The Henna Artist(23)

Dr. Kumar put two fingers on the woman’s wrist and checked his watch. “Her pulse is very faint. She may have taken all three doses at once or mixed less water to make it more potent.”

“But she swore she was no more than four months along. I asked her twice and told her it was dangerous if she were any further along. I had no reason not to believe her.”

He stared at me. Did he think I was lying?

“I’ve never given this herb to any woman who is more than four months pregnant. Either Mrs. Harris didn’t know, or she was desperate and lied to me.”

I watched him saturate a cotton ball in alcohol and rub the crook of her arm with it.

“How did you and Samir...find her?”

He removed a vial and syringe from his bag. “A friend of hers phoned Samir at the club where we were having dinner. He said she needed help.” He tapped the Englishwoman’s arm to raise a vein and plunged the needle into it. Joyce Harris flinched. “We picked her up. Her husband and mother-in-law left for Jodhpur today so no one was at home. Hold this here, will you?”

I pressed a ball of cotton firmly on the woman’s arm. Dr. Kumar capped the syringe and put his implements back in his bag. Then he picked up the woman’s wrist and looked at his watch for a long moment. His fingers were long, his nails immaculate. He laid her wrist back on the quilt.

“I’ve given her a tiny bit of morphine for the pain—but I need her conscious. The morphine shouldn’t interfere with what you gave her. But we’ll need antibiotics to fight the infection.” Dr. Kumar’s cautious eyes explored my hands, my face, my hair. I noticed threads of silver in his dark curls, a freckle above his upper lip. “Do you really think, Mrs. Shastri, that you can cure a woman’s...problems...with herbs?”

“When a woman has no other options, yes.”

“This woman would have had options.”

“She didn’t think so.”

“How is that possible? She’s English. She has all the options in the world. A hospital for whites, for one.”

“And if the baby’s father is Indian?”

The doctor’s fine eyebrows rose and he regarded his patient with new curiosity.

“Samir didn’t tell you, then?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Radha move. All at once, I remembered she was still in the room. She had heard everything. I stole a glance at her as I said to the doctor, “Mrs. Harris doesn’t know if the baby is her husband’s.” Please, Radha, try to understand.

Radha covered her mouth with her hand.

The doctor’s fine eyebrows rose. “Still, with herbs, it’s risky. For all you know, you may have given her poison.”

I clenched my jaw. “I have done no such thing, Dr. Kumar. I’ve given her an herb that makes the womb slippery. Within a six-to eight-hour period, the fetal material will slide out, along with any sustenance the mother’s been creating for the baby.” To my own ears, my words sounded defensive.

“And how exactly does your herb make the womb slippery, as you put it?”

“It stops the woman’s body from producing a substance that helps attach the egg to her womb.”

He studied me for a long moment. “Progesterone,” he said. “What you’re referring to is called progesterone.” The doctor checked his patient’s pulse. “Have you ever had a woman experience adverse side effects from your herb?”

“Never.”

Dr. Kumar opened his mouth, as if to ask another question, when a loud knock at the door startled us all. Joyce Harris let out a small yelp, and for the briefest of seconds, her eyes circled the room wildly before she collapsed again into quiet delirium. The doctor and I stared at each other.

Mrs. Iyengar’s loud whisper could be heard from the other side of the door. “Kya ho gya? Mrs. Shastri, what’s all the noise and fuss about?”

Quickly, Radha climbed into bed next to the sick woman and pulled the quilt over them both, hiding Mrs. Harris from sight.

“It’s two o’clock in the morning!” Mrs. Iyengar began to open the door.

I rushed to block her entry. “I’m sorry, Ji. My sister—she’s not well.”

Mrs. Iyengar craned her neck to peer around me. Radha let out a moan, feigning pain, to cover the soft cries of the Englishwoman.

“I called for the doctor, Mrs. Iyengar,” I indicated Dr. Kumar with my eyes. “I’m so very sorry for waking you.”

Joyce Harris began to murmur, and Radha groaned louder. Dr. Kumar reached for my sister’s wrist, pressing it with his thumb as he looked at his watch. “She needs rest, Mrs. Shastri,” he said, as if annoyed by the landlady’s intrusion.

Radha closed her eyes and cried out, “Jiji.”

“Perhaps she’s eaten something—”

“I must go, Mrs. Iyengar—” I moved to close the door.

But the landlady didn’t want to leave. “Sour and salty in the winter, my husband always says, sweet and mild in the summer—”

“Yes, yes, thank you. I’ll take that advice and add to it the doctor’s. So sorry to have awakened you.”

I shut the door firmly and braced my back against it. I stared at Radha in amazement. How had she known what to do? Her actions had been swift and clever.