Stone Tablets

Chapter I

Over clumps of blinding white — the villas in this quarter of New Delhi — the sky was growing opaque. Yellow dust rose on the empty horizon, blurring the jagged lines of the treetops. The air was becoming heavy. The heat did not abate, only the source of it changed; fire beat from the blistered reddish earth and burning stones. The flat roofs on which whole families camped at nightfall were still deserted, though the sun had buried itself deep in the palm groves.

Istvan Terey looked reluctantly through the tightly closed window. Behind the glass, through the wire screen on which spider webs and rainbow-tinted dust glinted, he saw a wide lawn, bleached by a long drought. Its grass was trampled down, crushed under the feet of loitering passersby. In a glass clouded with dust he saw his own face, darkened by the tropical sun, its oval lines cut by the sharp white of his collar.

He had stuck at his post in India for two years — two springs, rather, for they were the most oppressive: the hot seasons, when work became a torment. A somnolence almost like fainting enveloped the entire Hungarian embassy. People napped over their documents, they wiped sticky palms on linen trousers; their gaping shirts laid chests gleaming with sweat bare to the stream of cool air driven by the fan.

He looked gloomily at the cracked earth, which was taking on a red and violet sheen. Huge flies crashed blindly, with a frenzied buzzing, against the taut screen behind the windowpane, trying to force their way into the house. The toneless knocking, as if someone were throwing dried peas, the angry voices of the insects, the wheezing air from the cooling machine, and the hiss of the blades in the great ceiling fan: this was the music of the Indian twilight. Air full of dead light was suspended over the gardens; fringes of sickly green trailed back into the sky like smoke. Measureless empty space hung calmly, nodding with the evening breeze.

Among the banana trees with their broad leaves like tattered flags stood a watchman in shorts, lavishly watering what greenery remained with a red rubber hose. Sparkling droplets played around the stream. Thirsty starlings dived into the spray, spreading their wings with delight, and waded in the wet grass.

Terey rubbed his forehead. He would have liked to awaken in himself a joy like that of those birds; it was no use. He knew that refreshment well, for he had come from the bathtub only a little while ago. The water had been waiting until he returned from the office. The cook had drawn it at dawn, for during the day the tin collector on the roof grew so hot that the water poured in boiling from the tap. “A few weeks more and one will be able to breathe,” he sighed, staring dully at the vacant sky, where dust was beginning to pulsate with scent like tobacco.

Monsoons: one only had to hold out until the sudden downpour, and the world was transformed. Everyone waited until the little map appeared in the first pages of the New Delhi newspapers with a chart showing which way the winds bearing the life-restoring moisture were blowing, in which direction the longed-for rains were advancing.

He felt the pleasant coolness of a fresh shirt on his back, and thought with distaste of the white jacket he would soon put on. He dropped into an armchair, stretched his legs, and relaxed. The ceiling fan limped in lazy gyrations, but sent a puff of air that grazed his close-cropped hair. The electric current wavered and the fans mounted in the windows rumbled fitfully. Their sighings blew the aromas of oil, caoutchouc, and dust into his face. The smell of drying stone rose from floor tiles that had been scoured with a wet rag not long before. The dinner jacket hanging from the back of a chair smelled of camphor and insecticide.

Muffled shrieks came from the kitchen as the cook quarreled with his family, who were waiting for the remains of the midday dinner. The drone of motors, the piercing trills of cicadas hidden in the climbing plants on the veranda, made it impossible to doze even for a little while. He heard his own uneven pulse. He felt a desire to smoke a cigarette, but he did not want to reach for one.

The insanity of a sudden wedding in this heat! His face contorted with resentment.

He knew the young couple well, Grace Vijayaveda and Rajah Ramesh Khaterpalia, an officer of the president’s guard. He was even a friend of theirs; he saw them when he attended picnics, rode in hunts. Sometimes they pressed him to stay until the crowd of guests had left, for a chat, as they put it, “just among ourselves.” The leisurely conversations in a dusk barely lit by floor lamps — the long moments of agreeable silence with a glass in the hand and a cigarette, measured by the soft clinking of the golden hoops that shifted with the motion of the girl’s floating wrist — assured him that he was one of their intimate, trusted circle, though he worked at a communist embassy. The notification of Grace’s wedding had caused him pain; but since the groom himself had called to verify that the messenger had delivered the invitation with its gold engraving, he had to put in an appearance.

It seemed to Istvan that there was something unspoken, yet understood, between the young Hindu woman and himself. Only two weeks ago she had told him how her old ayah had gone on pilgrimage with her begging bowl to obtain a blessing from the gods for her young lady. She spoke in a mild monotone, as if she wanted to create with trivial confidences a camouflage for the wandering of her slender palm around the nape of his neck, the intimate stroking of the temple. He listened to the slow music of her words; he drank in the shy — one might almost think, involuntary — touches, the half-conscious caresses. Her hand said more than her full lips; it lured, it promised.

He found Grace pleasing. Her mother had been an Englishwoman; perhaps that was why she was less diffident than Indian women, why she did not wait with lowered eyelids and inclined head until a man condescended to notice her, to honor her with a nod. She herself would initiate the encounter.

Her slight, compact body, wrapped in a green sari that veiled her figure while drawing the eye to it, piqued his imagination. Her large, dark eyes seemed fiercely inquiring. Her black hair, gathered into a loose knot, was plaited with a garland of jasmine buds which shed a sweet breath in their dying. Apart from the gold bracelets that jingled on her wrist, she wore no jewelry. Her neck and ears needed no adornment. She knew that she was beautiful. Her narrow, diligently groomed hands were never soiled by work. She was a dowered young lady of the highest caste, an only child.

Upon meeting Istvan, she had asked none of the obligatory questions: Did he like India, how long would he stay, who was he, really, in Europe? Who was he? Or — what did he own? Land, factories, houses, stocks? As an employee of the embassy, dependent on the opinions of his superiors, the capricious valuations of other officials, he could be of no importance. He was only a young poet, a good-looking man who had come here for a brief time; a bird of passage, kindly welcomed by a group of people jaded with beauty.

He seized on the startled, knowing glances as they flashed from under the darkly tinted eyelids, signaling that it was worth her while to have him among her docile admirers. He preferred to keep his distance. Distance allowed for timely withdrawals, for escape from humiliation, from words and gestures affirming certain inviolable limits.

“Be careful, Istvan,” warned Secretary Ferenc. “Be careful to keep them from talking about you too much, for that’s the end. A report will go out, they will recall you, they will make mincemeat of your reputation, and for years you will be warming a chair in a ministry instead of sailing the wide world.”

“We go places together, you and I, after all — the same parties, you see me—”

“Just so; I see how the high life is getting a hold on you.”

“I do it for you, not for myself. Winning people over is one of our duties. Even when I leave, it will make it easier for my successor. I am feathering the nest for him.”

“I only remind you not to fly from it too soon.”

Istvan smiled derisively. “I do what everyone does. I am no different from the rest of you.”

“You play the bachelor. We have our wives here. They are what they are, but at least we can look at the Indian beauties without losing our composure.”

Now and again the people at the embassy would begin a probing conversation about the skin of Indian women, which was rough to the touch, about their hair, which was glistening and hard as horsehair, about odd or arcane lovemaking customs. He sensed that his colleagues wanted to sound him out about whether he had become familiar with such things, what experience he had acquired. Then against his better judgment he was silent; he changed the subject; he referred them to the Kamasutra in an English translation, illustrated with photographs of stone sculptures from the Black Pagoda.

“Be careful, Istvan. Look to yourself. Don’t slip up,” Ferenc warned him jokingly.

“I feel absolutely safe, for everyone is spying on me,” he rejoined.

Grace Vijayaveda had finished her studies in England.

“She wanted me to send her, though it was money thrown away since she did not marry an Englishman. She will not be a judge or advocate here, so why the training in law?” her father complained. “I can pay for her whims, within reasonable limits, of course.”

Istvan was disturbed by the incongruity between the balding, obese owner of a weaving mill in Lucknow and his petite, athletic daughter. Gray hair like an aureole encircled the man’s yellowish face, which was full of good-humored cunning. Only his large eyes with their warmth, their color like chocolate melting in the sun, resembled hers. The old manufacturer crossed his ankles, spreading heavy thighs that could be seen under his none too clean dhoti. He preferred the airy traditional dress to woolen trousers. He was one of the pillars of the Congress Party; once Gandhi himself, when the police were looking for him, had stayed overnight in his house.

He knew how to make the most of his past, in which he had been a little reckless and which now served him well. He did business, he squeezed out income, couching everything in noble phrases: for India one must earn one’s bread by the sweat of one’s brow, broaden the industrial base. A drive to lead awoke in him; he knew how to build capital, he had nerved himself to wrest it from others. As long as weaving mills belonged to the English, he fought them hard, using every means at his disposal. When he built portfolios of stock, when he took the property of foreigners, it did not bother him at all that he was behaving in the same way as the colonialists.

“I am a Hindu. I am a son of this country, not an interloper,” he explained to Istvan. “That is the fundamental difference. Perhaps your turn will come soon. Take the power — yes, you, communists — and the factories will stand. You will come prepared.” It was clear, however, that he spoke without conviction — that even as he was evoking sympathy and admiration for the risk he was taking, the thought of radical change did not figure seriously in his calculations. He had beaten that thought back for decades.

Istvan liked to banter with him. He spoke vividly of the way land had been distributed in Hungary, and factory owners dispossessed. The old man listened greedily, with a fear that afterward sweetened his sense of his own absolute power over thousands of tame, undernourished workers. As he savored that twofold joy, he sipped yet another double whiskey with ice.

His daughter wore her sari gracefully, but swathed in that silken drapery she seemed in disguise. Istvan preferred her in the habit of her riding club: cherry-red frock coat, canary vest, and long black skirt. She sat sidesaddle and galloped with a flowing motion, softly and with just a touch of bravura.

