Now he is the service.
Finally he reaches his mother, her face stern, jaw clenched, eyes not wavering from the portrait of Christ.
“Ma!”
The room is in uproar.
A voice cries, “Mary, see, he has returned!”
“Returned from the dead.”
“Your son has returned!”
“It’s a miracle, Mary.”
Other voices. “He’s an impostor.”
“The Devil.”
“Ma!” he says. “It’s me. Ajay. Your son.”
3.
She is before him, aged and withered, grief-hollowed, in a tattered lime sari, not the shining, terrible woman who visits in his sleep.
“Ma,” he says.
The crowd has hushed.
“Ma,” the sweet, frightened girl says, clinging to her arm.
His mother finally stands, turns, will not make eye contact. She crosses herself, says a silent prayer, and limps past him.
He cannot tolerate this. He grabs her by the arms.
And now she releases herself, her fury.
“Do not touch me!” she says. “I don’t know you.”
He has no words. His hand goes limp.
She hobbles through the crowd toward the exit. Doesn’t look back at him.
Some in the crowd speak in his favor now, moved by the scene.
“Mary, it’s your son.”
“Forgive him.”
She stops. Shakes her head.
“He’s not my son.”
His anger swells. He goes after her. “I’m here! I’m your son!”
She turns to him, her anger stiffened, tensed into stone. “You stand here, but you’re not my son. My son is dead.”
She makes her way for the exit, out into the hovel row.
“I’m not dead,” he says.
As he tries to follow, a new disorder.
“Father, Father, Father,” voices say. “Father Jacob . . .”
A man dressed in the robes of a priest enters, bald and chubby, with strong searching eyes. He stands in Ajay’s path, holds out a peaceful palm.
“Father Jacob . . . Mary’s son is here.”
But Ajay just pushes outside past the father.
* * *
—
She is standing a short distance away, her back to him. Not moving.
“I came for you,” he cries, a sense of rage and injustice filling his insides.
He understands as he says it just how hollow this sounds.
“I searched for you,” he tries again. “I never forgot.”
His head swims. He has money, good clothes, he has made it; against the odds, he is a big man. And he has returned. Dozens of colony dwellers have gathered, craning their necks, whispering, jostling to see this spectacle.
“Even though you sent me away,” he says, “I returned. I know you had to do it. I know you needed to send me to work. I worked hard, Ma. I did it for you. They told me . . . they sent you money every month . . .”
She turns and limps toward him. “No one sent money,” she says with scorn.
He lowers his eyes.
“No one would ever send money. I sold you,” she says. “That was it. I sold you, but I would have given you away!”
Gasps from the crowd.
“Mary!”
“He’s your son.”
“He’s not my son!” she roars. She turns on Ajay. “It would have been better if you died.”
“Mary!”
“Ma . . .”
“It’s because of you,” she says. “All because of you.”
“No, Ma . . . you sent me away. I did what you told.”
“It was your fault.”
“No, Ma . . .”
“You let the goat free! You let it roam into that field!”
“Ma . . .”
His mind reels. What is she saying to him? How can he . . .
“If it wasn’t for you, they wouldn’t have come!”
So many years of grief unraveling, charging her speech.
The sister Ajay never knew rushes to their mother’s side, calms her, begs her to stop, but is thrown down.
“And then . . . when . . . after . . .” His mother’s eyes well with tears.
And it hits.
Hema.
Where is Hema?
“You ran away!”
Where is his sister?
His mother goes on. “You ran when they came!”
“No!” he cries. “I fought them!”
“Fought them? You coward. You ran.”
His young sister sobs on the ground.
“Where’s Hema?” Ajay says in a low voice.
“And they came to buy you, and you were sold.”