He sat down across the table from Repairman Jack. “I am Kusum Bahkti.”

“Jack Nelson.” The American proffered his right hand.

Kusum could not bring himself to grasp it, yet he did not want to insult this man. He needed him.

“Mr. Nelson—”

“Jack, please.”

“Very well… Jack.” He was uncomfortable with such informality upon meeting. “Your pardon. I dislike to be touched. An Eastern prejudice.”

Jack glanced at his hand, as if inspecting it for dirt.

“I do not wish to offend—”

“Forget it. Who gave you my number?”

“Time is short… Jack”—it took conscious effort to use that first name—”and I must insist—”

“I always insist on knowing where the customer came from. Who?”

“Very well: Mr. Burkes at the U.K. Mission to the United Nations.” Burkes had answered Kusum’s frantic call this morning and had told him how well this Jack fellow had handled a very dangerous and delicate problem for the U.K. Mission during the Falklands crisis.

Jack nodded. “I know Burkes. You with the U.N.?”

Kusum knotted his fist and managed to tolerate the interrogation.

“Yes.”

“And I suppose you Pakistani delegates are pretty tight with the British.”

Kusum felt as if he had been slapped in the face. He half-started from his seat. “Do you insult me? I am not one of those Moslem—!” He caught himself. Probably an innocent error. Americans were ignorant of the most basic information. “I am from Bengal, a member of the Indian Delegation. I am a Hindu. Pakistan, which used to be the Punjab region of India, is a Moslem country.”

The distinction appeared to be completely lost on Jack.

“Whatever. Most of what I know about India I learned from watching Gunga Din about a hundred times. So tell me about your grandmother.”

Kusum was momentarily baffled. Wasn’t “Gunga Din” a poem? How did one watch a poem? He set his confusion aside.

“Understand,” he said, absently brushing at a fly that had taken a liking to his face, “that if this were my own country I would resolve the matter in my own fashion.”

“Where is she now?”

“In St. Clare’s hospital on West Fif—”

“I know where it is. What happened to her?”

“Her car broke down in the early hours of this morning. While her driver went to find a taxicab for her, she foolishly got out of the car. She was assaulted and beaten. If a police car hadn’t come by, she would have been killed.”

“Happens all the time, I’m afraid.”

A callous remark, ostensibly that of a city-dweller saving his pity for personal friends who became victims. But in the eyes Kusum detected a flash of emotion that told him perhaps this man could be reached.

“Yes, much to the shame of your city.”

“No one ever gets mugged on the streets of Bombay or Calcutta?”

Kusum shrugged and brushed again at the fly. “What takes place between members of the lower castes is of no importance. In my homeland even the most desperate street hoodlum would think many times before daring to lay a finger on one of my grandmother’s caste.”