Jivan held the medals and felt himself transported. Not to Shandong Province, but to the creature he was before—before the graying California farmer, before the cavalry officer, before the young bridegroom, before the newly enlisted lad—to the scrappy boy on a dirt path, fetching water for his mother’s cooking.

He shuddered. He dismounted and stood by the briny water. He breathed in and filled his lungs. The sky was large, overpowering. Who belongs in what place on this earth? The British did not belong in India; the thought came to him clearly. Perhaps he did not belong in the Imperial Valley either. Years ago, he had witnessed the river filling the basin to form this inland sea, so large that a man could stand on the edge and see a liquid horizon, imagine a tide. Tears filled his eyes, but he did not know for whom, or for what. He felt light. He felt correct. One by one, he grasped the medals, rubbed the inscriptions with his thumb, and flung each into the water.

9

October 1914

RAM SAT WITH THE OTHER MEN NEAR THE BACK PORCH. THE DAY’S WORK was finished, but light lingered in the sky. Leela ran behind the house to her father. “Pita-ji! Pita-ji!” she shouted. “Man has come!” Her voice seemed worried.

“Which man, Leela?” Jivan asked.

“Agent man.”

“Ah,” Jivan nodded. He had been carving a doll for her third birthday, and now he put the wood block aside and rose immediately to greet the visitor. Karak retrieved a glass. Amarjeet fetched another chair. But when Jivan returned with the guest, Ram saw that it was only Clive Edgar, Eggenberger’s land man, whom he had met the morning he had almost left Fredonia.

“John,” the agent said, nodding at Jivan, extending his hand.

“We were expecting you, Clive, my friend,” Karak said, standing, holding an empty glass in his right hand and a bottle in his left.

“’Bout to drink it up?” Clive said. He was even larger than Ram remembered, grinning aggressively, cheeks and neck splotched with sunburned pink.

“I’ll get the books,” said Jivan, heading inside.

Clive nodded at Amarjeet. “Amjee,” he said, hesitating with the name. No one bothered to correct him. Clive’s enormous hand grasped Karak’s. He did not glance at Ram. “Thought you might be laying off for a while, Karak, after your performance last week.” Ram knew Karak would sometimes see Clive in Mexicali, where he visited the bars and Chinatown south of the boundary. He sometimes asked Ram to come with him, but Ram would always say no.

“That was five nights past,” Karak said, smiling, drawing himself up, his chest expanding. “Here is a new night.”

Ram wondered what had happened then. What was this relationship Karak had with the Anglo?

Clive chuckled, removing his hat as the light grew faint. “A man can always expect a good time with you boys.”