The Henna Artist(22)

I curved my body around hers again, as if I were hugging my mother, as I longed to do.

Radha squeezed my hand, bringing me back to the present, reminding me that I had a living, breathing sister. She may not be my penance for the wrong I had committed, but my salvation. I could no longer make anything right with my parents, could no longer humble myself before them, could no longer restore their good reputation. But I could take care of my sister, guide Radha into maturity, into womanhood. Make sure she became someone my parents would be proud of—unlike me.

Radha stirred. “Jiji, remember Munchi-ji?”

I remembered the old man in Ajar, hunched over a tiny leaf skeleton, painting a gopi and cow no larger than my thumb, dotting the milkmaid’s sari with his camelhair brush. He’d been the one I’d run to when my parents argued about money. I escaped my mother’s bitter silences and my father’s drinking by losing myself in my painting. Old man Munchi taught me to see, to really notice, every tiny detail of what I was about to paint before ever handing me a brush. It was this practice that made it easy for me to pick up a henna reed years later and paint designs etched intricately in my memory.

“Is he still painting?” I asked.

“Hahn. He always said you were his best student.”

I found myself smiling. “Did you paint with him, too?”

“I don’t have your gift, Lakshmi. Mostly, I made the skeletons for him out of peepal leaves. I also ground his paints.” She turned to look at me again, a mischievous smile playing at her lips. “Do you know what you get when you feed a cow mango leaves, then mix the cow patty with urine and clay?”

“What?”

“Orange paint!” She grinned. “Munchi-ji said my paint was smooth as silk.”

“I can show you how to grind henna leaves to make my paste if you’d like.”

“Accha.” Yes. She closed her eyes, yawning loudly.

“You should cover your mouth when you yawn, Radha.”

Her eyes slid upward, coyly, to meet mine, her lips curving. “Twentieth thing?”



* * *



I’d always been a light sleeper, so when I heard the rattle of the doorknob, I was immediately awake and off the cot. It was still dark outside. Radha was fast asleep. Samir burst through the door, and my first thought was that he’d had too much to drink at his club and lost his head—until I noticed the woman in his arms. She was bundled in a quilt. Eyes closed, moaning softly. Samir’s friend, Dr. Kumar, stood beside him. As I sprang out of bed, I glanced at the wall clock. It was two in the morning. I ushered them inside the room before Mrs. Iyengar woke up.

When I flipped the light switch, Samir’s expression was grim.

“Something’s wrong with Mrs. Harris,” Samir whispered. “Kumar has some questions for you.” Then his eyes darted around the room until he spotted my cot, where Radha was propped on one elbow, rubbing her eyes.

I rushed to her. “Radha, please get up.”

She scampered off, her eyes growing wider, as Samir laid his charge carefully on the cot, on the sheet where she and I slept. As he did, the quilt fell open and I saw the congealed blood shining in the weak light of the ceiling bulb. Joyce Harris’s eyelids, flushed and blue-veined, fluttered, and her knees rose toward her chest. She was clutching her stomach. Her teeth were chattering so loudly I was surprised Mrs. Iyengar wasn’t already pounding at my door, telling me to be quiet.

“Why are you bringing her—”

“No time. Kumar will explain.”

I noticed the doctor’s black medicine bag. He pulled a stethoscope from it.

Samir grasped my hands. “Thank you, Lakshmi. Please do as Dr. Kumar says,” he begged. Then he was gone, pulling the door closed quietly behind him. The whole exchange had taken less than a minute. The air in the room was close, thick with the Englishwoman’s moans.

Dr. Kumar, whose eyes hadn’t yet found a place to rest, kept his voice low. “She’s taken something. I need to know what she took and how much.”

“I don’t understand—”

“What’s to understand?” He frowned. “She’s taken a dangerous herb to kill her baby, and she’ll die unless I know what she took.”

“But I only—” I felt my face flush. “Hasn’t Samir explained to you what I—”

“Do you know how risky it is to abort a baby at five months?” His gray eyes flashed.

“Five months?” My mouth hung open.

Kumar nodded and placed his stethoscope on Mrs. Harris’s abdomen. She let out a cry. “I’m picking up the baby’s heartbeat, so it’s eighteen weeks at least. But the heartbeat is faint. The woman has lost a lot of blood. She needs a transfusion. Samir is calling in favors to get her to a private hospital.” As he talked, his eyes wandered from Joyce Harris to me. “I don’t think the baby will survive.” He glanced at my hands, which were clasped in front of my sari.

Finally, he removed the stethoscope. “What did you give her?” His words were measured, as if he were trying to contain his anger.

I tore my eyes from the woman writhing on the cot. “I gave her cotton root bark in the form of a tea. If she had followed my directions, she would have boiled one tea sachet in a quart of hot water. She was supposed to sip it every hour until she had finished the quart. Then repeat the process. That’s usually all it takes to expel fully. But I left an extra sachet with her just in case.”