"Oh, Bobby, I hate to travel alone with Victoria —"

"I know, kiddo, but it can't be helped. Let's get your stuff repacked."

"It's still packed."

"Good. Get Victoria ready and the bags together. I'll go downstairs and arrange for a taxi and a porter." I kissed her on the cheek. Normally there would have been an argument at any attempt by me to be dictatorial, but Amrita heard something in my voice.

"All right," she said. "But you'd better hurry. You can't reserve tickets over the phone in India, you know. You just have to show up early and stand in line."

"Yeah. I'll be right back."

"Mr. Gupta?" The phone in the lobby was working.

"Hello. Yes. Hello?"

"Mr. Gupta, this is Robert Luczak."

"Yes, Mr. Luczak. Hello?"

"Listen, Mr. Gupta, I want you to arrange a meeting with M. Das. A private meeting. Just him and me."

"What? What? This is not possible. Hello?"

"It had better be possible, Mr. Gupta. Make whatever contacts you have to and tell Das that I want to meet with him today."

"No, Mr. Luczak. You do not understand. M. Das had not permitted anyone to —"

"Yes, I've heard all of that. But he'll meet with me, I'm sure. I urge you to expedite this, Mr. Gupta."

"I am very sorry, but —"

"Listen, sir, I'll explain the situation. My wife and baby are leaving Calcutta in a few minutes. I'm flying out tomorrow. If I have to leave without seeing Das, I'm still going to have to write an article for Harper's. Would you like to hear what that article is going to say?"

"Mr. Luczak, you must understand that it is impossible for us to arrange for you to meet M. Das. Hello?"

"My article will say that for some reason known only to themselves, the members of the Bengali Writers' Union have attempted to perpetrate the biggest literary fraud since the Clifford Irving hoax. For some reason known only to themselves, this group has accepted money in exchange for a manuscript they claim is the work of a man who has been dead for eight years. And what is more —"

"Completely untrue, Mr. Luczak! Untrue and actionable. We will press charges. You have no proof of these allegations."

"And what's more, this group has despoiled a great poet's name by producing a pornographic paean to a local demon goddess. Authoritative sources in Calcutta suggest that the Writers' Union may have done this because of contacts they have with a group called the Kapalikas — an outlawed cult involved in the city's crime world and reputed to offer human sacrifices to their demented goddess. How do you like it so far, Mr. Gupta? Hello, Mr. Gupta? Hello?"

"Yes, Mr. Luczak."

"What do you think, Mr. Gupta? Shall I go with that or shall I interview M. Das?"

"It will be arranged. Please call back in three hours."

"Oh . . . and Mr. Gupta?"

"Yes."

"I've already mailed one copy of my . . . ah . . . first article to my editor in New York with instructions not to open it unless I'm delayed in my return home. I hope that it won't be necessary to do that version. I'd much rather do the Das story."

"It will not be necessary, Mr. Luczak."

All cabs to and from Dum-Dum Airport were driven by veterans of the '71 Indo-Pakistani War. Our driver had scar tissue covering his right cheek and a broad, black patch over his eye that made me speculate idly about monocular vision and depth perception as we weaved in and out of heavy traffic on VIP Highway.

It was raining again. Everything was the color of mud — the clouds, the road, the burlap-tin hovels piled on one another, and the distant factories. Only the red and white stripes painted around the occasional banyan tree near the roadside added color to the scene. Near the edge of town there were new apartment buildings going up. I could tell they were new by the bamboo scaffolding girdling them and the bulldozers parked nearby in the mud, but the structures looked as decayed and age-streaked as the oldest ruins in the center of the city. Beyond the bulldozers were clusters of lean-tos occupied by huddled forms. Were these the families of construction crews or new residents waiting to occupy the buildings? Most likely the shacks were just the nucleus of a new chawl; the growing edge of 250 square miles of unrelieved slum.

To our left was the white sign I'd glimpsed at night. This side read —

CALCUTTA WISHES YOU

GOOD-BYE

GOOD HEALTH.

A woman with pans and a large bronze jug stacked atop her head squatted in the mud beneath the sign.

The airport was crowded, but not as insanely so as the night we arrived. The Delhi flight was already filled but there had just been a cancellation. Yes, the Pan Am flight would leave New Delhi at ?P.M. It should be possible to get tickets.

We checked the luggage through and wandered through the terminal. There were no empty chairs, and it took awhile to find a quiet corner where we could change Victoria's diaper. Then we went into a small coffee shop to have a soft drink.

We said little to each other. Amrita seemed lost in her own thoughts and my head still ached abominably. Occasionally I would remember fragments of my dream, and the muscles in my gut would clench in tension and embarrassment.

"If worse came to worst," I said, "and you missed this evening's Pam Am connection, you could stay overnight with your aunt in New Delhi."

"Yes."

"Or stay at a good hotel near the airport."

"Yes, I could do that."

A Belgian tour group squeezed into the coffee shop. One of them, an incredibly ugly woman wearing open mesh trousers, was carrying a large plaster statue of the elephant-headed god Ganesha. They were all laughing uproariously.

"Call Dan and Barb when you get to Boston," I said.

"All right."

"I should be there the day after you. Hey, are you going to call your parents from Heathrow?"

"Bobby, I really wouldn't mind staying another day. You might need help . . . with the translating. It's about the manuscript, isn't it?"

I shook my head. "Too late, kiddo. Your luggage is already loaded. You could do without any clothes, I suppose, but we'd be doomed without the extra disposable diapers."

Amrita did not smile.

"Seriously," I said and took her hand, "I've just got to do some follow-up work with Gupta and those clowns. Hell, I just don't have enough stuff to put into an article yet. One day should do it."

Amrita nodded and tapped my ring. "All right, but be careful. Don't drink any unbottled water. And if Kamakhya comes by to exchange my material, make sure she gives you just the material . . ."

I grinned. "Yeah."

"Bobby, why didn't you let the maid in?"

"What?"

"To clean the room. Right before we left you told her to wait until tomorrow."

"The Das manuscript," I said quickly. "I don't want anyone nosing around."

Amrita nodded. I drank the last of my warm Fanta, watched a small ghekko scurry across the wall, and tried not to think about the .25-caliber automatic on the shelf of the hotel room closet.

The plane was ready to board and I had kissed both of them farewell when Amrita remembered something. "Oh, in case Kamakhya doesn't come to the hotel, would you drop by her home to get the material?" She began rummaging through her purse.

"Is it that important?"

"No, but I'd appreciate it if it works out."

"Why didn't you just exchange her material at the shop?"

"It was all cut to length. And I was certain we would see her again. Darn, I was sure I had the slip here. Never mind. I remember the address." Amrita took out a book of matches she'd picked up at the Prince's Room and jotted the address inside the cover. "Only if you have time," she said.