The Henna Artist(18)

It was the respectable cover Samir offered me that cinched the deal. I could offer my henna to high-caste women like his wife while I discreetly sold my contraceptive tea sachets to his friends and acquaintances. When Parvati lamented her inability to conceive, I fed her what my saas would have—red clover, primrose oil and wild yam in the form of sweets or savories—until she became pregnant with Govind. Pleased, Parvati introduced me to the ladies whose names now graced my appointment book.

By the time I met Samir in 1945, I had already created my own life of independence. I could pay for my lodging, eat well and send a little money home to my parents. What Samir did was offer me a chance to grow my business, and I grabbed it, the way a child grabs a firefly: snatch the air—quick!—before it disappears.

Now, standing in front of a neat row of bungalows, I checked Samir’s note from yesterday: Mrs. J. Harris. 30-N Tulsi Marg. The woman with the gray victory rolls on either side of her head, who was snipping spent flowers off a climbing rose on the front terrace, looked past her childbearing years. I looked at the address again, puzzled. In all the time I’d been making my herb sachets, I hadn’t encountered a woman on the far side of fifty who needed them. Still, with English women, you never knew. The Jaipur sun was as merciless on their freckled skin as it was on the hands of my Indian ladies.

“Mrs. J. Harris?” I asked.

The Englishwoman turned and flashed a smile crowded with gray teeth. “You’ve found her! The gardener never gets this right. If I want it done properly, I have to do it myself. You must be the governess come to interview. Good with babies, are you? Well, I must say you look a mite cleaner than the ones the army’s sent. But then, my husband, Jeremy, used to say, how can they clean the dust off when they haven’t any proper place to bathe?

“Major in the British Army, he was. After he died, I stayed on. Couldn’t very well afford a Bristol cottage on his army pension, could I? I’ll call for tea, shall I? I warn you—none of that spicy chai you all like so much...bad for the stomach. Good old-fashioned English tea for me, thank you. Come inside. You must be freezing, dear. Twenty-one Celsius is glorious as far as I’m concerned, but you Indians pull out your woolies the instant there’s the slightest breeze. Never understood it. Fresh air’s the stuff for me!” Her busy English swallowed the r and softened the d—consonants we Indians took such care to pronounce. Army came off as aamy. Indians became Injuns.

Murmuring apologies, I turned, ready to make a hasty departure, when a younger woman rushed through the front door to rescue me.

“Ah, there you are, Mrs. Shastri. I believe you have some products to show me? My friends have been raving about your hand creams!”



* * *



We sat in the young Englishwoman’s bedroom with the door locked, our voices low.

“I apologize for my mother-in-law, Mrs. Shastri,” she whispered.

I had a feeling she was apologizing for more than her saas’s presence.

“She is Mrs. Jeremy Harris. I’m also Mrs. Harris but my first name is Joyce.” The young woman’s cheeks pinked. “My mother-in-law had a bridge game scheduled today but it was canceled. I’d assumed we’d be alone.”

“Mrs. Harris, I don’t wish to pry, but your mother-in-law seemed to think I was applying to be a governess. You have another child?”

Joyce Harris shook her head, lowering her eyes to her belly.

“But you are pregnant? And your pregnancy is not a secret?”

She shook her head again.

“I need to know how far along you are,” I said gently.

Her eyes filled. Two tears dropped onto the bodice of her cheerful nylon dress. She watched the water travel down the length of the flowered fabric but made no move to wipe it away.

“Mrs. Harris?”

She hesitated. “F-four months.”

It wasn’t safe for women to eliminate babies too far into their pregnancy; four months was the upper limit. When women came to my mother-in-law for help, she would tell me: we must leave the women as healthy as we found them. “You’re sure?”

A beat, and then she nodded.

“At this stage it would be risky—both for you and for the baby. And my main concern is for your safety. I need you to be sure it’s no longer than four—”

She interrupted me with an urgent whisper. “I want this baby with all my heart. But if I’m thrown out on the street...”

The women I helped always wanted to confess their guilt, but it would have been easier for me and for them not to take me into their confidence. I wet my lips. I had to be sure she was telling me the truth.

“If you can tell me with absolute certainty that you aren’t more than four months along, and if you follow my instructions precisely as I give them to you, then you should be fine, but—”

“I can’t sleep. My headache is constant. If I could have this baby, I would. But I don’t know if it’s...my husband’s.”

Many of the women I handled at Samir’s request were having an affair.

“Madam, there is no need to explain.”

Joyce Harris leaned toward me and clasped my hand, startling me. I stared at the pale skin stretched across her knuckles, the loose wedding band, her bright red nail polish. She expected from me what wasn’t mine to give. Forgiveness. Absolution. I was a stranger.