Page 94 of The Henna Artist

“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 thekulfi-walla.” Malik spat. “He put henna on his hair and told everyoneyouhad 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 thedoodh-wallahad 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 mypallu, trying not to call attention to myself, like a petty criminal.

Malik picked up a stone and threw it, casting a sideways glance at me. “You can’t go on like this.”

Something in the way he spoke ripped apart whatever was holding me together. I stopped and covered my mouth with my sari, let out a sob.

Malik put an arm around my shoulders. I allowed it.

“Auntie-Boss, I know you’ve worked hard. But weren’t you happier before you built that house? Your business was good. You had money in the bank. You were free to do as you pleased.”

“I was never free, Malik. No more than I am now.”

“Move away.”

“Where? To do what?”

“Same thing you were doing here. Maybe in Delhi or Bombay. I’ll go with you.”

“You’re doing fine here.”

“Didn’t I just say I don’t like working for fools, Madam?”

Dear Malik. How much I had missed him.

I let out a long sigh. “Starting over isn’t easy.”

Malik looked as if he’d been as patient with me as he could; it was time for tougher medicine.

“When have you let that stop you, Auntie-Boss? You must move from Jaipur—there is no other way. Unless you’ve thought of something better.”

My belly and breasts were raw from scrubbing. Shreds of coconut husks and slivers of charcoal pricked my underarms, the insides of my thighs and my scalp. I sloughed the debris off my skin with my palms, wincing from the pain, praying the punishment would make me feel less polluted. But no matter how hard I rubbed, I could still feel theneemoil vendor’s hand on my arm this afternoon, his breath on my back. And I would start the cleansing all over again.

When I was too tired to go on, I rubbed lavender oil into my raw skin. I put on a clean sari, the hem of which was frayed. As I combed through my tangles, my eyes landed on the hole in my cot I’d meant to fix—a year ago already?—when the jute had started to fray. Now it had completely come apart. As I slept, sometimes my foot went right through the hole.

Asadhucalled from the street to beg for food. I put the comb down and wrapped newspaper around thechapattisMalik had brought yesterday. I ran out the door to give him the food. The holy man, covered in a faded saffron cloth, was waiting, leaning on a cane. He had renounced his home and material comforts, and freed himself of ego, something I didn’t have the courage to do.

When I held out my offering, he said a blessing for me in a dialect I didn’t understand. But he didn’t take my gift. He stood looking at me.

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