The Weight of Heaven

by Thrity Umrigar

  CHAPTER 20

  Ellie heard it first. A chattering, a sound that appeared to be organic, part of the natural world, like crickets in the dark or birds at dusk. Only, it was now dawn. She and Frank were still in bed, but she awoke sensing something outside their bedroom window, a disturbance, an unrest, an uneasy shift of the wind. She sat up in bed, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and looked out the open window. And saw nothing except for the green expanse of the front lawn and, beyond it, the sea.

  But then came a different noise, and as if in response, the hair on Ellie’s arm stood up. It was an unearthly sound, loud and continuous, a keening that hung in the air. And under the high-pitched wail was accompaniment—a deep rumble that provided the percussion to the wailing. Ellie’s feet hit the ground. Grabbing her robe around her, she walked through the living room to the front porch. Her stomach dropped, and she gasped. For a split second, she thought that perhaps she was still asleep and the scene before her belonged in a nightmare. Then she smelled the salty sea air, felt the sweat forming on her forehead, looked at the woman who was keening, and knew it was the worst kind of nightmare—one that was real.

  A crowd of about thirty had gathered on the front lawn of her bungalow. She recognized many of the men from the Diwali celebration just a few days ago. On that day, their faces had been slack with pleasure and warmth. Today, they were looking at the house as if debating whether to burn it down, their faces pinched and tight with anger and resentment. All except for the woman who had collapsed on the grass, slithering on the ground like a snake, occasionally raising her head toward the heavens to let out another cry. Despite her shocked reaction, some part of Ellie took in the painterly quality of the scene in front of her—the pale gray morning light and the trembling sea in the far distance, a still life of tight-jawed, frozen men and in the close-up, a writhing, wailing woman half singing her grief to the disinterested heavens.

  One of the men spotted her on the porch, and the painting splintered and then rearranged itself. The man let out a cry and pointed toward her, and within a second, at least a third of the men had struck the same pose, pointing at her. Despite being inside her house, being separated from them by a good twenty feet, Ellie suddenly felt exposed, naked, as if the house was built of paper and rags and one angry breath by the mob could bring it crashing down. She watched in horror as one of the villagers bent down and picked up a small rock and then hurled it toward the house. Toward her. She ducked, although the stone missed its mark by several feet. But the attack brought her to her senses, and she fled indoors, screaming for Frank to wake up. The mob jeered her as she retreated into the house and then the chanting began.

  “HerbalSolutions murdabad,” they shouted.

  “Shame, shame, ’Merica go home.”

  “Down, down with HerbalSolutions.”

  “Long live Mukesh bhai.”

  And soaring above their political slogans, as if giving the truest expression to their anger and sorrow, the keening.

  “Frank,” Ellie yelled as she raced through the house. She reached the bedroom and saw that he was still asleep. “Frank,” she said shaking him roughly. “Wake up. Wake up. We have a riot outside our house.”

  His eyes flew open and he sat upright in bed. “Huh? What? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but you better come see.” Ellie could hear the hysteria in her voice and struggled to control it. “Come see,” she repeated.

  Frank stumbled into the coffee table on the way to the porch, gnashed his teeth, and followed his wife. He gasped at what he saw. The crowd had swelled by another ten men. But what arrested their attention was the body laid out on their lawn, to the right of the wailing woman, who had crawled over to the dead body and was sobbing over it, beating her breast with her open hand. As the crowd spotted Frank, a shout went up. “Frank sahib murdabad,” a few of them shouted.

  “Frank,” a stunned Ellie stammered. “What’s happening? I think that man is—dead.”

  Frank’s face was white. He looked more scared than Ellie had ever seen him. “I don’t have a fucking clue,” he replied hoarsely.

  A youth broke out of the crowd, his face twisted with rage. He stepped around the prone body and approached the porch. Instinctively, Ellie took a step backward. But even in her terror, she noticed that Frank was standing his ground. As the young man came closer, Ellie recognized him as one of her students. But her brain wouldn’t unfreeze long enough to remember his name.

