The Cursed Inheritance

by Sutapa Basu

It was my brother who found the letter from India. He tore it open and called out to me, ‘There is a letter from Dadu.’

  ‘Dadu?’ I was surprised. We knew about Dadu and Thammu, Dad’s parents who lived in Kolkata. There were pictures of them in my father’s family album; a frayed, black photo book that Dad had brought with him when he had come to study at the University of York. But, never had any letters ever come from his parents…at least, none that we knew about.

  I leaned over Robin’s shoulder and together, we read the brief letter. Written in ink on thin crisp paper, the writing was squiggly and not very legible.

  Dear Ashish,

  I hope this letter finds you in good health.

  I cannot say the same for me. The doctor has given his word…dialysis is no longer an option…not many days, he says. Therefore, I felt it is time that you make a trip home. There are certain documents that I have to give you. Besides, there is a matter that I need to discuss urgently with you.

  Write back with the day and time of your flight. My manager, Kedarnath Raha will pick you up from the airport. Though I don’t like these new-fangled devices, he has a mobile phone. You can call him on it. The number is 9350166781.

  Please don’t postpone your trip. I do not have much time, my boy.

  All my blessings,

  Baba.

  Robin had called the number and got through to Mr Raha who informed him that Dadu had died a week ago. I remember remarking to Robin, ‘Strange how father and son have gone about the same time. Hope they meet in heaven.’

  Over the following months, the will, succession documents were processed through post and mail. We were bewildered on being informed that Robin and I had inherited Sarkar Bari in faraway Kolkata. We decided that selling it was the best recourse. Instantly, we had come up against hurdles…the Indian government’s restrictions on NRI sales…that could not be got around remotely. Both of us had to be physically present for the sale process. I had just been offered an internship with AstraZeneca, the biopharma research firm. But there was a month’s hiatus between my exams and interning with them. Robin had asked me to go to Kolkata and get things going. He would fly down later for the final signatures.

  ‘Come!’

  In a crisp white flowing dhoti and long kurta, an embroidered shawl over his shoulder, the tall man beckoned from the doorway. It took me a minute to recognise Dadu. He looked exactly as I had seen him in the photographs.

  ‘Come!’ He urged again.

  I clambered off the high bed. Instead of waiting for me, he turned and walked away. When I came out into the gallery, he was already ahead of me. The bright sunlight had obliterated, and tufts of mist were floating towards the gallery. I looked at the far figure wondering where he was going. Of course, his room is right at the end of the gallery. I was afraid that the smoky cloud hanging over the patio would float in and block my way. I hurried but Dadu was moving too fast. I called out, ‘Dadu! Wait for me.’

  He paused at the door of the last room and looked back at me. ‘Come on,’ he coaxed, ‘I have something to show you.’

  I lunged forward but the black cloud was faster. It swirled into the gallery. I swatted it away, trying to see through its thickening fumes. Acrid smoke entered my nose and stung my eyes. Bitterness filled my mouth. My fingers clawed at my throat that was closing up….

  Coughing violently, I woke.

  The fierce sun had set. Shadows crawled across the bed. Cool fingers of a zephyr dried my perspiring face and neck. Door curtains billowed gently. The calmness of the room was so unlike the ghastly dream. Footsteps sounded outside. I sat up. Dadu! Curtains moved aside. I held my breath.

  Lokkhi mashi entered bearing a tray. Relieved, I smiled.

  She grinned back. ‘Awake, Annadidi?I have some nice hot tea and biscuits here. You hardly ate any lunch.’ Putting down the tray on the bedside table, she asked, ‘What do you want to eat for dinner?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, hastily. ‘I will be going out. I will eat there.’ I wiped the sweat dripping from my chin.

  ‘Oh! You are not used to the heat,’ exclaimed Lokkhi mashi. Bending down, she took out funny fan devised from the dried branch of palm-leaf tree. ‘Use this haathpakha,’ she instructed. Bemused, I held the handle and waved it to and fro and it did release a slight breeze. ‘That’sright. Didi, can I have some money to buy bread? Gonu had given me money for vegetables and other things but that’s finished. You eat bread in bidesh, don’t you?’

  I nodded, reaching for my wallet. Bread was a safe bet.

  ‘Lokkhi mashi, which one is Dadu’s room?’ I asked.

