The Weight of Heaven: A Novel

by Thrity Umrigar

  “I know. God, Nandita, you think I don’t know that? Even this poor, ignorant man, her husband, even he made some reference to our involvement in Iraq. And there’s nothing I could say to him. Except that I don’t think I’m a dirty imperialist pig. And I don’t think my husband is, either. And that I’m every bit as appalled at what my country is doing in Iraq as, as, any of you.”

  She was close to tears now, her body shaking as she recalled the contempt on the man’s face as he’d entered his home and found her sitting on the floor next to his wife, his angry, accusatory words, the embarrassed, conflicted look on Asha’s face as Ellie had forced her to translate sentiments that, it now occurred to Ellie, Asha probably agreed with.

  “Hey, hey,” Nandita said, coming around her desk and crouching low so that she could hug Ellie. “Come on now. You can’t work at NIRAL if you have a thin skin. Nobody’s blaming you for this situation, El. This—this stuff is bigger than any one person.”

  But the complicated combination of guilt and defensiveness followed Ellie home that evening. In the car, the two women rode in almost total silence, each one lost in her thoughts. Ellie had a terrible headache by the time she got out of Nandita’s car and went into the house to wait for Frank to get home.

  CHAPTER 8

  At exactly six a.m. the following morning, there was a tentative knock on the door. Frank leapt to his feet and threw the door open before Ramesh could knock a second time. “Shhh,” he whispered, holding his index finger to his lips. “Ellie is sleeping. We have to be quiet.” He led the boy through the living room and toward the porch. Flinging open the wooden porch door, they stepped down onto the lawn. It was a pleasant morning, with a weak sun and a cool breeze blowing off the sea. The tall, stately coconut trees were rustling in that breeze, but Frank and Ramesh didn’t hear them. The dew on the grass tickled their ankles as they moved quickly to the left of the front yard and then climbed the seven stone steps that led to the beach. Ramesh bent and picked up a pebble to fling at a crow who was pecking at something inside a brown paper bag on the sand. “Hey,” Frank said putting out a restraining arm. “Throw that stone away.”

  “I hate crows,” Ramesh replied. That was a big difference between Ramesh and Benny—Benny was forever wanting to nurse sick squirrels and birds and wanted to bring home every puppy or kitten he saw. Ramesh’s attitude toward the natural world was more—well, more utilitarian.

  “Anyway,” Frank continued. “You’re here to train so that you can be on the school soccer team, right? Or do you want to be a champion crow-killer, instead?”

  It worked. Ramesh tossed the pebble away. Frank permitted himself an imaginary pat on the back. He had come to know this boy’s psychology really well, knew how competitive and vain Ramesh was about doing well in school as well as in athletics.

  “What do we do?” Ramesh asked.

  “First you do some push-ups,” Frank said. “Move to the flat part of the sand—it’ll be easier. Okay. Like so.”

  He watched the little bulge in Ramesh’s triceps as he lifted and lowered himself. This kid is strong, he thought and felt a kind of parental pride, as if the boy had inherited his muscular structure, his genes.

  “Good,” he said. “Okay, ready to jog? Let’s go.”

  He had first grown aware of Ramesh over a year ago, after they’d been in Girbaug for about four months. It was a Sunday, and Ellie was out with Nandita. Frank was in his bedroom taking an afternoon nap when he was disturbed by the steady thud of a ball in the driveway outside his window. Occasionally, a thin voice cried out, “Score!” He tossed and turned for a few minutes, gnashing his teeth in frustration, and finally threw back his covers and leapt out of bed. Moving swiftly across the living room and kitchen, he threw open the door that led to the courtyard that divided the main house from the housekeepers’ shack. Pushing the small wooden gate, he went out into the driveway, barefoot and dressed only in a white T-shirt and shorts. Ramesh was racing the length of the driveway, dribbling a basketball, occasionally reaching high and jumping to throw the ball into an imaginary net. “Hey,” Frank yelled. And when the boy didn’t hear him, “HEY, you.” Remembering the boy’s name, “Ramesh. Stop.”

