Page 40 of The Henna Artist

“His astrologer advised him not to trust his blood heirs. So instead of having a legitimate son, he adopted a boy from a Rajput family, who is now our maharaja.” She slapped her card on the table, facedown. “I live in a palace with a maharaja who is not my natural son and a maharani who is mystepdaughter-in-law.”

It wasn’t the first time I had heard of an Indian palace adopting a crown prince on the advice of an astrologer. In some royal families, it was common practice.

She palmed her teacup briefly, but left it on the table. “The current maharaja loves his third wife. Latika is beautifully turned out, expensively educated, smart. The son she gave himshouldhave been the crown prince.”

She covered a queen with the jack she’d taken from the deck.

“The only problem was thathealso heeded the advice ofhisastrologer, who warned that his natural son would overthrow him. So the maharaja sent his son to England, to boarding school, without telling his wife. He left that to his chief adviser. Maharani Latika hasn’t eaten or slept since her son was taken away. She will not talk. She has not gotten out of bed.”

Shaking her head, she said, “Her boy is only eight, the same age your assistant prefers to be. But she is not allowed to see him.”

I understood the trauma mothers suffered when they lost their children to fever or malnutrition. I’d seen it often enough working with mysaas. But to have a child taken away without your knowledge must have been another kind of torture.

Maharani Indira had reached the bottom of her deck. “The citizens of Jaipur may think we maharanis have power, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.”

She picked up the pile of rejected cards and began to turn them over one by one.

“Now we come to you, Lakshmi Shastri. While the young queen is not my natural daughter-in-law, she is my responsibility. Her spirits must be restored so she can resume her royal functions. And she needs to be a fit wife for the maharaja once again.” She lifted an eyebrow. “She has no choice but to accept her fate and that of her son.Que sera, sera.” The Maharani Indira stilled her hands. “At least she has experienced motherhood.”

The woman sitting in front of me had known grief, too. If it hadn’t been improper, I would have offered her the cashew nut sweet in my carrier, which I’d prepared this morning with cardamom to ease sadness.

I waited a moment. “How can I be of service, Your Highness?”

“Make the Maharani Latika whole again. Lift her sorrow, which Samir all but guarantees you can do.”

Samir’s confidence in me was heartening. But the thought of failing with a noblewoman—such a public figure—sent a shiver through me.

I wet my lips. “Your Highness, healing takes time. As do my applications. I will need to see the Maharani Latika first to determine how I might help and how long it might take. I’m honored Mr. Singh has such faith in me, but please allow me to assess the situation first.”

She studied me, her look stern. I met her gaze, waited.

After a few minutes, she gathered the cards from the table, as if coming to a decision. “Assess away,” she commanded, her voice brisk again. “And come see me when you’re done.”

I was relieved that my task here was to soothe a troubled woman, as I had done many times before. Success would be sweet, would spread my reputation beyond the city walls. Defeat, however, would be fatal. My business would never recover from such a humiliation. I would need to use every herb from mysaas’s repertoire to heal the young queen.

Despite the rich tea, my mouth was dry. “It will be my pleasure, Your Highness.”

Satisfied, she nodded once. She looked at the attendant, who came forward. “Take Mrs. Shastri to Her Highness.” Then she touched her teacup again and said to him, “And tell Chef never to serve me cold tea again! How dare he do that to a maharani?”

I rose from the couch, my legs unsteady, and bent to touch her feet.

When I was a girl and my father was too hungover to teach school, my mother would worry aloud:What will we eat when he loses his job? Books?I sought refuge from her anxieties at old man Munchi’s hut, painting on hispeepalleaf skeletons. I could lose myself—drawing the pattern of a milkmaid’schunnior the tiny feathers of a myna bird. It calmed me. Later, when Hari berated me for not giving him children, I would retreat once again into my art, but I would draw in my mind, imagining the paintbrush in my hand, even as he punched my stomach or kicked my back. Concentrating on details, like the ladybug crawling up my arm or the paisley pattern of my sari, and ignoring everything else, crowded out anxiety, pain and worry.

