The bus, with a blown tire, wheeled onto the shoulder of Marine Drive, one of Bombay’s busiest streets. Ad Magic straight-armed the side emergency-exit door and staggered outside. He could breathe well enough, but his throat felt bruised. He shucked off his teal-green cashmere V-neck sweater. It had been madness wearing that. The air outside the bus was humid and suffocating. Ad Magic recognized Chowpatty Beach and realized he was on a peninsula that extended into the Arabian Sea like a finger. He knew that Bombay consisted of a series of islands off the coast of India, and that from this point he was less than a few miles from the Gateway of India, where the tour had originated.

A small boy, about eight or ten—it was hard to tell, partly because he had a shaved head—approached Ad Magic, carrying a rhesus monkey on his shoulder. The monkey, dressed in a dirty red uniform with epaulets, gold piping, and a tiny bellman’s cap, began an incomprehensible performance in the art of mime. When it was over, the monkey approached the American and presented its upturned hat to him as a collection cup. Ad Magic began to cough again as he fished in his pockets. He placed a half-dozen rupees in the monkey’s cap and tossed his expensive sweater to the boy. “Go ahead,” he said. “Take it. It’s all yours.”

The Bahraini woman had seen the monkey’s performance and emitted a shrill, trilling cry. One of the men, who could speak a little English, said facetiously, “Bravo. Excellent monkey.”

The tour guide climbed out of the bus and callously questioned the American about his condition. Ad Magic said he was all right, and then she chastised him for giving so much money to the boy. “Not is good,” she said with a sneer. Ad Magic walked away from the guide and the Bahrainis, wanting nothing more to do with them. He moved from the road onto the sand of Chowpatty Beach, and when he felt sufficiently separated from them he turned and watched as the guide skillfully led the party of Bahrainis across the whizzing four-lane traffic of Marine Drive and into a decrepit establishment called the New Zealand Café.

There were billboards on either side of the grimy, stuccoed building. One, in English, advertised Gabriel shock absorbers. The other, featuring an apparently famous Indian leading man, who had sort of a Rudolph Valentino look, was in Hindi. It was an advertisement for men’s hairdressing. Beyond the café, through the filter of buzzing traffic and the haze of diesel fuel, Ad Magic spotted a cardboard shantytown. The settlement was centered around a crescent-shaped drainage ditch, and people could be seen squatting there, shamelessly relieving themselves, while at the other end of the obscene ditch, women were washing laundry.