  Hearing his name, the boy froze in place, cradling the ball in his open palm, his eyes wide and startled. Frank saw that he had scared him, and the realization drove away his anger. Walking up to the boy he said in a softer voice, “I was trying to sleep. You woke me up.” He imitated the dribbling of the ball. The boy stayed motionless. “Oh, forget it,” Frank said almost to himself. “You don’t speak any English, do you? The few times he’d seen Ramesh he had been with Prakash, speaking to him in Hindi as he helped his father around the yard.

  He was about to turn away when the boy said, “I speak good-good English, teacher say. Best in class.”

  Frank smiled. “You do, huh? So you go to school?”

  The boy looked offended. “Yes, of course.”

  Something about his affronted expression made Frank laugh. It reminded him of the look Benny used to get when Ellie or he teased him. “Well, are you a good student?” he said.

  “The bestest in my class.”

  “That’s the best in my class. Not bestest.”

  The boy threw his basketball down and flexed his muscles, looking like a scrawny body builder. “But I am better than best,” he cried. “Bestest.”

  This kid was a hoot. Frank was laughing out loud now. “Oh, yeah? What are your favorite subjects?”

  The boy didn’t have to think. “Maths,” he declared.

  “That was my favorite subject in school, too,” Frank said. “What else? What about reading and writing?”

  Ramesh screwed up his face. “I hate geography. And reading-writing is boring.” His face brightened. “I love history. And sports.”

  “What sports? Cricket?”

  “Cricket, yes. But also basketball. You know Michael Jordan?”

  “Sure I know Michael Jordan.” Frank crouched low so that he was almost at eye level with the boy. “But can I tell you a secret? I’m better than Michael Jordan.”

  Ramesh’s eyes grew wide. “Better than Michael Jordan?” he breathed, his voice hoarse with wonder. He stared at Frank, his eyes searching his face. “No,” he said finally. “Impossible.”

  Frank pretended to be outraged. “Impossible?” He straightened to his full height. “Them’s fighting words, my man.”

  “Challenge,” Ramesh said.

  “Challenge?” Frank walked slowly toward the ball, picked it up swiftly, and leapt up to the rim of an imaginary net. “There. Did you see that? The beauty of that dunk? And that? And that?”

  Ramesh was squealing with joy as he tried to hit the ball out of Frank’s hands. Frank pretended to defend the ball but yielded it to the boy after a few seconds. “Oops,” he said. “You really are very good.”

  Ramesh looked magnanimous. “Best of ten, best of ten,” he yelled. He pointed to a medium-sized tree to the side of the driveway. “Hit top of that tree. First person to hit ten, is winning.”

  So that’s what the boy had been doing while he had been trying to take a nap. Remembering the well-lit basketball courts that he had played on as a teenager in Grand Rapids and the hoop that he’d installed on the top of their garage in Ann Arbor, Frank was touched by Ramesh’s desperate ingenuity. He realized that he had no idea how much money Ramesh’s parents earned—they had simply come with the company-provided house and were paid by HerbalSolutions. He resolved to supplement their income with an occasional tip here and there. And first thing tomorrow he would send Satish to buy a basketball hoop for this boy.

  Ramesh was tugging at his T-shirt, trying to get his attention. “Scared?” he said.

  “Scared?” Frank roared in mock indignation, knocking the ball out of Ramesh’s hands. “Not me.” He rose on his bare toes and threw the ball high so that it touched the top of the tree. He grabbed the ball and did it a second time. But before he could get his hands on the ball ag
ain, he felt a sharp elbow in his side. “Oww,” he yelped. “Why, you dirty little cheat.” He pretended to nurse his injured side while Ramesh giggled his pleasure and took four consecutive shots.

  Now, knowing how competitive Ramesh was, he told himself that if they were to stop jogging, he’d have to be the one to call it quits. The boy had done well keeping up with him as they ran along the shore, but his breathing was getting more ragged and the sweat was pouring off his face. Also, Ramesh was running barefoot, having shaken off his plastic sandals at the base of the stone steps. “Where’re the sneakers I bought you last month?” Frank gasped.

  “Dada said too good to wear on beach.”