From his childhood he had been familiar with horses. He had ridden with the herdsmen on the steppes of Hungary. Toward the end of the summer the wild horses grew unruly; the stallions bit each other, reared, and struck out with their hooves. Their manes were full of prickles and sticky balls of burdock. Even their coats gave off a pungent steam. “First, learn how to fall off the horse…and you must get up at once, dust yourself off and mount him again. He must understand that he will not get rid of you, no matter how he bucks and kicks. That lesson will stand you in good stead all your life, for life is a spitfire mare that likes to run away with her rider,” said the old csikos with a face like a copper kettle, twirling up the ends of his grizzled mustache.

Horses raised in India were of mixed breed, not overfed, accommodating. They heard one’s voice and felt the pressure of the calf, they ran after the white ball of their own accord, as if they understood the rules of polo. They positioned themselves to make it easy to strike with the mallet when the dust rose from the hard-trampled, cracked clay. Trainers in red turbans, mustachioed Sikhs with beards rolled up and gleaming as if they had been soaked in black lacquer a moment before, goaded them on with shouts. The horses broke into a short gallop, then moved sideways above the white ball as it lay on the grass. They understood that the aim was to block the opponent’s way so that he could not hit with the mallet. The taut legs, firmly planted hooves, and muzzles contorted as if in jeering smiles irritated Istvan. He made his horse trot in a tight circle; he wanted to go for the ball. Again the riders moved as in a cavalcade, swaying like waves on the horses’ backs, in a joyful hubbub, with raised mallets that glinted white in the westering sun.

Later, as their muscles tingled with pleasant sensations of weariness, they dismounted and returned the horses to the stable boys, who ran up noiselessly; the good old school. In the hall of the club, the stench of horse sweat mingled with the fragrance of perfume. He relished the first swallow of cold whiskey as it bit his throat.

Grace breathed deeply; he saw her breasts disturbingly near, the hair on her temple moistened with drops of sweat, her lips parted.

The servants took back the mallets and brought towels, dampened in hot water and steaming, to wipe the red dust from faces and necks. The air in the dimly lit hall smelled of cigar smoke, was alive with the quiet tinkle of glasses, the soft rattle of crushed ice in a silver shaker, the throaty gurgling of tilted bottles.

Grace liked to turn up uninvited for the Sunday morning jackal hunt. As the traditional sport of the Queen’s Lancers, the hunt was rather an occasion for displaying skill, for readying oneself to thrust at full gallop, for practice at pinning down a swiftly escaping quarry, than for shedding blood and displaying a trophy dangling lifeless. The jackals with their triangular, spiteful faces and long, fluffy tails dodged about among clumps of cane. Their little paws worked rapidly; they seemed to fly over the trampled turf. A horse, carried away with the lust of the sport and feeling the insistence of the spur, bore down on the prey; then came the moment to test the lances. The jackal’s cries urged the furious hunters on. The light pole with its metal fittings was fixed under the arm, to jab with its point, to lift the animal from the earth.

The horse gave chase, almost trampling the fleeing jackal. A blow — a thrust — the victim jumped away, and the rider, his lance buried in the ground, rose like a pole vaulter, his spurs etched against the sky as he was lifted from his saddle, then fell heavily on his back, like a clown.

The jackal burrowed into the nearest clump of brambles; they had to frighten him out with shouts. The Hindu servants came running up, throwing rocks. Suddenly under the legs of the shuddering, foaming horses a slender form slid like red lightning and whisked itself away, eluding the chase.

Ditches on the course made falls likely, and the master of the hunt had checked before the group moved out to see if the riders were wearing cork helmets as prescribed by the rules of the club. Istvan had barely escaped breaking his neck tumbling among the burnt-out stalks. Though he had ridden in more than a dozen hunts, not once had he seen a jackal speared to death; they slipped away, they hid deep in thickets, they dived into dens. So another one had to be flushed out, and the amusement went on until foam red with dust ran over the horses’ bellies, until their raw-throated riders ceased shouting and the call of the trumpet announced the end of the hunt. Exasperated voices, faltering for lack of breath, told of perfect thrusts, extolled the fleetness and spirit of the horses, and made a laughingstock of Major Stowne, whose lance was lodged irretrievably in the rocky ground.

Grace rode doggedly with the experienced hunters. She knew that she rode well, but she did not force herself on anyone; she simply was. She was aware that her presence excited men, that each of them wanted to show his prowess — to win her praise, to feel a friendly jostle on the arm with a glove darkened by horse sweat, to see her eyes kindle with admiration.

The Sunday morning sun was unbearably hot. Shirts stiffened with sweat. Voices were full of barely concealed rage. They really wanted to spear that skittish carcass, to pin it to the ground and raise it quivering on a lance — to cut short this senseless chase, which they had already had their fill of, though no one dared call a halt. A few of the riders fell back a little from the group in the lead, giving their mounts their heads, and the horses slowed to a walk, as if in quiet desertion. But Grace, with fiery cheeks, galloped on a black horse side by side with Istvan. The jackal, straining all its powers, hurtled in front of them, its narrow tongue hanging from its mouth, saliva trickling down. They heard the tormented animal’s snorting moans.

“Strike!” Grace cried in a high voice full of cruelty.

Istvan jabbed with his lance. He must have grazed the animal, for it bolted sideways with a screeching bark. The nervous Hindu horse swerved and Grace went flying over its neck. She was dragged a few meters by her hands, which were tangled in the reins; the imprint of her splayed legs could be seen on the grass.

He leaped from his horse and lifted her from the waist, like a sheaf of grain. Her chin strap had come apart and her helmet had fallen into the brush. Her skirt was rolled up high; he saw her dark, shapely thighs.

“Are you hurt, Grace?” He shook her lightly in his arms until her forehead fell against his cheek. He smelled the fragrance of her hair, felt the warmth of her body, felt her lips, viscid from fatigue, sticking to his neck. She opened her eyes with such a piercing look that he shivered. He pressed his palms to her back and held her close. There was no incidental touching, only a chaste kiss.

“You were frightened, Istvan,” she said in a low voice. “Would it have pained you if I had been killed?”

He wanted to kiss her on the lips instead of answering, but the riders had come up in a group and were dismounting. Grace’s fall had provided a reason to end the torturous chase in the blazing noon sun. She stood leaning on him, brushing off her skirt. It seemed to him that she wanted to prolong their moment of closeness.

Her fiance rode up on a dappled gray Arabian. Seeing that Grace had risen to her feet, he did not even get off his horse.

“I had him when the trumpet call began,” he cried excitedly. “Look, I caught him on the nape. His hair is on the point.” He shoved the tip of the lance uncomfortably near their faces. Was there some meaning in the gesture, Istvan wondered fleetingly.

Servants came, leading back Grace’s horse. “Can madam mount him?” Terey asked.

“Call me Grace. He has no objection, isn’t that so, my rajah?”

“Yes, only I must give the word. Mr. Terey is a gentleman. Mr. Terey, help her into the saddle.” He drove his lance into the red earth and gouged out a hole.

Istvan lifted the girl and placed her in the saddle. He slipped her foot into the stirrup and adjusted the reins, as if it were difficult for him to move away from her. Then, seeing that the rajah had turned his horse away and, without waiting, was taking a short cut through the meadows, Grace pushed away her skirt and showed him a bruise on her knee. “It hurts,” she complained like a child, and he kissed the bluish spot quickly. Without a word she rode off at a trot after the disappearing rajah.

Istvan turned around. Behind him an old sergeant major with a thick mustache was sitting on a horse like a statue, the point of his lance jutting up above his red turban. “He saw?” Istvan wondered uneasily. “Did he make anything of it?”

When he had caught up with the couple and was riding at a walk so close to Grace that their stirrups jogged each other with a dull clatter, no one alluded to the accident; they talked of the merits of Arabian half-bloods, of pasturage, of the grooming of manes.

He dismounted hastily, but Grace was off her horse before he could help her. The sergeant major shouted to his batmen; in woolen stockings and shorts, they looked like overaged scouts. Istvan glanced at the sergeant major’s whiskered face. Flashing eyes looked knowingly, indulgently, from under shaggy brows. “Good hunt, sir?” he asked insinuatingly, and put out his hand for a tip.

In the dark interior of the club, sparks of color fell from stained glass emblazoned with heraldic emblems and wandered on the air. The hunters crowded to the bar, though the solitude offered by the spacious hall was alluring. Deep leather chairs invited each one to take his ease, but the members stubbornly clustered in groups. Barefoot servants ran about noiselessly, handing around drinks and cigars. Someone turned on the fans, and the starched muslin projecting like birds’ crests from the waiters’ turbans moved with a life of its own; the newspapers tossed onto tables or fastened in wicker racks rustled as if the invisible hands of club members long dead were turning their pages, once again carelessly browsing through the society columns. Istvan deposited his lance in an umbrella stand.

“Come here,” the rajah called. “We must complete the ritual. Sit by Grace.”

The girl was swallowed up by the leather-encased frame of the chair. She was pensive and distant. He could see only that both her palms clasped the knee he had kissed. “It hurts her,” the rajah said.

He looked with repugnance at the white dinner jacket that hung from the back of the chair. The blades of the fan overhead chased their own shadows around the ceiling. A lizard, as if molded from bread crumbs, wandered in slow motion around the wall.

After all, I did not fall in love. He shook his head; this sudden wedding galled him. When all is said and done, nothing has changed; they both will still be my friends, he thought. But he felt indefinably injured, as if he were saying goodbye to the girl, as if he had lost her.

Goodbyes. The winter of 1955. The dejected face of Bela Fekete at the station in Budapest.

“How lucky you are! I have always dreamed of seeing India. I will do it by proxy, through your eyes. Only write me about everything! I’m glad they are sending you. But it hurts to part with you.”

“I’ll be back before you know it. In three years you will be coming to welcome me home.”

“Can one be sure of anything?” Bela said, looking sad. “Three years in these times of ours…”

Steam hissed and hardened into needles of frost on the pipe joints. The clank of iron, the huffing of the locomotive, deepened the feeling of cold and sent a shiver through them. But Bela could not be sad for long.

