Gehna was also sick of being cooped up indoors like a rat in a cage. She had in the past four days paced the length of Varun’s apartment so often that she knew exactly how many steps there were from the kitchen to the guest bedroom (twenty-six), from the hall to Varun’s bedroom (twelve) and from anywhere in the apartment to the peanut butter in the fridge (too damn many). She had cleaned out the jar, scooping up the extra-chunky peanut butter with a finger while sitting in the window seat. She had sat there for hours, looking down with mild resentment at all the people in the street who were not pregnant. She played with Munshi, but he was a cat and had tired of her long before she of him. She had tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. Besides, everything she picked up had babies in it.

Unbelievable. There can’t be a dozen words in the whole of English like that and they’re all up in my face. Baby. Babysit. Crybaby. Throw the baby out with the bathwater. Even a reference to Babylon felt like a finger pointed at her.

Varun staggered out of his room holding his head.

‘Morning,’ Gehna greeted him.

He groaned. ‘Fucking idiot birds. Every time I fall asleep they get chirpy outside my window. What are they so happy about anyway.’

‘My guess is they’re really, really, happy they didn’t gargle half a litre of vodka last night. Hey, you want some juice? There’s a new juice guy nearby who opens early. I can’t decide what kind to get. Whatcha think? He’s got apple juice, orange juice, sugarcane juice, watermelon juice—’

Varun groaned again, louder this time, and gave her a red glare. ‘Anything. Get me anything, just . . . just stop saying “juice” in that voice of yours. It does bad things to my head.’

What voice of mine? Gehna thought she had a lovely voice actually, thanks very much, but maybe right then was not the best time to convince Varun of this. The poor guy looked miserable and she felt bad for him.

She debated throwing on some proper clothes, but it felt like too much effort for a trip down the street. In the end, she managed to pull on a thin silk robe over her pyjamas. It was still early enough so the silk wouldn’t completely slay her in the heat. Besides, it had red Chinese dragons all over it and appealed to her sense of drama.

The juice guy accommodated her request for a mix of apple, orange and carrot juice. She could tell, from the way he stared, that it wasn’t often he got such sophisticated palates as hers coming around. She drained her juice and got a sugarcane one to go for Varun because of a vague notion that the sticky sweetness would help with his hangover.

Gehna spotted the boy she had met the other night before he saw her. In her opinion, he was behaving extremely wack, so she stopped to watch him from afar to try and figure out what he was up to. He was out for a run, that was clear. What was less clear was why Eram was repeatedly running down the same stretch of the sidewalk. He would start jogging about ten metres before he reached the building where Varun stayed, run past it to the end of the block, and then walk back to his starting point. Each time he crossed the building, he would glance up at Varun’s apartment on the second floor. Jog, glance, stop, walk back, glance, stop, repeat.