A Son of the Circus

Getting Ready for Rahul

Although Deputy Commissioner Patel had insulted Mr. Sethna, the disapproving steward relished his new role as a police informant, for self-importance was Mr. Sethna’s middle name; also, the deputy commissioner’s stated objective of entrapping the second Mrs. Dogar greatly pleased the old Parsi. Nonetheless, Mr. Sethna faulted Detective Patel for not trusting him more completely; it irritated the steward that he was given his instructions without being informed of the overall plan. But the extent of the intrigue against Rahul was contingent on how Rahul responded to John D.’s sexual overtures. In rehearsing Inspector Dhar’s seduction of Mrs. Dogar, both the real policeman and the actor were forced to consider more than one outcome. That was why they’d been waiting for Farrokh to come back from the circus; not only did they want the screenwriter to provide Dhar with some dialogue—Dhar also needed to know some alternative conversation, in case his first advances were rebuffed.

This was vastly more demanding dialogue than Dr. Daruwalla was accustomed to writing, for it was not just that he was required to anticipate the various responses that Rahul might make; the screenwriter also needed to guess what Mrs. Dogar might like—that is, sexually. Would she be more attracted to John D. if he was gentlemanly or if he was crude? For flirtation, did she favor the discreet approach or the explicit? A screenwriter could only suggest certain directions in which the dialogue might roam; Dhar could charm her, tease her, tempt her, shock her, but the particular approach that the actor chose would necessarily be a spontaneous decision. John D. had to rely on his instincts for what would work. After Dr. Daruwalla’s most revealing conversations with Dhar’s twin, the doctor could only wonder what John D.’s “instincts” were.

Farrokh wasn’t prepared to find Detective Patel and Inspector Dhar waiting for him in his Marine Drive apartment. To begin with, Dr. Daruwalla wondered why they were so well dressed; he still didn’t realize it was New Year’s Eve—not until he saw what Julia was wearing. Then it puzzled him why everyone had dressed for New Year’s Eve so early; no one ever showed up for the party at the Duckworth Club before 8:00 or 9:00.

But no one had wanted to waste time dressing when they could be rehearsing, and they couldn’t properly rehearse Dhar’s options for dialogue until after the screenwriter was home from the circus and had written the lines. Farrokh felt flattered—having first suffered the keenest disappointment for being left out of the process—but he was also overwhelmed; he’d been writing for the last three nights, and he feared he might be written-out. And he hated New Year’s Eve; the night seemed to prey on his natural inclination toward nostalgia (especially at the Duckworth Club), although Julia did enjoy the dancing.

Dr. Daruwalla expressed his regret that there wasn’t time to tell them what had happened at the circus; interesting things had transpired there. That was when John D. said something insensitive by stating that preparing himself for the seduction of the second Mrs. Dogar was “no circus”; those were the disparaging words he used—meaning that the doctor should save his silly circus stories for another, more frivolous time.

Detective Patel came to the point even more bluntly. The top half of the silver ballpoint pen had not only revealed Rahul’s fingerprints; a speck of dried blood had been removed from the pocket clasp—it was human blood, of Mr. Lal’s type. “May I remind you, Doctor,” said the deputy commissioner, “it is still necessary to determine what Rahul would have been doing with the top half of the pen… during the murder of Mr. Lal.”

“It’s also necessary for Mrs. Dogar to admit that the top half of the pen is hers,” John D. interrupted.

“Yes, thank you,” Patel said, “but the top half of the pen isn’t incriminating evidence—at least not by itself. What we really need to establish is that no one else could have made those drawings. I’m told that drawings like those are as identifiable as a signature, but it’s necessary to induce Mrs. Dogar to draw.”

“If there was a way for me to suggest to her that she should show me what it might be like… between us,” Dhar told the screenwriter. “Maybe I could ask her to give me just a hint of what she preferred—I mean, sexually. Or I could ask her to tease me with something—I mean, something sexually explicit,” the actor said.

“Yes, yes—I get the picture,” Dr. Daruwalla said impatiently.

“And then there are the two-rupee notes,” the real policeman said. “If Rahul is thinking of killing anyone else, perhaps there exist some notes with the appropriate warnings or messages already typed on the money.”

“Surely that would be incriminating evidence, as you call it,” Farrokh said.

“I would prefer all three—a connection to the top half of the pen, a drawing and something typed on the money,” Patel replied. “That would be evidence enough.”

“How fast do you want to go?” Farrokh asked. “In a seduction, there’s usually the setting up—some kind of mutual sexual spark is ignited. Then there’s the assignation—or at least a discussion of the trysting place, if not the actual tryst.”

It was of small comfort to the screenwriter when Inspector Dhar said ambiguously, “I think I’d prefer to avoid the actual tryst, if it’s possible—if things don’t have to go that far.”

“You think! You don’t know?” Dr. Daruwalla cried.

“The point is, I need dialogue to cover every contingency,” the actor said.

“Precisely,” said Detective Patel.

“The deputy commissioner showed me the photographs of those drawings,” John D. said; his voice dropped away. “There must also be private drawings—things she keeps secret.” Again Farrokh was reminded of the boy who’d cried out, “They’re drowning the elephants! Now the elephants will be angry!”

Julia went to help Nancy finish dressing. Nancy had brought a suitcase of her clothes to the Daruwallas’, for she couldn’t make up her mind about what to wear to the New Year’s Eve party—not without Julia’s help. The two women decided on something surprisingly demure; it was a gray sleeveless sheath with a mandarin collar, with which Nancy wore a simple string of pearls. Dr. Daruwalla recognized the necklace because it was Julia’s. When the doctor retired to his bedroom and his bath, he brought a clipboard and a pad of lined paper with him; he also brought a bottle of beer. He was so tired, the hot bath and the cold beer made him instantly sleepy, but even with his eyes closed he was seeing the possible options for dialogue between John D. and the second Mrs. Dogar—or was he writing for Rahul and Inspector Dhar? That was a part of the problem; the screenwriter felt he didn’t know the characters he was writing dialogue for.

Julia told Farrokh how Nancy had become so agitated-trying to decide what to wear—that the poor woman had worked herself into a sweat; she’d had to take a bath in the Daruwallas’ tub, a concept that caused the screenwriter’s mind to wander. There was a lingering scent in the bathroom—probably not a perfume or a bath oil but something unfamiliar, not Julia’s—and the strangeness of it mingled with the doctor’s memory of that time in Goa. The foremost issue to resolve, in order to initiate the opening line of Inspector Dhar’s dialogue, was whether or not to have John D. know that Mrs. Dogar was Rahul. Shouldn’t he tell her that he knew who she was—that he knew her former self—and shouldn’t this be the first phase of the seduction? (“I always wanted you”—that kind of thing.)

The decision to have Nancy dress so demurely—she even wore her hair pulled up, off her neck—had sprung from Nancy’s desire not to be recognized by Rahul. Although the deputy commissioner had repeatedly told his wife that he very much doubted Rahul would recognize her, Nancy’s fear of being recognized persisted. The only time Rahul had seen her, Nancy had been naked and her hair was down. Now Nancy wanted her hair up; she’d told Julia that her choice of dress was “the opposite of naked.”

