Excerpt from Flash House by Aimee E. Liu, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The size and strangeness of the city alone threatened to defeat me. Crossing the busy streets I would cleave to wandering cows so as not to be struck by the trucks and buses whirling past. When I came to the sweeping lawns near the government palaces I shrank like a mouse back into the hubbub of the smaller streets rather than risk walking in such open spaces. In one of the bazaars I picked up a yellow rag, which I wound about my head as a disguise. I pinched a salted plum here, a betel leaf there. I followed a group of passing foreigners in the hope they might lead me to Mrs. Shaw. They led me to a street of white palaces just like the home I had imagined for Mrs. Shaw, and even though I did not find her there, I discovered to my delight that I was slender enough to pass between the bars of certain private gates. For the next three nights I slept in the gardens of the rich.

These were cherished hiding grounds, so carefully groomed and tended that the very earth smelled privileged. Soft and rich and dark, the dirt held me like a mattress, and with summer arriving I was not cold. Sometimes, if the mali had watered late in the day, I would bury my hot feet in the mud, or scoop a cold pack of it onto my legs and arms where the skin was still raw. I would lie behind beds of cannas or underneath the drape of an oleander bush. Snails and centipedes would work their way over me, and through the foliage I would watch the lights of the house attached to the garden, the silhouettes of family and servants moving through their evening rituals. Sometimes there were children with loud, shrill voices, sometimes scolding, sometimes soothing ayahs. Once a foreign couple sat on their veranda not ten feet away, though it was so dark that I knew they would not see me, and they argued until the memsahib was in tears. I had been pretending that the couple were Mrs. Shaw and her husband, and the lady's evident misery was causing me some distress until I realized that their discussion centered around a certain fancy dress the sahib disliked! No, I thought fiercely, Mrs. Shaw would never waste her tears over such a thing. My indignation rekindled my desire to locate the real Mrs. Shaw, and long before the mali could catch me the next morning I was on my way.

Mrs. Shaw. I turned the name over and over on my tongue. I had heard her Hindu escort address her as they wandered through the district, and committed it to memory on the spot. The name was as much a part of her as the amber color of her hair or the emphasis of her smile. Little enough good it would do me. In those days I could speak bits and pieces of four languages--Hindustani, Urdu, English, and my native tongue--but I was penniless, and knew nothing of Delhi society. Today I might look in the telephone listings, or ask at the American embassy. I might go to the International School and ask one of the chowkidar if he had seen a woman of such and such description. But then New Delhi was to me a puzzle of walls and faces, glittering storefronts and meaningless signs. "Mrs. Shaw?" one old mali repeated, smacking his toothless mouth at the question.

"Why not ask for Mrs. Singh, or Mrs. Mukherjee, or Mrs. Jain?" "Are there so many?" I asked, incredulous. "As many as there are memsahib," replied the old liar. Almost certainly, he did not know even his own memsahib's name, but I took him for an expert and went on my way quite undone.

I had only her image to go by. An image of matching hair and eyes, the color of dying fire. Of narrow bones and thin wrists, a bird's neck and big feet in black strap shoes. Of dresses that clung to the dampness of her skin, and caught the breezes as she walked. I thought of the hollows of her cheeks, the deep settings of her eyes, the high square forehead and sharpened jawline with small knots of muscle that betrayed her tense nature. As I wound through the crowds, ducking out of the way of tongas and taxis, I practiced carving her image with words.

Copyright © 2003 by Aimee E. Liu. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.