When they heard the bells sound, Jivan and Karak and Ram drove into town. Kishen had no wish to come with them. “What do I have to do with that war?” she asked. “I only want Amarjeet to come home.” The men could not disagree. But they went anyway, parking on the outskirts of town and walking to city hall.

The Fredonia Band was playing at the steps of the courthouse. Offices and schools and businesses remained closed. From the homes in the surrounding farmland, people streamed into town despite the Spanish flu that had laid so many low. Every day there had been another death in the Valley. The streets were overrun with farmers and cowboys and housewives and yelling children, dogs, horses, wagons, chickens, a few goats, almost all of the town’s one thousand automobiles. Even those who lived on the east side—in the barrio and Japantown and the Negro neighborhood—crossed the railroad tracks to hear what the mayor would say. A parade had lined up, but the fire department could not squeeze its trucks and horses past the crowd on Third Street. On the hour, every hour, the band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the unruly crowd grew calm, some whispering the lyrics, some belting them out, others standing silently. Even young children stopped to listen. Fathers removed their hats. Several mothers were crying.

Cars cruised up and down Main Street, horns blaring, contraptions and noisemakers tied to rear bumpers: iron tubs containing metal scraps that rattled, exploded in the ears. Passengers leaned out of the car windows, whistling and chanting and singing.

Karak stepped into the crowd, clasping the hands of the banker Jasper Davis and Terrence Mark, who managed the farm implement store, but Jivan and Ram hung back, feeling joyful but not connected to that wider joy. Perhaps it was Jivan’s dastar, perhaps it was their mood, but they stood separated from the crowd. A car drove past, dragging a shattered wooden box labeled KAISER. They thought this was silly.

Karak rejoined them, bringing Clive Edgar with him. The land agent shook Jivan’s hand. “Your son will be home soon, John,” he said warmly.

“Very soon, I hope, very soon,” Jivan said, and no one bothered to correct him; they had known each other too long. Clive left them, and they ran into Malik Khan and Gugar Singh, then other Hindus who gathered weekly in Fredonia Park. Their mood was light, happy. Everyone knew a village-mate back home who had died serving in the British army in France or Mesopotamia, and most had a brother or cousin or uncle who had left home to fight. They stood clustered far from the tent that sheltered the band and the mayor. As the group expanded, they grew more and more conspicuous.