But Eve's imminent departure only worsened the situation, because Neal spent even more time at his place. It was too hot now to chase him across the paddy field, so I just stayed home. By this late in the season, the majority of Freaks had left Goa. The heat signalled it was time to leave India.

Sometimes Mushroom Jeffrey visited me. Mushroom Jeffrey had long, reddish-brown hair and a moustache and beard. He'd recently returned from the Rajneesh ashram in Poona, where he'd become a sannyasi—a swami. His new name was Anand Geet, and, like other sannyasis, he wore orange clothes and sported a mala, a necklace of wooden beads with a picture of the guru. I learned that the names Narayan and Ramdas were also Rajneesh-given names, acquired during initiation and signifying transition to the 'spiritual' life.

No doubt about it, it was time to involve myself in a business venture. A few months earlier, Junky Robert and Tish had asked me to invest in their scam. They wanted to send two women to Canada. I gave them two thousand dollars before they left Goa but had heard nothing since. I couldn't count on that deal for immediate income. Now was definitely the time for me to leave India and do something. It would probably wise to get away from Neal too. Though I loved him to death, our relationship mostly gave me misery, frustration, and a sore throat from yelling.

'I need a scam,' I told Anand Geet (Mushroom Jeffrey) one afternoon. 'Everybody's gone or leaving.'

'What will you do?'

'I know where to have cases made in Bombay, but I don't know where to buy the hash. Do you have a good connection for hash?'

'The Birmingham Boys have the best on the beach.'

'Not them. They're scary. I've heard nothing but bad things about them.'

The Birmingham Boys, thirty or so guys from Birmingham, England, operated an extensive export business. They'd known each other before coming to India, and the group's composition continually changed as people arrived from or returned to England. They'd never been hippies, never had long hair, never more than smirked at the sixties notion of 'peace and love'; and, living outside Anjuna Beach, they frequented places that sold alcohol. Their business, which consisted of transporting hashish down from Nepal and Afghanistan into India and then to Europe, kept them in Goa—that and the fact that no police disturbed them there. They were more like a street gang than a group of Freaks.

'Not the Birmingham Boys,' I said to Anand Geet. 'Besides, I heard they're switching their trade from hash to smack. Anybody else?'

'Maybe Archimedes in Baga, but his stuff isn't that good. The Birminghams' is really the best. Who'll make the cases for you?'

'A shop near Crawford Market, but I have to provide the hash.'

'I tell you what—give me the bread and I'll buy the hash and put it in the cases for you.'

'Yeah? How much will you charge?'

'Let's say five hundred dollars? You must bring me the cases though.'

'We'll have to go to Bombay.'

'Tell me when and I will meet you there.'

'Okay, but listen, do NOT tell anyone about this? Okay? Especially not Neal.'

I planned my trip. I'd heard that Canada was no longer easy to enter. Customs inspectors were on the lookout for people coming from India. The new trick involved stopping somewhere en route and having someone waiting with a clean passport. Norwegian Monica had recently used that strategy through Bermuda.

I had someone perfectly suited for the journey's second half—Aunt Sathe.

I wrote her, outlining the scam. I'd take the cases to Bermuda, and Aunt Sathe would meet me there. We'd vacation like tourists, and then she'd carry the cases to Montreal, where I'd be waiting. She wrote back asking for the dates and saying she'd be ready.

Though being with Neal was at times pure joy, mostly I grew angrier and angrier at him. Spending final moments with his daughter or not, something didn't feel right. The way he kept me forever waiting for him drove me nuts. It appeared so deliberate. He didn't have to tell me he'd be right back if he wasn't going to be right back. It would have been fine for him to say he'd be back in two days. But to keep me waiting two days expecting him to arrive any second was inexcusable.

In any case, anger prevented my telling him about the scam. Then Neal announced, 'I think it's time we leave here. The monsoon will start soon, and there's hardly anyone left on the beach. It's time to move to Bombay at least. What do you say?'

I threw my arms around him. 'YahOOOOOO.'

We flew together on the plane: Neal, Eve, the baby, and me. Neal paid for us all. We shared a taxi to the Sheraton, but once there, Neal, Eve, and the baby took a room on the ninth floor, and I had one on the eleventh.

Out of stubbornness I wouldn't go to Neal's room, hoping it would make him send them back to the States that much sooner. It didn't work, of course.

At first we met daily in the stairwell on the tenth floor.

'So how are you?' he asked.

'Miserable on eleven without you'—which was just what he wanted to hear. 'When is Eve leaving?'

He giggled. 'Well, I planned to buy the tickets today,' he said giggling some more, 'but I got hung up. Know who came by this afternoon? I haven't seen him in year . . .'

Neal's room on the ninth floor became the hangout of Bombay. There was always a crowd there. I still refused to go but heard about the gaiety from those who remembered to visit me too. They were having a ball down there.

After a week Neal and I met less frequently, and when we did, it was only to argue.

'Did you buy Eve's ticket home yet?' I'd ask.

'Tomorrow, I promise.'

Anand Geet arrived one day and moved into my room. I took him to the bag place in Crawford Market, and he started work on the cases. I'd show that Neal! I wasn't sitting around waiting for him to grace me with his presence.