Jivan did not meet his eye. “I wish you did not know it well. But a young man has certain needs.” Jivan sighed. “We must survive. We do not always have the luxury of keeping our values as if we lived among our people.”

Ram did not know what to make of this comment. He felt a judgment in Jivan’s words, but he felt better now that Jivan knew. Ram was, in a way, once more an honest man, as if he had stepped out of the shadows into a circle of light.

Perhaps Adela sensed it too; one afternoon, lying in the seamstress shop, their bodies half in sunlight, half in shade, she said, “Tell me about this—” She was pointing at the scar on his leg. It had been where the man in Hambelton had pounded on his shin, the oddly long wound that had kept him lying by the side of the road before he was able to stand and limp home.

“It is nothing,” he said, “an injury from long ago.”

She ran her tongue along the length of the scar, as if she knew it was not from long ago. As if she knew it was a wound that America had given him. The nerves skittered at her touch. The sensation ran up his leg and along his spine, sent a shiver into his skull. “I do not believe you,” she said, teasing.

He sat up, suddenly enraged, and pulled on his clothes. “Stop. What you believe or not means nothing! I’ll kill you!” She pulled up the sheets to cover herself, her eyes wide in fright.

He dressed quickly and walked out into the streets of Fredonia. He felt dizzy. Had he meant those words? He would kill her? At home he had whispered to Padma in their bed—“Die!” as a playful command against fate, as a way to ward off the tragic. No, he could not harm Adela, ever. He remembered the shock on her face, the quickening of her breath. After years, she had made him feel light again. He did not ever want her to die.

It was early yet; people were still emerging from church. The day of the attack in Hambelton had been a Sunday too. People had gone to church then, had prayed too. He and Pala had seen them.

Perhaps Adela knew that he had arrived in the Valley injured and desperate. Perhaps that information had been conveyed between Jivan and Karak, from Karak to Rosa to Adela. But he did not want her to know why.

He promised himself he wouldn’t tell her. Surging clouds covered an angry sun. Silent lightning pierced the gray. He had seen this lightning before. It did not have to mean rain. Her bewildered face flashed in front of his eyes. He had walked more than a mile around the town’s simple streets and returned to the dressmaker’s shop. The Presbyterian church sat around the corner. He would not be noticed going back inside the shop. Could he tell without floundering? Could he say what happened?