A deer park, a duck lake, a fort—“It’s colder here, isn’t it?”—“Yes; we’ll walk fast, ok?”Distress clouds your eyes:“You should’ve got your coat.”“It was sunny when we came out.”“Still!”(Ma chère, what’s gone through the sieve…what’s stuck in the net, we receivelike cactus flowers in a drought.)“It’s still October,” says our friend.She’ll be only too glad to take an auto.We press on to the lake.The fort was restored to defendthe water from the Mongol hordes.These Khilji-Tughlaq ruins now boastof peacocks, lovers and ghosts;no one remembers Taimur’s sword.The dusk is smoggy, the village is lit-up.We hear jazz, Sufi,and debate on rum or coffee.“To not drink would be sacrilege!”We each order one-and-a-halfmeasures of rum: the cold retreats.Good I didn’t get the coat, it cheatsme of the warmth of friends.—“Or rum?”—And we laugh.