Satipur

City where the narrator rents a room from Inder Lal. City where Olivia and Douglas had lived together in 1923.

Khatm

A squat little town that had grown up in the shadow of the Nawab's palace. The Begum arranges for Olivia to visit the midwives in the back alleys of Khatm.

The Nawab's Palace

The palace is described as rising like a jewel above ugly Khatm. On it is Baba Firdau's shrine, built by one of the Nawab's ancestors to acknowledge one who had once given him shelter when he had desperately needed it. The shrine becomes religiously significant—many make pilgrimages to it—once a year, on the "Husband's Wedding Day," an annual fertility festival. It is near here that Olivia and the Nawab—and the narrator and Inder Lal—become lovers. Since the Nawab left no heirs, his nephew Karim inherited the...