Bhagmati has a sixth sense about other women in my life. I try to ward off her pointed enquiries and avoid meeting her eyes. We pass the afternoon bickering over little things. I pretend to make up by offering to drive her around in the evening to see the Republic Day lighting. Once again she shrugs her shoulders and sighs. She takes very little interest in the grand display of the Secretariats and Rashtrapati Bhavan. The crowds make the going very slow. By the time I get through Parliament Street and Connaught Circus to Ajmeri Gate, it is after 9 p.m. I press two ten rupee notes into her hand as I open the door for her. She looks at them disdainfully, throws them on the seat and disappears into the crowd.

Something has happened to Bhagmati. She is becoming jealous and possessive. ‘I know you will ask who I am to object to anything or anyone,’ she says on one occasion. She brushes the back of her hand to wipe tears that are not there and continues, ‘I am like the Purana Qila you have conquered; now you want the Red Fort and its white marble palaces.’

Sarcasm does not suit Bhagmati’s style of speech. She has begun to irritate me. But the more I dodge her, the more she pursues me. Every night after she is through with her chores, she comes to my apartment to see if I am in. If I am not, she questions Budh Singh. And Budh Singh has become something of a mischiefmaker. ‘He’s gone out with that Amreekan Missy Baba,’ he tells her.

The American Missy Baba is sixteen-year-old Georgine. Why Bhagmati should worry over a gawky, snub-nosed, freckled, red-headed teenager is beyond me. She never bothered about any of the other women. In any case, what right has a common whore to object to what one of her many patrons does when she is not with him? However Georgine has become an obsession with Bhagmati. I admit that Georgine has also become an obsession with me. I am always talking about her. It was I who first told Bhagmati about her.

It had been a bad year for me. I didn’t have many writing assignments and the articles I sold to Indian papers did not get me enough to keep me in the style I was accustomed to. So I registered myself as a guide with the Tourist Department of the Government of India and left my card at foreign embassies and international organizations. During the tourist season between October and March I made quite a bit in tips in foreign currency which I exchanged for rupees at rates higher than the official. I earned commissions from hotels, curio dealers and astrologers for the custom I brought them. Men left me the remains of their bottles of Scotch. Sometimes middle-aged women invited me to their rooms and gave me presents for the services I rendered them.