“Hakeem...lives with Mr. Reddy.”
“The theater manager?”
Malik nods. “They share lodgings here in Jaipur. And Hakeem has a wife and four daughters in Bombay. He doesn’t want them to know about Mr. Reddy. It would destroy their lives.”
I’m trying to put the pieces together when it comes to me. “Accha.” Who am I to judge the accountant? I’m a woman who deserted a marriage and slept with another woman’s husband. People find love where they find it. “And the Singhs know...about the relationship?”
“Ravi Singh found out. Mr. Reddy will sacrifice his job. Hakeem will keep his. He has a large family to support.”
“So Reddy agreed to say he let more people onto the balcony than he was supposed to. Even though that’s a lie?”
“Right.”
Samir certainly won’t turn his own son in for fraud and misappropriation. Parvati will keep pressing Maharani Latika to fire Manu. And, as appalling as it is to me, Maharani Latika isn’t interested in an investigation; she wants the problem to go away and for the cinema to open again as quickly as possible. I understand. The tarnish on the royal reputation increases every day the situation is in limbo.
I’d promised Kanta that the maharanis were fair, but now I’m realizing how foolhardy that was of me. We have just one day to convince Her Highness not to let Manu go.
The pressure of being labeled a thief is getting to Manu. Instead of returning to work, he stays locked in his study, listening to the radio or reading poetry. At mealtimes, Kanta brings him his food on a tray instead of having Baju deliver it so she can sit with her husband while Niki, Saasuji and I eat in the dining room. Kanta says he takes only a few bites, claims to be full and asks her to leave. He hasn’t shaved in days, so when he does make a rare appearance to walk from the study to the bathroom, he looks more and more like the holy men of the Ganges. His unwashed hair hangs over his brow. He’s been sleeping in the same shirt and trousers for three days.
Niki is also reacting to this shift in his father. Even if Kanta allowed him to go back to school, her son wouldn’t go. Bad news travels even faster than good news, it seems. Niki’s friends have called to tell him some of his fellow students are calling his father a cheat and an embezzler. Niki knows his father isn’t capable of such deception, but neither is he capable of defending a father who isn’t even trying to defend himself.
Kanta spends time with Niki going over the lessons his teacher drops off. Reading novels, which they both love to do, keeps them busy, too. I stop by Niki’s door sometimes, listening to them discuss Slaughterhouse-Five and Travels with My Aunt. It reminds me of the way Radha used to lose herself in her Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
Manu’s despair is affecting Saasuji and Baju, as well. Manu’s mother finds fault with everything the old servant does (he didn’t salt the dal or he let the parantha burn or he didn’t roast the cumin long enough), and Baju is grumpy as a result, clanging pots and pans in the kitchen and grumbling to himself. It almost makes me wish Madho Singh were here.
What a relief it is to leave the Agarwal house for my next appointment.
* * *
This time when I arrive at the Maharanis’ Palace, the guard gives me a warm smile. “Elder or younger?” he asks.
“Elder,” I reply.
He tilts his head ever so slightly to show his surprise. But he nods and beckons an attendant forward. The immaculately uniformed bearer leads me up a set of marble stairs, the centers of which are grooved from the weight of thousands of feet over two centuries. The stairs lead to a terrace overlooking the lush garden in the center of the palace. I’ve never been to the upper terrace of the palace before. I stop to admire the scene below; it’s like the fairy tale of The Three Princes I was reading to Rekha the other day. Bushes trimmed to look like giraffes or hippopotami or elephants (Rekha would love those!). Waterfalls and fountains. Pink-faced monkeys, often seen around the Pink City and royal buildings, hop from guava to pomegranate to banana trees, taking their meal where they find it. Live peacocks cry out in full display. Sunbirds flit from one flower to another, gorging themselves on nectar.
Finally, I’m shown into a large bedroom off the terrace. White gauze curtains are drawn across the latticed windows, leaving the room in shadows. Two attendants stand at the doorway, beyond which is a large four-poster bed. I assume the doors are left open so the maharani can enjoy the watching the macaques scurrying across the high walls of the palace from her bed.
Several ladies-in-waiting are sitting on settees or armchairs. One is embroidering, one is fanning the maharani with a large sandalwood fan and the third is reading.
I find the Maharani Indira much changed. Her hair, without my signature bawchi oil, has thinned. It’s more salt than pepper now. I used to meet her in the drawing room—the same place I met with Maharani Latika only two days ago. Now the dowager maharani lies in the mahogany bed amid satin pillows stuffed with goose feathers. The table next to her bed contains many jars of ointment and bottles of pills. Vases of sea hibiscus, magenta roses and sunset champak do little to disguise the medicinal odor.
The old queen is smaller, shrunken, her cheeks are hollow. Before, she seemed to fill the room with her bawdy jokes and gin-infused laughter. Now she lies quietly with her eyes closed.
“Wait a little while and she will wake up,” the nearest lady-in-waiting says to me. I study the dowager’s face. The skin around her mouth and cheeks, so used to stretching into a smile or a laugh, has gathered into folds, making her appear older than her seventy years.
One thing that has stayed constant is her love of jewelry. Her neckline is adorned with a kundan choker, its teardrop-shaped diamonds and cabochon rubies reflecting the light from the open doorway. Her matching earrings also feature teardrop diamonds surrounding a center ruby. Pearl and ruby bangles, now too large for her thin arms, threaten to slide off her wrists.
Another noblewoman indicates an armchair by the maharani’s bedside, and so I sit, setting my carrier on the floor beside me. I think back to the day Her Highness first received me and changed my life forever.
Twelve years ago, after the dowager hired me to cure the Maharani Latika of her depression, rumors spread—as rapidly as the macaques jumping from tree to tree—of my incredible powers to heal royalty. Everyone wanted a piece of me then. My business grew to the point Malik and I worked from dawn till sundown to fill orders for henna applications, custom oils and healing lotions. If not for the generosity of this woman, all of that may never have happened.
The maharani opens her eyes, still sharp and filled with mischief as they once were. “Lakshmi, you’re thinking so loudly, my dear. You woke me up.”
Her face is gaunt, but her smile is radiant.
She offers me her hands and I take them. The many ruby, emerald and pearl rings are loose on her fingers.