He went everywhere in the city, but he did not come to me. Had he come, maybe he could have intervened, as he intervened for strangers, the devadasis and the trafficked little girls. Maybe things could have been different. He visited all the slums, including Dharavi, but he never noticed her in her Muslim camouflage. He rode the trains, but he was not there to catch her in his arms when she was pushed out as if she were a lower form of life, trash, of no account at all, as if she were unloved, as if she were motherless, as if she did not matter to anyone on this earth.

He must have made a striking figure on the streets of Mumbai, six feet, six inches tall, solid muscle, with his long blonde beard and flowing blonde sidelocks, his best kaftan, satin, gold-and-blue striped, with its prominently displayed sheriff’s badge, a silver, six-pointed star on which he had proudly printed in indelible ink the word Jude, a silken tasseled rope belt girding his waist, or perhaps, as many who had seen him maintained, it was a leather holster bulging with two pistols, his black felt Borsalino hat with its extra-wide brim rakishly angled like a Stetson, and the personal touch of his impenetrable mirrored sunglasses, like the Lone Ranger’s black mask. Who was that masked man? Everyone wondered as he rode off, fighting for truth and justice. Passersby pulled out their cell phones and snapped, his image sluiced through the pipelines of social media. He looked like a supporting cast member from the thrilling days of yesteryear who had gotten lost, wandered off one of the Bollywood sets, like a Gary Cooper knockoff striding into the wrong ghost town too late, too late, long past high noon.

He made his way, bowlegged from having spent too long in the saddle, through the lanes of the Kamathipura red-light district as if tracking down the bad guys. What he was actually searching for though, like a vigilante, was any Jewish girl who might have been trafficked, or one way or another had taken the wrong turn and gotten herself caught in this shameful place—a post-army Israeli backpacker, for example, or a zoned-out, spoiled American kid from New York stricken with swami syndrome who had fallen down this black rabbit’s hole. As Rebbie-ji always said, “The kids are out there seeking, seeking—so why is it that they are finding them and not us? Oy, we have such a big job to do.” Whatever foul mess she had gotten herself into, if she was Jewish, Buki wanted her. It was his responsibility to free her in fulfillment of the exceedingly crucial mitzvah to redeem Jewish captives. And even if there was disagreement as to whether this mandate applied to women captives as well, Buki felt very strongly that it just was not nice for a Jewish girl to be seen in such a place.