BooksBarbecue
Back Passage West
Chapters (59)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Cast of Characters
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. Letters
  14. Part Two
  15. 8
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. 11
  19. 12
  20. 13
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. Letters
  26. Part Three
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. Letters
  34. Part Four
  35. 24
  36. 25
  37. 26
  38. 27
  39. 28
  40. Letters
  41. Part Five
  42. 29
  43. 30
  44. 31
  45. 32
  46. 33
  47. 34
  48. 35
  49. 36
  50. 37
  51. 38
  52. 39
  53. 40
  54. 41
  55. Epilogue
  56. Acknowledgments
  57. About the Author
  58. Also by Rishi Reddi
  59. About the Publisher

But Ram barely looked at her. His gaze rested on her face for only a moment longer than it did on the others’. She was glad for this. She feared that if he looked for long at her face, he would see the anger, or perhaps it was hatred.

She could not deny that he glowed—resplendent, luminous, come from another world.

The news spread that he had arrived. His son and uncle and cousins took him to see the lands that he had purchased, the school that he had built, the households made prosperous with the dowry he had provided. A lamb was slaughtered. A servant was sent to market to buy eggplant and fish. With the other women, she cut and cooked and bent over the heat of the stove, preparing the feast. In the evening, the men talked of the infant government in Delhi, the new laws that had allowed Ram’s visit. She heard it all, sitting by herself in the kitchen, long after the meal was finished. He spoke of returning home, and she thought he meant returning home to her, but then she realized: he was returning home to that other place. There is, after all, a land of one’s birth, and a land of one’s work and action. Which should one call home? Perhaps if she were a different woman, another kind of wife, it would not have mattered. But it mattered to her. Who was there with him, in that other place?

Her granddaughter came and brought her to bed, but did not stay with her as she usually did. For the first time in years, Padma lay there alone.

Hours later, she heard him outside the bedroom. His hand swept aside the curtain. He stood silhouetted in the doorway. She lit a lamp and allowed herself to look him in the face, the way she could not in the outer rooms. She thought he would read her hatred, know her hardness of heart, but in the glow of the lamplight, she knew that was not what he saw. She recognized in him the beginning of an old man—the shadow of the boy she had known. That fold around his lips, that length in his cheek—yet, still, the youth in those eyes that had seen her grow from a girl to a maiden. Yes, he was radiant. Had he not died and come back?

She could not know how he grieved for his childhood, for the man-boy waiting at the San Francisco dock, for the father he had not been.

He stepped forward and clasped her. Together, they wept.

Acknowledgments