Tania James - Atlas of Unknowns

IN APRIL, Anju is notified that the panelists have selected her to be one of ten finalists, and that the primary judge, Miss Valerie Schimpf, will interview her personally. Miss Schimpf is an art teacher and counselor at the Sitwell School, and has spent the spring semester on sabbatical, teaching children at a fine arts school in Kochi.

In a letter that is read and recited and handled like a relic, Anju is told that the interview will take place at “the Vallara residence.” Five days of cleaning ensue, but no matter how thoroughly Linno and Anju tidy the residence, the door appears ramshackle, the walls a funereal gray as soon as Miss Schimpf crosses the threshold. Linno notices things to which she rarely gives attention, like the creased poster of three pink-skinned babies in diapers, all sharing frustrated faces of constipation, next to the phrase CUTE AS BUTTONS! She wants to ask her father why he hung such a thing over the doorway, but he is conveniently out driving Abraham Chandy.

Fortunately Miss Schimpf does not seem bothered by the poster. She is a confident pixie, dressed in an out-of-fashion salwar, too short for the times, with a shawl bound about her neck like a noose. Her green glass bangles clink when she presses her hands together in Namaste. “What a lovely home,” she says to Ammachi, bowing low like a geisha girl. After a moment’s hesitation, Ammachi tries to bow even lower.

Only then does Linno recognize the awe in Miss Schimpf’s gaze, unnaturally bright and bursting with empathy. It calls to mind a celebrity she once saw on the news, an American socialite crouched in the dim hut of a Rwandan family of eight. The socialite was on a two-day mission, her publicist said, “to draw attention to a growing crisis.” Miss Schimpf’s eyes move slowly over Ammachi’s cracked toes, the starved mattress across the daybed, the stuffed animals trapped in curio cabinets, and Linno’s knotted wrist, before returning to Ammachi’s elastic smile. Perhaps Miss Schimpf sees something authentic in the shabbiness, the possibility of what could be, a future for which she can pave the way. Unmet need is standing directly in front of her, in the form of a girl, her handicapped sister, and a virtually toothless old woman who pelts Miss Schimpf with her limited English: Havar you? … Es, es, Iyam fine .

Miss Schimpf is ready to give.

While Ammachi takes Miss Schimpf on a tour of the curio cabinets, Anju dumps spoon after spoon of Tang into a pot of water, clouds of orange swelling and settling to the bottom. “Stop it!” Linno whispers. “You want her to pee orange?”

“Which cups, which cups?”

Under normal circumstances, they would provide their guest with the fancy Pepsi glasses from Jilu Auntie, which read on the side: YOU GOT THE RIGHT ONE, BABY, UH HUH. But this time, Linno insists on using their humbler cups, primitive-looking and made of steel.

Linno unscrews the Nescafé jar which has stored sugar for far longer than it has stored coffee, just as the apricot jam jar now preserves pickle, every vessel possessed of an afterlife. Through the jar’s glass, she can see a few ants tunneling paths; she spoons around them. A drowned ant floating on the surface of one’s tea is exactly the type of thing that might push a woman like Miss Schimpf from pity to revulsion.

Anju whisks the tray of Tang into the living room. From the kitchen, Linno can hear Ammachi saying, “Velcome my house,” as she exits the room.

As soon as Ammachi enters the kitchen, she lets loose a battery of whispered curses, lamenting her idiotic granddaughters for using the inferior drinking vessels, thereby compromising Anju’s chance at America. All because of a glass. The idiots.

LINNO CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT. Anju’s interview is going terribly wrong.

From behind the curtain that separates sitting room from kitchen, Linno spies as Anju fumbles over her English, continually asking for questions to be repeated. Over and over, Miss Schimpf reassures her that everything is okay, that they are just having a chat. Is this the same girl who kept Linno awake at night, contentedly purring over her future American adventures? “Why are you so quiet?” Anju whispered. “You know I’ll come back for you.”

“So what makes you different from all the other candidates out there?” Miss Schimpf asks. “What makes you stand out?”

Anju crosses and uncrosses her ankles. An errant piece of string is caught in the hair at her temple, resembling a patch of premature gray among the black. Her voice issues forth in robotic monotone: “I have made excellent marks in all exams and have made top rank in all subjects such as in maths, English, all these things, and I also was winning many Bible Bowels throughout Kerala—”

“Bowels?” Miss Schimpf repeats.

“Bowels,” Anju insists.

They go back and forth like this, until Miss Schimpf brightens and says, “Oh, you mean bowls .”

“Yes, this, and also I am leader of my school’s band.”

“It’s amazing how accomplished all of you are, the candidates I mean. We’ve got one boy in Malappuram who started his own Koran Competition.” Despite her smile, Miss Schimpf’s tentative tone expresses that the question has yet to be answered properly. “I guess what I mean is, what makes you unique? You know that word—‘unique’?”

“You-neek?”

“Yes! Exactly. What is it about your personality, not just your awards and your grades, that makes you unique, different, special?”

A short but tortuous silence as Anju waits, leaning forward, straining her neck as if to peer into Miss Schimpf’s mouth, where the definition of “you-neek” lies. She sits back and takes a sip of her Tang, and then, the final blow.

Just as she blurts the first words of her answer (“I think”), out comes a spray of spittled Tang onto the back of Miss Schimpf’s hand.

“Oh!” Miss Schimpf gives a small, tense laugh. Anju mumbles “Sorry” over and over, attempting to wipe the Tang-laden hand with her own. “It’s all right, it’s all right. Let’s just take a deep breath …”

Linno takes a deep breath. Last Sunday, she woke from a dream wherein Anju failed her interview, a dream whose aftertaste, in the morning, was strangely sweet. She both wanted Anju to go and wanted her to fail. Not only to fail, but to know the lasting heaviness of failure. Guilt-ridden, Linno spent an hour with Ammachi’s prayer book, summoning up long, sorrowful prayers, and for the rest of the day she went on with her chores, taking special care when ironing her sister’s school blouse.

And now, her prayers have been answered with this.

“Get away from there!” Ammachi whispers, then begs: “What is happening? What?”

“They are almost finished,” Linno says.

LINNO SITS on the back step just as Rappai’s rooster struts into the yard, eyeing her as if she poses some sort of challenge. She hates Rappai’s rooster. It boasts all the lesser qualities of its owner: knotty legs, a bulky middle, pecking after ladies in a way that sends them skittering off. Its feet are surprising — large, taloned, and violent — recalling the mightier pterodactyl from which it has descended, disappointingly, into Rappai’s yard.

Rappai lives in the house behind theirs; she can see him gawking from his doorway, craning his neck. He wears his usual off-yellow mundu tied far too high above his knees, exposing thighs barely wider than his calves, and a towel over his shoulder. He works in construction, laying down brick and mortar for the new consumer store that is rising up in Baker Junction, and he walks as if he were still supporting an invisible basket of brick on his head.

“Eddi , Linno!” he yells from the doorway. “Did she get it?”

In an effort to quiet him, Linno shakes her head furiously, waves her hand No .