The panty gave off the smell of moist earth. I saw a white stain on it, like mould. A stain like this in a woman’s panty could mean only one thing.

I wondered what to do with the panty. Strangely, I felt a pang of regret at the thought of throwing it away. The panty seemed to offer itself as a second presence in this solitary place. A feeling of companionship.

I didn’t throw it away. I tossed it on to one of the lower shelves in the wardrobe. Then I went to the bathroom and washed my hands with soap. I took my documents out of my bag, filed them away, and decided to take care of the phone call before anything else.

‘When can I meet you? I’ll need your letter.’

‘The letter is ready. You can take it today.’

As I dressed after a shower, I chided myself for not remembering about the lights today either. I left the flat again and went down into the streets. After a couple of meetings, I ate a light meal at a restaurant. I bought a loose gown to wear at home. The nakedness of the past two days would finally come to an end.

I met him in the veranda of his club at eight that night. He was poring over a Bengali book, marking up certain passages and scribbling notes in the margins. He also had a Bengali-to-English dictionary by his side. ‘So you can read Bengali?’, I asked. He nodded, smiling. ‘I read it very well.’ After accepting the letter from him and sharing some soup and bread rolls, I left him, returning to the flat late at night and unlocking the three padlocks again. I was lying in bed when I felt a certain familiar discomfort, and when I went into the bathroom I discovered that it was just as I had suspected – quietly, my period had started. And my panty was soaked with blood. I had no sanitary napkins. What was I to do, now, at midnight? I didn’t have a second pair of panties. I should have thought to pick up a few more things when I was buying the gown. Unless I changed the panty I was wearing, even sitting down would prove impossible, let alone sleeping in the bed. Going by my body’s usual routine, the bleeding would intensify in two or three hours. How would I stem this flow of blood? Would any of the shops still be open? If only I could at least get hold of some sanitary napkins …

When I went out to the balcony, wondering what to do, I discovered that there was in fact a pharmacy still open, called Park Medicine, just across the road.

Other than the occasional car speeding by, the roads were deserted. The streets were now under the control of dogs. So many dogs?

Slipping the black trousers back on with a sense of revulsion, I took the lift down and got the durwan to open the gate. I’ll only be a minute, I told him. I’m just going to buy some medicine. The first thing I did after getting the sanitary napkins was enter the toilet. With only the glow of the streetlamps to see by, I could still tell that my panty was a mess. Would any shop selling undergarments open before ten o’clock tomorrow morning? How would I tolerate this pair all night? I couldn’t bear the thought of having to set fresh sanitary napkins inside the blood-soaked panty. I had to buy a bulb tomorrow and get some light in the bathroom at least. In the morning I’d noticed that there were no bulbs in any of the sockets. Why had the bulbs all been removed? I tried to hold all of this in my mind as I stood there, drops of blood trickling down my thighs into the darkness.