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

She sat by the bedside, humming a lullaby as the girl curled herself into a ball and reluctantly let her exhaustion overtake her. What had happened to Kamla at the hands of the police might not be uncommon, Joanna thought, but the trust she showed in telling this story was. "I hate this inspector," Vijay said she had told him. "He comes to the flash house, sits with gharwali. He drinks his whiskey, and when my sister Mira is passing he will take her flesh between his fat fingers, he will squeeze until she cries out, and he only laughs and says she is begging, then he must go with her." "And he is one of the men who forced himself on you?" Joanna had asked.

Kamla tipped her head, talking rapidly. "In the night there is no light," Vijay translated. "She says, the men grunt and sweat and shove like animals." He dropped his gaze. "Like goats. Like pigs. Only one is smelling like fish." Kamla's eyes locked on Joanna's. Then, "It is my first time, Mrs. Shaw."

The clarity and control of her voice as she uttered these last words in English had stunned Joanna all over again. She did not press for more. But she also knew that protecting this girl would not be a simple matter.

She stroked the sleeping child's forehead, smoothing tendrils of damp black hair behind one ear. She owed it to Kamla, and to herself. She would not fail her again. Pulling the curtain to the sleeping room behind her, Joanna returned to her office. The bungalow was quiet, as the other girls now, too, settled to rest through the day's worst heat. Vijay had retired to his cubicle on the other side of the compound to review the home's account books. Joanna thought for a moment, then picked up the telephone and called her superior, Hari Kaushal. Typically evasive, he said he would be passing that way within the hour, and they could discuss whatever concerned her then.

Hari was no fonder of complications than Vijay, which was why he'd signed her on. Not a month after her arrival in Delhi, Joanna had attended an embassy cocktail party, and by way of introducing herself was telling Nancy Minton, the U.S. Ambassador's wife, about her career as a social worker, especially how her work with refugee relief had saved her sanity when Aidan was overseas during the war. She'd like to find something like that here in India, she was saying when Nancy introduced Hari. The dapper Bengali sociologist had recently been appointed to head the governme

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.