His birthday was coming, and the house at Talwandi was getting ready.
His mother had been sewing.
All year she had been making him a set of clothes, taking her time, doing it beautifully, and now she kept getting them out and folding them again and putting them away.
Every year she did this.
Some years he came. Some years he did not, and the clothes stayed folded, and next year she made another set.
That year everybody came.
Bhai Lalo Ji came, all the way from Eminabad. He had been reading, he said, and something had shown him Talwandi, and he had thought, his birthday is near, he will be there.
Bhai Bhagirath Ji came. Bhai Mansukh Ji came. Old Rai Bular Ji came, who was very old now and had loved him longest of anybody outside the family.
Jai Ram Ji came out and could not stay in the house, and went from tree to tree in the forest, asking the trees whether Guru Ji had ever sat under them.
And Bebe Nanaki Ji came home to her parents' house.
She was the one they all believed. When Bebe Nanaki Ji said her brother was coming, everybody stopped worrying, because she was never wrong about it.
He goes where he is loved, she told her father. That is simply his nature. Do not be sad.
But the day went on.
And in the evening his mother went up onto the roof with the clothes in her hands and looked out at the road, and came down again, and went to Bebe Nanaki Ji and said: your brother has not come. Look at the house. Call him. You call him, and he will come.
And then she went and shook her husband awake in the courtyard and said: get up. Go out and look. Perhaps he is asleep under a tree somewhere. Go and find him.
And Mehta Kalu Ji got up, and sprinkled water on her face, and had no idea what to do.
Up on the roof, Bebe Nanaki Ji sat down alone as it got dark.
She did not call out. She simply sat there with her eyes closed and let herself want him, the way she had wanted him since she was a girl.
And light came into the courtyard below.
She felt it before she looked. When she opened her eyes and looked down, he was standing there, and he was looking up at her and smiling.
And here is the thing about Bebe Nanaki Ji.
She did not run down.
She stayed exactly where she was, and let her mother have him first.
Down in the courtyard, Mehta Kalu Ji's eyes came open and there was his son standing in front of him bending down, and the old man was up and had hold of him and would not let go.
Then Guru Ji went to his mother, who had cried herself to sleep, and touched her feet.
She stirred and said, without opening her eyes: Guru Nanak Dev Ji has come.
And he said, quietly, the same words back to her: he has come.
Then her eyes opened, and she was up and had him in her arms, and she was crying and holding on and rubbing his shoulders and saying: I have been dead, I have not been a mother. Do not go away again.
And after a while she stopped and looked around and said: where is your sister. Has she seen you.
Mother, he said, my sister sees me always.
And they called her down, and Bebe Nanaki Ji came fast and went to fall at his feet, and he caught her head halfway and bowed his own head to her instead.
By then the whole street knew. The neighbours came with lamps and set them along the rooftops, and there were rose petals coming down, and Rai Bular Ji arrived, and the old disciples, and everybody was embracing everybody.
And then Guru Ji said: where is Jai Ram Ji.
He was out under a tree in the forest, past hearing anybody, saying the name over and over. Bhai Mardana Ji had gone and tried to wake him and could not.
So Guru Ji walked out there himself and bent over him and said: brother. Get up.
Goodnight. There were lamps on every roof in Talwandi that night, and every one of them had been waiting all year.