But if the gray sheath was severe, there was no hiding the heavy womanliness of Nancy’s hips and breasts; also, her heavy hair, which usually rested on her shoulders, was too thick and not quite long enough to be held neatly up and kept off her neck—especially if she danced. Strands of her hair would come loose; Nancy would soon look uncontained. The screenwriter decided that he wanted Nancy to dance with Dhar; after that, the possible scenes began to flow.

Farrokh put a towel around his waist and poked his head into the dining room, where Julia was serving some snacks; although it would be a long time before the midnight supper at the Duckworth Club, no one really wanted to eat. The doctor decided to send Dhar down to the alley, where the dwarf was waiting in the Ambassador. Dr. Daruwalla knew that Vinod was acquainted with many of the exotic dancers at the Wetness Cabaret; possibly there was one who owed the dwarf a favor.

“I want to get you a date,” Farrokh told John D.

“With a stripper?” John D. asked.

“Tell Vinod the more tarted up she is, the better,” the screenwriter replied. He guessed that New Year’s Eve was an important night at the Wetness Cabaret; whoever the exotic dancer was, she’d have to leave the Duckworth Club early. That was fine with Farrokh; he wanted the woman to make something of a production over leaving before midnight. Whoever she was, the screenwriter knew that her choice of dress would be the opposite of demure—she certainly wouldn’t look very Duckworthian. She’d be sure to get everyone’s attention.

On such short notice, Vinod wouldn’t have a wide range of choices; of the women at the Wetness Cabaret, the dwarf picked the one with the exotic-dancing name of Muriel. She’d impressed Vinod as being more sensitive than the other strippers. After all, someone in the audience had thrown an orange at her; such blatant disrespect had upset her. To be hired for a little dancing at the Duckworth Club—particularly, to be asked to dance with Inspector Dhar—would be quite a step up in the world for Muriel. Short notice or not, Vinod delivered the exotic dancer to the Daruwallas’ apartment in a hurry.

When Dr. Daruwalla had finished dressing, there was barely time for John D. to rehearse the dialogue. Both Nancy and Muriel needed coaching, and Detective Patel had to get Mr. Sethna on the phone; the detective recited quite a long list of instructions to the steward, which doubtless left the old eavesdropper with a surfeit of disapproval. Vinod would drive Dhar and the exotic dancer to the Duckworth Club; Farrokh and Julia would follow with the Patels.

John D. managed to pull Dr. Daruwalla aside; the actor steered the screenwriter out on the balcony. When they were alone, Dhar said, “I’ve got a question regarding my character, Farrokh, for you seem to have given me some dialogue that is sexually ambiguous—at best.”

“I was just trying to cover every contingency, as you would say,” the screenwriter replied.

“But I gather that I’m supposed to be interested in Mrs. Dogar as a woman—that is, as a man would be interested in her,” Dhar said. “While at the same time, I seem to be implying that I was once interested in Rahul as a man—that is, as a man is interested in another man.”

“Yes,” Farrokh said cautiously. “I’m trying to imply that you’re sexually curious, and sexually aggressive—a bit of a bisexual, maybe …”

“Or even strictly a homosexual whose interest in Mrs. Dogar is, in part, because of how interested I was in Rahul,” John D. interrupted. “Is that it?”

“Something like that,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “I mean, we think Rahul was once attracted to you—we think Mrs. Dogar is still attracted to you. Beyond that, what do we really know?”

“But you’ve made my character a kind of sexual mystery,” the actor complained. “You’ve made me odd. It’s as if you’re gambling that the weirder I am, the more Mrs. Dogar will go for me. Is that it?”

Actors are truly impossible, the screenwriter thought. What Dr. Daruwalla wanted to say was this: Your twin has experienced decidedly homosexual inclinations. Does this sound familiar to you? Instead, what Farrokh said was this: “I don’t know how to shock a serial killer. I’m just trying to attract one.”

“And I’m just asking you for a fix on my character,” Inspector Dhar replied. “It’s always easier when I know who I’m supposed to be.”

There was the old Dhar, Dr. Daruwalla thought—sarcastic to the core. Farrokh was relieved to see that the movie star had regained his self-confidence.

That was when Nancy came out on the balcony. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she asked, but she went straight to the railing and leaned on it; she didn’t wait for an answer.

“No, no,” Dr. Daruwalla mumbled.

“That’s west, isn’t it?” Nancy asked. She was pointing to the sunset.

“The sun usually sets in the west,” Dhar said.

“And if you went west across the sea—from Bombay straight across the Arabian Sea—what would you come to?” Nancy asked. “Make it west and a little north,” she added.

“Well,” Dr. Daruwalla said cautiously. “West and a little north from here is the Gulf of Oman, then the Persian Gulf …”

“Then Saudi Arabia,” Dhar interrupted.

“Keep going,” Nancy told him. “Keep going west and a little north.”

“That would take you across Jordan… into Israel, and into the Mediterranean,” Farrokh said.

“Or across North Africa,” said Inspector Dhar.

“Well, yes,” Dr. Daruwalla said. “Across Egypt… what’s after Egypt?” he asked John D.

“Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco,” the actor replied. “You could pass through the Straits of Gibraltar, or touch the coast of Spain, if you like.”

“Yes—that’s the way I want to go,” Nancy told him. “I touch the coast of Spain. Then what?”

“Then you’re in the North Atlantic,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

“Go west,” Nancy said. “And a little north.”

“New York?” Dr. Daruwalla guessed.

“I know the way from there,” Nancy said suddenly. “From there I go straight west.”

Both Dhar and Dr. Daruwalla didn’t know what Nancy would come to next; they weren’t familiar with the geography of the United States.

“Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,” Nancy told them. “Maybe I’d have to go through New Jersey before I got to Pennsylvania.”

“Where are you going?” Dr. Daruwalla asked.

“Home,” Nancy answered. “Home to Iowa—Iowa comes after Illinois.”

“Do you want to go home?” John D. asked her.

“Never,” Nancy said. “I never want to go home.”

The screenwriter saw that the zipper of the gray sheath dress was a straight line down her back; it clasped at the top of her high mandarin collar.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Farrokh said to her, “perhaps you could have your husband unfasten the zipper of your dress. If it were unzipped just a little—down to somewhere between your shoulder blades—that would be better. When you’re dancing, I mean,” the doctor added.

“Wouldn’t it be better if I unzipped it?” the actor asked. “I mean, when we’re dancing?”

“Well, yes, that would be best,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

Still looking west into the sunset, Nancy said, “Just don’t unzip me too far. I don’t care what the script says—if you unzip me too far, I’ll let you know it.”

“It’s time,” said Detective Patel. No one was sure how long he’d been on the balcony.

