Looking out through the kitchen window, Ellen saw Skye sitting on the verandah, idly watching a line of coolies cross the lawn bent over under bulging sacks of rice. She held a scarf over her nose and turned her face away as the men passed by. Lately she had started complaining about smells—frying food, ripening fruit, smoke from the burning piles of leaves. Even the strong, sweet perfumes of the garden upset her.
Ellen pressed her lips into a grim line as she turned to face Prianka. ‘How much rice,’ she asked the old woman, spacing the words clearly, ‘for, say, sixty people?’
‘Sixty?’ repeated Prianka. She held up ten fingers, then six.
Ellen shook her head and showed ten fingers, six times.
Prianka’s eyes widened. ‘Very big dinner!’ Her face was alive with questions, but she made do with nodding towards the dining room and shaking her head. ‘Too many. No good.’
‘How much rice?’ Ellen repeated firmly.
Prianka half-closed her eyes as she calculated. Then she reached up to the top shelves in the pantry, and brought down five giant cooking pots. They were white with the dust of years—unused since the days of English house parties and formal receptions. She pointed suspiciously at the sacks of potatoes that had arrived earlier in the morning.
‘Aloo masala—sixty?’ she asked. Ellen smiled encouragingly. Prianka frowned, unsettling the laugh lines that etched her face. ‘Djoti. Come here,’ she stated. ‘Me—no understand.’ Looking back at Ellen over her shoulder, she walked out into the garden.
At about five-thirty the first guests began to arrive. They hovered silently at the edges of the garden, hanging back until Djoti beckoned them on. By six o’clock, the back lawn was dotted with people. They stood in groups and pairs. Here and there a figure waited alone. Near the verandah, a line began to form.
Ellen looked down from an upstairs window, trying to estimate the numbers. The orange robes and turbans of holy men stood out among the drab rags of the poor and homeless that made up most of the crowd. There were a few holy women as well, inconspicuous in off-white sarees made of coarse cloth. The different groups milled and wandered, like guests at any garden party. Slanting rays of the waning sun shed a strange golden hue over the scene. A monotone of chanted prayer ran beneath the simmer of muted conversation. Old people, their gender lost in withered flesh and anonymous wraps, leaned on sticks or sat down on the freshly cut grass to rest twisted backs and crippled feet bound with stained bandages. Young men and women with stunted muscles and hollow cheeks turned weary eyes towards the kitchen. Mothers held babies to their scrawny breasts, while older children clung to grown-up legs and gazed wide-eyed up at the house.
Ellen kept back from the window as she scanned the crowd. Her eye settled on a wild-looking man with long hair matted into dreadlocks and caked in red mud. A line of yellow paint ran down the middle of his forehead onto the bridge of his nose. He was bare to the waist, every rib visible beneath loose skin rubbed with grey ash. He stood on one leg, calmly gazing into the distance, untouched by the gathering chill of evening. Ellen recognised him as a traveller—someone who had taken the vows of a holy man but who was not attached to an ashram. Djoti had explained that they wandered in perpetual pilgrimage from place to sacred place.
Ellen stared down at the traveller. In the life he had left behind he might have been a successful businessman: someone who struck big deals, travelled by air and stayed in the best hotels. Somewhere in India he probably had a family and a house, grandchildren, pets, television and a soft bed. And yet here he was, with all that he owned wrapped into a small cloth swag tied onto his walking stick. Free of the demands of family, friends, business, possessions, he was at last able to devote himself to his spiritual quest—wandering at will, visiting ashrams and temples to be fed, sleeping beside holy rivers and meditating in sacred caves until he reached the end of his days and left his body behind, abandoned like a husk in its last lonely shelter.
It seemed to Ellen both horrifying and enchanting, brutal and pure. As if in the lives of the travellers the desire to escape, to disappear, that held Ziggy and the others so tightly in its thrall, had been formally recognised. And in being recognised, transformed …
Leaning closer to the window, Ellen looked around for the young monk who had met Djoti and her at the door of the temple the previous day. They had stood on the steps while Djoti spoke in a low voice, watched by the beggars who were gathered about the entrance holding their empty tin plates and bowls. Ellen watched nervously as Djoti’s voice rose, apparently pressing some line of argument. The monk kept shaking his head.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ellen interrupted them. ‘Does he think it’s crazy?’