  Frank felt the familiar wave of irritation whenever he thought of Prakash. Typical stupid advice. “I want you to wear them for jogging, okay?” he said. “They will help you run faster.”

  Ramesh shot him a cocky look. “I running very fast, already,” he said.

  Frank tapped him lightly on the back. “Very clever.” He stopped. “Okay. Let’s head back. I have to be at work and you have to be at school. I don’t want you to be late.”

  Ramesh shrugged. “I can run more and more.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He glanced up to where the sun was heating up the day and wiped the sweat off his brow. “But take pity on an old man, okay?”

  Ramesh got that solicitous, serious look on his face that Frank had come to love. Benny used to get that gentle, absurdly adult look also, when he thought somebody needed his care or protection.

  “Okay,” Ramesh said. “We stop.” He took Frank’s hand, as if he was helping an elderly man cross the street.

  They were far away from the house, so he didn’t have to care about Ellie or Prakash being jealous of the fact that he was walking on the beach holding Ramesh’s hand. Ramesh’s grip was tighter, different from Benny’s, but it made him miss his dead son with a sharpness that took his breath away. Still, it felt good to hold a child’s hand again. Something softened and relaxed within Frank, and he realized how stiffly he had been holding himself ever since Anand’s death. He was thankful that upon seeing Ramesh in the courtyard last evening, he had suggested this morning’s run.

  As they walked back toward the house, Frank determined to get back into the routine of helping Ramesh with his schoolwork. The child should not have to suffer because of the chaos of the adults around him.

  A few hours later Frank picked up the phone to call Peter Timberlake from his office. He didn’t want to go through another day without getting Pete’s permission to give in to some of the workers’ demands. He was hoping Peter wouldn’t put up much of a fight, but somehow he didn’t think so. Pete had been stunned when Frank had called to report Anand’s death and the ensuing furor. “Jeez,” he’d breathed. “How the hell did that happen?”

  He was dialing the country code for the United States when he found his fingers dialing Scott’s number instead. Scott was a broker on Wall Street, and Frank trusted his business acumen even more than Pete’s. Plus, he needed his big brother’s help in rehearsing what exactly to say to Peter when he spoke to him.

  “Hello?” Scott said.

  “Hey, possum,” Frank replied. “How are you?”

  “Well, hi there, squid. What’s new with you?”

  They had called each other by these nicknames for so long that neither one of them remembered when or why they’d come up with them. Frank felt his neck muscles relax at the sound of his brother’s deep baritone. “I can’t talk too long,” he said. “Gotta call Peter before he zonks out for the night. Whatcha doing? How’s Mom?”

  “She’s fine. Says she tried calling you this week but there was no answer. Anyway, I took her out to dinner last night. Oh, and I finally met the mysterious Barney.” After not dating anyone in all the years since their father had left, Lauretta was now dating a man who lived in her apartment building. Neither Scott nor Frank could quite get over this recent turn of events.

  “How is he? Does he treat her nice?”

  “He’s nuts about her. And she—she seems happier than I’ve ever known her to be.”

  Frank laughed. “Goddamn. Wait till I tell Ellie.”

  “How is El?”

  “She’s fine. She’s great.”

  A minuscule pause. “You guys doing all right?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Frank exhaled heavily. “It’s only that—things are tough here right now, Scott. In fact, if you have a minute, I wanted to run something by you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Well, we had a situation here where this young guy—he was a bit of a troublemaker, a union leader type—well, we had him arrested. I guess one of our men told the police to, y’know, rough him up a bit and they got carried away or something. And the guy died in police custody and—”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. And needless to say, everybody’s tempers are inflamed, and I don’t know, the whole situation is pretty explosive.”

  “I’ll say.” Frank could tell that Scott was thinking, could picture him with his eyes closed and forehead creased. “Have you made any overtures to the family?”

  “We did. We sent the mother a check for ten thousand rupees, and she refused to accept it. Said it insulted her son’s memory.”

