the end of the lane and was faced with a choice, whether to turn right or left. He stubbed out his smoke and glanced around and was pleased to discover that, as with all such places, he was far from alone.
There were eyes on him from balconies and from windows, even from a little set of young men taking it easy on the street. He felt how anonymity and communality can coexist in the same place and time, and knew what it is to be both naked and secure. So fortified, he walked up to the wall in front of him and knocked on the door that he knew was there. It opened quietly. He stepped into the forecourt of a pleasingly large haveli and turned to acknowledge Razia’s spare, elegant adaab.
“Welcome,” she said simply, leading him through the little gatehouse into the haveli proper. There was a colonnaded courtyard, empty save for the remnant of a fountain. There was a sprinkling of furniture in the verandas off to the sides. She led him to one such alcove, where the mattresses and bolsters were already set up and the makings of both paan and cocktails awaited. Candles illumined their meeting and their shadows played along the whitewashed walls. Rain began to fall again, the quiet courtyard coming alive with the sound of fresh water on ancient flagstone.
“Nice place,” said Sajan. “Must be expensive to maintain.”
“You’ve no idea,” smiled Razia. “Do you know how hard it is to keep a place like this when everybody else is tearing them down?”
Sajan shrugged and asked her how she found it. She merely said she’d had it for a while. Her neighbors: did she like them? They’re good people, she replied. Old families of the area, young people from outside. The way Delhi’s always been.
“They look out for you, I imagine?”
“Always.”
Dayal nodded and sipped at the cocktail he knew would be excellent before he even tasted it. He closed his eyes and sighed, leaned back against a bolster.
“Long day?” asked Razia with sympathy.
“Long few months,” answered Sajan.
“May I prepare a paan for you?”
“In a moment, perhaps.”
Then they were both quiet, enjoying the night and the smell and the sound of the rain in the courtyard. But the moment didn’t last, for even though the idea of a companionable silence with Razia was a tempting one, and Sajan was glad for the respite, he had work to do.
“You know why I’m here?” he asked.
She inclined her head.
“Can you help?”
“What would you have me do?”
“He’ll come to you if you tell him where and when.”
“This is true,” she acknowledged.
“I’d like you to call him to you. Here.”
She indicated her acquiescence.
“I think I’ll have that paan now, please.”
Later, his head was both on the bolster and perilously close to her knee. She could have been inches away from stroking his hair and he could have been moments away from ecstasy. He thought that this indeed is the reward warriors should expect. The thought crossed his mind that the devious bitch had probably spiked his paan, but he brushed it aside as being of no consequence, for what, in this world or the next, did brave Sajan have to fear from beautiful Razia?
So he asked, in the delirium that follows in the footsteps of a quest fulfilled, why she hadn’t yet taken care of this pestilential finger-reliever.
“A number of reasons,” she answered as she finally began to stroke his hair, the long slim fingers with their polished nails parting and then bestrewing the strands, now black and further gray. “He hadn’t found me. You hadn’t approached me. And finally, you hadn’t asked. Until now.”
Sajan opened his eyes in agreement. “You can’t be seen to be involved, I imagine.”
“Exactly,” smiled Razia, and he noticed the warmth and the candlelight in her dark eyes.
He held her gaze and asked, “Would it have helped if I’d come sooner?”
Perhaps, she replied. But the point to remember was that her Sajan had come. The victims, the young vampire, the consternation of the city: what did it matter?
“Who are you?”
“I think you already know.”
“Surely you’re not a vampire?”
She laughed, a rich quiet burble both ladylike and real. “What do you think?”
“He certainly seems to think so.”
“He doesn’t matter. His head isn’t in my lap.”
“If I thought you were a vampire, my head wouldn’t be either.”
She smiled at him again and continued to play with his hair.
“I remember,” he said, “my father speaking of a home such as this. His own father, my grandfather, must have been about ten when the family left the old city for the new home in Civil Lines. But he told my father stories about it, stories my father passed on to me.”
She nodded, waiting.
“What was Skinner like?” he asked.
“Not as Indian as you might think,” she replied.
“And Rangila?”
“Not as interesting as you might imagine.”
“Ghalib?”
“Exactly as you’ve ever thought he was.”
He smiled at that and so she asked, “My beautiful Sajan has come to my house of his own accord. Is talk all he requires?”
He looked at her, his face inches away from hers, a question in his eyes.
“When you get to my age,” replied Razia, “you get choosy. Besides, how many men are going to kiss a woman they think is a vampire?”
He nodded quietly, still looking into her eyes.
“Tell me, Sajan. What are you going to put in my mouth tonight?”
Behind them was the silent light of the moon, unencumbered now by the lowering clouds. The candles guttered and then went out. The rain returned and then retreated. Everywhere was silence, broken only by the distant sound of thunder and the occasional dreaming dog. The night slipped away in the blink of an eye. The first pale flush of dawn was just beginning to crease the cheek of the attendant sky as he left.
Just once, as he exited the door and heard it being shut behind him, did he feel a moment of disquiet. He felt a pair of eyes on him that didn’t belong in that setting, so he peered up at the new homes on either side of the alley that faced him. He looked this way and that and shook
