by Alka Joshi
I tore my eyes from the woman writhing on the cot. “I gave her cotton root bark in the form of a tea. If she had followed my directions, she would have boiled one tea sachet in a quart of hot water. She was supposed to sip it every hour until she had finished the quart. Then repeat the process. That’s usually all it takes to expel fully. But I left an extra sachet with her just in case.”
Dr. Kumar put two fingers on the woman’s wrist and checked his watch. “Her pulse is very faint. She may have taken all three doses at once or mixed less water to make it more potent.”
“But she swore she was no more than four months along. I asked her twice and told her it was dangerous if she were any further along. I had no reason not to believe her.”
He stared at me. Did he think I was lying?
“I’ve never given this herb to any woman who is more than four months pregnant. Either Mrs. Harris didn’t know, or she was desperate and lied to me.”
I watched him saturate a cotton ball in alcohol and rub the crook of her arm with it.
“How did you and Samir...find her?”
He removed a vial and syringe from his bag. “A friend of hers phoned Samir at the club where we were having dinner. He said she needed help.” He tapped the Englishwoman’s arm to raise a vein and plunged the needle into it. Joyce Harris flinched. “We picked her up. Her husband and mother-in-law left for Jodhpur today so no one was at home. Hold this here, will you?”
I pressed a ball of cotton firmly on the woman’s arm. Dr. Kumar capped the syringe and put his implements back in his bag. Then he picked up the woman’s wrist and looked at his watch for a long moment. His fingers were long, his nails immaculate. He laid her wrist back on the quilt.
“I’ve given her a tiny bit of morphine for the pain—but I need her conscious. The morphine shouldn’t interfere with what you gave her. But we’ll need antibiotics to fight the infection.” Dr. Kumar’s cautious eyes explored my hands, my face, my hair. I noticed threads of silver in his dark curls, a freckle above his upper lip. “Do you really think, Mrs. Shastri, that you can cure a woman’s...problems...with herbs?”
“When a woman has no other options, yes.”
“This woman would have had options.”
“She didn’t think so.”
“How is that possible? She’s English. She has all the options in the world. A hospital for whites, for one.”
“And if the baby’s father is Indian?”
The doctor’s fine eyebrows rose and he regarded his patient with new curiosity.
“Samir didn’t tell you, then?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Radha move. All at once, I remembered she was still in the room. She had heard everything. I stole a glance at her as I said to the doctor, “Mrs. Harris doesn’t know if the baby is her husband’s.” Please, Radha, try to understand.
Radha covered her mouth with her hand.
The doctor’s fine eyebrows rose. “Still, with herbs, it’s risky. For all you know, you may have given her poison.”
I clenched my jaw. “I have done no such thing, Dr. Kumar. I’ve given her an herb that makes the womb slippery. Within a six-to eight-hour period, the fetal material will slide out, along with any sustenance the mother’s been creating for the baby.” To my own ears, my words sounded defensive.
“And how exactly does your herb make the womb slippery, as you put it?”
“It stops the woman’s body from producing a substance that helps attach the egg to her womb.”
He studied me for a long moment. “Progesterone,” he said. “What you’re referring to is called progesterone.” The doctor checked his patient’s pulse. “Have you ever had a woman experience adverse side effects from your herb?”
“Never.”
Dr. Kumar opened his mouth, as if to ask another question, when a loud knock at the door startled us all. Joyce Harris let out a small yelp, and for the briefest of seconds, her eyes circled the room wildly before she collapsed again into quiet delirium. The doctor and I stared at each other.
Mrs. Iyengar’s loud whisper could be heard from the other side of the door. “Kya ho gya? Mrs. Shastri, what’s all the noise and fuss about?”
Quickly, Radha climbed into bed next to the sick woman and pulled the quilt over them both, hiding Mrs. Harris from sight.
“It’s two o’clock in the morning!” Mrs. Iyengar began to open the door.
I rushed to block her entry. “I’m sorry, Ji. My sister—she’s not well.”
