When I was a boy working with Auntie-Boss, she used to lecture me about discretion. “We know things about people, Malik, because we go into their homes, the place where they are most vulnerable. That does not mean that we can divulge what we’ve have seen or heard to everyone we know. There’s more power in keeping a secret than in betraying it.”
I never thought Lakshmi meant that we should blackmail people using our knowledge, only that our clients would be loyal to us if we showed loyalty to them.
I look around the dinner table and consider what I know about this family—the Singhs.
I know Lakshmi helped to keep many of Samir’s mistresses childless during the ten years she spent in Jaipur.
And I know that Samir Uncle once shared a bed with Auntie-Boss before she married Dr. Jay.
I also know that Auntie-Boss’s younger sister, Radha, had a baby boy, and that Ravi Singh was the baby’s father. Now that boy is twelve years old, and Ravi’s never seen him. That’s because Parvati Singh whisked Ravi away to England, where he could finish his studies without being touched by scandal.
I also know that Sheela Sharma—then fifteen and plump—didn’t want a dirty street child like me to help with the mandala Lakshmi was designing for her sangeet.
But since that time, my face has filled out, and my hair is styled neatly. My style of dress is more appropriate to someone of her class; no wonder she doesn’t recognize, or remember, me now, sitting opposite her at the dinner table.
Why would she? For Sheela I was nothing more than a blemish on an otherwise perfect afternoon that ended years ago.
But I have not forgotten how she looked at me that afternoon. I didn’t need to know her, or anything about her, or her family, or what she must have thought of me—however worthy, or unworthy. It was enough to witness the expression on her face.
4
NIMMI
Shimla
Today, I’ve left my children with the Aroras while I make my way to the Lady Bradley Hospital. The Aroras, my landlords, would love nothing better than to care for (and spoil!) Rekha and Chullu every time I leave the house to tend my flower stall. But I would miss my children too much, and so I usually want them with me. As I go about my day, my daughter and son are learning our tribal rituals and knowledge the same way I learned them by staying close to, and observing, my mother.
When I woke at dawn this morning in our cramped lodgings, my children were pressed against me on our cot, one on either side. I smoothed the heavy cream blanket covering our bodies, a blanket I had woven from the wool of our sheep. A sharp bit of straw pricked my finger.
Rekha kicked one of her legs outside the blanket and Chullu clenched his little fist. I wondered what they dream about, my children. Do they dream about their father? Or their grandfather? Do they dream about the goats we left behind, the smell of summer corn being roasted? Do they ever dream of Malik? His joyful laugh, the gifts he brings for them? I let my hands rest on the blanket as they slept, for the comfort of it, to feel the gentle rise and fall of their breathing.
I thought about Lakshmi inviting me to help with the hospital garden. Rekha needed new shoes; already her feet had grown too large for the ones I’d made for her last year from a goat’s hide. Soon she would be old enough to go to school. (Just think! I’d never had the chance, but my girl would get to go!) But she would need books and paper, pencils and erasers.
Chullu was growing, too. He needed a new sweater, but without our sheep, I had no wool to make one for him. My children needed these things now and would need more as they got older, and rather than find ways to get those things for them, my thoughts kept turning back to Malik, always Malik. The feel of him, the sharp angle of his jawline, the way he reassured me that I belonged here in Shimla. Then my thoughts turned to Lakshmi, and I felt my teeth clench. I didn’t want Mrs. Kumar to plan his life for him. Was it jealousy I felt? Jealousy of her? Certainly, she held more sway over him than I did. Otherwise, why would he have left me and the children without a backward glance? Did he think so little of us? It would be for only a short while, he said, but if Lakshmi asked him to stay in Jaipur forever, would he?
I tucked Rekha’s leg back inside the blanket. Was I being unfair to my children—putting my own needs ahead of theirs? Was it pride or selfishness, or both, that made me think about these things? What would Dev have wanted me to do? I sighed. My husband would have wanted me to do what was best for his children.
So, later that day, I asked Mrs. Arora to watch Rekha and Chullu while I trudged up the hill to the Lady Bradley Hospital, where I knew I would find Lakshmi Kumar.
* * *
Now I stand in front of the hospital, a sprawling three-story building. Several times, while I was working at my flower stall on the Shimla Mall, and Malik worried that my children might have ear infections, he took them to the Community Clinic run by Mrs. Kumar’s husband. I know the clinic must be near the hospital. And Lakshmi must be at the clinic.
A steady stream of people are going in and out through the glass doors of the main entrance. Each time the doors open, I see nurses dressed in white and nuns in wimples going about their business.
I’ve never been inside a hospital, never been this close to one. Even from here, twenty feet from the entrance, I detect a strong odor—foreign to me—but I don’t know where it comes from, or what it is.
A young nurse who has just come through the door seems to sense I’m lost and asks if she can help me.
“Yes, please. Do you know where Mrs. Kumar works?”
She tells me that around the corner of the building, to the left, I’ll see a door marked “Community Clinic,” and points the way. She’s assuming I can read, which makes me grateful to her, and I thank her for her help.
There are two doors on the left side of the building, but only one has writing on it. If not for the nurse, I wouldn’t have known which door to try.
When I cross the threshold, I find myself in a room with walls painted the color of lichen. The four people sitting on chairs set against one wall are wearing vests and skirts and local headdresses. A pretty woman in a sari sits behind a desk writing something on a piece of paper. She wears black eyeglasses and pink lipstick. Her hair is styled in one long braid down her back.
When I step forward, she says, “May I help you?”
Before I can answer, Lakshmi Kumar steps through a white curtain covering the entrance to another room and calls out “Nimmi!” She has on a long white coat that’s covering her sari. I can tell by her smile that she’s pleased to see me. Suddenly, I feel self-conscious. In my finest dress, silver jewelry and the medallion on my forehead, I look so out of place. The hill people, the receptionist and Lakshmi are in their everyday clothes. But Lakshmi grins at me reassuringly.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she says. “I’ll be right with you.”