My aunt slapped her forehead with both her hands and screamed, ‘Hai! I am dead! People, I have become a widow!’ She smashed her glass bangles against the bedpost. Others came crowding round to comfort her. Someone closed the dead man’s eyes and mouth, tied a band round his chin and stuffed wads of cotton in his nostrils. The wailing continued for some time followed by the loud chanting of prayer: ‘There is One God. He is the Supreme truth,’ etc. etc.

It was monsoon time and the sky was clouded. But I dared not sleep alone in my apartment. I had no means of locating Bhagmati and persuading her to spend the night with me. I asked Budh Singh to put my bed out on the lawn behind my apartment as the air-conditioner was out of order. The lawn was overlooked by other apartments and the comforting sound of human voices and lights from the servants’ quarters drifted down to it. I fixed a mosquito net and lay down in the gauzy security it provided.

Despite all these measures I could not shut my eyes. Whichever way I tried I could see the dead uncle’s eyes staring at me. The lights went out one by one. The human voices faded into an eerie silence. A grey moonlight spread over the sky. Owls screeched in the mulberry tree. I saw one flit across, dart down on to the road and carry off a mouse Of their own volition my eyes had closed and I was re-living the scene of the death in the morning. The dead man came alive. With measured steps he walked across the lawn towards me, parted the flaps of my mosquito net and brought his face close to mine. I was petrified with terror. I lost my voice. Then a gurgle rose in my throat and burst out into a loud moan. The dead man shook me by the shoulder and exclaimed, ‘Wah Guru! Wah Guru! It’s only I, Budh Singh. It has begun to rain. Let me take your bed inside.’

I was bathed in a cold sweat. I saw the lights go up in the neighbouring apartment. A voice asked: ‘What’s the matter?’ Budh Singh answered for me: ‘Nothing! He was having a nightmare.’

I went indoors, switched on the lights in all the rooms and told Budh Singh to go. I sank down in my armchair and began a silent argument with myself. I felt very foolish. I had made an ass of myself. Now Budh Singh would tell everyone how his sixty-year-old master had behaved like a frightened child.