"I'm used to these being in the basements of churches."

"You use what you can." John guided toward a building almost buried between the others rising around them. "With a city like this, you've got to get creative sometimes."

"To find a place that's not cripplingly expensive and also not falling to ruin?" Anna shook her head, noting the rubbish gathering in gutters and the children playing in streets as crowded by people and storefronts as electrical lines and cars. "It's a shame what we did to this place."

"What 'we' did?"

Anna nodded, trailing him down a set of steps and into a hallway echoing with the buzz of the electric lights. "Say what you like about the unifying nature of English or the train we forced on this country, but the state we left the world in when we decided we'd had our fun and went home, that's down to us."

"Too bad we can't fix it like we broke it then." John opened a door, flicking the switch to bring the blink and hum of electric lights into a room with a cracking linoleum floor and fake wood-paneled walls.

"How'd you mean?"

"Think about it." John pointed to the folding chairs as he started setting them up to face the wall opposite where they entered. "If we take responsibility for coming to already populated countries, imposing our rule on them, and forcing them into a system that wasn't theirs, and then just up and left, that's on us."

"That was the gist of my argument." Anna paused, leaning on the back of the chair she set up next to his, "But I've a feeling that's not where the story ends."

"Then," John held up a finger, walking backward toward the chairs before grabbing two more to finish the line and start another a few paces away. "Wouldn't it be our responsibility to clean up the mess we made?"

"Again, I already implied that." Anna started another row, echoing the pattern similar to church pews split by a center aisle. "What's your point?"

"That we can't fix it. If we'd wanted to, then we should've seen to that before we, as you put it, washed our hands of it and went home."

"There's no time like the present."

"But now the present's complicated by questions of motive and responsibility and cultural appropriation." John counted out the chairs as he reached for the last ones. "To fix what we did isn't as simple as rebuilding a fence we crashed a car into."

"Just because it's hard-"

"It's not hard, it's impossible." John finished the last chair, taking a seat in it as Anna echoed him across their makeshift aisle. "It's impossible because there's no way to do it without suffering the judgment of anyone and everyone."

"If you care about that."

"You'd have to. Because who's going to fund a white westerner going to a third-world nation to start a charity without asking after their motives?" John ticked up his fingers, "White guilt, culture appropriation, secret government work, secrete criminal work, money laundering, to make you feel better about yourself, the list goes on."

"Assuming that's true, what does it matter if it's the right thing to do?"

"Because who's to say anymore if it's the right thing to do?"

"I would think we all think that for ourselves."

"But we've all got our own perspectives on it." John opened his hand toward her, using it to point. "You even said, we came here and broke it. That was done under the impulses and belief that what they were doing was God's will. That it was right and good to come and conquer a nation of people they didn't understand and force them to obey rules and regulations that weren't theirs."

"So you're saying do nothing?"

"No, I'm saying we can't think of this as something we understand." John pointed at himself. "I teach, professionally, at one of the colleges here."

"English literature, right?"

"Isn't that still imperialist of me?"

"You're the one asking the question."

John gave her a smile, "The answer, in a way, is yes. But also no."

"I get the yes and I'm betting you set this up to tell me why it's also 'no'." Anna sat back in her chair. "So professor, continue."

"Don't go trying to butter me up now," John raised a finger in warning and Anna only snorted at him. He smiled back before continuing. "But it's a 'no' because if I'm the person they wanted and, arguably, one of the best in my field, wouldn't it be to their benefit to have me on their faculty?"

"Couldn't you also argue that one of the ways you got to being the best in your field was because you were raised in a society that put you at a distinct advantage?"

"It could and it's probably true. But could you say that the homeless person living outside Kensington Gardens is at as great a disadvantage as one of the children living in the street just a click from here."

Anna frowned, crossing one leg over the other. "So desperation and poverty and lack of opportunity is universal isn't racist, that's nothing new. And not really true, if we consider the blatant reality that the majority of the poor in the western world are 'people of color' or otherwise disenfranchised."

"I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying is that we're in a position now where we've painted ourselves into a corner. We can't fix the problems we caused because to do so means we're trying to absolve some kind of guilt we've got."