Mrs. Iyengar craned her neck to peer around me. Radha let out a moan, feigning pain, to cover the soft cries of the Englishwoman.
“I called for the doctor, Mrs. Iyengar,” I indicated Dr. Kumar with my eyes. “I’m so very sorry for waking you.”
Joyce Harris began to murmur, and Radha groaned louder. Dr. Kumar reached for my sister’s wrist, pressing it with his thumb as he looked at his watch. “She needs rest, Mrs. Shastri,” he said, as if annoyed by the landlady’s intrusion.
Radha closed her eyes and cried out, “Jiji.”
“Perhaps she’s eaten something—”
“I must go, Mrs. Iyengar—” I moved to close the door.
But the landlady didn’t want to leave. “Sour and salty in the winter, my husband always says, sweet and mild in the summer—”
“Yes, yes, thank you. I’ll take that advice and add to it the doctor’s. So sorry to have awakened you.”
I shut the door firmly and braced my back against it. I stared at Radha in amazement. How had she known what to do? Her actions had been swift and clever.
Mrs. Harris whimpered now. Radha eased out of the bed and tucked the quilt around her.
The doctor was eyeing me warily.
I pushed myself away from the door and wound my hair into a bun. “Radha, pluck the pollen from the chamomile flowers.”
“No more herbs, Mrs. Shastri.” Dr. Kumar’s voice sounded tired.
“She trusted me to help her, Dr. Kumar.” I walked to the table of herbs. “Radha, quickly!” I said, waking the girl out of her daze.
Radha hurried to join me and began separating the chamomile petals and stems from the pregnant pollen centers, which she handed to me. I ground them in the mortar along with two leaves of peppermint and a few drops of water. As I worked the paste, a scent sweet and sharp, fruity and floral, filled the small room.
“Wet a rag,” I told Radha.
Radha dampened a fresh scrap of cloth. I placed the paste in the middle, folded the cloth and knotted the two ends closed to form a poultice.
I sat opposite Dr. Kumar on the narrow cot, tenderly blotting the woman’s feverish forehead with the poultice. For a second her eyes opened, and I saw a flicker of recognition before she closed them again.
“Breathe, Mrs. Harris,” I told her. “You will be fine. Breathe.” Like a priest’s incantation or a templegoer’s plea to Ganesh, I repeated the mantra steadily, until her forehead relaxed.
I pulled the quilt down. The Englishwoman’s hands were still gripping her stomach. I pressed a point just below her sweaty wrist until her fingers uncurled, releasing their hold. Then I placed the poultice on her stomach. After a minute, her limbs stopped twitching. Her breathing became more regular.
Dr. Kumar stared, incredulous.
“It draws out the infection,” I told him, handing him the pouch.
“It’s hot.” He held it gingerly, as if it burned his fingers.
I smiled. “My saas taught me how to make it.”
The door latch clicked. We turned to see Samir rushing toward us. He lifted the patient from the cot. “We’re taking her to Gola’s private hospital. Remember him from school, Kumar?”
Dr. Kumar nodded.
“Is she doing any better?”
“She’s in less pain. But she will lose the baby.” The doctor looked at me as he sa
id it. He sounded resigned; he wasn’t accusing me. He picked up his black bag.
“Can’t be helped.” Samir was halfway to the door. He seemed eager to let the matter drop. “Let’s go, Kumar!”
I followed them to the door. “You’ll let me know how she fares?”
“I’ll send word in a few days,” Samir whispered as he carried Joyce Harris down the stairs.
Dr. Kumar looked around the room, his gaze alighting on various objects before settling on me. He tilted his head to one side in farewell and hurried out.
I shut the door behind him and rested my forehead against it. The silence in the room was as noisy as cicadas on a hot summer day. I waited for Radha’s questions.
After a while, she said, “That woman—the Angrezi—she wanted to lose her baby?”
“Yes.”
“And you helped her?”
“Yes.” My shoulders slumped. I hadn’t thought I’d have to tell her for a few more years. How naive I’d been.
