by Sutapa Basu
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First Published in 2021 by Readomania
© Copyright Sutapa Basu
Illustrations by Debashish Baral
Sutapa Basu asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this book.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events or locations, is purely coincidental.
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For
Trisha
My inspiration to go on sleuthing adventures.
1.
Simmering Kolkata pounced on me as I stepped out of the clammy, chilled cab and looked up. Against a grimy sky, the edifice towered above me.
Sarkar Bari! Elegant and regal, she dominated the street amidst grimy, old houses huddling over each other in bleak rows.
‘Only one suitcase?’ queried Mr Raha.
Spellbound by the sight before me, I nodded absent-mindedly. Four tall fluting columns glided upwards carrying a vaulted roof. High above the front two pillars, a three-cornered marble panel faced the street. Tilting my head, I could make out a frieze carved into the stone; a pair of springing lions amidst decorative vines. Between them was a plaque with words in Bengali script. Wide marble steps led into a deep porch with iron gates set at the far end.
‘It is magnificent,’ I breathed, ‘like a Greek temple.’
‘Yes, it is,’ agreed the estate manager who had met me at the airport. ‘It has been your family’s home for many, many years.’ Dad never told us his home was this grand. Pride swelled up, choking my throat even though I was seeing it for the first time. And this opulent mansion is now ours! Unbelievable!
I pulled up the grip of my blue spinner and followed the manager up the steps. Closer scrutiny inside the porch melted my rapture a little. Time had whisked its brush over the splendid monument. Rather than being belle of the ball, Sarkar Bari looked more like an aging monarch put out to field. Paint peeled off its columns, the marble steps and floor were sadly blotched and cracked. Still, I could not help envisioning it as the vain Cinderella unaccepting that midnight had come and gone.
Somewhere a bell chimed as the man pushed an old-fashioned button. ‘Will the customer be here tomorrow, Mr Raha?’
‘Oh, please don’t be so formal. Mr Raha is my father. I am just Gonuda to everyone,’ he said cracking a deprecating smile crowded with crooked, smoke-stained teeth.
‘Gonuda?’ I pronounced, slowly, trying out the unusual cadences.
‘Yes, short for Gonesh, Miss Anahita,’ he explained.
‘And I am “Anna”…short for Anahita,’ I pointed out. Though I did not have many opportunities to practise Bengali after Dad had gone, he had ingrained in my brother, Robin and me enough grasp of the language to manage a conversation. Mum had encouraged him, although being English, she could not join in. Rather she built into us a proclivity towards honesty, fairness and above all helping the needy.
Nevertheless, I felt disconcerted and gave him a sidelong glance. How can a balding, bulky, worse-for-wear man as old as my dad be my elder brother? Indian idioms are so confusing…like the manager’s thick English accent.
Runnels of perspiration sashayed down my back as we waited. Eventually the gates cranked wide open. A diminutive, portly woman swathed in a stained white sari that covered her head stood before us. A wide smile stretched across a face crisscrossed with wrinkles. Her expression reflected the kindness sparkling in her eyes. ‘O Maa!’ She put a hand to cover her mouth in amazement. ‘This is Ashish Babu…exactly his eyes….’
I knew I had inherited Dad’s brown eyes, but the English part of me felt flustered with such candour at a first meeting. As I cleared my throat uncomfortably, I saw genuine affection leaping into the kind, black eyes and I was disarmed. ‘Anahita…umm…Anna, this is Lokkhi mashi,’ said Gonuda, gesturing to the woman, ‘She has been taking care of Sarkar Bari even before I was born.’
‘I came here,’ added Lokkhi mashi, ‘when I was twelve years old…to help Ginni Ma.’
‘Karta Babu’s wife,’ Gonuda explained. Thammu! I remembered her photograph in Dad’s album.
‘…and now her granddaughter has come home,’ declared the housekeeper. I smiled as widely as I could, attempting to untangle the accent.
‘You are Dad’s mashi…he has told me about you,’ I offered my hand. Though she scrupulously avoided taking it, her eyes were suddenly awash in unshed tears.
Remembering her manners, the housekeeper waved us in. ‘Aashoon! Aashoon! Please come in!’
I followed them inside and then stood still. The size of the interiors simply took my breath away. The mansion consisted of four blocks, one on each side of a large open patio, a quadrangle tiled in black and white, like a chess board.
On the left and right, as well as adjacent to the tall gates the blocks were of two floors. Each one was edged by verandas with rows of slim, marble pillars holding up the roof. Set back into each veranda wall was a queue of doors leading, I assumed, to rooms. Spiralling stairways to the upper level and terrace above, hugged each end of the three blocks. Facing me was the main segment of the mansion. From its centre, rose broad, marble stairs sweeping upwards. Verandas on ground floors were matched by pillared galleries above. A marble balustrade of entwining vines like the frieze outside ran along each upper floor gallery.
