"Ah, you look that girl," Prabaker observed, returning with the paan and following the direction of my gaze. "You think she is beautiful, na? Her name is Karla."

"You know her?"

"Oh, yes! Karla is everybody knows," he replied, in a stage whisper so loud that I feared she might hear. "You want to meet her?"

"Meet her?"

"If you want it, I will speak to her. You want her to be your friend?"

"What?"

"Oh, yes! Karla is my friend, and she will be your friend also, I think so. Maybe you will make a lot of money for your very good self, in business with Karla. Maybe you will become such good and closely friends that you will have it a lot of sexes together, and make a full enjoyment of your bodies. I am sure you will have a friendly pleasure."

He was actually rubbing his hands together. The red juices of the paan stained the teeth and lips of his smile. I had to grasp at his arm to stop him from approaching her, there, in the group of her friends.

"No! Stop! For Christ's sake, keep your voice down, Prabaker. If I want to speak to her, I'll do it myself."

"Oh, I am understand," he said, looking abashed. "It is what foreigners are calling foreplay, isn't it?"

"No! Foreplay is... never mind what foreplay is!"

"Oh, good! I never mind about the foreplays, Mr. Lindsay. I am an Indian fellow, and we Indian fellows, we don't worry about the foreplayings. We go straight to the bumping and jumping. Oh yes!"

He was holding an imaginary woman in his hands and thrusting his narrow hips at her, smiling that red-juiced smile all the while.

"Will you stop that!" I snapped, looking up to see if Karla and her friends were watching him.

"Okay, Mr. Lindsay," he sighed, slowing his rhythmic thrusts until they stopped altogether. "But, I can still make a good offer of your friendship to the Miss Karla, if you like?"

"No! I mean-no, thank you. I don't want to proposition her. I ... Oh God, what's the use. Just tell me... the man who's talking now-what language is he speaking?"

"He is speaking Hindi language, Mr. Lindsay. You wait one minute, I will tell you what is it he is saying."

He moved to the far side of the stall and joined her group quite unselfconsciously, leaning in to listen. No-one paid any attention to him. He nodded, laughed with the others, and returned after a few minutes.

"He is telling it one very funny story, about an inspector of Bombay Police, a very great powerful fellow in this area. That inspector did lock up a very clever fellow in his jail, but the clever fellow, he did convince the inspector to let him out again, because he told the inspector he had some gold and jewels.

Not only that, but when he was free, the clever fellow sold the inspector some of the gold and some jewels. But they were not really gold and not really jewels. They were the imitations, and very cheaply not the really things. And the worst mischief, the clever fellow lived in the inspector's house for one week before he sold the not-really jewels. And there is a big rumour that the clever fellow had sexy business with that inspector's wife. Now the inspector is crazy, and so much angry, that everybody is running when they see him."

"How do you know her? Does she live here?" "Know who, Mr. Lindsay-that inspector's wife?"

"No, of course not! I mean the girl-Karla."

"You know," he mused, frowning hard for the first time, "there are a lots of girls in this Bombay. We are only five minutes from your hotel. In this five minutes, we have seen it hundreds of girls. In five minutes more, there is more hundreds of girls.

Every five minutes, more hundreds of girls. And after a little of walking, we will see hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds-"

"Oh, hundreds of girls, great!" I interrupted sarcastically, my voice much louder than I'd intended it to be. I glanced around.

Several people were staring at me with undisguised contempt. I continued, in a hushed tone. "I don't want to know about hundreds of girls, Prabaker. I'm just... curious... about... about that girl, okay?"

"Okay, Mr. Lindsay, I will be telling you everything. Karla-she is a famous businessman in Bombay. Very long she is here. I think five years maybe. She has one small house, not far. Everybody knows the Karla."

"Where is she from?"

"I think, German, or something like that."

"But she sounded American."

"Yes, is sounding, but she is from German, or like to the German.

And now, anyway, is almost very Indian. You want to eat your foods now?"

"Yeah, just a minute."

The group of young friends called out their goodbyes to others near the paan stand, and walked off into the mill and swirl of the crowd. Karla joined them, walking away with her head held high in that curiously straight-backed, almost defiant posture. I watched her until she was swallowed by the people-tide of the crowds, but she never looked back.

"Do you know a place called Leopold's?" I asked Prabaker as he joined me, and we started to walk once more.

"Oh, yes! Wonderful and lovely place it is, Leopold's Beer Bar.

Full of the most wonderful, lovely peoples, the very, very fine and lovely people. All kind of foreigners you can find there, all making good business. Sexy business, and drugs business, and money business, and black-market business, and naughty pictures, and smuggler business, and passport business, and-"

"Okay, Prabaker, I get it."

"You want to go there?" "No. Maybe later." I stopped walking, and Prabaker stopped beside me. "Listen, what do your friends call you? I mean, what's your name for short, instead of Prabaker?"

"Oh, yes, short name I am having also. My short name is Prabu."

"Prabu... I like it."

"It's meaning the Son of Light, or like to that. Is good name, yes?"

"Is good name, yes."

"And your good name, Mr. Lindsay, it is really not so good, if you don't mind I'm telling your face. I don't like it this long and kind of a squeaky name, for Indian people speaking."

"Oh, you don't?"

"Sorry to say it, no. I don't. Not at all. Not a bit. Not even a teensy or a weensy-"

"Well," I smiled, "I'm afraid there's not a lot I can do about it."

"I'm thinking that a short name-Lin-is much better," he suggested. "If you're not having objections, I will call you Lin."

It was as good a name as any, and no more or less false than the dozen others I'd assumed since the escape. In fact, in recent months I'd found myself reacting with a quirky fatalism to the new names I was forced to adopt, in one place or another, and to the new names that others gave me. Lin. It was a diminutive I never could've invented for myself. But it sounded right, which is to say that I heard the voodoo echo of something ordained, fated: a name that instantly belonged to me, as surely as the lost, secret name with which I was born, and under which I'd been sentenced to twenty years in prison.

I peered down into Prabaker's round face and his large, dark, mischievous eyes, and I nodded, smiled, and accepted the name. I couldn't know, then, that the little Bombay street guide had given me a name thousands of people, from Colaba to Kandahar, from Kinshasa to Berlin, would come to know me by. Fate needs accomplices, and the stones in destiny's walls are mortared with small and heedless complicities such as those. I look back, now, and I know that the naming moment, which seemed so insignificant then, which seemed to demand no more than an arbitrary and superstitious yes or no, was in fact a pivotal moment in my life.

The role I played under that name, and the character I became-

Linbaba-was more real, and true to my nature, than anyone or anything that I ever was before it. "Yes, okay, Lin will do."

"Very good! I am too happy that you like it, this name. And like my name is meaning Son of Light in Hindi language, your name, Lin, has it also a very fine and so lucky meaning."