eight days left, and Aya had

ft from handling. She smoothed each one flat, stacked them by size, and counted again. Eleven thousand four hundred.

e a thief who

. Zoya stood in the doorway with a paper packet in

u ever

." Zoya dropped onto the bed and tore open the packet. "Hot jalebis.

explaining. It was sticky and sweet and

Aya's face. They had known each other since they were s

ch is i

vin

ya

ng money, if y

. You have not looked at a b

: the ledger, the empty pages, the cream-coloured letter with the

ousand," Zoya

es

u have

four h

i down. "You sat in front of me all w

new what you

ay it anyway.

N

nager every Friday night. One word from

for letting you walk in and out of my house." Aya pul

e them! He d

car

g breath through her nose, the way she did

le," she said. "D

es

softly from the other room, some old film song with

nu today,"

opped halfway

a school pinafore at the end of a lane. A pair of plaits bobbing behind a bicy

stall with her fingers on the glass. Tall for six. She has a ga

did sh

or." Zoya almost smiled. "Then she asked

went ve

hanky. It was gray and soft like an old rag, folded from notebook paper.

not feel h

had kept it

nd, and he looked at me as if I had stolen something from

. Her voice came out smaller than she mea

hat ar

I'm nobo

. Then she stood, wiped sugar from h

nd then you call it strength," she said, not unkin

with the tin in her lap and t

zzed twenty

home. Still

I k

somethin

I w

won't. But

nd pressed the heels of her hands against

ven when the kn

he house, the one that opened to the lane. It was soft at

to move. Behind her, the radio went quiet,

it?" Aya

low and cracked. "Please. I

ed back

d. In her arms, wrapped in a thin cotton blanket, was a small boy of about t

The last bus to town went at nine. He has been burning since evening. I gave him the tablets from your shop and they

might have said. She stepped aside and too

called. "Bri

se and her feet were bare. She took one look at the chi

Dr. Nalini laid the boy on the kitchen table, un

w l

six o

er. A clean cl

d, then his wrists, then his neck, the way her mother showed her years ago without ever

ked softly, mostly to give

s standing against the wall, clutchin

is ear. "Appu, it's all right

small cross sound, and a rush

that Aya almost did not notice, the boy's breathing began to even out. The red in his face faded to pink. At a quarter to

n the kitchen floor an

e said, to nobody in particular. "Keep him warm. Give him water in small sips. If

thick. She stood, wiping her face

ton

nd. Instead she pulled a crumpled hundred-rupee note from her blouse and pres

," she said, "I

hear it from

. At the door, she looked back with an odd, bitter little twist

ere under her ribs. She

step, her face half in sh

ath caugh

girl. Rao's boy said it in the shop yesterday, in front of my son. He said the doctor's

Far away, a dog bar

rs. Pillai, and disa

ith the hundred-rupee n

had seen that letter. Her

bham Rao know