"Are you the police?" Danielle asks.

She can barely hear her own voice, but she seems to have been understood. "Railway police," the younger man says. "Tickets and passports."

"Tickets. Of course." She starts fumbling with her backpack, stalling.

"Honey, do you have the tickets, or do I?"

"I'm not sure," Laurent says, unstrapping his own backpack, pretending to search within.

Danielle tries to think. They haven't been arrested, so they haven't been identified, and the tickets are in Johann and Suzanne's names. But they have no passports. That will look suspicious. The more suspicious they look, the less chance they have of ever leaving Bangalore. Stalling won't work, their train doesn't leave for another fifteen minutes. But there must be some way out of this.

Inspiration hits. "You're very late," she says loudly, making her tone that of angry complaint. "We asked for you ten minutes ago. What's wrong with you people? What if we were in danger? How can it take you so long to get here?" She glares at them, pulls out their tickets, and waves them in their faces confrontationally. "There you go. Now what are you going to do about it? We demand full compensation. I'm an American. I'm not going to let you people cheat me like this."

Their stupefaction is exceeded only by Laurent's.

"Excuse me," the older policeman says warily, "I do not understand."

"You don't understand? It's not complicated. Don't you speak English? Do. You. Speak. English?" she asks shrilly, her voice growing louder with every word. People in a twenty-foot radius turn to stare at them.

"Yes, ma'am, of course I speak English," the older policeman says, with barely concealed annoyance. "I do not understand the nature of your complaint."

"I already told the boy I sent to get you. We paid for a full-price first-class ticket, and they gave us these!" She waves the tickets again. "Second-class! I demand the tickets we paid for and financial compensation for our trouble! Just because we're white doesn't mean you can cheat us like this! I want our first-class tickets right now!"

"Ma'am, I think there has been some misunderstanding –"

"You're goddamn right there's a been a misunderstanding! And it's your job to fix things up and make us happy! Now are you going to do that or are we going to have to go to your manager?"

"Ma'am –"

"What's your name? You and your assistant both, I want your names!"

"Ma'am, perhaps you should come to the ticket office with us," the younger policeman says, his voice soothing. "Perhaps we can sort this out there."

"You certainly better," Danielle huffs.

Laurent gives her a slightly stunned look as they fall into step behind the police. Danielle puts on her best flouncing Ugly American walk, and glares at every Indian they pass. Some of them shrink away. Danielle has to fight to conceal a smile. She feels giddy, like she is on some kind of drug, dancing on the edge of a cliff.

In the ticket office they cut to the front of the line reserved for 'FOREIGN PASSPORT HOLDERS, RAILWAY OFFICERS, VIPS, AND FREEDOM FIGHTERS', earning themselves a glare from those next in line, a half-dozen Overseas Indians clutching British passports. The older policeman has a brief Hindi conversation with the sour-faced woman behind the counter, whose wrinkled face is adorned with a bright red dot on her forehead.

Then he turns to Danielle. "Tickets, passports, and receipt."

Danielle blinks, then turns to Laurent. "The receipt."

Laurent looks at her.

"For Christ's sake, Johnny, the train's leaving soon," she says impatiently. "Give me the goddamn receipt."

"I," Laurent nods, "just a moment, yes, of course, I have it here somewhere."

He unslings his backpack again and begins to search through it. "It's in the inner pocket here, I'm sure of it." He rummages and his face falls convincingly. "Maybe the outer pocket." But the outer pocket is empty. "Honey," he says, "I don't know where it went."

"You don't know where it is? You lost the fucking receipt?" Danielle allows her voice to ascend into a screech; easy to do, with her gut churning with anxiety. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Now, honey, calm down," Laurent says faintly, "it'll be okay."

"I don't care," Danielle says, turning to the policeman. "You must have hired one of your pickpockets to steal it. We know you're all corrupt. We know you people have your little tricks. But not this time. I want our first-class tickets, and I want them right now, do you understand?"

"Ma'am," the older policeman says stiffly, no longer concealing the anger in his voice, "if you have no receipt, then you have no case, and I will thank you not to abuse my colleagues and myself in this manner any further."

"Who's your supervisor? I demand to speak to your supervisor!"

"Ma'am, you have no receipt. There is nothing we can do for you. I must ask you to leave immediately and stop causing a disturbance."

"How dare you –"

"Immediately," the policeman stresses, steel in his voice.

"Honey," Laurent says, taking her shoulder, "we have to go. The train is leaving. We can't be late. We'll miss the flight."

Danielle looks at him, then at the stony, contemptuous expressions on the two officers, the woman behind the window, and those whose queue they have hijacked.

"You haven't heard the last of this," she warns. "I will be writing a very strongly worded letter to the Minister of Railways!"

