The customs building was a huge, echoing warehouse of a place. Sodium yellow lights hung from metal rafters and made people's skin look greasy and waxlike. Baedecker's shirt was already plastered to his body in a dozen places. The lines moved slowly. Baedecker was used to the officiousness of customs officials, but these black-haired, brown-shirted little men seemed to be reaching for new heights of official unpleasantness. Three places in front of him in the line, an older Indian woman stood with her two daughters, all three in cheap cotton saris. Impatient with their replies, the agent behind the scratched counter dumped their two cheap suitcases on the floor of the shed. Brightly printed cloth, bras, and torn underpants spilled out in a heap. The customs man turned to another agent and said something in rapid Hindi that brought smirks to their faces.

Baedecker was almost dozing when he realized that one of the customs men was talking to him.

'Pardon me?'

'I said — is this all you have to declare? You are bringing in nothing else?' The singsong of Indian English seemed strangely familiar to Baedecker. He had encountered it with Indian hotel-management trainees around the world. Only then the tone was not edged with a strange suspiciousness and anger.

'Yes. That's all.' Baedecker nodded toward the pink form they had filled out before landing.

'This is all you have? One bag?' The agent hefted Baedecker's old, black flight bag as if it held contraband or explosives.

'That's all.'

The man scowled fiercely at the luggage and then passed it contemptuously to another brown-shirted agent farther along the counter. This man struck an X on the bag as if the violence of the motion would drive out whatever evils it held.