The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi

5

LAKSHMI

Shimla

I snip a drying leaf off the burdock plant with my clippers and inspect it. Tiny holes perforate the center. I turn it over. There might be insect eggs, or larvae, but I can’t see them; at forty-two, my eyes aren’t as sharp as they used to be. I’ll have to look at it, tomorrow, under the microscope. I put it in my basket and survey the Lady Bradley Healing Garden, a garden I started over a decade ago—the reason I came to Shimla in the first place. Would I have come if Jay hadn’t offered me this lifeline, persuaded me to take it? After all, scandal had put a full stop to my life as a henna artist in Jaipur. And even though the accusations of thieving their jewelry weren’t true, my clients, the wealthy ladies of Jaipur, weren’t about to forgive—or forget—easily. In the end, I had to leave Jaipur in order to start over.

Nimmi is hoeing another row in the garden. In the few weeks she’s been working with me, she has taught me so much about the plants that her tribe gathers in the Himalayan meadows between here and Kashmir. From the gaping monkshood, a three-foot shrub with blue flowers that we’re planting today, we’ll harvest the roots, pulverize them and mix them with geranium oil to make a sweet-smelling ointment for boils, abscesses and other skin irritations. In my time working with the hill people, I’ve learned that they don’t trust medicines that smell like chemicals; they will only use remedies that smell of the earth, of the trees and flowers they know. That’s one of the reasons our little clinic has become so popular with the locals. Wealthier patients, or foreign ones, prefer the Lady Bradley Hospital’s more antiseptic environment, which tribal people like Nimmi don’t like or trust.

I watch her now, making furrows only as wide as we absolutely need to lay the seeds of the monkshood. She works quickly and efficiently, wasting no energy on movements that don’t help her get where she’s going.

She must sense me watching her. Without breaking stride or looking my way, she says, “We’re a little late getting this in the ground, but it might still take.” She looks at the sky, then at me. “If the weather holds. Don’t be surprised if this plant doesn’t sprout for a year, though. It’s touchy.”

I nod. At times, I feel as if she and I have come to an understanding—a friendship of sorts. But sometimes, her tone is gruff, as if she resents being here at the clinic. She is earning enough to care for Rekha and Chullu—a salary that Jay and I pay out of our own pockets, although she doesn’t need to know that. What she is teaching us is valuable enough, but until we can show the hospital board the results of her work, we won’t be able to cover her wages from the hospital budget. The paperwork I had her sign the first day (after I showed her how to form her initials in Hindi) was a contract between Nimmi and Jay and me. We didn’t need it at all. I just didn’t want her thinking I’m offering charity—she would hate that—so I told her it was a contract with the Lady Bradley Hospital.

She’s probably still trying to work out how she feels. Whether she can fit me into a slot between resentment and gratitude. I understand. It was the same with me in Jaipur: ladies of privilege to whom I automatically said yes, Ji, and of course, Ji, no matter how unreasonable their requests because they were paying me, giving me the money I needed to build my house. I swallowed my pride until the day I finally said no, never again to Parvati Singh. I close my eyes. That’s all in the past now. What’s the use of crying when the birds ate the whole farm?

Nimmi is missing Malik. I miss him, too. His easy way with people, making them feel comfortable—safe—around him. But he is miles away in the Rajasthani heat.

I shake my head and make some notes on my clipboard about how much fertilizer we need to purchase.

“Have you forgotten?” At the sound of Jay’s voice, I turn around.

He’s walking toward me from the back door of the hospital. His curly hair, which used to be merely threaded with gray, is now more silver than black. He’s wearing his white doctor’s coat, a stethoscope peeking out of one pocket. There’s something about the way he looks at me that always makes me smile.

“Clinic starts in five. Tea first?” he asks when he reaches me. He removes a leaf from my hair where it must have caught on my bun.

I look at Nimmi. “Nimmi? Tea?”

She straightens and gives Jay one of her rare smiles. When she glances at me, her smile disappears, and she shakes her head. “I want to finish this.”

Jay takes the gloves I’m removing from my hands and walks with me into the shed where we store tools and supplies. I’m putting the gardening sheers on their peg when I feel his fingers trail the back of my neck, starting at my hairline, down to the scalloped edge of my blouse. I close my eyes, feel that delicious tingle. His familiar scent of lime and sandalwood is so comforting. I turn to face him, raise my lips to his. “I thought you wanted to get to the clinic.”

He laughs lightly, tapping my nose with his finger. “Ah, yes. So I did.”

The Community Clinic was not doing well the first time I stepped through its doors twelve years ago. That was right around the time my sister, Radha, gave birth at the adjoining Lady Bradley Hospital. While we waited for Radha to recover, Jay—Dr. Kumar, as he was known to me then—suggested that I use what I knew about herbs and their healing properties to treat the local hill people. Without my henna business to support me, Radha and young Malik, I needed the work he was offering. True to his word, Jay secured the funds to start the Lady Bradley Healing Garden. He found a house for Radha, Malik and me on the periphery of the hospital grounds. It wasn’t lush, but we weren’t used to lush; the house I’d built in Jaipur was but a single room. I could afford to buy the small cottage Jay found; I had money from the sale of my Jaipur home.

