He was twenty-seven years old. His elder brother, Mejda—“Middle Elder Brother”—a cook’s helper in the Bengal Club, had arranged this job for him as a sweeper and cleaner in a house in Ballygunge. Mr. Banerjee, owner of the large two-storeyed house, had divided it equally into four flats, in one of which he lived with his wife, giving the other three out for rent. Thus, this house, a long white rectangular structure with a huge lawn recumbent before it, had still not been sold or torn down, as so many mansions of the once privileged classes in this area had, giving way to multi-storeyed buildings, ITC-owned flats, Marwari-built houses that were a grotesque mishmash of ancient European and futuristic architectural styles. Instead, it had recently been repainted. The house just next to it, a lovely yellow mansion with a drooping banyan tree in the courtyard, was supposed to have belonged to a descendant of the Tagore family and had lately been turned into a UNESCO office—but, thankfully, not destroyed. Bishu and his family lived in a room on the first floor of the servants’ outhouse near the white mansion.

One day Mr. Banerjee called for Bishu and said to him:

“Bishu, I’m looking for a man to look after the compound and to help the mali—a good man. Can you look out for one?”

Bishu listened carefully, shyly, and said:

“I tries, dadababu. I sees if I finds someone.”

Then he went back to his work and, thinking about it, realised that what dadababu wanted was a replacement for Ratan, the errand boy who had left suddenly three months ago.

That Sunday, he left Uma, his wife, and his child at home in the outhouse and went to Esplanade to meet his elder brother.

“Why can’t Mejda come here?” asked Uma irritatedly. She was holding the child in her arms. It was quite large for its age, and was quiet and dark-skinned and pretty, and had immense eyes that were now looking out at something through the window over Uma’s shoulder.

“In club Mejda has work every day—how will he come?” Bishu said. He had to be a little extra assertive, or else he knew that Uma, who was older than he was, wouldn’t let him go.

“Then you come back by four, or I’ll be gone to Meeradi’s house,” she challenged. She seemed certain of her decision.

“You go,” he said, and left.

The tram to Esplanade was fairly empty, and as it rattled along slowly, Bishu sat on a seat on the left and looked out of the window. People kept coming in and getting out. When the tram came to Esplanade, he got off and saw his Mejda standing in front of a shop with its shutters down.

“Ei, Mejda!” he called, and went up to him.

“Ei, Bishu!” said Mejda, and put an arm around him. “Tell me—what work brings you here?”