But an Indian will be so pleased that if he likes something else about you-your eyes, or your smile, or the way you react to a beggar at the window of his cab-he'll feel bonded to you, instantly. He'll be prepared to do things for you, go out of his way, put himself at risk, and even do dangerous or illegal things. If you've given him an address he doesn't like, such as the Palace, he'll be prepared to wait for you, just to be sure that you're safe. You could come out an hour later, and ignore him completely, and he would smile and drive away, happy to know that no harm had come to you. It happened to me many times in Bombay, but never in any other city. It's one of the five hundred things I love about Indians: if they like you, they do it quickly, and not by half. Karla paid his fare and the promised tip, and told him not to wait. We both knew that he would.

The Palace was a huge building, triple-fronted and three stories tall. The street windows were barred with wrought-iron curlicues beaten into the shape of acanthus leaves. It was older than many other buildings on the street, and restored, not renovated.

Original detail had been carefully preserved. The heavy stone architraves over the door and windows had been chiselled into coronets of five-pointed stars. That meticulous craftsmanship, once common in the city, was all but a lost art. There was an alleyway on the right-hand side of the building, and the stonemasons had lavished their handiwork on the quoin-every second stone from the ground to below the eaves was faceted like a jewel. A glassed-in balcony ran the width of the third floor, the rooms within concealed by bamboo blinds. The walls of the building were grey, the door black. To my surprise, the door simply opened when Karla touched it, and we stepped inside. We entered a long, cool corridor, darker than the sunlit street but softly illuminated by lily-shaped lamps of fluted glass.

There was wallpaper-very unusual in humid Bombay-with the repetitive Compton pattern of William Morris in olive green and flesh pinks. A smell of incense and flowers permeated, and the eerie, padded silences of closed rooms surrounded us.

A man was standing in the hallway, facing us, with his hands loosely clasped in front of him. He was tall and thin. His fine, dark brown hair was pulled back severely and tied into a long plait that reached to his hips. He had no eyebrows, but very thick eyelashes, so thick that I thought they must be false. Some designs, in swirls and scrolls, were drawn on his pale face from his lips to his pointed chin. He was dressed in a black, silk kurta-pyjama and clear plastic sandals.

"Hello, Rajan," Karla greeted him, icily.

"Ram Ram, Miss Karla," he replied, using the Hindu greeting. His voice was a sneering hiss. "Madame will see you immediately. You are to go straight up. I will bring cold drinks. You know the way."

He stood to one side, and gestured towards the stairs at the end of the hall. The fingers of his outstretched hand were stained with henna stencils. They were the longest fingers I'd ever seen.

As we walked past him, I saw that the scrolled designs on his lower lip and chin were actually tattoos.

"Rajan is creepy enough," I muttered, as Karla and I climbed the stairs together.

"He's one of Madame Zhou's two personal servants. He's a eunuch, a castrato, and a lot creepier than he looks," she whispered enigmatically.

We climbed the wide stairs to the second floor, our footsteps swallowed by thick carpet and heavy teakwood newels and handrails. There were framed photographs and paintings on the walls, all of them portraits. As I passed those images, I had the sense that there were other living, breathing people in the closed rooms, all around us. But there was no sound. Nothing.

"It's damn quiet," I said as we stopped in front of one of the doors.

"It's siesta time. Every afternoon, from two to five. But it's quieter than usual because she's expecting you. Are you ready?"

"I guess. Yes."

"Let's do it." She knocked twice, turned the knob and we entered. There was nothing in the small, square space but the carpet on the floor, lace curtains drawn across the window, and two large, flat cushions. Karla took my arm and steered me toward the cushions.

The half-light of late afternoon glowed through the cream coloured lace. The walls were bare and painted tan-brown, and there was a metal grille, about a metre square, set into one of them just above the skirting board. We knelt on the cushions in front of the grille as if we'd come to make our confession.

"I am not happy with you, Karla," a voice said from behind the grille. Startled, I peered into the lattice of metal, but the room beyond it was black and I could see nothing. Sitting there, in the gloom, she was invisible. Madame Zhou. "I do not like to be unhappy. You know that."

"Happiness is a myth," Karla snapped back angrily. "It was invented to make us buy things."

Madame Zhou laughed. It was a gurgling, bronchial laugh. It was the kind of laugh that hunted down funny things, and killed them stone dead.

"Ah, Karla, Karla, I miss you. But you neglect me. It really has been much too long since you visited me. I think you still blame me for what happened to Ahmed and Christina, even though you swear it is not so. How can I believe that you do not hold a grudge against me, when you neglect me so terribly? And now you want to take my favourite away from me."

"It's her father who wants to take her, Madame," Karla replied, a little more gently.

"Ah yes, the father..."

She said the word as if it was a despicable insult. Her voice rasped the word across our skin. It had taken a lot of cigarettes, smoked in a particularly spiteful manner, to make that voice.

"Your drinks, Miss Karla," Rajan said, and I almost jumped. He'd come in behind me without making the slightest sound. He bent low to place a tray on the floor between us, and for a moment I stared into the lambent blackness of his eyes. His face was impassive, but there was no mistaking the emotion in those eyes.

It was cold, naked, incomprehensible hatred. I was mesmerised by it, bewildered, and strangely ashamed.

"This is your American," Madame Zhou said, breaking the spell.

"Yes, Madame. His name is Parker, Gilbert Parker. He is attached to the embassy, but this is not an official visit, of course."

"Of course. Give Rajan your card, Mr. Parker."

It was a command. I took one of the cards from my pocket and handed it to Rajan. He held it at the edges, as if he was afraid of contamination, and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"Karla did not tell me, when she telephoned, Mr. Parker-have you been in Bombay very long?" Madame Zhou asked me, switching to Hindi.

"Not so long, Madame."

"You speak Hindi quite well. My compliments."

"Hindi is a beautiful language," I replied, using one of the stock phrases that Prabaker had taught me to recite. "It is a language of music and poetry."

"It is also a language of love and money," she chuckled greedily.

Are you in love, Mr. Parker?"

I'd thought hard about what she might ask me, but I hadn't anticipated that question. And just at that moment, there was probably no other subject that could've unsettled me more. I looked at Karla, but she was staring down at her hands, and she gave me no clue. I didn't know what Madame Zhou meant by the question. She hadn't asked me if I was married or single, engaged or involved.

"In love?" I mumbled, the words sounding like an incantation in Hindi.

"Yes, yes, romantic love. Your heart lost in the dream of a woman's face, your soul lost in the dream of her body. Love, Mr.

Parker. Are you in it?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

I don't know why I said it. The impression that I was making an act of confession, there, on my knees before the metal grate, was even more pronounced.