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certificate, and the peasants who jumped off the boat possessing only the lice on their heads. What can you do?' He rolled a ball of rice and meat in his fingers and teased it around his plate.
'I did this and that. Whatever I could. So much hard work, so little reward. More or less it is true to say I have been chasing wild buffaloes and eating my own rice. You know that saying? All the begging letters from home I burned. And I made two promises to myself. I will be a success, come what may. That's promise number one. Number two, I will go back home. When I am a success. And I will honour these promises.' Chanu, who had grown taller and taller in his chair, sank back down.
'Very good, very good,' said Dr Azad. He checked his watch.
'The begging letters still come,' said Chanu. 'From old servants, from the children of servants. Even from my own family, although they are not in need. All they can think of is money. They think there is gold lying about in the streets here and I am just hoarding it all in my palace. But I did not come here for money. Was I starving in Dhaka? I was not. Do they enquire about my diplomas?' He gestured to the wall, where various framed certificates were displayed. 'They do not. What is more . . .' He cleared his throat, although it was already clear. Dr Azad looked at Nazneen and, without meaning to, she returned his gaze so that she was caught in a complicity of looks, given and returned, which said something about her husband that she ought not to be saying.
Chanu talked on. Dr Azad finished the food on his plate while Chanu's food grew cold. Nazneen picked at the cauliflower curry. The doctor declined with a waggle of the head either a further helping or any dessert. He sat with his hands folded on the table while Chanu, his oration at an end, ate noisily and quickly. Twice more he checked his watch.
At half past nine Dr Azad said, 'Well, Chanu. I thank you and your wife for a most pleasant evening and a delicious meal.'
Chanu protested that it was still early. The doctor was adamant. 'I always retire at ten thirty and I always read for half an hour in bed before that.'
'We intellectuals must stick together,' said Chanu, and he walked with his guest to the door.
'If you take my advice, one intellectual to another, you will eat more slowly, chew more thoroughly and take only a small portion of meat. Otherwise I'll see you back at the clinic again with another ulcer.'
'Just think,' said Chanu, 'if I did not have the ulcer in the first place, then we would not have met and we would not have had this dinner together.'
'Just think,' said the doctor. He waved stiffly and disappeared behind the door.
The television was on. Chanu liked to keep it glowing in the evenings, like a fire in the corner of the room. Sometimes he went over and stirred it by pressing the buttons so that the light flared and changed colours. Mostly he ignored it. Nazneen held a pile of the last dirty dishes to take to the kitchen, but the screen held her. A man in a very tight suit (so tight that it made his private parts stand out on display) and a woman in a skirt that did not even cover her bottom gripped each other as an invisible force hurtled them across an oval arena. The people in the audience clapped their hands together and then stopped. By some magic they all stopped at exactly the same time. The couple broke apart. They fled from each other and no sooner had they fled than they sought each other out. Every move they made was urgent, intense, a declaration. The woman raised one leg and rested her boot (Nazneen saw the thin blade for the first time) on the other thigh, making a triangular flag of her legs, and spun around until she would surely fall but didn't. She did not slow down. She stopped dead and flung her arms above her head with a look so triumphant that you knew she had conquered everything: her body, the laws of nature, and the heart of the tight-suited man who slid over on his knees, vowing to lay down his