“Your Highness, I am surprised to learn you’ve returned to Jaipur. The charms of Paris aren’t enough for you?” I tease.
“The men certainly are.” She releases one of her spicy laughs. “And the food is divine. But after a while, I missed our turmeric, coriander and cumin. I longed for the scents of ripe mangos. Those whitest of white rath ki rani.”
She rubs her thumbs over the henna design on my hands. “And this.” She pulls my hands closer to her nose and inhales the plant’s lasting aroma as well as the geranium oil I use to moisten my skin.
“The scents of my India.” She closes her eyes.
Has she drifted off to sleep? Slowly, I start to remove my hands from hers. Then her eyes pop open. “Tell me, my dear, what have you been up to since we last met? And catch me up on news of my young friend Malik.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she interrupts me by lifting her hand. She twirls her gnarled index finger in a circle. “Let me see.”
Her eccentricities make me smile. I lift the pallu, which I had respectfully covered my hair with, and let it fall over my shoulder. Then I turn my head in one direction and then the other.
“Excellent, my dear. Still a well-shaped head. The mark of a good entrance into the world. Excellent.”
From my previous dealings with her, I know the Maharani Indira feels that if a person’s birth had been easy, if they’ve left the birth canal unscathed, their karma is good and that karma will follow them into their present life. Whether or not this is true doesn’t matter. She is headstrong in her beliefs and contradicting her is futile.
“Thank you, Your Highness. I’ve brought my henna supplies with me. If you will permit me, I would like to decorate your hands while we talk.”
She raises her splendid brows in surprise. “Well, now.” She glances at the nearest lady-in-waiting. “I think that can be accommodated.” The other woman gestures to an attendant, who brings a table for me to set my supplies.
I remove her rings and hand them to the nearest noblewoman. Then I open a bottle of clove oil from my carrier to warm her hands and massage them. My fingers, of course, are naked. My hands are too often immersed in soil or applying poultices to wounds to warrant decoration.
Her skin is like a peepal-leaf skeleton: dry but pliable. She watches as I pull her fingers one by one, smoothing the crevices between them. I roll my thumb over the fleshy part of her palm. When was the last time anyone touched her in this way? I wonder. As a royal, she has the power to allow intimacies; but no one may take that liberty without permission.
“Any special requests?” I ask.
“I trust you to do what you think best, my dear.”
She closes her eyes as I start drawing with the henna paste I brought with me from Shimla. I tell her about my work at the Healing Garden in Shimla, my marriage to Jay—
“Ah, that explains the lovely red bindi on your forehead. So you married that doctor, the one we appointed as royal physician in Shimla for the adoption that never was? My dear, you do astound me!”
My heart flutters in my chest. The dowager is a clever woman. Did she ever consider that we deliberately sabotaged Niki’s adoption? All these years we’ve let her think he was born unhealthy and, therefore, unfit to be adopted as the Crown Prince of Jaipur. If only she could see the robust cricket-obsessed boy Niki is now.
Some lies are best kept secret.
I tell her how Jay offered me the opportunity to work at the Community Clinic he founded; how he’s worked hard to treat the local people in the holistic manner that’s most comfortable for them.
“He sounds like an honorable man,” she says. Her voice is fainter now. She is beginning to sound drowsy.
I finish the palm of one hand and nod to the lady-in-waiting to hold it open so the damp henna paste will not smear before it has a chance to dry.
I keep talking. I believe it’s the rhythm of my voice along with my continual, consistent touch that is lulling her to sleep. I tell her about Malik and his schooling. No use conning her into believing he did well there, when he didn’t. But he did graduate with a degree and his natural intelligence. She has a soft spot for Malik, whom she found immensely charming as a boy. I think I see the ghost of a smile on her lips, but perhaps I’m imagining things.
“He’s now, what? Twenty?”
Once again, she’s surprised me with her memory. “Hahn-ji.”
“And what of his love life? Surely he has one?”
She lifts her lids, glancing at me slyly from the corners of her eyes.
I’m making a design on her palm when she asks this. My hand stops moving.
She moves her head slightly so she can look directly at me. “You don’t approve?”
Despite her illness, her intuition is as sharp as ever. Nimmi had also accused me of not approving of her.
I resume painting the henna on her fragile skin.
“It’s not that. I want Malik to see more of the world before he settles down. The young woman he is fond of has two children from her first marriage. She’s a widow. It’s a lot for a twenty-year-old to handle when he hasn’t a proper way to earn a living.”
She is thoughtful. “Yes...I imagine. Though he is a resourceful young man.” She grins. “I have the feeling that he could’ve taken on the whole Indian army even at the age of eight.” She chuckles.
She holds her palms up to inspect them. The skin on her forearms is loose on her bones. “Saffron flowers? Lions? Whatever have you painted, Lakshmi?”
“I seek your forgiveness if I’ve been too bold. However, I know you to be a woman who has far more ambition than it was seemly for you to display. The lion is a symbol of that ambition. A long time ago, you told me your late husband prevented you from experiencing motherhood. I drew the saffron plant because it’s unable to reproduce without human assistance.”
What I’d actually painted on the Maharani Indira’s palms is a copy of the terrazzo mandala I’d designed for my Jaipur house. Until I started drawing on her hands, I hadn’t realized how much she and I actually had in common. “And here, Your Highness—” I point with my henna reed to a spot on her upper palm “—is your name hidden in the design.”
“Too clever.” Her voice is full of wonder. “Thank you, Lakshmi. They must give me a shot now and heaven knows what else to make me more comfortable. Will you please join me in my greenhouse in a half hour?”
* * *
I walk around the hothouse where Her Highness tends to her orchids. It’s off the terrace, a few doors down from her bedroom. Fortunately, the attendant who brought me to this nursery with its glass roof and glass walls also supplied me with a tall aam panna to cool me down. Still, tiny beads of perspiration line my brow and dampen my underarms.