"When she touched it, she was knocked backwards violently; but she could not let go of the wire. The pain must have been very great, but she let out only one terrible cry. She was literally writhing on the ground, being electrocuted before our eyes.

"I say 'our,' Mr. Chatterjee. The waiters stood by with their arms folded and watched. Workmen on a platform near the woman looked down without expression. One of the pilots near me made a small joke and turned back to his coffee.

"I'm not a quick-thinking person, Mr. Chatterjee. All of my life I've tended to let other people carry out even the simplest actions for me. I used to beg my sister to purchase train tickets for us. Even today, when Bobby and I order a pizza to be delivered, I insist on his placing the telephone call. But when half a minute had elapsed and it became obvious that the men in the courtyard — and there were at least a dozen — were not going to prevent this poor woman from being electrocuted, I acted. It did not take much thought or courage. There was a broom near the door. I used the wooden handle to move the wire from her hand."

I stared at my wife. Amrita had mentioned none of this to me. Chatterjee was nodding in a distracted way, but I found my voice first. "Was she badly hurt?"

"Evidently not," said Amrita. "There was talk of sending her to hospital, but fifteen minutes later she was cutting the grass once again."

"Yes, yes," said Chatterjee. "That is quite interesting but should not be taken out of context —"

"The second incident occurred only an hour or so after that," Amrita continued smoothly. "A friend and I were shopping for saris near the Elite Cinema. Traffic was backed up for blocks. An aged cow was standing in the middle of the street. People shouted and honked but no one tried to move it. Suddenly the cow began urinating, pouring a powerful stream into the street. There was a girl on the sidewalk near us — a very pretty girl, about fifteen years old, wearing a crisp white blouse and red kerchief. This girl immediately ran into the street, thrust her palm into the stream of urine, and splashed some on her forehead."

Leaves rustled in the silence. Chatterjee glanced at his wife and looked back at Amrita. His fingertips were tapping silently against each other. "That is the second incident?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Surely, Mrs. Luczak, even though you have been out of your country — India — since your childhood, you must remember the respect we bestow upon cows as symbols of our religion?"

"Yes."

"And you must know that not all people in India have the Westerner's . . . ah . . . horror at the idea of class differences."

"Yes."

"And did you know that urine . . . especially human urine . . . is thought by many here to have strong spiritual and medicinal properties? Did you know that our current Prime Minister, Mr. Moraji Desai, drinks several ounces of his own urine each morning?"

"Yes, I know that."

"Then, in all honesty, Mrs. Luczak, I do not see what your 'incidents' reveal except perhaps culture shock and a revulsion at your former culture's traditions."

Amrita shook her head. "Not just culture shock, Mr. Chatterjee. As a mathematician I tend to view different cultures rather abstractly, as adjoining sets with certain common elements. Or, if you will, as a series of human experiments as to how to live, think, and behave toward one another. Perhaps because of my own background, because I moved around so much as a child, I've felt a sense of some objectivity toward different cultures I've visited and lived in."

"Yes?"

"And, Mr. Chatterjee, I find some elements in India's set of cultural mind-sets that few other cultures have — or, if they did possess them, have not chosen to retain. I find in my own country here an ingrained racism that is probably beyond current comparison. I find here that the nonviolent philosophy which I was raised in — and feel most comfortable with — continues to be shattered by deliberate and callous acts of savagery by its proponents. And the fact that your prime minister drinks several glasses of his own urine each day, Mr. Chatterjee, does not commend the practice to me. Nor to most of the world. My father often reminded me that when the Mahatma went from village to village, the first thing he would preach would not be human brotherhood or anti-British stratagems or nonviolence, but the basics — the absolute basics — of human hygiene.

"No, Mr. Chatterjee, speaking as an Indian person, I do not agree that all of Calcutta's difficulties are simply a microcosm of urban problems everywhere."

Chatterjee stared at her over his fingers. Mrs. Chatterjee stirred uneasily. Victoria looked up at her mother but did not make a noise. I'm not sure what would have been said next if the first large raindrops had not chosen that second to begin falling around us like moist cannon fire.

"I think we would be more comfortable inside," said Mrs. Chatterjee as the full force of the storm broke around us.

The presence of Chatterjee's driver inhibited us during the ride back to the hotel, but we did communicate through elaborate codes known only to married couples.

"You should have worked for the United Nations," I said.

"I did work for the U.N.," said Amrita. "You forget that I worked there one summer as an interpreter. Two years before we met."

"Hmmm, start any wars?"

"No. I left that to the professional diplomats."

"You didn't tell me that you saw a woman almost electrocuted during breakfast."

"You didn't ask."

There are some times when even a husband knows when to shut up. We watched the passing slums through shifting curtains of rain. Some of the people there made no effort to get out of the downpour but squatted dully in the mud, heads bowed under the onslaught.

"Notice the children?" asked Amrita quietly. I hadn't, but I did now. Girls of seven and eight stood with even younger children on their hips. I now realized that this was one of the most persistent images from the past couple of days — children holding children. As the rain came down they stood under awnings, overpasses, and dripping canvases. Their ragged clothes were brightly dyed, but even the brilliant reds and royal blues did not hide the dirt and wear. The girls wore gold bracelets on their emaciated wrists and ankles. Their future dowries.

"There are a lot of children," I said.

"And almost none," said Amrita so softly that it was almost a whisper. It took me only a few seconds to realize that she was correct. For most of the youngsters we saw, their childhood was already past them. They faced a future of rearing younger siblings, heavy labor, early marriage, and rearing their own offspring. Many of the younger children we could see running naked through the mud would not survive the next few years. Those that did reach our age would greet the new century in a nation of a billion people facing famine and social chaos.

"Bobby," Amrita said, "I know that American elementary schools don't teach mathematics very seriously, but you did have Euclidean plane geometry in your secondary school, didn't you?"

"Yeah, even American high schools teach that, kiddo."

"Then you know that there are non-Euclidean geometries?"

"I've heard nasty rumors to that effect."

"I'm serious, Bobby. I'm trying to understand something here."

"Go ahead."

"Well, I began thinking about it after I mentioned alternate sets and experiments to Chatterjee."

"Uh-huh."

"If Indian culture was an experiment, then my Western prejudices tell me that it's a failure. At least in terms of its ability to adapt and protect its people."

"No argument there."

"But if it's just another set, then my metaphor suggests a much worse possibility."