“But earlier you said the henna is how you make money...”
I pressed my lips together. I looked away.
Radha frowned, considering. “The beggar woman we saw yesterday. With her baby. You said she shouldn’t have any more children. She couldn’t afford to feed them.”
“Yes.”
“But tonight. The Angrezi woman. She must be rich.”
“Women have their own reasons for needing to do difficult things.” I flattened my lips. “I don’t ask why. I don’t need to know.”
She looked at the cot. “How do they find you?”
I shrugged. “I’m known.”
“And those two men? Who were they?”
“Samir Singh is a friend. Someone I’ve known a long time. The other one, Dr. Kumar—all I know is he’s an old friend of Samir’s.”
Another pause. “Does Malik know?”
I made the slightest movement with my head. Yes. “One more question, Radha. Then we must start cleaning up.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll have to give me more time to explain things. It’s complicated.”
“No, I mean why do you do it? Help the women rid themselves of babies?”
Radha had seen and heard so much tonight that was new to her. I could tell by the quiver in her legs, the way her eyes couldn’t tear themselves away from the bloodstain on the cot.
How could I explain men who knocked on the door in the middle of the night? Or women who had lovers outside their marriage?
I remembered what my mother-in-law said when she taught me how to make the contraceptive sachets. I’d been fifteen, a new bride in her home. “How can I say no to these women, bheti? Their land is dry. Their granaries are committed to the zamindar for taxes. They cannot feed the little ones waiting for them at home. They have no one else to turn to.”
My sister was only thirteen. Simple explanations wouldn’t be enough. But I was too exhausted to find the right words, to help her understand.
In the end, I repeated my saas’s words. “They have no one else to turn to.”
After a full minute of silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts, I said quietly, “Let’s go up to the roof to clean up.” I whipped the stained sheet off the cot. Joyce Harris’s blood had seeped into the jute below. I would have to scrub it with a mixture of ghee and ash. “Radha?”
She looked up from the soiled charpoy. Her eyes were troubled.
“You did well tonight. But we must keep this to ourselves, accha?”
I hated having to ask this of her, but keeping this secret was too important to my livelihood. One word of Mrs. Harris’s misfortune would put a full stop to my business.
At first, I thought Radha would argue with me. Then, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear, she said, “Hahn-ji.”
FOUR
November 17, 1955
The next day I woke Radha at dawn, even though neither of us had slept very long, or very well. I showed her how to grind the henna, and to my surprise, she created a finer henna paste than I ever had. Apparently, old man Munchi had not been exaggerating. My sister even suggested adding more lemon juice to make the color stronger. When I complimented her, she looked alarmed, as if she weren’t used to praise.
I couldn’t enroll her in school until January, so I was taking her with me and Malik to my henna appointments.
My first appointment that day was with Kanta, one of a handful of clients who treated me as an equal. Perhaps it was because I was a little older than her—Kanta had just turned twenty-six. Perhaps it was because, like me, she was a transplant to Jaipur, having been raised in Calcutta and educated in England. Or perhaps it was because she was also childless, although, more than anything, she wanted to be a mother.
Kanta came from a long line of Bengali poets and writers; her father and grandfather had passed their time composing sonnets and organizing literary salons. “The only thing Jaipur women read is Readers Digest,” she’d once complained.
Now, before I’d even stepped foot on her veranda, Kanta herself opened the door, edging her seventy-year-old servant, Baju, out of the way. He straightened his Marwari turban and stroked his long mustache. “Really, Madam!”
She was tingling with anticipation. “Lakshmi! I can’t wait to hear what happened at Parvati’s. Baju, don’t just stand there! Take Malik into the kitchen and feed him a snack.” Finally, she noticed Radha standing behind me. Looking from my eyes to Radha’s, she cried, “Arré! I’m seeing double?”
