The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi
11
LAKSHMI
Foothills of Himalayas, Northwest of Shimla
We’re quiet on our way back to Shimla. We stop from time to time to let the sheep graze. I sounded confident enough when I told Nimmi we would find someone to keep the sheep, but now I’m wondering how we’ll manage. Sheep need to be moved every few days to find fresh grass. I had to suggest we take the sheep back with us; otherwise, Nimmi might have insisted on staying with the flock overnight and keeping the children with her, waiting until I could return to help her. In these hills, sheep are a valuable commodity. And this herd is carrying gold on their flanks! Leaving Nimmi and the children in the foothills would be far too dangerous.
Rekha walks beside me, alternately speaking when an idea comes to her, and staying quiet when she’s pondering. Earlier, when she’d been watching the white clouds floating overhead, she asked me why we don’t just ride the clouds.
“Clouds could get us to Shimla faster, Auntie,” she says. “Remember the clouds in that book about the birds?” She’s referring to a picture book about Himalayan birds we read last week.
“Clouds are tricky, Rekha,” I tell her. “The moment you get close to them, they disappear.” She looks up at me, her eyebrows raised, and I explain that while the clouds might look like fuzzy cotton from far away, they’re actually made of water—mist. “If we got close enough to them,” I tell her, “we would go right through.”
Later, she asks, “Could we live inside a rainbow?”
I can’t help but wonder if I thought of things like this when I was four years old. I try to find an answer that will satisfy her, and eventually, I say, “We could. But if we were inside them, we wouldn’t see them in the sky, would we?”
She blinks several times, taking this in, then shakes her head.
I would sit her on the saddle of my horse if it weren’t carrying her uncle’s body. With her little legs it’s hard for her to keep up. But she seems to have inherited her mother’s ability to walk without tiring. She never once complains, never asks for food or water.
“After we finish the monkey story, can we read the one about the elephant? I would like to have an elephant.” When we started off from the canyon toward Shimla, she put her tiny hand in mine and left it there, as I’ve seen her do so often with her mother and with Malik. The gesture touched me.
“Of course, we can,” I say.
Both Rekha and her mother seem to enjoy the books we’ve been reading. At first I worried Nimmi would feel self-conscious, learning alongside her daughter. Maybe even feel as if I were intruding too much into their lives. But she becomes a different person when we’re spending time together, reading. She’s genuinely curious, and obviously proud of how quickly her daughter learns to read and write.
I stop and turn around to check on Nimmi and Chullu at the back of the flock. Nimmi is grieving for her brother, and her grief is palpable—as if the weight of it is pressing on her, making this hard journey all the harder. She’s using a crook to keep the herd together, but her shoulders are slumped, and she moves the sheep forward half-heartedly. The animals sense her listlessness, seizing the opportunity to wander off until she calls them back.
I’ve covered Vinay’s body as best as I can, but it’s attracting insects, and I worry about maggots on my horse. So far, Chandra’s been only a little skittish, but I need him to stay calm until we get the body to the crematorium.
The town of Shimla is built on a series of hills dotted with pines, cedars, poplars and birch. Anywhere else these hills would be considered mountains, but the craggy Himalayas to the north overshadow these canyons, making them seem puny by comparison, so we refer to them as hills. The Lady Bradley Hospital sits high on a substantial property that extends down into a ravine. When we glimpse the spire of Christ Church, I know the hospital will soon come into view. We take the higher, steeper road, the longer way around to the back entrance of the hospital where the morgue is located.
By late afternoon we’re close enough to the hospital that I ask Nimmi to wait up on the hill with the sheep. Then I walk my horse down the slope to the hospital morgue. Prakesh, the attendant, knows me, and I ask him to take the body discreetly to the crematorium. If he’s at all surprised by this request, he doesn’t let it show; his caste is used to dealing with the dead. I ask him to keep the ashes for me, then I hold on to Chandra’s reins as he and another attendant lift Vinay’s body from my horse. I ask a third attendant to water Chandra and offer him a rupee for his kindness.
Then I walk over to the Community Clinic. I must look a right mess because, when I enter through the front door, all the patients in the waiting room turn to stare. I realize, too late, I smell of horses, my own sweat and the pine forest up the hill. I go quickly to the exam room and stop at the curtained door.
“Jay?”
