"I wouldn't do it," Ulla said, frowning. "I hate sadness. I can't bear it. I would rather have nothing at all than even a little sadness. I think that's why I love to sleep so much, na? It's impossible to be really sad when you're asleep. You can be happy and afraid and angry in your dreams, but you have to be wide awake to be sad, don't you think?"

"I'm with you, Ulla," Vikram agreed. "There's too much fucking sadness in the world, yaar. That's why everybody is getting so stoned all the time. I know that's why I'm getting so stoned all the time."

"Mmmmm-no, I agree with you, Lin," Kavita put in, although I couldn't be sure how much was agreement with me, and how much merely the reflex of opposing Vikram. "If you have a chance at real happiness, whatever the cost, you have to take it."

Didier grew restless, irritated with the turn the conversation had taken.

"You are being much too serious, all of you."

"I'm not!" Vikram objected, stung by the suggestion.

Didier fixed him with one raised eyebrow.

"I mean that you are making things to be more difficult than they are, or need to be. The facts of life are very simple. In the beginning we feared everything-animals, the weather, the trees, the night sky-everything except each other. Now we fear each other, and almost nothing else. No-one knows why anyone does anything. No-one tells the truth. No-one is happy. No-one is safe. In the face of all that is so wrong with the world, the very worst thing you can do is survive. And yet you must survive.

It is this dilemma that makes us believe and cling to the lie that we have a soul, and that there is a God who cares about its fate. And now you have it."

He sat back in his chair, and twirled the points of his D'Artagnan moustache with both hands.

"I'm not sure what he just said," Vikram muttered, after a pause, "but somehow I agree with him, and feel insulted, at the same time."

Maurizio rose from his seat to leave. He placed a hand on Karla's shoulder, and turned to the rest of us with a brilliant smile of affability and charm. I had to admire that smile, even as I was working myself up to hate him for it.

"Don't be confused, Vikram," he said pleasantly. "Didier only has one subject-himself."

"And his curse," Karla added quickly, "is that it is a fascinating subject."

"Merci, Karla, darling," Didier murmured, presenting her with a little bow.

"Allom, Modena, let's go. We may see you all later, at the President, si? Ciao."

He kissed Karla on the cheek, put on his Ray-Ban sunglasses, and stalked out into the crowded night with Modena at his side. The Spaniard hadn't spoken once all evening, or even smiled. As their shapes were lost in the shifting, shuffling figures on the street, however, I saw that he spoke to Maurizio passionately, waving his clenched fist. I watched them until they were gone, and was startled and a little ashamed to hear Lettie speak aloud the smallest, meanest corner of my thoughts.

"He's not as cool as he looks," she snarled.

"No man is as cool as he looks," Karla said, smiling and reaching out to cover Lettie's hand with her own.

"You don't like Maurizio any more?" Ulla asked.

"I hate him. No, I don't hate him. But I despise him. It makes me sick to look at him."

"My dear Letitia-" Didier began, but Karla cut him off.

"Not now, Didier. Give it a rest."

"I don't know how I could've been so stupid," Lettie growled, clenching her teeth.

"_Na _ja..." Ulla said slowly. "I don't want to say __I told you _so, but..."

"Oh, why not?" Kavita asked. "I love to say I told you so. I tell Vikram I told you so at least once a week. I'd rather say I told you so than eat chocolate."

"I like the guy," Vikram put in. "Did you all know he's a fantastic horseman? He can ride like Clint Eastwood, yaar. I saw him at Chowpatty last week, riding on the beach with this gorgeous, blonde, Swedish chick. He rode just like Clint, in High Plains Drifter, I'm telling you. Fucking deadly."

"Oh, well, he rides a horse," Lettie said. "How could I have been so wrong about him? I take it all back then."

"He's got a cool hi-fi in his apartment, too," Vikram added, apparently oblivious to Lettie's mood. "And some damn fine original Italian movie scores."

"That's it! I'm off!" Lettie declared, standing and grabbing her handbag and the book she'd brought with her. Her red hair, falling in gentle curls that framed her face, trembled with her irritation. Her pale skin stretched so flawlessly over the soft curves of her heart-shaped face that for a moment, in the bright white light, she was a furious, marble Madonna, and I recalled what Karla had said of her: I think Lettie's the most spiritual of all of _us...

Vikram jumped to his feet with her. "I'll walk you to your hotel. I'm going your way."

"Is that right?" Lettie asked, rounding on him so swiftly that he flinched. "Which way would that be then?"

"I... I... I'm going, kind of, everywhere, yaar. I'm taking a very long walk, like. So... so... wherever you're going, I'll be going your way."

"Oh, all right, if you must," she murmured, her teeth clenched and her eyes flashing blue sparks. "Karla me love, see you at the Taj, tomorrow, for coffee. I promise not to be late this time."

"I'll be there," Karla agreed.

"Well, bye all!" Lettie said, waving.

"Yeah, me too!" Vikram added, rushing after her.

"You know, the thing I like most about Letitia," Didier mused, "is that no little bit of her is French. Our culture, the French culture, is so pervasive and influential that almost everyone, in the whole world, is at least a little bit French. This is especially so for women. Almost every woman in the world is French, in some way. But Letitia, she is the most un-French woman I have ever known."

"You're full of it, Didier," Kavita remarked. "Tonight more than most nights. What is it-did you fall in love, or out of love?"

He sighed, and stared at his hands, folded one on top the other.

"A little of both, I think. I am feeling very blue. Federico-you know him-has found religion. It is a terrible business, and it has wounded me, I confess. In truth, his saintliness has broken my heart. But enough of that. Imtiaz Dharker has a new exhibition at the Jehangir. Her work is always sensuous, and a little bit wild, and it brings me to myself again. Kavita, would you like to see it with me?"

"Sure," Kavita smiled. "I'd be happy to."

"I'll walk to the Regal Junction with you," Ulla sighed. "I have to meet Modena."

They rose and said goodbye, and walked through the Causeway arch, but then Didier returned and stood beside me at the table.

Resting a hand on my shoulder as if to steady himself, he smiled down at me with an expression of surprisingly tender affection.

"Go with him, Lin," he said. "Go with Prabaker, to the village.

Every city in the world has a village in its heart. You will never understand the city, unless you first understand the village. Go there. When you return, I will see what India has made of you. Bonne chance!" He hurried off, leaving me alone with Karla. When Didier and the others were at the table, the restaurant had been noisy.

Suddenly, all was quiet, or it seemed to be, and I had the impression that every word I spoke would be echoed, from table to table, in the large room.

"Are you leaving us?" Karla asked, mercifully speaking first.

"Well, Prabaker invited me to go with him on a trip to his parents' village. His native-place, he calls it."

"And you're going?"

"Yes, yes, I think I will. It's something of an honour to be asked, I take it. He told me he goes back to his village, to visit his parents, once every six months or so. He's done that for the last nine years, since he's been working the tourist beat in Bombay. But I'm the first foreigner he ever invited to go there with him."