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sauntering, decorated cow. The Brahmin priest accompanying the sacred animal cried, ‘Watch your step,
babooji
,’ and sidestepped nimbly to avoid the preoccupied Parsi’s contaminating touch.
    The Fakir was not a phoney, Freddy decided, recollecting the enigmatic display of vials, powders and parchment. The man had almost certainly been in communion with the spirits, unsavoury ones no doubt, when Freddy had looked into the room hesitatingly from the threshold. He never had doubted that black magic and witchcraft existed, and he was convinced a little ordinary ‘magic’ would not be amiss under the calamitous circumstances. Of course, he would take the precaution of counter-balancing any risk to his relationship with God with extra prayer and alms-giving.
    He wondered what mysteries would be perpetuated on his mother-in-law’s hair once it was handed over to the Mystic. It might be reduced to grey ashes in the incense-burner, to the accompaniment of appropriate chants and spells, or, wrapped up with abominable magic potions the hair might be buried in some unholy spot. He had noticed
things
strung up withhalved lemons, and dagger-like green peppers dangling from the branches of a banyan tree overhanging a grave.
    What then? Freddy shivered, though his part in the whole business was completely innocuous. All he was required to do was snip a bit of hair – a childish prank – and hand it over to the Mystic. What the divine did with it thereafter was not his worry.
    Crossing over to his shop, Freddy just missed being impaled by the spokes of a tonga as the cursing driver rammed his two-wheeled horse-carriage into a clangorous, ox-drawn fire engine.
    Intent on all the angles and complexities of his mission, Freddy laboured up the stairs of his home and came face to face with the object of his meditations.
    ‘Oh hello, Mother,’ he cried, with a guilty start.
    Jerbanoo blinked at the unaccustomed and vehement greeting. ‘’Ello,’ she mumbled doubtfully. Turning her copious back to him, the frizzled rat-tail of her hair dangled sinfully before his eyes.

Chapter 4
    FREDDY was a patient and meticulous man. He bided his time and three days later an opportunity to implement his mission rewarded his patience.
    It was Friday. Putli would spend the afternoon in a little washroom on the roof of the building scrubbing linen. The servant boy, who kept an eye on the flat while Jerbanoo had her afternoon siesta, had gone off in a huff. She had boxed his ears that morning for dipping into her jar of boiled sweets.
    Freddy was sure his victim was blithely snoring her head off in her room.
    Down below in the store the Hindu clerk idly browsed through some bills. Few customers came at this hour and Freddy, knowing that the moment had come, steeled himself for his task. Telling the clerk he would be back shortly, he mounted the wooden stairway.
    Freddy slipped past the kitchen that opened directly on the landing, and tiptoed through the dining room into his own room. Quietly he opened the drawers of the carved walnut sewing-chest, selected an efficient-looking pair of scissors and tried them out by snipping off a bit of thread from the tasselled ends of his bedspread. Next he removed his shoes.
    Stepping cautiously in his stockinged feet on floors that vibrated at the slightest movement, he stood outside the teak door to Jerbanoo’s room. He paused, breathing softly, listening to the reassuring rumble of snores that filtered through the solid teak.
    Freddy had taken the precaution of oiling all the hinges the day after his visit with the Mystic.
    Patiently, soundlessly, he lifted the latch. When the door gave a bit he let his breath go. Luckily Jerbanoo had not shot the bolts. The door eased open on its well-oiled hinges, and closing it carefully behind him, Freddy tiptoed to her bed. The taut strings of the charpoy sagged like a hammock beneath her weight.
    The square, darkened room was bare except for a rickety clothes-stand, a