The Henna Artist(58)

My memories grew hazy about the time I started working at the palace; since that day I’d seen Radha less, and only for brief periods. If she wasn’t at school, or at Kanta’s house, where had she been?

I frowned. “She had bruises when she first arrived here.”

Hari returned to the charpoy, and sat. He put a finger to his forehead, which now was weeping blood. He winced. “We didn’t take the train. I used your money to pay debts. We rode on lorries, farm wagons.” He swallowed. “One night, we were on a truck carrying sheep. When the driver stopped to relieve himself, I did the same. When I returned to the truck, he was trying to—” Hari glanced at me, quickly, before looking away. “But I stopped him. Nothing happened. Radha was safe.”

I covered my eyes with my hand. All my fault. I could hear men chatting, laughing, outside.

For a long moment, neither of us said a word.

Then: “Will you take her child? Like you took ours?” he asked.

I took my hand away and looked at him. “What?”

“You took our children away. Why?” His lips trembled.

I swallowed hard. “What children?”

Tears filled his eyes. “Maa knew all along what you were doing.” He pressed his palms together. “How could you?”

“You’re talking foolishness.”

“Our children were gifts from Bhagwan.”

I fought to keep from shouting. Gifts from God?

During the day, I would take the tonics, broths, seeds and concoctions that saas fed me to increase fertility. But while she and my husband slept, I’d prepare the brew that kept me childless for the two years of our marriage. The moment my breasts felt tender and I couldn’t keep food down, I would drink my saas’s cotton root bark tea. Relief came only after the bleeding started—when I knew my pregnancy was over.

His mother was the one who had opened my eyes. How could I explain that to him?

Day after day, I worked alongside her to heal women—most were children still, twenty years old or younger, bodies weak from too many births, too many of them rough. Their days were filled with worry about how to feed their brood; at night they prayed their husbands would come home from labor too tired to add to their troubles. One day Saasuji taught me to prepare the contraceptive tea. And I realized that cotton root bark could change a woman’s life: she could choose for herself.

That was what I wanted: a life that could fulfill me in a way that children wouldn’t. From that day, I hoarded all the knowledge my mother-in-law could give me. Let her be the rolling pin that shapes a ball of chappati. Almost overnight, my world grew large with possibility.

Hari stood, began pacing. “I thought you’d left me for another man. I thought...all kinds of things. I worried you’d been hurt. You might be lying in a ditch. You might be sick, or injured. I looked everywhere for you. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t work. And Maa.” He looked at me, his eyes filled with pain. “She was never the same. Not after you left.”

I closed my eyes. I could imagine my mother-in-law as if she were standing in the room with us, neat and trim in her widow’s sari and her round eyeglasses. Always gentle, always kind. I’m sorry, Saasuji.

I wiped roughly at my eyes, my nose. “You didn’t deserve your mother,” I said to Hari.

All at once, his eyes were aflame. “My mother always took your side. When we realized you were gone for good, she went to her jar and found you’d taken all the money and her herb pot. I thought she’d be angry, but she said, ‘Shabash.’ She thought I hadn’t heard her congratulating you, but I had. My Maa chose you!”

His tears were real; he wiped them with his palms.

It had never occurred to me that his mother had hoped I’d use the money. We never spoke about the beatings Hari gave me for being barren. Rarely had Hari hit me in the face, and my sari covered the bruises on my body. Only now was I remembering that when she treated women with a swollen face, she’d insist I prepare the poultice. Had she been showing me how to heal myself?

“You left me huddled on the floor with bruises every time you learned that my menses had come.” I could still remember how frightened I’d felt. “One day, I figured you’d go too far.”

He winced. “I’ve—I’ve tried to make amends.”

Well, this was a surprise. “How? By following me around town and taking my money?”

He started to speak, then stopped. Gingerly, he touched his forehead, feeling the bump there. “I help women who need help.”

“The pleasure girls?”

He heard the skepticism in my voice and shook his head. “You don’t believe me. That’s fine. I wouldn’t have believed me either ten years ago. Except...Maa taught me what she taught you, after you left. And I understood, at last, why those women sought her out. She was their last hope.”

He must have seen the shock on my face. He sighed.

“See, I knew about her sachets. It made me angry that men were being deprived of their children. Then you started helping her. And one night—you didn’t know—but I saw you drinking her tea. I was so...angry...and ashamed that you didn’t want my children. Then you...left, and Maa got ill.”

He stopped, passed a hand over his eyes. “A woman came to her for help. She was...bleeding from her womb.” He looked away. “Her husband had thrust a—a broom handle there because she had laughed at another man’s joke. She had lost so much blood...she was half-dead. Maa told me what to do, where to harvest the herbs we needed, how to relieve the woman’s pain.”