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?”