“When you have had enough of that India, let me know, and I’ll fling such dirt at you in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that you’ll be recalled right away.”

Istvan stood in the open door; the copper handle seemed to thaw in his hand. The train was moving and Bela, enveloped in steam, took a hurried step beside it, waving his wide-brimmed hat. The window was crusted by a thickening layer of ice and refused to open. Then the train burst out into the sunlight and the glassy fields pulsed with reflected glare until he had to blink.

He had left his friend at a time when the air seemed heavy with a feeling of impending change, a joyful restiveness. Tension, impatience were everywhere. In the coffeehouses, people shrouded in the party newspaper whispered of disruptions that would occur in the government before long. Soon the letters he was receiving — full of sardonic humor, skeptical remarks and hopeful interjections — amounted to a prognostication that something would surely happen. Only the newspapers remained the same, with their gray columns of print spouting tedium. In vain he searched them for signs that something was coming.

Then he began to envy Bela because he was still in Budapest, because he could feel this strong, unifying current. He smiled as he recalled his caustic words, “A man ought to be something more than a dung factory, living to acquire raw material for its production. Blood in the veins is like a flag furled. We must remember that.”

As soon as I return from the wedding, I will write to Bela, he decided, and tell him about Grace. I will lay out the whole story in order, and then I will be easier in my mind.

He had prepared the wedding present with time to spare: an oblong package wrapped in white tissue paper, done up with golden ribbon, like a dancer’s calf. He could not afford jewelry, he could not impress them with a lavish gift, so he had chosen an enameled pitcher that Grace had admired at an exhibit of Hungarian art. She had cradled it in her hands, and the chubby face with the walrus mustache, the work of a peasant artist, had looked back at her with round, somewhat astonished eyes. “I would have sworn it was from India,” she had said. “You can see at once that the potter enjoyed himself, molding these shapes.”

Into the center of the pitcher, under the lid, he tucked a bottle of plum brandy. He had remembered that the groom liked to observe the English custom of drinking a little glass of plum brandy before a meal.

He heard the biting of gravel under the tires of a braking car and the long, triumphant yelp of the horn. Outside the window he could see the stocky figure of the watchman, who was scratching at the screen, flattening his nose against it, shielding his face from both sides with his hands and straining to see Terey in the dim room.

“Krishan has driven up, sir.”

“Good. I heard.”

He had already been taught that he should accept such services with a casual impatience, since they were obligatory — demonstrations of appropriate deference, proof of loyalty. Thanks in the form of a word or smile would be a sign of weakness, a breakdown of authority. In this country one said thank you with money.

He put on the jacket and adjusted the ends of his narrow bow tie. When he reached for the package, the housekeeper, who must have been eavesdropping at the door or looking through the keyhole, glided in. He seized the present in his black, slender hands. The long, twiggy fingers on the white wrapping paper looked like the claws of a reptile. His blue-striped shirt was split on the arms; the tears bristled with fringes of starched thread.

Terey knew that the housekeeper was making a show of his poverty again; his shirt, falling outside his pants and frayed to pieces, was an eyesore. Still, in accord with Indian custom, he pretended not to see it, not to lower himself by noticing misery, suffering, disease. Apart from the agreed-on payment, he had given the man three shirts. But the “sweeper” obstinately went on wearing his tattered clothes. When Terey had pointed out that he was an embarrassment to the house in those rags, he had said serenely, “Sahib will tell me when he is having guests, and I will be dressed in a new shirt. Those you gave me I save; I set them aside after the holiday. Sahib will go away, and I do not know if I will get anything from the new master. The Hindus give nothing to servants. They have relatives who have uses for everything.”

They passed through the hall; the sweeper, making certain that he could hold the package safely with one hand, carefully opened the first door. Through the second, the screen door, burst a wave of scorching air. They went out onto the veranda, which was overgrown by a golden rain tree. The shading foliage, thick and shaggy as sheepskin, rustled when it was stirred by a puff of wind. Lizards clambered up the thin, braided branches and jumped into the leaves as if they were water. A cane chair made a scraping sound and a short, slender man rose from it. Against his dark complexion his open collar glared bright white; his eyes were reddened and glittering as if he had been weeping a moment earlier.

“Mr. Ram Kanval! Why are you sitting here?”

“The watchman saw me with you once and assumed that I was a friend of yours. He offered to let me in, but gave me to understand that you would be going out right away, so I preferred to wait here.”

“How can I help you?”

“I am very sorry for not calling to give you notice of my visit. I have brought you my picture; this will only take a moment.” He bent over, drew a canvas wrapped in a sheet of paper from behind his chair, and tugged violently at the string. “You are fond of painting, sir. You will see its merits at once. Please be seated for a minute.” He pulled up a wicker chair.

His importunity was so warm, so full of hope, that Terey yielded. He sat on the edge of the chair, making it clear by his very posture that he had no time to spare. The painter walked out onto the steps into the yellow western light and turned the canvas around, lamenting nervously that the varnish was still shiny.

“It’s fine now,” Terey soothed him.

From the shaded veranda, among the motionless festoons of leaves reddened with dust and the spiraling coils of dried blossoms, he looked at the painting. Against a red background, figures with slender legs, draped in coarse grayish-blue linen, carried great baskets the color of wasps’ nests on their heads. He could hardly distinguish the human forms, whose shapes were distorted by their burdens; the picture was bold and ingeniously composed. The narrow, almost girlish hand of the painter, cut by a bright sleeve of raw silk, held it from the top. Beyond it trembled a sky the color of bile. The red turban of the sentry bent toward the sweeper’s head, which was wound with a handkerchief, like an old lady’s. They were looking with interest at the back of the painting, the taut dun-colored canvas with a pair of oil spots.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Terey savored the moment. It will be worth writing Bela about, he thought. He will understand. Finally the painter gave in and asked, “Do you like it, sir?”

“Yes. But I will not buy it,” he answered firmly.

“I would like one hundred—” Ram Kanval hesitated so as not to put him off with too high a price, “one hundred and thirty rupees. I would give it to you for a hundred…”

“No — though I truly like it.”

“Keep it,” the other said softly. “I do not want to return home with it. Hang it here.”

“Dear Mr. Ram Kanval, you are a master of your art. But I am not permitted to accept such expensive gifts.”

“Everyone will think that you have bought it. You are in contact with so many Europeans; you will whisper a word on my behalf. You know, after all, that this is a good painting. But people must be told about it, simply persuaded. They know a few names and they look at price. You can double it. Only do not broach the matter in the presence of Hindus; they will think I contrived to cheat you.”

“No,” Terey said with exaggerated determination, for the composition pleased him more and more.

“When I walked out of the house, all my family gathered at the barsati. My uncles laughed at me. My wife was in tears. They think I am a lunatic, and an expensive one, for they must not only provide me with food and decent clothing, but put out money for frames, canvas, and paints. I will leave this picture with you. Hang it; perhaps you will grow accustomed to it and want to keep it. Do not take away my hope. You do not even know how I have learned to lie. At home I will tell them the whole story of the good fortune I met with. If only they will stop counting how much they give, stop reproaching me for being a freeloader.”

It pained Istvan that he had forced such a confession from the man. He was troubled as he looked at the cream-colored jacket sleeve and dark palm that brandished the picture. Garlands of cascading branches veiled the Hindu’s face.

“I have something to propose,” he began cautiously. “Just now I am going to Rajah Ramesh Khaterpalia’s wedding. Pack the painting nicely and come with me. We will try to persuade the groom to buy it as a present.”

“He will not buy it. He does not appreciate it, it has no value for him,” Ram Kanval reflected despondently. “But I will go with you to see what possibilities there are. I live this way — by illusions.”

“I will help you. We must make a good sale with this painting,” Terey said in an artificially sprightly tone. “The cream of society is gathered there, wealthy people. Your very presence in the group will raise your reputation in the city. You will begin to be a person of importance. Let’s go! It’s high time.”

“One must not be late to a funeral. The dead cannot take their time in such heat. But we can go to a wedding any time. Is this a wedding after the English rite, or in Indian tradition? With registration in the office, with Brahmins, with blind men to tell fortunes from pebbles strewn about?”

“I don’t know,” Terey answered candidly.

“In our country the ceremonies go on for three days and three nights.”

“And the young couple are present all that time? The poor groom!”

“They go off to a bed, they are enclosed by a curtain of red muslin, but they are not permitted to come together physically. Their families can call for them to come out at any moment. They must become familiar with each other’s bodies, know each other, desire each other. There is no question of such rape as is carried out among you, in Europe. I have been told…” The painter talked passionately, as if he wanted to forget the defeat he had suffered a moment earlier.

They got into the car. Krishan slammed the doors and asked if they were ready to leave. Between them, like a partition over which only their heads showed, stood the unfortunate painting, wrapped in partly torn paper.

“You have been misinformed. In barbarian Europe, what you begin to permit after the wedding happens long before it. The wedding itself is becoming, more and more, a legal affirmation of an already existing state. Earlier, half a century ago, much importance was attached to virginity; the value of the goods was higher when they carried the seal,” he jeered. “Not today. Now it is seen as a troublesome relic that nature itself creates.”

“With us, virginity is important. A woman is supposed to pass straight from the hands of her mother to the hands of her husband. The bride’s family vouches for her. A girl should not be in contact with men outside her family, or remain tête-à-tête—”

“According to you, then, is Miss Vijayaveda a woman of doubtful reputation?”

“Oh! She can allow herself anything; her father is rich. Anyway, she is not bound by our strict customs. She is more English than Hindu. She is, if not above these prohibitions, beyond their control.”

They drove down the streets of the villa districts on an asphalt roadway. Bicyclists swarmed over it randomly, like handfuls of white moths with wings erect. They pedaled sluggishly in groups, their arms about each other’s shoulders, chatting loudly and bursting into laughter. On the grass that served as sidewalks, whole families were sprawled.