I introduced Kanta to my sister, telling her that Radha had come to Jaipur to study at the government school here. I glanced at Radha to see how the explanation sat with her. I needn’t have worried. She was staring at Kanta, fascinated. She was studying Kanta’s shoulder-length bob, her slim capri pants, the sleeveless shirt tied across her exposed midriff. (Traditional women, like Parvati, who covered their plump midsections alluringly with saris, would sooner have joined a brothel than bare their stomachs.)
Kanta’s lipsticked mouth stretched wide. She grinned at Radha. “I heartily approve of education for women!” Kanta’s Brahmin family had always prized its daughters, never raising them as the lesser gender. They had sent her to England for her graduate studies.
While Kanta led the way to her bedroom, I kept an eye on Radha, who was soaking up her surroundings like a parched gazelle. The airy bungalow, with its squared settees and bare floors, not one painting of a raja or rani or a god or goddess on the walls, might have been common in Calcutta or Bombay, but not in Jaipur.
Radha slowed down to study the framed photos on the walls: a large one of Gandhi-ji, one of Kanta and her husband, Manu, in front of their college, one of Rabindranath Tagore—a distant relative of Kanta’s and one of India’s most famous literary figures.
When Radha came to the photo of two men standing together, one in a splendid headdress, she tapped my shoulder. I stopped to look.
Kanta, who had been watching us, said, “That’s Manu on the left. And his boss, the Maharaja of Jaipur. Handsome, aren’t they?” She chuckled merrily, on the move again toward her bedroom.
Kanta’s husband worked for the palace as the Director of Facilities. It was because of his elevated position that the Agarwals lived rent free in one of the impressive colonials where a British family had once lived. The original six-bedroom house and grounds had been divided down the middle into two dwellings to accommodate two families.
As we entered her bedroom, Kanta asked, “Well, Lakshmi? Will Manu get his wish?” She was closing the door as she said it, but her mother-in-law pushed the door from the other side, barging in.
“Yes, Lakshmi, will Manu get his wish for a baby boy?” She shot a pointed glance at Kanta. It was customary for widowed mothers to live with their oldest son, and since Manu was her eldest, his mother lived with them. Kanta rolled her eyes at me over her saas’s head.
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I smiled. “I’m working on it.”
Kanta’s saas pointed her sandalwood rosary at her daughter-in-law’s stomach. “If there’s a baby in there, he’s probably afraid to come out. Just look at her. She doesn’t cover her head when elders enter the room. She lets strange men see her buttocks in trousers. If my husband were still alive—”
“He would have picked out a girl Manu would have rejected,” Kanta teased, smiling.
Manu and Kanta had met while studying at Cambridge. Theirs had been a love marriage, much to her saas’s chagrin. Kanta had often joked how, emboldened by the freer Western atmosphere in England, they had started holding hands, which led to many stolen kisses, and had they not married, they wouldn’t have stopped there.
Her mother-in-law scoffed. Lowering herself and her voluminous white muslin sari onto the bedroom divan, she said to no one in particular, “Kanta is going to see me to my funeral pyre without the grandchildren I am owed.”
Kanta looked stricken. I was used to their affectionate bickering, but today, her mother-in-law’s words had a sharp edge. I knew the old woman felt the competition among her cronies, grandmothers twice, three times over. Most wives would have given birth to several babies by Kanta’s age. I felt the pressure, too; to date, all my herbal remedies to help Kanta conceive had ended in miscarriage.
“Now, you two,” I scolded them gently. “Saasuji, when you see this design, you will feel the baby is already here. And if I am to succeed, I need peace and quiet.”
The older woman placed a hand on each knee and heaved herself to standing. “Baju! Where is my buttermilk?” she called to the servant on her way out. “That old man moves slower than a dead elephant. All day he steals our ghee and eats our chapatti.”
When the door closed, I turned to Kanta with a chuckle, but she was staring at the ceiling, trying to blink away the tears in her eyes. “She’s at me night and day about grandchildren.”
I took Kanta’s hands in mine and led her to the divan. Sitting down next to her, I used a corner of my sari to wipe her eyes.
She turned to me with a haunted look. “It’s just—we have tried and tried...” Her desperation was palpable.