Miss New India

seen models do on the virtual deck chairs on virtual beaches on Mr. GG's Vistronics website. And sure enough, instead of joining Auro at the bar trolley, Mr. GG settled into the chair nearest her. 'Miss Bose, you should always wear a tiger lily in your hair,' he said, raising his highball glass.

'Then you'll have to make a habit of sending them, Mr. Gujral,' she responded.

Why did clueless Auro have to pull up an ottoman close to Mr. GG's chair just then and bombard Mr. GG with prophecies of a Kali Yuga-scale financial meltdown? In this 'epoch of cosmic slump' India must 'decouple' its economy from that of Western nations. 'We Indians hitched our bullock cart to the U.S. wagon, and now we're up to our knees in horseshit and bullock dung.' Citing statistics about investment flight, capital lost, and plummeting rates of corporate expansion, he worked himself into cathartic wrath. Mr. GG refuted each of Auro's arguments and dazzled Anjali with his optimistic theory that a belt-tightening time in the United States equaled an outsourcing boom time in India. Debt collection was the newest growth area for call centers. He was part of a consortium scouting belly-up overseas businesses. 'Best of all,' he rhapsodized, 'this is our chance to leapfrog and win the creativity race. We Indians are genius inventors, not just cut-rate mistris!'

Anjali had to concede that the tight-fitting vest, the saucy capri pants, and the bright blossom behind the ear were no competition for Auro's incitement to debate India's financial future. Auro was for decoupling; Mr. GG ardently against it; Anjali resentful of it for having turned Mr. GG from swain to debate champion. Parvati took her husband's side. 'How can you be so smug, Girish? Nobody's recession-proof in this skittish economy.' Student enrollment was down at CCI, and a competitor had already folded. She pummeled Mr. GG with more anecdotal proof. Two of Dr. Ghosh's nephews had been let go from their software programming jobs in Gurgaon. Dr. (Mrs.) Ghosh's beauty-and-brains niece-in-law ('top of her IIT class') had expected to pick and choose from fat-salaried job offers even before graduating, but months after finishing school she was still temping. Mr. and Mrs. Pandit, with the unmarried, aging twin daughters on the next block in Dollar Colony, had scratched all bridegroom candidates with IIT degrees from their list.

Anjali sulked. 'Coupling' or 'decoupling' made sense to her only in the context of her personal life. She didn't feel connected to global issues. She boycotted the conversation swirling around her.

Mr. GG surprised her with a question. 'May I invite Miss Bose for a dekko of Bagehot House, what's left of it anyway?' He seemed to be asking for Auro's and Parvati's permission to ask her out for an evening ride. The casual seducer of Cubbon Park had evolved into a respectable, permission-seeking suitor.

Trust your impulses. 'I'd love to,' Anjali quickly answered.

Parvati hesitated. 'Do you feel ready to see it? You don't think it's too soon, Anjali?'

'Well, she'll have to find out for herself, won't she?' Auro scolded Parvati. 'And under what more reassuring circumstances than with Girish?'

Mr. GG rose from his chair. 'If you are ready…'

Anjali couldn't get to the front door fast enough. 'Tell me, Girish.' Auro persisted in continuing the conversation. 'The slump must be affecting your redevelopment plans for the Bagehot property? Be honest, bank loans must have become more iffy, even for a consortium of hotshots.'

Mr. GG guided Anjali out the front door. 'My dear Banerji, I'm constitutionally incapable of anxiety. It's off to Mexico and Hawaii early next week for me, Mrs. Banerji, but if there's any way I can be of service to CCI before or after the trip, please text me.'

Anjali walked ahead of him to his Daewoo to cut short the lengthy goodbyes required by Indian etiquette.

THEY DROVE TO Bagehot House in silence. The rusty entrance gate was missing, probably carried off by scrap-metal scavengers. Heavy wrecking equipment was parked in the torn-up driveway. Two watchmen smoked near a small mound of excavated earth.

'Thank you for what you did.' The night in the holding cell in the police station felt more immediate than the weeks as a Bagehot Girl with prospects. Gratitude was a higher form of love than lust. 'I can't imagine what would have happened to me if you…'

He wasn't listening. He undid his seat belt with an angry snap. 'I can't believe what I'm seeing.' He strode out of the car without closing the door. 'They're tearing this down without a permit.'

