Recording at the Radio Station done—a talk on Ernest Hemingway—he felt thirsty.
Outside, under a tree, in tar-melting heat, he found a vendor skinning sugarcanes with a kukri, working a little harder on its nodes. Sticks dehusking complete, he placed a batch of them under crushers of the juice-extraction machine. A strainer-covered container slowly gathered the syrup. He’d the flattened stems—now mixed with lemon and ginger—go through the same process. It tasted like nectar.
He then drifted out into the raging sun wondering how his recorded voice would sound through ether when aired the following week.