The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi

16

LAKSHMI

Shimla

We didn’t talk about what just happened on our way back from the lower pasture. It was awkward with all three of us present. The only time Nimmi spoke is to tell us she had arranged for a local shepherd to move the sheep tomorrow.

I don’t know why, but I felt wary about bringing up the altercation with the police. I couldn’t say exactly why but wondered if I might not like his answer. Still, it kept replaying in my head, like a broken film that’s stuck in the projector, slapping the machine with every revolution of the reel. I saw the way that Jay reacted when confronted by the captain, pretending—so convincingly—to be having an affair with Nimmi. Even I almost believed him. I was crouched behind a tree trunk far into the darkness, but I could still make out the silhouettes of Jay and Nimmi. He was holding her in an embrace, and then he kissed her!

Did he feel anything? Did she?

There are nurses at the hospital and the clinic who have a crush on Jay. They see him as the kind, and bashful, doctor. But I’ve never felt they were a threat. The jealousy that overwhelmed me when I saw him holding Nimmi was entirely new. And, after all, I am the one who insisted Nimmi live with us, for now.

Should I be worried? No. A liaison between the two of them is inconceivable. Jay loves me; he’s always claimed he fell for me the first time he saw me at Samir Singh’s house twelve years ago. I have no reason to believe he hasn’t been faithful during our marriage.

As the three of us step onto the front veranda, I can hear the phone ringing inside. I know Moni won’t answer the phone—she doesn’t trust it. I hurry to unlock the door. The only phone calls we get late at night are from the hospital for Jay. Sometimes Radha calls from Paris, but she’s careful about calling, as the charges are exorbitant, and she calls only on her girls’ birthdays, and on Diwali.

But the phone call is not from Radha or the hospital. It’s Kanta, telling me the Royal Jewel Cinema collapsed tonight.

She quickly assures me that Malik, and her family, are fine, which sets my racing heart at ease.

But she’s speaking quickly, and she’s crying. I don’t catch every word and have to ask her to repeat herself. “I’m so glad we didn’t take Nikhil to the cinema tonight,” she says. “He was furious with us because he wanted to be in on the excitement. So many of his classmates were going...” She stops herself, and I can hear her sobs. When she manages to calm herself, she says, “Oh, Lakshmi. It was horrible for everyone. People were hurt. They were crying. The biggest project for the palace so far—the maharani invested all that money to build it! And Manu was in charge of it. He’s beside himself! Says he has no idea how it could have happened.”

“How many were hurt?” My mind is sprinting through the names of everyone I used to know in Jaipur. Hai Ram! Were any of them there? Were they hurt?

“We only know that the actor, Rohit Seth—you must have heard of him—died instantly. He fell to the first floor when his part of the balcony gave way. Many people sitting just below the balcony were injured, too. A child is being treated—we heard his leg was badly crushed. A woman is in critical condition. She may survive, or not. It’s touch and go.” She blows her nose and takes another moment to control herself. I can picture Kanta with her phone, twisting the black plastic coil around her finger, leaning back against the hallway wall. I can see her shake her head, dramatically, and wring the handkerchief she’s soaked with tears.

“They’ll try to blame this all on Manu! He’s convinced of it. But it isn’t Manu’s fault! You know that he’s meticulous about his work! The last to leave the office every day. He checks and double-checks the figures, quantities, the costs of labor and materials. He constantly goes over everything. You should see how carefully he checks our bills at home—I can’t even watch him do it. If he finds an error, or an overcharge, he just assumes I haven’t paid attention. Baap re baap!”

When I had my henna business in Jaipur, Kanta was a client—and among the few who offered me their friendship from the first day we met. She knew I was a fallen Brahmin in the eyes of other matrons because I handled women’s feet when I painted their henna. That task, considered to be unclean, was reserved for lower castes; it wasn’t respectable for Brahmins to do it.

Then when Radha became pregnant with Ravi’s child, Kanta, who was also pregnant at the time, took her to Shimla, where they could have their babies together, far from prying eyes and wagging tongues. Sadly, Kanta lost her baby because of septic shock and almost lost her own life.

