doesn't strike terror anymore. Maxie would have had them flogged. They mock me when I catch them with loot. I'm missing a silver goblet, but who cares? What they don't cart off and sell, they destroy. I keep my eyes peeled, what else can I do?'
So, it was true after all that Minnie sat by her window all night and kept watch! What the Bagehot Girls had got wrong was why and whom she was watching. 'Vermin!' Minnie repeated. 'They're keeping a death watch.' So, her clinging to nasty imperial prejudices was another trick of survival. Minnie knew just how powerless she was in Bang-a-Buck Bangalore. Anjali held out a conciliatory hand. 'I think I understand, madam,' she said, meaning it. She too hailed from the heartland of suspiciousness; she'd spent a lifetime publicly agreeing with, and privately dismissing, the not-dissimilar prejudices of her parents concerning the threat posed by anyone not of their blood. But to understand was not to approve.
The old lady grasped Anjali's hand in both of hers. 'You'll be my eyes and ears. I must write your benefactor and thank him for sending you to me all the way from the mofussils. The dear Lord works in mysterious ways.'
Minnie inhabited an impenetrable, Minnie-centric universe. Why take offense? Better for Anjali to press her momentary advantage. 'I wonder, madam, if I might ask for one more favor?' The old lady seemed receptive. 'I wonder… when Husseina left, she said I could take over her room. Would that be possible?'
Minnie's eyes were closed behind her thick glasses-her way of quelling dissent or reaching a decision in her own sweet time. 'I don't see why not.'
End of supplication. End of begging. She was ready to take her place. And not just in Bagehot House.
SHE AWOKE AGAIN at ten o'clock in Husseina's bed, with the feeling that the night before and the early- morning intervention had been dreams of a future, and that
She suddenly realized why the teenage girl seated in the shed's window frame in firelight had stirred a visceral kinship. From a silver tray on the dressing table, she picked up Husseina's comb and smoothed the tangles from her long, wavy hair. In Gauripur her mother used to massage syrupy red hibiscus-scented hair oil into her scalp every single morning, a pre-bath mother-daughter ritual. A full head of thick, black hair is a woman's wealth, her mother insisted, as she concocted home remedies for all kinds of hair damage: yogurt-rub to cure dandruff, pastes made from oily berries to add luster to frizzy hair, seed-soaked potions to reverse hair loss. At bedtime, her mother had forced her to wrap her braids with thick cotton tape to prevent split ends.
What if the bitter wife and nagging mother had actually been a contented, creative woman? Angie stood at the window in newly acquired underwear and dragged Husseina's comb harshly through her hair. She wouldn't let Gauripur memories ruin this day. Comb vigorously; comb until your scalp hurts; comb all knots of guilt out of your selfish head and prideful hair.
When the comb broke in two in her hands, she moved away from the window. From the magic closet, she selected a slinky pink salwar-kameez set and tried it on. She hadn't looked so good in months-maybe never. Looking great was the shortest cut to feeling great. Add a pair of purple, high-heeled slingbacks and a Chanel purse. Arrogance bled into selfconfidence. She was starting her life over. She was starring in the Bollywood version of her breakout from Gauripur.
TOOKIE ACCOSTED HER on the stairs late that afternoon as she made her way down to take a stroll in the neighborhood; better still, she wanted to drop in on the super-cool Darrens and Roxies at Barista. It wasn't enough to be seen by squatters and street vendors. She wanted to be envied by total strangers.
'Honey, you look
Anjali, channeling Angie, took a couple of strides back and forth and executed a half-twirl. 'Foxy?'
'Talking of stealing, isn't that Husseina's kameez?'
Poor Tookie had no clue that she was about to be dumped. So why take offense at her question. 'We traded.'
'Well, aren't you the sharp trader!' The working woman checked her imported imitation-ostrich pocketbook to make sure she had her company ID, cigarettes, and credit cards. 'Our High and Mighty Miss H must be cracking up! Either that or she's up to hanky-panky with some boy other than that fabled fiance stuck in London. I heard her go out last night, but I didn't hear her come back in. She's risking a dump.'
'I don't think she cares,' Anjali said.
'How do you know? Anyway, where has she gone?'
Now it was Anjali's turn to play mysterious. 'She said, 'Anywhere.''
'I'll find out from Rajoo. Nothing happens in town without Rajoo making it happen. I call him the Minister of the Night.'
'Your nighttime bad boy Rajoo?'
'If a cappuccino sounds pretty good right now, let's get going. Reynaldo's a punctuality freak.'
Reynaldo, short, tubby, and hairy (except for a tawny balding spot on the crown), was on his second iced coffee when the two women arrived at Barista. The tip of the plastic straw was chewed flat, Anjali noticed. He was the fidgety anxious kind of date. No wonder Tookie kept Rajoo on the side. Since Mad Minnie's house rules did not permit partying on the premises, coffee houses and bars were where Tookie met her two men friends. Tookie had her work-and-fun routine down right: get on a shift from ten P.M. to six A.M., and you have plenty of time for hitting the pubs before being picked up at the Bagehot House front gate by the company minivan.
In the restroom, Tookie confided that the best thing about Reynaldo was that he was undemandingly dull. Mister Moderation, she'd nicknamed him. Rajoo was Mister Too-Much. 'I have this yin-and-yang thing going with them. How about you? What turns you on?'
'I'm dying to find out.' Anjali laughed.
Reynaldo left soon after the women returned from the restroom. The oldest of his seven brothers, a pharmacist in Ontario, was sponsoring his application for 'landed immigrant' status in Canada, and he had a mountain of documents to put together.
Tookie waved him off with a cheery 'Ciao!' Her voice dropped to the low register of girlish intimacy. 'I know what you're thinking. What do I see in Reynaldo?'
'It never occurred to me to think that.' Anjali lied. She sucked the last noisy sip of her iced coffee through her straw, then with her fingers she fished brownish ice chips one by one out of the glass and laid them on her tongue. Deal with that breach of table manners, Minnie!
'If his visa comes through, I'll marry him and go to Canada. If it doesn't…' She put her helmet on. 'Don't turn judgmental on me, girlfriend,' she warned, leading the way back to her Bajaj Chetak. 'Ready?'
'Ready for what?'
'To find out what turns you on, of course.'
They started out at Pubworld, where the big screen featured European videos and sound throbbing to the max. Did Angie see correctly? Was that Panzer Delight? Yes, it was, in a ten-year-old video, confirmed by a little identifier tag at the bottom right. She wanted to scream, 'Look at me! I had that T-shirt!' but no one was watching, and no one could hear. Then they went on to Opus, where two crooners took turns singing and where Tookie bid on a bottle of champagne being auctioned off for charity, but was outbid by a glamorous woman with perfect teeth,
