A church. It is a church.
He scans the crowd, his breath quickening, his heart throbbing in his temple. He cries out “Ma!” He cannot see her. But those inside turn, they gasp and whisper, a commotion builds. Almost every head now, watching him. Every head.
All but one.
He sees the back of it, the gray, thin hair, the bony shoulders, strong but shrunken.
And the young girl beside her, thirteen years old, locking eyes with him, pained. In her eyes he recognizes his own.
The sister he never saw, born after his flight.
“Ma,” he calls out and begins to shove his way through the crowd.
The priest has not yet arrived. The service has not yet started.
Now he is the service.
Finally he reaches his mother, her face stern, jaw clenched, eyes not wavering from the portrait of Christ.
“Ma!”
The room is in uproar.
A voice cries, “Mary, see, he has returned!”
“Returned from the dead.”
“Your son has returned!”
“It’s a miracle, Mary.”
Other voices. “He’s an impostor.”
“The Devil.”
“Ma!” he says. “It’s me. Ajay. Your son.”
3.
She is before him, aged and withered, grief-hollowed, in a tattered lime sari, not the shining, terrible woman who visits in his sleep.
“Ma,” he says.
The crowd has hushed.
“Ma,” the sweet, frightened girl says, clinging to her arm.
His mother finally stands, turns, will not make eye contact. She crosses herself, says a silent prayer, and limps past him.
He cannot tolerate this. He grabs her by the arms.
And now she releases herself, her fury.
“Do not touch me!” she says. “I don’t know you.”
He has no words. His hand goes limp.
She hobbles through the crowd toward the exit. Doesn’t look back at him.
Some in the crowd speak in his favor now, moved by the scene.
“Mary, it’s your son.”
“Forgive him.”
She stops. Shakes her head.
“He’s not my son.”
His anger swells. He goes after her. “I’m here! I’m your son!”
She turns to him, her anger stiffened, tensed into stone. “You stand here, but you’re not my son. My son is dead.”
She makes her way for the exit, out into the hovel row.
“I’m not dead,” he says.
As he tries to follow, a new disorder.
“Father, Father, Father,” voices say. “Father Jacob . . .”
A man dressed in the robes of a priest enters, bald and chubby, with strong searching eyes. He stands in Ajay’s path, holds out a peaceful palm.
“Father Jacob . . . Mary’s son is here.”
But Ajay just pushes outside past the father.
* * *
—
She is standing a short distance away, her back to him. Not moving.
“I came for you,” he cries, a sense of rage and injustice filling his insides.
He understands as he says it just how hollow this sounds.
“I searched for you,” he tries again. “I never forgot.”
His head swims. He has money, good clothes, he has made it; against the odds, he is a big man. And he has returned. Dozens of colony dwellers have gathered, craning their necks, whispering, jostling to see this spectacle.
“Even though you sent me away,” he says, “I returned. I know you had to do it. I know you needed to send me to work. I worked hard, Ma. I did it for you. They told me . . . they sent you money every month . . .”
She turns and limps toward him. “No one sent money,” she says with scorn.
He lowers his eyes.
“No one would ever send money. I sold you,” she says. “That was it. I sold you, but I would have given you away!”
Gasps from the crowd.
“Mary!”
“He’s your son.”
“He’s not my son!” she roars. She turns on Ajay. “It would have been better if you died.”
“Mary!”
“Ma . . .”
“It’s because of you,” she says. “All because of you.”
“No, Ma . . . you sent me away. I did what you told.”
“It was your fault.”
“No, Ma . . .”
“You let the goat free! You let it roam into that field!”
“Ma . . .”
His mind reels. What is she saying to him? How can he . . .
“If it wasn’t for you, they wouldn’t have come!”
So many years of grief unraveling, charging her speech.
The sister Ajay never knew rushes to their mother’s side, calms her, begs her to stop, but is thrown down.
“And then . . . when . . . after . . .” His mother’s eyes well with tears.
And it hits.
Hema.
Where is Hema?
“You ran away!”
Where is his sister?
His mother goes on. “You ran when they came!”
“No!” he cries. “I fought them!”
“Fought them? You coward. You ran.”
His young sister sobs on the ground.
“Where’s Hema?” Ajay says in a low voice.
“And they came to buy you, and you were sold.”
“Where’s Hema?” he repeats again, searching his memory for her face.
“And now . . . ,” his mother rages, “now you come back. You dare to come back with no shame. A big man, with fine clothes. Working for the same demons who did this to us?!”
“What are you . . . ?”
“The Singh brothers! The ones who killed your father. The ones who ruined your sister. Their men came to tell me you were coming here. You work for them now.” She launches herself at him, scratching, roaring. “How dare you show your face here!”
Men run to pull her away.
And Ajay?
He does nothing. He stands there.
Dumb.
* * *
—
He sits on the ground outside the church.
Disconsolate.
Catatonic.
His mother has been taken away.
The men still watch him, unsure what to do, unsure what he will do. They debate his case, but he doesn’t hear.
Finally his young sister appears. She kneels by his side.
“She’s in too much pain,” the girl says.
It takes an age for the words to reach him. He turns his head to her.
“Who are you?”
“Sarah,” she says.
His chest tight, his head dizzy. The churn of his mind makes it difficult to speak.
“Where is she? Where’s my sister?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“She left for Benares when I was seven.”
“Why?”
“And she never returned.”
“What happened?” he asks. “Why did she go?”
“You should leave now,” Sarah says.
She gets up, but he holds her arm firm. She winces in pain. “What happened?”
“Please, it hurts.”
The men and women around wait for what will happen next. “What happened after I was gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?!”
Another voice, his mother’s, reaches him. “What happened?” it says.
She’s standing nearby, watching.
“What happened to Hema?” he urges, letting Sarah go.
She runs to her mother.
“What happens to all girls,” his mother replies, “when the men go away.”
“I didn’t do this,” he says. “I came back for you.”
“As one of them.”
“I’m not one of them,” he pleads. “I work for the Wadias. Not the Singh brothers.”
His mother shakes her head, turns to walk away. “And who do you think they work for?”
* * *
—