The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar Page A

he needed someone to clean and cook for him. “My wife
    very good,” he had said. “All Goanese dishes she making.” To his
    great surprise, Olaf had agreed—but on the condition that the two
    of them move into the shack behind his new home. It turned out that
    his current servant was not terribly reliable—and reliability was the
    great German virtue that Olaf prized above all.
    For Edna and Prakash, the arrangement was perfect. Olaf doubled Prakash’s salary, and they had a free place to live. In the beginning, Prakash did the cleaning and Edna the cooking, but as time
    4 4 Th r i t y U m r i g a r
    went by and Prakash discovered his culinary talents, they reversed
    the arrangement. Olaf didn’t seem to notice.
    But living away from the village also meant forgoing the easy familiarity that Prakash had developed as a young orphan, the access
    that had allowed him to enter people’s homes without knocking. He
    had always held a peculiar position in the village, had been an object
    of affection but also of pity. The villagers saw him more as a talisman or a mascot than a human being. He himself never got rid of the
    feeling of being the eternal outsider. If he had married a girl from
    the village, perhaps things would’ve been different. But taking the
    first vacation of his life, he had gone to Goa and fallen in love with
    Edna. They had eloped to Girbaug two weeks later, knowing that
    her Catholic father would never consent to her marrying a Hindu.
    The villagers were as shocked by their marriage as Edna’s family
    had been.
    Prakash threw the stub of the bidi into the sea and immediately
    lit another one. Soon he’d have to get his bicycle and go pick up
    Ramesh at school. He decided to linger by the water a little longer.
    Edna had been in a bad mood since the funeral. He himself had
    been unprepared for the emotionalism at the scene. He tried now
    to blink away the memory of Shanti beating her breasts and trying
    to fling herself onto the burning pyre that was devouring her son.
    Of Anand’s sobbing sister holding her mother back. Of Mukesh,
    Anand’s best friend, saying bitterly, “You see how ’Merica is slaughtering those Iraqis? Arre, bhai , they won’t rest until they do the same
    to us.”
    The funeral had made him hate Frank. On the way home he told
    Edna, “I don’t want our Ramu going over their house for studyingfudying anymore. You see now who these people are.”
    But Edna had turned on him like a snake. “Okay, stupid. Then
    you teach him. Talk to your son in your broken English. And you
    pay his school fees. And buy his shoes and uniform. All on your
    salary—which Frank sir pays, anyway.”
    Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n
    4 5
    Prakash stared at the gray waters of the sea. These days, Edna
    felt as far away from him as that place where the sky touched the lip
    of the sea. And Ramesh was always sullen around him, as if he’d
    picked up on Edna’s constant criticism of him. If only he had the
    means to make the boy smile the way the gora seemed to be able to
    do without trying. A few weeks ago, Frank had knocked on their
    door late in the evening and presented Ramesh with a brand-new
    basketball. This, after Prakash had spent an hour putting a rubber
    patch on the old one, made it as good as new. Show off. Always
    buying off his Ramu with presents.
    Prakash felt his nose twitch as he fought back his tears. He rubbed
    his nose on his shirtsleeve, then looked up at the sky. Two more
    hours and he could have a drink. He thought with longing of the full
    bottle of daru that awaited him at home. As if the brown alcohol had
    already entered his body, he felt it uncoil and relax.
    Chapter 5
    Ellie had not left the house in over a week, and now she paced
    the living room, anxiously awaiting Nandita’s arrival. Ever since
    Anand’s death, Frank had begged her not to leave the house, told
    her it was unsafe for her to be out on her own on the streets of Girbaug. And Ellie had swallowed her