"Really?" Anna leaned into the chair, turning to rest her arm on the back of it so her chin could rest on her hand. "And what's got you thinking that?"

"For all the reasons I've already said. Also," John pushed himself to stand. "Because I believe the heart of making a place better belongs in being from that place."

"Are you saying and no one can successfully lift where they stand unless they grew up there?"

"No, but it goes a lot better when the heart of the places beats here too." John tapped his chest before turning as the door opened. "Ah, everyone else is here."

Anna's arm dropped and her used the edge of the chair to survey those entering. She watched their gaits, the way they spoke to one another, their various heights and builds, even the colors of their clothing as everyone took a seat. Seats she marked and watched as she tensed in her own. As she prepared to listen to those who came to support one another as they fought the same battle on different fronts and in various ways.

When John took the seat next to hers, both of them among the minority of those assembled but not the only white people there, Anna loosened slightly. Not enough to gain the edge or get to the door before anyone else but enough so John did not lose his smile when he gave it to her again. "Not a bad turnout."

"You make it sound like you've been here before."

"I've tried this a couple times, being honest." John shrugged, "But I've recently had a good reason to finally kick it for good."

"Was your binge the other night a last hurrah as well?"

"It was." John nodded toward the front as a woman in a blue sari brought the meeting to order. "But it wasn't supposed to be."

"What?"

"Shhh." A man across the aisle put his finger in front of his mouth and Anna scrunched her nose in a frown at him before focusing on the woman speaking beautifully accented English as she welcomed everyone to the meeting.

"I'd like to welcome anyone new. There's always a place here for you and the more people we have the larger our community can grow." She narrowed her eyes and Anna stiffened when those eyes landed on her. "Would either of you like to start?"

"I-" Anna slowly shook her head but John stood, moving past her and thanking the woman as he stood in front of the group.

"Evening, I'm John."

"Hello John." The chorus of voices echoed and Anna folded her arms over her chest to listen while measuring everyone else's varied reactions.

"I've been here a few times over the last few months. Each time I earned myself a chip that I swore would be the last one I added to the collection I can now string on a necklace." He offered another smile as a few people tittered in the crowd. Anna only tightened in her chair at the ease with which these people discussed or listened to admissions. "But the other night I was at a bar and I met someone who was on their 'last hurrah' and I realized, why couldn't I do that?"

John paused a moment, sucking at his cheeks as if rolling words around the inside of his mouth to find the ones he liked best for their shape. "And I realized I'd been making excuses for all the times I fell back. For each time I tipped off the side of the wagon. First it was my wife driving me crazy. Or that she was holding up our divorce. Or that she'd tried to pull something else to delay the inevitable. Or, or, or…" He shook his head. "It was always excuses. Always a reason to turn back to drinking as a way to mute everything. And it wasn't until I ran out of excuses and realized I couldn't blame it on anyone else anymore that I decided to kick it for good. To turn around and not look back."

He shrugged, "I don't know if it'll work. If I'll stumble again, which I might, or if I'll manage it one day at a time and then blink and I've been sober for years, but I'm willing to look forward and see what could happen if I really commit this time. If I leave behind the kind of excuses I made for myself before. If I really give it my all instead of always knowing I'd betray myself in the end." John took a breath, "So I'm here with hope instead of fear. And that's an exciting thought."

With a nod toward the audience he returned to his seat, a few people thanking him for what he said. The woman leading it stood again, her eyes falling on Anna for a moment, but turned back when Anna gave a slight shake of her head. Instead she turned to another man who stood and the evening progressed. Each person gave their story and their reasons and Anna listened to it all like a background track as she continued to listen for the sounds from the street, the movements of those about her, and occasionally ensured her escape.

When the hour wound down, everyone thanking the final speaker, the woman dismissed them to the refreshments at the back of the room before making a beeline for Anna and John. It froze Anna in place as she debated which route offered her a faster exit: the door or the nearest window. But the woman extended her hand to John first.

"It has been some time since we had you here, Mr. Bates."

"Ms. Hadas, it's always good to see you." John returned the shake of her hand before gesturing toward Anna. "This is my friend Anna."

"The same person who recommended a 'last hurrah'?" She winked at John before extending a hand to Anna. "You can call me Gouri."