‘No,’ Djoti answered. ‘It is normal for devout people to provide food for the poor. But it is done at the ashram—here.’ He pointed towards a crumbling three-storey building behind the temple. Verandahs running the length of each tier were hung with lines of faded orange cloth, a hundred matching loincloths dripping dry. ‘There is a courtyard. He says the monks will bring out a blackboard with your name written on it, so that everyone who comes to eat can bless you. If you wish, you can name the meal in respect for someone. Then the guests will bless them too. He is explaining to me that this is the way it is done.’
Djoti finished speaking and the monk nodded.
‘No,’ said Ellen. ‘They must come to the house.’
Djoti relayed her remark. The monk looked at her and made no comment.
‘Will they come?’ Ellen asked.
Djoti shrugged. ‘They will be invited.’
Ellen had wanted to know more but the monk had turned and wandered away.
A large bird swooped down over the garden and settled on top of the empty marble fountain. The young monk stood nearby at the edge of a small group, his hand resting on the shoulder of a child. As if her thoughts had reached him across the space, he raised his head and met Ellen’s eyes. She smiled and waved.
The movement was small, but its impact spread and grew like ripples in a pond. A murmuring sigh spread over the crowd as everyone looked up and saw her there. Near the verandah an old woman sank to her knees and stretched up her arms. Others followed her example, kneeling and bowing their foreheads to the ground. Soon everyone but the young monk was bowing or kneeling.
Ellen stood at the window, frozen, her hand still half-raised. Then she jumped sideways and flattened herself against the wall. ‘Shit …’ she mouthed, seeing herself in mad impersonation of the Queen, the President, the Pope. Even Liberty would surely draw the line at this. Seconds passed before she peered carefully round the edge of the window frame and saw, to her relief, that the gesture was over. Chatter had started up again and people were beginning to move towards the verandah, holding out their food tins.
Stepping back from the window, Ellen relived the moment, turning it over in her mind like a half-familiar object. It brought back memories of being on centre stage. She remembered the feeling of the audience applauding, reaching out to her, wrapping her in warm, uplifting waves. But there was always a chilly current of doubt running beneath. She was a cheat. She didn’t dance for them. They were just the backdrop, a part of the machinery. She didn’t deserve their praise or their money. She looked down over the gathering. This was different. Here they had thanked her for their food and then turned quietly away. It was simple and clean, like a child saying grace.
Ellen turned away from the window to head downstairs. On the landing she met Skye, who looked as if she had just dragged herself out of bed. She stood there dressed in crumpled Punjabi pyjamas, lank hair falling over her sallow face and draping her bony shoulders. Daughter of a billionaire, she looked as if she belonged with the company gathered below.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked, her eyes wide and anxious. ‘All those people ..’
‘Dinner time,’ Ellen said simply. ‘Downstairs. By the way, have you seen Ziggy?’
Skye shook her head as she peered down over the banisters.
Ellen glanced into both of the bedrooms before giving up and going downstairs. Ziggy would be around somewhere, she told herself, and she wouldn’t be able to help but see what was going on.
Prianka smiled at Ellen as she entered the kitchen. Djoti had explained to her that Ellen was holding a meal on behalf of the ashram. She and her daughters had worked hard all day, with Ellen helping as well. Then one of the swami’s own assistants had come, without warning, into her kitchen. He had lit sticks of incense and blessed the food, then the cook, and finally the whole household. Prianka had blinked away tears of pride, while Ellen had stayed in the corner, silent as a sweeper.
Now Prianka waved her hands to show that the mounds of rice were ready, along with the steaming pots of curried potato. She called Djoti’s boys in from the verandah and gave them each a clean tin bucket which she ladled full of food. Ellen watched, unsure whether she should hang back, out of sight, or help serve her guests. Finally she took a bucket of curried potato from Prianka and carried it out onto the verandah.
She kept her eyes on her feet, watching how they moved steadily over the chipped tiles. Tread only on the pavement squares, never the cracks, she told herself, or the bears will get you. It was funny how that old fear ran so deep. More than once she had refused to dance on pavements, turning deaf ears to moaning photographers …
The holy men were to receive food first, and as they gathered at the verandah their steady chanting rose over the other sounds of the crowd. Most of them had deep food tins with wire handles, like billies. They set them out neatly along the edge of the verandah and Djoti’s boys went along the line, ladling rice or pouring curry from the buckets. As they received their meal, the men stopped singing and moved away back to the lawn. There, as if tied to dining room ritual, they sat cross-legged in neat lines, facing the house. They relaxed and talked as they scooped up the food with the fingers of their right hands. Next came the holy women, their soft voices lifting the note of the prayers.
