"I don't know. A couple of months, I think. Maybe more."

"Ah, then it is so," he concluded. "Your little friend is beginning to love you."

"I think that's putting it a bit strong," I objected, frowning.

"No, no, you do not understand. You must be careful, here, with the real affection of those you meet. This is not like any other place. This is India. Everyone who comes here falls in love-most of us fall in love many times over. And the Indians, they love most of all. Your little friend may be beginning to love you.

There is nothing strange in this. I say it from a long experience of this country, and especially of this city. It happens often, and easily, for the Indians. That is how they manage to live together, a billion of them, in reasonable peace. They are not perfect, of course. They know how to fight and lie and cheat each other, and all the things that all of us do. But more than any other people in the world, the Indians know how to love one another."

He paused to light a cigarette, and then waved it like a little flagpole until the waiter noticed him and nodded to his request for another glass of vodka.

"India is about six times the size of France," he went on, as the glass of alcohol and a bowl of curried snacks arrived at our table. "But it has almost twenty times the population. Twenty times! Believe me, if there were a billion Frenchmen living in such a crowded space, there would be rivers of blood. Rivers of blood! And, as everyone knows, we French are the most civilised people in Europe. Indeed, in the whole world. No, no, without love, India would be impossible."

Letitia joined us at our table, sitting to my left.

"What are you on about now, Didier, you bastard?" she asked compan-ionably, her South London accent giving the first syllable of the last word an explosive ring.

"He was just telling me that the French are the most civilised people in the world." "As all the world knows," he added.

"When you produce a Shakespeare, out of your villes and vineyards, mate, I might just agree with you," Lettie murmured through a smile that seemed to be warm and condescending in equal parts.

"My dear, please do not think that I disrespect your Shakespeare," Didier countered, laughing happily. "I love the English language, because so much of it is French."

"Touche," I grinned, "as we say in English."

Ulla and Modena arrived at that moment, and sat down. Ulla was dressed for work in a small, tight, black, halter-neck dress, fishnet stockings, and stiletto-heel shoes. She wore eye-dazzling fake diamonds at her throat and ears. The contrast between her clothing and Lettie's was stark. Lettie wore a fine, bone- coloured brocade jacket over loose, dark-brown satin culottes, and boots. Yet the faces of the two women produced the strongest and most unexpected contrast. Lettie's gaze was seductive, direct, self-assured, and sparkling with ironies and secrets, while Ulla's wide blue eyes, for all the make-up and clothing of her professional sexuality, showed nothing but innocence-honest, vacuous innocence.

"You are forbidden to speak to me, Didier," Ulla said at once, pouting inconsolably. "I have had a very disagreeable time with Federico-three hours-and it is all your fault."

"Bah!" Didier spat out. "Federico!"

"Oh," Lettie joined in, making three long sounds out of one.

"Something's happened to the beautiful young Federico, has it?

Come on, Ulla me darlin', let's have all the gossip."

"_Na _ja, Federico has got a religion, and he is driving me crazy about it, and it is all Didier's fault."

"Yes!" Didier added, clearly disgusted. "Federico has found religion. It is a tragedy. He no longer drinks or smokes or takes drugs. And of course he will not have sex with anyone-not even with himself! It is an appalling waste of talent. The man was a genius of the corruptions, my finest student, my masterwork. It is maddening. He is now a good man, in the very worst sense of the word."

"Well, you win a few, you lose a few," Lettie sighed with mock sympathy. "You mustn't let it get you down, Didier. There'll be other fish for you to fry and gobble up."

"Your sympathy should be for me," Ulla chided. "Federico came from Didier in such a bad mood yesterday, he was at my door today in tears. Scheisse! Wirklich! For three hours he cried and he raved at me about being born again. In the end I felt so sorry for him.

It was only with a great suffering that I let Modena throw him and his bible books onto the street. It's all your fault, Didier, and I will take the longest time to forgive you for it."

"Fanatics," Didier mused, ignoring the rebuke, "always seem to have the same scrubbed and staring look about them. They have the look of people who do not masturbate, but who think about it almost all the time."

"I really do love you, you know, Didier," Lettie stuttered, through her bubbling laughter. "Even if you are a despicable toad of a man."

"No, you love him because he is a despicable toe of a man," Ulla declared.

"That's toad, love, not toe," Lettie corrected patiently, still laughing. "He's a toad of a man, not a toe of a man. A despicable toe wouldn't make any sense at all, now would it? We wouldn't love him or hate him just for being a toe of a man, would we, darlin'-even if we knew what it meant?"

"I'm not so good with the English jokes, you know that, Lettie,"

Ulla persisted. "But I think he _is a big, ugly, hairy toe of a man."

"I assure you," Didier protested, "that my toes-and my feet, for that matter-are exceptionally beautiful."

Karla, Maurizio, and an Indian man in his early thirties walked in from the busy night street. Maurizio and Modena joined a second table to ours, and then the eight of us ordered drinks and food.

"Lin, Lettie, this is my friend, Vikram Patel," Karla announced, when there was a moment of relative quiet. "He came back a couple of weeks ago, after a long holiday in Denmark, and I think you're the only two who haven't met him."

Lettie and I introduced ourselves to the newcomer, but my real attention was on Maurizio and Karla. He sat beside her, opposite me, and rested his hand on the back of her chair. He leaned in close to her, and their heads almost touched when they spoke.

There's a dark feeling-less than hatred, but more than loathing - that ugly men feel for handsome men. It's unreasonable and unjustified, of course, but it's always there, hiding in the long shadow thrown by envy. It creeps out, into the light of your eyes, when you're falling in love with a beautiful woman. I looked at Maurizio, and a little of that dark feeling began in my heart. His straight, white teeth, smooth complexion, and thick, dark hair turned me against him more swiftly and surely than flaws in his character mightVe done.

And Karla was beautiful: her hair, in a French roll, was shining like water running over black river stones, and her green eyes were radiant with purpose and pleasure. She wore a long-sleeved Indian salwar top that reached to below her knees, where it met loose trousers in the same olive silk fabric.

"I had a great time, yaar," the newcomer, Vikram, was saying when my thoughts returned to the moment. "Denmark is very hip, very cool. The people are very sophisticated. They're so fucking controlled, I couldn't believe it. I went to a sauna, in Copenhagen. It was a fucking huge place, yaar, with a mixed set- up-with men and women, together, walking around stark naked.

Absolutely, totally naked. And nobody reacted at all. Not even a flickering eye, yaar. Indian guys couldn't handle that. They'd be boiling, I tell you."

"Were you boiling, Vikram dear?" Lettie asked, sweetly.

"Are you fucking kidding? I was the only guy in the place wearing a towel, and the only guy with a hard-on."

"I don't understand," Ulla said, when we stopped laughing. It was a flat statement-neither a complaint, nor a plea for further explanation.