I tried to stand near him and protect him with my legs, but I tripped and fell clumsily. Kicks and punches rained, and I covered up, hearing a quiet voice in my head that said, I know this... I know _this...

The men held me down while one of them went through my pockets with practised thoroughness. Drunk and damaged, I was only dimly aware of the dark shapes looming over me. Then I heard another voice, Prabaker's voice, and I understood some of the words in his pleading, and his defiant abuse of them. He castigated the men for shaming their own country and their own people by beating and robbing a foreigner, a visitor to their country who'd done them no harm. It was a wild speech that called them cowards and invoked Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha, the god Krishna, Mother Theresa, and the Bollywood film star Amitabh Bachchan in the same sentence. It had an effect. The leader of the group came to squat near me. I tried through my drunken haze to stand and fight again, but the others pushed me down and held me on the ground. I know this... I know this...

The man leaned over to look into my eyes. His face was hard, impassive, and very much like my own. He opened my torn shirt and shoved something inside. It was my passport and my watch.

They stood, gave Prabaker a last scowl of incomprehensible hatred, and then climbed into the car. Doors slammed as the car sped away, scattering us with dust and small stones.

Prabaker's wretchedness, when he was sure that I wasn't badly hurt, and he found time to wail and whine, was inconsolable. He blamed himself, loudly and often, for leading us to the remote bar and for allowing us to drink too much. He said with perfect honesty that he would happily take my bruises on his body, if it were possible. His pride in himself, as Bombay's best street guide, was a tattered banner. And his passionate, unqualified love for his country, Bharat Mataji, Mother India, suffered blows more grievous than any the body might endure.

"There's only one good thing for doing, Lin," he concluded, as I washed my face at a hand-basin in the huge white-tiled bathroom of our hotel. "When we get back to Bombay, you must be sending a telegram to your family and your friends for more monies, and you must go to your New Zealand embassy for making a complain of emergencies."

I dried my face, and leaned on the basin to look into the mirror.

The injuries weren't bad. A black eye was forming. My nose was swollen, but not broken. Both lips were cut and thickened, and there were some sweeping grazes on my cheeks and jaw, where kicks had scraped away the skin. It could've been a lot worse, and I knew it. I'd grown up in a tough neighbourhood, where working- class gangs preyed on one another and were merciless to loners, like me, who refused to join any of them. And then there was the prison. No beatings I'd ever suffered were as savage as those inflicted by the uniformed men who were paid to keep the peace, the prison guards. That was what the voice, my own voice, had recalled... I know this... That was the memory: being held down by three or four officers in the punishment unit while two or three others worked me over with fists, batons, and boots. It's always worse getting a beating from them, of course, because they're supposed to be the good guys. You understand and accept it when the bad guys work you over. But when the good guys use handcuffs to chain you to a wall, and then take turns to stomp and kick you, it's the whole system, it's the whole world, that's breaking your bones. And then there was the screaming. The other men, the other prisoners, screaming. Every night.

I looked into my own eyes in the mirror, and thought about Prabaker's suggestion. It was impossible to contact the New Zealand embassy-or any embassy. I couldn't contact family or friends because the police would be watching them, and waiting for a connection to be made. There was no-one. No help. No money.

The thieves had taken every cent I had in the world. The irony of it wasn't lost on me: the escaped armed robber, robbed of everything he owned. What was it Karla had said, before I'd left for the village? Don't drink any alcohol on the trip...

"There's no money in New Zealand, Prabu," I told him as we walked back to our hotel room. "There's no family who can help, no friends, and no help at the embassy."

"No money?"

"None."

"And you can't get any more? Not from any place?"

"No," I answered, packing my few belongings into my backpack.

"This is a very serious trouble, Lin, if you don't mind I'm telling your bruise and scratchy face."

"I know. Do you think we can sell my watch to the hotel manager?"

"Yes, Lin, I think so sure. It is a very nice watches. But I don't think so he will give us a big fair price. In such matters, the Indian businessman is putting his religion in his back pocket only, and he is driving very hard bargains on you."

"Never mind," I replied, clipping shut the catches on my backpack. "So long as it's enough to pay the bill, and catch that night train you were talking about, back to Bombay. Come on, pack your things, and let's go."

"It is a very, very, very serious trouble," he said as we closed the door to the room for the last time, and walked down the corridor. "No money is no funny in India, Lin, I'm telling you."

The frown that compressed his lips and consumed his features remained with us all the way back to Bombay. The sale of my watch covered the hotel bill in Aurangabad, with enough left for two or three days at the India Guest House in Bombay. With my gear stowed in my favourite room, I walked Prabaker back to the small entrance foyer of the hotel, trying in vain to revive the little miracle of his wondrous smile.

"You will leave all those unhappy things in my caring," he said, earnest and solemn. "You will see, Lin. I will make a happy result on you."

I watched him walk down the stairs, and then heard the manager, Anand, address me in friendly Marathi.

I turned with a smile, and we began to talk in Marathi. Six months in the village had given me the simple, everyday conversational phrases, questions, and sentences. It was a modest achievement, but Anand was obviously very pleased and surprised.

After a few minutes of conversation, he called all the co- managers and room boys to hear me speak in their language. They all reacted with similarly delighted astonishment. They'd known foreigners who spoke a little Hindi, or even spoke it well, but none of them had ever met a foreigner who could converse with them in their own beloved Marathi language.

They asked me about the village of Sunder-they'd never heard of it-and we talked about the daily life that they all knew well from their own villages, and tended to idyllise in recollection.

When the conversation ended, I returned to my room, and had barely shut the door when a tentative knock sounded at it.

"Excuse me, please. I am sorry to disturb." The voice belonged to a tall, thin foreigner-German, or Swiss, perhaps-with a wispy beard attached to the point of his long face, and fair hair pulled back into a thick plait. "I heard you speaking to the manager, and the room boys, before, and... well, it is sure that you have been here in India very long... and... _na _ja, we just arrived today, my girlfriend and me, and we want to buy some hashish. Do you... do you maybe know where we can get for ourselves some hashish, without somebody cheating us, and without trouble from the police?"

I did know, of course. Before the night was out, I also helped them to change money on the black market without being cheated.

The bearded German and his girlfriend were happy with the deal and they paid me a commission. The black marketeers, who were Prabaker's friends and contacts on the street, were happy that I'd brought new customers to them, and they paid me commissions as well. I knew there would be other foreigners, on every street in Colaba, who wanted to score. That casual conversation in Marathi with Anand and the room boys of the hotel, overheard by the German couple, had given me a way to survive in the city.