“Oh?” Tara responded, arching her left eyebrow. “You mean you’ve been skulking about the first-class berths and no one has stopped to question you?”

The soldier shrugged and smiled. His smile was charming. Tara allowed herself the fleeting thought, but quickly shook her head as if to dislodge the idea from her brain. “If you were Indian, you would’ve been stopped. Colonizer privilege, I suppose,” she responded, a sarcastic smile slowly spreading across her face.

“I’m no colonizer,” he said, his lips drawn into a tight line.

“Oh no? You just wear the unif—” Tara’s eyes widened as the soldier slightly shifted his body and his right hand came fully into view. “Well, you certainly colonized my book!” she said, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

“Wha—oh, this. Yes. I mean, no. I’m sorry. The reason I was skulking about, as you so generously assumed, was to return your book. You left it on the bench. I didn’t notice until my view of you had already been blocked by passengers hurrying to the train and coolies running after them.” He held out her prized volume.

Tara raised her hand to wrap her fingers around her grandfather’s book of Rumi’s poetry. For a brief moment, the pads of their fingertips occupied nearly the same space. She felt the heat of their proximity and blushed. She noticed his nails were neatly trimmed and unusually clean. “Thank you . . . uh . . . soldier?” she whispered.

He cleared his throat. “Jimmy,” he said as Tara took the book firmly in her left hand. “Pleased to meet you . . .”

“Tara,” she replied.

Jimmy held his hand out, palm facing up. Tara hesitated for a moment. This was certainly not the expected nor accepted greeting between strangers. Especially between strangers of the opposite sex. Especially when they were alone. Especially when one of them was a British soldier. An angreyz. A gora.

Tara took a breath. She was not sure what it was about this young man that made her lose some basic common sense—perhaps his warm smile or his guileless eyes? For a moment she felt feverish. Her heart raced. Tara remembered a phrase of English poetry from a volume she’d found in her nana’s vast library, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” But the poem’s title made her blush even deeper, “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time.” What a scandalous title for the seventeenth century . . . or for this century, for that matter. She grinned and slipped her cool fingers into his hand. She held her breath as he lowered his face toward her knuckles and, gently, barely grazed them with his lips. Their warmth sent a shock through her. She felt a bead of sweat trickle down the back of her peacock-colored cotton kurta. Tara’s eyes followed Jimmy’s as he raised his head and smiled. He was still holding her hand.