CHAPTER 27

They had some trouble securing the tickets to America. Gene accompanied his mother to the Midnapore rail office one morning and stood in line for what seemed like hours, even as the clerk recognized them and gestured for them to come forward. But Mrs. Hinton stared straight ahead and didn’t seem to hear the clerk over all the bustle of the station, so Gene put up a hand to signal they would wait their turn. The clerk wobbled his head and went back to his work.

It was common for British officers to return to Europe before the monsoons hit, but there seemed to be even more than usual this year. Passages were booked for the next month. Gene knew one of those ships bound for England would carry the judge’s body. He realized he had no idea who would be there to receive it.

“Apologies, memsahib,” the clerk said.

Mrs. Hinton sighed. “Whatever’s next available.” When the clerk finally issued a handwritten slip—stamped and signed—it felt real that they were leaving India for good.

Just as they turned from the counter, the clerk spoke. “Condolences, memsahib.”

Mrs. Hinton looked stricken, her eyes wide. “What did you say?”

“About the judge. It is in the papers this morning. What a surprise to see it mentioned that he was found at the house of the Padre Sahib.”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.” She started toward the door, the next person in line already moving forward.

“Probably right to leave,” the clerk said after them. “The Raj will—what is it you say? Make much ado about this.”

Mrs. Hinton nodded, then walked away. She had left the slip on the counter. Gene grabbed it, tucked it into his chest pocket, and straightened his topi on. The clerk had already returned to his paperwork, the shining top of his balding head bobbing up and down as he hummed along to his tasks.

As they walked down the front steps, Gene thought he saw a blur of peach out of the corner of his eye. He turned so swiftly that he stumbled on the steps, catching himself on the brass railing.

“Sahib! Are you all right?” an old man said from below him on the steps. He held his arms out to catch Gene should he fall again.

“I’m fine,” Gene said, shaking himself. He turned around to look again for the woman in the peach-colored sari, but she had disappeared inside the crowded station, if she had ever been there at all.

They held one final sermon in the village. The people were unaware that this was the padre’s last until the very end, when he rose from his kneeled position and said, in measured Bengali, that they were leaving for America and wouldn’t be back. The people gave no reaction at first, as though they had not understood their own language. But then one man rose, and then another, and another, until they had all come to the padre’s feet and touched his bare toes in solemn respect. There was no protest, no demand for explanation. It was as though the Savior himself had informed them he was going to Heaven. Then they came to where Gene was sitting, along with his brothers and Mrs. Hinton, and greeted them. It occurred to Gene, as he looked each one in the face, that this was the first time he had truly seen them. They were kind faces, every one, with a smile offered like good luck for their journey ahead. Their hands pressed together firmly, shaking as if to sprinkle the good tidings over them.

Minnie, from her throne on John’s shoulders, reached a paw out to a boy as he passed. She clung to the boy’s sleeve, and he turned to loosen it. But she only held on stronger, with both paws now, and leaped from John’s shoulders to the boy’s side. The boy looked to John to see what he should do next. But John waved him on, and Gene guessed that his brother was relieved to have found someone to take care of her. The boy was the same brave one who had approached her at the last sermon. Gene was astonished to think that Minnie could like another human being other than John.

When they left the village that Sunday, Gene found himself reluctant to go. He lingered behind to take one last stroll around the huts, which he hadn’t much noticed before but that now fascinated him and held on to him, demanding a place in his memory. Sunlight scattered over the thatched roofs, the shadows of tree branches dancing across them. Village boys played with a hoop and stick on the uneven dirt road, free to run after sitting still through the sermon. Mothers started their cooking preparations, squatting in their doorways with buckets of potatoes and onions to peel. Dogs scavenged for scraps with the laziness of Sundays, side by side with docile cows.

Not far from the edge of the village, Gene came to the remnants of a Hindu shrine. It was only a small alcove with weathered concrete walls barely higher than Gene’s head. From the outside, it looked forgotten; Gene felt the crunch of leaves as he approached the unswept entrance. But as he got closer, the dreary hues of the outer stone gave way to an explosion of color inside. Marigolds arranged along the dais lent the impression of sunrays radiating from the center, where stood a carved sandalwood icon of Kali, the goddess of time. He recognized her necklace of severed demon heads strung low to her exaggerated hips, the burnt, black body posed in victorious dance, arms raised in mischievous triumph. He recalled the massive ornate goddess at the Kalighat Kali Temple in Calcutta, her three eyes just barely peeking out from an intricate veil of marigolds. This tiny shrine was hardly that grand, but it looked like it had been cared for with all the same devotion.

“I expect some will convert back now,” said Lee behind him. He approached the shrine with his hands behind his back, leaning close to inspect the craftsmanship.

