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people at school to talk about Professor Sharma’s wife and the army officer.
    “Can I speak with you?” he asked, and I looked at Mrs. Gujjar from the corner of my eye. She was surreptitiously watching us, trying to draw every piece of information she could from our conversation.
    “Of course,” I said with forced enthusiasm. “Ah . . . please . . . ah . . . we can sit . . . .”
    Mrs. Gujjar showed no signs of leaving the staff room, and Prakash shifted on his feet uneasily. “How about out there?” He pointed to the banyan tree right outside the staff room and I sighed. This would be all over Ooty soon— an army officer came to see Anjali Sharma and they talked under the tree. . . .
    “I am so sorry, I hope I didn’t say anything wrong.” Prakash sounded contrite.
    I ignored his feeble apology. “Why are you here?” I demanded.
    “I am sorry about yesterday. I just didn’t know what to tell Indu about you.”
    Indu for Indira. Anju for Anjali.
    “I don’t care what you tell your wife. I don’t know why you are here.”
    “You got married,” he said suddenly.
    “So did you,” I pointed out. “If you don’t mind . . .” I started to turn back to leave, but I stopped when he spoke.
    “I wanted to see you. . . . How are you?” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
    “I am fine,” I snapped.
    “Who did you marry?”
    Was this curiosity or concern?
    “How does it matter?” I was appalled at his audacity to come here and pry into my personal life. If I hadn’t seen his wife yesterday, I would be curious, too, but I had and I wasn’t anymore. “He is a math professor at the College of Computer Studies. He is . . . just who he is. Why do you care?”
    Prakash was a brigadier now. I noticed the stars on his shoulder flaps. He didn’t have any new medals, but there hadn’t been any new wars. His uniform was the same as it had always been. Short-sleeve shirt, pants that were always perfectly ironed, and shoes that were polished so well you could see your reflection in them.
    “I just . . . I felt like things were hanging after yesterday.”
    “Things have been hanging for fifteen years, Prakash,” I said, not giving him an inch. This was how my fantasy had been. He would want to talk to me and I would play the arrogant queen. After Amar’s nightmare episode last night, I was haughtier than ever.
    “I know.”
    “No, you don’t. And if you don’t mind, please don’t come here again. What will people think? I care about my reputation. I have a family, a husband, a son, and I can’t just talk to strange men.”
    “But I am not a strange man,” he said unsteadily.
    “You are a strange man because I don’t really know you. Now if you will excuse me . . .”
    “I just wanted to say I was sorry.”
    I stifled the tears and nodded hastily before blindly stumbling back to the staff room, leaving Prakash standing alone under the banyan tree.
    I was shaking with anger and relief. He had apologized, and if I had not been caught so off guard, I would have demanded what he was voluntarily apologizing for.
    I was sorry, too. Sorry that he was such a miserable excuse for a man. Sorry that I had loved him once and really sorry that I had ever been married to him.

FOUR
    ANJALI
    All I could think when Divya Auntie introduced me to Captain Prakash Mehra was that he was even better looking than Dev Anand. He was an engineer in the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Corps. His hair was cut in a stern crew cut, but his face was full of mischief and life. He had been singing nursery rhymes with Babli and her friends when I entered Divya Auntie’s house. When he saw me, he stood up and smiled.
    That was all it took to get stars in my eyes.
    Divya Auntie’s house was a typical ex–army officer’s house. There were things from everywhere: a wooden idol of Krishna from Baroda, a cane screen from Assam, beautiful hand-woven carpets from Nepal, a huge brass tank barrel that Divya Auntie had arranged