Page 36 of The Secret Keeper of Jaipur

The scale registers one ounce. The current going price is 321 rupees per ounce, but I ask Moti-Lal if he will take 200 rupees for it.

“I’ll let you have it for free if you’ll take some advice from me.”

I arch an eyebrow, waiting to see what he has to say.

He wags a stubby finger at me. “Never marry a poor widow.”

I shake my head and laugh.

Pocketing the necklace for Nimmi and the studs for Rekha, I lay two one-hundred-rupee bills on the scale next to Omi’s chain.

“I’ll make sure Omi knows, Malik. I’ll go to her tomorrow.”

The heaviness of my guilt—lusting after Sheela, how little I can do for Omi—has lifted a little.

13

NIMMI

Shimla

Rekha watches me as I pace the floor of our room. In her lap is the book about monkeys Lakshmi-jiloaned her. She loves looking at the pictures and sounding out the names of the different kinds of monkeys.

“Do your studies,” I tell her. She’s read the monkey book so often she has memorized it. “Write the words down exactly as you see them in the book.”

“Do it with me, Maa,” she says.

Chullu is sitting with Neela the sheep, who is busy munching on a leaf. Chullu pets her, then rolls over her. The sheep has won them over and my children want her to stay home with us, so I brought her here from the lower pasture. Watching the animal now, I think about the gold hidden under her fleece. What, exactly, does it look like? The women of my tribe wear silver, but I’ve seen gold jewelry on other women. I’ve never seen a solid brick of gold.

I reach for thepatalthat hangs from my waist belt next to a coil of rope and a goatskin water bag. I test the sharpness of the blade. I use thispatalto cut vegetables and fruit, branches, wood—anything and everything. I pick Chullu up and set him next to Rekha on the cot, where he tries to cram her monkey book into his mouth.

I approach Neela, gently. She stops chewing and watches me. She bleats, then stands, now wary. I run my hand over her fleece to find the hard mound opposite her injured flank. Then I find the edges of the wool that have been sewn shut and cut the stitches carefully, keeping Neela in place with an elbow. Two bars of gold, each five inches long, two inches wide and half an inch thick fall to the ground with a thud. The sound scares Neela, and she struggles under my grasp. I let her go.

The gold is a dull color. It isn’t beautiful, as I’d thought it would be. Someone has written numbers on the bars. They’re heavy and surprisingly warm. The silver our tribe wears is cooler to the touch. To think anyone would kill for a lump of dull yellow metal!

A knock on the door startles me. I gather up the gold bars and look for someplace I can hide them. My bedroll is within reach, and I quickly stuff the bars under it before I go to see who’s at the door.

It’s Lakshmi. She’s still in the same clothes she was wearing this morning. She has deep circles under her eyes and her hair is loose around her face; it hasn’t been oiled. She looks exhausted. I tell her to come in and close the door behind her.

“Tomorrow, we will deliver the gold to that place,” she says. She’s speaking in a whisper.

“The place on the matchbox?” I ask.

She nods and rubs her forehead. “But first we must think how to remove the gold from the sheep and carry it from the hospital’s lower pasture to Canara.”

“Where is it? The business?”

“About four miles from here, just outside the city.”

“Which direction?”

Lakshmi points with her chin to the east.

I think I know that area; it’s where I go sometimes to pick the mountain flowers that I sell. That gives me an idea. I get up and find my flower basket—the large one I use at my stall. Then I take the gold bars from under the bedroll and put them in the empty basket. When Lakshmi sees the gold, her eyes grow wide. Then she looks at Neela and the patch of fleece that’s open on her side.

How much can the basket hold? “We have thirty-eight sheep,” I say, “counting Neela, thirty-nine. If each sheep is carrying four bars, two on each side, that would add up to one hundred fifty-six bars. But two are missing, so it’s actually one hundred fifty-four.” I don’t know how to read, or write my numbers, but I do know how to count them in my head.

Lakshmi takes a bar from the basket and weighs it in her hand. She’s used to mixing natural remedies, calculating the correct proportion of ingredients. “Each bar is slightly different, but the one I’m holding is about two ounces. It would sell for maybe six, seven hundred rupees.”

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