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of customers, I moved closer toward the edge of the footpath. As I took a step down onto the road, I heard an urgent shout.
    "_Look _out!"
    Two hands grasped my arm at the elbow and jerked me back, just as a huge, fast-moving, double-decker bus swept past. The bus would've killed me if those hands hadn't halted me in my stride, and I swung round to face my saviour. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. She was slender, with black, shoulder-length hair, and pale skin. Although she wasn't tall, her square shoulders and straight-backed posture, with both feet planted firmly apart, gave her a quietly determined physical presence.
    She was wearing silk pants, bound tightly at the ankles, black low-heeled shoes, a loose cotton shirt, and a large, long silk shawl. She wore the shawl backwards, with the double-mane of the liquid fabric twirling and fluttering at her back. All her clothes were in different shades of green.
    The clue to everything a man should love and fear in her was there, right from the start, in the ironic smile that primed and swelled the archery of her full lips. There was pride in that smile, and confidence in the set of her fine nose. Without understanding why, I knew beyond question that a lot of people would mistake her pride for arrogance, and confuse her confidence with impassivity. I didn't make that mistake. My eyes were lost, swimming, floating free in the shimmering lagoon of her steady, even stare. Her eyes were large and spectacularly green. It was the green that trees are, in vivid dreams. It was the green that the sea would be, if the sea were perfect.
    Her hand was still resting in the curve of my arm, near the elbow. The touch was exactly what the touch of a lover's hand should be: familiar, yet exciting as a whispered promise. I felt an almost irresistible urge to take her hand and place it flat against my chest, near my heart. Maybe I should've done it. I know now that she would've laughed, if I'd done it, and she would've liked me for it. But strangers that we were then, we stood for five long seconds and held the stare, while all the parallel worlds, all the parallel lives that might've been, and never would be, whirled around us. Then she spoke.
    "That was close. You're lucky."
    "Yes," I smiled. "I am."
    Her hand slowly left my arm. It was an easy, relaxed gesture, but I felt the detachment from her as sharply as if I'd been roughly woken from a deep and happy dream. I leaned toward her, looking behind her to the left and then to the right.
    "What is it?" she asked.
    "I'm looking for your wings. You are my guardian angel, aren't you?"
    "I'm afraid not," she replied, her cheeks dimpling with a wry smile. "There's too much of the devil in me for that."
    "Just how much devil," I grinned, "are we talking about here?"
    Some people were standing in a group, on the far side of the stall. One of them-a handsome, athletic man in his mid-twenties - stepped to the road and called to her. "Karla! Come on, _yaar!"
    She turned and waved to him, then held out her hand to shake mine with a grip that was firm, but emotionally indeterminable. Her smile was just as ambiguous. She mightVe liked me, or she might've just been happy to say goodbye.
    "You still haven't answered my question," I said, as her hand slipped from mine.
    "How much devil have I got in me?" she answered me, the half- smile teasing her lips. "That's a very personal question. Come to think of it, that might just be the most personal question anyone ever asked me. But, hey, if you come to Leopold's, some time, you could find out."
    Her friends had moved to our side of the little stand, and she left me to join them. They were all Indians, all young, and dressed in the clean, fashionably western clothes of the middle class. They laughed often and leaned against one another familiarly, but no-one touched Karla. She seemed to project an aura that was attractive and inviolable at the same time. I moved closer, pretending to be intrigued by