"Lettie has a pretty good contact at the Foreigner Registration Branch. He's a senior police official who has an obsession with sapphire gems, and Lettie supplies them to him at the wholesale rate, or a little below. Sometimes, in exchange for this... favour... she can arrange to have a visa renewed, almost indefinitely. Maurizio wanted to extend his visa for another year. He allowed Lettie to think he was in love with her-well, you can say he seduced her-and when he got what he wanted, he dumped her."
"Lettie's your friend..."
"I warned her. Maurizio is not a man to love. You can do everything else with him, but not love him. She didn't listen to me."
"You still like Maurizio? Even after he did that to your friend?"
"Maurizio did exactly what I knew he would do. In his own mind, he made a trade of his affection for the visa, and it was a fair trade. He would never try anything like that with me."
"Is he afraid of you?" I asked, smiling.
"Yes. I think he is, a little bit. That's one of the reasons I like him. I could never respect a man who didn't have the good sense to be at least a little bit afraid of me." She stood up, and I rose with her. Under the street lamp her green eyes were jewels of desire, wet with light. Her lips widened in a half-smile that was mine-a moment that was mine alone-and the beggar, my heart, began to hope and plead.
"Tomorrow," she said, "when you go to Prabaker's village, try to relax completely, and go with the experience. Just... let yourself go. Sometimes, in India, you have to surrender before you win."
"You've always got some wise advice, haven't you?" I said, laughing gently.
"That's not wise, Lin. I think wisdom is very over-rated. Wisdom is just cleverness, with all the guts kicked out of it. I'd rather be clever than wise, any day. Most of the wise people I know give me a headache, but I never met a clever man or woman I didn't like. If I was giving wise advice-which I'm not-I'd say don't get drunk, don't spend all your money, and don't fall in love with a pretty village girl. That would be wise. That's the difference between clever and wise. I prefer to be clever, and that's why I told you to surrender, when you get to the village, no matter what you find when you get there. Okay. I'm going. Come and see me when you get back. I look forward to it. I really do."
She kissed my cheek, and turned away. I couldn't obey the impulse to hold her in my arms and kiss her lips. I watched her walk, her dark silhouette a part of the night itself. Then she moved into the warm, yellow light near the door of her apartment, and it was as if my watching eyes had made her shadow come to life, as if my heart alone had painted her from darkness with the light and colours of love. She turned once to see that I was watching her, before she softly closed and locked the door.
That last hour with her was a Borsalino test, I was sure, and all the walking way back to the hotel I asked myself if I'd passed it, or if I'd failed. I still think about it, all these years later. I still don't know.
The long, flat interstate platforms at Victoria Terminus train station stretched out to vanishing points beneath a metal heaven of rolling vaulted ceilings. The cherubs of that architectural sky were pigeons, so far overhead in their flutter from roost to roost that they were only faintly discernible; distant, celestial beings of flight, and white light. The great station-those who used it every day knew it as VT.-was justly famous for the splendour of its intricately detailed facades, towers, and exterior ornaments. But its most sublime beauty, it seemed to me, was found in its cathedral interiors. There, the limitations of function met the ambitions of art, as the timetable and the timeless commanded equal respect.
For a long hour I sat on and amid our pile of luggage at the street end of the northbound interstate platform. It was six o'clock in the evening, and the station was filled with people, luggage, bundles of goods, and an agricultural assortment of live and recently deceased animals.
Prabaker ran into the crowds milling between two stationary trains. It was the fifth time I'd watched him leave. And then, a few minutes later, for the fifth time, I watched him run back.
"For God's sake, sit down, Prabu."
"Can't be sitting, Lin."
"Well, let's get on the train, then."
"Can't be getting on also, Lin. It is not now the time for the getting on the train."
"So... when will it be the time for the getting on the train?"
"I think... a little bit almost quite very soon, and not long.
Listen! Listen!"
There was an announcement. It might've been in English. It was the kind of sound an angry drunk makes, amplified through the unique distortions of many ancient, cone-shaped speakers. As he listened to it, Prabaker's face moved from apprehension to anguish.
"Now! Now, Lin! Quickly! We must hurry! You must hurry!"
