Ad Magic didn’t know who he was or how he had come to India. He only knew that there were times when he became so depressed and irritable and finally so raving mad that he had to throw his medication away, bolt out, and intoxicate himself or in some way extinguish his consciousness. He felt this way now. He felt a loathing for everything on the face of the earth, including himself—but the suffering of this white horse was something he could not abide. It was a relief, suddenly, to have something other than himself and his hangover on which to fix his attention.

He summoned the boy, who was now proudly wearing the cashmere sweater, and took him and the monkey across the road to the New Zealand Café. The air inside was laden with cooking grease and cigarette smoke, but a pair of ceiling fans beat through the haze like inverted helicopters. A waiter in a dingy white jacket was serving tea and a plate of sticky cookies to the Bahrainis. From the kitchen, a radio blared a tinny version of “Limehouse Blues.” Ad Magic pulled a chair up next to the tour guide and said, “Ask the boy who that horse on the beach belongs to.”

The guide was a good-looking woman in her late thirties, who fluctuated mercurially between obsequiousness and sullen aggression. She wore an orange sari that seemed immaculately clean. Ad Magic wondered how she managed that, after the boat trip to Elephanta and the long Bombay city tour. He watched her interrogate the boy. Then she turned to Ad Magic and said, “Horse belongs to circus man, and cannot work anymore. Wandering horse now. Free to come and go.”

Ad Magic asked the guide whether she could make a phone call and summon a veterinarian.

“Veterinarian?” she said, reacting to the word bitterly, as if he had made an indecent request.

“You’re right. That’s silly, isn’t it. There must not be any veterinarians, or, if any, relatively few on call, even in such a sophisticated city as Bombay—and you’ve been through a long day, and now the bus has been wrecked. Forgive me. I’m not feeling very well today. Let me ask you. Can you tell me at which hotel I am staying?”

“The Taj,” she said.

“Right, the Taj. That’s what I thought.” Ad Magic placed a half-dozen American ten-dollar bills on the table. “Please accept this little gratuity. You’ve been marvelous. Now, I wonder if you can call a real doctor. Tell him I will make it truly worth his while. The boy and I will wait for him across the road, on the beach. I’ll get back to the hotel on my own. It is the Taj, isn’t it?” The woman nodded.