Mrs. Kumar looks at him fondly. “Arré! The balloon seller has been able to remodel his whole house because of your generosity!”
I see now that my clothes are not right for gardening. The sisters are in white habits. Dr. Jay wears a white coat over his clothes. Mrs. Kumar and the woman at the front desk wear white coats over their saris. Should I ask for a white coat to keep my finest skirts from getting soiled? And what will I do about my jewelry?
As if Lakshmi Kumar has heard me ask the question, she says to the nun behind the front desk, “Sister, would you please give Nimmi-ji one of the gardening aprons and a set of gloves? Oh, and also that paperwork I filled out earlier for Nimmi-ji.”
I feel a jolt up my spine. She knows I can’t read Hindi or English. What will the other clinic staff think—the ones who can read and write? Is Lakshmi trying to humiliate me?
The nun hands the paperwork to Mrs. Kumar, who rolls it and puts it in her coat pocket. She glances at me. “Perhaps later this afternoon, you and I can go over it, accha? I must join Dr. Kumar now.” With a reassuring smile at me, she parts the curtain, about to disappear into the area where she and the doctor work with patients. Where Malik must have taken Rekha and Chullu for their ear infections.
“Lakin...”
Mrs. Kumar turns her head around to look at me, inquiringly.
“It’s just... My Chullu. I must feed him.”
She looks down at my blouse, stricken, as if she’s just remembered that I’m still breastfeeding.
“Oh, Nimmi. I’m sorry. Of course! Why not bring Chullu and Rekha to work from now on? Maybe we can get Rekha to help water the plants.” She raises her brows. “But we would have to be careful around the clinic. Most of what the patients come in for isn’t infectious, but we want your children to stay healthy, hahn-nah?”
I return to the clinic in an hour, Chullu on my back and Rekha at my side. At home I changed into a homespun skirt, and a sweater blouse my sister-in-law gave me. I’ve cinched the blouse with the wool belt where I keep my husband’s knife. I’ve covered my head with a patterned shawl that holds my hair back.
Lakshmi comes with us to the garden carrying a clipboard, and we talk about the healing plants we need to sow. She makes notes and says she might forget unless she writes down what she’s thinking. As I watch her write, I think about the vendor who twists balloons into the shape of animals. The letters formed in Hindi are something like that, except, instead of animals, they make swirls and dots, circles and slanted lines. Lakshmi’s writing is even and neat, but what I find more beautiful is how her henna-decorated fingers move in rhythm with her pen. The henna’s cinnamon color is richer today than it was yesterday, and the contrast of cinnamon against the white page is striking.
When she sees me watching her, I look away. From the corner of my eye, I see her tap her lips with her fountain pen.
“Since Rekha will be coming here so often, I’d like to teach her how to read. If that’s all right with you. She’s four now, isn’t she? A perfect time to get her interested. We’ll practice during breaks, and you can sit in if you’d like.”
My daughter is drawing circles with her fingers in the loamy soil. I’m thinking of the possibilities. Might she become a padha-likha, or even a doctrini like Mrs. Kumar? Imagine! A tribal girl writing on paper, just like Lakshmi!
“Eventually, you’ll need to make lists of plants and supplies. For now, you can draw what the leaves of the plants look like.” With a few quick strokes, she draws a leaf on the edge of her clipboard. “Like this.”
“Moonseed!” I grin.
“Quite right.” She offers me the fountain pen.
I’ve never held a pen before. It’s smooth. And slick. I clutch it in my fingers, trying to hold it the way she does. I push hard. There’s a dark blot on the paper now, like a drop of blood. I look at Lakshmi, the way Rekha looks at me when she’s done something wrong. Lakshmi puts her hand on mine and lifts my fingers ever so gently. “Not so hard,” she says.
I ease up on the pressure. I draw a line, and the ink flows more smoothly. I draw another line, then another.
“Toothache plant?” she asks.
I nod.
“Shabash! You’re going to get along just fine, Nimmi!”
I’m not used to compliments. My face is warm, whether from embarrassment or gratitude, I can’t tell. She is being so kind. It’s not what I expected. I feel my eyes get moist.
She looks away and removes the rolled-up papers from her coat. “Let’s get this taken care of, shall we? But first, I want to check the fungus on that leaf.”
Lakshmi stands and walks in the direction of the wild senna, leaving me time to wipe my eyes.
ONE MONTH BEFORE
THE COLLAPSE
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.