Page 56 of The Henna Artist

Hari’s lower lip was turning purple; he touched it gently with his tongue. “When she came to me, in my village, she said she would give me money if I took her to you. I didn’t believe her. So she said she’d let me do what I wanted with her.” He stuck out his chin, defiant. “Icouldhave—but Ididn’t. Iwouldn’t.”

“Howdid she get pregnant, then?”

His mouth fell open in disbelief.

“She’ll start showing soon enough.”

He shook his head. “No!”

“Yes!”

He got up and came to me, squatted, gripped my arms. “Lakshmi, it wasn’t me.” If he were lying, he’d be covering the scar on his chin.

I searched my memory: Radha when I first saw her with her messy pigtail; Radha welcoming me home withdal battiandsubji; Radha in the yard, watering the camellias and jasmine, as she’d promised Mrs. Iyengar she’d do; Radha and Malik playing fivestones on the floor of our room.

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, wherehadshe been?

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

Hari returned to thecharpoy, 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 thatsaasfed 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 mysaas’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 whatIwanted: 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 ofchappati.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 tookyourside. 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 choseyou!”

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

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