In one corner, I noticed a tree with a wide green canopy…yes, it is a neem. I was familiar with the herbal Azadirachta having come across it during research studies for my Pharma masters. But there was only that one tree inside the patio, and it was tall enough to overlook the high terraced roof.
‘This mansion is so large,’ I exclaimed. ‘How many people live here?’
The housekeeper and Gonuda looked at each other. ‘There used to be many people…relatives…extended family…,’ said Lokkhi mashi. ‘But now…’
‘…only Karta Babu stayed here….and Lokkhi mashi, of course,’ finished Gonuda, instructing the woman, ‘Take the suitcase upstairs.’
I turned around
in a circle, wondering. Such a huge house for only two people…our small London apartment came irrepressibly to mind. I noted that all the doors set along the verandas had locks on them. I looked up to check the rooms on the upper floor and my gaze wavered.
Somebody was observing me.
2.
Leaning over the balustrade was a boy, around ten or twelve years old. Distance blurred his brown face, but the dark tousled hair falling on his forehead and thin shoulders in white stood out. There was intensity in the way he looked down at me…and it seemed his lips moved, though I heard nothing.
I turned back, asking, ‘Who is that?’
‘Who?’ Gonuda asked. He was pulling out the grip of my suitcase.
‘He,’ I said, pointing to the balustrade. Then my finger teetered for the spot was now vacant. Nobody stood at the balustrade….
‘Who?’ Gonuda said, again. The housekeeper and he screwed up their eyes and looked to where my index finger pointed.
‘Uhhh…there was a boy there…,’ I murmured, raking the balustrade with my eyes.
‘Boy?’ asked Gonuda, wiping his face with a large, stained handkerchief. ‘Where?’
‘Must be a child from the slum outside…the rear door is open,’ explained Lokkhi mashi.
‘Don’t keep any doors open, Lokkhi mashi,’ reprimanded Gonuda. ‘No riff-raff must come in. Especially with Didi here.’ The old woman nodded. ‘Now let’s go up to Didi’s room. Have you made lunch as I told you?’
I hardly heard their words. The boy’s face swam before my eyes. Did he actually say something, or…did I think he did?
Walking down the gallery upstairs, Gonuda was still talking. ‘Lokkhi mashi will cook, clean and wash for you as she did for Karta Babu, your grandfather. She lives in a downstairs room and knows everything about the place. Ask her if you need anything.’
Half-listening to him, I saw that all the rooms we passed were locked. Only the last room was open. Gonuda held back the yellow curtain, announcing, ‘This room has been arranged for you.’
‘Did Dadu also keep all rooms locked?’
‘Some of them,’ he said, taking a step inside the open door.
‘What about Dadu’s room?’ I wanted to know.
Gonuda said slowly, ‘It is locked now to secure the valuables in there. With only the housekeeper here, I believed that was the right thing to do.’
‘Who has the keys to the room?’ I asked.
Gonuda turned to look at me. Bright sunlight through the windows behind him shadowed his face. Yet I sensed a sudden stiffening.
‘I…I have them. Why?’ he demanded.
‘Could you please give them to me?’ I requested, keeping my voice even.
I wasn’t sure why Gonuda, voluble till now, fell mute and his eyes turned cautious. However, I had the right to everything in the mansion, including the keys. He regarded me speculation glinting in his eyes. Then he dug out a bunch of keys from the pocket and held them out to me, a trifle reluctantly. I curled my fingers around them and smiled reassuringly at him. After all, I only intended to peek into Dadu’s room not to check on Gonuda’s supervisory lapses.
Abruptly, Gonuda’s amiable smile was back and he suggested, ‘Let’s go and see what lunch Lokkhi mashi serves.’ We walked downstairs to the dining room. I was surprised to see a table laid with delicate china and silver.
Lokkhi mashi bustled in, nervously querying, ‘Is everything all right?’
I nodded, ‘Thank you.’ I didn’t know why she was so anxious.
Gonuda added, ‘Yes, Mashi.’ She smiled uncertainly at him.
Straightening a spoon, the housekeeper declared, ‘Karta Babu always liked meals served on this crockery. Since you have come from bidesh I thought you would like the same. Karta Babu usually ate with his fingers, but insisted the spoons and forks must be kept on the table in this manner...’
‘Yes. Yes, Mashi,’ cut in Gonuda. ‘Why don’t you get the food?’ Lokkhi Mashi scuttled back to the adjacent kitchen.
After lunch, we went back to my room. Gonuda collapsed into an armchair. ‘Is everything fine?’ he asked.
‘Perfect!’ I said, sitting down on the chintz-covered sofa and looking around. On one side was a four-poster bed with a carved bedhead. Tall windows interspersed the wall opposite the door. Yellow curtains drawn apart showed dazzling leaded glass panes. I strolled over and peeped out. Ancient green wooden shutters were open against the outer walls. Sarkar Bari seems caught in a time warp while the rest of the world has sped on, I mused.