  ‘The last one on the right from here,’ she said. That was the one I saw in my dream. Strange!

  Sipping the sweet tea, I sat back in bed and thought about it. Not only did the dream seem real, how did I know which was Dadu’s room? I munched on a biscuit and wondered, what would I have seen if I had gone into his room? And then laughed, it was a dream, silly!

  ‘Or was it?’

  4.

  I looked around. Lokkhi mashi had left. Did somebody say those words or was I speaking aloud?

  I shook my head and leaned over to take another biscuit. My eyes fell on the keys lying next to the tray. Tomorrow I will check out Dadu’s room. My stomach was like a large hole with the tea and biscuits swishing in it. I needed to eat proper food. After a quick bath, I slipped my phone into the pocket of my sundress and ran downstairs. Clattering sounds came from the kitchen. I called out, ‘Lokkhi mashi, I am going out. Please lock the gate.’ She emerged and nodded at me.

  I walked down the avenue towards the main street. Along the kerb, several hand rickshaws were parked like ducks with the tails in the air. The pullers, wearing little else than a vest and rolled up old trousers, sat in circles. They eyed me as I passed, assessing whether I was looking for a ride. In a matter of minutes, I reached the main street junction of the avenue. Chaos of swerving vehicles, roaring buses, dust, smoke, and screeching vendors hit me hard after the placidity of Sarkar Bari. Cautiously keeping to the pavement, I twisted and turned to avoid pedestrians rushing both ways. A few minutes of this cavorting brought me upon the familiar signage emblazoned on glass doors. Pushing them, I entered the café’s cool quietness.

  Munching on a McChicken burger, I punched in Robin’s number. Should be early morning there. A few whirrs and dinks but no connection. I tried once more…my phone showed sufficient bars…but no go. I sighed and gulped some frothy cold coffee. None of the few customers in the cafe looked as if they could help with an international call. …will have manage with an email. Still feeling hungry, I ordered a Mcpuff and got a burger packed.

  Dusk hovered as I walked back, nibbling on the puff. As I turned into the lane, a kind of disquiet filled me. Something is not right… One by one, I recalled the events of the day. I couldn’t pinpoint what was fretting me. Hmmm except…Gonuda’s dormant hostility when I asked for the keys to Dadu’s room… but probably he was concerned about my criticism, nothing more. Or…did Dadu’s room have …?

  ‘Chaloge, Didi?

  I looked up. A thin man was looking at me hopefully. He stood between the prongs of a rickshaw that wobbled on a pair of large wheels. I shook my head and he returned to the group gathered around a small, rough stove. I sighed. Another view of this city that opposes Sarkar Bari’s elegant façade.

  I jabbed the bell in the porch. Lokkhi mashi opened the gates with an oil lantern held high. As I stepped in, I realised something was happening in the patio. On one side was a crowd of chattering children.

  ‘Should I lock the gates, Didi?’ asked Lokkhi mashi.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I replied, distractedly, ‘Who are these children?’

  ‘Oh! They are from the shanties behind. They come every evening,’ she replied, looking intently at me.

  ‘Oh! Why do they come here?’

  ‘For stories.’

  ‘Stories? And who tells them stories?’

  ‘I do. They call me Golpo Didu, their story
teller,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if they sit here and listen to me?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, fascinated by this new facet of the housekeeper.

  ‘Didu! Didu!’

  ‘Sheesh!’ Lokkhi mashi hushed them. ‘Don’t shout. This is Anahita Didi, Karta Babu’s granddaughter. Bid her nomoshkar.’

  The children, aged between eight to twelve years or so, folded their hands obediently. I smiled at them and leaned against a pillar.

  Golpo Didu took her seat on a torn mat and launched into a magical world of kings, queens and ogres. Her singsong voice was surprisingly soothing. When she finished the tale, I was as keen as the kids for one more story. But she shooed them off, announcing another story was for another day.

  ‘Annadidi, let me take you to your room,’ said the benign old lady.

  Leaving a lighted lamp in my room, she went down to the kitchen. Despondently, I watched the moths fluttering around the bright glass chimney. I wanted to go into Dadu’s room. But how could I explore anything in the darkness. Have to wait for the morning.

  I began to key in an email to my brother….

  Hi Robin,

  Reached safely. Was met at the airport by the estate manager, Raha…

  ‘What are you doing?’

  I looked up from the screen.

