by Satyajit Ray
It was the same Nando Banerjee who made the suggestion. ‘Look,’ he said one day, ‘I think you should get rid of that portrait. That’s what has brought you all this bad luck. In any case, your appearance has changed so much lately that there are little similarities left between you and that man.’
To tell the truth, the same thought had occurred to Sahadev Babu when he had recently looked into a mirror and compared his own face with the portrait. In the last two months, the hair around his ears had turned grey, there were dark circles under his eyes, his cheeks looked sunken, and his skin had lost its lustre. Yet, the man in the picture looked just the same.
‘Go back to Lazarus and return it to them,’ Nando Banerjee went on, ‘Didn’t they say the artist was well known? I’m sure they’ll find another buyer. You’ll be free from that cursed thing, and be able to earn some money if it is sold.’
That night, Sahadev Babu switched on the blue light and stared once more at the portrait. In a few minutes, the feeling that rose uppermost in his heart was one he had never experienced before. It was fear. The man’s lips held a slight smile. Until now, it had always struck him as a pleasant smile. Tonight, it seemed evil. His eyes were looking straight back at him, making him feel as if the smile was intended only for him. How perfectly strange—some ancient artist called Paresh Gui drew the portrait of an unknown man, heaven knew who he was or where he had lived, and yet, the same portrait had ruined his own life! Sahadev Ghosh suddenly thought of all the money he had spent on buying all those extra objects, quite apart from what he had spent on the painting itself. He gave an involuntary shudder. Thank God he did not have the means, even at the time, to buy a diamond ring. Had he bought one, how much more would he have lost?
He could think no more. He switched off the blue light and lay down. His mind was made up. He would get a taxi in the morning and take that portrait back to Lazarus.
‘Good morning, sir. What’s that you’re carrying?’
He was meeting Mihir Babu after nearly a year. It was not a Sunday, so there were no preparations to be made for an auction. Sahadev Babu put the portrait down on the floor. Several sheets from three different newspapers were wrapped tightly around it. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead and explained the matter to Mihir Babu. Naturally, he could not tell him the truth. So he said, ‘This portrait has turned me into an object of ridicule, would you believe it? My friends keep saying, “Why did you have to dress up as a zamindar to get your portrait made, when the zamindari system disappeared ages ago?” I’m tired of everyone making fun of me. So I decided to bring it back. See if you can sell it to someone else. Or if it just stays here . . . well, I wouldn’t mind!’
‘Did I just see you getting out of a taxi? What happened to your car?’
‘It’s in the workshop. Goodbye.’
Sahadev Babu left. Mihir Babu picked up the telephone directory and found the number of the Academy of Fine Arts. He had to ring his nephew, who was holding an exhibition of his paintings there. Mihir Babu was very fond of this particular nephew.
‘Hello, is that Kallol? This is Uncle Mihir. Listen. Do you remember how I’d helped you to earn some money when you came out of college and were looking for work? The very first time? . . . No? Cast your mind back. Didn’t you go to a man in Sadananda Road, who had advertised for an artist to make his portrait? And didn’t he drive you away? Then you drew his portrait, anyway, simply from memory, but dressed him up as a zamindar? . . . Yes, yes, now do you remember? Well, you see, that same portrait has come back to me. Come and collect it when you can. The shop is absolutely packed, I haven’t got enough room here to store it.’
Mihir Babu replaced the receiver and turned his attention to his next client. Mr Aron had arrived to make enquiries about an old chess set that he had seen before.
Now Mihir Babu would have to pass it off as something made in Burma, a hundred and fifty years ago.
Translated by Gopa Majumdar
First published in Bengali in 1979
A Strange Night for Mr Shasmal
Mr Shasmal leant back in his easy chair and heaved a sigh of relief.
