RAM SAID HE WOULD SPEAK to Jivan for him. Amarjeet saw Ram approach his uncle while he was sitting at the table on the porch, looking at the accounts. Amarjeet had positioned himself inside the door to the animal shed. He could see them clearly. The mare nuzzled him and he reached out to pet her. He could not hear what was said. He thought that his uncle did not know he was there, but after they had been talking awhile, Jivan looked directly at him across the distance. Amarjeet felt as if he had been slapped.

Ram came to meet him. His face was serious, and Amarjeet could not tell if he was still sympathetic to him. “Jivan Singh wants to speak with you,” Ram said.

When he approached his uncle, he did not look up, he did not know if his uncle was even looking at him.

“What have I heard from Ram? That you have gone and committed yourself to the U.S. Army?”

“Chacha-ji,” he said in a small voice. He was twenty-one years old, a full adult, being treated like this. Amarjeet looked down at the crusted earth, the dust mixed with sand. He had never seen his uncle angry before. All through the Valley, Jivan Singh was known for his patience, for being a soft-spoken man.

“I brought you here so that you would not have to fight in another country’s war. I wanted you to study. I promised your father.”

Amarjeet stood with his hands clasped in front of him, looking at the ground.

“I forbid you to go, Amarjeet.”

For a moment, he could not breathe. “Chacha-ji, they will send me to jail if I don’t go.” Easier to blame the U.S. government than to say the truth: Amarjeet did not want to stay.

“Go and ask them. Into town. Go now.”

Amarjeet did not move.

“Go!”

“They will say no, Chacha-ji. And I will not ask. I gave my word. Just as you did. Just as my father did.”

THAT EVENING, his aunt told him to come to the kitchen to eat his supper before the others arrived, so his uncle would not have to see him. From the tone of her voice, the gentle way that she spooned the food onto his plate, he knew her sympathy was with him.

For several days, he and Jivan did not speak. Even so, Amarjeet silently helped him cover the cantaloupe, cultivate the field of peas. He knew the work and there was little reason for any talk. At least in his labor, he could be blameless. While the others ate, he often went to the shed and sat with the mare and mules. He found the animals comforting.

One evening, a week after he had joined the army, his aunt came to find him there.

“Your uncle says you should come and join us at the table to eat,” she said.