I stepped out onto the street outside the prison. My hair was wet with sweat, and my clothes were soaked. I squinted in the sunlight and stared at the busy street, trying to force myself into its rhythm and rush, trying not to think about Anand in the long room with the overseers, with Big Rahul, with the hunger and the beatings and the filthy, swarming pests. Later that night I would be with Prabaker and Johnny Cigar, Anand's friends, while they celebrated the double wedding. Later that night, Anand would be crammed into a writhing, lice-crawling sleep with two hundred other men on a stone floor. And that would go on, and on, for fifteen years.

I took a cab to my apartment and stood under a hot shower, scorching the slither and itch of memory from my skin. Later, I phoned Chandra Mehta to make the final arrangements for the dancers I'd hired to perform at Prabaker's wedding. Then I phoned Kavita Singh, and told her that Anand wanted us to pull out of the campaign. She was relieved, I think. Her kind heart had fretted for him, and she'd feared from the first that the campaign would fail and then crush him with the weight of fallen hope. She was also glad that he'd given his blessing to her stories about the Blue Sisters. The girls fascinated her, and she'd arranged for a documentary film-maker to visit them in the slum. She wanted to talk about the project, and I heard the sparkling enthusiasm in her voice but I cut her off, promising to call again.

I went out to my little balcony, and let the sound and smell of the city settle on the skin of my bare chest. In a courtyard below, I saw three young men rehearsing the moves and steps of a dance routine they'd copied from a Bollywood film. They laughed helplessly when they messed up the moves of the party piece, and then gave a cheer when they finally danced through one whole routine without error. In another yard some women were squatting together, washing dishes with small anemones of coir rope and a long bar of coral-coloured soap. Their conversation came to me in laughing gasps and shrieks as they scandalised one another with gossip and sardonic commentaries on the peculiar habits of their neighbours' husbands. Then I looked up to see an elderly man sitting in a window opposite me. My eyes met his, and I smiled. He'd been watching me as I'd watched the others below. He wagged his head from side to side, and smiled back at me with a happy grin.

And it was all right. I dressed, and went down to the street. I made the rounds of the black-market currency collection centres, and checked in at Abdul Ghani's passport factory, and inspected the gold-smuggling ring I'd restructured in Khader's name. In three hours I committed thirty crimes or more. And I smiled when people smiled at me. When it was necessary, I gave men enough bad head, as gangsters call it, to make them draw back and lower their eyes in fear. I walked the goonda walk, and in three languages I talked the talk. I looked good. I did my job. I made money, and I was still free. But in the black room, deep in my mind, another image added itself to the secret gallery-an image of Anand, holding the palms of his hands together, as his radiant smile became a blessing and a prayer.

Everything you ever sense, in touch or taste or sight or even thought, has an effect on you that's greater than zero. Some things, like the background sound of a bird chirping as it passes your house in the evening, or a flower glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, have such an infinitesi-mally small effect that you can't detect them. Some things, like triumph and heartbreak, and some images, like the image of yourself reflected in the eyes of a man you've just stabbed, attach themselves to the secret gallery and they change your life forever.

That last image of Anand, the last time I ever saw him, had that effect on me. It wasn't compassion for him that I felt so deeply, although I did pity him as only a chained man could. It wasn't shame, although I was truly ashamed that I hadn't listened when he'd first tried to tell me about Rasheed. It was something else, something so strange that it took me years to fully comprehend. It was envy that nailed the image to my mind. I envied Anand as he turned and walked with his back straight and his head high into the long, suffering years. I envied his peace and his courage and his perfect understanding of himself. Khaderbhai once said that if we envy someone for all the right reasons, we're half way to wisdom. I hope he wasn't right about that. I hope good envy takes you further than that, because a lifetime has passed since that day at the wire, and I still envy Anand's calm communion with fate, and I long for it with all my flawed and striving heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Eyes curved like the sword of Perseus, like the wings of hawks in flight, like the rolled lips of seashells, like eucalyptus leaves in summer-Indian eyes, dancers' eyes, the most beautiful eyes in the world stared with honest, unbeguiling concentration into mirrors held for them by their servants. The dancers I'd hired to perform at the wedding ceremonies for Johnny and Prabaker were already in costume beneath the modest covering of their shawls.

In a chai shop near the entrance to the slum, emptied of customers for the purpose, they made the final adjustments to their hair and make-up, professionally swift amid excited chattering. A cotton sheet strung across the doorway was just sheer enough in the golden lamplight to reveal thrillingly indistinct shadows, inflaming fierce desires in many of those who crowded outside, where I stood guard and kept the curious at bay.

At last they were ready, and I threw the cotton screen back. The ten dancers from Film City's chorus lines emerged. They wore traditional tight choli blouses and wrap-around saris. The costumes were lemon yellow, ruby, peacock blue, emerald, sunset pink, gold, royal purple, silver, cream, and tangerine. Their jewels-hair clusters, plait tassels, ear rings, nose rings, necklaces, midriff chains, bangles, and anklets-struck such sparks of light from lanterns and electric bulbs that people blinked and flinched to look at them. Each heavy anklet carried hundreds of tiny bells and, as the dancers began their slow, swaying walk through the hushed and adoring slum, the sizzling clash of those silver bells was the only sound that marked their steps. Then they began to sing:

Aaja Sajan, Aaja Aaja Sajan, Aaja Come to me, my lover, come to me Come to me, my lover, come to me The crowds that preceded and surrounded them roared their approval. A platoon of small boys scrambled along the rough path ahead of the girls, removing stones or twigs, and sweeping the way clear with palm-leaf brooms. Other young men walked beside the dancers, cooling them with large pear-shaped fans of fine, woven cane. Further ahead along the path, the band of musicians I'd hired with the dancers approached the wedding stage silently in their red and white uniforms. Prabaker and Parvati sat to one side, and Johnny Cigar sat with Sita on the other side.

Prabaker's parents, Kishan and Rukhmabai, had travelled from Sunder for the event. They planned to spend a full month in the city, staying in a slum hut beside Prabaker's own. They sat at the front of the stage with Kumar and Nandita Patak. A huge painting of a lotus flower filled the space behind them, and coloured lights formed glowing vines overhead.

When the dancers slowly entered the space, singing love, they stopped as one and stamped their feet. They twirled in place, turning clockwise in perfect unison. Their arms moved with the grace of a swan's neck. Their hands and fingers rolled and swirled like silk scarves sailing the wind. Then suddenly they stamped their feet three times, and the musicians struck up a wild, enravishing rendition of that month's most popular movie song. And with the cheering in every throat around them, the girls danced into a million dreams.