Now, as I was led to the rooms of the young maharani, I busied my mind studying the enameled patterns around the doorways, the latticework framing the windows, the mosaics decorating the marble floors and walls, the stories woven into the silk carpets. Centuries ago, the princes of Jaipur had invited the best stone carvers, dyers, jewelers, painters and weavers from foreign lands—Persia, Egypt, Africa, Turkey—to showcase their talents. By the time I arrived at Her Highness Latika’s bedroom, my anxieties had lessened; my mind was calmer.

To the left of the door, a guru sat cross-legged on a padded mat, rocking back and forth, rolling a strand of beads through his fingers. An orangebindimade from turmeric powder ran from his brow to his hairline. The folds of his white tunic pooled around his substantial stomach. In front of him, smoke from an incense cone curled lazily toward the ceiling.

The Maharani Latika rested against cream satin pillows on a four-poster bed. She was not a widow, yet she wore a white sari of fine muslin and a white blouse. Three court ladies, dressed in silk saris, attended to her. The one combing the queen’s hair was obviously her dresser. Another lady fanned her, while the third read aloud from a poetry book. I recognized the poem as Tagore’s.Dark? However dark she be, I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes.The court women looked up when I entered the room but continued with their tasks. I folded my hands innamasteand walked up to the bed, touching the air above the maharani’s feet and pulling any jealous energy up to my forehead. But her listless eyes stared straight ahead, as if she hadn’t seen me. I greeted the ladies with my hands, and they cocked their heads in acknowledgment.

Whether by design or purpose, the room was dark, so I asked the bearer to set my carriers near the window where I could see more clearly. I looked around for a low stool and the bearer brought me an upholstered one. I unpacked the items I would need, then rinsed my hands in the cool jasmine water from one of my containers. After that, I oiled them. Carefully, I lifted the queen’s hand. Her skin was dry and cool. She stirred. From the corner of my eye, I saw her head turn toward me, and although I had avoided looking her in the eye, I did so now. I’d heard about her beauty, which had captivated the maharaja at first sight. Her eyes, round and luminous, with mahogany centers, appeared naked, unable to hide her immense sadness. The tender skin around the lids was darker than the rest of her complexion, as if it had been seared. Her Highness wore no jewelry. The red vermillion powder snaking through the part in her hair was her only ornament. One of her attendants must have put it there.

Her gaze dropped to her hand, the one I was holding. She fanned her fingers and examined them as if she’d never seen them before. The tips of her nails were well cared for, having been trimmed into a rounded shape, the cuticles pushed back. She released a long sigh and retreated, again, into her personal reverie. I could go to work now.

One morning after I had gone to live with Hari and his mother, I saw three purple-pink eggs near where I was washing clothes along the riverbank. I heard a shrill,Kink-a-joo! Kink-a-joo!and saw,under a bush, a red-whiskeredbulbulwatching me, tilting her head—first this way, then that. She was leaning to one side, dragging a wing on the ground. I ran back home to get mysaas, who said the bird must have been hurt before she could fly up to her nest to lay her eggs. At home, my mother-in-lawmade a poultice to immobilize the wing. Two weeks went by before the wing healed, after whichsaastold me to let the bird go where I’d found her. When I did, thebulbullooked in vain for her eggs, which had long since disappeared. I hadn’t been able to save her eggs; neither could I bring Maharani Latika’s son home, but, with time, I could help heal her wound.

I started by gently massaging her hands and feet so she could get used to my touch. I had worked with my ladies a long time, and they trusted me, but the Maharani Latika didn’t know me, hadn’t even acknowledged me, so it was difficult for her to relax the way she could relax in the hands of her dresser. With the mixture I’d created this morning—sesame and coconut oils and extracts frombrahmiand thyme leaves—I stroked the area between her thumb and forefinger. I rubbed the pulse point of her wrist. Likewise, I worked on the arch of her feet, pressing the crevice between her middle and big toes to release tension. The noblewoman who was reading from the book of poetry set the pace with her hypnotic rhythm.

After a while, I felt the maharani’s bones begin to soften and heard her breath reach deeper into her lungs. I continued massaging up her arms and legs and back down to her hands and feet with my oils for the next hour. I stretched her tendons, loosened her limbs, opened her meridians. If her muscles resisted, I directed my attention on pressure points to release the tension. As I worked, I kept my mind focused on transferring my energy to her. Everything else fell away.

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