The Henna Artist(11)
“Sheela Sharma sang beautifully at the women’s gathering for the Gupta wedding. Thanks to you.”
“Nahee-nahee,” he laughed softly, touching his earlobes to ward off jealous spirits. “We have far to go before we turn Sheela into Lata Mangeshkar.” He had been tutoring Sheela Sharma since she was a young girl, and from the little he’d told me, I gathered Sheela’s natural talent had made her arrogant and not a little lazy. Unless she applied herself, it seemed unlikely she would ever equal the musical prowess of the legendary singer—quite the opposite of what I’d told Parvati.
“And Mrs. Pandey’s health?”
“Excellent. Thank you for asking.”
“Mr. Pandey, would you kindly do me a favor?” I was talking so softly he moved closer to hear. I pulled my notebook from inside my petticoat, tore off a page and wrote quickly. I folded the note and held it out to him. He took it, without moving his eyes from mine.
“There’s a man across the road. He’s smoking a beedi. Would you please give this to him? It would not be proper for me to meet him alone...” I let my voice trail off, dropping my eyes and stepping backward.
He cleared his throat. “Of course, of course. Now?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
He held up a hand and wagged his head. “It’s no bother.” He set off down the stairs.
I rushed to my bedroom window. My lights were still off, so I could look outside without being seen. I recognized Mr. Pandey’s white kurtha pyjama. He crossed the street, then hesitated. A few paces to his left, a match flared, and he turned toward it. I let out the breath I’d been holding.
TWO
Wet plaster, cement, stone. My new home smelled of these. Earlier this evening, I had resisted the urge to come here and check the builder’s progress. At ten o’clock at night, when I should have been doing my accounts and preparing for the next day, I stood in my unfinished home waiting for Hari, my hand gripping the knife I used for cutting plants and splitting seeds.
Outside, the light from the streetlamp fell across my beautiful floor, revealing a mosaic of saffron flowers in the round, spiraling boteh leaves and vases with feminine curves. I thought of Hazi and Nasreen and the other courtesans in the city of Agra who had first introduced me to the designs of their native lands—Isfahan, Marrakech, Kabul, Calcutta, Madras, Cairo. In the city of the Taj Mahal, where I worked for three years after leaving Hari and before coming to Jaipur, I decorated the arms, hips and backs of the pleasure women with henna. My patterns became more fanciful with time. I would place a Persian peacock inside a Turkish clamshell, turn an Afghan mountain bird into a Moroccan fan. So when it came time to design the floor of my house, I created a pattern as complex as the henna I had painted on those women’s bodies, delighting in the knowledge that its meaning was known only to me.
The saffron flowers represented sterility. Incapable of producing seed as I had proved incapable of producing children. The Ashoka lion, like the icon of our new Republic, a symbol of my ambition. I wanted more, always, for what my hands could accomplish, what my wits could achieve—more than my parents had thought possible. The fine work beneath my feet required the skill of artisans who worked exclusively for the palace. All financed by the painstaking preparations of my charmed oils, lotions, henna paste and, most importantly, the herb sachets I supplied Samir.
Had Hari come to take all this away from me?
Crunch, crunch. Footsteps on the gravel outside. I slid my thumb gingerly along the sharp edge of the knife.
There was a pause. Then the footsteps continued, stopping at my front door. I stood to one side of that door now, in the dark, taking shallow breaths.
The door opened, and Hari entered the room. He stood illuminated in the streetlight, as if he were onstage. His hair was still thick and wavy, falling into his eyes. His profile, sharp, but his jawline, soft. The high cheekbones made him almost handsome. I watched his eyes circle the room until they came to rest on me.
For a long moment, we regarded one another. His eyes traveled—slowly—from my face, down the length of my fine cotton sari to my silver sandals. I resisted the urge to pull my sari tighter around me.
His mouth opened. He attempted a smile, a shy one. “You’re keeping well.”
Did he mean it? Or would he follow a kind remark with a cutting one, as he used to do?
His shirt was torn under one armpit and spotted with curry stains. His dhoti was covered with dust. Loose flesh gathered under his chin. He was thinner than I remembered. The smell of his sweat and cheap cigarettes filled the space between us.
When I didn’t answer, he walked to the plastered wall, rubbed his palm flat against it. He looked impressed. I flinched; I didn’t want him touching what was mine.
He considered the mosaic on the floor. “Is this...? Who lives here? I thought—don’t you live at the other place? With the South Indians?”
“It’s mine. I built it.” I heard the pride in my own voice.
He frowned and tilted his head, as if trying to understand. We had once lived in a one-room hut, his mother sleeping in the front half with the kitchen utensils, he and I in the back. A curtain between the two areas.
He covered his mouth with his hand and left it there, as if deep in thought. “You built this?”
This was the Hari I knew. The one who never believed me worthy of anything but rooting and minding children.