"Hello? Hello, Mr. Luczak?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Your wife will, of course, be very welcome. We are to meet M. Das's representative at Tagore's home —"

"Tagore's home?"

"Yes, yes. It is a museum, you know."

"Marvelous!" I said. "I had hoped to see Tagore's house. That's excellent."

"Mr. Chatterjee and I will be at your hotel at ten-thirty o'clock then. Hello, Mr. Luczak?"

"Yes?"

"Good-bye, Mr. Luczak."

Gupta and Chatterjee did not show up until after eleven, but Krishna was in the lobby when we went down. He was wearing the same soiled shirt and rumpled trousers. He acted overjoyed to see us, bowing to Amrita, tousling Victoria's thin hair, and shaking my hand twice. He had come, he said, to inform me that our "mutual friend, Mr. Muktanadaji" had used my most gracious gift to return to his village of Anguda.

"I thought that he said he couldn't go home again."

"Ahh," said Krishna and shrugged.

"Well, I guess both he and Thomas Wolfe were wrong," I said. Krishna stared a second and then exploded with a laugh so loud that Victoria began to cry.

"You have received the Das poem?" he asked when both his laughter and Victoria's crying had subsided.

Amrita answered. "No, we're going to get it right now."

"Ahh," smiled Krishna, and I could see the gleam in his eyes.

On an impulse I asked, "Would you like to accompany us? Perhaps you'd like to see what kind of manuscript a waterlogged corpse can produce."

"Bobby!" said Amrita. Krishna only nodded, but his smile was more sharklike than ever.

Gupta and Chatterjee were less than thrilled at the size of our party. I didn't have the heart to tell them that an unknown number of Calcutta's Finest were also going along.

"Mr. Gupta," I said, "this is my wife, Amrita." Pleasantries were exchanged in Hindi. "Gentlemen, this is our . . . guide, Mr. M. T. Krishna. He will also accompany us."

The two gentlemen nodded tersely, but Krishna beamed. "We have already met! Mr. Chatterjee, you do not remember me?"

Michael Leonard Chatterjee frowned and adjusted his glasses.

"Ah, you do not. Nor you, Mr. Gupta? Ah, well, it was some years ago, upon my return from Mr. Luczak's fair country. I petitioned for membership in the Writer's Union."

"Oh, yes," said Chatterjee, although it was obvious that he remembered none of it.

"Yes, yes." Krishna smiled. "I was told that my prose 'lacked maturity, style, and restraint.' Needless to say, I was not granted admission to the Writers' Union."

Everyone squirmed in embarrassment except for Krishna. And me. I was beginning to enjoy this. Already, I was glad that I'd invited Krishna along.

It was a crowded little Premiere that drove east from the hotel. Gupta, Chatterjee, and Chatterjee's liveried driver were crammed into the front seat. As far as I could tell, the driver had one arm out the window, the other hand was frequently adjusting his cap, and he was driving with his knees. The effect was no different than usual.

In the back, I sat squeezed between Krishna and Amrita holding Victoria on her lap. We were all perspiring freely, but Krishna seemed to have started earlier than the rest of us.

It was absurdly hot. Upon leaving the air-conditioned hotel, Amrita's camera lens and Chatterjee's glasses had steamed up. It was at least 110 degrees, and my cotton shirt immediately became plastered to my back. In the littered plaza across from the hotel, forty or fifty men squatted with their bony knees higher than their chins, trowels, mortar boards, and plumb bobs on the pavement in front of them. It seemed to be some sort of work lineup. I asked Krishna why they were there, and he shrugged and said, "It is Sunday morning." Everyone else seemed satisfied with this Delphic utterance, so I said nothing.

Moving down Chowringhee, we made a right turn in front of Raj Bhavan — the old Government House — and drove south on Dharamtala Street. The air coming in the open windows did not cool us but rasped at our skins like hot sandpaper. Krishna's matted hair whipped around like a nest of snakes. At every stop sign or traffic policeman, the driver would turn off the engine and we would sit in sweaty silence until the car moved again.

We drove east onto Upper Circular Road and then swung onto Raja Dinendra Street, a winding road which paralleled a canal. The stagnant water reeked of sewage. Naked children splashed in the brown shallows.

"Look there," ordered Chatterjee, pointing to our right. A large temple was painted in Technicolor glory. "The Jain Temple. Very interesting."

"The Jain priests will take no life," said Amrita. "When they leave the temple, they have servants sweep the walk so that they won't inadvertently step on an insect."

"They wear surgical masks," said Chatterjee, "so that they will not accidentally swallow any living thing."

"They do not bathe," added Krishna, "out of respect for the bacteria which live on their bodies."

I nodded, and silently speculated on whether Krishna himself honored this particular Jain code. Between the usual Calcutta street smells.the reek of raw sewage, and Krishna, I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed.

"Their religion forbids them to eat anything which is living or was living," Krishna said happily.

"Wait a minute," I said. "That rules out everything. What do they live on?"

"Ahh." Krishna smiled. "Good question!"

We drove on.

Rabindranath Tagore's home was in Chitpur. We parked on a narrow sides street, walked through a gate into an even narrower courtyard, and removed our shoes in a small anteroom before entering the two-story building.

"Out of reverence to Tagore, this home is treated like a temple," Gupta said solemnly.

Krishna kicked off his sandals. "Every public monument in our country becomes a temple sooner or later," he laughed. "In Varanasi, the government built a structure housing a large relief map of India to educate the ignorant peasants about our national geography. Now it is a holy temple. I have seen people worship there. It even has its own feast day. A relief map!"

"Quiet," said Chatterjee. He led us up a dark stairway. Tagore's suite of rooms was empty of furniture, but the walls were lined with photographs and display cases showing off everything from original manuscripts that must have been worth a fortune to cans of the Master's favorite snuff.

"We seem to be alone," said Amrita.

"Oh, yes," agreed Gupta. The writer looked even more like a rodent when he smiled. "The museum is usually closed on Sundays. We are privileged to be here only by special arrangement."

"Great," I said to no one in particular. Suddenly, from speakers on the wall, there came recordings of Tagore's voice, high and squeaky, reading excerpts of his poetry and singing some of his ballads. "Marvelous."

"M. Das's representative should be here shortly," said Chatterjee.

"No hurry," I said. There were large canvases of Tagore's oil paintings. His style reminded me of N. C. Wyeth's — an illustrator's version of impressionism.

"He won the Nobel Prize," said Chatterjee.

"Yes."

"He composed our national anthem," said Gupta.

"That's right. I'd forgotten," I said.

"He wrote many great plays," said Gupta.

"He founded a great university," said Chatterjee.

"He died right there," said Krishna.

We all stopped and followed Krishna's pointing finger. The corner was empty except for small balls of dust. "It was 1941," Krishna said. "The old man was dying, running down like an unwound clock. A few of his disciples gathered here. Then more. And more. Soon all of these rooms were filled with people. Some had never met the poet. Days passed. The old man lingered. Finally a party began. Someone went to the American military headquarters . . . there were already soldiers in the city . . . and returned with a projector and reels of film. They watched Laurel and Hardy, and Mickey Mouse cartoons. The old man lay in his coma, all but forgotten in the corner. From time to time he would swim up out of his death sleep like a fish to the surface. Imagine his confusion! He stared past the backs of his friends and the heads of strangers to see the flickering images on the wall."