No Country: A Novel

by Kalyan Ray

  “Aherne,” said Hartley knowingly, “you won’t be wearing a uniform much, man, if you are chosen for Tegart’s Special Branch. You are going to be lurking about.” He gave me directions to Elysium Row, a quiet lane not far from the spired St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  I walked past the marble wedding-cake memorial to Queen Victoria that Lord Curzon had erected, in front of which sat a big black statue of her on ample haunches, jowls imperial, holding a globe, with what looked like a metallic doily draped over her bronze head. I was on my way to serve the empire she had left behind.

  I came to a nondescript lane which branched off from Theatre Road, under shady deodar and neem trees, a dim, almost sleepy, path to an unremarkable building with just a number on it. As I closed the gate behind me and walked into the front hall, two men—clearly policemen in plainclothes—appeared at once from two doors on either side

  “Aherne,” I said to them, “to see the Commissioner.”

  “You’re expected. Go straight up to the top floor. It’s the door marked ‘Private.’ No need to knock, Aherne.”

  I climbed the wooden staircase while the policemen disappeared as if I had imagined them. Pushing the door which swung open silently, I stepped inside the room, bare except for a few armless chairs and a huge bureau with a green felt top. On it lay two pistols.

  The room appeared empty until, through the leg-space of the desk, I spied a tangle of arms and naked thighs, a strained neck, and two heads—red with exertion. With an abrupt heave the bodies lurched up, and one of them pinned the other down over the green felt, his hand in a painful twist-hold behind his back, the veins of his neck clear as cords. The man behind forced his adversary forward until his forehead touched the tabletop, then, leaning down, took the tip of a blood-red earlobe between his teeth, while his adversary uttered a sound, as much a growl as a moan. Who made the sound I could not tell, but the pinned man’s palm thumped the desktop twice, and the wiry man holding him down released him and straightened up, and I saw that he was Tegart! The two men stood side by side, virtually naked, glistening with sweat, gazing at each other, chests heaving with exertion.

  Tegart barked a word, and on that abrupt cue, both pounced on the guns and raised them at me. I had no time whatsoever to react. By some trick of mind, everything moved as if underwater, slowly, ponderously. In another part of my brain, I knew it was all lightning fast, that I would surely die. I watched the two dark holes pointing at me, the flex of the fingers on the triggers, the clicks of their hammers, the sharp report.

  I closed my eyes involuntarily.

  When I opened them, I saw wisps of smoke drifting from the muzzles as the men ran over. Beside me on the wall was a canvas stretched over a very thick wad of felt and cork on which was painted a likeness of a Hindu, black hair parted in the middle, thick eyebrows above dark eyes. On the left side of his chest were two holes.

  Tegart, the stockier of the two men, touched the bullet holes with his index and middle fingers. When he withdrew them, they were smudged black, and he rubbed them over the painted face.

  “More life-like now, eh, Colson?” he said. Colson chuckled. Then Tegart turned and seemed to notice me for the first time.

  “Aherne,” he said ruminatively, as if deciding on my name. Something stopped me from referring to Amritsar and the nightmare ride on the train, but I was sure he remembered and had selected me to work directly under him in the Special Branch.

  “No uniform from tomorrow. Dress as you people normally would,” he added. I could not place which word held the sting, if it were there at all, or if it was simply an instruction. I kept my face impassive.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “This is Assistant Commissioner Colson.”

  I saluted while Colson nodded and, stripping down completely, began to wipe himself with a towel.

  I looked back at Sir Charles Tegart, also naked now, beginning to put on his socks. He had a few gray hairs. I also noticed that he shaved his armpits, and his nails were perfectly manicured. This was the man whom the Indian nationalists wanted dead, and indeed had tried to kill several times. Tegart had always managed to escape, and in a couple of instances, killed them.

  “Will that be all, sir?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you when we’re done, Aherne,” he said, not turning. Tegart and Colson finished dressing in a leisurely way, talking as if I were not there at all.

  “Done,” he finally announced. As I turned to open the door, Sir Charles called me back.

  “Oh yes, Aherne, there are two dossiers waiting to be signed by me. Leary downstairs will be done with the paperwork in an hour. Walk them over to me. I am off to the Bengal Club,” he said, tying his cravat. I knew the looming building of the Bengal Club on Chowringhee Road, facing the Maidan. Only Europeans allowed there. I would have to wait outside its back gate on Russell Street until Tegart sent some peon, when he remembered.

