The Elephanta Suite Read Online Free PDF

that this seemed like a deception.
    They were sitting outside, the sun-speckled shade falling across their table.
    "Carrot juice?" the waiter asked. "Please."
    "Did you swim?" Audie asked.
    Beth shook her head. "I wasn't in the mood."
    That was not the reason, and she pitied this man whom, in thirty years, she had never deceived. After her husband had left to get his treatment, she'd felt that someone had crept up behind her from the trees, a child or a small sinister man; she could sense that creature's presence on her skin—the prickling of its hovering just out of sight, waiting for her to relax her vigilance, so that he (it was male, and damp) could snatch her Birkin bag. Everything she needed was in the bag—her money, her picture ID, her passport and credit cards, her best charm bracelet, her perfume and makeup, her keys, and (not that either of them worked in India) her cell phone and BlackBerry. She knew that if she were foolish enough to jump into the swimming pool, she would return to her chair to find she'd been robbed, her bag gone.
    "I might take a dip," he said.
    He was a man, the indispensable person in her life who always said to her, "Let me handle it" or "I'll take care of it," and for that alone she loved him. He looked after her. He knew how to look after himself. He kept all his valuables in the room safe. She didn't trust the safe, but hardly trusted herself with her bag either. She wondered why she was here in India with thoughts of being stalked and violated, and for him the subject never seemed to occur, which was another reason she didn't bring it up.
    "I've got a treatment," she said, setting her soup spoon down, patting her lips with her napkin.
    They kissed, brushing cheeks, puckering, a sound like tasting air.
    As Beth walked through the bamboo grove to the spa lobby, she passed the gift shop. A woman in an Agni sari standing at the door to the shop stepped aside and said, "Please. You are welcome."
    "I'm running late, but I wanted to know if you have any shatooshes."
    "We can obtain," the woman said, a sweep of her head indicating her complete cooperation. "But it is not easy."
    "In what way not easy?"
    "It is contraband item."
    "I had thought of looking in the town. I didn't even know there was a town!"
    "Hanuman Nagar. Not available. Not hygienic."
    "But there's the monkey temple?"
    "Shrine, yes, but not temple. Disputed temple, so to say."
    "I'm sure it's interesting," Beth said, because the woman was agitated, as some Indians at Agni seemed to be when they were flatly contradicted, or even questioned.
    "There is such confusion, madam, such hullabaloo," the woman said, widening her eyes, swishing the drape of her sari over her shoulder. "Please, you desire shatoosh shawl, we will obtain full range for you with discretion."
    Beth was given a locker key at the spa. She changed into a robe, and when she went upstairs she was met by a young girl in a white uniform, in a posture of greeting, hands clasped, head bowed.
"Namaskar.
I am Prithi."
    On the way to the massage suite, Prithi complimented Beth on her lovely bag ("It is smart, madam") and on her clear skin. Beth thanked her but thought, Why not? I take care of myself. I eat right. I exercise. I'm only fifty. She was really fifty-three, but what was the difference? Her big birthday was far off and unthinkable.
    Prithi sat her down and washed her feet and said, "We believe that guests come from God," and with the solemnity of this ritual, with the antiphonal music playing on a plant stand, the warm water on her feet, and Prithi's gentle hands, Beth was on the verge of tears.
    She found she could not speak—her throat ached with emotion. Prithi helped her onto the table and lifted the large towel, and Beth slipped off her robe and lay down as the towel was tucked around her.
    "Thai massage, mam."
    "Yes," Beth murmured into the cushion under her face.
    She was tugged, first her shoulders and back, her legs pushed and pulled, Prithi's