Bharati Mukherjee - Miss New India

Tookie shrugged her leather jacket off her shoulders. The dog walker was just behind her to catch it. "Girlfriend, this kitty still has six lives left." She introduced her two companions as "gal pals" Dalia and Rosie; no last names. They too burdened the dog walker with their jackets. Both were model-tall, their legs encased in white stretch jeans, their bra lines visible under halter tops, bruises tattooing the bared flesh of shoulders and forearms. The dog walker was too entranced to go back to front-door duty.

"What happened to you!" Mrs. Khanna cried. She and Dr. (Mrs.) Ghosh had just finished their tour of Parvati's art collection and were crossing the hallway on their way to the origami display in Auro's office.

Parvati took charge at once. She shouted to the kitchen sisters to bring a bowl of ice cubes to the powder room. "Any broken bones, do you think? Concussion? Our driver is here, he can get you to the hospital for x-rays. Too many bikes, too many accidents. No, don't sit down. Oh, dear, are you feeling drowsy?" She ordered the dog walker to alert the chauffeur.

"Can you get her to chill?" Tookie mouthed the words to Anjali.

"Ice pack," Dr. (Mrs.) Ghosh said. "Anjali, take them to the bathroom and apply an ice pack to the swellings straightaway."

Once inside the bathroom Tookie asked, "How can you stand to be around these crisis freaks?"

"Mrs. Banerji means well."

"I heard good things about her painting collection. Where is it?"

Boys-and-Booze Tookie, an art lover? "I'll take you," she said, and tried to remember the names of the lady painters. There was an Anjolie. Dalia dumped the bowlful of ice cubes into the sink. She traced the edges of the largest bruise on her forearm with a loving fingertip. "Medal of war. Sidewalks have become war zones."

"Fucking fundamentalists! We're talking Bangalore, IT capital for God's sake, not the fucking Swat Valley!"

Rosie let loose a war cry. "Bring it on, assholes!"

"You didn't crash? You got beat up?"

"Yeah. Boys with chains and cricket bats, looking for girls coming out of bars. Where do you stand? You can't be a civilian anymore."

Dalia unlocked the door and poked her head out. "All clear! What's that thumpy music? What's upstairs? Action central?" She didn't wait for Anjali's answer.

Rosie and Tookie followed Dalia up the stairs to Rabi's suite. Anjali stood behind them as they peered into the crowded room. Rabi's party was in full swing. Large emptied bottles of Indian beer. Low lights and loud beat. Just-met acquaintances forging cosmic connections. Anjali felt like an alien in Rabi's universe.

Tookie didn't hide her disappointment. "Dude, so not-our-scene," she grumbled as she led her posse back down the stairs. "Give us a ring when you need a pub run on Residency. Ciao!"

Tookie had judged Anjali unfit to be one of Tookie's "gal pals." It brought a closure of sorts. Minnie was dead, the Bagehot Girls disbanded, Husseina an international miscreant, Bagehot House wrecked, and the jungle cleared for Jacaranda Estates, advertised by the development company as "a self-sufficient, ultra-luxurious lifestyle complex for the ultra-affluent." The first phase of her Big Bangalore Adventure was over. What next, and where? The forces of evil had amassed.

Tookie's apocalyptic vision and Rosie's war slogan didn't inspire the same urgency that Peter's exhortations to get out of Gauripur had. Anjali lingered on the threshold of Rabi's suite, reluctant to crash, unwilling to leave. The older Khanna son, lean, and looking leaner in a black muscle shirt and black jeans, waved at her with his beer bottle. She smiled back. He was on the fringes of a knot of Scandinavians whom Rabi had fished with in Bheemswari. The Khanna brothers, their American college friends, and the Scandinavians seemed so in the moment. The past held her in a headlock. She could step over the threshold; she could fake having a blast; why not? Both the Bengali Svengali and Mr. GG had stood her up; so what?

She ventured a tentative toe inside, and suddenly in a far corner of the hot, smoky room she spotted the Bengali Svengali. He must have arrived while she was attending to Tookie, Dalia, and Rosie. There he was, dimpled, floppy-haired, Bollywood-handsome, Hawaiian-shirted, his back pressed against the wall, a wineglass in hand, as teasingly real as water in a mirage. Rabi stood facing him, Rabi's scrawny torso leaning toward him, Rabi's bony arms encircling him without touching, palms flat on the wall. This had to be their first-ever meeting, but she detected a connection between them… not just the music… trust, ease, unself-conscious confidence. And some other quality… a tenderness, yes, that was it.

From the landing of the stairs, she could hear Mrs. Khanna, the Drs. Ghosh, and their three daughters saying their drawn-out thank-yous and goodbyes to Auro and Parvati. "Mrs. Banerjee, I applaud your kind heart," Dr. (Mrs.) Ghosh boomed in her judgmental voice, "but… you don't want her around when Bhupesh and Dinesh get back." Mrs. Khanna too had a suspicious nature. "These modern working girls flocking to Bangalore, they're full of schemes, I tell you. They trap innocent boys from good families. I don't let my two hang out on the Brigades!"

Anjali stole down a few steps so she could see as well as hear. Parvati dropped Mr. Champion's name-the famous author-to reassure Mrs. Khanna and the Ghoshes, or maybe to reassure herself; Anjali couldn't be sure. She had thought of herself as the victim of gathering evil forces, just like Minnie Bagehot. To the cautious Dollar Colony mothers, evil forces had taken over, and she-schemer, gold digger, opportunist migrant-was the enemy.

You can't be a civilian anymore, Tookie had warned her. But why must there be a duel-to-the-death before Dynamo's new species could emerge?

Down in the front hall, the hugs and farewells continued. The house dogs had somehow escaped their sequestering, but they behaved themselves. "They're charming on the surface, but cunning inside."

"Mrs. Khanna is giving you the unvarnished truth, Parvati." She was using Bangla, and Anjali, after a few weeks in the proudly Bangla-speaking Banerji home, understood it perfectly. "The time for this beating-around-the-bush politeness is past. You decide what you want to do about the noose around your neck. By the way, that gorgeous gold choker you're wearing, did you get it at Tanishq?"

It may have been an unconscious gesture, but with her left hand Parvati protected her throat. Twenty-two-karat gold glimmered between her splayed fingers. Anjali fled upstairs to her room in shame.

Early the next morning, a peon from Mr. GG's office arrived in a noisy auto-rickshaw with a letter and a bouquet of tiger lilies for Parvati. When Anjali heard the rickshaw brake to a stop, she assumed the passenger was Parvati's tailor, a bespectacled, professorial-looking Sikh gentleman who could no longer ride his bicycle to his clients' homes because of cataracts in both eyes. He stopped by once a week to drop off orders completed and to pick up lengths of fabric and sketches for new clothes. Auro kept him busy making dark suits for the office, linen leisure suits for dress-down Fridays, and colorful kurtas for evenings and weekends. For Parvati, who wore saris, he sewed choli blouses, coolweather capes, and caftans for family-only evenings at home. Anjali snapped up Parvati's invitation to let him sew a replacement wardrobe for everything she'd lost in the Bagehot House riot.

The earnest old man with milky irises copied avant-garde slacks, vests, jackets, and peignoir sets from fashion magazines. The frugal era of mall prowling and drooling over designer outfits on mannequins was over, at least for as long as she kept on the good side of Auro and Parvati. She was teaching herself a new two-step of Desire and Fulfillment. The tailor needed work to feed his family; Parvati, a compulsive benefactor, needed feel-good projects. Why couldn't the Dollar Colony matrons see that she was compulsively dispensing happiness?