Janaki nods, moves towards him and lays her head against his chest.

He looks down at her untidy hair, strokes it lightly, then sits her down in a chair. He has things to say which must be said now.

‘Look, Janaki, I’m nearly thirteen years older than you.’ His voice is studiedly neutral.

‘So?’ She raises her eyebrows quizzically at him.

‘I have all sorts of fears. I might go suddenly blind. Things like that.’

‘Everybody has fears.’

‘But there’s one fear in particular.’

‘Which?’

‘That I might suddenly decide to disappear.’

‘Because of your Anna? Disappearing is not hereditary.’

‘There’s a story about my grandfather too.’

‘I said it’s not hereditary. But tell me.’

‘We had some land in a village called Arsal in the Konkan. We were fairly prosperous. At some point my grandfather began to hear strains of the flute and he took off in the middle of the rice-sowing season, without saying a word to anybody. Grandmother saw him go and, because of the look in his eyes, knew he wouldn’t return. So she put Anna on her hip and followed him. Anna’s uncle tried to stop her but she wouldn’t turn back. Every few hours she would ask my grandfather where they were going but he kept walking not saying a word. Grandfather wandered restlessly from place to place, halting for the night then moving on again. One night they halted at Surgaon. As always, they slept in the village temple. When they woke up in the morning, grandfather looked around him in a daze. He said to my grandmother, ‘I can’t hear the flute. We’ve arrived.’ So they sat there waiting. The villagers were astonished to find a Brahmin taking shelter in their temple. The temple priest had died only the previous night without heir or disciple. My grandfather told them he had been called to serve the Lord. That’s how he settled in Surgaon.’

‘Villagers sit under peepul trees and spin yarns to pass the time. In time the stories become more and more bizarre. You don’t believe in this one, do you?’

‘Thinking rationally, I don’t. But I’ve heard it so often since I was a child that it’s become part of my history. Anna too must have heard it from the time he was a child. Could our minds be suggestible? Anna followed his urge because his father had followed his? Myths work at deeper levels than true stories.’

‘If you go, I’ll go with you, like your grandmother.’

‘But I may not tell you. Anna didn’t tell us.’

‘You’d have stopped him.’

‘Because he had responsibilities.’