He had selected really the most ideal spot, this forest bungalow in northern Bihar. No other place could be more peaceful, quiet or safe. The room, too, was most satisfactory. It was furnished with old, sturdy and attractive furniture, all made during the Raj. The linen neatly spread on a large bed was spotless, and even the attached bathroom was spacious and clean. Through an open window came a cool breeze, and the steady drone of crickets. There was no electricity, but that did not matter. Frequent power cuts in Calcutta had taught him to read by the light of kerosene lamps. He was quite used to it. The lamps in this bungalow had plain glass shades. Possibly for this reason, the light that came from them seemed brighter than the lamps he had at home. He had brought plenty of detective novels, his favourite reading material, with him.
There was no one in the bungalow, except a chowkidar. This, too, suited him very well. It simply meant that he would not have to meet or talk to anyone. Good. About ten days ago, he had visited the tourist office in Calcutta and made a booking. Four days ago, he learnt from a letter from them that his booking was confirmed. He would stay here for at least three days before thinking of moving elsewhere. He had enough money with him to survive, quite easily, at least for a month. He had arrived in his own car which he had driven himself all the way from Calcutta, a distance of 550 kilometres.
True to his word, the chowkidar served him dinner by half past nine: chapatis, arahar daal, some vegetables and chicken curry. The dining room bore signs of the Raj as well. The table, the chairs, the china and a fancy sideboard, all appeared to belong to British times.
‘Are there mosquitoes here?’ Mr Shasmal asked over dinner. The area where he had his flat in Calcutta was devoid of mosquitoes. He had not had to use a mosquito net in the last ten years. If he did not have to use a net here, either, his happiness would be complete.
The chowkidar said they did get mosquitoes in the winter, but it was now April, so there should not be a problem. However, he knew where a few nets were stored, and could put one up, if need be. At night, he added, it was best to sleep with the door closed. After all, they were in the middle of a forest. A fox or some other wild animal might get into the room if the door was left open. Mr Shasmal agreed. In fact, he had already decided to shut the door before going to bed.
He finished eating. Then he went out on the veranda outside the dining room, with a torch in his hand. He switched it on and directed it towards the forest. It fell on the trunk of a shaal tree. Mr Shasmal moved the beam around, to see if he could spot an animal. There was nothing. The whole forest was totally silent, except for the drone of the crickets. It went on, non-stop.
‘I hope there are no ghosts in the bungalow?’ asked Mr Shasmal lightly, returning to the dining room. The chowkidar was clearing the table. He stopped briefly on his way to the kitchen, smiled and told him that he had spent the last thirty-five years working here, plenty of people had stayed in the bungalow during that time, but no one had seen a ghost. This made Mr Shasmal’s heart lighter.
His own room was the second one after the dining room. He had not bothered to shut the door before going in for his dinner. On his return, he realized that he should not have left it open. A stray dog had found its way there. A thin, scraggy creature, it had a white body with brown spots.
‘Hey! Out, get out, shoo!’ he cried. The dog did not move, but remained in one corner of the room, looking as if it had every intention of spending the night there.
‘Get out, I said!’
This time, the dog bared its fangs. Mr Shasmal stepped back. When he was small, his neighbour’s son had been bitten by a mad dog. He could not be saved from getting hydrophobia. Mr Shasmal remembered, in every horrific detail, how that boy had suffered. He did not have the courage to approach a snarling dog. He cast a sidelong glance at the animal, and went out on the veranda again.
‘Chowki
dar!’
‘Yes, Babu?’
‘Can you come here for a minute?’
The chowkidar appeared, wiping his hands on a towel. ‘There’s a dog in my room. Can you get rid of it?’
‘A dog?’ The chowkidar sounded perfectly taken aback. ‘Yes. Why, you mean there isn’t a single dog in this area? What’s there to be so surprised about? Come with me, I’ll show you.’
The chowkidar cast a suspicious look at Mr Shasmal, and entered his room. ‘Where is the dog, Babu?’ Mr Shasmal had followed him in. There was no sign of the dog. It had left in the few seconds it had taken him to call the chowkidar. Even so, the chowkidar looked under the bed, and checked in the bathroom, just to make sure.
‘No, Babu, there’s no dog here.’
‘Well, maybe not now. But it was here, just a minute ago.’
