“Achchi!” Madhayanthi said, taking her fingers out of her mouth to point excitedly at Mrs. Perera, who, dressed in a dark gray and blue sari, was taking the stairs up to the floor they were on, stopping every third step to catch her breath.

Mrs. Perera looked up and caught sight of them. Her mouth pursed and she looked away, holding on to the railing and not moving any farther.

“Achcheee!” Madhayanthi yelled and tried to leap out of Latha’s arms.

“Chooti baba, you will fall! Here, I’ll put you down, and we can go and see Achchi,” Latha said, not knowing what else to do in such a public place. She put Madhayanthi down, and the child toddled a little ways, still holding on to Latha’s fingers.

“We’re not going down to that Padhu woman,” Thara said.

Latha did not think that the Pereras were Padhu, or Kara or Berava or any other caste that she had heard mentioned with this same bite by Mrs. Vithanage and now Thara, only that Mrs. Perera had spat at her, and dishonoured Mr. Vithanage, and that these two things made her a worthless human being. Thara abandoned Latha. One second she was next to her, the next she was absorbed by the crowds and sucked into the Women’s Dresses section. Latha would have liked to follow, but Madhayanthi was tugging at her hand.

“Come, Latha! Come!” she was saying, her eyes on the grand-mother she and her sister were taken to see, religiously, every other Saturday by her father (which meant, usually, that Thara was free to see Ajith and Latha free to drink lime juice with the houseboy). She clung to and pulled at Latha’s fingers.

What could Latha do? She picked up the child and started walking down the steps, protecting Madhayanthi from the elbows and bags and umbrellas of the other shoppers. Mrs. Perera was waiting.

“Come here, darling!” she said, opening her arms to Madhayanthi, who leaped out of Latha’s arms and into the soft folds o the older woman. Latha felt considerably irritated by this. Madhavi would never have done such a thing, she said to herself; she had second sight. She knew what was what, that little girl. Not wanting to participate in their affection-filled meeting, she held on to the railing and looked around at the shoppers while Mrs. Perera cooed and cuddled Madhayanthi.

From where she stood on the curve of the wide spiral staircase, Latha could see hundreds of black heads, dotted here and there by colored ones from abroad. Red, yellow, light brown, even painted heads. One looked up at her: a brown-haired man with dark eyes; his smile was so wide she was sure it was meant for someone he was well acquainted with. She looked around her, then glanced back at the man. He was still smiling, and this time he waved. Mrs. Perera must have been watching because she muttered something about Rodi whores who were just the type to lick the arses of the Suddhas, and about mistresses who allowed their servants to dress lie the lady of the house. Out of spite, Latha let an initial no-teeth smile blossom into her chin-dimpling, three-cornered grin at the man. Gehan had once commented upon that smile, and how endearing it was to him. But she had been just a girl then, and thought her smile was controlled by him, not naturally hers. Now, she knew better. She smiled, and then she waved, surreptitiously, with her arms still at her sides, so Mrs. Perera wouldn’t see it. The man laughed and gestured for her to come downstairs. No, she said, with her head, but smiled again.

Latha looked away from him to see if Mrs. Perera had noticed. She had not. She continued to talk to Madhayanthi at her side. When she looked down again, Latha was disappointed to see that the man had disappeared. It had given her a quick thrill, that look of appreciation, even from a foreign man. Of course other men looked at her, but that was different. Those men belonged to the group Mrs. Vithanage disparagingly referred to as the Servant Class. They were hired help, drivers, day laborers, vendors at the butcher shops and markets where she went to buy provisions with the houseboy. Gehan had been her sole exception; the only equal, in her mind, who had paid her any sustained attention, who had known her for more than what she did for room and board. And Ajith, she didn’t know what it was that he had told himself, but over the years she had a story to fit that year of madness, one that excused him as best as she could, if for no other reason than that Thara saw something in him to love: he had wanted to know a woman sexually and she had been vengeful enough to be that girl. The simple truth was that they had both been too young to think about each other.

Now, Gehan’s friends never Gehan would look her up and down when she poured water for them, served them a cup of tea, or cleared the dishes, but those looks never rose to the level of true admiration. They were the disappointed if-only variety; if only she wasn’t a mee servant. The admiring kind was what she had once got from Gehan and, fleeting though it might have been, from the foreigner. She straightened up, happy that she had stuck to her guns when it came to her attire. No wonder the foreigner had given wing to his approval of her, of her motherhood. She would never dress like a servant.