In departing, it was fortunate that none of them really looked at one another; their faces conveyed a certain dread of the event, like mourners preparing to attend the funeral of a child. The deputy commissioner was almost avuncular; he affectionately patted Dr. Daruwalla’s shoulder, he warmly shook Inspector Dhar’s hand, he held his troubled wife at her waist—his fingers familiarly spreading to the small of her back, where he knew she felt some occasional pain. It was his way of saying, I’m in charge—everything’s going to be okay.

But there was that interminable period when they had to wait in the policeman’s car; Vinod had taken Dhar and Muriel ahead. As the driver, the deputy commissioner sat up front with the screenwriter, who wanted Dhar and Muriel to be already dancing when the Daruwallas and their guests, the Patels, arrived. In the back seat, Julia sat with Nancy. The detective avoided his wife’s eyes in the rearview mirror; Patel also tried not to grip the steering wheel too tightly—he didn’t want any of them to see how nervous he was.

The passing headlights flowed like water along Marine Drive, and when the sun finally dipped into the Arabian Sea, the sea turned quickly from pink to purple to burgundy to black, like the phases of a bruise. The doctor said, “They must be dancing by now.” The detective started the car, easing them into the flow of traffic.

In a misguided effort to sound positive, Dr. Daruwalla said, “Let’s go get the bitch, let’s put her away.”

“Not tonight,” Detective Patel said quietly. “We won’t catch her tonight. Let’s just hope she takes the bait.”

“She’ll take it,” Nancy said from the back seat.

There was nothing the deputy commissioner wanted to say. He smiled. He hoped he looked confident. But the real policeman knew there was really no getting ready for Rahul.

Just Dancing

Mr. Sethna had to wonder what was going on; wonderment was not among the few expressions that the old Parsi favored. To anyone who observed the steward’s sour, intolerant visage, Mr. Sethna was simply expressing his contempt for New Year’s Eve; he thought the party at the Duckworth Club was superfluous. Pateti, the Parsi New Year, comes in the late summer or the early fall; it is followed a fortnight later by the anniversary of the prophet Zarathustra’s birth. By the time of the New Year’s Eve party at the Duckworth Club, Mr. Sethna had already celebrated his New Year. As for the Duckworthian version of New Year’s Eve, Mr. Sethna viewed it as a tradition for Anglophiles. It was also morbid that New Year’s Eve at the Duckworth Club was doubly special to those many Duckworthians who enjoyed the party as an anniversary—this year it was the 90th anniversary—of Lord Duckworth’s suicide.

The steward also thought that the events of the evening were foolishly ordered. Duckworthians, in general, were an older crowd, especially at this time of year; with a 22-year waiting list for membership, one would expect the members to be “older,” but this was also the result of the younger Duckworthians being away at school—for the most part, in England. In the summer months, when the student generation was back in India, Duckworthians appeared to be younger. But now here were all these older people, who should be eating their dinners at a reasonable hour; they were expected to drink and dance until the midnight supper was served—an ass-backward order of events, Mr. Sethna believed. Feed them early and then let them dance—if they’re able. The effects of too much champagne on empty stomachs were particularly deleterious to the elderly. Some couples lacked the stamina to last until the midnight supper. And wasn’t the point of the silly evening—apparently, the only point—to last until midnight?

From the way he was dancing, Dhar couldn’t last until midnight, Mr. Sethna presumed; yet the steward was impressed at how the actor had rebounded from his dreadful appearance of the day before. On Saturday, the diseased man had been ghostly pale and dabbing at his penis over the urinal—a sickening sight. Now here he was on Sunday night, tanned and looking positively beefy; he was dancing up a storm. Perhaps the actor’s sexually transmitted disease was in remission, Mr. Sethna speculated, as Dhar continued to hurl Muriel around the dance floor. And where had the movie-star slime found a woman like that?

Once, there’d been a banner draped from the marquee of the Bombay Eros Palace, and the woman painted on that banner had looked like Muriel, Mr. Sethna remembered. (The woman had actually been Muriel, of course; the Wetness Cabaret was a step down from the Bombay Eros Palace.) Mr. Sethna had never seen a Duckworthian in such a costume as Muriel wore. The glitter of her turquoise sequins, her plunging neckline, her miniskirt at midthigh… her dress hugged her bum so tightly, Mr. Sethna expected that some of her sequins would pop off and litter the dance floor. Muriel had maintained the high, hard athletic bum of a dancer; and although she was certainly a few years older than Inspector Dhar, she looked as if she could both outdance and outsweat him. Their dancing lacked the element of courtship; they were brutally aggressive—astonishingly rough with each other—which implied to the disapproving steward that dancing was merely the public forum in which they lewdly hinted at the violence of their more private lovemaking.

Mr. Sethna also observed that everyone was watching them. By design, Mr. Sethna knew, they kept to that portion of the dance floor which was visible from the main dining room, forcing numerous couples to see them perform their gyrations. Nearest to this view of the ballroom was the table Mr. Sethna had reserved for Mr. and Mrs. Dogar; the steward had followed Detective Patel’s instructions to the letter, taking care that the second Mrs. Dogar was shown to the chair that offered her the very best view of Dhar dancing.

From the Ladies’ Garden, the Daruwallas’ table looked in upon the main dining room; from where the doctor and the detective were seated, they could observe Mrs. Dogar but not the ballroom. It wasn’t Dhar they wanted to see. Blessedly, the big blonde had hidden her unusual navel, Mr. Sethna observed; Nancy was dressed like the headmistress of a school—or a nanny, or a clergyman’s wife—but the steward nevertheless detected her lawlessness, her penchant for unpredictable or inexplicable behavior. She sat with her back to Mrs. Dogar, staring into the gathering darkness beyond the trellis; at this hour, the bougainvillea had the luster of velvet. The exposed nape of Nancy’s neck—the downy blond hair that looked so soft there—reminded Mr. Sethna of her furry navel.

The doctor’s sleek tuxedo and black silk tie clashed with the deputy commissioner’s badly wrinkled Nehru suit; Mr. Sethna determined that most Duckworthians were never in contact with that element of society which could recognize policemen by their clothes. The steward approved of Julia’s gown, which was a proper gown—the long skirt almost brushing the floor, the long sleeves ruffled at the cuffs, the neckline not a mandarin choker but a decent distance above any discernible cleavage. Ah, the old days, Mr. Sethna mourned; as if anticipating his thoughts, the band responded with a slower number.

Dhar and Muriel, breathing hard, relaxed a little too languidly into each other’s arms; she hung on his neck, his hand resting possessively on the hard beaded sequins at her hip. She appeared to be whispering to him—actually, she was just singing the words to the song, for Muriel knew every song that this band knew, and many more besides—while Inspector Dhar smiled knowingly at what she was saying. There was his sneer, which was almost a smirk—that look of disdain, which was at once decadent and bored. Actually, Dhar was amused by Muriel’s accent; he thought the stripper was very funny. But what the second Mrs. Dogar saw did not amuse her. She saw John D. dancing with a tart, a presumably loose woman—and one close to Mrs. Dogar’s age. Women like that were so easy; surely Dhar could do better, Rahul thought.