Mr Shasmal could not help feeling a little foolish. He sent the chowkidar back and took the easy chair again. He had almost finished his cigarette. Now he flicked the stub out of the window. Then he raised his arms over his head and stretched lazily, and in so doing, noticed something. The dog had not gone. Or, if it had, it was back again, and was standing once more in the same corner.
How very annoying! If it was allowed to remain, no doubt his new slippers from Bata would be chewed to pieces during the night. Mr Shasmal was well aware of a dog’s passion for unattended slippers. He picked them up from the floor and placed them on the table.
So now there was another occupant in the room. Never mind. Let it be there for the moment, he’d try to drive it out once again before he went to bed.
Mr Shasmal stretched an arm and took a novel out of the Indian Airlines bag he had kept on the table. He had folded the page where he had stopped reading. Just as he slipped a finger into that page to open the book, his eyes fell on the corner opposite the dog. Quite unbeknown to him, another creature had slipped into the room.
It was a cat, with stripes all over its body, like a tiger. Curled into a ball, it was staring at him through dim, yellow eyes. Where had he seen a cat like that?
Oh yes. The Kundus, who lived in the house next door, had seven cats. One of them had looked just like this one. That night . . .
The whole thing came back to Mr Shasmal quite vividly. About six months ago, he had been woken one night by the sound of constant caterwauling. He was already in a foul mood. His business partner, Adheer, had had a violent argument with him just the day before, threatening to go to the police to expose him. It had nearly come to blows. As a result, Mr Shasmal was not finding it easy to sleep. And now this cat was screaming its head off. After half an hour of tolerating the noise, he ran out of patience. Picking up a heavy glass paperweight from his table, he hurled it out of the window, towards the source of the noise. It stopped instantly.
The next morning, the entire household of the Kundus was in an uproar. Someone had brutally murdered one of their cats—the striped tom cat, it was being said. This had amused Mr Shasmal. The murder of a cat? If this could be called a murder, why, people were committing murders every day, without even thinking about it! Memories of another incident came back to him. It had happened many years ago, when he was still in college. He used to stay in the college hostel. One day, he happened to notice a long row of little ants going up a wall in his room. Mr Shasmal had grabbed a newspaper, lit one end of it and run the burning flame down the column of ants. As he watched, each of the tiny insects shrivelled and died, before dropping to the floor. Could that be described as murder?
Mr Shasmal looked at his wristwatch. It was ten minutes to ten. For a whole month, he had had a constant throbbing in his head. That was now gone. He had also been feeling rather hot almost all the time, and had therefore started showering three times a day. That feeling had left him as well.
He opened his book and held it before him. He had read barely a couple of lines, when his eyes fell on the cat once again. Why was it staring so hard at him?
Obviously, there was no chance of being on his own tonight. The only good thing was that the other two occupants were not human. If the two animals behaved well and remained silent, there was no reason not to have a good night’s sleep. Sleep was very important to him. He had not slept well over the past few days, for very good reasons. Mr Shasmal was not in favour of the modern practice of swallowing sleeping pills.
He picked up the lamp and put it on the smaller bedside table. Then he took off his shirt, hung it up on a clotheshorse, drank some water from his flask, and went to bed, the book still in his hand. The dog had been sitting at the foot of the bed. Now it rose to its feet. Its eyes were fixed on Mr Shasmal.
The murder of a dog?
Mr Shasmal’s heart skipped a beat. Yes, it was murder, in a way. He could recall the incident quite clearly. It took place probably in 1973, soon after he had bought his car. As a driver, he had always been a bit rash. Since it was not possible to drive very fast in the crowded streets of Calcutta, every time he stepped out of the city, the needle of his speedometer shot up automatically. He did not feel satisfied unless he could do at least 70 m.p.h. That was about the speed he was at, when one day, he ran over a dog on the national highway, on his way to Kolaghat. It was an ordinary street dog, white with brown spots. Mr Shasmal realized what he had done, but sped on regardless. His conscience did bother him after a while, but he told himself it did not matter. It was only a stray dog. So thin that you could count all its ribs. What was the point in such a creature staying alive? What good would it have done anyone? Mr Shasmal could remember thinking these things, to remove even the slightest trace of guilt from his mind.
