He had promised that he would go back and make up his mind whether he wanted to buy the chiffonier. He had come to their country, opened his factories where the young girls sat day after day, hour after hour at the machines which churned out expendable garments to be shipped to other faraway countries. He would soon be forgotten like all the other Melwyns of the world who filled their homes in new lands with whatever bric-a-brac they could lay their hands on.

Melwyn looked up at the tall shabbily dressed figure of Raj with pity and contempt and superiority. He admired him and despised him at the same time. Looking at the mended, frayed shirt of the schoolteacher he said: ‘Yes, I will send you shirts from my factory. You come, you live in the dormitory and you teach my friends English. We will feed you and look after you. After that I open a big restaurant with Chinese food. Then my waiters talk good English. You teach them.’ But Melwyn had lost even his real name. The missionary teachers could not pronounce it, so they changed it. He couldn’t read his own language. He was like his friends, depersonalized.

‘I say, Camille, do you know Nero’s Palace?’ boomed Kendrick. ‘At the casino they serve you any kind of drink you fancy—champagne, cognac, courvoisier, anything; you should see the chips flying …’

Before they left Kendrick came up to Camille who was standing on the drive leading up to the house. She waited suspended against the late evening light to lift her hand in a gesture of farewell. Waiting for the act of waving them off and turning her face once more to the fields and the river. He stood before her, pipe clenched between his teeth, and hissed, spitting out the words: ‘Sharpers, I say, these fellows are absolute sharpers.’

The words were uttered softly yet fiercely. No one else heard them. ‘I’ll never give anything to anyone free. Not a thing,’ he continued.

Camille looked at him wordlessly. She waited patiently to turn her face away from words and from people. The water was darkening in the river. The cranes were flying homeward.