"What is that?"

"If we think in terms of set theory, then I'm convinced that my two culture sets are eternally incompatible. And I am the product of these two cultures. The common element in two sets without common elements, as it were."

"East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet?"

"You see my problem, don't you, Bobby?"

"Perhaps a good marriage counselor could —"

"Shut up, please. The metaphor made me think of a more frightening analogy. What if the differences we're reacting to in Calcutta are the result of the culture's not being another set but a different geometry?"

"What's the difference?"

"I thought you knew Euclid."

"We were introduced but never got on a first-name basis."

Amrita sighed and looked out at the industrial nightmare through which we traveled. It occurred to me that this was Fitzgerald's industrial wasteland imagery from Gatsby taken to the tenth power. It also occurred to me that my own private literary references were beginning to be contaminated by Amrita's mathematical metaphors.

I watched as a man squatted by the roadside to defecate. He lifted his shirt over his head and prepared a small bronze bowl of water for the fingers of his left hand.

"Sets and number theories overlap," said Amrita. I suddenly realized by the tension in her voice that she was very serious. "Geometries don't. Different geometries are based on different theorems, postulate different axioms, and give rise to different realities."

"Different realities?" I repeated. "How can you have different realities?"

"Perhaps you cannot," said Amrita. "Perhaps only one is 'real.' Perhaps only one geometry is true. But the question is, What happens to me — to all of us — if we've chosen the wrong one?"

The police were waiting for us when we returned to the hotel.

"A gentleman has been waiting to see you, sir," said the assistant manager as he handed me our room key. I turned to the lobby expecting to find Krishna, but the man who rose from the plum-colored sofa was tall, turbaned, and bearded — obviously a Sikh.

"Mr. Luck-zak?"

"Loo-zack. Yes."

"I am inspector Singh of the Calcutta Metropolitan Police." He showed me a badge and a faded identity photo behind yellowed plastic.

"Inspector?" I did not offer to shake hands.

"Mr. Luczak, I would like to speak to you concerning a case which our department is investigating."

Krishna's got me into some sort of trouble. "And what is that, Inspector?"

"The disappearance of M. Das."

"Ah," I said and gave the room key to Amrita. I had no intention of inviting this policeman up to our room. "Do you need to speak to my wife, Inspector? It's time for our little one to eat."

"No. It will take only a minute, Mr. Luczak. I am sorry to interrupt your afternoon."

Amrita carried Victoria to the elevator and I looked around. The assistant manager and several porters were watching curiously. "What do you say we go into the License Room, Inspector?" This was the Indian hotel euphemism for a bar.

"Very good."

It was darker in the bar, but as I ordered a gin and tonic and the Inspector asked for just tonic, I was able to take time to appraise the tall Sikh.

Inspector Singh carried himself with the unselfconscious authority of a man who was used to being obeyed. His voice held the echo of years in England, not the Oxbridge drawl but the clipped precision of Sandhurst or one of the other academies. He wore a well-tailored tan suit that fell just short of being a uniform. The turban was wine-red.

His appearance confirmed what little I knew about Sikhs. A minority religious group, they made up possibly the most aggressive and productive segment of Indian society. As a people they tended to understand machinery, and although the majority of Sikhs inhabited the Punjab, they could be found driving taxis and operating heavy equipment throughout the country. Amrita's father had said that ninety percent of his bulldozer operators had been Sikhs. It was also the Sikhs who made up the upper echelons of the military and police forces. From what Amrita had told me, only the Sikhs had capitalized on the Green Revolution and modern agricultural technology to make a go of their extensive cooperative farms in the north of India.

It also had been the Sikhs who were responsible for many of the massacres of Muslim civilians during the partition riots.

"Cheers," said Inspector Singh and sipped at his tonic water. A steel bracelet rattled against his heavy wristwatch. The bracelet was a constant symbol of his faith, as was the beard and a small ceremonial dagger he would be carrying. A security guard at the Bombay airport on Thursday had asked a Sikh ahead of us in line, "Are you carrying any weapons other than your sabre?" The rest of us had submitted to body searches, but the Sikh had been passed through after his negative grunt.

"How can I help you, Inspector?"

"You can share any information you have about the whereabouts of the poet M. Das."

"Das has been missing for a long time, Inspector. I'm surprised you're still interested."

"M. Das's file is still open, sir. The 1969 investigation concluded that he was most probably the victim of foul play. Does your country have a statute of limitations on murder?"

"No, I don't think so," I said. "But in the States we have to produce a body for it to be a murder."

"Exactly. That is why we would appreciate any information you could share with us. M. Das left many influential friends, Mr. Luczak. Many of these people are in even more respected positions now, eight years after the poet's disappearance. We would all be relieved to conclude this investigation."

"All right," I said, and proceeded to tell him of my involvement with Harper's and the arrangement with the Bengali Writers' Union. I debated telling him about Krishna and Muktanandaji, and then decided that such a fantastic story would only cause complications with the police.

"So you have no confirmation that M. Das is alive other than the poem which you may or may not receive through the Writers' Union?" asked Singh.

"That and the letter Michael Leonard Chatterjee read at the meeting with the executive council," I said. Singh nodded as if he was well aware of the correspondence.

He asked, "And you plan to pick up the manuscript tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Where will this take place?"

"I don't know. They haven't told me yet."

"At what time?"

"Again, they haven't told me."

"Will you meet with Das at this time?"

"No. At least, I don't think so. No, I'm sure I won't."

"Why is that?"

"Well, all of my requests to meet with the great man and actually confirm his existence have met with a stone wall."

"A stone wall?"

"Negative response. A flat refusal."

"Ah. And you have no further plans to meet with him later?"

"No. I'd hoped to. My article certainly needed an interview. But to tell you the truth, Inspector, I'll be just as happy to get the damned manuscript, take my wife and child with me out of Calcutta tomorrow morning, and leave it to the literary experts as to whether M. Das wrote the poem."

Singh nodded as if this was a reasonable enough attitude. Then he jotted a few things in a small spiral notebook and finished his tonic. "Thank you, Mr. Luczak. You have been most helpful. Again, I apologize for taking up your Saturday evening."

"Quite all right."

"Oh," he said, "there is one thing."

"Yes?"

"Tomorrow, when you go to pick up the alleged Das manuscript, would you have any objections to police officers from the Metropolitan Force discreetly following you? It might help us in our investigation."

"A tail?" I said. I sipped at the last of my drink. If I objected, I might cause trouble for myself, and the cops would almost certainly still follow us. Besides, having the police nearby might allay some of the anxiety I was feeling about the rendezvous.