Fortunately she'd been wearing a beeper the last few weeks. Switching screens, he keyed in a few words: Regret must cancel dinner; explain later. He called up her number and dialled the message through.
The beeper had come with a new job Tara had found, a few weeks ago. The woman she was working for now was a stockbroker who often worked late: she liked to stay in constant touch with her four-year-old and had insisted that Tara carry a beeper.
The job was a good one, Tara said, much better than the one she'd lost: the pay was fair and better still, the boy was good-natured and his mother relatively undemanding. Tara never lost an opportunity to thank Antar for helping her to find the job.
But the truth was that if Antar had helped at all, it was only in a rather roundabout way. One morning, about a month ago, he had noticed her hanging about her apartment at a time when she was usually out at work. Pushing up the kitchen window, he called out: 'What's the matter? Not going to work today?'
She stuck her head into the air-shaft, and gave him a rueful smile. Her wispy hair was tied in an untidy knot and she looked as though she hadn't bothered to change after getting out of bed.
'I would if I could,' she said. 'But the job's not mine any more.'
'What happened?'
'Well,' she said. 'The gloss that was put on the matter was that I had rather reluctantly been allowed to depart. But the fact was they needed someone with the right papers so they could get a tax write-off.' She shrugged and made a face.
'Oh,' said Antar. 'Well, that's too bad.' It took him a moment to digest this bit of news.
'Haven't you found anything else yet?' he said. 'I thought babysitters were snapped up the minute they hit the market.'
Tara shook her head resignedly. 'The best jobs are posted on the Net,' she said. 'And I can't afford a susbscription. Come to think of it, I can't afford a computer and wouldn't know what to do with it if I could.'
'On the Net?' Antar was astounded. 'Babysitting jobs? You're joking. Surely?'
'I wish I were,' she said. 'But it's true. I've looked in the Irish Echo and India Abroad: not a thing in either.'
She gave him a bleak smile and a nod. 'I must go now,' she said. 'Or my tea will get cold. And the way things are going, I suspect it wouldn't be wise to waste a tea bag.' She ducked back inside.
The conversation resounded in Antar's mind through the day as he sat staring at Ava's screen: the precariousness of her circumstances weighed on him in ways he couldn't quite understand. The next morning he was in and out of the kitchen every few minutes until he spotted her, pottering around her apartment.
Leaning over the sink, he shouted: 'Listen: I have an idea.'
She gave him a wan smile. 'Yes?' He could tell she'd been up late, worrying.
'I have an old laptop in my cupboard,' he said. 'I could hook it up with Ava and run a cable through to you. You could have as much time on the Net as you wanted. I've upgraded it a couple of times and it can run the software. The Council gives me twenty hours a week free, and I hardly ever use even a fraction of that. I've got at least a thousand hours coming to me. You can have them.'
Her thin, fine-boned face lit up. 'Really?' she said. 'Could you really do that?'
She hesitated, as though she couldn't believe her luck: 'Are you sure it would be all right? I don't want to get you in any trouble.'
Antar made an attempt at nonchalance. 'It's very irregular, of course,' he said. 'The Council's paranoid about security. But I think I can rig it. If you're careful and you don't try to fool around we'll both be all right.'
'I'll be very careful,' she said earnestly. 'You have my word: I won't do anything that might get you in trouble.' Antar set up the link later that day.
It gave him a twinge to leave his old laptop behind with her: it was an early nineties Korean-made model, sleek and black, with beautifully rounded edges. He'd always loved it: the heft and weight of it in his hands, the muted click of its keyboard, its old-fashioned chrome detailing.
He offered to give her a few lessons but she declined. 'You've been to plenty of trouble already,' she said. 'I won't put you to any more. Lucky will show me: he knows a little about these things.'
'Lucky?' That was the name of the young man from the Penn Station news-stand. Antar tried to imagine him, with his fixed smile and his oddly spaced teeth, sitting in front of his laptop, trying to steer Tara around the Net. He had his doubts but he decided to keep them to himself.
As it turned out, Lucky was evidently a good teacher, for Tara soon found her way around the Net. Antar monitored her closely for the first few days. Then he grew tired of following her around childcare bulletin boards and left her alone.
She got her new job within a few days and had been inordinately grateful ever since. That was why she had wanted to come over tonight. 'I can't afford to take you out,' she said. 'So the least I can do is make sure that you eat properly every once in a while.'
Chapter 29
ON LOWER CIRCULAR ROAD, halfway to the P. G. Hospital, Urmila found herself reading and rereading the bright yellow lettering on the side of a crowded minibus that was jammed up close against her window. The taxi was idling in the traffic, imprisoned by the customary morning throng of cars and buses. Hesitantly Urmila raised her eyes to the windows of the minibus: a dozen people seemed to be staring at her. She turned quickly away.
This was probably the bus she would have been on right now, if she'd been on her way to work. They were probably on it, all the usual crowd: the old man in the dhoti who worked in the Accountant-General's office and was writing a book on something or the other; the railway clerk who carried a huge tiffin-carrier full of food to the Strand every morning; the woman from All India Radio, who had tried to get her to join the 'BBD Bagh Minibus Passengers' Club' last week.
Urmila shrank into the seat. The crumpled sheets of paper were scraping uncomfortably against the tender spot between her breasts. She wanted to reach in and pull it out, but she couldn't, not with that minibus so close to her window.
What if they could see her now, the 'BBD Bagh Minibus Passengers' Club'? What if they were to learn that she was on her way to P. G. Hospital with a complete stranger? What would they think? What would they make of it?
Suddenly she was furious. 'What does the P. G. Hospital have to do with my pieces of paper?' she said, turning upon Murugan. 'Why are you taking me there? What are your intentions?'
'You wanted an explanation, Calcutta,' Murugan said. 'That was the deal. And I'm going to give you an explanation, but I'm going to begin exactly where I want to.'
'And you want to begin at the P. G. Hospital?' she said.
'That's right,' he said. 'That's why I'm taking you there.' She noticed the taxi driver watching them in his mirror. She leaned over and waved her packet of fish under his nose. 'What're you looking at, you cabbage-head?' she snapped. 'Keep your eyes on the road.'
Chastened, the driver dropped his eyes.
'Wow!' said Murugan. 'What was that all about?'
'And you,' she cried, turning on him in fury. 'Who are you, exactly?' Suspicion was raging in her mind now; she began to recall all the stories she had heard about foreign con-men and kidnappers and prostitution rings in the Middle East. 'I want to know who you are and what you are doing in Calcutta. I want to see a passport.'