He had succeeded at the time; but tonight, it was the sudden recollection of this incident that completely ruined his peace of mind.
How many animals had he killed in his life? Was each of them going to turn up here? What about that strange black bird he had killed with his first air gun, when he was a child? He did not even know the name of the bird. And then, during a visit to his uncle’s house in Jhargram, didn’t he use a heavy brick to . . . ?
Yes, it was here.
Mr Shasmal noticed the snake as his eyes moved towards the window. It was a cobra, about eight feet long. Its supple, smooth body had slipped in through the window, and was now climbing the table placed against the wall. Normally, snakes did not appear in April. But this one had. Two-thirds of its body remained on the table. The rest rose from it, the hood spreading out. Its unwavering, cruel eyes glittered in the light of the lamp.
In his uncle’s house in Jhargram, Mr Shasmal had crushed a similar snake to death by throwing a brick at its head. The snake had been an old inmate of the house, well known to everyone. It had never done anyone any harm.
Mr Shasmal realized that his throat had gone totally dry. He could not even shout for the chowkidar.
The crickets outside had stopped their racket. A rather eerie silence engulfed everything. His wristwatch ran silently, or he would have heard it ticking. Just for a minute, Mr Shasmal thought he might be dreaming. That had happened to him in the recent past. Even as he lay in his own bed in his room, he had felt as if he was somewhere else, where there were strange people moving about, whispering among themselves. But that weird feeling had not lasted for more than a few moments. Perhaps one imagined such things just before drifting off to sleep. It was possible.
What he was seeing today, however, was not just a dream. He had pinched himself a minute ago, and realized that he was definitely awake.
Whatever was happening was for real, and deliberate. It was all meant specifically for him.
Mr Shasmal lay still for nearly an hour. Quite a few mosquitoes had made their way into the room. He had not yet felt them bite, but had seen and heard them hovering around his bed. How many mosquitoes had he killed in his life? Who could tell?
An hour later, seeing that none of the animals were showing signs of aggression, Mr Shasmal began to relax. Perhaps he could try to go to sleep now?
He heard the noise the instant he
stretched out an arm to lower the wick of the lamp. The path that ran from the gate of the bungalow to the steps leading to the veranda outside was covered with gravel. Someone was walking along that path. It was no four-legged creature this time. This one had two legs.
Now Mr Shasmal could feel himself sweating profusely, and he could hear his heart pounding in his chest.
The dog and the cat were still staring at him. The mosquitoes had not stopped humming. The cobra’s hood was still raised; it was swaying rhythmically from side to side, as if some invisible snake charmer was playing an inaudible flute.
The footsteps had reached the veranda. They were getting closer.
A small, jet-black bird fluttered in through the window and sat on the table: the same bird that he had shot with his airgun. It had fallen off the wall it was perched on, and dropped to the ground into the garden next door.
The footsteps stopped outside his room.
Mr Shasmal knew who it was. Adheer. Adheer Chakravarty, his partner. They were friends once, but of late, they had almost stopped speaking to each other. Adheer did not like the devious way in which Mr Shasmal ran their business. He had threatened to report him to the police. Mr Shasmal, in turn, had told him that it was foolish to be honest when running a business. Adheer could not accept this view. Had he known about Adheer’s moral stance, Mr Shasmal would never have made him his partner. It had not taken him long to realize that Adheer had become his biggest enemy. An enemy had to be destroyed. And that was precisely what Mr Shasmal had done.
The previous night, he and Adheer had sat facing each other in Adheer’s sitting room. Mr Shasmal had a revolver in his pocket. He had come with the intention of killing his partner. Adheer was sitting only a few feet away. They were arguing once more. When Adheer’s voice had reached its highest pitch, Mr Shasmal had taken out his revolver and fired it. Now, as he thought about the expression on the face of the man who had once been a close friend, Mr Shasmal could not help smiling. Adheer had clearly never expected to see him with a firearm in his hand.