Chacha-ji, I do not know what I am made of. I do not know if I will be able to kill a German, if needed, while looking him in the eye. I do not know if I will be one of those soldiers who must be threatened by his officer at gunpoint, in order to stand and fight. I do not bear any ill will toward those German farmer boys on the other side of the line. Once I kill one of them, will I want to keep killing many more? Will the appetite to kill overtake me?

Every day we feel as if we are at the edge of our lives, looking at what has gone past, at our childhoods, at our families. They are ordinary and beautiful at the same time. How can this be?

Yours,

Amarjeet

21

January 1918

ON SUNDAY MORNINGS, ESPERANZA WOULD VISIT HER PREGNANT YOUNGER sister, and Ram would see Alejandro drop her off in a wagon after they had attended mass. When Rosa was eight months pregnant and felt too uncomfortable to make the trip into town, Esperanza would bring a basket filled with freshly made tortillas wrapped in cloth, fully prepared so that Rosa need not work. Often Ram would be at the home, talking finances with Karak. He would hear Esperanza tell Rosa of news from the barrio, or of their madrina in Algodones, and the cousins who lived on both sides of the border. The family was close, Ram knew, and cultured too. Rosa had learned piano from her musician father. She read books.

One Sunday, while Ram and Karak sat on the porch reviewing accounts from the most recent sale of cotton, Esperanza arrived with another woman. She was slender, tall, and looked past Karak and Ram as if the men were not present.

“My cousin,” Esperanza said, smiling, but this woman barely glanced at them. Ram knew this would offend Karak, but Karak said nothing as they entered the house. From their seats on the porch, Ram could see Rosa sitting in her favorite chair. He saw her eyes grow wide and brighten when she noticed this new woman on the threshold.

“¿Prima, eres tú, Adela?” Rosa exclaimed.

“¿Quíen más?” the unfamiliar voice said.

“Eeeow!” A torrent of Spanish followed, but Ram could understand only some: they had not seen each other in six years, and to the other woman—this Adela—Rosa was as pretty as she had been as a young girl.

Ram and Karak looked up from their work. They could hear Rosa show off the house: the Persian rug, the piano, the icebox—which contained ice delivered every two days—the stove. Karak cleared his throat; Ram knew he had minded the entire interaction. He felt a tinge of disdain at how quickly Karak’s life had been overtaken by these Mexican women. How he had not even been greeted as this stranger entered his own home.