Chapter 6: Lens and Lantern

Lens and Lantern was a narrow shop on the first floor, above a sweet seller.

The stairs smelled of fried dough. At the top, a glass door was covered with framed wedding photographs.

Brides stared out of every one of them. They all had the same shy, careful smile.

"Let me do the talking," Nandini said. "You look too serious."

"I am serious."

"Then hold the shopping bag and look like a customer."

Mira took the bag and tried.

Inside, a girl at a desk was peeling an orange. She looked up and said, "Wedding or birthday?"

"Birthday," said Nandini. "Seventieth. A big one."

"Sir is busy. But you can wait."

They waited on a sofa with a torn arm.

Behind a half-open door the man in the grey shirt was bent over a computer, adjusting the color of a bride's lips.

He did not look up until the girl said, "Sir, some people for a party."

Then he turned.

Mira had spent three days with his face frozen on her phone, and she knew every line of it.

He knew hers.

The smile he had been about to give stopped halfway.

His eyes went to the shopping bag and the sofa and the door.

"Madam," he said. "Please. Come inside."

He shut the door behind them and did not sit.

"I think you have the wrong studio," he said.

"On Thursday at four, you photographed a woman in a blue dupatta at Café Rustom," Mira said. "It was my dupatta."

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