“It is not about the sheriff. It is not about Clive,” Ram said. But he could not name to Karak what it was. It was how Clive acted differently when he sat next to Jonathan Hitchcock or Roubillard. The man who could be easily swayed, the man who was not himself unjust, but easily joined in another’s injustice, that was a man not to be trusted.

“You have always supported Rosa,” Karak said.

“What?”

“Your sympathy is with her. Do you think she will come be with you?”

“What?” Ram said again, then he understood Karak’s meaning. Had the man lost his senses? Ram had never wanted Rosa. “I want to go back home, Karak.”

“But in the meantime you can enjoy—”

“Now. I want to go back now.” Ram had not known this truth. It had slipped from his mouth without warning. To return to a place where everyone spoke his language, where he need not explain history or food, or be trapped in the cage built of people’s stares. He had held his breath for a decade. Could he finally exhale?

Karak paused, but only for a moment. “What about Adela?”

Ram’s muscles tensed. He had never discussed Adela with Karak.

“What concern is that of yours?”

Karak’s eyes met his. Ram glared at him, daring him to continue.

Karak took a breath and his expression shifted. “Think of one last crop,” he said. “All of Moriyama’s land and ours together. It would fetch enough money to reestablish me. It would win back my wife and children. And you will go back like a warrior dragging a treasure chest.”

Ram said nothing.

“It is only one more season. You don’t mind living here,” Karak insisted. “You never have. That’s why you tried to bring Padma.”

“That is also none of your concern,” Ram said. He threw the shovel, unused, on the ground and walked to the house. The days went by and Ram did not pack his things or buy passage or close his bank account.

He had a feeling he could not name. That things could never be the same. That when he went back home, there would be another leave-taking, another death, a hole of ten years in his life’s fabric.

Clive returned three days later. It was Ram who met him first, near the roadway. “We will need seed for the entire field,” Ram said loudly, as Karak approached. He did not meet Karak’s eye.

31

July 1923

HE WOULD STAY FOR A LAST LETTUCE CROP, THAT IS WHAT HE TOLD himself. Eight more months, maybe nine. Everything could remain the same until then. He need not even tell Jivan until later.

The next Sunday Ram went to the dressmaking shop at lunchtime, as usual. The street was deserted. He knocked softly and Adela opened the back door.