan said again.

  “Can you see this?” Karak yelled at Ram as he turned away. “What is happening here? The entire crop shall be lost!”

  Later, in private, Ram said to him, “You do not understand his concern, because you do not have children.”

  “And you do?”

  He did not know whether in that instant Karak had forgotten, or whether he had meant to be cruel. “I do, Karak Singh,” Ram said. The words seemed to clog his throat, prevent him from breathing. Was he a father or not? He was surprised at his reaction.

  “At home, children work, always,” Karak said. “What is this principle? It’s understandable if it’s one’s own principle and one’s own money. What is the selfishness of one man keeping up with principles while another is to lose his profit?”

  Ram had to leave him. Karak did not speak to the others that afternoon, and went out by himself without explanation. At the dinner hour, a man appeared at the farm and approached while the Punjabis sat on the porch. He had a broad face that Ram had seen before.

  “Do you know me?” the man asked Jivan in Spanish. He was clean-shaven. He spoke politely.

  “You are familiar,” Jivan said.

  “I came with some others to pick cantaloupe last March. My name is Alejandro,” the man said. “I have my own people now. I see that your cantaloupe is ready. I remember, you paid us so well.”

  Neither mentioned Ángel Cruz’s death; it did not seem proper.

  “How many of you?” Jivan asked.

  “Eight. We can finish your work in three days.”

  “We have more in the back.”

  “Sí.” The Mexican man nodded.

  “My cousin’s cotton crop is a few miles away. Can you help afterwards with that?”

  “Sí,” he said again.

  “Come tomorrow. We will start in the early morning.”

  The man left, smiling.

  Jivan turned to Ram and Amarjeet and Kishen, sitting quietly at the table. “We are saved,” he announced.

  THEY CAME THE SAME WAY they had before, six men and two women on foot, with a mule carrying their burlap sacks. The fair-skinned girl was there too. On the morning before they began work, Ram saw her standing in the field with the others, against the backdrop of the dawn. But she was not talking to them, even though she stood in their midst, huddled against the morning chill; she was looking at something behind the packing shed. She glanced again and again in that direction. It was only when Ram stepped outside that he saw what it was: Karak, loading crates onto the wagon, his bright green dastar tied neat and smart, his shirtsleeves rolled up tight past his elbows, already perspiring in the early morning.

  Ram told himself he did not care. She was a strange creature, this fair-skinned woman—human but foreign, still.

  The days were glorious and sunny with a chill in the air by sunset. The third day, following their break for lunch, the Mexican girl approached them. They were sitting in the breezeway finishing their meal and she held up the olla from their camp. The vessel had fallen from its rope and the water had spilled—the las
t they had filtered from the settling pond. The men would awaken soon from their rest, and there would be no water for them. Would the jefes kindly have any that the workers could drink? She had addressed herself to Jivan, but it was Karak who rose and said, in Spanish, that he would help.

  He brought three extra ollas that Kishen always hung in the back, one at a time, walking slowly. They talked while he carried them, his arms embracing the vessel, leaning toward her, from the Hindu farmhouse to the Mexican camp, back and forth. Months later, the Mexican girl and the Hindus would laugh together about this.

  15

  March 1916

  THIS IS WHAT THE ANGLOS AND THE HINDUS AND THE OTHERS THOUGHT they knew about the Mexicans in the Valley: they were dirty, lazy, primitive; they were of mañana persuasion. They treated their women like chattel. They did not know how to negotiate an agreement regarding land and property. How could their country know anything but chaos and war between brutal strongmen, even though they called it by the noble name of revolution?

  And yet things happened. The Mexican government made money from an international water deal, the country held elections, and despite everything the Americans in the Valley said, the Anglo farms could not run without them.

  When the Mexicans came and started work, Karak felt the fair-skinned girl admiring him, and it was irresistible. She was called Rosa. He liked the name. Every night, after the work was done, he sat with her near the jackrabbit rock, eating dates and talking while one or two of the men played a guitar or an accordion at the camp, the breeze carrying the music toward them. Whenever Alejandro saw them together, he would approach, and Karak could see that Rosa was less lively when he was near. Alejandro would glance at Rosa and speak pointedly about the harvest, turning his body toward the fields, and Rosa would wander away.

  Karak was not discouraged. His muscles ached from hauling the crates on and off the wagon, driving the wagon through the dust and wind to the shippers in town. Still, he sought the girl out, again and again.

  The family did not seem to care. Kishen ignored him as she watered her vegetable garden. Jivan would be in the house, Amarjeet might be lying on his cot. Leela did not bother them. It was only Ram who found a reason to stay nearby. It bothered him that Ram would hover.

  On that first day that Karak had fetched water for Rosa, Ram had been hovering even then. After the jugs had been delivered, Karak asked to know her name. He asked the question in the way he would ask a grown man, with respect, certainly not as one talks to a teenage girl: “What is your good name?” he had said.

  She was about to walk away, but his question made her pause; he noticed the slight hesitation of her foot, the turning of her head.

  “Rosa.”

  He saw her delight, the surprise that he had asked. Karak said, loud enough so Ram could hear, “You are too pretty to be working in the fields.” He had spoken in English first, just so Ram could understand, even if she didn’t. Ram had glared at him.

  On the day the harvest was finished, Karak approached Jivan while he doled out dollar bills to Alejandro, and the foreman counted them and put them in his saddlebag. After Jivan left, Karak told Alejandro that he wanted to speak with him. Alejandro was astride the burro as if it were a warhorse, looking down at Karak from a height. But Karak had his hand on the bridle.

  “Alejandro, does Rosa live with you?”

  “Sí, señor. She is my wife’s sister.” Already, Alejandro seemed to know what he would ask him.