I can hear him excuse himself to the patient he’s attending to before he parts the curtain. When he sees me, he pulls the curtain closed behind him. “Lakshmi!” he says, taking in my disheveled state. He guides me into the back hallway, so we’re out of sight of the reception room. “I’ve been so worried! First, you didn’t show up for clinic. When I sent someone home to see if you were all right, he came back and told me there was no one at the house.”
I place the flat of my hand on his chest to calm him. “I took Chandra and went to look for Nimmi. She wasn’t at her place when I stopped by this morning, everything she owns was gone.”
“And did you—”
“Yes. Everyone’s safe. But I need to find a place for forty sheep.”
His eyes go wide. “You found the flock?”
“Yes. We only need to keep them for a few days. I promise.”
He pulls at his lip, looking down at his feet. “The groundskeeper at the hospital has been nagging me to have the lawns mowed.”
“Shabash!” I say. I smile and place a finger on his lips.
He takes my hand and squeezes it. “A few days only, accha? Once I’m done with this patient, I’ll have a talk with the groundskeeper.”
“Can you handle this afternoon’s load without me?”
He nods. “So far today we’ve only had three patients. So I think we’ll manage.”
I hand him my coin purse. “For the groundskeeper.” Every favor has a price. “Also, I’ve left a body at the crematorium. It’s Nimmi’s brother.”
Before he has a chance to ask more questions, I turn and leave.
An hour later, Nimmi is busy corralling the flock onto the lower ravine of the hospital grounds, out of sight of patients and staff.
I’m sitting on a low stone wall opposite the hospital’s front entrance where the street vendors gather to sell their chaat, homemade paranthas, paan and beedis. Chullu is a warm bundle on my lap; he’s gnawing on a slice of mango while Rekha munches on a sugarcane, sucking up the sweet juice as she goes. Chandra is standing quietly to one side, munching on his bag of oats and flicking his ears every now and then to shoo away the flies.
Nimmi and the children are safe for now; we’ve found the sheep a temporary home, and I’m planning our next step. I take the yellow matchbox from the pocket of my coat and read the print again: Canara Private Enterprises. I’ve looked inside the matchbox more than once; there’s nothing but matches. It’s possible the box means nothing. Maybe Vinay only carried it to light his evening campfires. But then, why would it have been hidden inside a secret pocket?
When I check my watch, I see it’s almost 5:00 p.m. The local businesses stay open until six or seven in the evening. I have no idea what I might find at Canara, but I think it’s best if I go there alone. I need to find out what, if anything, Nimmi’s brother had in common with that place.
Men enjoying their late afternoon chaat and gupshup at the stalls can’t keep from staring at the four of us. I look down at the clothes I’m wearing.
I’m an Indian woman with blue eyes. I’m dressed as a man. Who wouldn’t stare?
When Nimmi returns from the lower ravine, I tell her I’m going to go find Canara Enterprises. She wants to come with me. “It’s my problem, Ji. I should be the one to go.”
“No,” I tell her. “The children are exhausted. Feed them, put them to bed. We’ll talk later.”
Her nostrils flare, and I realize I’ve been too harsh. “Nimmi,” I say. “Please.”
She tilts her head, her way of telling me, Okay. She takes the children with her. Rekha turns her head to wave her sugarcane at me.
I rub Chandra’s neck. He’s been fed and watered by the hospital attendants.
I should go home and make myself presentable, but I decide it’s best if I approach the people at Canara as I am. In my jodhpurs and my long coat, I somehow feel less vulnerable. They might be thrown off by the outfit just enough to take me seriously.
Another advantage: horses are the most practical way to get around in this hilly city. When Jay first taught me to ride horses, I was scared of being so high off the ground. I wouldn’t have my feet to guide me. Would I lose my way?
“You’re used to being in control,” Jay told me, smiling. “The very reason you’ll love being on a horse. The horse is looking to you for directions. Just order him around the same way you do me.”
I’d threatened to throw one of my new boots at him unless he stopped himself from laughing. Slowly, gently, he coaxed me into riding, and it wasn’t long before I realized I felt confident on a horse. Later, when he learned that one of his maternity patients wanted to sell her horse, he bought Chandra for me.
Now I pat my lovely chestnut on his glossy neck as we make our way through town. I ask people walking on the street if they’ve heard of Canara; there is no other way to find a business in Shimla. One person in four will point you in a direction—but not necessarily the right one.
