New York is not presented as a general portrait of the city but as a recurring setting for the unraveling of Mimi Mamoulian and Billy Battuta’s fortunes, and for their increasingly distant connection to Saladin Chamcha. It enters the narrative through transatlantic calls and reports from the papers, then through arrests, a jail weekend, a disputed cheque, and a later fraud investigation. Across these episodes, New York becomes the place where private attachments and public performances meet consequences: Mimi’s concealed whereabouts mark a parting, while Billy’s confidence tricks repeatedly turn apparent disaster into another opportunity.

A City Reached by Phone and News

Mimi calls Saladin from New York the evening after Anahita summons him to the telephone in his disguise. By the time he reaches the phone, Mimi has hung up, but she calls back. Their exchange makes distance tangible without requiring a meeting: Saladin does not know that she is leaving, while Mimi points out that he has never given her his address. Both keep their whereabouts private, and the call reveals how little either can claim to know about the other’s life.

Saladin wants to ask Mimi to come home and tell her that she is all he has, but he does not manage to say either thing. Instead, he warns her about Billy, a remark that only angers her. Her account of introducing Billy to her family ends in a joke about the unlikely social and political combination, followed by her assurance that they will all survive the encounter. New York is thus linked to a relationship already conducted through omissions and attempted jokes: even a long-distance call cannot restore the intimacy that Saladin privately hopes for.

A few weeks later, Mimi calls once more. By then the pattern has hardened: she does not ask for Saladin’s location, and he does not volunteer it. The narrative presents their separation not as a dramatic confrontation but as a mutual recognition that an age has ended and they have drifted apart. The call remains occupied by Billy and his schemes, leaving Saladin listening to the details of another life rather than reopening their own connection.

Billy’s New York Ventures

Mimi describes Billy’s plan to make Hindi films in England and America, bringing leading stars such as Vinod Khanna and Sridevi to places as different as Bradford Town Hall and the Golden Gate Bridge. The scheme gives New York a place in a transnational entertainment project, though the report that Saladin has seen in the papers associates Billy with the fraud squad and tax evasion. Mimi treats the allegations lightly, while the narrative’s reference to Billy’s established confidence tricks makes that lightness uneasy.

In another New York episode, Billy is arrested for passing a cheque that appears to be worthless, and Mimi spends the weekend in jail with him. When the banks open on Monday, however, Billy’s account is found to contain $42,117, proving that the cheque had been valid all along. The reversal changes the meaning of the arrest: what had seemed to expose Billy as a swindler instead gives him grounds to accuse the furriers of defamation.

Billy threatens a two-million-dollar lawsuit, and the furriers settle out of court within forty-eight hours, paying him $250,000. Mimi presents the result as evidence of his genius and celebrates the cleverness of the outcome. New York’s legal and financial institutions appear here through a compact reversal: arrest gives way to vindication, and an apparent loss becomes a large settlement. But the episode does not establish that Billy has abandoned deception; rather, Mimi’s admiration keeps the possibility of another scam close to the surface.

Arrest, Performance, and Exposure

A later newspaper report gives a darker account of Billy’s activities. In midtown New York, he is arrested at a sushi bar with a female companion identified as Mildred Mamoulian and described as an actress. Investigators allege that he solicited substantial sums from wealthy society women, claiming that he needed money to buy his freedom from a sect of devil worshippers. The story uses the language of rescue and spiritual danger as the instrument of a confidence scheme, turning American religious feeling into part of Billy’s performance.

The report says Billy had received a $5,000 cheque from Mrs. Struwelpeter the previous afternoon. Mrs. Struwelpeter has influence in the New York Police Department, and officers arrive before Mimi has finished her tempura; both members of the couple go quietly. In the newspaper photographs, Mimi wears what Saladin guesses is a $40,000 mink coat, while her expression seems to him to admit only one interpretation. The contrast is pointed: the coat signals conspicuous wealth, but the arrest and photograph make the couple’s public image vulnerable to scrutiny.

Narrative Significance

Taken together, the New York episodes distinguish between two kinds of exposure. The first arrest ends with Billy’s cheque shown to be good and a substantial settlement, allowing Mimi to interpret events as proof of his brilliance. The later report instead places him under investigation for soliciting money through a fabricated story, and the photograph fixes Mimi beside him at the moment of arrest. The contrast prevents either account from serving as a simple verdict on Billy: the evidence includes both an arrest that proves mistaken and allegations that reveal a recurring pattern of deception.

For Saladin, New York is also the source of news that arrives at a distance. His knowledge of Billy’s legal troubles comes from newspapers, while his contact with Mimi dwindles to calls in which each keeps private where they are. The city’s episodes therefore connect public spectacle to private separation. Billy can turn accusation into performance, and Mimi can admire the performance, but Saladin’s unsaid appeal to her remains outside their shared conversation.