To Ram, it seemed everyone had reconciled themselves to Amarjeet’s absence, especially Jivan Singh. Without complaint, Jivan hired a man to help with Amarjeet’s chores. The family’s routine seemed unchanged, but everything had been altered. Jivan would say that he did not care about being a U.S. citizen himself, but he would never forgive what happened to Tomoya. “It is the principle that matters and for which Thind and Amarjeet are fighting! What shall happen to us all if we lose the right to citizenship too?”

Ram felt immune from the effects of this possibility. After all, he was going home, wasn’t he? He could return whenever he wanted to, just as soon as he could extricate himself from the allure of the western money, from the prestige it purchased at home, from his involvement with Adela. That most of all. Still, Ram felt that the creature that had hunted the Japanese was coming for the Hindustanees too. He felt it when he saw the scar on his leg from the beating in Hambelton. He felt it when he thought of the San Francisco shoreline and remembered the vision of Padma holding Santosh, far away on the ship’s deck.

With the failure of the cotton market, Karak began to speak about trying a new crop. In mid-March, Clive drove out to the farm and asked if Karak and Ram would like to farm Moriyama’s former acres. They were sitting together near Jivan’s back porch, like the old days. Karak had opened a bottle of whiskey. Nearby, Kishen Kaur sat cleaning the chimneys of the kerosene lamps. Leela was inside with her school books. Jivan was quiet, listening to their talk.

“Yes,” Karak said, without hesitation. He had told Ram of the same idea weeks before, and Ram had not liked it then.

Ram was indignant. “Too much land for two men,” he said in English.

“We can hire the workers to do all we cannot do,” Karak said.

“Consolidated will help you boys any way we can,” Clive said. “Get you pickers, planters, wagons, anything.”

Ram did not understand how the decision could be made so quickly. Clive was looking at him with a strange expression.

Ram turned to Karak and spoke in Punjabi. “It is wrong to farm that land after Consolidated threw Moriyama out.”

“Tomoya told to me,” Jivan said in English. “It is good if you and Karak take his land.”

“It’s Consolidated’s land,” Clive said.

Jivan looked at him calmly, one landowner speaking to another. “That is not how we think of it,” he said.

BY ANY MEASURE, lettuce was not like cotton. The cotton plant was coarse and hardy and could be picked several times over eight or nine months. After harvest, the cotton could be stored until it was time to sell, used long after it was grown.