Free The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

of polite conversation. I felt light-headed, realizing I’d gone too far. After all, Lydia and Edward had nothing to do with Amritsar. I heard the quick click of the abacus,the running murmur of strange languages, and I caught a swirl of movement in my peripheral vision. Then the noon bell from Christ Church broke the spell, and normal sounds and movement resumed.
    Edward touched the brim of his topee. “Lovely running into you, Mrs. Mitchell.”
    Lydia tugged on her white gloves. “Good afternoon, Evie.”
    As Edward and Lydia walked away, I felt a grim satisfaction. Good, I thought, maybe now they’ll avoid me and save me the trouble of ducking them.
    “Mom?” Billy’s face made me think of a worried cherub. “Spike is tired. Let’s go home.”
    But I needed to walk off the Worthingtons. I bent down and planted a good, solid kiss on his cheek. “Why don’t you and Spike take a little nap?” I fluffed up his pillow and petted his hair. “When you wake up we’ll have masala chai.”
    Billy consulted Spike, and then curled up on the pillow with the toy dog under his arm. I took a deep breath and started walking, but I feared that walking off the Worthingtons might require trekking clear over the Himalayas.
Amritsar
. My hand tightened on the wagon handle at the thought of it, but why take it out on Lydia and Edward? It wasn’t at all rational. My face still felt hot from the encounter.
    I looked back at the wagon and saw Billy asleep, curled peacefully around Spike, so I stopped under a neem tree and sat in the lacy shade, watching a silk merchant mist rose water over the dusty ground outside his shop. I smiled at him and he salaamed like a Moghul prince.
    Sunlight dappled through the neem leaves, and I remembered Martin saying that villagers brushed their teeth with the frayed twigs of neem trees. I’d often seen cut branches with leaves still fresh and supple for sale on street stalls. Impulsively, I reached up and broke off a twig. The pale-green center leaked clear sap andI chewed one end until it softened, then rubbed it over my teeth. It tasted bitter and astringent, but it was pleasantly uncivilized to have a twig in my mouth, and I liked the feel of the fibers massaging my gums. Suddenly I laughed out loud at the absurdity of a redhead from Chicago morally outraged and sartorially confused, brushing her teeth in public with a mashed twig, and I’ll be damned if laughing at myself didn’t purge me of the Worthingtons.
    I breathed in the mountain air, picked up the wagon handle, and headed for a tobacco stall to buy a pack of Abdullah cigarettes. I hadn’t smoked much in Chicago—a Raleigh after meals, maybe one at night—but I liked those short, oval Abdullahs with gold, rose-scented tips. Verna had offered me one at her tea party and now I smoked them all the time. I had tried one of Martin’s bidis, the thin native cigarettes wrapped in a leaf and secured with a thread, but I found them hot and harsh. The bidis were another thing that made Martin appear Indian, but he said it established a rapport with the people he interviewed.
    I turned down a street behind the Chinese shoe shop and found myself in a quiet cul-de-sac that ended at an old temple—yellow brick built on top of the stone ruins of an earlier structure. Two wooden doors stood open and appeared welcoming. They were carved in a filigree of birds and flowers, and a string of faded prayer flags fluttered above them. I peeked inside, and in the dim light of oil lamps I made out the figure of a large stone Buddha.
    I knew I could not enter a Hindu temple without taking off my shoes, and mosques had rules about ritual washing and head coverings. I didn’t know the protocol for Buddhists, but I poked my head inside the door and glanced around the empty space. I wondered, isn’t Gandhi Buddhist? No, he’s Hindu. Or is he Muslim? I suppose he could be Christian. Then again he could be Parsi or Jain. The Jains were fanatical pacifists, who