  The boy stood just inside the door. He was wearing a long, white kurta with matching narrow pyjamas. His bare feet were rubbing awkwardly against each other. Quite thin and seemingly all of twelve years, the eyes glimmered in a brown face. An untidy lock of hair fell into his eyes.

  It was the boy who had been staring at me from the balustrade this morning.

  He tossed his hair, slowly repeating. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I am writing an email,’ I replied.

  ‘What is email?’ he asked.

  ‘Come here and I will show you,’ I invited.

  A little hesitantly, he came to stand before me. I turned my phone screen towards him. In its glow, his skin was smooth and nutty brown in a soft, round face.

  A delicate golden string glittered on his chest weighed down by a tiny round bijou. Small mouth slightly open, his eyes were riveted on the screen. Something nudged at me as I watched his wondering face. He looked familiar though I had never seen him before today. Why is that so? Where has he come from? Who is he?

  ‘So much light…,’ the boy whispered, his voice brimming with awe.

  ‘Light? Where?’ At a loss, I looked around the gloomy room.

  ‘There,’ he whispered, pointing to the phone screen.

  ‘What is your name?’ I asked, ‘Did you come to listen to Golpo Didu’s stories? But her session was over long ago.’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. Before I could figure out which of my questions, he had replied to, the boy went on. ‘You have such wonderful things…like that,’ he pointed to my phone, ‘like this Sarkar Bari.’

  I laughed. ‘How do you know that Sarkar Bari is mine?’

  ‘I know,’ he replied.

  ‘Really!’ I responded in an indulgent tone. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘I know you have come from bidesh flying in a big aeroplane…like this.’ He ran around my bed holding an imaginary plane. ‘Are there towering buildings in bidesh?’

  ‘Yes, but nothing as grand as Sarkar Bari,’ I replied.

  ‘Are you going to sell Sarkar Bari?’

  How did he know? Stunned by the question, I replied, ‘Maybe. Why?’

  ‘Because there are many secrets in Sarkar Bari. How will you know about them if you sell the mansion?’

  I gazed at him in perplexity. Was he just prattling about ‘secrets’ as imaginative children do or were there really secrets in Sarkar Bari?

  ‘Do you know about these secrets?’

  ‘Yesss…,’ he replied but his attention had strayed to the lighted phone screen.

  ‘Come and sit here,’ I indicated the sofa, next to me. ‘And tell me about the secrets.’

  ‘Uhhuh….’ He shook his head. ‘You have to find them yourself.’ His tone was quite definite.

  ‘All right. At least, tell me your name.’ I reached out a hand.

  Instantly, he took a few paces back and half-turning to the gallery door, announced, ‘Ma is calling me.’

  ‘Your mother? I didn’t hear anything,’ I said, getting up.

  Like a scared rabbit, he dashed out. I followed him out into the gallery, but he had already descended the stairs.

  Still wondering about the child, I completed my email. When Lokkhi mashi came up to turn down my bed, I was munching the burger. ‘A boy came here, Lokkhi mashi,’ I informed her. ‘Do you know who he could be? He didn’t tell me his name.’

  ‘Boy? Now he must be very naughty to come up here,’ she said, indignantly. ‘I have told all the children that they must not come upstairs. What was he doing here? Tomorrow, I will scold them all.’

  Guilt surged up. ‘No, no, Lokkhi mashi. Please don’t scold them. They are children, after all. The boy was harmless, and he was hardly here for a few minutes.’

  Lokkhi mashi sniffed disbelievingly. She plumped up the pillows, arranged the coverlet and let down the filmy mosquito netting around the bed. ‘There! If you feel hot, the haathpakha is right here. I have to clean up the kitchen. Lock these doors and sleep well, Didi,’ she advised before slipping out. I pushed up the antique bolt on the door. Tethering my phone to the power bank, I snuggled into the bed. Only a few seconds later sleep overcame me.

  The windows were still dark when my eyes opened. Something had woken me up… Soft lamplight shone on the furniture though the corners were shrouded in gloom.

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  The door to the gallery was closed. I looked up at the ceiling. The sounds seemed coming from there.

  Thump! Dunk!

  Was someone walking on the terrace above…with light footfalls? Who?

  Creaaakkk….

  I kept looking at the ceiling waiting for more sounds but there were no more. I am not sure when I went back to sleep.

