"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
"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."
She winked at me, the start of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"You may not be the first one he asked. You may be the first one of his tourists crazy enough to actually say yes, but it amounts to the same thing."
"Do you think I'm crazy to accept the invitation?"
"Not at all! Or at least, crazy in the right way, like the rest of us. Where is the village?"
"I don't know, exactly. It's in the north of the state. He told me it takes a train and two bus rides to get there."
"Didier's right. You have to go. If you want to stay here, in Bombay, as you say then you should spend some time in the village. The village is the key."
A passing waiter took our last order, and moments later brought a banana lassi for Karla and a chai for me.
"How long did it take you to feel comfortable here, Karla? I mean, you always seem so relaxed and at home. It's like you've always been here."
"Oh, I don't know. It's the right place for me, if you understand what I mean, and I knew that on the first day, in the first hour that I came here. So, in a sense, I was comfortable from the beginning."
"It's funny you say that. I felt a bit like that myself. Within an hour of landing at the airport, I had this incredibly strong feeling that this was the right place for me."
"And I suppose that the real breakthrough came with the language.
When I started to dream in Hindi, I knew that I was at home here.
Everything has fallen into place since then."
"Is that it now? Are you going to stay here forever?"
"There's no such thing as forever," she answered in her slow, deliberate way. "I don't know why we use the word."
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll stay until I get what I want. And then, maybe, I'll go somewhere else."
"What do you want, Karla?"
She frowned in concentration, and shifted her gaze to stare directly into my eyes. It was an expression I came to know well, and it seemed to say, If you have to ask the question, you have no right to the answer.
"I want everything," she replied with a faint, wry smile. "You know, I said that once, to a friend of mine, and he told me that the real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it."