Anjali let herself out but kept her distance from him. Mr. GG was staring past the bulldozers at the side of Mad Minnie's house, with its broken windows and fluttering curtains, its missing front door and torn, trampled-on banquet-night tablecloths on the floor of its foyer. The house, though structurally intact, seemed to have rolled over, like an ocean liner on its side. He might have been crying. It seemed possible; he was folding his handkerchief. 'This is… tragic.' He still hadn't faced her, so he might have been consoling Bagehot ghosts.

In profile, Mr. GG's jaw, flecked with gray, was just a little slack. Still, he was a handsome man, handsomer in profile than straight on. She thought, I'm standing here next to a man I've slept with. I'm standing here where I was handcuffed and dragged into a paddy wagon like a dangerous criminal, and I'm not talking about it. I'm acting as though were two normal people on a romantic date on a starry evening in Bangalore.

Some of Asoke's squatters must have stayed on in the partially cleared jungle. Anjali heard low whistling and then a pariah dog's howl of pain. Mr. GG shuddered. 'Fearful symmetry,' he muttered.

To lighten his mood, she made a callow effort at flirting. 'I so envy you, Girish. You get to go to fun places like Mexico and call it work.' She stroked the tiger lily in her hair. A petal felt wilted.

'I shan't always have a get-out-of-jail-free card, Anjali.'

'What makes you think I'll need another one?' She liked the perky sound of her own voice.

'Come with me to Mexico.'

What is he saying? I owe him more than I've given?

'And maybe on to Haiti. Depends on the deal coming through.'

I'm just another business deal? Is that how life is?

'Can't promise Haiti.'

'Pick up and go? Just like that?' Like rich-kid Rabi? Like terrorist Husseina?

'Give yourself a vacation. You deserve it.'

'Vacation from what? Evil forces? Minnie's dead.' She got carried away by self-pity. 'So's my family. Dead. You are looking at a penniless orphan, a parasite, a charity project.' The horror was that she wasn't lying, just exaggerating. 'I don't need a vacation, I need a job.'

'If you want a job, I can set up an interview with the head of human resources at RecoverySys. He was an MBA classmate. We'll get you in on the ground floor of the debt-collection industry.' Mr. GG faced her squarely. 'Now, what's your passport situation? Don't have one, no problem. I can expedite your getting one.'

'In other words, you want me to know you are a big shot?'

'No. In other words, I want you with me in Mexico.'

She could have screamed. Yes, I'm flattered, I'm grateful. Drive me to- night to Cubbon Park. Have your peon pick up my stuff from Parvati's tomorrow. She would spell her first name as Anjolie on her first-ever passport. She said, 'Mr. Gujral, I shall consider your offer and make my counteroffer when you get back from your trip.'

Mr. GG grinned. 'You were born to be a debt collector, Miss Bose.'

All the way back to Dollar Colony, he gushed about the sad, stark majesty of Mayan ruins. She imagined herself scrambling up the stony sides of an alien people's monuments. Every death made possible a new beginning. And then she thought, with a suddenness and finality that shocked her, I don't want a passport. My new beginning is here, but different from Baba's and Ma's generation. They had to fight the British; their big fight was to establish an independent India and create a nonaligned world. Theirs was a struggle-lost, in Baba's case-against communalism and caste-ism and poverty and superstition and too much religion. They were lucky. Their fights weren't easy, but simpler and clearer than mine with Mr. GG. Poverty terrified Baba. But I'm terrified, tempted, and corrupted by the infusion of vast sums of new capital. Light and angles, that was it. Truth revealed in an imaginary viewfinder. She stepped out of her Photoshopped Bangalore. Aloud, she said, 'I get no kick from Champagne. Spend too much time away from India, and it drives you crazy.'

In the Banerjis' driveway, she opened the passenger-side door to let herself out. GG grasped her arm and held her back. 'I don't want you to go. Let's get you a passport. Visas are no problem. I have contacts. Don't just walk away from me.'

She wondered what the night watchman and the dog sitter were making of the scene. The dogs would be curled up in bed with Auro and Parvati. 'And what would you expect of me in Mexico?' she asked, swinging her