On the dance floor, the staid Duckworthians who dared to dance—they’d been waiting for a slow number—kept their distance from Dhar and Muriel, who was clearly no lady. Mr. Sethna, the old eavesdropper and lip-reader extraordinaire, easily caught what Mr. Dogar said to his wife. “Has the actor brought an actual prostitute to the party? I must say she looks like a whore.”

“I think she’s a stripper,” said Mrs. Dogar—Rahul had honed a sharp eye for such social details.

“Perhaps she’s an actress,” Mr. Dogar said.

“She’s acting, but she’s no actress,” Mrs. Dogar replied.

From what Farrokh could see of Rahul, the transsexual had inherited the reptilian scrutiny of her Aunt Promila; it was as if, when she looked at you, she were seeing a different life-form—certainly not a fellow human being.

“It’s hard to tell from here,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “I don’t know if she’s attracted to him or if she wants to kill him.”

“Maybe with her,” said the deputy commissioner, “the feeling is one and the same.”

“Whatever else she feels, she’s attracted,” Nancy said. Her back was the only part of her that Rahul could see, if Rahul had been looking. But Rahul had eyes for John D. only.

When the band played a faster number, Dhar and Muriel grew even rougher with each other, as if invigorated by the slower interlude or by their closer contact. A few of the cheap sequins were torn from Muriel’s dress; they glittered on the dance floor, reflecting the light from the ballroom chandelier—when Dhar or Muriel stepped on them, they crunched. A constant rivulet of sweat ran its course in Muriel’s cleavage, and Dhar was bleeding slightly from a scratch on his wrist; the cuff of his white shirt was dotted with blood. Because of how tightly he held Muriel at her waist, a sequin had scratched him. He paid the scratch only passing attention, but Muriel took his wrist in her hands and covered the cut with her mouth. In this way, with his wrist to her lips, they kept dancing. Mr. Sethna had seen such things only in the movies. The steward didn’t realize that this was what he was seeing: a screenplay by Farrokh Daruwalla, a movie starring Inspector Dhar.

When Muriel left the Duckworth Club, she made a fuss over her departure. She danced one last dance (another slow one) with her shawl on; she downed a nearly full glass of champagne in the foyer. Then the exotic dancer leaned on Vinod’s head while the dwarf walked her to the Ambassador.

“A to-do worthy of a slut,” said Mr. Dogar. “I suppose she’s going back to the brothel.”

But Rahul merely glanced at the time. The second Mrs. Dogar was a close observer of Bombay’s low life; she knew that the hour for the first show at the Eros Palace was fast approaching, or maybe Dhar’s tart worked at the Wetness Cabaret—the first show there was 15 minutes later.

When Dhar asked the Sorabjees’ daughter to dance, a new tension could be felt throughout the main dining room and the Ladies’ Garden. Even with her back to the action, Nancy knew that something unscripted had happened.

“He’s asked someone else to dance, hasn’t he?” she said; her face and the nape of her neck were flushed.

“Who’s that young girl? She’s not part of our plan!” said Detective Patel.

“Trust him—he’s a great improviser,” the screenwriter said. “He always understands who he is and what his role is. He knows what he’s doing.”

Nancy was pinching a pearl on her necklace; her thumb and index finger were white. “You bet he knows,” she said Julia turned around, but she couldn’t see the ballroom—only the look of loathing that was unconcealed on Mrs. Dogar’s face.

“It’s little Amy Sorabjee—she must be back from school,” Dr. Daruwalla informed his wife.

“She’s only a teenager!” Julia cried.

“I think she’s a little older,” the real policeman replied.

“It’s a brilliant move!” the screenwriter said. “Mrs. Dogar doesn’t know what to think!”

“I know how she feels,” Nancy told him.

“It’ll be all right, sweetie,” the deputy commissioner told his wife. When he took her hand, she pulled it away.

“Am I next?” Nancy asked. “Do I wait in line?”

Almost every face in the main dining room was turned toward the ballroom. They watched the unstoppable sweating movie star with his bulky shoulders and his beer belly; he was twirling little Amy Sorabjee around as if she were no heavier than her clothes.

Although the Sorabjees and the Daruwallas were old friends, Dr. and Mrs. Sorabjee had been surprised at Dhar’s spur-of-the-moment invitation—and that Amy had accepted. She was a silly girl in her twenties, a former university student who hadn’t merely come home for the holiday; she’d been withdrawn from school. Granted, Dhar wasn’t mashing her; the actor was behaving like a proper gentleman—excessively charming, possibly, but the young lady seemed delighted. Theirs was a different kind of dancing from Dhar’s performance with Muriel; the friskiness of the youthful girl was appealingly offset by the sure, smooth quality of the older man’s gestures.

“Now he’s seducing children!” Mr. Dogar announced to his wife. “He’s going to dance his way through all the women—I’m sure he’ll ask you, too, Promila!”

Mrs. Dogar was visibly upset. She excused herself for the ladies’ room, where she was reminded of how she hated this aspect of being a woman—waiting to pee. There was too long a line; Rahul slipped through the foyer and into the closed and darkened administrative offices of the old club. There was enough moonlight for her to type by, and she rolled a two-rupee note into the typewriter that was nearest a window. On the money, the typed message was as spontaneous as her feelings at the moment.

This was a message meant for Dhar’s mouth, and Mrs. Dogar slipped it into her purse where it could keep company with the message she’d already typed for her husband.

It comforted Mrs. Dogar to have these two-rupee notes in place; she always felt better when she was prepared for every contingency. She slipped back through the foyer and into the ladies’ room, where the line ahead of her wasn’t so long. When Rahul returned to her table in the main dining room, Dhar was dancing with a new partner.

Mr. Sethna, who’d been happily monitoring the conversation between the Dogars, was thrilled to note Mr. Dogar’s observation to his coarse wife: “Now Dhar’s dancing with that hefty Anglo who came with the Daruwallas. I think she’s the white half of a mixed marriage. Her husband looks like a pathetic civil servant.”

But Mrs. Dogar was prevented from seeing the new dancers. Dhar had wheeled Nancy into the part of the ballroom that wasn’t visible from the main dining room. Only intermittently did a glimpse of them appear. Earlier, Rahul had taken little notice of the big blonde. When Mrs. Dogar glanced at the Daruwallas’ table, the Daruwallas were bent in conversation with the out-of-place “pathetic civil servant,” as her husband had described him. Maybe he was a minor magistrate, Rahul guessed—or some controlling little guru who’d met his Western wife in an ashram.

Then Dhar and the heavy woman danced into view. Mrs. Dogar sensed the strength with which they gripped each other—the woman’s broad hand held fast to Dhar’s neck, and the biceps of his right arm was locked in her armpit (as if he were trying to lift her up). She was taller than he was; from the way she grasped his neck, it was impossible for Rahul to tell if Nancy was pulling Dhar’s face into the side of her throat or if she was struggling to prevent him from nuzzling her. What was remarkable was that they were whispering fiercely to each other; neither one of them was listening, but they were talking urgently and at the same time. When they danced out of her sight again, Rahul couldn’t stand it; Mrs. Dogar asked her husband to dance.