"Thank you." Anna ended her shake a little more swiftly than John. "It was a lovely meeting. Very… Open."

"It's encouraged, in the program, to express yourself. It's the vulnerability that offers us the chance to really dig to the root of our problems."

"Is it?"

"Very few people simply pick up a bottle and decide they'll give their lives over to it." Gouri shook her head. "My husband knew that."

"Is your husband-"

"He's the night manager at a hotel." Gouri raised a hand, stopping Anna before she could offer misplaced sympathies. "I realized I set you up to think I was mourning him."

"Are you?" Anna shrugged a shoulder, "Some women can mourn their husbands before they're dead."

"Too true but no, Jai and I…" Gouri gave a smile. "He and I started this chapter of the program together after his father was killed in an accident. Drunk driver racing over roadways on a whim and lives are changed forever."

Anna nodded, her eyes slipping from focus for a moment and she blinked away the image of a thumb depressing a button. "So many things happen in the blink of an eye, don't they? A second for the world to change."

"Quite right." Gouri nodded. "And given how many people can fall victim to the allure of alcohol, or other drugs and distractions, something like this offers a place where they can go to find out why."

"Why they like them?"

"Why they turned to them." Gouri adjusted her sari, nodding toward the group chatting quietly in the back. "So many of them are here because they finally realized it was deeper than the drink or the drugs. Because their families turned to drinking for years and they never thought differently or because they suffered horrible abuses and now they're confronting those things for the first time."

"Why not find a therapist?"

Gouri gave Anna a sad smile, "I'm not sure how much you know about Indian culture generally, but therapy isn't something people do here."

"Because it's not offered?"

"Because it's not culturally right." Anna flicked her eyes to catch John's moment of smug 'I told you so' satisfaction that turned back to empathy in a second. "Men mostly but also women feel that to tell a stranger their worries or troubles would bring shame. Not only by admitting they have them but also because you don't tell strangers the business of your household and family. It's not done."

"But they'll tell it here?"

"Not at first but, eventually people do." Gouri's smile lightened a little. "People like to know they're not alone. Something like this allows those who are in a very vulnerable position to find acceptance and healing with those who are just like them. No judgement, no recrimination, no shame. Just honesty and progress."

"However staggered and limping it may be?" John suggested and Gouri put a hand on his arm as if to push him gently away.

"Progress, Mr. Bates, is progress. The limit is never completely reached."

"Says the maths professor." John took a breath and turned to Anna. "Do you want to try the doughnuts they've got here or go somewhere else?"

"I don't know," Anna eyed the table in the back. "I've got two competing ideals willing to duke it out."

"How'd you mean?"

"The first is that I'm never supposed to go to a second location. The second is that I've only ever heard rumors about the bad refreshments at gatherings like this."

"I can assure you that our doughnuts are of the highest caliber." Gouri almost seemed to puff out her chest a little. "One of our regulars owns a bakery and he's an excellent judge of tastes."

"Then it'd be rude to refuse." Anna moved to the back, keeping distance between she and the group to scope out the options before snagging a few of the doughnuts into a paper bowl before sequestering herself closer to the exit. John joined her a moment later, holding his own sample, and sporting a cup of the milk tea.

"Do you really believe I'm a stranger?"

"Even if we tried to drink one another under the table-"

"You drunk me under the table fair and square, there was not attempt on my part to even stray close to what you accomplished." John sipped at his tea before resting it on the edge of the table to manage the doughnuts. "But you were making a point."

"Right," Anna tested on the doughnuts and gave a shrug before popping the rest of it into her mouth. "The point is, we don't really know each other."

"We know as much as anyone who's been on a first date."

"What he had wasn't a date."

"Because it didn't end with-"

"Because it wasn't the intention." Anna shook her head, chewing another doughnuts to completion. "I've drunk men dry before or taken them to their bedrooms without any implication of a date. It was convenient and nothing more."

"Was what we did-"

"That was more of us meeting and happening to share a moment together." Anna finished her food and turned to him. "It was lovely and I liked it, or I wouldn't be here with you now, but it wasn't a date."

"Do you say it with that condescending tone because you want to go on a date or because you're hoping I never ask?"

