Page 18 of The Henna Artist

Malik ran to the herb table, picked up two bottles and handed them to me. “I’ve already mixed them.”

I looked at the labels: a hair tonic and a skin lotion. I smiled at him. “Good man.” He knew as I did that bribery was the way to the landlady’s heart. Mrs. Iyengar had us dangling over a well: we couldn’t cook treats for tomorrow’s clients until thepandithad finished his purifying ceremony, which could take from one to three hours. It was going to be a long night.

As if he’d read my thoughts, Malik said, “Pandit-jiis coming in one hour.”

It was midnight, finally. My favorite hour. The moon was at the window. Akoyalcried out its love song; the spotted dove joined in. The day’s heat and dust were at rest, as were the people of Jaipur. The room was fragrant with the savories and sweets we had cooked (dandelion leafpakorasfor Mrs. Patel’s arthritis, sweet almondladdusfor Mrs. Gupta’s headaches) and the lotions we had made (fresh sandalwood oil for Mrs. Rai’s aching feet).

Malik had gone home hours ago. Radha was sleeping on the cot. I sat at my herb table with a smalldiyaburning to give me light. I opened my notebook, licked the tip of my pencil.

The pandit’s ablutions (he’d taken an hour to purify Mrs. Iyengar’s hearth): debit.

The lavender and clove oils, turmeric and saffron that Malik bought today: debit.

Money I’d received from Samir for his tea sachets: credit.

Money paid by Joyce Harris for her sachets: credit.

The builder’s invoice: debit.

Payment to Hari: debit.

Overall, a loss. I closed the notebook and began taking the pins out of my hair. I wondered how long it would take to finalize the Singh-Sharma union. And if the builder would give me an extension on what I owed him. How much more would Hari demand for his silence? I really needed the palace commission, but how long would I have to wait for Parvati to talk to the maharani?

I sifted through my hair with my fingers. Saasuji once told me there were three kinds of karma: the accumulated karma from all our past lives; the karma we created in this life; and the karma we stored to ripen in our future lives. I asked myself which karma had led to my marriage with Hari. And deserting my family—was that a new karma I had created or was it a karma from a previous life that had ripened in this one?

In her sleep, Radha cried out, as if she were shouting for help through a closed mouth. I rushed to the cot before she woke up the entire household.

“Radha. It’s only a dream.” I rubbed her shoulder.

But she would not wake up. She was curled on her side the way a baby lays in a womb. Her fists were balled tightly under her chin. Her tears dripped on the pillow. She looked so fragile. A flash of memory came to me: crying myself to sleep every night of my married life with Hari.

I lay down behind her and pressed my chest against her back, my cheek against her cheek, my leg against her leg. I wrapped my body around hers until there was no space left between us. I touched the skin of my ladies daily in my work, but beingthisclose to another body was a new sensation.

“Shh. There now. Shh,” I whispered.

With my free hand, I stroked her hair, still scented with the frangipani from this morning.“Rundo Rani,burri sayani. Peethi tunda, tunda pani. Lakin kurthi heh munmani,”I sang softly at the edge of her lip, my father’s voice guiding me.

Her breath relaxed. Her muscles softened. She was awake now. She reached for my hand and hugged it to her breast. I felt her ribs rise against my chest, then fall as they settled, with each breath.

I wiped her face and neck with the edge of my sari. “Tell me. About the dream, Radha.”

She sniffed. “It was dark. Pitaji was in a well. And he only had me to hold on to. The gossip-eaters had gone home a long time ago. I was trying to help him. But he was so much heavier than me.” She released a racked cry. “And I let go. Jiji, I let go. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t. I looked for you but you weren’t there!” She took a great gulp of air. “So many times I wished you would come and help me. One time, I started off from Ajar to find you, but Mala, our neighbor, saw me and sent me home again.” A fresh wave of tears flooded my hand, the one she was holding. “When Maa died, I didn’t tell anyone. For two days. I let her lay there. On the cot. I was so scared. I didn’t know what would happen to me. I was so alone. Where were you all this time, Jiji? Why did you leave us? Leavehim?”

I loosened my grip on her. Of course she wanted to know. For thirteen years I had kept the answer to myself.

I swallowed. “I would have died if I’d stayed. Hari would have made sure of it. I couldn’t go back to Maa and Pitaji.” She knew as well as I did that, once married, a woman was her husband’s property. Unhappy wives couldn’t just go back home to their parents, expecting sympathy. Some families even changed their daughter-in-law’s first name as soon as she came to their household, as if her previous self had never existed.

I told Radha about the one good thing in my marriage, Hari’s mother. How she taught me to heal women who came to her from surrounding villages. Mostly, they complained of stomach upsets, cooking burns, female pains and barren wombs. I didn’t tell Radha about the wombs they wanted to empty without their husbands’ knowledge.

I told her about Hari’s beatings and the day I walked out of his hut one afternoon, making my way to Agra on foot, hiding behind a bush or in a trench whenever I saw anyone. It took me a week. I ate whatever I could forage along the way, often at night, when no one could see me, making sure there were no wild boars around. In the city of the Taj Mahal, I told her I helped women in much the way my mother-in-law had. What I left out were the details, that most of my income had come from wrapping a few tablespoons of ground cotton root bark in muslin pouches—as mysaashad done for the village women—and selling them. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my work; if not for me, many courtesans and dancing girls would have sought cruder, and more harmful, means to keep pregnancies at bay—douching with detergents, throwing themselves down stairs or piercing the fetus with a knitting needle. But the ears of a thirteen-year-old village girl were too tender to hear such things.

I explained to her that Agra was where I learned to paint henna. I smiled as I thought of Hazi and Nasreen teaching me to paint a woman’s body to inflame desire, but I didn’t share that with Radha. I told her about the offer I’d received to paint henna for more money in Jaipur, and how I had jumped at the chance. “It allowed me to send more money back home.”

“But henna work is for Shudras, not Brahmins,” she said. “Pitaji would never have allowed you to touch other people’s feet.”

I let go of her hand then, and rolled over on my back. “It was better than being a whore, Radha.” I had intended to sound harsh, and I had.

We lay quietly for a while.

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