“Won’t the mission send someone to replace us?” Gene said.

“Didn’t you hear?” Lee said. “We’re not the only ones leaving. Nearly half the mission will be going after the monsoons. Not all to America; some are moving to Delhi or Bombay.” He reached a closed hand out to the altar and left there a short stack of silver annas. “Won’t be needing them anymore,” he said with a sideways smile at Gene. “You’re all right?”

It was a silly question—none of this felt all right. Their house was no longer their home, their mother seemed a completely changed person, and John wasn’t even their full brother.

He almost told Lee. If he were going to tell anyone, it would be him. Lee would know what to do. He always did. But what was there to do about it?

And then Gene had the thought that Lee might have known all along. It was so obvious now, the way John took after the judge. He glanced at Lee, who had already retreated from the shrine and was gazing at the sunny courtyard and the women in lighthearted conversation as they chopped and peeled. It occurred to Gene that he would never hear their lilting language again.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Gene said.

“Dad and Mother will pick up work again. John will go to college. And we’ll finish our schooling.”

“No. I don’t mean that,” Gene said. “So much has changed. I don’t think I shall ever be the same person again.”

Lee let out a slow breath and placed his hand on the concrete wall, seeming to steady his thoughts. “You know, I feel like it was bound to happen. Don’t you think so?”

Gene assumed he meant their leaving, but in a way, it seemed like everything that had happened in the last few months was indeed destined. “Our whole lives we’ve been taught to trust in the power of the Lord,” he replied, “but I didn’t know what that really meant until all this happened. Only God could have planned this. Right?”

“That’s the only way to get through life, I think. If you don’t believe it’s God’s work, then it’s just madness.”

“I suppose people in America have never even heard of Kali. Or Krishna, or anything Hindu. Anything Indian, for that matter.”

“Mother will have trouble finding the spices in the grocery stores,” Lee said with a chuckle.

Gene smiled at that, but then sobered as he thought of Arthur and all the times he’d seen him busy at work in the cookhouse or shopping in the bazaar.

Lee must have seen his face fall. “Arthur,” he said.

“He’s going to die, I heard.”

“Yes,” Lee said.

“Do you think he should?”

“I don’t know what to think. I don’t even believe he really did it.”

“He said he did,” Gene said.

“What are you talking about? When?”

“When I visited him in the jail, the night it all happened. Do you know what he said? He said that whatever he did, it was nothing compared to what the judge has done. And not just about the leopard or anything in the last few months. What he did to us. Over all these years. He said Ellis ruined us. We’re not the same anymore.”

“But maybe we were bound to change. We can’t live in India our whole lives and come out the same. And I’m not defending Uncle Ellis or saying Arthur’s wrong, but it’s not so simple as believing that everything that’s happened to us is anyone’s fault but our own.”

“I don’t know,” Gene said. He reached out to feel the marigolds, but pulled his hand back. “I can’t help but think we should never have been in India in the first place.”

Lee looked at him hard and straight. “If we are really so evil, as Arthur said, then the people wouldn’t have given Dad—and us—such a goodbye. Look at them. Look at the good we’ve done.”

“But what good did we do? We didn’t save them from anything. We didn’t bring them wealth, or give them power, or any of that sort of thing. Even religion didn’t make much of a difference. You said so yourself—they’ll probably all convert back after we leave.”

“Fine. You’re right. They probably did more for us than we did for them. They made us feel like we had a purpose, a reason to be in India. But if there’s one thing we did, it’s that every Sunday we gave them peace, and welcomed them, and talked about God and kindness and community. For one day a week, everyone gathered together, and it was joyful.”

They stood in silence as they gazed at the village, another afternoon, the last for them here. Three boys played tag between the huts, their movements so jumbled Gene couldn’t tell which one was “it.” The way they giggled in pure happiness made Gene want to smile too.

“But we could have done so much more,” he said.

“It’s time to board,” Mrs. Hinton said.

Gene barely heard her voice over the buzz of the docks. The ship waited in the murky waters of the Hooghly, a hulking presence amid the small dinghies that zipped by. The gray sky held steady above them, a solid sheet of cloud cover. It was early morning, and their boat was the first headed downriver for the Bay of Bengal. The Hintons stood on the dock, waiting for the gangway to fall. Gene took one last look at Howrah Station across the river and its vibrant redbrick walls, and he thought he could hear the whistle of trains all the way from the docks. He removed his topi and held it to his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to imagine standing there, the chai stall, the guards and their lathis, the clatter of tiffin boxes. He tried to remember it all, one last time.

“Let’s go,” Mrs. Hinton said again.