"I did say that I'd be all for having sexual relations with you so a date wouldn't be undesirable." Anna finished her bowl and turned to John. "So about that second location…"

He finished his doughnuts and tea, bidding goodbye to a few of the other members of the group, before leading them back onto the street. The bustle barely died with the sun gone down and the humidity never slept. It stuck to every part of Anna until her clothes wrinkled and bunched over her body as patches of it soaked up sweat.

"Do you ever get used to the heat?"

"I haven't." John shook his head, "I've been here for two years and I still can't seem to adapt. It's like my very biology rejects it."

"And yet you're still here." Anna dodged around a protruding restaurant, its tables filled with people sharing bowls giving off conflicting fragrances. "It's all about mind over matter in the end."

"The rational brain taking over the primal." John nodded, turning sideways as a scooter zipped past them. "Plus, I love it here."

"What brought you here in the first place anyway?" Anna pulled her hair back, typing it up to get it off her neck as loose strands stuck there, tickling at her skin. "It's not exactly the kind of place people rush to for job opportunities."

"They found me really." John put his hands in his pocket, keeping their pace measured as they traversed the crowded roads blinking with bright lights. "One of my former students contacted me about the chance to teach here."

"Out of the blue?"

"Well," John cringed, keeping his focus ahead as they walked. "I was… unemployed, at the time, and it wasn't exactly a quiet event."

"Can I ask why or would I be prying into a private matter?"

"It's… It's all the in the past now." John scratched at the back of his head, stopping them at a light with a gaggle of other people herding children, carrying bags of groceries, or simply getting back home from a long day of work. "But I was a professor in Dublin. Taught English Literature, like I do now, and I was working in a respected position."

"Is that when the drinking got you?"

"Oh no, which is part of the reason I always went back to it. I was a functional alcoholic to the point where no one even knew I was hung over." John clicked his tongue against his teeth. "The curse of being Irish, I suppose, is that we built a genetic tolerance to alcohol. It could literally be in our blood."

"That feels like a stereotype."

"Stereotypes exist because there was usually a foundation for them. Not at the levels of the stereotype but because there was a justification for it." John waved it off as the light turned and they joined the crowd crossing the street. "Point is, I was dismissed from my position after I assaulted our head of department."

"You did what?" Anna almost coughed on it, shaking her head. "I don't believe that for a minute."

"You forget, you've only seen me as a happy drunk or sober." John's face grew somber as they turned down another street. "I was different then. I ran on anger and a constant level of intoxication that only varied from low to high, never not."

"And you just got hot under the collar and decided that a heavy bag at a gym wasn't going to be enough to stop you laying into your Head of Department?"

"A heavy bag wouldn't have flaunt in my face that he was sleeping with my wife behind my back." John winced, "And since everyone saw me punch him and didn't hear what he said…"

"Looked pretty bad on you?"

"I didn't wear the color well, no." John pursed his lips, "Then again, he didn't wear bruising well either. Didn't sue me for breaking his jaw so I guess there is some kind of karmic balance in the world."

"I'll believe that when I see it."

"You haven't?"

"In my work…" Anna paused, measuring her words carefully. "I've seen a lot of shady things. I've seen people who deserved a comeuppance never get it while good people suffered for it. I watched the world 'work' to the detriment of good people and benefit the bad and I didn't have a way to change that."

"Who knew the world of import-export was so exposing."

"You wouldn't believe what you see when you watch commerce run itself on the backs of hardworking people to the enriching of the lazy."

"So you're a socialist?"

"I'm…" Anna chewed the inside of her cheek. "I'm of the belief that a person shouldn't have to slave their entire lives to live in a nice flat while others can own multiple homes they don't appreciate and waste money on ridiculously expensive things. I believe in working hard but earning equal to your work. A fair wage for fair work."

"The dream of most people." John's hands returned to his pockets as they turned another corner, the streets a little quieter here. "But I think we all just want to be happy and we're not sure how to get that."

"It's hard to find."

"Hard to quantify, I think." John nodded at her, "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"What brought you to Mumbai?"

"It's…" Anna bit harder into her cheek, "It's a bit like your story really."

"You punched a superior?"

"He wasn't a superior, we were… Actually, he was an inferior in my business. In most ways really but he… He happened to get drunk one night at a company gathering and started throwing around some accusations about me."