"Come on," Laurent says, pulling at her.

She shrugs him off. "Get your hands off me!"

Head high, she storms out of the ticket office, followed by Laurent. He falls into step beside her as they climb the stairs that lead up to the platform. They board the train without looking at each other. It starts moving before they even make it to their berths. They sit down on the bench-like bottom berth, opposite a white backpacker couple in their early twenties, exchange a look, and then both of them dissolve into slightly hysterical laughter. Their berthmates look on with puzzled expressions.

** *

Danielle lies in Laurent's arms, soothed by the the hum and gentle rocking of the train. She slips her hand under his shirt, runs it gently along his scabbed movie-star muscles, and holds it to his heart, feels it beating slowly beneath her palm. She is grateful for his warmth. Indian Railways always turns the temperature in their air-conditioned compartments down to arctic, and this is especially evident on the top bunk, immediately below the air vents, to which they have retreated for the sake of privacy. On the other side of their berth, on the lowest of the triple-tiered bunks, the young British couple sit and read their Lonely Planet guide. Indian Railways also tends to clump foreign travellers together.

"Back at the station, that was incredible," Laurent says. "I truly thought we were finished. How did you think of doing that?"

Danielle basks in his praise. "Just reflex. Law school, years of getting hassled by cops, dealing with lowlife druggie assholes, I guess I picked up a few instincts."

"You should join us."

"Excuse me?"

"You're smart, capable, you know how to deal with India, you're perfect for us. You're exactly who Justice International needs."

She says, "I thought Justice International was all in jail except for you."

"That won't stick. Even if it does, we're not surrendering the fight. You saw the children of Kishkinda. We can't give up on them. Maybe we can both join your friend Keiran's group. Make common cause."

"It's..." She hesitates. "It's really noble that you spend your life fighting for that kind of thing. I admire it. It's wonderful. But I just don't know if I could do it. I can't live like this."

"It's not all running for your life," he says, amused. "It's just the decision to make the world a better place. Maybe you're not ready for it. But if you make it, you won't ever feel cheated by it. You won't want to quit. You'll get frustrated, you'll get furious, but you'll never wonder if you're wasting your life. I promise."

"Must be nice. Having a mission."

"It is."

"I'll think it over," she says.

"Do."

She kisses him, long and hungrily, then lets go and whispers, "I'm looking forward to having a room to ourselves."

"So am I."

"I can tell." She smiles. "Can I stay up here with you? At least for a little while?"

He says, "If you're comfortable."

"Don't let me fall." The berth is very narrow. He shakes his head solemnly. "Never."

** *

Madgaon Station at six in the morning is quiet, misty, and deserted by Indian standards. The stalls on the platforms, little stands that sell chai, crackers, samosas, candy bars, pistachios, newspapers, even a few John Grisham novels, are not yet open, and the vast and oppressive station, all cracks and rust and peeling paint, feels like a tomb. Its main entrance hall contains only a few dozen people, sitting in small circles drinking tea, or sleeping in family groups on colourful woven mats. Only a handful of would-be taxi and autorickshaw drivers approach Laurent and Danielle as they exit. They eventually agree to four hundred rupees to go north to Anjuna; a fortune by Indian transportation standards, more than half the price of their 13-hour Bangalore-Mangalore-Margao rail journey, but then it is an hour's drive away.

Margao, like most Indian cities, is an ugly, overcrowded mess, but once they cross the bridge over the long, wide tidal river that divides Goa in two, the countryside turns rural and pretty. The dark ribbon of road winds its way through thick green foliage, red earth, golden grass, lagoons lined by palm trees, and villages of small but solid modern buildings, already busy at this hour. Nearly every village has a house with a wall facing the road on which is painted a huge blue-and-yellow ad for cell phones, informing passersby that An IDEA Can Change Your Life. Men in drab shirts repair motorcycles; women in blinding saris shop in the little stores, or at the markets that sell vegetables, heaping bins of grains and spices, clothes. Some stalls sell religious goods, Hindu figures and garlands of yellow flowers, like everywhere in India, but also rosaries, candles, and garlanded pictures of Jesus. Goa, half-converted by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, is still largely Christian – albeit with a very Hindu flavour, as pictures of a blue-skinned Jesus attest.

The Satori Ashram is on a large, mostly untended patch of land a few miles east of Anjuna proper, walled by chain-link fence. Two women at the wooden gates, presumably waiting for their own ride, wave casual hellos to Danielle as she and Laurent emerge from the taxi. Danielle knows their faces but not their names. It feels odd to be recognized and greeted. She realizes she left the ashram only five days ago. It feels like five years.

"Come on," she says. "Let's get settled. We'll be safe here."