Gene opened his eyes and put his topi back on. They all reached for the handles of their trunks. All except one.

“I’m staying on,” Mr. Hinton said.

“You’re what?” Mrs. Hinton said.

“I’m staying on,” he said again, as if that explained it.

Mrs. Hinton stared hard at her husband, the wind sweeping strands of hair across her face. She did not move a hand to brush them away. She did not say that his trunk was already packed and here on the dock, ready to go. She did not say that he already had the ticket in his pocket, the ticket they’d had to beg the mission to buy for them, as they had barely any money. She did not say that there was no Big House to go back to, no Chevy; everything was given back to the mission. She did not say, through exasperated tears, that his sons were getting on that ship and heading to America, a long, long journey, a place foreign to them, a place where they had their whole lives ahead of them, and wouldn’t he like to be there? And she didn’t even ask why, because they all knew why.

“I’m sorry I waited until now. But it’s the right thing.”

They all looked at him, with only the breeze running across the planks and the distant hollering of the ship hands to fill the silence. Gene was not surprised to feel unchanged by his father’s words. In a way, it would make no difference where in the world his father was if he was never there when it mattered.

John dropped his satchel and hugged their father tightly, then withdrew and held out his hand as though remembering his age. Lee and Will followed, then Gene, who felt a surprising warmth in his father’s hand. Gene looked up into his eyes and saw something new he had never seen before. He looked relaxed, a softness around his face that made him look younger, like the years had turned back and he was starting anew. Gene couldn’t help but feel hurt by it. Tears sprang to the surface despite himself, and he dropped his head and stepped back.

“You’ll have to take the train back,” Mrs. Hinton said. Her face was set hard, but her trembling voice gave her away.

“You’ll write, and tell me how you’re getting on in America,” Mr. Hinton said.

Mrs. Hinton didn’t answer. She just stood there, clutching her handbag in one hand, the other free to slap him, shake him, or whatever else she must have wanted to do. But she didn’t. She turned and walked up the gangway, her steps thunking hard against the wood.

John, Will, and Lee all followed her, not looking their father in the face. Numb, Gene turned after them.

“Gene,” his father said.

He looked down to see his father’s hand on his elbow. In the other, his father’s reed flute. “I’m sorry I never taught you all to play it.” He glanced up at Gene’s brothers, who had stopped on the gangway and watched with stoic faces.

Gene took one end of the flute in his hand. It felt heavier than he would have thought. He realized he had never touched it before. The wood was worn a dark brown around the holes where his father’s fingertips had played countless melodies. On the underside, toward the tip, the initial H had been engraved decades ago.

“What will you do?” he asked, looking up at his father.

“My calling is with the mission. I feel my work isn’t done yet.”

“What happened here—”

“Never speak of it. To anyone. Nobody in America would understand what it’s like here.”

There was so much, and yet nothing, left to say.

“Goodbye, then,” Gene spoke the words, but it was as if he hadn’t said them himself. They sounded strange in his own voice, like hearing himself speak underwater. His father only nodded back, a curt, single dip of his chin.

Gene slipped the flute into his trousers where it stuck out awkwardly, then shuffled up to the viewing deck, where passengers clung to the railings and waved over the edge to the people below. Stacks of luggage were piled everywhere, with shirtless workers hoisting them off to some out-of-the-way place. But Mrs. Hinton sat on their piled trunks, refusing to move. Gene saw something white in her hand, a piece of paper. He watched her examine it for a moment, her eyes squinting in the daylight. Then she crumpled it, not out of rage but as if to hold it closer, and raised it to her chest with her eyes closed.

Something brushed against Gene’s backside, and he turned to see a massive trunk and two deckhands waiting for him to get out of the way. He stepped aside and found his brothers at the railing.

“Look,” said Lee. He pointed out Mr. Hinton in the crowd, his topi blending in with so many others around him, but Gene could tell it was him.

“Can he see us?” said John.

“Why don’t you wave,” said Will. But no one did.

Gene wondered if their father could even see them from so far below. He gripped the iron railing and felt all the vessel’s voyages ingrained in the metal, staining it, polishing it, leaving marks that could never be erased. He thought about how many times this ship must have sailed around the world. How many more journeys it would make. There must have been a time, years ago, when it first set out to sea, and perhaps there had been a boy aboard, just like him, leaving home for the first time. The blare of the ship’s horn signaled their departure, and Gene felt the deck lurch from beneath him as they pulled away from the port. But their father did not stay to see them sail off. Instead, they were the ones who watched him turn his back, make his way through the crowd, and disappear among the people, the winding streets, the stench, the alleys, the men working, and the children playing with the kind of freedom of those whose parents were not watching.