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their lives — their husbands and wives, their children, their hobbies and interests. Uncle Lucky’s relationship with Miss Rani remained a mystery, and he often pondered over it. He would watch them together, remarking to himself on their intimacy, which appeared almost unseemly between a boss and his staff member. When they were in a meeting, Uncle Lucky, as opposed to sitting on his side of the desk with Miss Rani across from him, would often come around and sit by her. They would discuss a business problem or a new venture with their heads bent close together. Uncle Lucky would sometimes touch Miss Rani’s arm in a gesture of approval and yet, Amrith did not think there was anything lascivious about this contact. Uncle Lucky often left his cubicle door open and the rest of the staff could see them. They appeared unfazed by this intimacy.
    To relieve his boredom, Amrith went to visit Aunt Wilhelmina one afternoon. He found her playing bridge on the front veranda with her usual coterie of CinnamonGardens dowagers — Lady Rajapakse, Mrs. Zarina Akbarally, and Mrs. Jayalukshmi Coomaraswamy. Amrith was a bit frightened of these formidable women, who never hesitated to speak their minds in a very blunt manner. Yet they were always nice to him and often commented on what a polite boy he was, wishing that their grandsons were more like him.
    Once he had greeted them, Aunt Wilhelmina, who was very pleased to see him, led Amrith through the drawing room and dining room, waiting for him to make his choice from her glass-fronted cabinets. He picked the one containing the silver. Aunt Wilhelmina unlocked the doors, then rang a bell for her retainer, Ramu. He laid out newspapers on the dining table and brought in the silver polish and some rags. Amrith was left to his work with a glass of sweetened lime juice, bridge sandwiches, and little iced cakes.
    He did not understand why, but bringing back the luster to silver or dusting carefully around the ridges and indentations of porcelain ornaments brought him great contentment. As he took each silver object from the cabinet to the table, he marveled at its beauty — the two elaborate candelabrums, their bases and knops molded with leaves, their serpentine branches ornamented with foliage; a set of dinner plates with a design of acanthus shells and anthemion ornaments etched along the edge; the cake-basket with its finely pierced sides engraved with foliage, flowers, beading, and trelliswork; a bulbous soup tureen with elaborately cast rose finials and rose bracket handles; a tea and coffee service from China carved with panels of Chinese landscapes, the spouts on the pots fashioned to resemble bamboo.
    Amrith worked for a while, then needing a break, he walked around the drawing room admiring the furniture. Aunt Wilhelmina had been married in the early 1920s and all her furniture was Art Deco imported from France.
    She had a nicely illustrated book on Art Deco furniture and Amrith, as he often did, took it down from the bookshelf and looked through the pages, glancing up every so often at the pieces of furniture to see, in three-dimension, the simple forms and classical styles, the exotic materials and fine handcraftsmanship, the complicated inlays of ivory, tortoiseshell, gold leaf, and tooled leather, the contrasting veneers of rare and expensive wood, which was Art Deco.

    With nothing much to do, Amrith spent hours in the aviary. While some of this time was devoted to cleaning up and rearranging the perches, what he mostly did was try and train Kuveni to speak. He borrowed a few books from the British Council Library on breeding birds and read up on how to make a bird talk. Yet, despite using all the techniques in the books, he had no success. Kuveni remained stubbornly silent.
    The mynah had been a gift to him from Aunty Bundle’s friend and partner, the architect Lucien Lindamulagé. Amrith was very fond of the old man and they had spent many mornings of his childhood together