ATLAS of UNKNOWNS by Tania James

Author:Tania James
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780307271501
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2011-03-22T03:21:47+00:00

“Research,” Linno says.

3.

HERE ARE THOSE in Jackson Heights, Queens, who well know the name “Action Jackson,” a neighborhood group that demanded a list of “aesthetic guidelines” for storefronts in the Jackson Heights area, as proposed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1995. Store facades would be restricted to a mature palette of colors—“black, brown (not bronze), dark gray, tan, dark green and dark red.” The proposal eliminated most if not all of the signs hung by Indian and Pakistani shopkeepers along Thirty-seventh Avenue, like John Muqbel’s ten-by-twelve-foot candy pink awning, which disagreed with the proposal. “This is purely motivated by prejudice,” Muqbel complained to The New York Times. “They have no right to impose this on me. I don’t live in their house.” But the fed-up district manager of Community Board 3 denounced the signs as “absolutely atrocious.”

Along came the Apsara Salon with a sign that made every atrocity look quaint, with its crenelated edges and black-on-orange design that unintentionally evoked Halloween. If this Muqbel could get into The New York Times, Ghafoor reasoned, so could he. Ghafoor proudly boasted of the competitive mentality that he shared with his fellow Indians, the very reason that Indians were # 1 in the Guinness Book of World Records in subjects as varied as “longest fingernail” and “tiniest handmade chess piece.”

But the Apsara Salon arrived after the commission proved unable to control the colors that rudely bloomed along the street. And when Pay-less Shoes arrived with its bubbly mango-colored letters, it became clear that the street would have little recourse against crimes of design.

INSIDE THE APSARA SALON, the decor is blandly inoffensive. The rectangular main room narrows into a hallway, leading to a bathroom that wears an out of order sign. Favored customers know the secret—that the bathroom has always been in working order, but this is Ghafoor’s way of curbing cleaning costs and the occasional sabotage of a sanitary napkin. These privileged few slip in and out of the bathroom without sullying the floor or saying a word.

But now with Anju, Ghafoor’s new hire, he can remove the out of order sign. The new girl is from the old country, which he considers a plus, as she is ingrained to take on the most menial of tasks. She squats like only a third-worlder can, froglike for minutes on end, brushing tumbleweeds of black and hennaed hair into a dustpan. For months, the floor seemed perpetually veiled with scum, but since her arrival last week, every surface has been shiny and slippery and spotless, not a stray hair in sight.

The new girl says very little, which is understandable, seeing as how all the beauticians are either Punjabi or Gujarati and this Anju is Malayali. Ghafoor once tried to instate a Hindi-only policy to prevent sectarian conflict (and to make sure no one was talking behind his back), but implementing such a rule is like trying to cut a hole in water. The words flow around him whether he approves or not.

The only person

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