Looking over Parvati's shoulder, however, was her mother, Nandita. She was a formidable woman, three times the combined width and weight of her petite daughters, Parvati and Sita, and she glowered at us, her expression managing to combine greed for our custom with contempt for our male sex. I smiled at her, and wagged my head. Her smile, in return, was remarkably similar to the fierce grimace that Maori warriors affect to intimidate their enemies.
"In his last episode," Didier continued, "the good Vikram hired a horse from the handlers on Chowpatty Beach, and rode it to Letitia's apartment on Marine Drive to serenade her outside her window."
"Did it work?"
"Unfortunately non. The horse left a package of merde on the front pathway-during an especially moving part of the song, no doubt-and the many other residents of the apartment building expressed their outrage by pelting the poor Vikram with rotting food. Letitia, it was noticed, threw more offensive missiles, and with a more deadly aim, than any of the neighbours."
"C'est l'amour," I sighed.
"Exactly-merde and bad food, c'est l'amour," Didier agreed quickly. "I do think that I must involve myself in this romance, if it is to succeed. The poor Vikram-he is a fool for love, and Lettie despises a fool above all else. But things are much more successful for Maurizio in the last time. He had some business venture with Modena, Ulla's paramour, and he is in the chips, as our dear Lettie would say. He is now a significant dealer, in Colaba."
I forced my face to remain impassive while jealous thoughts of hand- some Maurizio, flushed with success, spiked their way into my mind. The rain started again, and I glanced outside to see people running, hitching up their pants and their saris to avoid the many puddles.
"Just yesterday," Didier went on, carefully tipping his tea from the cup into the saucer, and sipping it from the saucer as most of the slum-dwellers did, "Modena arrived in a chauffeured car, at Leopold's, and Maurizio is wearing a ten-thousand-dollar Rolex watch. But..."
"But?" I prompted, when he paused to drink.
"Well, there is terrible risk in their business. Maurizio is not always... honourable... in his business dealings. If he should upset the wrong people, there will be great violence."
"And what about you?" I asked, changing the subject because I didn't want Didier to see the serpent of spite rising in me when he spoke of the trouble that might be finding its way to Maurizio. "Aren't you flirting with danger yourself? Your new... interest... is one string short of the full marionette, or so I'm told. He's got a very bad temper, Lettie says, and a hair trigger controlling it."
"Oh, him?" he sniffed dismissively, turning down the corners of his expressive mouth. "Not at all. He is not dangerous. Although he is annoying, and annoying is worse than dangerous, n'est-ce pas? It is easier to live with a dangerous man than an annoying one."
Prabaker went to buy three beedie cigarettes from Kumar's shop counter, and lit them with the same match, holding them in one hand and burning the ends with the other. He passed one each to Didier and me, and sat down again, smoking contentedly.
"Ah, yes, there is another piece of news-Kavita has taken a new job at a newspaper, The Noonday. She is a features writer. It is a job with much prestige, I understand, and a fast track to a sub-editor's position. She won it in a field of many talented candidates, and she is very happy."
"I like Kavita," I felt moved to say.
"You know," Didier offered, staring at the glowing end of his beedie and then looking up at me, genuinely surprised, "so do I."
We laughed again, and I deliberately included Prabaker in the joke. Parvati watched us from the corners of her smouldering eyes.
"Listen," I asked, seizing the momentary pause in our conversation, "does the name Hassaan Obikwa mean anything to you?"
Didier's mention of Maurizio's new, ten-thousand-dollar Rolex had reminded me of the Nigerian. I fished the gold-and-white business card from my shirt pocket, and handed it over.
"But, of course!" Didier replied. "This is a famous Borsalino.
They call him The Body Snatcher, in the African ghetto."
"Well, that's a good start," I muttered, a wry smile twisting my lips. Prabaker slapped at his thigh, and doubled over with near hysterical laughter. I put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
"They say that when Hassaan Obikwa snatches a body away, not even the devil himself can find it. They are never again seen by living men. Jamais! How do you come to know him? How did you get his card?"
"I sort of, bumped into him, earlier today," I answered, retrieving the card and slipping it into my pocket.
"Well, be careful, my dear friend," Didier sniffed, clearly hurt that I hadn't provided the details of my encounter with Hassaan.
"This Obikwa is like a king, a black king, in his own kingdom.
And you know the old saying-a king is a bad enemy, a worse friend, and a fatal family relation."
Just then a group of young men approached us. They were labourers from the construction site, and most of them lived on the legal side of the slum. They'd all passed through my small clinic during the last year, most of them wanting me to patch up wounds they'd received in work accidents. It was payday at the site, and they were flushed with the excited optimism that a full pay packet puts into young, hard-working hearts. They shook hands with me, each in turn, and paused long enough to see the new round of chai and sweet cakes they'd bought for us delivered to our table. When they left, I was grinning as widely as they were.
"This social work seems to suit you," Didier commented through an arch smile. "You look so well and so fit-underneath the bruises and scratches, that is. I think you must be a very bad man, in your heart of hearts, Lin. Only a wicked man would derive such benefit from good works. A good man, on the other hand, would simply be worn out and bad tempered."
"I'm sure you're right, Didier," I said, still grinning. "Karla said you're usually right, about the wrong you find in people."
"Please, my friend!" he protested, "You will turn my head!"
The sudden crash of many drums exploded, thumping music directly outside the chai shop. Flutes and trumpets joined the drums, and a wild, raucous music began. I knew the music and the musicians well. It was one of the jangling popular tunes that the slum musicians played whenever there was a festival or a celebration. We all went to the open front of the shop. Prabaker stood on a bench beside us to peer over the shoulders of the crowd.
"What is it? A parade?" Didier asked as we watched a large troupe slowly walk past the shop.
"It's Joseph!" Prabaker cried, pointing along the lane. "Joseph and Maria! They're coming!"
Some distance away, we could see Joseph and his wife, surrounded by relatives and friends, and approaching us with ceremonially slow steps. In front of them was a pack of capering children, dancing out their unself-conscious and near-hysterical enthusiasm. Some of them adopted poses from their favourite movie dance scenes, and copied the steps of the stars. Others leapt about like acrobats, or invented jerky, exuberant dances of their own.
Listening to the band, watching the children, and thinking of Tariq-missing the boy already-I remembered an incident from the prison. In that other world-within-a-world, back then, I moved into a new prison cell and discovered a tiny mouse there. The creature entered through a cracked air vent, and crept into the cell every night. Patience and obsessional focus are the gems we mine in the tunnels of prison solitude. Using them, and tiny morsels of food, I bribed the little mouse, over several weeks, and eventually trained it to eat from the edge of my hand. When the prison guards moved me from that cell, in a routine rotation, I told the new tenant-a prisoner I thought I knew well-about the trained mouse. On the morning after the move, he invited me to see the mouse. He'd captured the trusting creature, and crucified it, face down, on a cross made from a broken ruler. He laughed as he told me how the mouse had struggled when he'd tied it by its neck to the cross with cotton thread. He marvelled at how long it had taken to drive thumbtacks into its wriggling paws.