Tania James - Atlas of Unknowns

Mr. Tandon utters these words with a courtesy that belies the authority of his posture. He keeps his hands in the pockets of his well-pressed pants, refusing to move until his request is met.

With a weary sigh, Rohit turns off the camera, and Mr. Tandon, invigorated, extends his hand in welcome.

ANJU FEELS SAFE here in the vault of books, with Mr. Tandon’s hands clasped atop her file, as if her life is now his territory. While he speaks, she tallies all the signs of his achievement — his cuff links, his gold nameplate, his tall globe that can spin and spin on its axis.

He asks Anju a few questions about her documents, whether she is registered with the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. She answers yes with all the hope of a child wishing to please. “And you want to attain permanent status?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“First let me say this is not unusual. I see cases like yours all the time. Since nine-one-one, the bureaucracy surrounding U.S. immigration has been staggering but not, in my experience, insurmountable.”

Anju wishes she could write down all the vocabulary words that fall so effortlessly from this man’s mouth. Rohit, slumped in the seat next to her, seems less impressed.

“What are these steps I should take?” she asks.

“First we need to make sure that we keep renewing your F-i visa, which requires a nonimmigrant visa processing fee to the Department of State. Then we can apply for permanent status by next year.”

“Is there a faster way?”

“I’ve known clients to achieve permanent status in half the usual time. A year or even less.” He offers a small, apologetic smile. “But extra speed comes with extra fees.”

“I can pay,” Anju says, just as Rohit asks: “What about your fees?”

“Roughly?” Mr. Tandon looks up at the ceiling, calculating. “That’s four hundred for the F-i renewal processing, then five hundred for the permanent residency application, plus the expediting fees. With half my fees, taken together … about two thousand.”

Rupees? Anju wants to ask. Rubles? Pesos? Surely not dollars. The number settles deep in her stomach, a dense and dismal sediment.

“Jeez, that’s a lot of money.” Rohit’s tone is weirdly loud and impassioned. “Anju, what are you going to do?”

“Can I pay in pieces?” she asks.

Mr. Tandon seems to weigh her disappointment. “I’m sure we can work something out. It seems that my assistant is very invested in your future, and I trust her judgment.”

Over her shoulder, Anju looks at Bird, who is speaking into the phone and jotting notes with her pen. Bird is vital to this place, at the core of its functions, and it is luck that won Anju a place in Bird’s favor. Against her own doubt, Anju hears herself speaking in a steady voice:

“I can give you five hundred cash now. The rest I can send by the end of the week.”

AFTER THE MEETING, Anju and Rohit part, as she is to have tea with Bird and he has a party to attend in TriBeCa. It is a relief to watch him dismantle his camera and pack the parts into a carrying case. “Great job today,” he tells her by way of good-bye. It seems a strange statement, as if complimenting her performance, an accidental admission that his camera was on all along.

For a moment that takes her by surprise, she admires him.

BIRD LIVES FOUR BLOCKS from Mr. Tandon’s office, in an apartment that smells faintly of Vicks VapoRub and old sweaters in a trunk. Anju sits on a plastic-covered couch, a difficult thing on which to sit gracefully without emitting an impolite noise.

Bird brings Anju a mug of chai, a box of Entenmann’s chocolate-chip cookies, and two napkins impressed with McDonald’s arches. “How long have you been here?” Anju asks.

“In this country? Twenty-two years, something like that.”

“Do you go back?”

Bird shrugs. “There is no one to go back to anymore. Everything is changed. If I went back now, I’d just be a tourist.”

Between sips of tea, Bird asks tentative questions, giving Anju little chance to ask any more of her own. Anju explains how she came on scholarship, how her family is awaiting her return.

“Your father must be proud of you,” Bird says.

“I think so. I don’t know.”

Without looking up, Bird carefully lays two cookies on a napkin. “And your mother too.”

“Oh no. She died when I was a baby.”

Bird nods, seemingly unsurprised. Usually, people respond differently to this news, with sympathy or sadness, however contrived. But Bird is expressionless.

“You are here alone, then?” Bird asks. “No relatives, no nothing?”

“I have no one here.”

Bird stares at Anju, then pushes the cookie box closer to her. “Not anymore.”

IKE AN HOUR-OLD PIECE of gum, romance has lost all its sweetness. What Anju assumed was the smolder of gathering emotion turned out to be a dull, gray, tiring wad of nothing. With her mind mostly cleared away of pointless passions, she looks upon Fish with an acute sense of betrayal. But also a painful splinter of hope.

Against that hope, she throws herself into her studies, the only field in which she exercises some measure of control. In class, she forgoes her Ace bandage to take limitless notes, reassuring her teachers that the arthritis has temporarily lifted, though she still makes a point of conspicuously massaging her joints once in a while. Her rising grades put her at the head of the class, even above Fish, who struggles to maintain his class performance in tandem with his participation in Outdoors Club, Amnesty International, Physics Club, Glee Club, Multicultural Club, and golf. She and Fish are like two converts to different denominations, he fully devoted to his mother’s dream of an Ivy League school, she devoted to her books, both unwilling to see the similarity in their pursuits. Anju wonders if her success has contributed to his avoidance of her, a thought that leads her to study doubly hard. Surpassing him is the only way to wound him, to remind him that she exists.

She also finds time to visit Mr. Tandon’s office again, where she hands over all the money she has left, $900, which includes the rest of the George de Brigard award plus $400 she drew from her scholarship stipend. This leaves her with $25 in spending money for the next two months, but having no one with whom to socialize, she barely notices the loss. Bird promises that she will persuade Mr. Tandon to waive the rest of his fee. “Think of it as an investment,” Bird tells her. “We will file the application this week itself.”

In the meantime, Anju bends over her textbooks until her lower back aches, until her head swims with Civil War battle names and algebraic equations. She binds each fact to her memory and plows forward into future pages. Studying, too, is a kind of war, and each chapter a territory to be conquered. While so engaged, she hardly lets herself think about the doubt that needles her, that Fish might not be the person, or the poet, she thought he was.

WITH HER RISING GRADES, Anju is unsurprised to arrive at school and find a note from Miss Schimpf wedged into the slats of her locker. “Please see me in my office.” At least Anju’s work ethic is finally being noticed by someone, if not Fish.

She trudges down the hall, around clumps of students and boulderlike backpacks and exclusive conversations. The door to Principal Mitchell’s office is open in welcome to students who do their best to ignore it, lest they be dragged into a chat. For her part, Anju looks forward to a chat now and then, even if Principal Mitchell simply asks about her homework. Anju glances in, disheartened by the empty desk chair.