Ellen took the place of one of the boys who went to refill his bucket. Glancing quickly around she saw that Skye had not appeared and there was still no sign of Ziggy. She pictured them hiding behind curtains, peering out.
As she began to move along the line, tipping out serves of the yellow potato speckled with bright red chilli, Ellen wished she had chosen rice. Then there would be just a single ladleful each, fair and even; with the curry she had to guess the size of each serve, aware of watching eyes. She kept erring on the generous side, but still felt uneasy. Prianka had assured her there would be enough, but only if it was shared out correctly.
The spicy steam rose up over the smell of sweat and something else that Ellen recognised—a thick and musky perfume which belonged to the past, along with the smell of dope and hazy rooms full of loud music. Bob Dylan.Van Morrison. The Eagles. She traced it back, knowing that while people and events disappeared, perfumes lingered, carrying their joy and pain through the years. She leaned closer to the edge of the verandah, following the smell. There it was—stronger now Yes … patchouli. It came from a small bottle labelled Spiritual Oil. You dabbed it on your wrist but it soon spread through everything you owned—the black leotards, even the white school towels.
Anointed with patchouli, she and Ziggy had sneaked away from the Academy after dark, following Ziggy’s wild and dangerous plans, appearing at parties, dances, clubs, private meetings. They were beautiful, they had their pick of men at any gathering. They showed off, collecting admirers, but only to impress each other. They knew they were strong, invincible. The world was their oyster, their plaything.
We’ll be strong again, thought Ellen. Come on, Ziggy. Wake up, damn you. I want you back. I’m going to bring you back.
Ellen tried to avoid meeting the eyes of her guests—she didn’t want to attract their attention but nor did she want to appear piously humble by looking down at the ground. Instead, she kept her eyes on the children, who stood back waiting for their elders to eat first.
Her gaze lingered on a little girl whose stick legs were smeared with fresh diarrhoea. She watched as a boy began to cough. Convulsions shook his frail body, again and again. Then he bent over and dropped bloody phlegm from his mouth onto the lawn.
Ellen paused, the bucket hanging in her hand. She reached into herself again, feeling for the old wound, testing the pain. She pitied the children, she realised, and was outraged at their state. But she didn’t feel the fierce protectiveness that would have been aroused by the sight of a plump, smiling baby in a clean cradle. Neither, though, did she feel the dark impulse that was its shadow side: the desire to crush, hurt, damage, disappoint. It was as if, having already found the world harsh and painful and ungiving, the beggar children had survived a vicious but inevitable rite of passage. It was over and done with, and now they were safe—or already lost. Either way, Ellen realised, they were nothing like Zelda. And nothing like the lost child that haunted her dreams, sobbing alone in a cold and empty room. As she watched the beggar children, a sense of release fell over her like a sweet, warm rain. She could smile at them freely and touch them without fear.
Glancing into the bucket, Ellen saw there was barely enough left for two serves. For a moment she paused, torn between making two small ones, or a single that would be way too large. The next in the line was a young man, with lean arms reddened by brick dust. He’s got a job, she thought. Did that mean he’d worked all day and still couldn’t afford to eat? Or perhaps he shouldn’t be here, pretending to be a beggar? Either way, he looked much too thin to be hauling bricks around. Ellen emptied the bucket quickly into his bowl and headed for the kitchen.
Ziggy met her in the doorway, coming out with a full bucket of curry. For a second neither spoke or moved—they just stared at each other. Ellen breathed out slowly, wanting to smile with relief. Ziggy was joining in, helping. The plan was working.
Ellen pointed back towards the place she had left. ‘Take over down there,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve run out.’
Ziggy nodded and limped off down the line. She could barely carry the bucket, but she pushed on. The crowd hushed at the sight of her, appearing like a goddess—a beggar’s body reincarnated with golden hair and clothes of yellow silk. One of Djoti’s boys ran up to help her, but she waved him away. As she struggled on, a hundred eyes fixed on her, keen with recognition, as if she symbolised, somehow, all their own weakness and the stubborn hope that kept them going. They welcomed her with smiles as she bent to fill their plates. And she smiled back, her blonde hair falling over her face and trailing through the food.
