SECTION B: PROSE ANITA DESAI: Fasting, Feasting Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Arun stands looking at his shoes, dusty from the long walk out of town, and carefully refrains from informing him that Melanie is indoors, gorging on peanuts. He waits for the dreaded moment when he will have to confess what he wishes he did not have to confess – again. Will Mrs Patton make the confession for him? Will Mrs Patton be brave and make it unnecessary for him to speak, publicly reveal himself as unworthy, unfit to take the wafer upon his tongue, the wine into his throat? 'Come on, bring me your plates,' Mr Patton tells his foot-dragging communicants, trying to sound jovial and only managing to sound impatient. Mrs Patton advances, holding her plate before her. She stands very upright before the grill, trying not to flinch but evidently fully aware of the gravity of the ceremony. ‘Thank you, dear,' she says as she receives the slab of charred meat on her plate, making it dip a little with its weight so that grease and blood run across it and spread. 'And now you, Aaroon,' commands Mr Patton, sliding the spatula under another slab that is blackening upon the coals. ‘This here should be just right for you, Red,' he jollies the nervous newcomer to his congregation, not yet saved but surely on his way. Arun has made the mistake of telling the Pattons once that his name means 'red' in Hindi, and Mr Patton has seized upon this as a good joke, particularly in conjunction with his son's name, Rod. Fortunately Arun has not elaborated that it means, specifically, the red sky at sunrise or Mr Patton might now be calling him 'Dawn'. Instinctively, then, Arun steps backwards and even puts his hands behind his back. Some stubborn adherence to his own tribe asserts itself and prevents him from converting. 'Oh, I'll just have the – the bun and – then salad, he stammers and his hair falls over his forehead in embarrassment. Mr Patton raises an eyebrow – slowly, significantly – holding the spatula in the air while the steak sputters in indignation at this denial. Mrs Patton rushes in hurriedly, but too late. 'Ahroon's a vegetarian, dear -' and then her voice drops to a whisper ‘– like me.' Mr Patton either does not hear the whisper, or does but ignores it. He responds only to the first half of the statement. 'Okay, now I remember,' he says at last. ‘Yeah, you told me once. Just can't see how anyone would refuse a good piece of meat, that's all. It's not natural. And it costs –' Mrs Patton begins to play the role of a distracting decoy. She flutters about the patio, helping herself to bread and mustard, pattering rapidly, 'Ahroon explained it all to us, dear – you know, about the Hindoo religion, and the cows -' Mr Patton gives his head a shake, sadly disappointed in such moral feebleness, and turns the slab of meat over and over. 'Yeah, how they let them out on the streets because they can't kill 'em and don't know what to do with 'em. I could show 'em. A cow is a cow, and good red meat as far as I'm concerned.' 'Yes, dear,' Mrs Patton coos consolingly. 'And here it's all turning to coal,' Mr Patton mourns, patting the scorched slice. Arun follows Mrs Patton to a table set with platters and bowls of lettuce and rolls. Sadly he resigns himself to the despised foods, wondering once again how he has let himself be drawn into this repetitious farce – the ceremonies of other tribes must seem either farcical or outrageous always as bad as anything he remembers at home. Thinking of his father's stolid face and frown at the table, grave and disapproving, he feels he must assure Mrs Patton as he would his mother, 'I will eat the bun and salad.' Mr Patton says nothing. He is prying the scorched shreds of meat off the grill with his spatula and scraping them onto his plate, grievously aware of the failure of this summer night's sacrament. Mrs Patton settles onto a canvas chair and pantomimes the eating of a meal while playing with it with her fork. ‘Mmm, it's real good,' she murmurs. 'Rod and Melanie just don't know what they're missing.' [from Chapter 15] How does Desai make this such a memorable moment in the novel?