Page 7

“Freedom is relative, Lakshmi.” With one deft move, he laid several hundred-rupee notes and a piece of paper in my hand. “At one time the British were over us. Now they’re just under our feet.”

I unfolded the paper and read the note inside. “AnAngreziwoman?”

“Even the English need your services. She’s expecting you tomorrow. She’ll be home.” He put the sachets in his pocket and said, “How’s the house coming?”

Now would be the time to tell him how the builder had suggested, rudely, that I settle up my debt. I still owed four thousand rupees. But that excess was no one’s fault but mine. I was greedy for the kinds of things my ladies had: an inlaid stone floor, a Western toilet, double thick walls to repel the noonday heat. The problem was my own creation and I alone would solve it. A successful marriage commission would help put me in good standing. I said, “Tomorrow they will seal the terrazzo with goat milk. You should see it.”

His eyes dropped to my lips. “Are you offering me a private tour?”

I laughed. “You’ve already thrown my schedule off, and you think I should reward you?”

From behind me came another voice.“He deserves paradise who makes his companions laugh!”

Samir and I both turned to see who had just spoken. A tall man, dressed neatly in a gray wool suit and red tie, bounded up the steps of the veranda. Only his dark curls were in disarray.

Samir stepped aside to embrace the newcomer. “Kumar!” he said. “Glad to see you, old chum! You made it out to Jaipur. Finally!”

“I didn’t trust the Shimla railway to get me here in time for lunch—or evendinner,” Kumar said, glancing at me with a bashful smile, revealing two overlapping front teeth. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Singh.”

Had Samir and I been standingthatclose to one another?

Samir patted Kumar’s back heartily. “Nahee-nahee.Allow me to present Mrs. Lakshmi Shastri, purveyor of beauty to all of Jaipur.”

“I see she hasn’t started on you yet, Sammy.”

Samir chuckled. Kumar looked at me, at Samir, at the veranda, his shoes, then back at me. Eyes like these belonged to the cautious.

“Lakshmi, meet an old friend from Oxford. Jay Kumar. Dr.Kumar.”

I folded my hands in anamastejust as the doctor extended his hand to shake mine, jabbing me on the wrist.

Samir laughed. “Forgive him, Lakshmi. Too much time abroad. No wife to teach him Indian ways.”

The color rose in Dr. Kumar’s face, his eyes darting from Samir to me. “My apologies, Mrs. Shastri.”

“No bother, Doctor.” Over his shoulder, I could see Malik watching us from the veranda steps.“Tonga?”I asked him.

Malik wagged his head back and forth in confirmation. A few blocks from the Singh house, we would abandon the horse carriage and continue in a cheaper rickshaw to our next henna appointment.

“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Kumar. Till next time,Sammy.” Coming from me, the old nickname must have sounded as ridiculous to their ears as it did to mine. They both laughed.

I picked up the tiffins and my vinyl carrier and reminded Malik to fetch the other two holdalls under the apple tree. As I nodded my goodbye to the two men, I was thinking that I must remember to note Samir’s payment for the sachets in my notebook.

I went down the steps and heard Samir say, “Let’s go in. Parvati is very much looking forward to meeting you!” On the last step, my sandal caught, and I turned to replace it on my foot. I glanced up just in time to see the doctor watching me as the front door closed.

At the corner of the veranda stood Lala, biting her lip, her hands nervously twisting the ends of herpallu. I thought I saw a plea in her eyes and almost went back up the steps to meet her, but she turned quickly and was gone.

A busy day of henna appointments had stretched into evening once again, and Malik and I were both exhausted. We stopped just outside the Pink City Bazaar, which was coming to life at this late hour—women in patterned saris selecting hairpins, men inkurthasmunching spicychaat, old men killing time, their glowingbeediscutting orange arcs through the dusky night. I envied them their easy camaraderie, the freedom with which the laborer and merchant castes moved about at night.

Since Partition, the pedestrian walkways of the old Pink City streets had become narrower, crowded as they were on both sides with tiny, makeshift shops, sometimes with nothing more than an old sari or canvas cloth tenting them. The old bazaar vendors had made room for the Punjabi and Sindhi refugees from West Pakistan to set up stalls that sold everything from spices to bangles. After all, the Jaipuri merchants joked, the Pink City was painted the color of hospitality for a reason.

Malik lived somewhere inside one of the many buildings that made up the Pink City. I had never asked whether he had a sibling, a mother or a father. It was enough that he and I were together ten hours a day and that he hauled my tiffins, flagged down rickshaws andtongas, haggled with suppliers. We shared confidences, of course, like the look of impatience he’d given me today when our last client kept us waiting an hour.

I placed three rupee coins in his palm, after making him promise he would buy real food for his dinner instead of greasy snacks. “You’re a growing boy,” I reminded him, as if he weren’t aware of it.

He grinned and took off like a top, winding his way between shoppers toward the bright lights.

I called out after him, “Chapattiandsubji, agreed?”