“He’s got her! I told you he could do it,” said Dr. Daruwalla.

“This is only the beginning,” the deputy commissioner replied. “This is just the dancing.”

Happy New Year

Fortunately for Mr. Dogar, it was a slow dance. His wife steered him past several faltering couples, who were disconcerted that Muriel’s fallen sequins still crunched underfoot Mrs. Dogar had Dhar and the big blonde in her sights.

“Is this in the script?” Nancy was whispering to the actor. “This isn’t in the script, you bastard!”

“We’re supposed to make something of a scene—like an old lovers’ quarrel,” Dhar whispered.

“You’re embracing me!” Nancy told him.

“You’re squeezing me back,” he whispered.

“I wish I was killing you!” Nancy whispered.

“She’s here,” Dhar said softly. “She’s following us.”

With a pang, Rahul observed that the blond wench had gone limp in Dhar’s arms—and she’d been resisting him; that had been obvious. Now it appeared to Mrs. Dogar that Dhar was supporting the heavy woman; the blonde might otherwise have fallen to the dance floor, so lifelessly was she draped on the actor. She’d thrown her arms over his shoulders and locked her hands behind his back; her face was buried in his neck—awkwardly, because she was taller. Rahul could see that Nancy was shaking her head while Dhar went on whispering to her. The blonde had that pleasing air of submission about her, as if she’d already given up; Rahul was reminded of the kind of woman who’d let you make love to her or let you kill her without a breath of complaint—like someone with a high fever, Rahul thought.

“Does she recognize me?” Nancy was whispering; she trembled, and then stumbled. Dhar had to hold her up with all his strength.

“She can’t recognize you, she doesn’t recognize you—she’s just curious about what’s between us,” the actor replied.

“What is between us?” Nancy whispered. Where her hands were locked together, he felt her dig her knuckles into his spine.

“She’s coming closer,” Dhar warned Nancy. “She doesn’t recognize you. She just wants to look. I’m going to do it now,” he whispered.

“Do what?” Nancy asked; she’d forgotten—she was so frightened of Rahul.

“Unzip you,” Dhar said.

“Not too far,” Nancy told him.

The actor turned her suddenly; he had to stand on tiptoe to look over her shoulder, but he wanted to be sure that Mrs. Dogar saw his face. John D. looked straight at Rahul and smiled; he gave the killer a sly wink. Then he unzipped the back of Nancy’s dress while Rahul watched. When he felt the clasp of Nancy’s bra, he stopped; he spread his palm between her bare shoulder blades—she was sweating and he felt her shudder.

“Is she watching?” Nancy whispered. “I hate you,” she added.

“She’s right on top of us,” Dhar whispered. “I’m going to go right at her. We’re changing partners now.”

“Zip me up first!” Nancy whispered. “Zip me up!”

With his right hand, John D. zipped Nancy up; with his left, he reached out and took the second Mrs. Dogar by the wrist—her arm was cool and dry, as sinewy as a strong rope.

“Let’s switch partners for the next number!” said Inspector Dhar. But it was still the slow dance that played. Mr. Dogar staggered briefly; Nancy, who was relieved to be out of Dhar’s arms, forcefully drew the old man to her chest. A lock of her hair had come undone; it hid her cheek. No one saw her tears, which might have been confused with her sweat.

“Hi,” Nancy said. Before Mr. Dogar could respond, she palmed the back of his head; his cheek was pressed flat between her shoulder and her collarbone. Nancy moved the old man resolutely away from Dhar and Rahul; she wondered how long she had to wait until the band changed to a faster number.

What was left of the slow dance suited Dhar and Rahul. John D.’s eyes were level with a thin blue vein that ran the length of Mrs. Dogar’s throat; something deep-black and polished, like onyx—a single stone, set in silver—rested in the perfect declivity where her throat met her sternum. Her dress, which was an emerald green, was cut low but it fit her breasts snugly; her hands were smooth and hard, her grip surprisingly light. She was light on her feet, too; no matter where John D. moved, she squared her shoulders to him—her eyes locked onto his eyes, as if she were reading the first page of a new book.

“That was rather crude—and clumsy, too,” the second Mrs. Dogar said.

“I’m tired of trying to ignore you,” the actor told her. “I’m sick of pretending that I don’t know who you are… who you were,” Dhar added, but her grip maintained its even, soft pressure—her body obediently followed his.

“Goodness, you are provincial!” Mrs. Dogar said. “Can’t a man become a woman if she wants to?”

“It’s certainly an exciting idea,” said Inspector Dhar.

“You’re not sneering, are you?” Mrs. Dogar asked him.

“Certainly not! I’m just remembering,” the actor replied. “Twenty years ago, I couldn’t get up the nerve to approach you—I didn’t know how to begin.”

“Twenty years ago, I wasn’t complete,” Rahul reminded him. “If you had approached me, what would you have done?”

“Frankly, I was too young to think of doing” Dhar replied. “I think I just wanted to see you!”

“I don’t suppose that seeing me is all you have in mind today,” Mrs. Dogar said.

“Certainly not!” said Inspector Dhar, but he couldn’t muster the courage to squeeze her hand; she was everywhere so dry and cool and light of touch, but she was also very hard.

“Twenty years ago, I tried to approach you,” Rahul admitted.

“It must have been too subtle for me—at least I missed it,” John D. remarked.

“At the Bardez, I was told you slept in the hammock on the balcony,” Rahul told him. “I went to you. The only part of you that was outside the mosquito net was your foot. I put your big toe in my mouth. I sucked it—actually, I bit you. But it wasn’t you. It was Dr. Daruwalla. I was so disgusted, I never tried again.”

This was not the conversation Dhar had expected. John D.’s options for dialogue didn’t include a response to this interesting story, but while he was at a loss for words, the band saved him; they changed to a faster number. People were leaving the dance floor in droves, including Nancy with Mr. Dogar. Nancy led the old man to his table; he was almost breathless by the time she got him seated.

“Who are you, dear?” he managed to ask her.

“Mrs. Patel,” Nancy replied.

“Ah,” the old man said. “And your husband …” What Mr. Dogar meant was, What does he do? He wondered: Which sort of civil-service employee is he?

“My husband is Mr. Patel,” Nancy told him; when she left him, she walked as carefully as possible to the Daruwallas’ table.

“I don’t think she recognized me,” Nancy told them, “but I couldn’t look at her. She looks the same, but ancient.”

“Are they dancing?” Dr. Daruwalla asked. “Are they talking, too?”

“They’re dancing and they’re talking—that’s all I know,” Nancy told the screenwriter. “I couldn’t look at her,” she repeated.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” the deputy commissioner said. “You don’t have to do anything more.”

“I want to be there when you catch her, Vijay,” Nancy told her husband.

“Well, we may not catch her in a place where you want to be,” the detective replied.

