Interpreter of Maladies

did. 
    The next day, when Dev came to visit, Miranda asked him what his wife looked like. She was nervous to ask, waiting until he'd smoked the last of his cigarettes, crushing it with a firm twist into the saucer. She wondered if they'd quarrel. But Dev wasn't surprised by the question. He told her, spreading some smoked whitefish on a cracker, that his wife resembled an actress in Bombay named Madhuri Dixit. 
    For an instant Miranda's heart stopped. But no, the Dixit girl had been named something else, something that began with P. Still, she wondered if the actress and the Dixit girl were related. She'd been plain, wearing her hair in two braids all through high school. 
    A few days later Miranda went to an Indian grocery in Central Square that also rented videos. The door opened to a complicated tinkling of bells. It was dinnertime and she was the only customer. A video was playing on a television hooked up in a corner of the store: a row of young women in harem pants were thrusting their hips in synchrony on a beach. 
    "Can I help you?" the man standing at the cash register asked. He was eating a samosa, dipping it into some dark-brown sauce on a paper plate. Below the glass counter at his waist were trays of more plump samosas and what looked like pale, diamond-shaped pieces of fudge covered with foil, and some bright orange pastries floating in syrup. "You like some video?" 
    Miranda opened up her Filofax where she had written down "Mottery Dixit." She looked up at the videos on the shelves behind the counter. She saw women wearing skirts that sat low on the hips and tops that tied like bandannas between their breasts. Some leaned back against a stone wall, or a tree. They were beautiful, the way the women dancing on the beach were beautiful, with kohl-rimmed eyes and long black hair. She knew then that Madhuri Dixit was beautiful, too. 
    "We have subtitled versions, miss," the man continued. He wiped his fingertips quickly on his shirt and pulled out three titles. "No," Miranda said. "Thank you, no." She wandered through the store, studying shelves lined with unlabelled packets and tins. The freezer case was stuffed with bags of pita bread and vegetables she didn't recognize. The only thing she recognized was a rack lined with bags and bags of the Hot Mix that Laxmi was always eating. She thought about buying some for Laxmi, then hesitated, wondering how to explain what she'd been doing in an Indian grocery. 
    "Very spicy," the man said,shaking his head, his eyes traveling across Miranda's body. "Too spicy for you." 
    By February Laxmi's cousin's husband still hadn't come to his senses. He had returned to Montreal, argued bitterly with his wife for two weeks, packed two suitcases, and flown back to London. He wanted a divorce. 
    Miranda sat in her cubicle and listened as Laxmi kept telling her cousin that there were better men in the world, just waiting to come out of the woodwork. The next day the cousin said she and her son were going to her parents' house in California, to try to recuperate. Laxmi convinced her to arrange a weekend layover in Boston. "A quick change of place will do you good," Laxmi insisted gently, "besides which, I haven't seen you in years." 
    Miranda stared at her own phone, wishing Dev would call, It had been four days since their last conversation. She heard Laxmi dialing directory assistance, asking for the number of a beauty salon. "Something soothing," Laxmi requested. She scheduled massages, facials, manicures, and pedicures. Then she reserved a table for lunch at the Four Seasons. In her determination to cheer up her cousin, Laxmi had forgotten about the boy. She rapped her knuckles on the laminated wall. 
    "Are you busy Saturday?" 
    The boy was thin. He wore a yellow knapsack strapped across his back, gray herringbone trousers, a red V necked sweater, and black leather shoes. His hair was cut in a thick fringe over his eyes, which had dark circles under them. They were the first thing Miranda noticed. They made him look haggard, as if he smoked a great deal and slept very little, in spite of the fact that he was only seven years old. He clasped a large sketch pad with a spiral binding. His name was Rohin. 
    "Ask me a capital," he said, staring up at Miranda.
    She stared back at him. It was eight-thirty on a Saturday morning. She took a sip of coffee. "A what?"
    "It's a game he's been playing," Laxmi's cousin explained. She was thin like her son, with a long face and