Twilight fell quickly; the sky turned green. The odors of open sewers and garlicky sweat and the cloying sweet fragrances of hair oils gusted in through the car windows. Istvan became aware that the driver’s crest of hair smelled like roses, while the painter’s was scented with jasmine. They had the grace of pampered women, he thought, and involuntarily touched the hand that rested on the edge of the canvas. It was cool and moist. Ram Kanval turned his black, clouded eyes toward him and smiled comprehendingly, as if at an accomplice.

“We must make a good sale with this painting!” he said in a spasm of zeal.

Krishan drove his machine with daredevil insouciance. Conversation died down at moments because Terey had to be watchful as the car squeezed into a crowd or, at one bound, passed other vehicles. “He’s sure to collide with someone,” he thought a little angrily. “This isn’t driving, it’s acrobatics.” The painter seemed not to take account of the danger; he was content to be sitting on soft cushions, pulling up his knees and chattering about the dishes that would be served at the wedding. At last they skirted so close to a bulky Dodge that the glare of the cars’ headlights crossed and they heard the scream of brakes.

“Easy, there, Krishan!” Terey could not restrain his irritation. “He could have hit you!”

The driver turned his jubilant face around, flashing his small, catlike teeth. He was obviously amused by Terey’s caution, which he took for a sign of fear. “He had to slow down, sahib. He could tell I wouldn’t put on the brakes. He knows me. He knows I won’t give way.”

“But sometime someone you don’t know will come along, and he will wreck your car.”

“I have been driving for eight years and I have never had an accident,” he gloated. “My father ordered my horoscope as soon as I was born. The stars favored me. The astrologer told my mother — and she remembers every word, that is why I know — that only one thing can bring doom on me: sweets. So I avoid them. I take cane syrup with water at most.”

“Look in front of you! Watch out!” Terey shouted as the wide white breeches of cyclists gleamed in the lights. As if they had been swept off the road, they swerved violently into the darkness.

“He went onto the curb,” Krishan laughed. “They are as silly as rabbits in the headlights. Oh, they fell in a heap!”

He flew on, leaving behind the jingling of bicycle bells and the cyclists’ angry shouts.

The lights of a car moving in front of them flashed red. On both sides of the avenue, limousines stood in the deep darkness; headlights licked them, revealing their colors. Their parking lights were like the eyes of skulking animals, extinguished or winking. A policeman was directing traffic; his sunburned knees, shorts, and white gloves were visible in the headlights. His eyes flashed in the glare like a bull’s. With an authoritative gesture he forced Krishan to turn off his headlights, then motioned him into the stream of automobiles that was turning into the driveway.

The front of the palace shone incandescent white. A myriad of colored light bulbs were attached to the shrubbery and hung in the branches of the trees, like varicolored bouquets blooming in the dark. They created an atmosphere of mystery, of fairy tale, a little reminiscent of the sets in a second-class theater. Servants in red uniforms with lavish loops of gold braid, like operetta costumes, leaped to open the car doors.

“Don’t wait for me, Krishan.”

“I will be at the end of the avenue, on the left,” he answered as if he had not heard the order. It had no place in his thinking; it would have been an affront to his dignity if the counselor had returned home on foot, or if one of his friends had taken the opportunity to drive him. Anyway, he wanted to have a part in the festivities, to stare at the women’s jewels. He thought as well that some treat would be prepared for the drivers.

The painter alighted first, a little intimidated, for over him, like chiefs reconnoitering the field of an oncoming battle, stood both hosts: old Vijayaveda, Grace’s father, and Rajah Khaterpalia in a formal red dolman belted with a white sash. It seemed to him that their gazes, and those of the staff who formed a double line, were concentrated on the shabby paper wrappings exposed in all their trashiness by the low beam of a headlight hidden in the shiny leaves of a holly bush. Swiftly he removed the packaging; he thought of throwing the crumpled paper onto the seat, but the car, responding to the insistence of limousines vibrating impatiently, was sliding into motion. Worriedly he folded the paper in quarters, then once more, shoved the roll into the pocket of his pants, and bent to retrieve the strings. He wadded them hastily, partly concealed behind Istvan, who was entering the receiving line nursing the package done up with ribbon as if it had been a baby in a bunting.

“How nice that you have remembered us, sir,” the old manufacturer greeted Terey. The white, youthful teeth in his dark, bloated face were jarring, like false teeth too well made.

“Congratulations,” Istvan said quietly. “I have brought a present for the bridal couple.”

But the rajah quickly interrupted, “Give it to Grace. She will be pleased. She is busy with guests just now. We will talk when I have finished here.”

With boredom in his eyes the rajah extended a sleek hand to the next guest, from whom he took a gift and passed it carelessly to a servant standing behind him. The servant took off the wrappings with curiosity, under the supervision of a distant member of the family.

“My friend, the distinguished painter Ram Kanval.”

“Very pleased.” Vijayaveda did not even bother to turn his head. A servant snatched the painting from Ram Kanval and turned aside, looking askance at it. He shook his head in astonishment and handed it to the gray-haired old man.

“Beautiful,” he muttered without conviction and set it on a chair, but the flow of gifts soon displaced it. The picture stood against a wall, its tomato-red background blazing while the shadows of the legs of passing guests swarmed over it.

“It seems that we have not brought it at a good time,” the painter said dolefully, stuffing the coils of string into his pocket.

“Nothing is lost yet,” Terey said consolingly. All at once he felt that the struggle to sell the painting was futile; the artist, dragging worry, poverty, and sadness in his wake, grated on his nerves with his air of helplessness. He who gathers old string and picks up buttons, went the old saw, will never be rich, for he does not know how to take a loss. “Come on, we must look for the bride. I want to get rid of this.” He held up the wrapped pitcher.

“If you want something to drink, I will hold it,” the painter offered, his eyes following a tray high above their heads. A bottle of whiskey the color of old gold, a silver basket with ice cubes, a siphon and glasses all clinked softly like music turned low, but behind the servant the crowd blocked the way.

They went out to the park. On the lawn the guests stood in a dense, sluggishly moving mass. The figures of women and the white jackets of men were articulated by a geyser of changing lights, blue, green, violet, orange — a foaming fountain, opening like ostrich feathers. Every few minutes a servant blundered as he changed the glass in the lantern; then in the white, denuding glare the peacock colors of saris flashed, and the diminutive sparkles of rings and bracelets, diadems and necklaces. Heavy bodies reeked overwhelmingly of perfume and Eastern spices. Above the din of conversation soared the nasal voice of a singer, accompanied by a trio of flute, three-stringed guitar, and drum. The noisy chatter did not disturb the vocalist, who sat crosslegged in white bouffant pants with his hands between his knees, crooning plaintively with closed eyes while the fleshy pulse of the drum supported the hovering melody.

Dr. Kapur in a white turban, adroitly elbowing his way through the crowd, folded his hands on his chest in the Hindu greeting. He caught Terey by the sleeve. “Are you looking for the bride?” he asked in a confidential tone. “Indeed, she is before us!”

Her movements circumscribed by a red cord, she bustled among the tables on which the gifts were displayed. Gold chains and expensive brooches glittered from opened cases — family jewels and presents from the rajah, who had been more generous because they remained his property. Behind one table two tall, bearded guards kept watch, hands crossed on their chests.

Grace floated about in a white lace gown, looking as if she were immersed in foam. Her deep decolletage left her bosom almost exposed. It was easy to imagine that her straps would slip down and she would be nude to the waist, beautiful, unashamed, defiant. When Terey approached her, apologizing for the modest keepsake he had brought, she had just been showing a chain with a medallion set with pearls that brought cries of delight from the friends who gathered around her.

“What did you get? Go on, look!” they begged in birdlike voices, pressing against the red cord. He was gratified by the childish hurry with which she undid the ribbons and took out the bewhiskered peasant with arms akimbo. He gazed with stolid satisfaction at the jewelry that was spread around the table.

“You remembered that I liked it? What deity is this? What good fortune does it ensure for me?”

“A wagoner. I got him from a friend, so he would bring me back safely to my country. So he would remind me of our steppes.”

“Oh, good!” Filled with delight about something known only to herself, she set the pitcher in the center of the table above the jewelry. Suddenly that yellowish-black figure seemed to overshadow the entire glittering display.

“Istvan,” she said a little defensively, “I must stick it out for a while in this zoo, and I want something to drink so badly. I sent Margit for a drink, but I don’t know what has become of her. The servant is all the way out at the edge of the crowd. Be nice and bring me a double whiskey.”

Then he saw that she was in low spirits. Her eyelids were dark with sleeplessness.

“This is not easy for me,” she said in an intimate whisper, laying her hand on his. She spoke almost as though her flock of female friends counted for nothing — as if they were alone, alighting from horses in the wild pastures. He wanted to comfort her, to say a few good, simple words, but he was filled with bitter feelings. I am a stranger here, he thought, I will go away; that is why she can be frank with me. I am of no importance; she might vent these complaints if she were smoothing down a horse’s neck on impulse.

“Well — here you are!” she cried joyfully.

A slender red-haired girl in a greenish gown, straight as a tunic and fastened on one shoulder with a large turquoise clip, was coming toward them, holding two tall glasses. Without hesitating Grace took them both from her and handed one to Istvan.

Looking at the bride’s moist, full lips as she drank avidly, he tilted his glass. The throat-burning taste of the whiskey and bubbles of gas were pleasantly invigorating. In his thoughts he wished her happiness, but not the kind that was supposed to begin this evening with the wedding ceremony — a happiness that somehow included him, innocently, as cats, wandering in a stream of sunlight, want to doze together on a windowsill on a summer afternoon. He felt an easygoing tenderness for her, and for himself.

The friendly roar of conversation went on; the crowd of guests suddenly became nothing more than an inconsequential background for a meeting greatly desired.

“Grace,” he said softly, “think of me sometimes.”

