Eram came to know all this. When Gehna was low, he tried to help in all the many inept ways that people attempt to cheer up their friends: he took her out for animated Pixar features, offered to go shopping for clothes, created playlists of upbeat tracks, dropped in on her randomly so she may enjoy the pleasure of his company.

None of this did much except force Gehna to fake a smile now and again. Eram tried the opposite approach. He theorized privately that, much like each person on earth is allotted a certain number of years to live, there must also be a fixed quota of sadness. So, the sooner Gehna’s allotted well of tears was used up, the sooner she could live the rest of her life in relative happiness.

Eram set about making her sad as fuck.

He casually recommended that she read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

‘Cool,’ said Gehna. She was pleased that Eram was finally reading something that resembled literature. ‘What’s it about?’

Eram, who hadn’t read the book but had seen the schmaltzy movie, didn’t want to give too much away. ‘Oh, y’know, the usual. A girl makes friends with these other girls, in this very beautiful place, and there are flowers and, and stuff. It’s great. You’ll love it.’

‘Sounds vapid, but I’ll give it a try.’

She called him two days later.

‘Bastard,’ she said.

He hadn’t heard Gehna cry before. She didn’t sob or gibber or make a production of it; just the occasional sniffle gave her away. Eram was taken unaware by how horrible this made him feel. He had, naturally, guessed that the story of a fourteen-year-old girl being brutally raped and murdered was likely to make Gehna cry, but he didn’t like it when it happened. It would take a lot of determination on his part to continue to make her sad as fuck.

As it turned out, Eram wasn’t all that determined a guy. He quit. The rest of the world did not.

On the morning of June 21, the papers printed an item in the international section—it was a slow news day—on the annual Yulin dog meat festival. Wedged in between an article on the birth of quintuplets to a couple in Cleveland, Ohio, and an advertisement for a miracle hair loss treatment, the piece described how visitors to the southern Chinese city of Yulin could celebrate the summer solstice by dining on lychee fruit and fresh dog meat. Animal rights activists condemned the Chinese. The Chinese condemned Western hypocrisy. The dogs were in no position to condemn anybody.

The festival had been a tradition in Yulin for four hundred years, but there had been no Facebook back then. When Eram dropped the newspaper and grabbed his phone that morning, he found his newsfeed awash with outrage. And photographs. Photographs of ten thousand dogs skewered-and-roasted, or awaiting their turn in cages.

By the time he had driven like fury over to Pali Hill, each of his eight calls to Gehna had gone unanswered. Too impatient to wait for the elevator, he bounded up four flights of stairs and skidded into the apartment. Gehna’s mother, who was sitting at the table, was startled into spilling soup down her house robe.