The next morning, Ziggy joined Ellen in the dining room. Her hair had been brushed and she wore clean clothes. When Prianka came in with a plate of fresh chapatis, Ziggy took one and put it on her plate. It lay there for a few moments before she began tearing off small pieces and slowly eating. Ellen tried not to watch, busying herself with pouring tea.
Neither spoke about the evening before.The memory of the smiles, the grateful words and the licked-clean bowls of the children lay between them, a bright, friendly presence.
When all the food had been cleared away, Skye shuffled in, barely dressed in a crumpled robe. She sat down at the far end of the table and looked at Ziggy and Ellen with silent, questioning eyes.
‘We’ll be doing it again,’ Ellen stated, breaking the quiet. ‘Next Friday.’ She waited for Ziggy’s response and smiled as Ziggy nodded her approval.
Skye stared in disbelief. ‘But they’re so dirty. The smell …’ She tried to collect herself. ‘I mean, I’m not against helping people. My father always said, one tenth is for sharing around. But we don’t have to ask them here.’
‘Yes we do,’ said Ellen. ‘It’s for us, too. It helps us to help them.’ Ellen faltered. God, she thought, I sound like a Sunday School teacher.
Skye laughed, a small doubtful sound. ‘Well, I’m not going to have anything to do with it,’ she said. She lifted her chin in a show of defiance, but the gesture looked wrong, ill-fitting, like something borrowed.
Ellen looked down at her hands, thinking. What would Carter do? Or James? How did they always manage to get others to follow their plans? Her next words came out calmly, with a firmness that surprised her. ‘You’ll have to. There’ll be no staff to do the work—I’ve given them the day off.’ Ellen glanced at Ziggy before ploughing on. ‘So, the coolies will deliver the raw food. We—three—will prepare it. And at six o’clock, ready or not, our guests will arrive to be fed.’
Skye stared at her, speechless. Ellen could see her thinking through what had been said. The idea of having fifty hungry scarecrows arrive to find no food was impossible to contemplate, but the thought of preparing, cooking and serving food was almost as bad.
‘Ziggy—you say something!’ Skye’s voice rose thin and sharp.
Ziggy lifted her eyebrows, but said nothing.
‘Well, I certainly won’t be here.’ Skye grasped the arms of her chair, as if to draw strength from its solid frame. ‘I’ll call a coolie, and—I don’t know, I’ll …’ Her voice waned. Everything had been left up to Ellen since their arrival. Skye didn’t even have any cash. The only thing she could really do would be to stay upstairs in her room or hide in the forest. But it wouldn’t be beyond Ellen to send coolies to find her and drag her back.
Skye stared at Ellen’s face, anger burning in her eyes. ‘You’re mad,’ she said, her voice harsh. ‘There’s something wrong with you.You’re—’
‘Shut up, Skye,’ said Ziggy in a low voice. She had a round glass paperweight in her hand and she rolled it back and forth over the table, making the flowers trapped inside do little cartwheels in a patch of sun. She looked up at Ellen. ‘I think it’s a good plan.’
Skye started to cry. ‘I’ll be sick,’ she said.
Ziggy held the glass ball still and looked up. ‘So what’s new?’
Ellen smiled, warmed by Ziggy’s support. She had a sudden vision of them standing together, she and Ziggy, side by side. Neither of them stronger or weaker; neither one in charge. But equal instead. A new beginning …
When the next ‘feeding’ day came, Ellen and Ziggy rose early. Skye got up, too. She hovered around, reluctant to help with the preparations, but unwilling to be left alone.
Ellen gave her the task of peeling vegetables. Skye sat on the verandah with a bowl on her lap, holding potatoes under water to avoid their starchy smell and flinching at the touch of the clammy white flesh. More than once she prepared to get up and walk away, but the empty lawn stretched out in front of her, a reminder of what was to come.
Meanwhile Ellen and Ziggy worked in the kitchen.
‘Do you think they’ll mind having the same again?’ Ziggy asked Ellen as she stood over the stove roasting Prianka’s spices.
‘What?’ asked Ellen, beginning to laugh. ‘You mean it should be à la carte?’
Ziggy grinned.
‘Have you eaten today?’ Ellen asked carefully.
Ziggy didn’t respond.
‘You should, you know,’ said Ellen.
‘I would if Prianka was here, with chapatis.’
