As the car drove in Ruhi and Seeo rushed from the chullah to greet Preeti,
"Mom no more," said Sameer and the women started wailing, the had feared the worst and it had happened. Preeti was taken into the bedroom. Seated on a cot, lost in a world of her own head, the aged and unwell Seeto muttered gibberish. Sameer hugged her saying,
"Dadee, mom no more."
"Mom no more?" she asked, "She'll come back from college, in the evening."
Ruhi, taking in the end of Arma, Preeti and Beeru continued sobbing and shaking her head at so much deaths in one day in one family.
Hearing the commotion the still sleeping Shiv Ram and Sangram woke up and headed straight for Seeto at the chullah for their morning tea. Sameer placed a charpoy between them, put his around them and said, "Brothers, we just came back from the hospital, mom....!"
"Mom, what?" asked Shiv.
"She is...." began Sameer haltingly.
"But where is she?"
"She's gone to heaven," said Sameer pulling them closer.
Shiv began crying. Sangram not yet schooled in Qadian's verbal gymnastics in euphemisms asked, "Why can't you say mom is dead if she is?"
"She is gone to heaven, looking out for us from up above," insisted Sameer.
"What good is that? From the skies, that's where heaven is Daadee Ruhi says, mom can't help me with school work," said Sangram before joining Shiv in crying.
As Jagat and the circumcised child from the road walked from the Khooh to home, he ad decided the name the child Hassan after his teacher and friend Hassan Khan.
"Hassan, your brothers Sameer, Shive, Sangram and Gogi," said Jagat as the two entered the home; Gamma's son Gogi had just come in, too. Hassan saw Sangram crying, walked over and said,"Hey Zulu don't cry, Abba coming soon."
'Hey Hassan beta, who's Zulu?" asked Jagat.
"Him, my brother Zulu," said Hassan pointing to Sangram.
Imaging Hassan's loss Jagat's insides were ready to explode with his disgust at the partition and its crimes.
"Hey boys show your little brother Hassan around," said Jagat out looud for all the other boys to hear, so loud as if he wanted his own mind to be distracted from thoughts of death and partition that brought pain. Soon Hassan was walking around holding the boys' index fingers. Thoughts of Jagat turned to Preeti and he wanted to see her by himself, touch and feel her body, kiss her lips for one last time before shwas dressed up and placed in the yard for others to see. Possessed by the intense desire of his one last chance of privacy with Preeti he took his first step toward the room where she lay when Ruhi said,"My daughter, she is ready son. Let's place her on the cot outside for everyone to see. She's so beautiful. She'd leave us for the far away heaven where fairies live," said Ruhi.
"But of course she's beautiful, more beautiful than your imagined fairies Amma," he said suppressing his desires, Unable to defy Ruhi to see Preeti alone....men didn't do that to dead wives, she would have said--he felt cheated and took off for the khooh. Men had just finished bathing Atma and Beeru. On Atma, Jagat told them, he personally wanted to tie the turban. As he moved his hands to tie it, the others holding up his head, he remembered Atma coming out the sugarcane field moments before Seebo emerged a few yards away. He had long forgiven him for it buut as he wrapped the turban around his head he felt the forgiveness
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