“Please let me be there,” Nancy said. “Am I zipped up?” she asked suddenly; she rotated her shoulders so that Julia could see her back.

“You’re zipped up perfectly, dear,” Julia told her.

Mr. Dogar, alone at his table, was gulping champagne and catching his breath, while Mr. Sethna plied him with hors d’oeuvres. Mrs. Dogar and Dhar were dancing in that part of the ballroom where Mr. Dogar couldn’t see them.

“There was a time when I wanted you,” Rahul was telling John D. “You were a beautiful boy.”

“I still want you,” Dhar told her.

“It seems you want everybody,” Mrs. Dogar said. “Who’s the stripper?” she asked him. He had no dialogue for this.

“Just a stripper,” Dhar answered.

“And who’s the fat blonde?” Rahul asked him. This much Dr. Daruwalla had prepared him for.

“She’s an old story,” the actor replied. “Some people can’t let go.”

“You can have your choice of women—younger women, too,” Mrs. Dogar told him. “What do you want with me?” This introduced a moment in the dialogue that the actor was afraid of; this required a quantum leap of faith in Farrokh’s script. The actor had little confidence in his upcoming line.

“I need to know something,” Dhar told Rahul. “Is your vagina really made from what used to be your penis?”

“Don’t be crude,” Mrs. Dogar said; then she started laughing.

“I wish there was another way to ask the question,” John D. admitted. When she laughed more uncontrollably, her hands gripped him harder; he could feel the strength of her hands for the first time. “I suppose I could have been more indirect,” Dhar continued, for her laughter encouraged him. “I could have said, ‘What sort of sensitivity do you have in that vagina of yours, anyway? I mean, does it feel sort of like a penis?’” The actor stopped; he couldn’t make himself continue. The screenwriter’s dialogue wasn’t working—Farrokh was frequently hit-or-miss with dialogue.

Besides, Mrs. Dogar had stopped laughing. “So you’re just curious—is that it?” she asked him. “You’re attracted to the oddity of it.”

Along the thin blue vein at Rahul’s throat, there appeared a cloudy drop of sweat; it ran quickly between her taut breasts. John D. thought that they hadn’t been dancing that hard. He hoped it was the right time. He took her around her waist with some force, and she followed his lead; when they crossed that part of the dance floor which made them visible to Mrs. Dogar’s husband—and to Mr. Sethna—Dhar saw that the old steward had understood his signal. Mr. Sethna turned quickly from the dining room toward the foyer, and the actor again wheeled Mrs. Dogar into the more private part of the ballroom.

“I’m an actor,” John D. told Rahul. “I can be anyone you want me to be—I can do absolutely anything you like. You just have to draw me a picture.” (The actor winced; he had Farrokh to thank for that clunker, too.)

“What an eccentric presumption!” Mrs. Dogar said. “Draw you a picture of what?”

“Just give me an idea of what appeals to you. Then I can do it,” Dhar told her.

“You said, ‘Draw me a picture’—I heard you say it,” Mrs. Dogar said.

“I meant, just tell me what you like—I mean sexually,” the actor said.

“I know what you mean, but you said ‘draw,’” Rahul replied coldly.

“Didn’t you used to be an artist? Weren’t you going to art school?” the actor asked. (What the hell is Mr. Sethna doing? Dhar was thinking. John D. was afraid that Rahul smelled a rat.)

“I didn’t learn anything in art school,” Mrs. Dogar told him.

In the utility closet, off the foyer, Mr. Sethna had discovered that he couldn’t read the writing in the fuse box without his glasses, which he kept in a drawer in the kitchen. It took the steward a moment to decide whether or not to kill all the fuses.

“The old fool has probably electrocuted himself!” Dr. Daruwalla was saying to Detective Patel.

“Let’s try to keep calm,” the policeman said.

“If the lights don’t go out, let Dhar improvise—if he’s such a great improviser,” Nancy said.

“I want you not as a curiosity,” Dhar said suddenly to Mrs. Dogar. “I know you’re strong, I think you’re aggressive—I believe you can assert yourself.” (It was the worst of Dr. Daruwalla’s dialogue, the actor thought—it was sheer groping.) “I want you to tell me what you like. I want you to tell me what to do.”

“I want you to submit to me,” Rahul said.

“You can tie me up, if you want to,” Dhar said agreeably.

“I mean more than that,” Mrs. Dogar said. Then the ballroom and the entire first floor of the Duckworth Club were pitched into darkness. There was a communal gasp and a fumbling in the band; the number they were playing persisted through a few more toots and thumps. From the dining room came an artless clapping. Noises of chaos could be heard from the kitchen. Then the knives and forks and spoons began their impromptu music against the water glasses.

“Don’t spill the champagne!” Mr. Bannerjee called out.

The girlish laughter probably came from Amy Sorabjee.

When John D. tried to kiss her in the darkness, Mrs. Dogar was too fast; his mouth was just touching hers when he felt her seize his lower lip in her teeth. While she held him thus, by the lip, her exaggerated breathing was heavy in his face; her cool, dry hands unzipped him and fondled him until he was hard. Dhar put his hands on her buttocks, which she instantly tightened. Still she clamped his lower lip between her teeth; her bite was hard enough to hurt him but not quite deep enough to make him bleed. As Mr. Sethna had been instructed, the lights flashed briefly on and then went out again; Mrs. Dogar let go of John D.—both with her teeth and with her hands. When he took his hands off her to zip up his fly, he lost her. When the lights came on, Dhar was no longer in contact with Mrs. Dogar.

“You want a picture? I’ll show you a picture,” Rahul said quietly. “I could have bitten your lip off.”

“I have a suite at both the Oberoi and the Taj,” the actor told her.

“No—I’ll tell you where,” Mrs. Dogar said. “I’ll tell you at lunch.”

“At lunch here?” Dhar asked her.

“Tomorrow,” Rahul said. “I could have bitten your nose off, if I’d wanted to.”

“Thank you for the dance,” John D. said. As he turned to leave her, he was uncomfortably aware of his erection and the throbbing in his lower lip.

“Careful you don’t knock over any chairs or tables,” Mrs. Dogar said. “You’re as big as an elephant.” It was the word “elephant”—coming from Rahul—that most affected John D.’s walk. He crossed the dining room, still seeing the cloudy drop of her quickly disappearing sweat—still feeling her cool, dry hands. And the way she’d breathed into his open mouth when his lip was trapped… John D. suspected he would never forget that. He was thinking that the thin blue vein in her throat was so very still; it was as if she didn’t have a pulse, or that she knew some way to suspend the normal beating of her heart.