“No.” She shuddered. “Not for anything.” She saw that he was stung, and stroked his palm. “Surely you don’t want me to suffer. This wedding is like an iron gate; let them once shut it…” She was speaking hurriedly, as if locked into her own thoughts. She squeezed the tips of his fingers, driving her nails into them. “But tomorrow you will be here, too, and the day after. If only I could order you: go away, or die! I can’t. This is not an easy day for me, Istvan, though I’m smiling at everyone. I’d be glad to get dead drunk, but this is not London; it isn’t done.”

The red-haired girl was standing nearby, partially shielding them from inquisitive looks. She turned her face away, sensing that something particular was going on between the two of them. With a calm motion she took away the empty glasses, as if acknowledging that she had been cast in a menial role. Terey found this disturbing.

“I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me to drink the whiskey. You surely brought it for yourself.”

“A mere trifle. Grace is a despot. It’s a good thing you and I are guests — lucky for us. The poor rajah!”

“Well, that is one thing you can’t say about him. I will not allow anyone to jeer at my almost-husband. You are talking as if you were old acquaintances: Counselor Terey, Hungarian and, be careful, red,” she warned, falling into a jocular tone. “Miss Ward, Australian. Look out, for she likes to devote herself to a cause. That is why she came to India. We have misery and suffering enough, so she is in her element. She wants to help people, to make their lives better; it makes her feel better at once. Perhaps she will even be a saint. Call her by her first name, Margit. Well, seize the opportunity, Istvan, kiss her. Both her hands are full. I’d rather you did it now than behind my back.”

“You are getting married, and you are jealous?” laughed Miss Ward. “You’ve made your choice; give me a chance. Well, don’t be shy — since she has given me her recommendation, kiss me, please,” and she offered a cheek of tender rose with a humorous dimple. Istvan’s lips touched her taut skin. She used no perfume; the freshness of her body was enough.

“It seems, madam doctor, that he is your first private patient in India. You have taken his fancy,” Grace laughed. “You want me to introduce you, Istvan, to the prettiest girls in New Delhi, and that is quite a field to choose from!” She made a sweeping gesture with her hand as colored lights played over it, and suddenly her white dress was bathed in violet, then in scarlet. “Lakshmi, Jila! Come here!” she called to two young women draped in iridescent silks.

They came, holding their heads high — beautiful heads with helmets of dead-black hair. Their huge eyes looked about with sparks of humor. They were conscious of their beauty and of the eminence that wealth confers.

“Next to them I feel like a dry stick, ugly and ungraceful,” Margit said. “Are they really that gorgeous?”

“Oh, yes — especially in those wrappings,” he said sarcastically. But she was not listening. She had noticed a servant with a tray of empty crystal and taken the opportunity to slip into the crowd, apparently to dispose of the whiskey glasses.

He knew several of the girls from families whose names were prominent in India: Savitri Dalmia, whose family owned a virtual monopoly in South Asian coconut meat and coconut oil; Nelly Sharma of Electric Corporation, slender and with a wonderfully long neck; Dorothy Shankar Bhabha, whose father owned a coal mine operated as it would have been in England two centuries earlier — a gigantic molehill enveloped in sulphurous smoke that made the hair of the workers go red and the grass and trees dry up. The combined land holdings of these women’s parents amounted to a latifundium hardly smaller than a quarter of Hungary, and their influence reached still further.

The girls’ eyes, as Terey gazed into them, were mild as cows’ eyes; their blue-painted eyelids drew out all their depth. Each of them wore her hair piled high and fastened with ruby and emerald clips. Ropes of pearls gleamed on both of Dorothy’s wrists as she played with them, laughing at Istvan’s jocular words of admiration and flashing her even teeth. They made cheerful small talk; the girls’ good looks drew men like a magnet. A photographer stalked the jovial group, his camera flashing repeatedly as he took souvenir pictures. They had to flail with their arms to drive him away, as if he had been a prowler.

Dr. Kapur, in a turban immaculately done up with small tucks, seized Dorothy Shankar’s hand, which was girlish and soft as a leaf. Looking her in the eye with unpleasant insistence, he began to tell her fortune. “Squares and rectangles — the lines closing,” he whispered. “Tables set by fate.”

“Not much of a trick to say that, since everyone knows who her papa is,” Grace objected. “Tell hers!” She pushed redheaded Margit’s hand at him.

“Leave me alone. I don’t believe in this,” the girl protested. The surgeon had seized her palm in a tight grip. It was tilted into the light; the shifting glare from the fountain with its erupting sparks played over it.

“Not long ago madam flew here, and not long from now she will fly away. I hear a chorus of blessing—”

“Tell the future of her heart!”

“Yes,” cried the girls, “we want to hear about love. Perhaps we will find her a husband here.”

The doctor put the young woman’s palm to his forehead, puffed out his hairy cheeks, closed his eyes in concentration. To Istvan the intimacy seemed improper. A cheap actor! The doctor’s lips, swollen and gleaming as if they had been rubbed with grease, hung partly open as he smacked them. He mumbled something and then said, “Bad, very bad, dear friend. One cannot buy love.”

The girls burst out laughing.

“Enough!” Margit snatched her hand away and hid it behind her back as if she were afraid to hear more. Her eyes were frightened, her lips tight.

Istvan moved quietly away from the bevy of girls. He felt a sudden sense of satiation; their beauty was too extravagant. Their walk was like music; their hips were wrapped tightly in silks; their bare waists had a warm bronze tint. Their long, slender hands moved gracefully, sprinkling sparkles from their jewels. One had to admire them, but they did not arouse desire.

He went on for a few steps and, to escape the crowd, turned onto a side path. Here the lights flashed less often. Several peacocks sat on the leafless branches, their drooping tails streaming with the shifting glare. The agitated birds emitted tortured cries, as if someone were pushing a rusty wicket gate. He walked onto a little bridge; at that season of the year, the artificial stream barely oozed along its swampy-smelling bed. In a dull, lusterless pool of water amid the fleecy overgrowth, reflected lights moved unsteadily. The water was full of life and motion; the insects that slid over its surface elongated the quivering gleams.

The hubbub of conversation, the wailing of the singer that could be heard momentarily above it, the slapping of the drum, and the birdlike trills of the flute brought on melancholy. Suddenly it seemed to Terey that he was on Gellert Hill, looking from the terrace toward the bridges over the Danube, which were outlined with lights. His eyes wandered over the streets of Buda and Pest — the darting automobiles, the neon signs — and a dry wind drifted around the hillside, carrying the chalky smell of warm grass and wormwood. Behind him he heard the distant tinkle of music in a hotel; in the sultry night the high bank around him rang with the chirping of a thousand crickets. Along a bridge below, a girl walked with a springing step, her sunburned hands flickering against her simple dress. She had black hair that fell loosely to her shoulders. She could be seen quite clearly from above as she walked into the white circles of lamplight. He felt a great tenderness for her; he would have longed to take her arm, to draw her away to a cafe that stayed open past midnight. But a feeling of inertia such as one has sometimes in a dream restrained him.

He did not spread his arms like wings and float down with a hawk’s graceful swoop. Before he could run to the street by the serpentine paths, she would be far away, and the steps of other pedestrians would be rumbling on the bridge. He would not find her.

Grace. Would he miss her? Would he have swept her away to Budapest? He smiled at the thought of disrupting the wedding, of asserting that the girl was unwilling to go through with it. What could he say, what reasons supported his case? A kiss, a few words clouded with ambiguity? They would look at him as if he were a lunatic or worse: a fool. They would say, That Hungarian has a weak head. Take him out quietly. And his friends would lead him to the veranda and slip a glass of full-strength grapefruit juice into his hand. Who knows if here, amid all this sumptuousness, this music and these festoons of lights, something violent might not happen? And Grace would not be grateful; she would deny everything. They are among their own, these Hindus, he thought wryly, and the case law is on their side. The will of both families is being carried out, and the young will be obedient. Today the girl is still chafing at the bit, but tomorrow she will acquiesce, and in a year she will be adjusted to it.

He felt a warm hand slide under his arm as it rested on the railing. He whirled violently around.

“You ran away? I wanted you to enjoy yourself. I called the girls over; you could have had your choice. The rest depends on you, and you know how to turn someone’s head.”

“Why are you bullying me, Grace?”

“You must find them pleasing. Only don’t say that you would have preferred me. I’m getting married. They are free. Beautiful as flowers, and just as passive. Perhaps you could direct your attentions to Dorothy? Or Savitri Dalmia? She is a little like me,” she said in a half-whisper, breathing unevenly, obviously excited. “I would like you to have each of them, all of them—”

He gazed at her in astonishment.

“—because then it would not be that one I already hate,” she breathed into his face. Her breath smelled of alcohol and half-chewed grains of anise. Her eyes flashed in the twilight like a cat’s. Clearly she had had too much to drink.

What does she want from me? he thought, assaulted by uncertainties. She’s playing a hard game, but for what?

Suddenly she pulled away her hand, then stood erect, altered, imperious. Her very posture jolted him into alertness and he turned around. Men were coming; he saw the lighted ends of cigarettes. At once he recognized the figure of old Vijayaveda and the bald, nut-brown crown of his head in its garland of gray hair. Now he felt that he and Grace were confederates. But no one drew attention to the private conversation they had been carrying on. It seemed a matter of course that they were walking back to meet those who were approaching.

“Father, the brahmins have arrived,” Grace said. “I made a place for them in your study.” When the old man gave an angry snort, she said placatingly, “Uncle and the boys are with them. I ordered that they be served rice and fruit. Everything has been seen to.”

“Very well, daughter. I will look in directly. You still have time; it is just ten. You ought to lie down. The wedding rites begin at midnight.”

“Yes, papa.”

“You should look well. You will not sleep tonight. Some rest now, perhaps?”

Istvan looked at her out of the corner of his eye. The dialogue went on harmoniously, the solicitous father and the obedient daughter, a good actress. Was she also playing with him, pretending, deceiving?

