When the time came to leave, I made the excuse that I needed some personal items. Maybe I could find them in Camp. Willy offered me a car, but I said I’d walk and take an auto. Sushmita said nothing, and I worried I was losing her. Maybe she was hurt that I was setting out on my own, or maybe she resented my recent trip to Nepal and my kowtowing to Willy. Either way she was right, of course. I wanted to tell her why I was neglecting her and risking everything. But that wasn’t possible. Not yet.

I jumped into an auto rickshaw on North Main Road, not far from the German Bakery, where Sushmita and I had shared a coffee a week or so earlier.

In Camp, I browsed the aisles at Dorabjee’s, playing the role of expat to a T. I crossed paths with several Brits, Germans, and French as I filled my basket with things I didn’t really need. Waiting for the appointed hour of eleven, I weighed the benefits against the drawbacks of buying the sausages, the American cereal brands, and even the perfumes one couldn’t find elsewhere. In the end, I abandoned everything in my basket except a can of Right Guard deodorant. Funny you could find that at Dorabjee’s. I’d never truly intended to purchase anything, but I couldn’t return empty-handed. That might have raised suspicions. Then I made my way to the top floor, where Sushmita and I had enjoyed our veg biryani.

There in the café, I waited. And waited some more. I consulted my watch several times, wondering if I’d been reading the wrong day’s paper. Where the hell was Birgit? Or Ranjit? They were leaving me twisting in the wind.

And then my paranoia really kicked into gear. What if they’d been intercepted along the way? What if Willy was well aware of what we were up to? Everyone in the place suddenly looked suspect to me. The two university students gazing into each other’s eyes opposite me. The old Parsee lady guarding her tea until it turned cold, evaporated, or the British returned, whichever came first. Were these people in league with Willy? Was I in danger for having answered the ad?

This was madness. A couple of twenty-year-old students and an old woman were not spying on me. If he hadn’t discovered my betrayal under his own roof, why would he suspect anything on a Tuesday morning in Camp?

It was now past 11:40. No one was coming. I made good my exit without the old Parsee lady tackling me and injecting me with sodium pentothal to learn my secrets. The two students did watch me go, but I chalked that up to my being a gora. Everyone watched the gore.