She could spot servants from a mile away. There were several right here: they wore shabby clothes that were clearly hand-me-downs or, if they were new, in a cut that simply aped a current style but did not suit them: ankle-grazing dresses on short, stubby women, tight printed T-shirts on chesty ones in colors not picked up by their skirts; they wore Bata slippers or sandals that did not match their clothing: their hair was bunched together and frizzy; they didn’t smell fresh like she did; there was no mistaking the servility in their manner, Latha smiled to herself, feeling particularly lovely in her calf-length denim skirt, the pin-tucked white cotton blouse, her brown sandals. She felt the soft edges of her hair hanging long and loose down her back, and readjusted the coconut-shell hair grip with its matching pin, which kept the front from falling over her face. She touched her earlobes. She looked regally around at the crowds, thinking of Leelakka, how she had promised her that she would shine again when she was back in the city. Somewhere in the future there was a life beyond all this for her. She was absolutely certain of that.

Mrs. Perera broke into her daydream.

“Let’s go and find this poor child’s mother. God knows what she is up to.’

“Thara Madam is shopping for clothes in the women’s section. I can take Chooti Baba to her,” Latha said, knowing that Thara had no intention of making this pleasant for anybody, even in the presence of her daughter.

Mrs. Perera snorted. “Clothes? What for? In my day we stopped shopping for clothes after we got married. After that we only shopped for our husbands and children and the servants at New Year. But what can you expect from her type…” And she blew another audible gust of air out of her nose.

“Thara Madam has very important functions to go to,” Latha said. “She has to be properly dressed for these things, that’s why.”

“Functions? How can she have functions now that she doesn’t even work?” Mrs. Perera sais. All her comments were to the air on either side of Latha’s head, not directly to her. It was as though Latha was a visible apparition sent to save her from the embarrassment of talking loudly to herself.

“Thara Madam is a secretary now at the Old Girls’ Club at her school, and she is an important lady at the Colombo Tennis Club and at the Lionel Theater, too,” Latha told her, trying to make those activities sound as dignified as she could. She wished she knew what duties were attached to such memberships. She made a mental note to as Thara when they got back in the car.

Mrs. Perera sniffed. “Darling, go with the woman to Amma, okay?”

“Achchi come,” Madhayanthi said, taking one hand in each of hers, Latha’s in her left, Mrs. Perera’s in her right. Latha was glad that Madhayanthi’s vocabulary presented slim pickings for the child; even these monosyllabic words created such emotional quagmires for the adults in her life.

“Achchi has to go, darling. I have to get a nice present for Seeya. You go with the woman,” Mrs. Perera said and tried to move down the staircase. Madhayanthi’s mouth turned down. Latha panicked. Unlike Madhavi, who had inherited Gehan’s equanimity and careful grace, or those aspects that he had possessed as a teenage boy who had befriended and loved a servant girl, Madhayanthi was fully equipped with Thara’s sense of entitlement, as well as the wiles to ensure that things turned out her way.

“Chooti Baba,” Latha said, her voice syrupy, all treacle, singsong, up and down, the whole works, “Achchi has to go and buy you a big teddy bear from downstairs so next time when you go to visit her you’ll have a surprise, so we must let her go now, okay?”

Madhayanthi, her head hanging down, bit her finger, then let her eyelids open to reveal a mischievous delight. “Baba go Latha,” she said, letting go of Mrs. Perera.

Latha felt glad at the look on Mrs. Perera’s face. It was written, clear as day: drama had been averted, as had confrontations, thus thwarting what might have been a solid victory for Mrs. Perera, and in a public place; not only that but now she had to buy a big, no, beeeg! Teddy bear. It was perfect. Latha hid her smile as she walked up the stairway, glad also to bewalking up, and therefore turning her rear to Mrs. Perera, who was, as she had expected, standing there, waiting for them to be out of sight before continuing her own journey up to the third or fourth floor. Latha crossed her feet in front of her as she climbed like she had seen women do on television ads, ensuring the widest sway to her bottom.

Latha hoped that Thara had not strayed too far. It was madness trying to locate anybody in the chaos of the Palace. The only hope was that kindred spirits would find themselves drawn to the same fare. She found herself heading toward the pretty sets of underwear vulgarly displayed for all to see on a wall of racks. There were several men idling within sight. Perverts. She tried to examine the various bras without them being able to derive any pleasure from seeing which ones drew her attention. Madhayanthi stood beside her and pulled at the panties that were at her level.