Free Indian Nocturne by Antonio Tabucchi Page B

south. The main lounge was a huge open space that continued out onto the
terrace, from which it was separated only by the bar where drinks were served on both sides. On the terrace, tables had been laid for dinner, decorated with flowers and lamps. Hidden away somewhere
in the dark a piano was softly playing Western music. Actually, thinking about it, the whole effect was too much in the line of luxury tourism, but at the time this didn’t bother me. The
first diners were taking their places at the tables on the terrace. I told the waiter to reserve us a corner table in a discreet position and a little away from the light. Then I suggested another
aperitif.
    ‘As long as it’s not alcoholic,’ the girl said and then went on in her playful tone: ‘I think you’re going a bit fast, what makes you assume I’ll accept your
offer of dinner?’
    ‘To tell the truth I had no intention of offering dinner,’ I confessed candidly. ‘I’ve almost run out of what few reserves I had and each of us will have to pay our own
way. We’ll simply be dining at the same table; we’re alone, we can keep each other company, it seemed logical to me.’
    She said nothing and just drank the fruit-juice the waiter had served her. ‘And then it’s not true we don’t know each other,’ I went on, ‘we got to know each other
this morning.’
    ‘We haven’t even introduced ourselves,’ she objected.
    ‘It’s an omission that’s easily enough remedied,’ I said. ‘I’m called Roux.’
    ‘And I’m called Christine,’ she said. And then added: ‘It’s not an Italian name, is it?’
    ‘What difference does it make?’
    ‘Actually, none,’ she admitted. And then sighed: ‘Your technique is truly irresistible.’
    I confessed that I had no intention of trying any technique or of chatting her up at all, that I had started off with the idea of a lively dinner with a friendly conversation between equals.
Something like that anyway. She looked at me with a mock-imploring look, and still with the same playful tone protested: ‘Oh no, do chat me up, please, sweet talk me, do, say nice things to
me, I’m terribly in need of that sort of thing.’ I asked her where she’d come from. She looked at the sea and said: ‘From Calcutta. I made a brief stop-over in Pondicherry
for a stupid feature on my compatriots who are still living there, but I worked for a month in Calcutta.’
    ‘What were you doing in Calcutta?’
    ‘Photographing wretchedness,’ Christine replied.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Misery,’ she said, ‘degradation, horror, call it what you like.’
    ‘Why did you do that?’
    ‘It’s my job,’ she said. ‘They pay me for it.’ She made a gesture that perhaps was meant to indicate resignation to her life’s profession, and then she asked
me: ‘Have you ever been to Calcutta?’
    I shook my head. ‘Don’t go,’ said Christine, ‘don’t ever make that mistake.’
    ‘I imagined that a person like yourself would think that one ought to see as much as possible in life.’
    ‘No,’ she said with conviction, ‘one ought to see as little as possible.’
    The waiter signed to us that our table was ready and led us to the terrace. It was a good corner table as I had asked, near the shrubs round the edge, away from the light. I asked Christine if I
could sit on her left, so as to be able to see the other tables. The waiter was attentive and most discreet, as waiters are in hotels like the Oberoi. Did we want Indian cuisine or a barbecue? He
didn’t want to influence us, of course, but the Calangute fishermen had brought baskets of lobsters today, they were all there at the bottom of the terrace ready to be cooked, where you could
see the cook in his white hat and the shimmer of glowing coals in the open air. Taking advantage of his suggestion, I ran an eye along the terrace, the tables, the diners. The light was fairly
uncertain, there were candles on every table, but the people were