When Dhar sat down at the table, Nancy couldn’t look at him. Deputy Commissioner Patel didn’t look at him, either, but that was because the policeman was more interested in watching Mr. and Mrs. Dogar. They were arguing—Mrs. Dogar wouldn’t sit down, Mr. Dogar wouldn’t stand up—and the detective noticed something extremely simple but peculiar about the two of them; they had almost exactly the same haircut. Mr. Dogar wore his wonderfully thick hair in a vain pompadour; it was cut short at the back of his neck, and it was tightly trimmed over his ears, but a surprisingly full and cocky wave of his hair was brushed high off his forehead—his hair was silver, with streaks of white. Mrs. Dogar’s hair was black with streaks of silver (probably dyed), but her hairdo was the same as her husband’s, albeit more stylish. It gave her a slightly Spanish appearance. A pompadour! Imagine that, thought Detective Patel. He saw that Mrs. Dogar had persuaded her husband to stand.

Mr. Sethna would later inform the deputy commissioner of what words passed between the Dogars, but the policeman could have guessed. Mrs. Dogar was complaining that her husband had already slurped too much champagne; she wouldn’t tolerate a minute more of his drunkenness—she would have the servants fix them a midnight supper at home, where at least she would not be publicly embarrassed by Mr. Dogar’s ill-considered behavior.

“They’re leaving!” Dr. Daruwalla observed. “What happened? Did you agitate her?” the screenwriter asked the actor.

Dhar had a drink of champagne, which made his lip sting. The sweat was rolling down his face—after all, he’d been dancing all night—and his hands were noticeably shaky; they watched him exchange the champagne glass for his water glass. Even a sip of water caused him to wince. Nancy had had to force herself to look at him; now she couldn’t look away.

The deputy commissioner was still thinking about the haircuts. The pompadour had a feminizing effect on old Mr. Dogar, but the same hairdo conveyed a mannishness to his wife. The detective concluded that Mrs. Dogar resembled a bullfighter; Detective Patel had never seen a bullfighter, of course.

Farrokh was dying to know which dialogue John D. had used. The sweating movie star was still fussing with his lip. The doctor observed that Dhar’s lower lip was swollen; it had the increasingly purplish hue of a contusion. The doctor waved his arms for a waiter and asked for a tall glass of ice—just ice.

“So she kissed you,” Nancy said.

“It was more like a bite,” John D. replied.

“But what did you say?” Dr. Daruwalla cried.

“Did you arrange a meeting?” Detective Patel asked Dhar.

“Lunch here, tomorrow,” the actor replied.

“Lunch!” the screenwriter said with disappointment.

“So you’ve made a start,” the policeman said.

“Yes, I think so. It’s something, anyway—I’m not sure what,” Dhar remarked.

“So she responded?” Farrokh asked. He felt frustrated, for he wanted to hear the dialogue between them—word for word.

“Look at his lip!” Nancy told the doctor. “Of course she responded!”

“Did you ask her to draw you a picture?” Farrokh wanted to know.

“That part was scary—at least it got a little strange,” Dhar said evasively. “But I think she’s going to show me something.”

“At lunch?” Dr. Daruwalla asked. John D. shrugged; he was clearly exasperated with all the questions.

“Let him talk, Farrokh. Stop putting words in his mouth,” Julia told him.

“But he’s not talking!” the doctor cried.

“She said she wanted me to submit to her,” Dhar told the deputy commissioner.

“She wants to tie him up!” Farrokh shouted.

“She said she meant more than that,” Dhar replied.

“What’s ‘more than that’?” Dr. Daruwalla asked.

The waiter brought the ice and John D. held a piece to his lip.

“Put the ice in your mouth and suck on it,” the doctor told him, but John D. kept applying the ice in his own way.

“She bit me inside and out,” was all he said.

“Did you get to the part about her sex-change operation?” the screenwriter asked.

“She thought that part was funny,” John D. told them. “She laughed.”

By now the indentations on the outside of Dhar’s lower lip were easier to see, even in the candlelight in the Ladies’ Garden; the teeth marks had left such deep bruises, the discolored lip was turning from a pale purple to a dark magenta, as if Mrs. Dogar’s teeth had left a stain.

To her husband’s surprise, Nancy helped herself to a second glass of champagne; Detective Patel had been mildly shocked that his wife had accepted the first glass. Now Nancy raised her glass, as if she were toasting everyone in the Ladies’ Garden.

“Happy New Year,” she said, but to no one in particular.

“Auld Lang Syne”

Finally, they served the midnight supper. Nancy picked at her food, which her husband eventually ate. John D. couldn’t eat anything spicy because of his lip; he didn’t tell them about the erection Mrs. Dogar had given him, or how—or about how she’d said he was as big as an elephant. Dhar decided he’d tell Detective Patel later, when they were alone. When the policeman excused himself from the table, John D. followed him to the men’s room and told him there.

“I didn’t like the way she looked when she left here.” That was all the detective would say.

Back at their table, Dr. Daruwalla told them that he had a plan to “introduce” the top half of the pen; Mr. Sethna was involved—it sounded complicated. John D. repeated that he hoped Rahul was going to make him a drawing.

“That would do it, wouldn’t it?” Nancy asked her husband.

“That would help,” the deputy commissioner said. He had a bad feeling. He once again excused himself from the table, this time to call Crime Branch Headquarters. He ordered a surveillance officer to watch the Dogars’ house all night; if Mrs. Dogar left the house, he wanted the officer to follow her—and he wanted to be told if she left the house, whatever the hour.

In the men’s room, Dhar had said that he’d never felt it was Rahul’s intention to bite his lip off, nor even that taking his lip in her teeth was a deliberate decision—it wasn’t something she’d done merely to scare him, either. The actor believed that Mrs. Dogar hadn’t been able to stop herself; and all the while she’d held his lip, he’d felt that the transsexual was unable to let go.

“It wasn’t that she wanted to bite me,” Dhar had told the detective. “It was that she couldn’t help it.”

“Yes, I understand,” the policeman had said; he’d resisted the temptation to add that only in the movies did every murderer have a clear motive.

Now, as he hung up the phone, a dreary song reached the deputy commissioner in the foyer. The band was playing “Auld Lang Syne”; the drunken Duckworthians were murdering the lyrics. Patel crossed the dining room with difficulty because so many of the maudlin members were leaving their tables and traipsing to the ballroom, singing as they staggered forth. There went Mr. Bannerjee, sandwiched between his wife and the widow Lal; he appeared to be manfully intent on dancing with them both. There went Dr. and Mrs. Sorabjee, leaving little Amy alone at their table.

When the detective returned to the Daruwallas’ table, Nancy was nagging Dhar. “I’m sure that little girl is dying to dance with you again. And she’s all alone. Why don’t you ask her? Imagine how she feels. You started it,” Nancy told him. She’d had three glasses of champagne, her husband calculated; this wasn’t much, but she never drank—and she’d eaten next to nothing. Dhar was managing not to sneer; he was trying to ignore Nancy instead.

“Why don’t you ask me to dance?” Julia asked John D. “I think Farrokh has forgotten to ask me.”

Without a word, Dhar led Julia to the ballroom; Amy Sorabjee watched them all the way.

“I like your idea about the top half of the pen,” Detective Patel told Dr. Daruwalla.

The screenwriter was taken aback by this unexpected praise. “You do?” Farrokh said. “The problem is, Mrs. Dogar’s got to think that it’s been in her purse—that it’s always been there.”

