The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar Page A

wrap up the class. “Okay,” she said. “See
    you all on Wednesday.”
    She and Asha walked out of the stuffy classroom into the bright
    light of the day. “How come there was no class last week?” Ellie
    asked.
    Asha looked at her dust-covered feet. “We were too busy with
    the AIDS prevention class, miss,” she mumbled.
    Shit. She had forgotten. Last week had been AIDS education
    week. And Nandita had been too decent to mention it to her.
    “Shall we start our rounds, miss?” Asha asked. “Many-many
    women waiting to see you today.”
    “Sure,” Ellie replied. “But listen, did you find Radha? She was
    here two weeks ago. I need to spend some extra time with her.”
    Radha had come to the clinic bearing black marks on her chocolate
    brown skin, signatures of her husband’s violence. Those big, dark
    eyes, glistening with unshed tears, had haunted Ellie, had made her
    7 6 Th r i t y U m r i g a r
    want to confront Radha’s husband, even while she knew that doing
    so would only make life harder for the girl.
    “She afraid to come to the clinic, miss. Says we should come to
    her house.”
    Ellie glanced at her watch. “Okay. Let’s attend to the women at
    the clinic first. I’ll make sure to keep some time to go see Radha
    after that.”
    It was almost three thirty by the time they got done at the clinic.
    As always, Ellie left the building drained in a way she never had
    been even after spending a full day at her practice in Ann Arbor.
    The problems of the women of Girbaug seemed so intractable to
    her—impoverished mothers-in-law demanding more dowries from
    the penniless girls who married into their families; drunken husbands who routinely beat their wives and children to relieve their
    frustration at being squeezed by ruthless landlords and moneylenders; women who had given birth to three consecutive daughters
    being shunned by the community; middle-aged women who cried
    for no apparent reason and carried themselves in that listless way
    that Ellie recognized as depression.
    Most of the time, Ellie was at a loss as to what advice to give them.
    All the things that she had suggested to her mostly white, middleclass clientele in Michigan seemed laughable here. What could she
    ask these women to do? Go to the gym to combat depression? Take
    Prozac when they could barely afford wheat for their bread? Join
    Al Anon to learn to accept the things and behaviors they couldn’t
    change? These women were masters of acceptance—already they
    accepted droughts and floods and infections and disease and hunger.
    As for asking them to change their own behaviors, what would that
    do? There were no shelters for battered women that they could go to,
    no twelve-step programs that their husbands could enter, no social
    institutions to support women who deviated from the norm. So Ellie
    mostly listened while they spoke their woes, nodding sympathetically, sometimes cradling them as they sobbed and cursed their bad
    Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n
    7 7
    luck. She told herself that simply giving these women, who nobody
    saw as anything beyond mother-sister-wife, a chance to vent was
    worth something. Once in a while she suggested some small behavior modification, and mostly they told her why that wouldn’t work,
    but sometimes a woman returned the following week with a story of
    minor success, thanking Ellie for the suggestion. Those small victories Ellie carried around with her the rest of the week.
    Now, she staggered out of the clinic with Asha, who acted as her
    translator, by her side. She squinted at the sun and at the dry, dusty
    road that stretched before them. Despite the recent rains, the land
    looked as parched and thirsty as ever. “Where does Radha live?”
    she asked.
    “Very close by, only,” Asha said.
    As always, Ellie was impressed by the simplicity and cleanliness of the mud huts that stood near each other as they entered the
    main area of the village. A few dogs were lying on their sides under
    the