The Henna Artist(90)

Lala, Parvati’s former servant, was looking at me with concern. She led me away from the sewage, then used the end of her sari to wipe a corner of my mouth.

I put my hand on her wrist to stop her, using my own pallu to wipe my mouth.

“It’s a hard habit to break,” she said, smiling, “after raising MemSahib’s boys all those years.”

Her dark face was leaner than I remembered, the cheeks sunken. I took in her patched sari.

“Where did you go after...?” I couldn’t complete the question. I already knew why she and her niece had been fired from the Singhs’. Samir had confirmed it.

The woman ran a tongue over her teeth. “To my brother’s at first. He’s a big man, a builder, and he has means. But he refused because she was with child. Finally, he arranged a marriage for her.”

I remembered that Naraya had been arranging a hasty marriage for his pregnant daughter. “Your brother—is he called Naraya?”

Her eyes welled with tears. “Hahn.” She wiped them with her sari. “A harder man you will not find. Called his own daughter a whore, a she-dog.”

I already knew the answer but I had to ask, “And Master Ravi—”

“I raised him, but I spoiled him, too. We all did. Such a beautiful boy he was. I told my niece he wasn’t for her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Where is she now?”

Tears rolled down the old woman’s wrinkled cheeks. “Her new husband locked her out of the house when he found out she was already pregnant. She sat in the courtyard, Ji, and put herself on fire. They both died—her and the baby.”

My legs gave way. I would have fallen if Lala hadn’t supported me.

“I had heard about your sachets. They could have helped her.” That day, a year ago, at Parvati’s. I remembered Lala standing on the veranda. I had a sense that she wanted to talk, but she seemed to lose her nerve. I should have sought her out and asked what she needed. It’s the kind of thing my saas would have done. How far I’d come from everything my mother-in-law stood for!

I looked at Lala. Here I’d been feeling sorry for myself, when this woman had given everything—even her livelihood—to take care of her niece.

“And you, Lala? How...?”

“I tried other ladies, but MemSahib made sure they wouldn’t hire me. I clean houses now. Here, in this neighborhood.”

Parvati had ruined Lala, too, to protect her son from scandal.

I stood up, leaning on Lala for support, dizzy from the effort. “I wish—I’m so sorry—”

“We are powerless against God’s will, Ji.”

She rubbed my back, as she might have comforted a child.

My saas wouldn’t have scolded me for my actions, or lack thereof, either; she would have patted my arm pityingly, as Lala was doing now, which was worse. I wanted to shed my skin and start over.

I mumbled another apology before turning toward home.



* * *



Malik caught up with me a mile from Rajnagar. He stank of cigarettes.

I edged away. I stank, too, of sick and shame.

I was holding a piece of my henna pot in one hand. He looked at it.

“I’ll take you home,” he said.

“I have no money for a rickshaw.”

“I do.”

“I don’t want your money,” I said, regretting now how harshly I’d spoken. “I have two legs.”

“So do I. We’ll walk together.”

Malik had been my helper, and my friend, for a long time. He’d followed me around Jaipur for a while before I noticed him. When I did, I saw a skinny child, bedraggled, shoeless, watching me with eyes alert and clear. I knew that if I waited long enough, he would come to me. When he did, to ask if he could carry my tiffins, he spoke respectfully, but also with a confidence that belied his youth and frail body. I handed my tiffins over to him, as I handed my carrier to him now.

I didn’t deserve his loyalty, just as I hadn’t deserved the comfort Lala had tried to give me.

“Auntie-Boss.”

“I’m not your boss anymore.”

“You’ll always be my boss,” he said with the smile that came so easily to him. “Because you’re smarter than Chef.” He started walking backward so he could face me. “I told him I could get the sweetest raw cashews from the Pathans—better than the ones he puts on his lamb curry—for less than he’s paying now. And the fool turned me down. You know why?”

I said nothing.

“He won’t do business with a Muslim—except for me, of course! But you’re a better businessman. You would have gone for the better deal.”

I stopped walking. “If I’m so smart, why don’t I have two stones to rub together?”

“Arré! That was my fault! When you were in Shimla, I bragged about your henna to the kulfi-walla.” Malik spat. “He put henna on his hair and told everyone you had done it! Now all of Jaipur thinks you’ve touched his unclean head.”

That explained why the tailor and the vegetable seller crossed the street when they saw me coming. And why the doodh-walla had stopped delivering my milk. When I went to ask the milkman if he’d forgotten, he said he wouldn’t take money from a fallen Brahmin. Now I scurried weekly to a shop twenty minutes from my home, hiding my face in my pallu, trying not to call attention to myself, like a petty criminal.