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would brush against his muscular arm. The thought caused her cheeks to burn all over again. As Minty devoured her doubles and hummed the latest film song, Vimla started to ask Krishna what he’d left for her with the fig man. But Krishna had already turned away, whistling as if the conversation had never occurred.

Jammette
    Sunday August 4, 1974

    CHANCE, TRINIDAD
    S angita Gopalsingh paced back and forth before the wrought-iron gates of her home, her white nightie swishing in the late-evening breeze. The moon looked like a fat dull thumbprint in the sky, smudged between heavy clouds on either side. She thought of the god that had pressed the moon into the sky that way, trapping it, allowing it to languish in the moving and swelling clouds.
    Sangita clasped her hands around the bars of one of the gates and peered into the shadows, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dr. Mohan riding his bicycle home after a late day. She wanted him to ring his bell and wave at her. She wanted him to see her in her transparent nightie and make an inappropriate comment about how spicy she looked. She hoped Dr. Mohan would bicycle by when her hair was still wet from her bath; he’d liked the damp black waves snaking down her back andcoiling at her waist the last time. Sangita traced a slender finger over her hairline, down the side of her smooth face and hovered over her full mouth, the way Dr. Mohan had once done with his lips. A frisson of longing shot through her body. She rested her head against the gate and sighed into the night.
    Flambeaux bounded from a pile of bricks stacked against the fence that divided the Gopalsinghs’ property from their neighbour Faizal Mohammed’s, and landed in a silent crouch just inches from the frilly hem of Sangita’s nightgown. She caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and watched as Flambeaux uncurled his spine one vertebra at a time, until he was sitting tall on his haunches, his two front paws placed lightly on the ground.
    “Shoo!” Sangita waved her hands at the cat.
    Flambeaux gave the three sleeping mutts sprawled across the floor a cursory glance and then fixed Sangita with his glowing hazel eyes, sweeping his bushy orange tail back and forth across the concrete like a coconut broom.
    Sangita frowned. “Don’t watch me so, Flambeaux. I does get lonely.” She floated to the flour sack that was Rajesh’s hammock and collapsed onto it, careful not to upset the cup of Ovaltine she’d placed on the ground earlier, now cold and unappetizing.
    Flambeaux narrowed his gaze.
    “Humph! You no better. You does have this Mrs. Cat and that Mrs. Cat coming to my house to make kittens with you. My house look like a cat motel, Flambeaux.”
    Flambeaux yawned and squinted.
    Sangita was just about to pull herself out of the hammock and make her way to her bedroom, where Rajesh was fast asleep,when she heard a rustle in the darkness. Flambeaux started, flicked his gaze from Sangita to somewhere beyond the gates. He took one tentative step forward, keeping low to the ground like a prowling tiger.
    Sangita shook her head. “Don’t go and scrap with a next cat, Flambeaux. Keep your tail home.” But as Sangita picked up her small oil lamp and made for the stairs, she heard it: the distinctive sound of a girlish giggle muffled by … a hand? A kiss? She pivoted on her heel and flew back to the gates like a frantic ghost moving through the night. Who was there? Was it Dr. Mohan with Shantie Ramdeen? She held the lamp high, flooding the dark road and the bushes beyond in pale yellow light. Flambeaux took off in a flash; he squeezed his sleek body through the bars of the gates and disappeared in the direction from which the sound had come.
    Sangita gasped when her eyes fell on the pair. They were darting toward the ravine, hand in hand, trying to escape the lamplight. They hovered low, covering their faces, but Sangita had got a good look and there was no mistaking who she’d seen. When finally their