They moved toward the palace, which glowed orange and gold in the lamplight. They passed the crowd of guests that milled about on the lawn as servants carrying trays of tumblers and shot glasses circulated among them. The singer, with closed eyes, not heeding the noise, whined to himself as the accompaniment flailed in an uneven rhythm. Perhaps they did not even hear each other; an improvised concert was going forward, in harmony with the spirit of the wedding night.

Istvan walked beside the old manufacturer. “Grace will be happy,” he said in a low voice, as if he wanted to assure himself of it.

The Hindu reached up and put a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of good-natured familiarity. “She will be rich — very rich,” he said chattily. “Our families can do more than government ministers in your country. But Grace must bear him a son.”

Beams of light near the ground jarred the eyes. Beside the black evening trousers of the European guests the short, narrow, crumpled white pants of the servants, their untucked shirts and their dhotis carelessly wound around their hips, made them look as though they had come in their underclothes by mistake.

A swarm of insects danced like a blizzard against the glass reflectors. Moths and beetles perished at once, sizzling against the hot tin. Others, lured by a glaring white spot on the wall, beat blindly against it and slid down with a crunching of open shells and a furious buzzing. Stunned, they fluttered onto the paving tiles; the plated scarabs crackled under the feet of passing guests. It seemed to Istvan that the crisp bodies of dead insects at the source of light gave off a stench like burnt horn.

The shadows of people walking played over the wall: slender legs and distended torsos with enormous heads. They reminded him of the figures in Ram Kanval’s painting. Now he was sorry that he had not bought it.

A tranquil dimness filled the spacious hall. A few lamps with ornate shades, mounted low, threw warm circles of light on the carpets. The rajah, extending his legs, reclined in a chair. The stripes on his trousers blazed emerald green. All the light from a little lamp set in a copper pitcher fell on varnished boots and on the picture the tipsy painter held in his outstretched hands.

“What does this picture represent?” the rajah mused contemptuously. “There is nothing to see. What sort of people are these? A child could have painted better! Indeed, you finished school, Ram Kanval; could you not have taken to some respectable profession? Why lie? You haven’t a modicum of talent. I will not pay for your flight to Paris. A waste of money! Whenever you want to begin working for me or my father-in-law—” he noticed Vijayaveda approaching—“we are ready to accept you for training.”

“And I like this picture,” Terey said perversely. “The people are carrying bundles on their heads. They are returning after a day’s work in the heat.”

“Those are the launderers from beside the river bank. The washers with dirty linen,” the painter explained impatiently. “The picture represents worry, futile toil.”

“And you really like it?” Grace asked incredulously. “You would hang it in your house?”

“Of course.”

“It’s sad.”

“That’s what the painter meant.”

“Launderers! What kind of subject is that?” the gray-haired Vijayaveda jeered. “I see enough of them in the kitchen! Do I have to look at them on the dining room wall? No eyes — no noses — heads like bundles of wash. That isn’t painting. The background all one color, flat — did you have a shortage of paints?”

“Come.” Mercifully, Grace drew her father after her. Istvan had the impression that she was doing it for him. “Thank you, Mr. Ram Kanval. Perhaps it is good. One only needs to grow accustomed to it.” She held the picture up and a servant took it from her.

“Oh! Miss Grace is very cultured,” Kanval said, leaning toward the rajah, but the compliment had an equivocal ring. Fearing that the painter would offend their hosts, Istvan led him toward the doorway to the garden.

“Have something to eat, Ram. They are serving very good filled dumplings.”

The artist waded waist-high in a white glare that played like limelight on his tall, lean figure. The rajah followed him with his eyes and said, “The conniver! He wanted to cadge a ticket to Paris out of me. He said so convincingly that I would share in his fame that I demanded that he show me how he paints. And after all that, there was no skill, simply — nothing.”

“He was not lying. He deserves support. He is no copyist or photographer. He wants to be himself. If he persists, he will be famous.”

“I will wait,” the rajah drawled patronizingly. “How much does he want for his pictures?”

“Two hundred rupees.”

“And how much does he really get?”

“A hundred, a hundred and twenty.”

“And he sells two a year, one to some embassy or American tourist, another they buy out of pity at the annual exhibition. The price itself shows that the pictures are worth nothing. I have a pair of Impressionists at my place in Cannes, for taking them out of France is not allowed; my agent paid a couple of thousand pounds apiece for them. Those are painters.”

“Were.”

“So much the better! They don’t lower the market price with new pictures. If your protégé were dead, it might be worth the risk to buy one or two canvases. Boy!” he called. “Pour us some cognac. No, not that. From the bulgy bottle, the Larsen. All the old French cognacs had false labels; not one cellar could hold out against the pressure of the liberating armies. Nothing was saved but the cognac the Swedes bought before ’39. I believe in Larsen — a solid firm, cognac aged more than forty years.”

The servant approached, knelt, and handed around bulbous snifters. He tilted the bottle, peeping at the rajah’s raised little finger; at a flick of that finger he pulled up the neck without spilling a drop. They warmed the snifters with their palms, shaking them lightly, watching approvingly as the trickling unctuous liquid left its tracery on the little crystal walls. The rajah put his fleshy nose to the glass and sniffed.

“What an aroma.”

Terey drank the cognac down. It rolled around his tongue with a stinging savor. He tested it on his palate. It had a rich, complex bouquet. It was a noble liqueur, a drink for connoisseurs.

“Another hour of this torment.” The rajah exhaled heavily and spread his legs. “We must say goodbye to our guests. You will stay, of course, to see the traditional ceremony? Now we may drink to my future obligations! After midnight, not a drop.”

“You want so much to be with Grace?”

“If I had liked, I could have had her long ago.” The rajah waved a careless hand. “I was thinking of something else. I dream of giving up the uniform. Feel—” he took Istvan’s hand and shoved it under his red shirt. Terey felt the swelling of an elasticized corset.

“They say that I am fat, though I engage in sports. I have a good appetite, they serve me the dishes; must I deny myself? Some do not eat because they have no food. Should I starve myself when I can afford anything? A thin rajah is a sick rajah. My position demands that I look impressive. In our country they say, fat, because he has plenty of everything, fat — that means rich, and rich, because he has the knack of making money, because he is smart. A logical chain of reasoning! I would like to be free of this frippery, to be at ease in a loose dhoti.”

Terey looked with growing aversion at the short, corpulent man with his face gleaming like a bronze cast from the alcohol he was sweating out. The rajah parted his dark lips and panted, nearly stifled by the tight uniform he wore as captain of the lancers of the president’s guard. His words about Grace had struck a nerve with Istvan. He blinked and, peering through his upraised glass at the rajah’s face, saw it distended as in a warped mirror. It was repulsive to him. He swallowed the cognac, drinking, in fact, with antagonism toward his host. But the rajah interpreted the gesture differently.

“You are a likable fellow.” He clapped Terey on the knee. “You have the knack of being quiet in a friendly way. It is a rare virtue in a communist, for you must be continually moralizing, as if you yourselves had not properly digested the knowledge you gained, and then, right away, you brazenly reverse yourselves. Well, do not be angry because I say it.”

Then he reached for the bottle and poured for himself.

“More?”

Istvan declined with a motion of his hand.

“Why did you rush the wedding?” he asked cautiously.

“Do you ask for personal reasons, or professional?” The rajah roused himself. “Have you heard about our law? It will make life more difficult for you, too.” He stopped speaking, still holding the snifter against his lip.

“Don’t speak of it if you’d rather not,” Istvan shrugged.

“It is the end of free transfer of pounds abroad. Half a year earlier than we foresaw, the law will come into effect. For a couple of years now, old Vijayaveda has invested capital in Australian weaving mills. He had the privilege thanks to influences in the Congress Party. He got special permission.

“The government took over my copper mines. Part of the damages it paid me I would like to entrust to my father-in-law. A worthy family! He helped Gandhi; they were in jail together. That counts for something. It’s worth it to remind a few ministers of it at the right times. The lawyers were vetting our financial standing. They vouched for the probity of ‘both the distinguished parties,’” he laughed. “The families held councils. The benefits and a certain risk were weighed — well, and marriage is like a guarantee of long-term credit, which I gave my father-in-law. I had to hurry. I don’t want them to freeze my capital here. I dare say the details would not concern you.”

“And Grace?” Terey rotated his glass and the golden liquid swirled inside it.

“She is a good daughter. The family council made its decision. That is enough. She could have objected, but what for? Could she have been sure of a better match?”

“She loves you?”

“Only with you in Europe is that a great issue. Love is a device of the literati, filmmakers, and journalists, who batten on marital scandals, and they do well financially by keeping up that myth. With us one approaches marriage seriously. It can be big business, especially in our sphere, when it involves real money. Does Grace love me?” he repeated, and his vigor revived. “And why would she not? I am rich, healthy, educated. I can ensure her welfare and her position in society. She will remain not only in the upper ten thousand, but in the thousand of the supremely influential.” He dabbed with his fingertips at drops of sweat on his upper lip and eyebrows, and wiped them on the arm of his chair. His eyelids were almost black — from fatigue, obviously, and too much alcohol.

“Is such an arrangement really necessary?” Terey leaned forward and offered him a cigarette. A servant who had been waiting almost invisibly in the shadows hurried forward with a light. They smoked. Muffled music whimpered beyond the veranda doors, which stood wide open.

“You have forced me to it. Well, perhaps not you” —he exonerated Terey— “but it was easier for us to get rid of the English than to control what you set in motion. You entice people with talk of paradise on earth. That is your advantage, and your weakness. You continually move the time appointed for this happiness up by five years, but people still believe. The first stage surely is yours by right: to take from the rich and give to the poor. But that does not suffice for long, and the hardships become severe, because those who rebel acquire a taste for change. They grow vociferous, they make demands, they exert pressure.