‘Take a look in the fridge,’ said Ellen, smiling over her shoulder, ‘she brought some in this morning.’
By six o’clock the expected crowd had arrived and the women began serving food. But more people kept appearing, edging quietly out of the forest and drifting onto the lawn. Ellen watched with dismay as the original number seemed almost to double. There would not be enough food for them all. She felt sick inside, as if she had deliberately set out to betray these poor, hopeful people. But at least, she noted, the scale of the crowd seemed to have pushed Skye into action—she moved steadily down the line, her face fixed bleakly on the task in hand, like a child facing bitter medicine and wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible.
The beggars stared openly at Ziggy and Skye—wealthy foreigners with bodies wasted from hunger. They bowed their heads as the women approached, giving the respect due to people who have chosen the way of mortification—though the grand house was a far cry from a bare, cold cave.
Ellen tried to stay out of sight in the kitchen. She cooked all the rice in the house and boiled up dhal and vegetables and anything else she could find into another makeshift curry. But still there was not going to be enough, and it would take hours for coolies to bring more up from the market. The orderly gathering would turn into chaos, spurred on by hunger and disappointment.
Something would have to be done, Ellen realised. Perhaps the ashram could be paid to feed the rest of the people, or some little cafe taken over and a helpful rice merchant found. Either solution could probably be made to work. She pictured Ziggy becoming weak again, joining Skye in expecting someone else to take charge. But now, Ellen told herself, the time had come for Ziggy and Skye to wake up, to look after themselves. To show that they had been rescued.
Ellen left the kitchen by the back door and went to her room. She tried not to think of the children waiting quietly for their turn and unaware that by the time they came to the verandah and held up their little bowls, with shy smiles, the food would all be gone.
She sat down on the bed and stared at the wall, patterned with neat lines of even-petalled roses. Someone came in, quick steps drumming against the thin carpet. Skye’s French perfume clouded the air.
‘We’re going to run out of food,’ she said.
‘I know,’ answered Ellen.
‘You’ve got to do something,’ said Skye, urgently. ‘They’re … hungry.’ The word sounded strange, coming from her, as if she had plucked it at random from a foreign language dictionary. ‘And the children waited till last.’ Her voice was high and shrill, edged with panic.
‘I can’t do anything,’ Ellen stated. ‘There’s nothing left.’
‘But…’ Skye stared at her mutely, struggling with the idea of empty shelves, empty fridges, in a world of no supermarkets. A magic world—clean, foodless—in which no-one could eat. But then she remembered the children, waiting with their dented tins and chipped bowls, refusing to give up hope. ‘There must be something,’ she said, pleading.
‘Well,’ said Ellen flatly, ‘see what you can do.’
‘But,’ Skye’s eyes widened with outrage, ‘you set all this up. You’ve got to deal with it.’
‘What’s Ziggy doing?’ Ellen found herself asking.
‘She’s serving the last of the food. The last bucket. What are we going to do?’
‘That’s up to you. You and Ziggy.’ Ellen traced a pattern on the floor with her foot. Her eyes fixed on her toes, following them round and round. She refused to look up.
Eventually Skye walked out. Alone once more, Ellen put a record on the old player, a mindless waltz that covered the muffled sounds from outside. Then she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.
Some minutes later, Skye walked back in. ‘All we want to know,’ she said bluntly, ‘is do we have money? Cash?’
‘Yes, plenty,’ said Ellen. Reaching into her shirt, she pulled out her money pouch and handed it over without looking up. ‘Rupees and dollars.’ Skye took the money and disappeared.
The record ended, lilting music giving way to the soft scratchy beat of the needle as the turntable spun fruitlessly on. Time passed, and the house and garden grew still and quiet. Finally Ellen got up and walked slowly outside.
The lawn was empty. Valuing every thread and shred they owned, the eighty visitors had left nothing behind them but the marks of their feet on the grass. The kitchen was also empty, the stove a weak glow in the gathering dark. Then she saw them, the two figures on the far end of the verandah, sitting quietly with their backs to her, looking out towards the top of the track, where the last of the visitors must have disappeared from view just a short time before.
Ellen approached them slowly. They said nothing as she came up to them. ‘Did you think of anything?’ she asked, forcing a light tone.
