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authenticity, that folkloristic straitjacket which she sought to replace by an ethic of historically validated eclecticism, for was not the entire national culture based on the principle of borrowing whatever clothes seemed to fit, Aryan, Mughal, British, take—the-best-and—leave-the-rest? -- had created a predictable stink, especially because of its title. She had called it The Only Good Indian . “Meaning, is a dead,” she told Chamcha when she gave him a copy. “Why should there be a good, right way of being a wog? That’s Hindu fundamentalism. Actually, we’re all bad Indians. Some worse than others.”

She had come into the fullness of her beauty, long hair left loose, and she was no stick—figure these days. Five hours after she entered his dressing-room they were in bed, and he passed out. When he awoke she explained “I slipped you a mickey finn.” He never worked out whether or not she had been telling the truth.

Zeenat Vakil made Saladin her project. “The reclamation of,” she explained. “Mister, we’re going to get you back.” At times he thought she intended to achieve this by eating him alive. She made love like a cannibal and he was her long pork. “Did you know,” he asked her, “of the well-established connection between vegetarianism and the man-eating impulse?” Zeeny, lunching on his naked thigh, shook her head. “In certain extreme cases,” he went on, “too much vegetable consumption can release into the system biochemicals that induce cannibal fantasies.” She looked up and smiled her slanting smile. Zeeny, the beautiful vampire. “Come off it,” she said. “We are a nation of vegetarians, and ours is a peaceful, mystical culture, everybody knows.”

He, for his part, was required to handle with care. The first time he touched her breasts she spouted hot astounding tears the colour and consistency of buffalo milk. She had watched her mother die like a bird being carved for dinner, first the left breast then the right, and still the cancer had spread. Her fear of repeating her mother’s death placed her chest off limits. Fearless Zeeny’s secret terror. She had never had a child but her eyes wept milk.

After their first lovemaking she started right in on him, the tears forgotten now. “You know what you are, I’ll tell you. A deserter is what, more English than, your Angrez accent wrapped around you like a flag, and don’t think it’s so perfect, it slips, baba, like a false moustache.”

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