  “Ten thousand…that’s like what? Two hundred dollars or something? Well, can’t say I blame her. I’d be insulted, too.” Scott cleared his throat. “Fact is, kiddo, your company’s profits are soaring. I follow the stock daily. I think you guys can afford to be more generous, don’t you? And what exactly are their demands?”

  “Oh, the usual—a pay raise, more breaks during the day. That sort of thing.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is. So give in to some of their demands, squid. I mean, this situation sounds untenable.”

  Frank was surprised to find that he had tears in his eyes. He clung to the phone, not daring to speak. Scott sounded as reasonable, as calm and responsible, as ever. Frank remembered the day after Benny’s funeral, when Scott asked him to go to lunch. But instead of lunch, Scott had driven to a state park and they had walked for two hours in almost complete silence. On the way back, in the car, Scott had turned to face Frank, his eyes steady on his younger brother’s face. “You will survive this,” he said. “I know you think you won’t, but you will.”

  “You still there?” Scott was now saying.

  “Yes,” he whispered, not daring to say more.

  “Listen. Call Peter and tell him—don’t ask him, tell him—you’re gonna give them part of what they want. You’re in charge there, it’s your ass on the line, not Peter’s. So you make the decision, okay?”

  “I miss home,” Frank blurted out. “I just miss—you know, life in the States.”

  “So come back. How much longer are you two gonna stay there, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Until things are stable, I suppose. And Ellie loves it here. She’s built a life for herself here, Scotty. Whereas me”—he was teary again—“I don’t know if I’ll ever be at home anywhere again, Scott.” Now he was sobbing, silently but hard. “Oh, God, Scott. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’d really hoped that being in a new place would help me heal. Just when I think I’m getting better, getting over him, I—I miss him, Scott. I feel like they buried me alongside him. I’m trying so hard, but I don’t think it’s getting any easier.”

  “Frankie,” Scott said, his own voice hoarse. “Frankie, don’t.”

  “I just keep remembering things. Like what the hair on his forearms felt like when I caressed him. Or that bump on the side of his head, remember? He had that since birth. And that squeaky giggle that he had? Remember how you used to play that silly game with him when he was little, Scotty?”

  “Stop. Don’t do this to yourself, kiddo.”

  But he couldn’t stop. He talked about Benny so rarely. And Scott was one of the few people whom he trusted with Benny’s memory, one of the few who knew how sacred that memory was and how one wrong statement coul
d defile that. “I can’t talk to Ellie about this,” he said. “I don’t know why—God knows she tries. But I can’t, Scott. I think I still blame her for her negligence. If only she’d—”

  “Frankie, that’s bullshit. She did nothing wrong. The doctor said there was no way she could’ve possibly known. I heard him myself. In any case, how does it help your marriage, man, to blame Ellie?”

  “Well, she blames me, too. Hell, just the other day she accused me of using Ramesh—the little servant boy who lives with us, Scott—to get over Benny.” He felt fresh outrage as he remembered Ellie’s words.

  “Frank. Ellie’s your wife. She adores you. She’s all you got. And vice versa.”

  There was a knock on his door and before he could respond, Rekha, his secretary, walked in. “Not now,” he barked, embarrassed to be seen in this disheveled state. “How many times do I have to tell you people? You don’t enter my office unless I ask you to.”

  He heard Scott gasp at the other end, even while he registered the look of startled fear on Rekha’s face before she slipped out of the room. “Easy, easy,” Scott was murmuring.

  He fought to control his emotions. “Sorry,” he said finally. “I just lost it for a second.”

  “Frank, listen to me. Here’s what you’re gonna do. First, nip this whole labor thing in the bud. Fix it—and fast. That’s the first order of business. Second, get out of town for a few days. Take Ellie and go somewhere. You’re gonna have a breakdown if you go on like this, kiddo.”

  He felt more clear and resolute after he got off the phone. He immediately dialed Pete’s number, afraid of dissipating any of that resolution if he waited. To his relief Pete was amenable to a settlement; the news of Anand’s death had rattled him up more than Frank had realized.

  He heaved himself out of his chair after he’d hung up and opened the door to his office. Rekha was at her desk. “I’m sorry about yelling at you,” he said. “I…It was an important business call, you know? But I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”