But fate, aided by a bit of nudging on my part, led to the adoption of Radha’s son by Kanta and Manu. It was Jay, of course, I had to nudge.

I can hear Kanta wailing at the other end of the phone. I make my voice as creamy as rasmalai. “But Singh-Sharma is responsible for the construction—not Manu. I’m sure there’ll be an inquiry. They’ll find out what caused it, Kanta. Brand-new buildings don’t just fall to pieces every day.” I pause. “In your most recent letter, you said they were hurrying the project to complete it on time. Could somebody have cut corners?”

She makes a small choking sound. “But Manu signed off on everything! His name is everywhere, on all the palace paperwork!” Now she’s worked herself into a frenzy, and that can’t be good for Niki or her saas, both of whom are probably listening.

“Listen to me, Kanta. It will all work out. The maharanis are fair. They’re smart. They won’t accuse Manu. It will be handled.” As I’m saying this, I’m thinking that I need to talk to Malik to get a fuller picture of the cinema’s collapse. I say, “Where is Malik now?”

“At the cinema house with Manu and Samir. They’re helping with the rescue effort. Will be for hours. I wanted to come home, to see that Niki’s safe. He is. Was that bad of me? There were other mothers there whose children had been hurt, and I couldn’t think of anything but Niki. I kept thinking, what if it was my child who was injured?” Now she’s speaking in a whisper. “I’m going to keep Niki home from school for a few days. I don’t know how his classmates will react, or what they’ll say to him. Many of his friends were at the cinema with their parents. If some of them were injured... Oh, Lakshmi! I’m not thinking clearly... I don’t know what I ought to do!”

If Kanta’s right, and the accident isn’t Manu’s fault, everything will, eventually, be okay. But for the moment, fingers will be pointing at him; he will be blamed. If he’s forced to leave his job, it will be difficult for him to get another—anywhere. Palace scandals spread, and quickly, and if the scandal’s big—as this one is—no one can contain it. A scandal in which lives are lost will never be forgotten. Or forgiven.

Kanta is falling apart. My friend needs me the way I needed her all those years ago. I realize I must go to Jaipur; I can catch the first train in the morning. I tell Kanta. Immediately, she begins to calm down. After a few more words of reassurance, I hang up.

I hear Nimmi ask, “What’s happening? Is Malik okay?”

I turn around; she’s standing behind me. While I’ve been on the phone, I realize Moni, our housekeeper, must have left, and Nimmi has come back downstairs after looking in on the children. She must have heard some of my conversation. Her wild-eyed look reminds me of how the sheep greeted us tonight when we came to shear them. She is nervously rubbing her palms along the sides of her skirt.

“He’s fine.” My legs are shaking, and I take a seat on the couch.

Jay comes into the drawing room, bringing Nimmi a glass of scotch, but she doesn’t acknowledge it, or him. He sets it down on the credenza next to her. Next, he hands me my glass. I sip my drink, feeling the golden liquid snake its way to my belly. Jay sits opposite me.

After a breath, I tell them what Kanta told me.

I turn to Jay. “Tomorrow I’ll take the early train to Jaipur. Kanta needs me right now—”

Nimmi steps between us. Her face is a knot of anxiety. “I knew Malik shouldn’t have gone to Jaipur. I knew something awful would happen. Just like with Dev.”

I reach for Nimmi’s arm to calm her. “Malik is not hurt, Nimmi.”

She pulls her arm away. “He didn’t want to go. You know he didn’t want to go! You made him go...you did that. You put him in danger. He wouldn’t have gone if you hadn’t asked him. Don’t you see? He does everything you tell him.”

Nimmi towers above me, gesturing wildly. “I know you want to decide who he should be with, too. And I don’t fit, do I? You want him to be with someone padha-likha. Someone who wears silk saris and speaks angrezi.”Her body is vibrating with energy. “Why is it so important for anyone to read-write when all you need to survive is air and mountains and apples off the trees and pine nuts and the sweet milk of goats? I’ve survived on that all my life!” She throws her arms up in the air. “Malik isn’t even yours, is he? He’s someone else’s child. If you wanted children so badly, why didn’t you have them yourself?”

