"Your associates need not know," added Singh.

I nodded. Personally, I didn't give a damn if Chatterjee, Gupta, and the whole Union became implicated. "All right," I said. "That would be fine. If it would help in your investigation. I have no idea myself whether Das is really alive. I'd be happy to help."

"Ah, excellent." Inspector Singh rose and we shook hands at last. "Have a good trip, Mr. Luczak. I wish you luck with your writing."

"Thank you, Inspector."

The rain continued falling for the rest of the evening. Any lingering thought Amrita and I had of spending Saturday night out on the town was squelched by the sight of mud, monsoon, and squatting misery we would glimpse when we opened the curtains. The tropical twilight was a brief transition between the gray, rainy day and the black, rainy night. A few lanterns glowed from under canvas across the flooded plaza.

Victoria was tired and fussy, so we put her down in her nest early. Then we called down to Room Service and waited an hour for dinner to arrive. When it did show up, it consisted mostly of a lesson to me never to order cold roast-beef sandwiches in a Hindu country. I begged some of Amrita's excellent Chinese dinner.

At nine P.M., while Amrita was showering before bed, there was a knock at the door. It was a boy with the fabric from the sari shop. The youngster was dripping wet, but the material was safely wrapped in a large plastic bag. I tipped him ten rupees, but he insisted on exchanging the bill I gave him for two five-rupee notes. The ten-rupee bill was torn slightly, and Indian currency evidently became non-negotiable when damaged. That exchange put me in a less than pleasant mood, and when Amrita emerged in her silk robe she took one look in the bag and announced that it was the wrong fabric. The shop had switched her bolts of material with Kamakhya's. We then spent twenty minutes going through the phone book trying to find the proper Bharati, but the name was as common as Jones would be in a New York directory and Amrita thought that Kamakhya's family probably didn't have a phone anyway.

"To hell with it," I said.

"Easy for you to say. You didn't spend over an hour picking out the material."

"Kamakhya will probably bring your stuff by."

"Well, it will have to be tomorrow if we're leaving early Monday morning."

We turned in early. Victoria awoke once, sobbing slightly in some baby's dream that made her arms and legs paddle in frustration, but I carried her around the room for a while until she drifted off to sleep, drooling contentedly on my shoulder. During the next couple of hours the room seemed alternately too hot and then chilly. The walls rattled from various mechanical noises. It sounded as if the place were honeycombed with dumbwaiters, each being pulled laboriously by chains and pulleys. An Arab group two doors away shouted and laughed, never thinking to move the party into their suite and close the door.

At around 11:30 I rose from the damp sheets and went to the window. The rain still pelted the dark street. No traffic moved.

I opened my suitcase. I had brought only two books along: a hardback copy of my own recent publication, and a Penguin paperback I'd picked up in a London bookstore of M. Das's poetry. I sat down in a chair near the door and snapped on a reading lamp.

I confess that I opened my own book first. The pages fell open to the title poem, Winter Spirits. I tried to read through it, but the once sharp imagery of the old woman moving through her Vermont farmhouse and communing with the friendly ghosts in the place while the snow piled in the fields did not go well with the hot Calcutta night and the sound of the heartless monsoon rattling the panes. I picked up the other book.

Das's poetry immediately captivated me. Of the short works at the beginning of the book, I most enjoyed "Family Picnic," with its humorous but never condescending insight into the need to patiently suffer the eccentricities of one's relatives. Only the passing reference to ". . . the blue, shark-sharpened waters of the Bay of Bengal / Unclouded by sail or smoke of distant steamer" and a quick description of a ". . . Mahabalipuram temple / sandstone worn with sea age and prayer / a smooth-cornered plaything now / for children's climbing knees and Uncle Nani's / snapshots" placed the locale in Eastern India.

I came to his "The Song of Mother Teresa" with new eyes. Less visible to me now were the academic echoes of Tagore's influence in the hopeful theme and more apparent were the blunt references such as ". . . street death / curb death / the hopeless abandonments she moved among / a warm infant's plaint for succor / against the cold breast of a milkless city." I wondered then if Das's epic tale of the young nun who heard her calling while traveling to another mission, who came to Calcutta to help the suffering multitudes if only by providing them a place to die in peace, would ever be recognized as the classic of compassion I felt it was.

I turned the book over to look at the photo of M. Das. It reassured me. The high forehead and sad, liquid eyes reminded me of photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru. Das's face had the same patrician elegance and dignity. Only the mouth, those slightly too-full lips upturned at the corners, suggested the sensuality and slight self-centeredness so necessary in a poet. I fancied that I could see where Kamakhya Bharati had received her sensuous good looks.

When I clicked off the light and crawled in next to Amrita, I felt better about the coming day. Outside, the rain continued to tear and batter at the huddled city.

Chapter Ten

It was a strange mixture of people that set off for the manuscript rendezvous on Sunday morning. Gupta had called at 8:45. We had been up for two hours. During breakfast in the Garden Café, Amrita had announced her decision to go along on this trip and I couldn't sway her from it. Actually, I was relieved at the idea.

Gupta began the phone conversation in the inimitable style of all Indian telephonic communications.

"Hello," I said,

"Hello, hello, hello." The connection sounded as if we were using two tin cans and several miles of string. Static rasped and snickered.

"Mr. Gupta?"

"Hello, hello."

"How are you, Mr. Gupta?"

"Very fine. Hello, Mr. Luczak? Hello?"

"Yes."

"Hello. The arrangements have been . . . hello? Mr. Luczak? Hello?"

"Yes. I'm here."

"Hello! The arrangements have been made. You will come alone when we meet you at your hotel at ten-thirty o'clock this morning."

"Sorry, Mr. Gupta. My wife's coming. We decided that —"

"What? What? Hello?"

"I say, my wife and child are coming along. Where are we going?"

"No, no, no. It is arranged. You are to come alone."

"Yes, yes, yes," I said. "Either my family goes along today or I don't go at all. To tell you the truth, Mr. Gupta, I'm a little tired of this James Bond bullshit. I came twelve thousand miles to pick up a piece of literary work, not to sneak around Calcutta alone. Where is the meeting to take place?"

"No, no. It would be better if you were to go alone, Mr. Luczak."

"Why is that? If it's dangerous, I want to know —"

"No! Of course it is not dangerous."

"Where's the meeting to take place, Mr. Gupta? I really don't have time for this nonsense. If I go home empty-handed, I'll write some sort of article, but you'll probably be hearing from my magazine's lawyers." It was an empty threat, but it caused a silence broken only by the hiss, crackle, and hollow clunks normal to the line.