"What kind of accusations?"

"The kind that got him kicked out afterward or talking about trade secrets in public." Anna shrugged, "But he left in a sling."

"Did you put him in that sling?"

"I most certainly did." Anna took a breath, "I left him with sixty-four fractures from his pinkie to his shoulder and almost snapped his jaw."

"You…"

"And was this close to breaking his nose." Anna almost held up her fingers for comparison but stopped when she saw John's face. "Sorry, that probably wasn't the right time to share that."

"No, I…" John whistled, "I don't think I could do that to someone."

"Well, when you've got the rage and-"

"No, you misunderstand." John almost stepped in front of her and Anna stiffened a moment, analyzing how to get around him. "I wasn't making a judgment about what you did but how you did it."

"I'm confused."

"Between his hand wrist, upper arm, and shoulder…" John touched each of those places on his left arm with his right hand, as if assessing them. "How'd you do that?"

"There are thirty-three bones that make up the shoulder, arm, wrist, hand, and fingers." Anna held up her hand for comparison. "I just happened to know where to hit."

"It's not about where but how." John swallowed. "Superman, for instance, could reasonably hold a space shuttle-"

"Our definitions of 'reasonable' aren't aligning-"

"But it's not about brute strength, it's about balance." John stopped her moving forward by holding up both hands. "The how is the amount of pressure. The precision you must've applied… I definitely did damage to him Head of Department but I only broke his jaw by almost breaking my hand to do it."

"Well," Anna shrugged off the implied compliment. "I've had a lot of practice."

"I'll say." John pivoted to return to her side and they continued walking. "What kind of practice? Vigilante justice in dark alleys?"

"I'm not Batman." Anna finally managed a smile. "My father taught me to box."

"Because he wanted sons?"

"No, he just thought I'd need a way to defend myself since I've always been a bit small and he didn't want me picked on at school." Anna rolled her shoulders. "I bloodied a few noses in my time. It's how I met my friend."

"The one who got you the position here?"

"Yeah." Anna shook away a memory before tugging it back. "Some guy tried to force her to kiss him behind the football pitch one day and I punched him in the balls. He was limping for a week when I was done with him."

"I hope it taught him consent."

"I wish." Anna ground her teeth. "He went to prison later for sexual assault."

"Bugger."

"I wish I'd punched him harder."

"Hard enough for impotency?"

"At least for testicle retrieval." Anna shrugged it off, "But that was just brute strength and focus. The precision… That was from my step-father."

"Did your parents divorce?"

"No." Anna shivered, despite the heat and humidity. "My dad… He passed when I was nine. My mother remarried within a year and my step-father was… He wasn't a nice man. Not like my father."

"No?"

"No." Anna ground her teeth again, "For punching a guy in the dick, I had to take up martial arts with him. He trained me to fight using a number of forms."

"Which ones?"

"Judo, jiujitsu, karate, and kung fu. And they were all fine, in their own way, but I liked kung fu best."

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't just grappling or throws or strikes. It has specific styles built for people's types and abilities." Anna pointed to herself. "Someone like me could take on someone your size with the right training."

"I'm nervous to even ask what that would be."

"Mantis and Crane style." Anna gave another smile, "They were definitely easier than my mother forcing my sister and I into figure skating."

"A woman of many talents."

"Got to keep it interesting somehow." Anna finally stopped. "Okay, where is this second location anyway?"

"There." John pointed, "I thought a few doughnuts would tide us over but the real food's waiting for us through those doors."

"Wuthering Eats?" Anna frowned, "That's seems an odd choice."

"It's built on the grounds of an old estate that was here back when Mumbai was Bombay, during the British Raj." John continued walking toward it, "There was a Lord here, who was actually a Duke, named-"

"Lord Wuthering, Duke of Kenwick, Lord of Moorland, North Orkney, and West Galway." Anna finished for him, slipping past him toward the doors. "His adopted son was an ancestor of mine on my father's side."

"What?"

"Why'd you think I decided an offer in Mumbai was best?" Anna put her hand on the door, "There's a bit of history here for me too."

"You, Ms. Smith, are a bastion of secrets."

"You don't know the half of it." Anna pushed through the doors, John following her.