He took my hand in his. Like his jaw, his hands were square and small. His fingers had square tips. A palm reader had said that Pappa’s hands were those of a very practical man.

Slowly I began, “Yesterday . . .” and I told Pappa what had happened. He watched me intently. He didn’t interrupt.

When I finished, he said, “Girishji is a loving, giving person. Nimita is the first person that has ever belonged to him, and he belongs to her. That probably scares him as much as it makes him happy.”

“Why would that scare him?”

“That he might lose her. Remember when you were little I used to give you coins to put in your piggy bank, but you didn’t want to part with them? You used to fall asleep holding them.”

“Yes. I remember. I was afraid that once I put them in the piggy bank, they’d be gone forever.”

Suddenly, the koyal’s call, koo-hoo, koo-hoo, filled the air. Pappa and I walked up to a tree where the song was coming from. We gazed up the tree, but we couldn’t see her.

“I’ve never seen a koyal,” I said.

“She teases with her voice, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, ‘Come and look for me,’ she says.”

“What else does she say?”

“I’m not telling; it’s our secret.”

“I’m glad you tell me some things. Without you I might not know half the things that go on in my own home.”

“Mummy talks to you—”

“She does?” he said and smirked. “Yes, yes, she tells me all I don’t need to know and a tiny bit of what I do need to know—”

“Pappa!”

“Don’t you ‘Pappa!’ me. Come, let’s go before sun heats up my head.”

“Especially the bald spot in the back there,” I teased.

Hand in hand, Pappa and I walked down the steps toward Kamla Nehru Park.

When I was young, I used to beg Pappa to take me to Kamla Nehru Park so I could climb the winding steps inside the Boot House and wave to him from the top. It had been a long time since I’d asked Pappa if we could go there.

From behind a bus a woman crossed the street toward us. I gasped. She had fans of peacock feathers peeking out from her back in a semicircle. It was as if all the peacocks of the world had chosen to display their shimmer and shine through her. Pappa looked at me and knew what I wanted. “How much?” he asked her.

“A hundred rupees.”

It was too much. We turned away.

She followed Pappa. “What will you pay me?”

He didn’t answer and kept on walking.

“Seventy-five rupees,” she said as she held out three fans to me.

“Too much,” Pappa said as he grabbed the bar to climb the bus.