  The student was pointing to the body of the man. “Look,” he spat. “Mukesh dead. Kill himself by hanging. From girbal tree belong to us. But your guard not allowing him to pick leaves. He and his family starving. He kill himself.”

  And suddenly, in an awful moment, it all fell into place for Ellie as she recognized the keening woman. It was Radha, her client, the domestic abuse victim whose house she had visited. She remembered the encounter with the woman’s husband a few months ago. What had Asha told her about what he’d said? That he had earned his livelihood plucking and selling the leaves of the girbal tree, which was now off limits to the local people.

  But no time now to think because amazingly, incredulously, Frank was moving away from her and toward the mob. “Frank,” she screamed. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Phone Deepak,” he hissed at her. “Go in now and call him. Tell him to send the police over now.” But Ellie couldn’t move. She stood transfixed as she saw Frank move closer to the edge of the porch and looked down at the crowd. “Listen,” he yelled. “I’m sorry for the—for what has happened. But HerbalSolutions had nothing to do with this. You need to go home now. We don’t want any trouble.”

  Ellie moved indoors and toward the phone. “Come in, Frank,” she called. “Get out of there.”

  Her hands shook like birds in a rainstorm as she dialed Deepak’s number. She hung up as soon as she’d asked him to send the police over. Frank had followed her into the house, and they stood in the living room, staring at each other, not pretending to hide the fear on their faces. “What’ll we do if they come in?” she began to ask, and then stopped as she heard Radha’s voice call her name. “Ellie bai,” the voice said, followed by a long tirade in Hindi. Other, male voices took up the chant. “Ellie bai, Ellie bai.” Then, a loud, “Miss Ellie. Radha wanting to talk you.”

  Frank read her mind. “Don’t you even think about it,” he said. “You’re not stepping out there.”

  The chanting started again. “HerbalSolutions, shame, shame.”

  “Frank sahib murdabad.”

  “Long live Mukesh bhai.”

  “I know her,” Ellie gasped. “The woman who is…the widow. Maybe I should go talk with her.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Frank began. “You hear those stones pelting the porch? There’s no telling—”

  They huddled together on the couch, looking at each other in incomprehension. Just when the cacophony got unbearable, their ears took in a new sound. For a moment, it sounded like whips striking the air, and then there was screaming and someone yelled, “Po-lice. Bhago, bhago, run.”

  Ellie felt her whole body shake. “Do something,” she cried. “Make them stop.”

  But Frank sat down heavily on the couch and held his head in his hands. He looked small, diminished, as if something had collapsed within him. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “We have a fucking riot in our front yard.”

  The screams got louder and more agonized. They heard a series of piercing whistles and orders being barked. And then suddenly, abruptly, it was silent. For a second Ellie was thankful, but as the silence sustained itself, it began to sound creepy, ominous. “What’s going on?” she said. She forced her legs to stop shaking and inched closer to the porch again. She was in time to see a swarm of khaki-colored policemen roughly herding the villagers down the stone steps. She looked for Radha but couldn’t see her. They must’ve arrested her first. She flinched as she saw the indifferent, brutal way in which two of the policemen wrapped the corpse
in a white sheet and carried it away. Her eyes fell on a tall, burly man in civilian clothes who seemed to be orchestrating the whole scene. She watched as he curtly spoke to the men removing the body, noticed the crook of his index finger as he pointed toward the house. As if he had felt her staring at him, the plainclothesman looked up and smiled. Ellie shuddered. She felt voyeuristic, corrupt, implicated. Still, she stood her ground, fighting the urge to scuttle into the house and get back into bed and pull the covers over her head, pretending that the last half hour had not happened. The India of the Diwali celebration—the gentle, generous India, the country of red flared skirts and twirling dancers, of clay lamps and firecrackers that emitted light and beauty—that India seemed as dead as the corpse in her front yard. She suddenly saw India as Frank had grown to see it—corrupt, unpredictable, volatile, and even sinister. Like the man who was walking toward the porch, with lips that smiled and eyes that were as cold as a January morning in Ann Arbor.

  “Memsahib,” he said, nodding at her as he came up the stairs.