From the beginning, Jay was respectful, kind; he listened to my ideas. We worked well together; he would help decipher the tribal languages of the patients so I could administer the appropriate poultice, lotion or food remedy. We got into the habit of having a glass of scotch in his office at the end of the workday (I’d started with chai but eventually switched to his Laphroaig when I discovered that I liked its smoky taste). We started to attend plays at the Gaiety Theater together, hike to Jakhu Temple with Radha and Malik, play cribbage (all four of us are competitive!), and cook together. At that time, Malik boarded at Bishop Cotton School for Boys nearby and Radha was at Auckland House School, both of which Samir Singh funded to atone for his son’s indiscretion.

Then, six years ago, on a fine Sunday evening, Jay and I were returning from a long hike. Radha had moved to France the year before with her husband, Pierre, a French architect she met when she was nineteen and he was on holiday in Shimla. Malik was away, playing in a cricket match in Chandigarh, an overnight trip with his school.

On our walk, Jay and I had been trading proverbs—one of our favorite games—trying to best each other.

“Giving jewels to a donkey is as useless as—”

“—giving a eunuch to a woman,” I said, laughing.

Jay raised his brows in surprise, then smiled, pleased. “Hmm. I was thinking dancing for the blind, but yours trumps mine.” We were standing on the front veranda of his house, a tiny but comfortable bungalow his aunt and uncle had left him. They’d raised him in Shimla after his parents died.

“Cribbage?” I asked. We usually ended the evening with a game.

Instead of answering, he looked at me for a long moment. I felt my face flush. Then he turned, unlocked the front door and pushed it open, stepping back—just slightly—so that I had to brush against him to enter. When I did, I felt his fingers, as light as breath, on the back of my neck. I stood still, felt a jolt run down my spine, every tendon, every muscle in my body quivering. The last time I’d felt a sensation that intense was the night I’d succumbed to Samir Singh’s charms in Jaipur—once and only once—six years before. That same year Samir had introduced Jay to me—quite by chance—and neither of us could have predicted what happened next.

Jay placed a warm hand on my hip, on the exposed flesh just above my sari. He drew me gently toward him so I could feel the heat of his chest against my back. I felt his lips graze that tender knob at the top of my spine. I let out a soft moan. I couldn’t help myself—it had been so long since I’d been touched this way. So long since I’d trusted any man. My sister, Radha, had teased me for years: Dr. Jay is smitten with you! But I’d been wary. Having left a bad marriage at the age of seventeen and then finding that I was nothing more than a distraction for Samir Singh, I didn’t want to be made vulnerable again.

Jay pulled on my earlobe with his teeth. “Lakshmi,” he whispered, “we’re not playing tonight.”

No sooner had he ushered us inside the house than I whipped around and kissed him on the mouth, my tongue searching for his, my pelvis, aching, arching toward his. I pressed my breasts against his chest, clutched his buttocks through his trousers. I was surprised at the depth of my want, at the urgency of it. His hands found the hooks on the back of my blouse, undid them.

When Jay pulled away to free me from my blouse, he and I were breathing hard. A lazy smile played about his lips, as if to tell me he had always hoped that this would happen, known it would. And though he’d had to wait, it had. Finally—it had.

Finally.I put my lips against his mouth again, massaged his nipples through his shirt.

He whispered against my lips, “Rumors have been circulating for the past six years about us. Don’t you think it’s time we put an end to them?”

Before the week was out, we’d married, in a simple ceremony at the civil court in Shimla. Radha and Pierre came from France. Malik wore his best suit and his wing-tip shoes for the occasion. (In Jaipur, he had never owned a pair of closed-toed shoes, but private school had changed his tastes.)

Our marriage didn’t change our working relationship. Jay continued as a physician at the Lady Bradley Hospital and remained director of the adjoining Community Clinic. I was in charge of the Healing Garden. Three afternoons a week, I worked with him at the clinic with a nurse and a few sisters, assisting with patients. We eventually sold our bungalows so we could buy a larger home together where Malik could stay when Bishop Cotton closed for holidays and, after he graduated, live with us, if he wished to.

Madho Singh, the Alexandrine parakeet gifted to Malik by the Maharani Indira of Jaipur, had pride of place in our new drawing room and kept watch on all comings and goings. Whatever Malik happened to be doing at the time, I made sure to share his latest news with Madho Singh.

Nimmi collects flowers early in the mornings to sell on the Shimla Mall immediately afterward. Then she comes to the Community Clinic with Rekha and Chullu. She stows her empty flower basket in the toolshed, and while she hoes or plants or waters seedlings, Chullu and Rekha play in the clearing next to the shed. The children are used to sitting quietly by themselves and keeping each other company. Nimmi is a calm, patient mother. If Chullu tries to eat the soil or Rekha starts to pull up shoots, a few soft words from her in their dialect makes them listen. When it’s time for Nimmi to feed Chullu and for Rekha and me to start our Hindi lesson, Nimmi sits near us so she can also see the pages of the Panchatantra book. The stories are short and beautifully illustrated. Radha and I grew up with these very fables, and now Rekha and Chullu are growing up with them, too. (I wish Radha were here to see us! Like me, she loved teaching the small children at our father’s village school in Ajar.)

