FLORA Mr Das, I think there’s soda water in the refrigerator. Would you … ?

DAS Oh yes. But is it locked? I cannot find Nazrul.

FLORA Oh … I’m already hot again. And no electricity for the fan. It’s too late for modesty. (She discards the towel and gets under the sheet.) Anyway, I’m your model.

DAS I will fetch soda water from the shop.

FLORA That was the thing I was going to ask you.

DAS When?

FLORA The delicate question … whether you would prefer to paint me nude.

DAS Oh.

FLORA I preferred it. I had more what-do-you-call it.

DAS Rasa.

FLORA (Laughs quietly) Yes, rasa.

Das leaves the bedroom and goes along the verandah towards the servants’ quarters and disappears round the corner.

Mrs Swan returns with Das’s portrait of Flora. The canvas is inside a cardboard tube.

MRS SWAN This is how it came back from the publishers. I tuck things away. You hold her and I’ll pull the tube.

ANISH Thank you.

MRS SWAN Well, there she is.

ANISH Oh … !

MRS SWAN Yes, a bit much, isn’t it?

ANISH Oh … it’s so vibrant.

MRS SWAN Vibrant. Yes … oh, you’re not going to blub too, are you?

ANISH (Weeping) I’m sorry.

MRS SWAN Don’t worry. Borrow my hanky …

He takes her handkerchief.

ANISH Please excuse me …

MRS SWAN It just goes to show, you need an eye. And your father, after all, was, like you, an Indian painter.

ANISH I’m sorry I … you know.

MRS SWAN No, I should not have been disparaging. Let me see. (She takes the painting from Anish and looks at it.) Yes, book jackets and biscuit tins are all very well, but obviously there’s something that stays behind in the painting after all.

ANISH Yes. Even unfinished.

MRS SWAN Unfinished?

ANISH It wasn’t clear from the book, the way they cropped the painting. You see where my father has only indicated the tree, and the monkey … He would have gone back to complete the background only when he considered the figure finished. Believe me. I wondered why he hadn’t signed it. Now I know. My father abandoned this portrait.

MRS SWAN Why?

ANISH He began another one.

MRS SWAN How do you know, Mr Das?

ANISH Because I have it.

He opens his briefcase and withdraws the watercolour which is hardly larger than the page of a book, protected by stiff boards. He shows her the painting which is described in the text.

MRS SWAN Oh heavens! Oh … yes … of course. How like Flora.

ANISH More than a good likeness, Mrs Swan.

MRS SWAN No … I mean, how like Flora!

She continues to look at the painting. Nazrul returns to the dak bungalow, with shopping, the worse for wear, disappearing towards the kitchen area where Das starts shouting at him and Nazrul is heard protesting. Das returns to view with a bottle of soda-water. He speaks first from outside the bedroom.