  “Her father?”

  “He died some time ago.”

  Karak did not know what to say. He did not know if this was how it was done in the west. But he could not think of any other way to act that would be considered respectful of the girl. It never occurred to him to approach her directly.

  “Nothing good can come of mixing two different people, señor,” Alejandro said slowly. Karak saw a flicker of anger in his eyes.

  “If her father were alive, would he agree with you?”

  The man had no answer. Karak felt he had won. Alejandro’s cheek twitched. “I will think on it.”

  SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER THE HARVEST, Karak was repairing the fence next to the animal shed when Amarjeet approached.

  “Bhai-ji, a woman has come to see you.”

  Irrationally, Karak thought, Could it be Rosa? He had been thinking of her all this time. Then he reconsidered—why would she come? But he could not help it. As he turned the corner of the house, his heart began to beat faster.

  But the woman waiting for him was a decade older, small, and she was stern as he approached, as if she were assessing him.

  “Señor Singh. I am Esperanza,” she said in Spanish. “You know my younger sister, Rosa María?”

  “Sí.” He could see Rosa in her features, in her nose, in the curve of her mouth.

  “My husband told me—you were asking about her. You would like to spend time with her.”

  In the roadway, he could see Alejandro sitting on a buckboard, hitched to a mule.

  “Sí.” He supposed that was what he was asking for. “Sí, señora.”

  “Please come to our home and visit us.”

  He did not expect this. Perhaps his surprise showed on his face.

  “Por favor. No tenga pena.”

  “Muy amable.”

  “Come tomorrow,” she said.

  KARAK WORE HIS BEST SHIRT AND TROUSERS and a clean dastar of royal blue, which he tied with great care. This show of courting a girl and her family was new to him. Different from the marriage that would have been settled for him at home. Different also from visiting his favorite girl at the brothel in Manila. That was long ago, when he was an innocent, only twenty, but he realized now that he had had feelings for her. He had tried to win her favor with gifts and charm, always arriving freshly bathed, and she always let him believe that he had won her heart. He had wanted no more than that, of course. Even now, thirteen years later, he wondered about her. He would never know the truth.

  He decided he would ride the mare; that would appear most dashing. Ram approached as he was saddling her.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  Karak hesitated, knowing the answer would bring judgment. “To the home of that girl. The one who worked here during the harvest.”

  “Rosa.” The heavy way he pronounced the syllables conveyed everything: derision, jealousy, Ram’s feeling toward anyone with whom he did not share a culture. “I wonder what type of bean they will serve you—black or brown.”

  The question was meant to be petty, as if they did not have enough money to serve meat.

  “I will tell you when I get back,” he said simply, before hurrying away. He would not indulge Ram’s pettiness.

  THE BARRIO LAY EAST OF THE RAILROAD TRACKS, a cluster of wooden shacks at the edge of the colored part of town. Chickens and barefoot children ran freely on the dusty paths. Each year the cluster grew larger. Some homes were hovels. Rosa’s family’s was larger than most.

  Alejandro answered the door, nodding at Karak, and Esperanza stood behind her husband, holding a baby on her hip. “Mi mujer,” Alejandro said, as if he had forgotten that she had met Karak already, when she invited him. Esperanza seemed unsure of herself but smiled immediately. Would he ever get used to the openness of these western women, who freely met one’s eye? In Punjab it would have been different; he could have been comfortably passive, allowing an intermediary to do the difficult talking. Immediately he wondered if he should have brought Jivan. Why did he not think of it earlier? He hesitated, standing on the threshold. Jivan was sure to be offended.

  “Pásale—come in, señor,” Esperanza said, smiling. He sat on the wooden chair that she offered him.

  In the room was a dining table, an iron bed, a simple couch, a sewing machine, a child-size mannequin draped with a white dress. A door led to a back room. Next to it, a table held a cluster of saints. It was not a home of wealth, but the curtains were cheerful. The tablecloth was clean. Everywhere were signs of care.
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  Rosa appeared in a light blue printed frock. He had not seen her look quite so womanly before, and he felt the hair on his arms and neck rise. He was not in love with her—no, he was not an innocent lad. But what he felt was not only desire. It was something in between, that a man could recapture in finding a woman who admired him—something that was close to love. When Karak looked at her, she looked at her hands. Esperanza offered Karak a lemonade. Alejandro, sitting at the front of the table, asked about the value of the crop, but he was the laborer, Karak was the farmer, they did not have much to say to each other. Karak would not reveal such information anyway.

  Karak asked about the mannequin. Esperanza told him she sewed baptism and confirmation dresses. She glanced at Alejandro before admitting that women from the barrio sought her out as soon as the babies were born. Sometimes even before.

  So that explained the couch and extra bedroom, Karak thought. Alejandro could not have afforded such things only through planting and harvesting the Valley’s crops.

  Esperanza served him tamales filled with chicken, sitting atop a mound of rice, steaming hot and delicious. Karak remembered Ram’s question and felt a small victory. Now the conversation began to loosen. He found Spanish words he had not used in a long time. “How do you make the tamales?” he asked Esperanza. He did not mind asking a womanly question of a woman. Esperanza asked how he had learned Spanish and he told her that for five years he had lived in the Philippines after his service with the British, working as a night watchman at a bank. Local businesses paid good salaries to personnel who used to work for the British.

  Karak knew he was the boss, even here. He could feel that in Alejandro’s guarded speech. He could see already that Esperanza approved of him. When she mentioned her sewing, Karak asked to see a sample, and she drew back her chair to fetch some. “Esperanza—” her husband said sharply. She glanced at Alejandro and sat back down. Rosa’s eyes darted back and forth between them all.