“I agree that if Dhar can distract her, Mr. Sethna can plant the pen.” That was all the policeman would say.

“You do?” Dr. Daruwalla repeated.

“It would be nice if we found other things in her purse,” the deputy commissioner thought aloud.

“You mean the money with the typewritten warnings—or maybe even a drawing,” the doctor said.

“Precisely,” Patel said.

“Well, I wish I could write that!” the screenwriter replied.

Suddenly Julia was back at the table; she’d lost John D. as a dance partner when Amy Sorabjee had cut in.

“The shameless girl!” Dr. Daruwalla said.

“Come dance with me, Liebchen,” Julia told him.

Then the Patels were alone at the table; in fact, they were alone in the Ladies’ Garden. In the main dining room, an unidentified man was sleeping with his head on one of the dinner tables; everyone else was dancing, or they were standing in the ballroom—apparently for the morbid pleasure of singing “Auld Lang Syne.” The waiters were beginning to scavenge the abandoned tables, but not a single waiter disturbed Detective Patel and Nancy in the Ladies’ Garden; Mr. Sethna had instructed them to respect the couple’s privacy.

Nancy’s hair had come down, and she had trouble unfastening the pearl necklace; her husband had to help her with the clasp.

“They’re beautiful pearls, aren’t they?” Nancy asked. “But if I don’t give them back to Mrs. Daruwalla now, I’ll forget and wear them home. They might get lost or stolen.”

“I’ll try to find you a necklace like this,” Detective Patel told her.

“No, it’s too expensive,” Nancy said.

“You did a good job,” her husband told her.

“We’re going to catch her, aren’t we, Vijay?” she asked him.

“Yes, we are, sweetie,” he replied.

“She didn’t recognize me!” Nancy cried.

“I told you she wouldn’t, didn’t I?” the detective said.

“She didn’t even see me! She looked right through me—like I didn’t exist! All these years, and she didn’t even remember me,” Nancy said.

The deputy commissioner held her hand. She rested her head on his shoulder; she felt so empty, she couldn’t even cry.

“I’m sorry, Vijay, but I don’t think I can dance. I just can’t,” Nancy said.

“That’s all right, sweetie,” her husband said. “I don’t dance—remember?”

“He didn’t have to unzip me—it was unnecessary,” Nancy said.

“It was part of the overall effect,” Patel replied.

“It was unnecessary,” Nancy repeated. “And I didn’t like the way he did it.”

“The idea was, you weren’t supposed to like it,” the policeman told her.

“She must have tried to bite his whole lip off!” Nancy cried.

“I believe she barely managed to stop herself,” the deputy commissioner said. This had the effect of releasing Nancy from her emptiness; at last, she was able to cry on her husband’s shoulder. It seemed that the band would never stop playing the tiresome old song.

“‘We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet …’” Mr. Bannerjee was shouting.

Mr. Sethna observed that Julia and Dr. Daruwalla were the most stately dancers on the floor. Dr. and Mrs. Sorabjee danced nervously; they didn’t dare take their eyes off their daughter. Poor Amy had been brought home from England, where she hadn’t been doing very well. Too much partying, her parents suspected—and, more disturbing, a reputed attraction to older men. At university, she was notoriously opposed to romances with her fellow students; rather, she’d thrown herself at one of her professors—a married chap. He’d not taken advantage of her, thank goodness. And now Dr. and Mrs. Sorabjee were tortured to see the young girl dancing with Dhar. From the frying pan to the fire! Mrs. Sorabjee thought. It was awkward for Mrs. Sorabjee, being a close friend of the Daruwallas’ and therefore unable to express her opinion of Inspector Dhar.

“Do you know you’re available in England—on videocassette?” Amy was telling the actor.

“Am I?” he said.

“Once we had a wine tasting and we rented you,” Amy told him. “People who aren’t from Bombay don’t know what to make of you. The movies seem terribly odd to them.”

“Yes,” said Inspector Dhar. “To me, too,” he added.

This made her laugh; she was an easy girl, he could tell—he felt a little sorry for her parents.

“All that music, mixed in with all the murders,” Amy Sorabjee said.

“Don’t forget the divine intervention,” the actor remarked.

“Yes! And all the women—you do gather up a lot of women,” Amy observed.

“Yes, I do,” Dhar said.

“‘We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet for the days of auld lang syne!’” the old dancers brayed; they sounded like donkeys.

“I like Inspector Dhar and the Cage-Girl Killer the best—it’s the sexiest,” said little Amy Sorabjee.

“I don’t have a favorite,” the actor confided to her; he guessed she was 22 or 23. He found her a pleasant distraction, but it irritated him that she kept staring at his lip.

“What happened to your lip?” she finally asked him in a whisper—her expression still girlish but sly, even conspiratorial.

“When the lights went out, I danced into a wall,” Dhar told her.

“I think that horrid woman did it to you,” Amy Sorabjee dared to say. “It looks like she bit you!”

John D. just kept dancing; the way his lip had swollen, it hurt to sneer.

“Everyone thinks she’s a horrid woman, you know,” Amy said; Dhar’s silence had made her less sure of herself. “And who was that first woman you were with?” Amy asked him. “The one who left?”

“She’s a stripper,” said Inspector Dhar.

“Go on—not really!” Amy cried.

“Yes, really,” John D. replied.

“And who is the blond lady?” Amy asked. “I thought she looked about to cry.”

“She’s a former friend,” the actor answered; he was tired of the girl now. A young girl’s idea of intimacy was getting answers to all her questions.

John D. was sure that Vinod would already be waiting outside; surely the dwarf had returned from taking Muriel to the Wetness Cabaret. Dhar wanted to go to bed, alone; he wanted to put more ice on his lip, and he wanted to apologize to Farrokh, too. It had been unkind of the actor to imply that preparing himself for the seduction of Mrs. Dogar was “no circus”; John D. knew what the circus meant to Dr. Daruwalla—the actor could have more charitably said that getting ready for Rahul was “no picnic.” And now here was the insatiable Amy Sorabjee, trying to get him (and herself) into some unnecessary trouble. Time to slip away, the actor thought.

Just then, Amy took a quick look over Dhar’s shoulder; she wanted to be exactly sure where her parents were. A doddering threesome had blocked Dr. and Mrs. Sorabjee from Amy’s view—Mr. Bannerjee was struggling to dance with his wife and the widow Lal—and Amy seized this moment of privacy, for she knew she was only briefly free of her parents’ scrutiny. She brushed her soft lips against John D.’s cheek; then she whispered overbreathlessly in the actor’s ear. “I could kiss that lip and make it better!” she said.

John D., smoothly, just kept dancing. His unresponsiveness made Amy feel insecure, and so she whispered more plaintively—at least more matter-of-factly—“I prefer older men.”

“Do you?” the movie star said. “Why, so do I,” Inspector Dhar told the silly girl. “So do I!”

That got rid of her; it always worked. At last, Inspector Dhar could slip away.