The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar Read Free Book Online
Authors: Thrity Umrigar
control diabetes. The villagers were also
used to chopping what they thought of as their trees for firewood.
After signing the lease, HerbalSolutions had posted guards to protect the trees against poachers. But there were constant disputes and
run-ins between the hired guards and the people who believed that
despite what the government said, the trees belonged to their forefathers and were to be passed on to their children. Several times, the
police had been called to quell the unrest.
“So what do we propose we do?” Frank said, hating this feeling
of being boxed in.
“Just leave things to me, sir. I’ll take care of everything.”
“No, thanks. I won’t make that mistake again. The last time I
asked you to take care of things, I end up with a dead man on my
hands.” The words shot out of Frank, fired by the anger and resentment he felt.
Gulab stiffened imperceptibly, and his eyes went flat and hollow.
Frank could tell that he had drawn blood. He felt a small satisfaction
followed by a twinge of regret. Gulab was not someone he wanted
to turn against himself. “I’m sorry,” he began. “That was—”
“No harm done, sahib.” Gulab’s smile was stiff, perfunctory.
“And sir. I honestly thought I was following your instruction. When
you told me to take care of the situation with Anand, I thought—”
Was the fellow trying to implicate him? Trying to ensure that
3 6 Th r i t y U m r i g a r
his hands were dirty—hell, bloody—too? And what had he meant
when he’d told Gulab to handle the situation? Just the reflexive mutterings of a harried executive? Or had there been something more
sinister—a desire for the problem to go away, to be solved by any
means necessary—in that command? He could barely remember
saying those words to Gulab. But even if he had, dear God, surely
he had not meant murder , had not even meant torture. Frank remembered when he had first read about the Abu Ghraib scandal. He had
felt physically sick. This is so not us. This is not what Americans
do, he’d thought. Ellie, of course, had been characteristically more
cynical. C’mon, Frank, she had said, what do you think happened
in Vietnam? Hell, what do you think happens in U.S. prisons every
day? But he had been genuinely shocked, repulsed by the pictures
on television. He looked at Gulab now, trying to think of a way to
explain all this to him, to make him see that his was not a world
of police torture and beatings and prison deaths. For a moment
he thought with longing of the house in Ann Arbor, the animated
dinner parties with friends who shared their political views, the easy
conversations where they all vowed to move to Canada if Bush won
a second term and never mentioned it again after he did. But it was
like looking into that world from a thick sheet of ice, as if his former
life was encapsulated inside one of those snow globes, delicate, fragile, lovely, and he was holding it in the palm of his hand, looking at
it from the outside. After living in India for the past year and a half,
he felt closer to the American soldiers who were up to their ears in
shit and muck in Iraq, felt that he could comprehend their lost innocence and their confusion and irritation, even their contempt and
hatred for a culture they had come to save but that was destroying
them. All his liberal beliefs—that people were the same all over the
world, that cultural differences could be bridged by goodwill and
tolerance—seemed dangerous and naïve to him at this moment.
The man who sat before him right now was as unknowable as a
mountain, as impenetrable as a dense forest. The distance between
Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n
3 7
them was greater than the geographical distance between their two
countries.
“Listen, Gulab,” he said. “You know damn well that whatever
I said, I didn’t intend any violence. That’s not how we do business.” He looked at Gulab and thought again of how he didn’t
used to chopping what they thought of as their trees for firewood.
After signing the lease, HerbalSolutions had posted guards to protect the trees against poachers. But there were constant disputes and
run-ins between the hired guards and the people who believed that
despite what the government said, the trees belonged to their forefathers and were to be passed on to their children. Several times, the
police had been called to quell the unrest.
“So what do we propose we do?” Frank said, hating this feeling
of being boxed in.
“Just leave things to me, sir. I’ll take care of everything.”
“No, thanks. I won’t make that mistake again. The last time I
asked you to take care of things, I end up with a dead man on my
hands.” The words shot out of Frank, fired by the anger and resentment he felt.
Gulab stiffened imperceptibly, and his eyes went flat and hollow.
Frank could tell that he had drawn blood. He felt a small satisfaction
followed by a twinge of regret. Gulab was not someone he wanted
to turn against himself. “I’m sorry,” he began. “That was—”
“No harm done, sahib.” Gulab’s smile was stiff, perfunctory.
“And sir. I honestly thought I was following your instruction. When
you told me to take care of the situation with Anand, I thought—”
Was the fellow trying to implicate him? Trying to ensure that
3 6 Th r i t y U m r i g a r
his hands were dirty—hell, bloody—too? And what had he meant
when he’d told Gulab to handle the situation? Just the reflexive mutterings of a harried executive? Or had there been something more
sinister—a desire for the problem to go away, to be solved by any
means necessary—in that command? He could barely remember
saying those words to Gulab. But even if he had, dear God, surely
he had not meant murder , had not even meant torture. Frank remembered when he had first read about the Abu Ghraib scandal. He had
felt physically sick. This is so not us. This is not what Americans
do, he’d thought. Ellie, of course, had been characteristically more
cynical. C’mon, Frank, she had said, what do you think happened
in Vietnam? Hell, what do you think happens in U.S. prisons every
day? But he had been genuinely shocked, repulsed by the pictures
on television. He looked at Gulab now, trying to think of a way to
explain all this to him, to make him see that his was not a world
of police torture and beatings and prison deaths. For a moment
he thought with longing of the house in Ann Arbor, the animated
dinner parties with friends who shared their political views, the easy
conversations where they all vowed to move to Canada if Bush won
a second term and never mentioned it again after he did. But it was
like looking into that world from a thick sheet of ice, as if his former
life was encapsulated inside one of those snow globes, delicate, fragile, lovely, and he was holding it in the palm of his hand, looking at
it from the outside. After living in India for the past year and a half,
he felt closer to the American soldiers who were up to their ears in
shit and muck in Iraq, felt that he could comprehend their lost innocence and their confusion and irritation, even their contempt and
hatred for a culture they had come to save but that was destroying
them. All his liberal beliefs—that people were the same all over the
world, that cultural differences could be bridged by goodwill and
tolerance—seemed dangerous and naïve to him at this moment.
The man who sat before him right now was as unknowable as a
mountain, as impenetrable as a dense forest. The distance between
Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n
3 7
them was greater than the geographical distance between their two
countries.
“Listen, Gulab,” he said. “You know damn well that whatever
I said, I didn’t intend any violence. That’s not how we do business.” He looked at Gulab and thought again of how he didn’t
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