With you our precious jewel bezeled between us, Manika in front gripping one of your hands leading the way, I the rearguard clutching your other hand, we set out single file into the perilous darkness illuminated here and there by yellow lights powered by emergency generators. In our hooded rain ponchos, we were silhouetted like medieval pilgrims fleeing the apocalyptic devastation of water and plague through the deserted streets of Colaba and the Fort District, trusting our survival to Manika our guide. Not far from the porpoise atop Flora Fountain, in front of a massive edifice, weighty and indestructible in the mighty Victorian Gothic style bequeathed to Bombay by the British occupiers, a tank with a rotating gun was stationed in the brilliant glare of the headlights of a cordon of army jeeps.

This was where Manika halted. A sizable military battalion, uniformed and fully equipped, was encamped there, the troops smoking and checking their cell phones, carrying out official duties. Manika immediately drew out the invitation and handed it to the officer in command. She opened the sack and dumped our shoes into a designated bin, took off her boots and plastic bags and poncho and indicated to us to do the same. Two pitiless attack dogs on leashes were brought forward to sniff us. A female officer approached and without a word began the pat-down, frisking us one after the other right out there in the public space since this was India where nothing is private, her hands exploring the entire topography of our bodies, over and up and in between, nothing was sacred, nothing was new or unique or special, we were all endowed with the same stuff, simply variations on a theme. Ah, to be touched by a woman again, it was good, how I missed it, though I did not appreciate at all being forced to witness the same treatment administered by this low-level type to my child. Watch it kiddo, I was tempted to blurt out, that’s my innocent daughter you’re violating, but Manika telegraphed a cautionary glance and I restrained myself. Clearly, she had been here before, she knew the drill.

We were subjected to full-body radiation exposure in an X-ray booth, then waved through to what looked like a bank vault but was in fact a private elevator manned by two guards armed with submachine guns, which whisked us up to a floor that had no number and let us out in front of a retractable steel grille. Four more officers were stationed here, and the entire security procedure was replayed in quick time—documents, body check, metal detection, interrogation, and so on. At last the steel grille was drawn back to reveal a thick door padded in black leather and studded with brass nails, which was opened, and beyond that another door, mahogany, elegantly wrought and richly lacquered such as befitted this luxury apartment building. Nailed to the doorpost was a large ornate silver mezuzah, which out of perversity I kissed as Rabbi Mendy himself opened the door.