An hour later, after I’ve made a few wrong turns and observed many arguments between locals, I find myself in a small clearing surrounded by pines. The large yellow sign displaying the company’s name hangs askew from a rusty barbed-wire fence. There’s a drying yard behind the fence, where bricks are stacked in rows, a clay quarry, and, at the far end of the yard, a kiln that must be forty feet tall. If this is a brick factory, I should be seeing workers mixing clay, preparing molds, taking fresh bricks to the kiln. But there’s no one. The yard is quiet, the kiln inactive.
I dismount. To the left of the locked gate I notice a small building. The sign on the front door says Office. I tie Chandra to the fence, walk over to the building and push open the door. The young man behind the counter looks startled. Either he wasn’t expecting a customer or he had not expected the customer to be a woman.
The room is tiny. The counter spans the whole width of the narrow interior, neatly dividing the space into two halves. The sole decoration is a calendar hanging on the wall from 1964, advertising Coca-Cola, and a painting of the monkey-god Hanuman. I can see an office through the open door behind the young man. There, an older man—middle-aged with a black beard flecked in gray—is sitting at a desk. He’s talking to someone on the office’s rotary phone. I understand the language that the man is speaking—it’s Punjabi, a language I’ve come to recognize only since I came to live up north.
He is saying, “Nahee-nahee. It will not be a problem. Hahn. Yes. It will get done.”
The younger man behind the counter says, “What do you need?” His tone is far from friendly.
Without a word, I put the yellow matchbox on the counter.
He looks at it, and then at me. His coal-black eyes are wary, as if he doesn’t quite know what to make of me.
My heart is pounding, and I realize I don’t know what I’m getting into. Jay has no idea I’m here. Come to think of it, why am I here? I could be with my patients at the Community Clinic and my plants in the garden instead of in this room, which is pulsating with an uneasy tension I can’t quite identify.
I meet the counterman’s gaze, and hold it, without blinking.
He picks up the matchbox and takes it with him into the other room. He waits until the older man gets off the phone. Their voices low, they have a hurried conversation. The older man leans his head to one side, looking past the counterman, so he can get a better look at me. Then he takes the matchbox from the young man and dumps the matches on his desk. Running his fingernail along the inside of the box, he removes a piece of paper.
Neither Nimmi nor I had thought to look underneath the matches! The man pulls a ledger from the middle drawer on the right side of his desk. I watch him run his index finger down the page until he finds the entry that he must be looking for. He looks again at the tiny piece of paper taken from the matchbox, lifts himself out of the chair and walks to the counter. He’s larger and taller than his younger companion. His eyebrows come together as he looks at me.
“You don’t look like a shepherd,” he says in Hindi.
I shrug but offer no excuse or explanation. The fact that he was expecting a shepherd means I’ve come to the right place. My palms are moist, and I resist the urge to wipe them on my coat.
“You’re late,” he tells me. “We expected you three days ago.”
I arch a brow. If it’s gold he’s after, what’s the difference if it arrives late? He must know that weather, a sick animal or an injury can always stall a shepherd.
His eyes are narrow as he studies me. “We thought you might have kept it for yourself.”
I frown at him.
He looks around me, through the open entryway, then turns to me again. “Where is it, then?”
My underarms are slick with sweat. I don’t know what to tell him, but I make a calculated guess at his question. “It’s with the sheep.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’ve told your lot before. No sheep shit in my yard. Bring the cargo, not the shit. You understand?”
“Tomorrow,” I say. Hai Bhagwan! That means we’ll have to remove all that gold from the flock tonight and find a way to bring it here.
I take a risk with my question. “No bricks being made today?” I want to keep him talking. Maybe find out where the gold goes next and how it gets there.
He chews on his cheek, lets his gaze linger on me. He thinks I’m being nosy, which I am. “What’s it to you?” he says.
I shove my hands into my pockets, meet his stare. Then, as coolly as I can, I turn around and leave the office. The big man follows me, watches as I mount my horse and ride away. He might be thinking a shepherd who can afford to own a horse as fine as Chandra might be more experienced at moving stolen goods than he assumed.
Once I’m several miles away, I let my grip on Chandra’s reins relax and slow him to an easy trot. My fingers, stiff from clutching the reins as if my life depended on it, unfurl slowly. Only then do I start breathing normally again.