  5.

  Next morning, I climbed down to the patio, feeling buoyant. Cerulean skies were not yet bleached by the brassy summer sun and a breeze caressed my skin. Under the neem, Lokkhi mashi was crouched over a contraption. I went nearer to check it out. Inside an iron pail was a curious earthen stove. An air vent was cut out at the bottom. The housekeeper was heaping chunks of dark coal on top even as glowing cinders fell through the vent. Fanning the opening vigorously let out smoky fumes through the coal. Some of it went up my nose and I sneezed. My eyes smarted bringing to mind the noxious clouds of my dream.

  ‘Annadidi, move away. Smoke will make you ill,’ said the woman, wiping her own eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ I pointed to the apparatus.

  ‘Tola unuun,’ she replied. Mobile stove, I comprehended.

  ‘But why do you use a coal stove? Isn’t there an electric oven in the kitchen?’

  ‘Karta Babu never liked new gadgets. Besides, he felt food tasted better when cooked on hot coals. I thought you would like the taste, too. After all, there must be no coal ovens in bidesh, only electric ones,’ she elucidated.

  Thoughtfully, I observed the blue overhead. It was gradually being stained by several similar smoky plumes. All Kolkata seemed to believe in Dadu’s culinary ideas!

  ‘Shall I make you a mamlette?’ Lokkhi mashi asked.

  Mamlette? Uncertainly I nodded, following her into the kitchen as she carried the unuun inside. ‘Didi, sit in the dining room and I will get you breakfast.’

  ‘No, Lokkhi mashi. I will sit here,’ I replied. I liked the informality of the kitchen and the housekeeper’s warm manner. She laid out two low wooden stools. I sat on one, crossing my legs comfortably as she squatted on the other.

  I discovered that mamlette was just an egg and onion open omelette. After demolishing two of them with some burned toast crackers, I sat sipping hot, syrupy tea.

  It was then that last night’s disturbance came to mind.
‘Lokkhi mashi…’ I began when crashes from outside interrupted me.

  The housekeeper cocked her head. ‘There they are!’

  ‘Who?’ I was nonplussed.

  ‘Honuman!’ She pronounced. ‘Monkeys!’

  ‘Monkeys?’

  ‘Yes. They jump about the terrace, on the neem tree, here and there. Don’t go out, now. They may pounce on you.’

  Though I was raring to have a go at Dadu’s room, I cowered in the kitchen until Lokkhi mashi ascertained it was safe to go out. Bent on my exploration before Gonuda arrived with the customer, I hurried upstairs.

  Taking the keys from my room, I ran to the last door on the right. Unlocking the heavy lock, I pushed the doors open and gasped.

  Right in front of me was the man to whom the room belonged!

  Mr Hirendranath Sarkar, an Indian Foreign Services officer and Egyptologist, smiled down at me from an enormous photo-portrait. In a white T-shirt and khakis, camera dangling from the neck, a wide-brimmed, floppy hat at cocky angle and dark shades, he looked simply debonair. Dad had told me about my grandfather’s profound research and study of the ancient kingdoms of Egypt. Ruins in the photo’s background and vast sandy tracts placed him possibly at an archaeological dig. A chill quivered down my spine…in the shadowy room it had almost seemed that Dadu was standing before me.

  I gave myself a mental shake and strode across to the thick curtains drawn across the windows. I dragged them apart so that light streamed in through the glass panes. I turned around and was jolted for the second time.

  It looked like a hurricane had hit the large room. Mirrored doors of the armoire were ajar, and drawers of the heavy, glass-topped study desk were hanging open. The coverlet of the bed was scrunched up in places as if the mattress had been moved around, the drawer of the small bedside table had been overturned on the ground and untidy piles of paper were strewn across the marble floor. All round me was confusion and disarray. What’s happened here?

  Once I got over my shock, cogs in my brain began to turn. …thoroughly ransacked… that’s what the room looks like…. Did thieves do this…maybe from the slum…? I examined the long windows closely. Both were locked securely from inside and the glass panes were intact. Dust coated the bolts, so they were untouched. The only other opening into the room was through the gallery door. But that had been locked, too. Thieves breaking in and then locking the doors behind them was too absurd. Which means…the offender wants to hide his theft …why? Could it be… I looked up at my grandfather’s face…because the culprit does not want anybody else to know he is searching…?