"Okay, okay," I said reasonably, "let's try this again. I have to go back to Bombay. So, why don't you come with me, and then we'll be together, for ever and ever, amen."

"I won't go back," she said flatly.

"Why the hell not?"

"I can't... I just don't want to, and I don't want you to, either."

"Well, I don't see the problem. I can do what I have to do in Bombay, and you can wait here. I'll come back when it's all done."

"I don't want you to go," she repeated in that same monotone.

"Come on, Karla. I have to go back."

"No, you don't."

My smile curled into a frown.

"Yes, I do. I promised Ulla I'd be back in ten days. She's still in trouble. You know that."

"Ulla can look after herself," she hissed, still refusing to turn and look at me.

"Are you jealous of Ulla?" I asked, grinning, as I reached out to stroke her hair.

"Oh, don't be stupid!" she snapped. She turned, and there was fury in her eyes. "I like Ulla, but I'm telling you she can take care of herself."

"Take it easy. What's the matter? You knew I was going back.

We've talked about this. I'm getting into the passport business.

You know how important that is for me."

"I'll get you a passport. I'll get you five passports!"

My stubbornness began to rouse itself.

"I don't want you to get me a passport. I want to learn how to make them and change them myself. I want to learn it all- everything I can. They're going to teach me how to fix passports, and forge them. If I learn that, I'll be free. And I want to be free, Karla. Free. That's what I want."

"Why should you be any different?" she demanded.

"What do you mean?" "Nobody gets what they want," she said, "Nobody does. Nobody."

Her fury dimmed into something worse, something I'd never seen in her: a resigned and defeated sorrow. I knew it was a sin to put such a feeling in such a woman, in any woman. And I knew, watching her little smile fade and die, that sooner or later I would pay for it.

I spoke to her softly, slowly, trying to win her agreement.

"I sent Ulla to my friend Abdullah's. He's looking after her. I can't just leave her there. I have to go back."

"I won't be here, when you look for me next time," she said, turning to lean against the doorway once more.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just what I said."

"Is that some kind of threat? Is that an ultimatum?"

"You can call it what you like," she answered dully, as if waking from a dream. "It's just a fact. If you go back to Bombay, I'll give up on you. I won't go with you, and I won't wait for you.

Stay with me now, here, or go back alone. The choice is yours.

But if you go back, it will finish us."

I stared at her, bewildered and angry and in love.

"You have to give me more than that," I said, more softly.

"You've gotta tell me why. You've gotta talk to me, Karla. You can't just give me an ultimatum, without any reason, and expect me to go along with it. There's a difference between a choice and an ultimatum: a choice means that you know what's going on, and why, before you decide. I'm not the kind of man you can give an ultimatum to. If I was, I wouldn't have escaped from jail. You can't tell me what to do, Karla. You can't order me to do something, without an explanation. I'm not that kind of man.

You've gotta tell me what's going on."

"I can't."

I sighed, and spoke evenly, but my teeth were clenched.

"I don't think I'm... doing a very good job... of explaining this. The fact is, there isn't a lot that I respect about myself.

But the little bit that I've still got left-it's all I've got. A man has to respect himself, Karla, before he can respect anyone else. If I just give in, and do whatever you want me to do, without any kind of reason, I wouldn't respect myself. And if you tell the truth, you wouldn't respect me, either. So, I'm asking you again. What's this all about?"

"I... can't." "You mean, you won't."

"I mean, I can't," she said softly, and then she looked straight into my eyes. "And I won't. That's just how it is. You told me, just a little while ago, that you would do anything for me. I want you to stay here. I don't want you to go back to Bombay. If you do go back, it's all over between us."

"What kind of man would I be," I asked, trying to smile, "if I went along with that?"

"I guess that's your answer, and you've made your choice," she sighed, pushing past me to walk out of the hut.

I packed my bag and strapped it to the bike. When all was ready, I went down to the sea. She rose from the waves and walked toward me slowly, dragging her feet through the shifting sand. The singlet and lungi clung to her body. Her black hair gleamed sleek and wet under the soaring sun. The most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

"I love you," I said, as she came into my arms and we kissed. I spoke the words against her lips, her face, her eyes. I held her close to me. "I love you. It'll be okay. You'll see. I'll be back soon."

"No," she answered woodenly, her body not stiff, but utterly still, the life and the love drained out of it. "It won't be all right. It won't be okay. It's over. And I won't be here, after today."

I looked into her eyes, and felt my own body harden, hollowed out by pride. My hands fell from her shoulders. I turned, and walked back to the bike. Riding to the last little cliff that gave a view of the beach, our beach, I stopped the bike and shielded my eyes to look for her. But she was gone. There was nothing but the waves breaking like the curved spines of playful porpoises, and the traceless, empty, tousled sheets of sand.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A smiling servant opened the door and ushered me into the room, gesturing for me to be silent. He needn't have bothered. The music was so loud in the room that I couldn't have been heard, even if I'd shouted. Cupping his hand as if it were a saucer, and pretending to sip from it, he mimed an offer of chai. I nodded.

He closed the door behind him quietly, leaving me alone with Abdul Ghani. The portly figure stood in the broad curve of a high bay window, looking out at a wide view of roof-garden plateaus, balconies ablaze with green and yellow saris hung out to dry, and rust-red herringbone rooftops.

The room was huge. Ornate ceiling rosettes surrounded thick, gold suspension chains for three elaborate chandeliers on the distant ceiling. At the end of the room near the main door, there was a long dining table with twelve high-backed teak chairs. A mahogany armoire ran the length of the table against one wall, and was topped by an immense, rose-glass mirror. Beside the armoire, there was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase running the further length of the wall. On the opposite long wall of the room, four tall windows looked upon the uppermost branches and cool, shading leaves of plane trees lining the street below. The centre of the room, between the wall of books and the tall windows, was set up as an office. A teak-and-leather captain's chair, facing the main door, served a broad, baroque desk. The far end of the room was decorated for entertaining, with leather chesterfields and deep armchairs. Two enormous bay windows in the end wall, behind the couches, dominated the room with arches of brilliant sunlight.

French doors set into the two bay windows opened onto a wide balcony, giving the view of Colaba's inner-city rooftop gardens, clotheslines, and neglected gargoyles.

Abdul Ghani stood there, listening to the music and singing that thundered from an expensive sound system built into the wall of books. The voices and the music were familiar, and a few moments of concentration brought them back to me. They were the Blind Singers, the same men I'd heard as Khaderbhai's guest, on the first night that I met him. The song wasn't one I recalled from that concert, but I was struck, at once, by its passion and power. As the thrilling, heart-wrenching chorus of voices finished, we stood in a throbbing silence that seemed to resist the noises of the households within the building and of the street below us.