When he opened them again sometime later, the sky had gone dark. Jodh was sitting quietly in the chair, his eyes half-closed, softly reciting Kirtan Sohila. Jodh’s deep voice, the familiar chants invoking God’s protection, all this comforted Ram. His mind traveled to an evening when he had fallen asleep on his mother’s lap as she chanted the same prayers. His mother was not Sikh, and neither was he, but it did not matter. Everyone knew the prayers of the Guru. His aunt was giving birth in the next room. Yet, despite his mother’s invocation, despite the visit from the village midwife and the town doctor, his aunt had not lived through the night, although the baby survived. He shifted position painfully. Moonlight streamed through the open back door and splayed across Jodh’s shoulder.

Ram could hear Pala’s voice outside near the stove, the clatter of metal pots being gathered up after their meal. He heard a beat begin on the dholki; that would be Hussein, the boy from Amritsar. A voice began to sing. Someone strummed the tumbi. The men would soon begin to dance. Some of them would be seated on the wooden benches in the side yard, some would sit on the chairs in the back. Their house had the largest yard and the men always gathered there. Almost one hundred of his countrymen lived on that street, a fifth of the total number of Hindustanees hired at the mills. He could hear their voices thick with whiskey, debating on and on: why they didn’t call the police, why they were waiting to fetch the doctor . . . their voices were unguarded, and he knew they thought he couldn’t hear. They did not know what Satish had said about the labor leaders’ demand that the Hindustanees be fired. About the threat to remove the Hindus themselves, if they remained by week’s end.

Ram heard one of the men advise Pala to report the attack to the police by Tuesday, otherwise their foreman would wonder why Ram was missing. The men jeered. Most agreed with Pala—why tell the police? They knew that the locals thought they were dirty, that they were a threat to family life, that their turbans were dirty and smelled foul. They knew most women in town stepped away if they encountered a Hindu on the street. What would the police do? And who would be told? That large deputy with the huge jowls who could not sit a horse properly? They laughed.