The Henna Artist(16)
No further explanation would I give and, with Malik, none was required. “Chewing paan will make your teeth black, you know.”
Unfazed, the boy replied, “Today’s market day, Auntie-Boss. No ladies to swoon over me.” He grinned, his teeth stained with tobacco paste.
From my petticoat, I pulled out a shopping list and handed it to him. Malik scanned it. “Anything else?”
I glanced at the row of bottles on my worktable. “Lavender oil.” We’d used the last of it on Radha’s bruises this morning. “And magnolia extract.” Radha’s feet had been far drier than Lala’s. I wondered if Radha had ever worn shoes in her life.
Malik nodded. He was staring at my sister again.
From the floor, I picked up Radha’s dirty traveling clothes. “When you come back from the market, burn these.”
Radha let out a small cry.
I turned to look at her. Perhaps they were her only clothes. “They’re infested, Radha. We’ll get you something new.”
She blushed, glanced at Malik and quickly dropped her gaze. Had I embarrassed her by saying such a thing in front of him? I glanced at him to see his reaction, but his face was a blank. I ushered him out the door, and we walked down the stairs to our separate errands.
When I returned to my room with the steel milk jug, I stopped at the threshold, aware that something had changed. Radha stood to one side of the long table where I kept my herbs, her hands clasped behind her. Her eyes had the wariness of a wild animal. What had she done? Whatever it was, she must have thought I was going to punish her. My eyes scanned the bottles of oils and lotions, my mortar and pestle, the marble board where I spliced my plants and seeds—all were slightly askew and not in the order I had left them. The jar of fresh herbs had also been moved. Then I saw it. In the bowl where I’d submerged my blouse with frangipani blossoms, one blossom was missing. I looked at Radha, whose hands flew up to her hair. There, on top of the bun I had arranged on her head, was the other flower.
Her smile was sly. “Tenth thing—always smell of flowers if you want ladies to invite you into their homes.”
Last night, after the first, second, third and fourth thing, I taught her the fifth thing: sit up straight (she was hunched, as if she were used to squatting on the ground over the laundry or the cooking); sixth thing: don’t let your mouth hang open (she stared at scooters as if she were seeing monkeys singing in Hindi); seventh thing: eat with your mouth closed (she barely finished one bite of chapatti before starting another, as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks); and eighth thing: smile when I introduce you to Mrs. Iyengar in the morning (Radha’s usual expression seemed to be a worried scowl). When I was up to the ninth thing, Radha had finished her dinner, and her eyelids were starting to droop. I spread a bedsheet in front of the almirah. She’d been scratching her head, and I told her once we got the juey out of her hair, she could sleep on the cot with me. She didn’t argue. Either she was used to sleeping on the floor or she was too exhausted to fuss.
I had been on my own for so long and had no experience raising a child. Should I remind her to ask instead of just taking something, or should I indulge her, a village girl enchanted with the everyday niceties I took for granted? A flower was such a small thing, after all.
I moved into the room and set the milk jug on the table. I smiled at her. Pointing to the bowl with the remaining blossom and my blouse, I said, “Would you hang my blouse to dry on the roof while I fix my hair?”
Her body relaxed, as if she had been holding her breath. She picked up one of the bottles on the table and asked, “Jiji, what is this one for?”
“That’s bawchi oil,” I said. “It makes your hair grow. You don’t need it. Yours is thick enough.”
She pointed to a clay bowl sitting atop a square of red velvet. Its rim was stained a dark cinnamon. “Is there something special about that pot?”
Before she could lay her hands on my saas’s old mixing bowl, I steered her away from the table. “I mix henna paste in it. Now hurry with the blouse.” Checking my wristwatch, I said, “We’re going to the seamstress. If we catch her early, she’ll be bargaining on an empty stomach.”
* * *
The seamstress’s sparse hair was parted in the middle and pulled into a straggly bun. Parts of her yellow-brown scalp showed through. After she had pinned the three pairs of salwaar-kameez we’d brought with us, she leaned out her second-story window and called for tea. Five minutes later, a boy entered, carrying three tiny glasses of steaming chai. I accepted a glass, but the layer of oil floating on top kept me from taking a sip. Radha, on the other hand, had gulped hers down in less than a minute. She did the same to mine when I handed it to her. I would have to teach her how to drink without seeming thirsty.
“How much?” I asked the tailor.
The woman removed a large tin of Scorpion Brand Snuff from a shelf and pinched the tobacco between her thumb and forefinger. She inhaled it, sharply, first through one nostril, then the other, the way Maa used to, then snorted, with her mouth open.
“You never told me you had a sister,” she said.
I said, “You never told me you had the raw silk in orange when I asked for it. Imagine my surprise when I saw Parvati Singh wearing a blouse you’d made from the same fabric.”
Her lips flattened.
I noticed Radha watching us, eyes darting from the tailor to me.