‘Yes,’ said Ziggy, sounding slightly surprised, ‘we did. We stood on the verandah and asked if anyone spoke English. And this weird old guy came up, all dirty and ragged. But wearing orange, you know, like those monks. And he said,’ she looked down her nose and tried a plummy English accent. ‘ “How may I assist you?’ ” She smiled up at Ellen, overtaken by the telling of her story. ‘I mean, he was half-naked, and his skin was covered with something …’
‘Ash,’ added Skye. ‘He was wearing ash on his skin. Like a caveman.’
‘Anyway,’ Ziggy took over again. ‘I told him to translate for us, and we spoke to the man from the ashram. He said the children and others who missed out could go down there because the ashram kitchens would be open for a busload of pilgrims due back from … Where did he say?’
‘Gangotri,’ Skye replied in a soft voice. ‘The holy place where the Mother Ganges bursts forth from the earth.’
‘Yes, that’s it—Gangotri. So, off they all went. We paid the ashram. Everyone seemed happy.’
‘Good,’ said Ellen. She felt awkward, unsure of how the others viewed her. She sat down beside Ziggy and bent her head, letting her hair fall forward. It still smelled of the morning’s cooking—fried onion and rich spices. Suddenly, she felt hungry. She let her mind wander freely over images of hamburgers-with-the-lot, New York cut steaks, red-hot nachos. And the meat of a freshly caught crayfish, rolled in James’s seasoned flour and pan-fried over an open fire. Eaten in sight of the sea from whence it came. Food of the gods.
A few minutes later a beam of light appeared, swinging through the trees, then flashing across from the top of the track. It was Djoti, coming towards them with a hurricane lantern swinging from a wrist. His wide, white smile greeted them before his face could be seen.
‘Mem-sahibs,’ he said, holding out a covered cooking pot. ‘I heard that you ran out of food.’
‘I don’t think that would have helped much,’ said Ziggy, eyeing the pot. But there was no sarcasm in her voice and her smile was warm and easy.
Djoti waved her words aside. ‘They are at the ashram. No problem. But you are here and you too must eat.’ He sat cross-legged on the verandah nearby and beckoned for the others to join him. ‘My own sister has prepared this for you.’ Lifting the lid of the pot, he leaned over to breathe the fragrant steam that curled up into the crisp air. ‘Dhal. Lentils. I warned her, not too spicy, and no chilli at all.’ Then he undid a cloth bundle, revealing a pile of chapatis still warm from the fire.
Ellen moved to sit beside him. Ziggy followed—and then Skye as well. Together they made a small circle around the steaming pot. The yellow light of the lantern threw their features into sharp relief.
Ellen took a chapati and handed one to Ziggy. Skye waited for a few moments, her hands lying still in her lap, then she reached out and picked up a chapati for herself. Copying Djoti, she tore a piece off and used it to scoop up some dhal. She placed the food in her mouth, wordless and solemn, like a young girl at her first communion.
Ellen kept her eyes on her own hand, afraid of breaking the spell. She sensed Skye chewing and swallowing, then her hand returning to the pot for more. She looked at Djoti, wondering if he knew what he had done by bringing food here now and offering it to Ziggy and Skye at a time when painful images of unchosen hunger were so strong and clear in their minds.
Djoti met her gaze and gave a shadow of a smile. He felt in his pocket and brought out a handful of tiny red spikes. He popped one into his mouth and offered one to Ellen. ‘Chilli,’ he said. ‘Really, chilli is needed.’
Everyone ate, slowly and steadily.
Ellen turned towards Ziggy, wanting to catch her eye, but the blonde head was bowed as if she were deep in thought.
Finally Ziggy broke the silence. ‘You know why so many people came, Ellen? The man from the ashram told us news had spread of the arrival of a foreign swami—that means teacher. They said this swami had students who were dedicated to overcoming the power of the flesh. They were happy to see us today, serving for you. But it was you they wanted to see.’ She looked at Ellen. ‘I’m not kidding. He was serious.’
Ellen laughed. Her eyes watered with the bite of the chilli on her tongue. ‘You’re joking.’
‘Ziggy’s face was bright with interest. ‘No. It’s true.’
‘Well, what did the man from the ashram say?’
‘He said stranger things have happened many times.’
Djoti nodded his head slowly. ‘Here we are close to the abode of the gods, the eternal snows, and their children the sacred rivers. Strange things will happen. No-one could disagree with that.’
Ellen looked at him, but his face was a mask. She shivered, feeling the cold fingers of the deepening dark reaching in through her clothes.