She’s blaming me for wanting the best for Malik? She thinks I smother him? I sit there, numb, my glass of scotch like a prop in my hand. How am I supposed to comfort her? The woman who was kissing my husband an hour ago? Do I defend myself? After I’ve risked my own life to keep her and her children safe from the danger her brother put them in?

Nimmi plops herself down on the sofa next to me, surprising me and upsetting my drink. She seizes my free hand with her strong, hot fingers. Her face is just inches from mine and her dark eyes are blazing. “He—he does things you want him to because he’s good. Malik is good. And he owes you so much. He’s told me. He doesn’t know where he would be without you. But he needs to live his own life now. He deserves to make his own way in the world. It’s time for you to let him go. He needs to hear it from you. Please. He’ll let go if you let go. Mrs. Kumar, you have to let him go. You have to.”

She opens her mouth to say more, but nothing comes. She merely stares into my eyes, as if she wants to reach the part of me that I don’t allow anyone to see.

Her gaze is so penetrating that I have to look away.

Is she right? Do I use my hold on Malik in a way that doesn’t serve him? Am I using my influence to lead him toward a life that will make him unhappy? I’ve never thought of Malik as a son, more as a younger brother. But he’s more than that, isn’t he? He’s a part of my past, a part of me. He has known me at my best and my worst. At my happiest. And my most despondent. He’s known me longer than anyone in my life—longer than Jay—or Radha, who came into my life when she was already thirteen years old. If I ceased to look after Malik, would I feel the loss, like a limb I’d mislaid? Or would it be a relief to know I no longer had to be responsible for his well-being? Is Malik even expecting me to look after him that way? Or does he just humor me, allow me to direct him, because he knows it makes me feel useful?

I feel hollow—like a reed before the henna paste fills its core. I don’t know what to say, or what to think. I can neither speak, nor move.

Jay sets his glass on the table. He takes Nimmi by the shoulders, eases her off the sofa, and leads her out of the room and up the stairs.

My hand, where her fingers had just been, feels like it’s burning.

I finish my drink in my bath, then set the glass on the soap basket. Even now, after washing off the memory of the day—the pungent sweat smell of the men at Canara, the rough wool of the sheep on my palms, the humiliation of seeing my husband kiss another woman, the unsettling questions Nimmi has planted in my mind—I don’t know what to feel.

When the water has, at last, gone cold, I step out of the tub, and Jay comes into the bathroom to stand before me. He wraps me in a towel and rubs it gently on my back, looking at me all the while, never taking his eyes off mine. He still smells of the outdoors, the scent of pine needles on the forest floor, the musty odor of the wool we’d sheared.

Then he lets the towel drop to the floor. He puts his forehead against mine and leaves it there. Is he sympathizing with me? About what Nimmi said? Or maybe he feels the same way she does. Perhaps he’s asking for forgiveness for kissing her? Is there anything to forgive? The rational part of me knows he acted in our best interest tonight when the police showed up. It’s ridiculous to think that he has been carrying on with Nimmi. Even so, I want to hear him say it. I know how long he waited for me, how long he wanted me before I realized I wanted him, too. But there are times—like now, when I’m at my lowest—that I need to hear the words.

Water from my breasts is soaking through his shirt. He slides his hands down my arms and lets them rest on my hips. He kneels.

The warm touch of his lips in the triangle between my breasts makes me draw a sharp breath. His lips travel lower—down to my navel—and lower still. My buttocks tense and every nerve in my body vibrates with anticipation.

I put my hands on either side of his head and press his lips to the space between my trembling legs. He squeezes my buttocks, pulls them apart, pushes them together. Then his tongue finds the spot that makes me tingle inside and out; it licks and sucks and darts until I feel that I’m about to faint. When I come, I let out a loud groan, not thinking of, or worrying about, the other woman in the house, in Malik’s room. Jay stops moving. We stay like that until I am no longer shaking. Then he turns his head to one side, wraps his arms around my legs and says, “You, Lakshmi.”

For a long time, we stay that way.

Finally, Jay says, pleadingly, “My knees.” And then he’s laughing. I feel his lovely eyelashes brush against my belly, and I release him.

Not long after, I will fall into the deepest slumber of my life, my arms around my husband.