  “Stop,” she said. She had no intention of letting this man into her house. “Who are you?”

  The lizard eyes grew colder even as the smile grew. “No need to be afraid, Ellie memsahib,” he said. “I’m Gulab Singh. Head of security at HerbalSolutions.”

  Gulab Singh. Ellie racked her brain to remember why the name sounded familiar. And then she remembered Nandita telling her about Gulab’s reputation among the villagers. “I wish Frank hadn’t hired this fellow to head security, Ellie,” she had once said. “He’s a disgusting man. Grew up in the village and then went away for a few years—I don’t know, says he was a big shot in the army or something. In any case, all the village folks are terrified of him.”

  Now, eyeing Gulab, Ellie felt her mouth twisting with dislike. “What’s going to happen to those people?” she said, wondering where Frank had disappeared. “Where have they been taken?”

  Gulab made a dismissive cluck. “Don’t worry about them, memsahib,” he said. “They’ll be dealt with properly.” Something about his manner, his refusal to make eye contact with her, told Ellie that he had sensed her dislike of him. But before she could respond to his contemptuous dismissal of the fate of the villagers, she saw him straighten and smile broadly. “Good morning, Frank sahib,” he said, and Ellie felt Frank behind her.

  “Not a good morning, Gulab,” Frank said curtly. “Not a good morning, at all. What is going on here?”

  Gulab was on the porch now, and Ellie smelled a faint but cloying scent. Women’s perfume, she thought with wonder. This jerk has women’s perfume on. “A thousand apologies, sir,” Gulab was saying, his manner as cloying as his scent. “I was at the factory when I heard the news. I had no idea these scoundrels were planning this. Would’ve bashed their heads, if I’d known. But it seems they found him—the body—early this morning. What I am now needing to find out is which mischief maker decided to come to your good home and disturb your sleep.”

  “Listen,” Frank said. “I don’t want any more violence, you hear? The last thing we need is more trouble.” He paused for a moment and ran his hand over his tired face. “Who is this guy, anyway? What did he kill himself for? And why the fuck are they angry at me? What did I have to do with this?”

  “Frank sahib,” Gulab said. “You go get some rest. And please, not to come into the factory today. I will take care of everything.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Ellie’s voice was louder and sharper than she’d intended. “My husband is not a child. He needs to understand what is going on.” She looked at Frank, silently urging him to side with her, to demand an explanation from this man whom she disliked and distrusted more with each passing moment.

  Frank looked from Ellie to Gulab, as if just picking up on the hostility that ran like a black wire from one to the other. “What’s going on?” he said. “Who was that man?”

  “A known Communist, sir,” Gulab replied. “Hating Americans. Best of friends with Anand. Hung himself because he knew we were watching him.”

  Ellie was incredulous. Who the hell was this man who was treating Frank like a puppet? Did he himself believe a word of what he was saying? Did Frank realize that he was being fed fiction? Would he acquiese or protest?

  “This is such crap,” she said. “I know this guy.” She turned to Frank. “I didn’t tell you. I met this man who…who has died…when I was at the clinic a few months ago. His wife is one of my clients. He went into a tirade when he saw me in his home.” She saw Frank’s eyes widen but forced herself to continue. “I didn’t want to worry you at the time, sweetie,” she said. “Anyway, he went on and on about how he used to earn his living selling the leaves from the girbal tree. And something about the guards not allowing him access to the trees. He was very frustrated.”

  Frank exhaled. “I see.” He looked at Gulab, not bothering to hide his distaste. “Well, you better come in. We have to come up with a strategy to deal with this mess.” He turned to face Ellie. “Thanks for letting me know. Just wish you’d mentioned this at the time.”

  Ellie saw something gleam in Gulab’s eye and knew that he had picked up on Frank’s mild rebuke. She felt her jaw muscles clench. This man was a snake. She could only pray that her husband saw this. “Well, I guess I should leave you two alone,” she said at last.

  She walked toward the kitchen, and the two men followed her into the living room. “Sit down,” she heard Frank say, and then she could only hear a low murmur of voices. “Ellie,” Frank yelled after a few minutes. “Any chance I could ask you to make us a cup of tea?”

