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on his scalp and under the foreskin of his penis. The itch was so constant and uniform that Harry began to hear it buzzing in his ears. This buzzing itch had quickened his heartbeat and was unseating his brain.
    “I’ve got the Changi balls too,” said Smalls. “Fucking Poms.”
    “You blame the English for that?” asked Harry.
    “And who do you blame? Who sent you here? Who gives a shit if there are Japs in Singapore?”
    Harry nodded.
    “There are Singapore slanty-eyes and Jap slanty-eyes. What’s the bloody difference?”
    “You’re angry.”
    “I’m alive,” Smalls said. He seemed to find the complacency of the dead offensive.
    Four hours passed and Harry was still squatting in the sun.
    The guard in charge of overseeing the distribution of water had disappeared without explanation. Now, all the prisoners in line were quiet and vigilant. Three men had already been carted off, dead or nearly dead. Harry’s tongue was thick in his throat and he breathed with short breaths through his nose. His hands were folded over his head to shield him from the sun. He had meditated himself into a half-wakeful state in order to conserve energy and was rocking very slowly back and forth on his heels, which he thought helped his circulation. The man in front of him, whom he recognized but did not know, had blood dripping through his loincloth onto the baked dirt. Harry had closed his eyes because the redness of the man’s blood made him dizzy. He wondered if the man contemplated his imminent death, whether he took it for granted.
    The sound of a truck grinding up to the gate stirred Harry and he looked, squinting, over at the guards swinging the gate open. The sun was brilliant on the barbed wire, glittering inplaces like earthbound stars. No. The stars were in the space of air just before Harry’s eyes. He would soon pass out and if he did that, he might not get water and there was a strong likelihood that this would be his last memory of life. The truck entered the compound. The engine was shut off and then the tailgate dropped with a screech and boom. Harry turned his head with effort. More prisoners. More men. He watched as they lowered themselves from the back of the truck, aware of their fragility yet poised and fluid, worried about attracting the attention of the guards. Harry hazarded a deep breath. The last of the men descended the truck, a small thin man in a loincloth with a fringe of gray hair, on his beaky nose a pair of wire glasses, and for one moment Harry thought he saw the radical Gandhi. He shut his eyes briefly. It was no hallucination. The man was still there, but it was not Gandhi. No. The man in the loincloth and glasses was Major Berystede.
    “Move on, Harry,” said Smalls, who was poised at his shoulder. “Move on.” The guard had returned to the pump and slowly the coils of waiting men moved forward.
    Harry knew there was no room for mistakes. He could not slip up. A careless word here or there would be failure. A dirty cuff or a missing stud and it was over. He would have to make it through dinner, drinks, and maybe a game of poker. He would be scrutinized the whole time. The members then voted by writing a ball beside their names—a white ball would mean acceptance, a black ball rejection. But how much could Harry care about all of this? He could see his face reflected in the toe of his shoe, which struck him as extravagant and ridiculous. He remembered how his grandfather had made him jog up and down the driveway in bare feet to toughen him up, to save him from his mother’s “oily sweetness.” But even his grandfather, opinionated and coarse, with curls of hair in his nostrils and ears, whose temper sent the servants scurrying and his wife into silent fury, even he wouldfind Harry’s membership impressive. A victory for Harry would be a victory for all Anglo-Indians. Despite the fact that Harry did not see himself as a victim, he had faithfully cataloged the many slights against him: