“No. Thank you.” Estha looked at Ammu. Greenwavy, seaweedy, bottomless-bottomful.

“What about you?” The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man asked Ammu. “Coca-ColaFanta? Icecream Rosemilk?”

“No. Not for me. Thank you,” Ammu said. Deep dimpled, luminous woman.

“Here,” the Man said, with a fistful of sweets, like a generous Air Hostess. “These are for your little Mon.”

“No thank you,” Estha said, looking at Ammu.

“Take them, Estha,” Ammu said. “Don’t be rude.’

Estha took them.

“Say thank you,” Ammu said.

“Thank you,” Estha said. (For the sweets, for the white egg white.) “No mention,” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said in English.

“So!” he said. “Mon says you’re from Ayemenem?”

“Yes,” Ammu said.

“I come there often,” the Orangedrink Lemondrink man said. “My wife’s people are Ayemenem people. I know where your factory is. Paradise Pickles, isn’t it? He told me. Your Mon.”

He knew where to find Estha. That was what he was trying to say. It was a warning.

Ammu saw her son’s bright feverbutton eyes.

“We must go,” she said. “Mustn’t risk a fever. Their cousin is coming tomorrow.” She explained to Uncle. And then, added casually, “From London.”

“From London?” A new respect gleamed in Uncle’s eyes. For a family with London connections.

“Estha, you stay here with Uncle. I’ll get Baby Kochamma and Rahel,” Ammu said.

“Come,” Uncle said. “Come and sit with me on a high stool.”

“No, Ammu! No, Ammu, no! I want to come with you!” Ammu, surprised at the unusually shrill insistence from her usually quiet son, apologized to the Orangedrink Lemondrink Uncle.

“He’s not usually like this. Come on then, Esthappen.”

The back-inside smell. Fan shadows. Backs of heads. Necks. Collars. Hair. Buns. Plaits. Ponytails.

A fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo. A little girl and an ex-nun. Baron von Trapp’s seven peppermint children had had their peppermint baths, and were standing in a peppermint line with their hair slicked down, singing in obedient peppermint voices to the woman the Baron nearly married. The blonde Baroness who shone like a diamond. -

– The hills are alive with the sound of music-

“We have to go,” Ammu said to Baby Kochamma and Rahel. “But Ammu!” Rahel said. “The Main Things haven’t even happened yet. He hasn’t even kissed her! He hasn’t even torn down the Hitler flag yet! They haven’t even been betrayed by Rolf the Postman!” -

“Estha’s sick,” Ammu said. `Come on!”

“The Nazi soldiers haven’t even come!”-

“Come on,” Ammu said. “Get up!”

“They haven’t even done `High on a hill lived a lonely goatherd’!”

“Estha has to be well for Sophie Mol, doesn’t he?” Baby Kochamma said.

“He doesn’t,” Rahel said, but mostly to herself.

“What did you say?” Baby Kochamma said, getting the general drift, but not what was actually said.

“Nothing,” Rahel said. -

“I heard you,” Baby Kochamma said.

Outside, Uncle was reorganizing his dim bottles. Wiping with his dirtcolored rag the ring-shaped water stains they had left on his marble Refreshments Counter. Preparing for the Interval. He was a Clean Orangedrink Lemondrink Uncle. He had an air hostess’s heart trapped in a bear’s body.

“Going then?” he said.

“Yes,” Ammu said. `Where can we get a taxi?”

“Out the gate, up the road, on your left,” he said, looking at Rahel. “You never told me you had a little Mol too.” And holding out another sweet “Here, Mol-for you.”

“Take mine!” Estha said quickly, not wanting Rahel to go near the man. -

But Rahel had already started towards him. As she approached him, he smiled at her and something about that portable piano smile, something about the steady gaze in which he held her, made her shrink from him. It was the most hideous thing she had ever seen. She spun around to look at Estha.

She backed away from the hairy man.

Estha pressed his Parry’s sweets into her hand and she felt his fever-hot fingers whose tips were as cold as death.

“Bye, Mol” Uncle said to Estha. “I’ll see you in Ayemenem sometime.”

So, the redsteps once again. This time Rahel lagging. Slow. No I don’t want to go. A ton of bricks on a leash.

“Sweet chap, that Orangedrink Lemondrink fellow,” Ammu said. – “Chhi!” Baby Kochamma said. -

“He doesn’t look it, but he was surprisingly sweet with Estha,” Ammu said.

“So why don’t you marry him then?” Rahel said petulantly.

Time stopped on the red staircase. Estha stopped. Baby Kochamma stopped.

“Rahel,” Ammu said.

Rahel froze. She was desperately sorry for what she had said. She didn’t know where those words had come from. She didn’t know that she’d had them in her. But they were out now, and wouldn’t go back in. They hung about that red staircase like clerks in a government office. Some stood, some sat and shivered their legs.

“Rahel,” Ammu said, “do you realize what you have just done?”

Frightened eyes and a fountain looked back at Ammu.

“It’s all right. Don’t be scared,” Ammu said. “Just answer me. Do you?”

“What?” Rahel said in the smallest voice she had.

“Realize what you’ve just done?” Ammu said.

Frightened eyes and a fountain looked back at Ammu.

“D’you know what happens when you hurt people?” Ammu said. “When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”

A cold moth with unusually dense dorsal tufts landed lightly on Rahel’s heart. Where its icy legs touched her, she got goosebumps. Six goosebumps on her careless heart

A little less her Ammu loved her.

And so, out the gate, up the road, and to the left. The taxi stand. A hurt mother, an ex-nun, a hot child and a cold one. Six goosebumps and a moth.

The taxi smelled of sleep. Old clothes rolled up. Damp towels. Armpits. It was, after all, the taxi driver’s home. He lived in it. It was the only place he had to store his smells. The seats had been killed. Ripped. A swathe of dirty yellow sponge spilled out and shivered on the backseat like an immense jaundiced liver. The driver had the ferrety alertness of a small rodent. He had a hooked Roman nose and a Little Richard mustache. He was so small that he watched the road through the steering wheel. To passing traffic it looked like a taxi with passengers but no driver. He drove fast, pugnaciously, darting into empty spaces, nudging other cars out of their lanes. Accelerating at zebra crossings. Jumping lights.

“Why not use a cushion or a pillow or something?” Baby Kochamma suggested in her friendly voice. “You’ll be able to see better.”

“Why not mind your own business, sister?” the driver suggested in his unfriendly one.

Driving past the inky sea, Estha put his head out of the window. He could taste the hot, salt breeze on his mouth. He could feel it lift his hair. He knew that if Ammu found out about what he had done with the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man, she’d love him less as well. Very much less. He felt the shaming churning heaving turning sickness in his stomach. He longed for the river. Because water always helps.

The sticky neon night rushed past the taxi window. It was hot inside the taxi, and quiet Baby Kochamma looked flushed and excited. She loved not being the cause of ill-feeling. Every time a pye-dog strayed onto the road, the driver made a sincere effort to kill it.

The moth on Rahel’s heart spread its velvet wings, and the chill crept into her bones.

In the Hotel Sea Queen car park, the skyblue Plymouth gossiped with other, smaller cars. HJ’I:p H.thp Hsnooh-snah. A big lady at a small ladies’ party. Tailfins aflutter.