“Why not?” She raised her voice angrily. She shrieked, “You work for me! You do what I say!”

The two of them stared at each other, and then, grumbling and cursing her, he left the house. He wandered aimlessly for some time, then decided to visit the cathedral again, to see how the old fellows were doing.

Nothing much had changed in the field by the cathedral. The construction had been held up, he was told, because of the rector’s death. It would start again soon.

His other friends were missing-they had left the work and returned to the village-but Guru was there.

“Now that you’re here, why don’t we…” Guru made the gesture of a bottle being emptied down a throat.

They went to an arrack shop, and there was some fine drinking, just like in old times.

“So how are things with you and your princess?” Guru asked.

“Oh, these rich people are all the same,” George said bitterly. “We’re just trash to them. A rich woman can never see a poor man as a man. Just as a servant.”

He remembered his carefree days, before he was tied down to a house and to Madam-and he became resentful at having lost his freedom. He left early, shortly before midnight, saying that he had something to take care of at the house. On the way back, he staggered drunkenly, singing a Konkani song; but another pulse had started to throb beneath the lighthearted film number.

As he drew near the gate, his voice dropped down and died out, and he realized he was walking with exaggerated stealth. He wondered why, and felt frightened of himself.

He opened the latch of the gate soundlessly, and walked toward the back door of the house. He had been holding the key in his hand for some time; bending down to the lock and squinting at the keyhole, he inserted it. Opening the door carefully and quietly, he walked into the house. The heavy washing machine lay in the dark, like a night watchman. In the distance wisps of cool air escaped from a crack in the closed door of her bedroom.

George breathed slowly. His one thought, as he staggered forward, was that he must avoid walking into the washing machine.

“Oh, God,” he said suddenly. He realized that he had banged his knee into the washing machine and the damn machine was reverberating.

“Oh, God,” he said again, with the dim, desperate consciousness that he had spoken too loudly.

There was a movement; her door opened, and a woman with long loose hair emerged.

A cool air-conditioned breeze thrilled his entire body. The woman pulled the edge of a sari over her shoulder.

“George?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

He said nothing. The answer to the question was at once vague and full of substance, half obscure but all too present, just as she herself was. He almost knew what he wanted to say; she said nothing. She had not screamed or raised the alarm. Perhaps she wanted it too. He felt that it was now only a matter of saying it, or even of moving. Just do something. It will happen.

“Get out,” she said.

He had waited too long.

“Madam, I-”

“Get out.”

It was too late now; he turned around and walked quickly.

The moment the back door closed on him, he felt foolish. He thumped it with his fist so hard that it hurt. “Madam, let me explain!” He pounded the door harder and harder. She had misunderstood him-completely misunderstood!

“Stop it,” came a voice. It was Maria, looking at him fearfully through the window. “Please stop it at once.”

At that moment, the immensity of what he had done struck George. He was conscious the neighbors might be watching. Madam’s reputation was at stake.

He dragged himself up to the construction site, and fell down there to sleep. The next morning, he discovered he had been lying, just as he had done months before, on top of a pyramid of crushed granite.

He came back, slowly. Maria was waiting for him by the gate.

“Madam,” she called as she went into the house. Mrs. Gomes came out, her finger deep into her latest novel.

“Maria, go to the kitchen,” Mrs. Gomes ordered, as he walked into the garden. He was glad of that; so she wanted to protect Maria from what was coming. He felt gratitude for her delicacy. She was different from other rich people; she was special. She would spare him.

He put the key to the back door on the ground.

“It’s okay,” she said. Her manner was cool. He understood now that the radius had increased; it was pushing him back every second he stood. He did not know how far back to go; it seemed to him he was already as far back as he could be and hear what she was saying. Her voice was distant and small and cold. For some reason, he could not take his eyes off the cover of her novel: a man was driving a red car, and two white women in bikinis were sitting inside.

“It’s not anger,” she said. “I should have taken greater precautions. I made a mistake.”

“I’ve left the key down here, madam,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The lock is being changed this evening.”

“Can I stay until you find someone else?” he blurted out. “How will you manage with the garden? And what will you do for a driver?”

“I’ll manage,” she said.

Until then, all his thoughts had been for her-her reputation in the neighborhood, her peace of mind, the sense of betrayal she must feel-but now he understood: she was not the one who needed taking care of.

He wanted to speak his heart out to her and tell her all this, but she spoke first.

“Maria will have to leave as well.”

He stared at her, his mouth open.

“Where will she sleep tonight?” His voice was thin and desperate. “Madam, she left everything she had in our village and came here to live with you.”

“She can sleep in the church, I suppose,” Mrs. Gomes said calmly. “They let people in all night, I’ve heard.”

“Madam.” He folded his palms. “Madam, you’re Christian like us, and I’m begging you in the name of Christian charity, please leave Maria out of-”

She closed the door; then he heard the sound of it being locked, and then double-locked.

He waited for his sister at the top of the road, and looked in the direction of the unfinished cathedral.

DAY SIX: THE SULTAN’S BATTERY

The Sultan’s Battery, a large black rectangular fort, appears high up to your left as you go from Kittur to Salt Market Village. The best way to explore the fort is to ask someone in Kittur to drive you up there; your host will have to park the car by the main road, and then the two of you will have to walk uphill for half an hour. When you pass through the arched doorway, you will find that the fort is in an advanced state of decay. Although a plaque from the Archaeological Survey of India declares this a protected site and speaks of its role in “enshrining the memory of the patriot Tippu Sultan, Tiger of Mysore,” there is no evidence of any attempt to preserve the ancient structure from the onslaught of creepers, wind, rain, erosion, and grazing animals. Giant banyan trees have germinated on the walls of the fort; their roots smash between the stones like gnarled fingers reaching into a mouse hole. Avoiding the thorns and piles of goat shit, you should walk to one of the holes in the walls of the fort; here, hold an imaginary gun in your hands, close an eye, and pretend that you are Tippu himself, firing down on the English army.

HE WALKED QUICKLY toward the white dome of the Dargah, a fold-up wooden stool under one arm, and in the other a red bag with his album of photographs and seven bottles full of white pills. When he reached the Dargah, he walked along the wall, not paying any attention to the long line of beggars: the lepers sitting on rags, the men with mutilated arms and legs, the men in wheelchairs, the men with bandages covering their eyes, and the creature with little brown stubs like a seal’s flippers where he should have had arms, a normal left leg, and a soft brown stump where he should have had the other leg, who lay on his left side, twitching his hip continuously, like an animal receiving galvanic shocks, and intoning, with blank, mesmerized eyes, “Al-lah! Al-laaaah! Al-lah! Al-laaah!”