Everybody had wondered how Mr Karim, a Muslim in India, had managed to hold on to his grand Calcutta property during the troubles of partition in the late forties. When other Muslim families had been forced to hurriedly abandon their homes and belongings as they made for West or East Pakistan, the Karim clan had simply relocated over the border to their property in the Bengal for a few years, with the swiftness and relative safety afforded by wealth, and had returned to Calcutta when the worst of it was over. As the new head of the family, forced to look after his father’s business affairs whether he wanted to or not, Rashid discovered that the key to their dubious Calcutta comfort was a Mephistophelian pact that his father had made with a well-known local businessman. Mr Karim had signed their Calcutta property over to this Hindu acquaintance, on the understanding that the property would remain safe if already in Hindu hands, and had paid a rent for the privilege of returning. The gentleman businessman, on Mr Karim’s death, proved to be more of a businessman than a gentleman - he explained regretfully to Rashid that he had kept the rent low during Mr Karim’s life out of deference to their long-standing friendship, but he could no longer afford to be so generous. He raised the rent so steeply that it would barely be covered by the income from the Bengali farms over the border in East Pakistan. Although the family had the trappings of wealth, Rashid saw that they were on the verge of bankruptcy. How would they continue to manage the house, the ser-vants, or Aziz’s school fees abroad? He took his first bold decision as the head of the household, and moved the entire family over to their estates near Dhaka.

Henna was furious that she was being packaged back to the Bengali backwater she had been persuaded to marry to escape - who had ever heard of an East Pakistani film star? Everyone knew that only Indians made movies. She started working on a new plan, for when things had settled down, of moving with Ricky to Bombay to one of those modern beach-front apartments she read about in her magazines, where she would socialize with the jet set and meet Bollywood directors who would be overcome by her beauty and cast her as their new romantic heroine.