“My land was taken. Well, not all of it. I still have enough. The government pays me rent for my lifetime, every year a tidy sum in pounds. Something must be done with it. Sometimes there are businesses which are risky but yield quick profits, and are easily dissolved; even the air transport partnership Ikar. We have airplanes from the demobilization, Dakotas, still in fair condition. We buy them at auction. I see to it that they are not made available to our competitors, but to people we trust. The money must be put to work, every rupee must triple,” he nodded with unctuous gravity.

He paused and seemed to doze off for a moment, then roused and spoke with animation, “I did not ask the astrologers about my marriage, only the economists, lawyers, those who know the international markets, copper and wool futures. I talked with politicians — not from the representative side, but those in control. We are receiving signals from all Asia: there is a downturn, a stubborn one. It is possible, by taking action, to retard it or pass through, as in wartime communiqués, ‘to positions designated in advance,’ but the pressure on us persists. I am a modern man. I must have a strategy to deal with all this. I will not be content to sell the family jewels.” He leaned forward and blew out a plume of smoke. “I carry on sufficiently extensive financial operations that, should one business fall through, the surplus on five others will make up for the losses. I consider marriage one of the best.”

In the course of these reflections the rajah lapsed now and then into anxiety that cut him to the quick. He had to unbosom himself, and to him Terey was a harmless poet, even a friend. He spoke more candidly to him than he would have to one of his countrymen; he felt no constraint.

The guests were beginning to disperse in pairs, quietly, avoiding goodbyes. The men’s patent leather shoes and the women’s silver sandals gleamed in the low light of the lamps. A crackling like gunfire floated in from the veranda, then voices full of delight. The fireworks had begun.

“You do not expect a revolution?”

“Not in India. Our peace is assured for a long time. Listen, Istvan, are Hungarians good soldiers? Good as the Germans?”

In spite of bitter memories, Istvan answered objectively, “I would say so. Hard fighters. But we are a small country. Keep that in mind.”

“I understand. We have more holy men than you have people. Here ten million of the devout mill about on the roads in search of eternal truth, but each walks alone; that saves us. And communism is crammed down your throats.”

“And what about the example of China, which is literally next door?” Istvan goaded.

“A beautiful boundary, the Himalayas. They barged in there and they have been looking down at us ever since. Here people don’t like them. They call the Chinese corpse-eaters because they eat meat.”

“They would organize your life. They would teach you to work.”

“No need! I understand that the poor, in a mob, will always crush the rich because they aren’t risking much. They don’t value life. And the rich man doesn’t like to stick his neck out or take chances with his fortune. Revolution takes hold easily in poor countries. Take the Russians. Take the Chinese.”

“In India there is no lack of the destitute.”

“Just so, the destitute — too weak to raise a stone, let alone a rifle. They are proud of their own powerlessness. Think: there are four hundred million of us. Ants. Conquer us and we will assimilate the conquerors, and go on being ourselves. No, there will be peace here for a long time.”

From the park came the booming of rockets. Bursting projectiles sprayed festoons of sparks. The whistle of the shooting fireworks set Istvan on edge. It reminded him of the war. “Come,” he suggested, putting down his glass. “The illumination will be worth a look.”

“Leave me in peace. Go yourself,” the rajah demurred. “I know precisely what the show is like. I signed the bill.” He sat resting his head on his hand with both knees drawn up onto the chair, like a pampered only child who did not go to sleep when he should have and is petulant toward the whole world.

Terey stood in the doorway. Deep darkness bore in on him. The cables were disconnected; the reflectors and the garlands of colored bulbs gave no light. The guests, densely clustered together, looked with upturned heads at what was going on above them. Luminous streaks crossed each other, and arcs of green, as if someone had hurled emerald rings into the sky. Chrysanthemums of fire blossomed and softly trickled down. Then stars heavy with gold soared upward, riveting the watchers’ eyes, and the fiery flowers fainted imperceptibly and went out, swallowed up by the night.

The lawn that had been cordoned off — where the wedding gifts were displayed — had been taken over by the master of the fireworks, a Chinese. Two assistants had driven bamboo rods with pointed tips, full of compressed energy, into the grass. With a wand tipped with a small flame the master lighted the fuses until they sprayed sparks. The missiles full of stars glided into the sky with a bloodcurdling whistle, bursting apart in flashes of color.

Istvan leaned against the door frame, smoking a cigarette. A warm hand touched his back. He was certain that it was the rajah coming out to his guests. He was watching a shooting star when the fragrance of a familiar perfume reached him. He spun around. Grace was standing behind him.

“A few hours yet, Istvan, and I will no longer be myself,” she lamented in a low voice. “He bought me like a piece of furniture. No one asked my opinion. I was simply informed that it was going to be this way.”

“You knew for a year, after all, why he was courting you.”

“I didn’t think it would come on so quickly. I will only be a Hindu,” she said with a despair he found incomprehensible.

“The Englishwoman in you is struggling.” He stroked her hand. Their fingers pressed each other.

“The Englishwoman in me is dying,” she whispered.

“You wanted this…”

“I wanted to be with you. Only with you.”

Flakes of trembling light floated around her face, mingling with the sparkle of her eyes. Suddenly he was seized with bitter regret that she had slipped away from him — that she would be inaccessible, enclosed by marriage, hedged about by the watchfulness of a wealthy family, shadowed by servants.

“Indeed, you could not have married me.”

“You never spoke of marriage, even as a joke.” She seized his hand with unexpected force. “Have you never heard of predestination?” she asked.

“It’s easy enough to write everything off to fate.”

“I will convince you that it exists. Come. Have courage. I have it.”

He did not speak. Tenderness swept over him. She must have known it, for she turned away slowly and walked along the edge of the shadows through the hall, then toward the stairs that led to the inner rooms on the second floor.

He walked a step behind her. She was on the opposite side of the wide room where the rajah lay dozing in his chair with his legs tucked up. In his mind Istvan heard the man’s self-important prating, and again felt an angry aversion. Grace was standing on the stairs with one hand on the banister. She beckoned to him. The small white purse she wore on her wrist swung like a pendulum, as if it were measuring time. Istvan passed through the hall with determined steps and hurried to her. They started up the stairs together as if everything had been foreseen long ago.

The house was empty; all the guests and servants had turned out to admire the spectacle in the park. Inside, the roars of exploding rockets resounded as a dull echo. The two moved silently, quickly. They stopped before a dark door.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Here.” She was leaning down, plucking a small key from the purse.

Inside the room, only one lamp was burning, its form like a flower on a tall stem. Tables and sofas were piled high with boxes artistically bound with ribbons. Stacks of folded bridal lingerie and silk saris lay on the floor.

“Here are the presents I received. I will take this room for myself.”

Knowing what she risked from the moment he heard the rattle of the lock, he held her close. He cared nothing for the consequences to himself. If they were found, there would be no explanations.

“And those others?”

“Don’t worry. Those are the doors to my bedroom. They are also locked,” she whispered, touching his neck with her lips. He plunged his lips into her fragrant hair. She hung in his arms. She slid down, pressing her body to his, and knelt. In a voice full of tenderness she whispered, “My dearest, my only love…my husband…” Her eyes were wide as she looked at him, without defense.

“You’re mad.” He buried his fingers in her hair and shook her head.

“Yes, yes,” she affirmed passionately, clinging to him. Her gown rolled up, pulled by her feverish hand. He saw her dark, slender thighs; she wore nothing under her long skirt.

“You have me,” she breathed.

He bent over her. He saw her tawny hips and a triangle of dark, curling hair. Like a wave rolling onto a shore she came against him, striking at him impatiently. He took her with angry delight as she entwined him forcefully in her legs, drew him into herself; she captured him, clamped him in hot fetters. He felt her burning and slippery inside. She gave herself to him with desperate passion until he wrenched free, pulled away — escaped.

She lay with parted lips, exposing her teeth as in a grimace of pain. She crossed her hands defensively on her breast and clenched her fists.

“What is it, darling?”

“Nothing, nothing…don’t look.” She turned her head away and, with a moan, wrung her fingers. Her unplaited dark hair drifted in a wide round mass; her small face seemed to be drowning in it. Her legs were parted, open, like a gate forced by an assailant. He saw how she trembled, how her belly pulsed. At last her eyes met his. She fixed him with a tense stare. He stroked her, quieted her, soothed her. Huge tears rolled down her hot cheeks. Her presence of mind and judgment returned. Seeing him kneeling over her, she handed him the hem of her wide, lacy, foam-like skirt.

“I won’t be needing it.”

He wiped himself with her wedding gown. It began to dawn on him that, for that moment of raging desire, a time of reckoning would come. His heart contracted violently. The fires went out; he felt only shame, uneasiness, and a growing wish to be gone. He wanted to disappear, to awaken as if from a dream.

Suddenly they heard applause like thunder. The guests were thanking the Chinese man for the show. The din of conversation, the clatter of steps on the tiles, grew louder. Without warning the reflectors outside the windows lit up, illuminating the palace walls. The glare hit the windows like a fist, spurting into the room, cutting the naked thighs with yellow streaks.

Grace sprang up and swept her hand through her hair. “Go,” she pleaded. “Get out.”

“When will I see you?”

“Never.” He knew what was occupying her thoughts. “In an hour I will be saying my vows…and I will keep them. A Hindu woman does not betray her husband.” She disengaged herself from his arms. “Go. Go. Go.” She pushed him toward the door. She turned the key and peeped out.

“Now.” She grazed him with her fingertips as if to apologize, and the door swung shut.

Stunned, he walked downstairs to the wide hall. The rajah’s chair was empty. He poured himself a large whiskey and dropped in a pair of ice cubes. Without waiting for the drink to chill, he took a swallow.

More and more guests gathered at the bar, jostling him, pressing against him, and he wanted so to be alone. He was afraid they would scrutinize him too closely. Lightly swinging his glass, he went up to a tall mirror. He did not see his reflection clearly, but he grew calmer. “She was mad,” he whispered in wonder, feeling a wave of sudden gratitude. “The poor thing!”

“Is what you see in the mirror more interesting than what is going on here?” Terey heard Dr. Kapur’s voice behind him.

