Turning away from the woman and my thoughts of Dev, I began wrapping peonies in old newspaper. I heard the young man ask my children which creature they would like the balloon vendor to make for them. I glanced at him, crouched in front of the children’s basket. Chullu stared, mesmerized.
“Please...it is not necessary,” I said.
The man with my husband’s eyes turned to me and said, “No, it is not necessary.” He kept smiling at me until I had to turn away, my face flushed with heat.
I busied myself with the flowers. When the woman tried to pay me, I waved her money away. “I could never repay you enough, Ji.”
But the woman pressed money into my palm anyway and said, “You can repay me by feeding them well,” pointing at the children, who were now playing with the elephant balloon the young man had bought for them.
The doctrini asked, “Will you make sure you have some peonies for me tomorrow, as well? And I should take some yarrow while I’m here.”
As the couple began walking away with their purchases, I called after them, “MemSahib, may I know your name?”
Without breaking her stride, the woman with the blue eyes turned her head and grinned at me. “Mrs. Kumar. Lakshmi Kumar. And yours?”
“Nimmi.”
She pointed to the young man, who had turned to face me and was now walking backward to keep pace with her. “This is Malik—Abbas Malik—who will pick up a regular order of flowers from you every few days.”
Malik stopped to salaam me, grinned, and ran to catch up with her.
* * *
The next day I took more care than usual as I got ready, making sure my hair was pinned back. I wore my heavy silver earrings and necklace, the ones from my marriage. I told myself I had dressed for the tourists, but I waited eagerly for Malik. I wasn’t sure he would come, but I had a feeling. When he did, he first said hello to Chullu and Rekha. Chullu grinned at him with pink gums, but Rekha studied him seriously, as is her way. Then Malik pulled a small jar from the cloth bag he was carrying and handed it to me.
Surprised, I took it from him and looked at the dense golden liquid inside. My hands were trembling. The last gift anyone had given me were the mirrored ties for the ends of my braids that Dev’s sister had made for my wedding.
“For when he is teething,” he explained.
I twisted the jar open and twirled some honey on my finger, holding it out to Chullu, who opened his mouth in response. I rubbed a little along his gums, and he started flicking his tiny tongue along his lips. Rekha wanted some honey, too, and so I gave her a fingerful to lick. I had not had the money to buy honey and was overcome with gratitude that such a thoughtful gift should come from a man not of my family.
“Thank you,” I said, not taking my eyes off my children.
“It is I who am grateful to you for the peonies. Otherwise, Auntie-Boss would have made me scale the cliff to get them.” His laugh was rich and deep.
I looked at him. “Auntie-Boss?”
“Mrs. Kumar. She’s my boss, although she pretends she’s not.” He grinned.
“How did you know about the honey?” I asked.
“From Omi’s children—both hers and the ones she looked after in my old neighborhood. Someone was always teething. My mother—well, I call Omi my mother, but she’s someone who took me in when I was little—rubbed honey on their gums.” He grinned. “Wait till you see what I can do with hair. I helped with all my cousin-sisters’ braids.”
Before I could ask him what happened to his real mother or who this Omi was, Rekha cried out, “Do my hair!” She’d been listening to our exchange.
After that he arrived each day with something for the children: a bow for Rekha, a sack of sweet litchis, a green cricket for Chullu. From the start, I felt easy with him. I started harvesting the rarest of plants for him to take back to Mrs. Kumar. Rhododendron for the cure of swollen ankles. Roots of snowpeaks raspberry to stop bleeding when a woman’s monthly flow becomes too heavy. I even gave him a bowl of sik one day, made from the dried fruit of the neem tree, browning it in ghee before adding sugar and water. It was what I ate during both of my pregnancies and what all women of the hills consume to keep their bodies healthy before and after delivery.
One fine August morning, when the mist had left the mountains and I felt the sun redden my cheeks, Malik showed up with a tiffin carrier. He said it was filled with corn and wheat chapattis and a curry made from summer squash and sweet onions. “Today, we are buying everything you have and I am taking you on a picnic.”
Rekha smiled—rare for her. Then she clapped and hopped out of the basket. I untethered the children and placed Chullu on my hip.
“Who is ‘we’? You and your shadow?” I teased.
He began gathering my flowers and placing them gently into the now empty basket. “The Lady Bradley Hospital. Yesterday, the daughter of a financier gave birth to twin boys. I’d shared your sik with the nurses, who shared it with her. She said it was one of the best things she’d ever tasted and it made her feel better. Next thing you know, her father is gifting money for the new wing of the hospital! What do you think of that?” Malik tapped his forefinger on Chullu’s nose, then Rekha’s, and they giggled.
I covered the flower basket with the horsehair blanket and hauled it onto my back. Then I hoisted Chullu over my head, letting his head dangle over one shoulder while I grabbed his ankle over the other shoulder. I showed Malik how to carry Rekha that way, too. It is the way our tribe has always carried our small children for their comfort as well as ours.
Malik took to it as if he had been doing it all his life.
On a warm evening, a few weeks later, he showed up at the lodgings I rented for myself and my children in lower Shimla. The air in the room was thick with the fragrance of spicy potatoes I was preparing for the children, and I’d propped the door open to catch the breeze. Malik stood at my threshold, wearing that lazy smile of his. For a moment, I stood, staring, the spoon I’d been using frozen in my hand. Then I let go of the spoon, walked to the door and wrapped my arms around him, never even asking how he discovered where I lived.
My lodgings are nothing more than a covered area underneath the overhang of a house—packed earth, walls made of wooden planks, one window with a curtain. It feels familiar—so much like the hut where Dev and I lived during the summers, high in the mountains. There, we layered long grasses over a wooden frame to construct the walls. Everyone in the tribe helped. Our windows had no coverings or glass, and we slept on bedrolls stuffed with grass.
My landlords here in Shimla, the Aroras, gave me a two-burner stove that took a little getting used to; I was accustomed to cooking over an open fire. The tap and outhouse were outside. The Aroras are in their sixties and have no children of their own. On the day they first saw me with my two, breaking camp on a hill overlooking their house, they invited us to breakfast with them. Mrs. Arora took Chullu from me and sniffed his hair, closing her eyes. Rekha hid in my skirts until Mr. Arora offered her a toffee. After learning of my situation, Mr. Arora offered to enclose the space underneath their house, directly below the cantilevered drawing room. They told me not to worry about the rent, but I try to give them as much as I can from what I make at the flower stall. For their part, the old couple are delighted to look after Chullu and Rekha in the mornings while I forage the forests.