I got them there in ten minutes-you couldn't miss the hotel, the big T sign on it glowed like a lantern in the dark.

Taking the golden-haired woman with him, the fat man went up to the hotel reception, where the manager greeted him warmly. Mr. Ashok walked behind them and kept looking from side to side, like a guilty little boy about to do something very bad.

Half an hour passed. I was outside, my hands on the wheel the whole time. I punched the little ogre. I began to gnaw at the wheel.

I kept hoping he'd come running out, arms flailing, and screaming, Balram, I was on the verge of making a mistake! Save me-let's drive away at once!

An hour later Mr. Ashok came out of the hotel-alone, and looking ill.

"The meeting's over, Balram," he said, letting his head fall back on the seat. "Let's go home."

I didn't start the car for a second. I kept my finger on the ignition key.

"Balram, let's go home, I said!"

"Yes, sir."

When we got back to Gurgaon, he staggered out toward the elevator. I did not leave the car. I let five minutes pass, and then drove back to Jangpura, straight to the hotel with the T on it.

I parked in a corner and watched the door of the hotel. I wanted her to come out.

A rickshaw-puller drove up next to me, a small, unshaven, stick-thin man, who looked dead tired as he wiped his face and legs clean with a rag, and went to sleep on the ground. On the seat of his rickshaw was a white advertising sticker:

IS EXCESS WEIGHT A PROBLEM FOR YOU?

CALL JIMMY SINGH AT METRO GYM: 9811799289

The mascot of the gym-an American with enormous white muscles-smiled at me from above the slogan. The rickshaw-puller's snoring filled the air.

Someone in the hotel must have seen me. After a while, the door opened: a policeman came out, peered at me, and then began walking down the steps.

I turned the key; I took the car back to Gurgaon.

Now, I've driven around Bangalore at night too, but I never get that feeling here that I did in Delhi-the feeling that if something is burning inside me as I drive, the city will know about it-she will burn with the same thing.

My heart was bitter that night. The city knew this-and under the dim orange glow cast everywhere by the weak streetlamps, she was bitter.

Speak to me of civil war, I told Delhi.

I will, she said.

An overturned flower urn on a traffic island in the middle of a road; next to it three men sit with open mouths. An older man with a beard and white turban is talking to them with a finger upraised. Cars drive by him with their dazzling headlights, and the noise drowns out his words. He looks like a prophet in the middle of the city, unnoticed except by his three apostles. They will become his three generals. That overturned flower urn is a symbol of some kind.

Speak to me of blood on the streets, I told Delhi.

I will, she said.

I saw other men discussing and talking and reading in the night, alone or in clusters around the streetlamps. By the dim lights of Delhi, I saw hundreds that night, under trees, shrines, intersections, on benches, squinting at newspapers, holy books, journals, Communist Party pamphlets. What were they reading about? What were they talking about?

But what else?

Of the end of the world.

And if there is blood on these streets-I asked the city-do you promise that he'll be the first to go-that man with the fat folds under his neck?

A beggar sitting by the side of the road, a nearly naked man coated with grime, and with wild unkempt hair in long coils like snakes, looked into my eyes:

Promise.

Colored pieces of glass have been embedded into the boundary wall of Buckingham Towers B Block-to keep robbers out. When headlights hit them, the shards glow, and the wall turns into a Technicolored, glass-spined monster.

The gatekeeper stared at me as I drove in. I saw rupee notes shining in his eyes.

This was the second time he had seen me going out and returning on my own.

In the parking lot, I got out of the driver's seat and carefully closed the door. I opened the passenger's door, and went inside, and passed my hand along the leather. I passed my hands from one side of the leather seats to the other three times, and then I found what I was looking for.

I held it up to the light.

A strand of golden hair!

I've got it in my desk to this day.

The Sixth Night

The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor-they never overlap, do they?

See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?

Losing weight and looking like the poor.

Every evening, the compound around Buckingham Towers B Block becomes an exercise ground. Plump, paunchy men and even plumper, paunchier women, with big circles of sweat below their arms, are doing their evening "walking."

See, with all these late-night parties, all that drinking and munching, the rich tend to get fat in Delhi. So they walk to lose weight.

Now, where should a human being walk? In the outdoors-by a river, inside a park, around a forest.

However, displaying their usual genius for town planning, the rich of Delhi had built this part of Gurgaon with no parks, lawns, or playgrounds-it was just buildings, shopping malls, hotels, and more buildings. There was a pavement outside, but that was for the poor to live on. So if you wanted to do some "walking," it had to be done around the concrete compound of your own building.

Now, while they walked around the apartment block, the fatsos made their thin servants-most of them drivers-stand at various spots on that circle with bottles of mineral water and fresh towels in their hands. Each time they completed a circuit around the building, they stopped next to their man, grabbed the bottle-gulp-grabbed the towel-wipe, wipe-then it was off on round two.

Vitiligo-Lips was standing in one corner of the compound, with his bottle and his master's sweaty towel. Every few minutes, he turned to me with a twinkle in his eyes-his boss, the steel man, who was bald until two weeks ago, now sported a head of thick black hair-an expensive toupee job he had gone all the way to England for. This toupee was the main subject of discussion in the monkey-circle these days-the other drivers had offered Vitiligo-Lips ten rupees to resort to the old tricks of braking unexpectedly, or taking the car full speed over a pothole, to knock over his master's toupee at least once.

The secrets of their masters were spilled and dissected every evening by the monkey-circle-though if any of them made the divorce a topic of discussion, he knew he would have to deal with me. On Mr. Ashok's privacy I allowed no one to infringe.

I was standing just a few feet from Vitiligo-Lips, with my master's bottle of mineral water in my hand and his sweat-stained towel on my shoulder.

Mr. Ashok was about to complete his circle-I could smell his sweat coming toward me. This was round number three for him. He took the bottle, drained it, wiped his face with his towel, and draped it back on my shoulder.

"I'm done, Balram. Bring the towel and bottle up, okay?"

"Yes, sir," I said, and watched him go into the apartment block. He took a walk once or twice a week, but it clearly wasn't enough to counter his nights of debauchery-I saw a big, wet paunch pressing against his white T-shirt. How repulsive he was, these days.

I signaled to Vitiligo-Lips before going down to the parking lot.

Ten minutes later, I smelled the steel man's sweat and heard footsteps. Vitiligo-Lips had come down. I called him over to the Honda City-it was the only place in the world I felt fully safe anymore.