“No,” he said with emphasis. “I only wanted to look at myself. But perhaps you will tell my fortune, doctor?” He thrust out his palm with a challenging air.

Kapur took it as if he were testing whether it were made of sufficiently resistant matter. Without looking at the lines on it he said, “You are fortunate; even your mistakes will be turned to your advantage. That which should harm you will bring you gifts beyond measure. The punishment meted out to you will be your salvation.” The words flowed with the distasteful glibness of the professional chiromancer. “Miss Vijayaveda…”

Terey gave a start and wrenched his hand away. Then he understood that this was no reading of omens, that Grace was really coming down the stairs, veiled in red, attended by two elderly Hindu women, as if she were under guard. She did not respond to the greetings of her European guests, who were already beginning to leave the palace. She advanced with short steps, like a mental patient. When she was immersed in bright light, he made out the dark oval of her face, the lines of her eyebrows and the darkish tint of her lowered eyelids. Her grave aloofness and concentration wounded him. He belonged to the past, and it was behind her; it was closed once and for all.

The rajah, in white and gold, walked toward her. In the hush one could hear the shuffling of his slipper-like shoes, with tips turned up like new moons. The young couple bowed to each other. The rajah moved first toward the canopy with its hanging clusters of bananas. She followed him meekly, three steps behind, as befitted a wife. They sat with crossed legs on leather cushions.

Now the priests made their appearance. In singsong accents they recited verses and called the guests to witness that the pair here present, of their own free will and consent, were swearing to be faithful to each other until death, solemnizing the act of marriage.

“Not true! Not true!” he repeated inwardly. But beneath it all lay the bitter certainty that he no longer mattered. She was another woman, a woman he did not know.

The rite progressed slowly. The guests had lost their curiosity; they settled onto the lawn, men and women separately. Conversations were carried on in undertones; Istvan could not understand them. He felt conspicuous, out of place in his evening clothes. He was the only European who had outstayed the hour stipulated on the gilded invitation.

On the other side of a whispering circle of women, he noticed a copper cap of smoothly combed hair; someone had just given Miss Ward a chair, assuming that she could not sit comfortably on the ground for long. She looked in his direction, so he raised his hand and made a sign of greeting. She answered with a nod.

The ceremony dragged on. Under her red veil, Grace glittered with jewels; she was immobile, curtained off. The rajah’s plump hands had fallen onto his knees. His swollen eyelids, which gleamed as if he had rubbed them with oil, were half shut. He seemed to be dozing. There was a sleepiness in the air. The lights were dimming as if they had been stifled with a bluish dust that had been sprinkled about without anyone’s noticing. The nasal voice of the brahmin rose and broke off, only to rise again, supported by the murmur of the acolytes. Terey leaned toward Dr. Kapur, who was sitting by him, and the doctor held out an open cigarette case of gold. They smoked furtively like schoolboys, blowing smoke in various directions and waving it away to keep from being noticed.

And so, he decided, it is over. At least one of us should have a little common sense. Grace — she is helpless, hemmed in. But I? He imagined the rumors, the whispers; the effects of a widely circulated scandal; the spurious sympathy of his colleagues; the helpless gesticulations, with hands spread in the air, of the ambassador, “You understand, comrade counselor, that one must disappear on the quiet. I have sent Budapest a code dispatch with your request for immediate recall. Of course I signed off on it, I wanted no harm done. I understand: too much to drink, a beautiful girl, the heat. You were carried beyond yourself. Pity to end a career this way.”

The darkness lowered and grew denser. Crickets chimed in the grass as if they were attracted by the lights. He heard the distant noise of passing cars, the irritable squeal of brakes, the impatient horns. Some still waited like a herd of sleepy animals in front of the palace.

No one saw us, he thought with inexpressible relief. Then he despised himself for the cowardliness of the thought and the implied repudiation of Grace.

Gigantic trays loaded with glasses of lemonade were brought from the kitchen. A waiter knelt to serve those sitting on the lawn. Kapur handed one to Terey. He took a swallow and immediately put it down. A sickening tinge of cane syrup was on his lips — a sticky-sweet taste — and a fuzzy mint leaf. He glanced in Miss Ward’s direction. She had evidently just finished the same experiment, for her nose was wrinkled and she was quivering with revulsion.

“Do you wish me to tell you more?” the doctor began, stroking his beard, which was tightly rolled and secured with ribbon. “What fate has ordained for you, what is imprinted in the lines?”

“Thank you.”

“It is not permitted to read that one, because that brings on changes.”

“I’m afraid it is the whiskey that speaks and not your intuition.”

“If I like, I can keep the whiskey from affecting me,” the Sikh insisted. “I draw this sign”—he made a zigzag motion in the air above his glass—“and I can even drink poison.”

“I shouldn’t advise drinking this lemonade, though.”

The first circle of witnesses to the rite sat rigidly, but around the perimeter of the crowd people had risen. Men stretched, walked not far away into the bushes and returned after a moment, adjusting their robes. Terey went over to Miss Ward, who, like him, was a stranger at this gathering.

“Do you like weddings?”

“This one has gone on too long. And it’s a strangely sad ceremony,” she reflected. “The end seems nowhere in sight. I believe I’ll slip out.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Here. I would have preferred a hotel, but they insisted that I stay with them.”

“Nothing more is going to happen. The brahmin will utter precepts and bless the young couple.”

“Will you stay?”

“No. I will escape as well.”

They left. No one tried to stop them; no one said goodbye.

The shadow of the priest fell on the bride and groom; the three rings of those seated shimmered white in the diffuse light. Dark heads grew faint against the background of greenery. They looked like bundles of linen carelessly done up and thrown on the grass — a picture from a bad dream.

“Are you in India for the first time?”

“Yes. I came to the UNESCO center. I am an ophthalmologist.”

“The best place for an apprenticeship.” Kapur’s voice could be heard just behind them. “Even as you gouge a patient’s eye out here, he will bless you out of gratitude that at last someone is showing him some attention.”

“You are a doctor?” she asked, bridling.

“That is how I live; I cannot afford philanthropy. I take those who pay. The more I charge, the more they believe in the effectiveness of my advice and treatment, and the more highly they value their health.”

“And the poor?”

“They remain at your disposition.” He spread his hands in a courtly gesture. “You may experiment. One must be firm with them, however, and keep the riffraff at a distance. I would advise that you begin by engaging two strong watchmen to keep order. Otherwise the dregs of society will invade you like lice.”

A tumult broke out near the house. They heard the tinkle of broken glasses. Ram Kanval appeared in the doorway of the veranda, propped up by a servant.

“Let me go.” He tried to shake the man off. “I can walk by myself. Oh, counselor!” he called, pleased, as if he could have Terey as a witness. “I put an empty glass down and it tilted the whole tray, and everything went flying.”

“Where glass breaks, success comes in a hurry. A good sign,” Kapur nodded. “With us clay pots are thrown near the bride’s feet, and she crushes the potsherds on the threshold to bring happiness on the house.”

Gently but with determination the servant pushed the slender painter in front of him, saying something in Hindi. “‘Time to sleep. He should go home,’” the doctor translated.

“Good advice,” Terey concurred. “Let’s not wait until they order us out. Good night, Miss Ward.”

She gave him her hand, and he put it to his lips involuntarily. He smelled the disinfectant that permeated her skin, and at once he understood: beware, Kapur has a good sense of smell, and no talent for palmistry.

“We will see each other again. India is not as large as it seems.”

“That would be a pleasure,” she answered smoothly.

He took the painter by the arm and waved a hand to the doctor. They went out to the front of the palace. Again the fragrance of the subtropical night met them in a rush. No one was near. Large moths fluttered in figure eights around the lamps. Drivers slept in the dark, silent automobiles, their thin legs propped against the seat backs. Others sat with their cars open, smoking cigarettes and chatting about their employers.

“I have a great favor to ask you,” the painter ventured. Vodka had made him bold; he was becoming aggressive, but he halted every few seconds. “I cannot return home empty-handed. Lend me twenty rupees.”

“Forty, even,” Terey agreed readily.

“As soon as I sell a picture I will repay it, I swear.”

The car was empty. The counselor blew the horn, and the mechanical blare, out of place amid the muted night sounds, roused the chauffeurs, who yawned shamelessly. Finally Krishan appeared.

“The rajah is supposed to be a great man, but he gave us rice, as if we were sparrows.” He displayed his belly, which was flat as a board. “So empty it rumbles.”

He drove the car out onto the road. The headlights splashed glare on the tree trunks. They hurtled along, but Terey did not try to slow them down. He wanted to be alone as quickly as possible. Insects lashed against the headlights like rain.

When they pulled up near the house, the watchman got up from the veranda. By the glow of the bulb that hung in the convoluted greenery under the ceiling, the old soldier had been knitting a wool sock. “All’s well,” he announced, beating on the ground with a bamboo stick as though it were a rifle butt.

“Krishan, drive Mr. Ram Kanval to Old Delhi.”

“Very good, sir.”

The painter said his effusive goodbyes. His hand was sticky from cane syrup. Istvan waited until the car moved away, as courtesy required. On the ceiling of the veranda, around the light bulb, whitish lizards crouched; they had a fine hunting ground there. As he passed, Terey always craned his neck and looked distrustfully to see if one of them was going to fall on the back of his neck. But they held themselves fast to the ceiling.

“Good night, sahib.” The watchman stood at attention.

“Good night.”

His “good night” was unnecessary. They had to offer him the appropriate good wishes; he should have accepted that and remained silent as custom dictated.

As he closed the door, he saw the lights of his car. It was already returning. Krishan had not wanted to take Ram Kanval home, and had put him out on the next corner. But Istvan did not have the strength to call the driver over and give him a tongue-lashing. He knew how Krishan would explain it: Kanval himself had not wanted to be driven further. He liked to walk, it was warm, a fine night, it would damage the car to hurry over that rag of a road. Let him walk. He would sober up more quickly.