  Her stomach muscles clenched at the thought of serving tea to Gulab. But she said, “Sure.”

  Frank was scribbling something on a notepad when she entered the living room with the tray. “Can you tell me what will happen to those people they arrested?” she asked Gulab.

  Instead of answering, Gulab turned toward Frank, who stared at the floor. “Frank,” she said sharply. “There’s a woman in jail who has just lost her husband. What do you intend to do about it?”

  He looked up at her with a sigh. “What do you suggest I do?” he said. Despite her mounting anger, she heard the fatigue—and something more than that, a trace of confusion—in his voice.

  “I suggest you get this guy here,” she pointed her chin at Gulab, “to get them out of jail. Immediately. This morning. Before”—and here she thrust in the knife, deliberately, calculatingly—“someone else gets hurt in police custody, like earlier this year.”

  Frank fixed her a baleful look. “That wasn’t necessary.”

  But it was. It was necessary to wake Frank up from the comatose state that he was in, to snap her fingers and break the diabolical spell this horrible man was casting on her husband. She saw that Gulab was looking back and forth between them, knew that he was picking up on the tension between husband and wife, knew he was exactly the kind of man who would file this knowledge away to use at some later time. But she couldn’t be concerned with that right now. The task of the moment was to make Frank say the words that would spring Radha and the others out of jail. She was stunned that Frank himself couldn’t see that, beyond the simple morality of the issue, it was also the absolute best thing for HerbalSolutions, the only prudent, political thing to do. A man is dead, she wanted to scream at Frank to get him out of his catatonic state. A man has died, hung himself from a tree that was part of his childhood inheritance and that is now owned by a company headquartered eight thousand miles away. A man has hung himself to prove the irrefutability of his belonging to a piece of the natural world that we have taken away from him.

  “You know I’m right,” she now said, her voice cracking with urgency. “I—I know the villagers better than you do. The arrests will pour gasoline on the fire, Frank.”

  Something in her words, her tone of voice, clicked. He turned his head toward Gulab and said, “Call the police chief. Have them release all of them.”

  “But Frank seth—” Gulab began.

>   “Don’t waste any more time,” Frank cut him off. “Just make the call. Ellie is right. It will save us grief in the end.”

  Gulab rose to his feet and bowed slightly. “As you wish, sir.” His manner was calm, imperturbable. “But best if I go down to the police chowki myself.” He nodded toward Ellie. “Good making your acquaintance, madam.”

  She forced herself to nod back.

  At the door, Gulab turned around. “Better if you don’t come in today, sir,” he said. “There may be some—trouble—at the factory.”

  Frank closed his eyes for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “But call me if anything is wrong. I want you to stay in touch with me during the day, understand? And tell Deepak to call me as soon as he can.”

  “Yes, sir. Get some rest, sir.”

  They sat on opposite couches, staring at each other, after Gulab had left. Neither one of them spoke for a few moments. Then Frank said, “Still think coming to India was a good idea?”

  She looked at him, unsure of how to answer. “I certainly didn’t expect any of—this,” she said at last.

  He shook his head. “I’d better call Pete and let him know,” he said. “Seems like I’m giving him more bad news each time I call.” He suddenly punched the palm of his left hand with his right fist. “Goddamn it. So we settle with the workers in May in order to buy ourselves some friggin’ peace. I give in to most of their demands. But how the fuck can I anticipate that some yokel from the village is going to kill himself and then blame us?”

  Frank’s look of outrage reminded her of the expression on Benny’s face if he felt somebody had been unfair to him. Despite her anger, her heart went out to her husband. “How did they know his reason for committing suicide?” she asked. “Did Gulab say?”

  “Yeah, apparently he told some of the village youth that his wife had had to beg her parents for money for cooking fuel. The guy had not worked in months.” His face crumbled. “Jesus, Ellie. What the fuck am I supposed to do? How can they possibly hold HerbalSolutions responsible for something like this? I know these folks are dirt-poor. But we didn’t create their poverty. And we’re a business, goddamn it, not some social service agency.”