Our first story is the tale of the monkey and the crocodile, who start out as friends. But the crocodile’s wife decides she wants to eat the monkey’s heart, so the crocodile invites his friend to dinner. The monkey readily hops onto the crocodile’s back. But on the river, the crocodile confesses that he means to kill him, so his wife can eat his heart. The monkey tells the crocodile he always leaves his heart on his tree and they will have to go back to get it. Of course, as soon as they reach land, the monkey climbs his tree, saving himself, and the crocodile loses a friend.

When we get to the end of the story, I hear Nimmi cough. But when I look over at her, I realize she’s laughing, the corners of her eyes creased with delight! More of a cackle, really, but no matter. It’s the first time I’ve heard Nimmi laugh, and soon enough I’m laughing with her. She moves closer to us and says, “Read it again, Ji.”

Another first! Until this moment, she has never called me Ji—a term that’s meant to show respect. Relief floods me. I’m pleased, as I know Malik will be, and smile at her to let her know it. But she’s not looking at me. Chullu has fallen asleep, and she is fashioning a harness for him with her chunni. She slings him across her back.

I start again, at the beginning of the story. Rekha learns quickly. She and I sound out the words together and trace the written words with our fingers. Nimmi holds back, afraid of making a mistake, but her daughter helps her, and she joins us.

Already I’m thinking about the next book I’m going to check out of the Shimla library: a children’s book of Himalayan flowers: blue poppies, purple water lilies, yellow irises. The drawings are colorful and large, and both Rekha and Nimmi are sure to recognize the flowers.

As we read out loud, Chullu continues to sleep on his mother’s back, soothed by the sounds of his mother’s and his sister’s voices.

Now when Nimmi comes to my house to have me read Malik’s letters, she brings the children. She even eats the treats I make for her. I can tell the sugared fruits I serve are lifting her spirits. The loneliness is leaving her, little by little. Sometimes she brings treats to share: a basket of wild ghingaroo berries or a handful of Indian figs or sweet Himalayan apples she’s picked on her way here.

When I begin reading the latest letter from Malik, Rekha sidles up next to me to get a closer look. I think she’s pretending that she’s reading it along with me.

Dear Nimmi and Auntie-Boss,

Now I’ve seen everything! Manu asked Ravi Singh to show me the Royal Jewel Cinema. That’s the big project Singh-Sharma has been building for the palace. Ravi says there’s nothing else like it in all of Rajasthan. It’s a two-story building that takes up the entire city block between two of the busiest streets in Jaipur. He told me he would have liked to model it after the Old Vic in Bristol (as if I’ve seen that!), but the Maharani Latika had just been to America and she wanted more of an art deco design like the Pantages (hope I spelled that right) Theatre in Los Angeles (that’s in California). Architecture of the 1930s in America is still news here in India, I guess. (Boss, aren’t you proud I learned something in my art history classes at Bishop Cotton?)

Here’s what was happening the day we visited the cinema house: two men were installing the name of the theater over the entrance in three-foot high gold letters; others were painting the outside walls pink, like the color of the old city walls. Then there were masons creating the stone mandala in the front of the building with a blue-and-green peacock at its center—not nearly as good, of course, as the mosaic you designed on the floor of your house in Jaipur, Auntie-Boss.

Then we entered the lobby...Waa! Waa! First, it goes on forever. Second, it’s carpeted in plush red wool and silk. I bet Chullu would love to slobber all over that carpet (ha ha). I looked up at the ceiling and saw the largest chandeliers—different from anything we ever saw at the Maharanis’ Palace—dangling from huge concave circles. Inside each circle are millions of tiny twinkling bulbs. It’s like looking at a sky that’s glittering with stars and planets and galaxies!

Then we walked inside the theater where the seats are. It’s bloody brilliant! Ravi is really proud of the fact that he managed to squeeze in eleven hundred seats—it’s that large! He designed the theater so the seats are tiered and keep rising as you get farther from the screen—like those Greek amphitheaters we also studied in art history class (and you thought I learned nothing there, Boss!).

There’s a balcony (where the rich people sit) from which you can look down onto the stage and the seats below. The screen is almost as tall as the Hawa Mahal in Jaipur! And here’s something I’d never heard of: surround sound. The Royal Jewel Cinema has it. Apparently, it was recently invented in America. So in this cinema house, everybody can hear and everybody gets a good seat.

I was imagining all of us in the theater together. How you would both marvel at this building! (Chullu would marvel at that carpet.) Rows and rows of stone arches carved into the walls of the theater and inlaid with flowers and leaves (don’t ask me which flowers and which leaves—that’s your department).

Have to go! My other boss is calling me. Give my best to Dr. Jay!

Yours,

Malik