It first happened on a rainy morning. Tara arrived at her tailoring shop to find the torn schoolbag on her table neatly mended. The thread was a perfect match. She assumed she'd done it and forgotten.
The following Tuesday, someone repaired the pocket of an old kurta. The Tuesday after that, a fraying curtain hem. Only Tara and the landlord had keys.
He raised both hands. “I can't even sew on a button.”
Tara sprinkled flour on the cupboard. By morning, it bore mouse tracks, but no mouse could stitch that neatly.
On the fourth Monday, she deliberately attached a sleeve the wrong way round and hid at the back of the shop. At eleven, blue light slipped beneath the door. Bashir, the night watchman, was sitting outside with his little torch. Through a tear in the window mesh, he drew the sleeve towards him, unpicked it, and began attaching it correctly.
“My father had a shop,” he said when she caught him. “The machine's gone. The shop's gone. Try explaining that to your hands.”
Tara watched his left hand steady the sleeve. He held the fabric as though catching something delicate before it fell.
In the morning, she gave Bashir a key. She put a chair beside the window. On the table, she left three garments needing repairs, each with a slip stating the payment.
By the next morning, all three slips had been marked. On one, Bashir had crossed out the amount and written a higher figure.
Underneath, he had added: “Silk sleeves cost extra.”
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