Outside the window, a high wall separated the mansion from the street behind. I flung open the glass panes. A bedlam of vans, cars, hand-pulled rickshaws and loaded carts, three-wheeler cabs, two-wheelers and people’s voices from the street below erupted harshly into the serene room. Beyond the hodgepodge, my eyes picked out few huts and shanties on the pavement opposite. Walls of cardboard, thin wood pieces, roofed over with flattened, rusty tin canisters and sheathed by torn newspapers or plastic sheets, they appeared hardly fit for human dwelling. Yet, half-naked children ran in and out of them. Along the alleys between them, people were going about their daily jobs. I saw an old, ragged woman hunched over a black pot. She was stirring it on a flame built of dry twigs sheltered by a couple of bricks. A little further, under a gushing waterpipe, a man bathed in the open. Men and boys squatted in the dirt playing cards in front of the shanties.
‘Who are these people?’
‘Slum vermin.…cheaters, thieves, drug peddlers,’ drawled Gonuda.
‘They live on the street?’
‘Yes…live, eat, sleep…’ He stopped himself from uttering a crude word. ‘They are the scum.’
I looked around the large, pleasant room. Obviously, he is blind to the incongruity…so much space for just one and hardly a corner for so many. Is it familiarity that breeds such inhuman nonchalance?
I wandered over to the sofa. ‘So, have you always been Dadu’s estate manager?’ I asked the man.
‘Actually, it is my father, Kedarnath Raha, who is the estate manager of Sarkar Bari. But ever since Karta Babu passed away, my father has not been keeping well. I am helping out,’ he explained.
‘Oh! And what do you do?’
‘Nothing, right now. I used to sell shoes in a shop, but I could not tolerate the owner’s jibes and gave it up. Since then, doing casual jobs like food delivery and so on.’ He shrugged. Seems happy doing nothing, I guess.
‘Anyway, you better take some rest, now. I will be back tomorrow,’ he said. He stood up, hitching the trousers over his paunch.
As I walked him to the gates, I decided to stroll to the McDonald’s outlet on the main road. The big M had caught my eye on the way here. Lokkhi mashi’s well-meaning cuisine had been too spicy for me. I had hardly eaten a morsel. Yet, tongue to tummy, I was on fire. Maybe I should get some dinner packed, too.
‘I need to charge my phone,’ I remarked.
‘Oh! I forgot to tell you.’ Gonuda halted. ‘I have got the CESC to disconnect electric supply here,’ he divulged.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because the mansion was empty and unnecessary bills would pile up. Besides those thieves in the slum would tap into the cables and steal electricity,’ he explained.
‘Okay…I have a power bank to manage my phone. Will the customer for the mansion come tomorrow?’
‘Uhhh…I will call him tonight,’ promised Gonuda.
‘Gonuda, my return flight is booked for next Monday…six days from today. Robin will fly here in a couple of days. We have to complete the sale formalities quickly and get back,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, yes, I understand. I will call him,’ he said and rapidly walked away.
I latched the gates and returned to my room as weariness settled into my bones. In the antique, oval mirror of the dresser, my reflection looked back. The pale-olive face and small nose were oily with moisture. Dark curls untidily tumbled over thin shoulders while large brown eyes, that Robin called dreamy,
pensively regarded me.
3.
I washed off the grimy sweat with scoops of cool water from white enamelled pails in the bathroom. When I went back to bed, I felt utterly drained. Jet lag…I suppose. Lying back, my head sank into soft, fluffy pillows. I looked up at the gauzy, white net canopy, its long curtains looped to bed posts and telescoped backwards…to the worst day of my life.
I had just driven back from the hospital where Dad, who had suffered a massive stroke, was admitted. He was in ICU but the way his EEG was levelling out did not give much comfort. Besides, his lungs were already weak by a recent bout of pneumonia. He was hooked up to wires, tubes and oxygen but the lesion on the brain was the riskiest. The doctor was candid…prognosis was not good.
Drained out mentally and physically, on a reflex, I had flipped open the mailbox. The usual bundle of bills and envelopes fell out. Indifferently, I had thumbed through them but paused when I noticed an unusual stamp…from India. It was addressed to Dad, but I was feeling too run-down to open it. I flung the whole bunch into a drawer and forgot about it.
After that, days and nights had been a blur of painful vigils, sleeplessness and holding myself together. Robin flew in from the States. Ever since we had lost Mom to cancer in my teens, the three of us had grown into a close-knit unit. But Dad and I had a special bond. Somehow, our Indian roots fascinated me more than it did Robin. He was more into playing football and hiking with his mates. Even as a toddler, my favourite bedtime stories were about Dad’s reminiscences of Sarkar Bari and Kolkata. Now that Dad was slipping away, I was devastated. Robin tried to be my rock and I clung to him. But Robin had his wife. For a long time, I’d had nobody but Dad. With him gone, my life had become a void.
Once the funeral was done, black numbness submerged me. It went on and on, day after day. But life could not wait. Robin had to return to his business and family. I simply did not have the strength to sort through Dad’s things. So Robin suggested we do it together, starting with his papers.