The room was in a mess. I set about tidying up; her stringy tops and chunnis, the discarded condoms on the floor—the semen attracting a train of ants like stale lemonade. Big black ants arrived, sniffed, then moved away.

I have been tidying up for the past twenty minutes. I have completely forgotten about Madhu. When I look up I see her eyes quivering. I smile. I say, nice one, Madhu. The quivering doesn’t stop. I drop the broom and rush to the bed. Stop joking, Madhu. She bangs her fists on the bed, her entire body overcome by convulsions. Her full lips and dainty chin have disappeared under a river of spittle; her mouth is a frothing volcano.

For the first time I scream. Madhoooo . . . you can’t do this . . . come back . . . don’t die on me. My scream runs down the corridor and returns chastened, a trifle muted. I lift her head and wipe the spit with a mauve towelling napkin my mother bought for me in Bombay. I know she is going to die. I think of the seedy hotel room. I think of Delhi cops. I think about the status of unmarried couples in India. I am thinking of jail when the convulsions cease.

That evening, it happens for the second time. We are standing opposite Sagar in Defence Colony market. We are supposed to meet my photographer friend Prashant. Def Col is crawling with Def Col women. Tight jeans, sleeveless tops, manicured nails, long straight hair. I follow one specimen with my eyes. She enters a grocery store and emerges with a tube of Pringles. I fumble in my trouser pocket for a broken cigarette.

I notice that people are looking at me. In fact they seem to be looking at my shoes. I look at my shoes. Madhu has fallen on the road. She is banging her fists again. Electricity courses through her veins. We are surrounded by people. My cigarette rolls towards someone’s pink toenails packed tight in stiletto heels. Car wheels pass inches from her hair, her head. Somebody gets me a bottle of mineral water. I splash some on her face. I hear myself screaming.

When she comes to she has no eyeballs. I look into the blank white spaces under her eyelids. Her cheeks are streaked with eyeliner. People lean out of their cars and stare at us with hungry eyes. There is a caterer’s shop across the road. The owner walks across and invites us in. The shop has a bed; he suggests she can lie down there.

Madhu’s head is on my right thigh. I am stroking her hair with my right hand. My other hand is trying to tidy up. The contents of her handbag are all over the road. An eyeshadow pencil. A strip of Alprax. A Nokia phone. A black Reynolds ballpoint. One loose morning-after pill lying millimetres from a cake of cow dung.