The morning passed during this familiar debate. When they returned to town, the churches had emptied and the people of Hambelton were strolling through their streets and gardens. Pala wanted to return home. He was the cook for this week and the day was already half-spent. Ram liked that Pala did not feel himself superior to his men; he cooked on the weekly rotation even though he was the gang boss. So Jodh and Pala went home together and Ram decided to walk a little farther. Secretly, Ram wanted to see again the young woman who sold tickets in the kiosk at the cinema house. She was lovely in some way that his Padma was lovely, the shape of her face, the arch of her eyebrows, the fullness of her lips.

He would feel guilty whenever he sought out the girl, for he was a married man, and she was of a different people, and he would not admit that she appealed to him. Sometimes, when he happened to see her by chance, he would feel ashamed, humiliated, as if he had failed at some huge endeavor. But as he saw the families gathered in the churchyards, the young men talking on the street corner, a woman picking up a toddling child, any small moment in an ordinary life, he felt more and more alone. He walked past the cinema kiosk and saw her there, just as he knew he would. He stood on a corner where she could not see him.

Of course she was not one of those great ladies, with their strollers and fine clothes, the ones that Pala and he had talked about. She was modest. Her father might work on the fishing boats, or perhaps a sister served liquor in the Sporting District, and Ram fancied that she had decided on some humble but more respectable work. For this, he admired her even more. But she was still unapproachable, because Ram was a married man and from a different shore. He would never permit himself to greet her and that boundary afforded him a peculiar freedom. What would he say, anyway? His English then was poor, and he did not waste his earnings on going to the cinema. On his final pass before leaving, he thought she glanced at him and even granted him a half smile. From this he gained some small satisfaction and, in the late afternoon, turned toward K Street.