He didn’t answer. When I looked at him he held my gaze and wouldn’t let it go. I felt my earlobes turning red. My whole face felt warm. What were we talking about? What did he want me to do? Or say? What did I want to say? What should I do? Why did Sarina have to take a shower now and leave me alone with him? My mind jumped from one thought to another.

He took my hand in his and asked, “When will I see you again?”

I wasn’t ready for his question.

“I don’t know.”

“Next week?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Make it soon,” he said.

He lifted my hand and kissed it.

fourteen

THE NEXT DAY Mummy asked me to help her make ladu for Nimita. These were not the usual sweet dessert ladu made with flour, sugar, and ghee. Besides flour and ghee, these contained brown sugar; ground fenugreek seeds that were so bitter, just the thought of them curled up my tongue; pungent powdered ginger; and ten other spices. I remembered Mummy making them while we were busy with our exams and giving Nimita a large stainless steel container full of them.

“Has Nimita been eating more than one ladu a day? Has she finished all the ones you gave her a few weeks ago?” I asked.

“These are different. These are to eat after the delivery, because they have something special in them. It will help Nimita not have back pain after the delivery,” she said, pointing to a stone mortar and pestle containing gunder, the white semitransparent chunks secreted by the acacia tree.

I pounded the gunder while Mummy cooked the whole-wheat flour in ghee. It smelled delicious.

Then she opened up a jar of powdered ginger. It was so fine that some of it floated into the air and tickled my nose. I felt a sneeze coming on and turned away just in time to cover my nose with a handkerchief.

Everyone believed that one sneeze brought bad luck and two turned ill luck around. I knew making these ladu was important to Mummy, and she didn’t want anything to go wrong with Nimita or the baby, so I was hoping for another sneeze, but it never came.

“What an ill time to sneeze!” Mummy said.

“I was planning on two sneezes.”

“Show your teeth and wag your tongue as much as you want. Soon enough, the day will come when you’ll wish you’d listened to me. If you keep your ego in front of your eyes and ears, someday you’ll cry like a monsoon sky.”

I didn’t answer. After all, that’s what she wanted.

We both took a handful of mixture in our hands and pressed it between our palms. She’d added extra ghee to it, and the mixture made a nice, round ladu, which she rolled in fine, brownish-white poppy seeds before setting them on a thali.