Page 15 of The Henna Artist

He held a hand to his heart and tilted his head. “Auntie-Boss, I’m taking care of my ladies.” He pulled me up by the hand, then turned to help Radha. His mouth was busy sucking a tamarind candy, and he offered one to Radha, who hungrily popped it into her mouth.

Thirteenth thing:eating sweets will ruin your teeth, I added mentally to Radha’s list. Busying myself with the purchases, I began unwrapping the newspaper bundles. “Did you get the Moonstar brand of lavender oil?”

Malik, who had squeezed in next to Radha, leaned forward to look at me. “A wise man to the rest of the world is a nobody at home.Madam, notonlyMoonstar but a discount on the best brand money can buy.”

“So I should be getting money back?”

He held his hands out, palms up, toward the rickshaw driver. “Does the driver work for free?”

This made me want to laugh, but I stopped when I saw him lift his brows andsalaamRadha formally, his cupped palm rolling gracefully from his forehead to his mouth to his heart, making her smile. I turned my attention back to the packages.

“Jiji! Look! Just like the crown of Krishna!” Radha shouted, pointing across the street.

Gently, I pulled her arm down. “Sixth thing, Radha?”

Radha frowned, thinking. “Don’t let my mouth hang open?”

“Very good. That building is the Hawa Mahal. It has almost a thousand windows. The ladies of the palace may be looking out those windows, and they do not wish to be seen.”

As we left the Palace of Wind behind, I knew Radha was fighting the urge to turn around and see if the ladies were watching us. I would have to keep an eye on her. My younger sister was lively and curious, which was good, but she was also untamed—and that could be a dangerous combination.

Twenty minutes later, I asked the rickshaw-wallato stop. “I need to run an errand, so I’m getting off here. When you get home, Malik, show Radha how I make theladdus. But don’t let Mrs. Iyengar catch you at her hearth.”

“Certainly, Auntie-Boss. But...”

“What?”

He shrugged exaggeratedly. “Laddusare not food, as you so often tell me, Madam.”

My cheeks felt hot. Of course! I’d completely forgotten that aside from tea at the seamstress’s and a tamarind candy, Radha had had nothing to eat. Malik had noticed. I hadn’t eaten anything, either, but I was used to it. Radha, on the other hand, was a growing girl. I should have known better. “At home there’saloo, gobi, piyaj. Radha, can you make thesubjiandchappati?”

She moved her head from side to side, looking serious.Yes.

“Good.” Stepping off the rickshaw, I warned them, “Wash your hands first. And this time, Malik, be sure to use soap.”

Ten years ago, I was earning my living in Agra by making contraceptive teas for the courtesans to keep them childless, and they paid me well. Madams like Hazi and Nasreen were especially kind to me, offering me lodging in properties they owned in return for my teas. In their spare time, they taught me the art of henna. Skimming a reed across skin was only slightly different than brushing paint across apeepalleaf skeleton as I had done with Munchi-jiback in my village. I took to henna painting quickly. Before long, I was decorating the arms, legs, bellies, backs and breasts of pleasure women with designs they taught me from each of their native lands—Isfahan, Marrakech, Kabul, Calcutta, Madras, Cairo.

Samir Singh frequented the pleasure houses of Hazi and Nasreen whenever he had business in Agra. There, Muslim noblemen, Bengali businessmen and Hindu doctors and lawyers smoked hookahs, and ate and drank as the courtesans recited ancient poetry, sang sweet, nostalgicghazalsand performed classicalkathakdances to the beat of skilled musicians. When Samir heard of my henna skills, he sought me out. “There are many gentlemen in Jaipur who would like to start digging a well before their houses catch fire, if you know what I mean. And they’ll pay triple what the pleasure houses pay you.” What Samir proposed was a move to Jaipur and more money than I could have imagined, preventing unwanted pregnancies for men like him, men who dabbled outside their marriages. He explained that while he liked visiting the pleasure houses, he personally preferred young, childless widows. These women, no matter how young they had been when they lost their husbands, were often doomed to a life of loneliness; that was how society preferred it. (Not so for widowers, who could marry without repercussion.) Samir lavished widows with compliments, presents and his considerable charm, and they responded gratefully.

It was the respectable cover Samir offered me that cinched the deal. I could offer my henna to high-caste women like his wifewhileI discreetly sold my contraceptive tea sachets to his friends and acquaintances. When Parvati lamented her inability to conceive, I fed her what mysaaswould 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 therand softened thed—consonants we Indians took such care to pronounce. Army came off asaamy. Indians becameInjuns.

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.

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