Over the next hour, we chatted about my job and hers. She was a stewardess for Lufthansa. Harlan offered the tired old standby, “Coffee, tea, or me?” She didn’t get it. We didn’t discuss Harlan’s work. He insisted the details of corn cultivation would only “bring us down.” His words. Birgit needed no convincing. I found her to be sharp and well informed about world events. She was twenty-seven, spoke German, English, and French, skills that surely came in handy for a stewardess. Especially in the first-class cabin of the long-haul routes that she worked.

“Don’t airline crews usually stay near the airport?” I asked.

“Yes, but they canceled our flight this morning. This Emergency. I’m here for three days more. And since there’s nothing to do near the airport, I came here.”

“All the better for us,” offered Harlan.

“What do you do for fun in Bombay?” she asked me, ignoring him.

“Mostly, I go to the office and come home.”

“That’s sad,” she said. “You should explore the city. Have you seen the temple caves at Elephanta? Maybe we could visit them on Saturday?”

I blushed. “The Emergency is big news right now. I won’t have time to take the whole day for that.”

“Maybe a party, then? Do you go to parties?”

I thought of Willy Smets. And Sushmita. Much more interesting to think of her. But they were in Poona. I wasn’t sure when they’d be back in Bombay or if they were planning any parties. Unlikely. There was Ashok Pethe’s dinner the next week, of course, but Birgit would be long gone by then.

Harlan offered to take her to see the elephants.

“Elephanta,” said Birgit. “It’s an island.”

“Fine. Or we could have a party in my room.”

“Can you call it a party if you’re the only person there?”

I laughed so hard, some of my drink came out my nose. I coughed for the next five minutes. Harlan took her joke pretty well, considering how devastating it was.

The waiter appeared above us to say the permit room was closing. He presented the bill. Harlan wanted to know whatever had happened to last call. He was pretty drunk by then, but signed the charge to his room without even checking the total.

Harlan was on the eleventh floor. My room was on the ninth, Birgit’s on the fifth. When the lift stopped on the eleventh, he stumbled out, waving to us over his head without turning to look back. The doors closed and the next stop was nine. I glanced at my watch. It was a little after midnight. The doors rolled open, and I told her this was my stop. She leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Gute Nacht, Dan,” she said, an adorable smile on her pink lips.

The doors closed and the lift was gone. Was that flirting?