Six oclock in the morning. Hes awakened by voices from the back of the house, from outside. A woman laughing.
He gets out of bed and walks to the big second-floor windows overlooking the garden below.
In the next garden, separated from the one beneath him by a high wooden fence, a man and a woman are stretched out on the flagstones, making love. The fence slashes them in half diagonally. The woman lies on top of the man, her dark-red skirt bunched about her hips. Simon cant see the color of her hair.
He rubs his eyes and goes to the refrigerator. Reaches for a bottle of white wine which sits, corkless, in the re?frigerator door. He pours wine into a tumbler, tastes it, makes a face, and walks back into the bedroom for his cigarettes.
Behind him the mans voice says "Hey, hey, hey."
Six oclock? And the flagstones cant be wonderfully comfortable. Ardent lovers must these lovers be.
The building hes living in is one hundred and seven years old. The window wall in the back has separated from the party wall and light can be seen between them.
Simon, early in the morning, stuffs spackle into the opening, and, two hours later, sloshes a little white paint over it. Not bad for government work, he thinks.
The big closet has a large jagged hole in the ceiling, little tufts of insulation floating at its edges. He decides to do nothing about this; he wont be here forever. Hes been told not to use either of the fireplaces because the chimneys have not been cleaned for years.
He closes up his paint can and washes out his brush. Now, breakfast. Popovers from the deli with rare cheeses.
On his way out to the deli to get the group breakfast he hears giggling from the front room. Did you sleep well? And you? And you? Outside, on the street, some?ones screaming.
Peering from the front window he sees two men beating a cop with a nightstick and fists. The cop is a black woman, slight of build. Theres blood on the back of her head. Simon throws open the window and yells "Hey!" -- a prodigious shout, the shout that kills. The astonished men look around, then take off in two different directions. Simon runs out the door and rushes down the stairs.
The cop is trying to pull herself to her feet by the iron railing in front of the building and at the same time wiping blood from the scalp wound out of her eyes. Simon places his hands under her arms, half-drags her to the steps, sits her down.
"Motherfuckers," she says. "Goddamn mother?fuckers."
"Sit still," he says. "Ill call an ambulance."
"Dont need no ambulance. Wheres my stick?"
Simon retrieves it for her. Shes produced a handker?chief and is holding it to her head.
"Wheres my cap?"
He finds the uniform cap and hands it to her. She stuffs the handkerchief inside the cap and places it on her head. She leans forward, half-rises, then moans and sits down again.
"Motherfuckers."
"You want me to call the precinct?"
"No. Ill be fine. Just gimme a minute."
Shes pretty, maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine.
"Those creeps had more muscle than I figured them for," she says. "Perps lookin for something to make happen. Shake em down and youll find burglar tools. They dress up all raggedy and you think theyre not as young as they really are. Got my damn stick away from me."
"You want me to walk you down to the hospital?"
"Im gonna walk in just a minute."
She pulls a radio from her back pocket and calls in, telling the precinct about "two white males, lookin to do a break-in," and the location.
"Thank you," she says to Simon. "Youre a good citi?zen. Got a good yell on you." She stands and, stagger?ing slightly, moves off down the street. She turns and calls again, "Thank you!"
Simon goes back inside and pours another glass of wine. Death may haunt Calcuttas streets, but teeming city throbs with life.