“I want him to take me and buy for me everything that you did not buy for me, Ma. That’s what I mean.”

“He will, Leelu,” Kishen said.

“Do you know which fair, Ma?” Leela whined. When her mother did not answer, she insisted, “Do you know which fair?”

“Leela,” her father said.

She was quiet for a moment, then looked at Ram. She said more sweetly, “The fair that Ram Chacha also went to, a long time ago, before everybody got mad at each other. When Jeetu Veer-ji brought me that balloon.”

“Ah,” said Ram gently. “I will take you to that fair. Next time it comes, we will go.”

The night sounds of the desert grew louder. “I must go and check the field,” Jivan said. They had irrigated that afternoon, and there had been a breach in a farm ditch.

“I will go,” Ram said. But no one moved.

“How old will I be when Jeetu Veer-ji comes home? Just a little older, right? Just a little older, Ma?” The girl had moved off her mother’s lap and onto the thin arm of the chair.

“Oh, not so much older,” said Karak lightly. “You will still have your teeth, they will not have fallen out.”

“My teeth!” The girl made a face. Rosa laughed; she could understand enough Punjabi now, and the girl’s expression was funny.

“You will still have your hair,” Karak said.

Leela grabbed her hair. “I don’t want to lose my hair!” she said.

“But probably your arm will have fallen off. Yes, certainly,” said Karak, “now that I think of it, you will be so old by then, your arm will fall off. The right one first. You use it more.”

Leela giggled and held her right arm. Kishen coaxed her off the chair and took her inside to sleep.

Jivan said, to no one, “I feel most for my brother.”

“He made his decision, bhai-ji,” Karak said.

“I feel I was responsible. I was with him that day,” Ram said.

“But he had already made up his mind,” Jivan said. “No, the fault lies with me. I wanted him to study, to go to university, but he refused.” Jivan rubbed his face. “He is very intelligent. He came to this country and did not find enough to interest him. That is no one’s fault but mine.”

Karak yawned, rose, and announced that he was going to bed.

Jivan remained sitting in the glow of the kerosene lamps late into the night. Ram stayed with him. They sat in silence, and Ram noted that Jivan seemed a much older man.