Sushmita had brought back spinach, carrots, potatoes, rice, and dal. Some salt, too, and tinned tomatoes. Thinking me an American with a picky palate, she’d also found a box of spaghetti—an Italian brand imported from the UAE—but no Kraft Parmesan cheese in a green can. We’d have to make do with the tomatoes and salt.

“We’re having a feast?” I asked.

“You’re going to cook me that spaghetti.”

“So your father is a law professor at Yale?” she asked long after we’d devoured our spaghetti in tomato sauce and left the dishes for another day. “Is that why they let you in?”

“Maybe. But I had excellent grades and test scores. Plus I played a little football, remember?”

“Football? Why should that help you get into university?”

I explained, and she rolled her eyes. “Ridiculous. What position did you play?”

“I was an end. Receiver.”

“Receiver? Like the wicket keeper in cricket?”

“Not quite. The wicket keeper’s more like the catcher in baseball.”

Silence and a dumb look.

“Never mind,” I said. “A receiver runs down the field and catches passes from the quarterback.”

I asked if she’d played any sports in school.

“Of course. A real sport. Badminton.”

I laughed so hard she pinched me to shut me up.

“Not tennis? Badminton?”

She shook her head. “What else did you do at university? Besides running down the field and catching balls with a ridiculous tin pot on your head?”

“I ran track and field. The 440 and 880. And I studied journalism, of course, and worked on the college paper, the Yale Daily News, for four years.”

“The cartoon pages?”

I smirked at her. “Columnist and editor.”

“What a boring boy you were. Didn’t you do anything interesting? And don’t tell me football again.”

“I rowed crew my freshman year.”

“Coxswain?”

I shoved her playfully. “Engine room.”

“What else, you fascinating man?”

I thought back to my college days and remembered one thing. “I got arrested three times at antiwar demonstrations.”

The next day went by in much the same manner, although we finally got our act together and made a big meal of the vegetables she’d bought. Cleaning the spinach was a major concern for me. Not only did I worry that our pathetic culinary skills would affect the successful outcome of the dish, but the mud in the leaves gave me cause to doubt the wisdom of eating it at all. Sush assured me it would be all right.

I scraped the carrots and chopped them, while Sush peeled the potatoes and made the dal in the pressure cooker.

“This place is pretty isolated. How do you keep it safe from thieves?” I asked as we busied ourselves. “I mean when you’re away.”

“There’s a gardener who comes by every week. And then there’s the Naval College. They’ve always kept an eye on the place. Because of my father, you know.”