  I shut the door after myself.

  These men ruled India. This is what I had wanted, wasn’t it? I remembered the words that my father had said this morning.

  Out go you.

  • • •

  IN OUR TIGHT-KNIT group of Tegart’s Special Branch, he was not Sir Charles Tegart. Just Sir. There was no other sir but Sir. I began to understand why I had been chosen. I was athletic, eager, and unformed. Tegart was moulding me to his purpose. I wondered what would be left of my father’s son.

  The Bengalis, like burly Biswas or sly Majumdar, he recruited carefully, almost warily, because he knew he could not operate as effectively without them; but he knew we Anglo-Indians would give our lives for the smallest sign of approval from this white man who seemed indifferent to their shade of skin. Some newspapers had written about Tegart’s Irish nature, but I comprehended that it was nothing of the sort. Sir was colour-blind in the execution of the Empire’s power. And there was some other kind of blindness in him, but I did not quite know the word for it then.

  We grew into a shadowy family and kept as many secrets from each other as any other. But there were few secrets from Tegart.

  • • •

  I THOUGHT OFTEN of leaving the Elliot Road house and moving into accommodations for the police force, debating whether there was a disadvantage in being seen to go in and out of these, especially given the nature of our clandestine work.

  Our cook, Mathur, who was getting old, would potter into my room, sometimes to have a letter written or read to him, and occasionally for desultory talk. He was lonely ever since his cat died. It must have been Mathur who saw my valise in a corner where I had piled my things that day. When I returned from work, I noticed an envelope with my name scrawled on it lying on top of my pile of clothes. I tore it open and saw, not my father’s usual firm handwriting, but a wavering script:

  This is not a whit more my house than it is yours, Son. My father built it for us, his family. A home, like the sky itself, can no more be mine than yours. Robert, dearest son, by forsaking it you make me an exile too. This is the place for your family, present and future.

  I have no other claim to it, now or ever.

  I put the letter away among my papers, but felt an intangible umbilical cord tied me to the house and could not bring myself to cut it, although more and more I threw myself vehemently into my job, giving all my waking hours to the Special Branch, returning home long past midnight most nights. I made no exception on my birthday, though I confess to feeling a pang in the small hours when I came home to find my uncut homemade chocolate-and-toffee birthday cake growing stale in the unforgiving April heat of Calcutta. By my twenty-fifth birthday, my father finally stopped having them baked. It had taken him six years to give up.

  In my new life, I had fallen into the routine of walking early along deserted streets on Sunday mornings, to the wide-open green of the Maidan across Chowringhee Road, to ride one of the Police Brigade horses. Quite often, I would see Mr. Tegart’s huge Packard cruising down the Chowringhee. That was his Sunday habit, driving around the city at
dawn with his Alsatian dog beside him. I would salute him, and Sir would casually raise one finger, holding his mobile court.

  I remember that particular summer morning which marked the great fork in my life, though I had no inkling of it as I neared the Maidan. I noticed beautiful frangipani blossoms on the pavement. Overhead, the tree was covered with the pale ivory and yellow flowers, and the entire lane beside the museum was fragrant. Just as I bent to pick one, I was startled by the unmistakable sound of gunfire. I had faced away from Chowringhee Road. I have returned to this moment so many times later in my memory that I am certain of that. I had not seen my shadow, although it was morning: I must have been facing east. The sound echoed off the walls of the Indian Museum and the verandahs and arcades of the commercial building on the corner and the red bulk of Lloyd’s Bank, making it difficult to locate its exact source. I looked quickly towards the end of the lane. Before I could turn around, someone crashed into me, and I hit my head sharply on a cast-iron railing and fell on the pavement, momentarily dazed.

  A young Bengali, his dhoti bunched at the knees, was running hard. He made straight for a shoulder-high boundary wall. I drew my gun, calling out to him to stop, but before I could take aim, the thin youth dropped something and, scrambling over the wall, disappeared from sight. Broken pieces of glass embedded in the cement along the top of the wall revealed a smear of blood on one of them. The object he had dropped on the pavement was a book.

  Dashing back towards the Chowringhee, pistol still in hand, I turned the corner and saw Tegart’s car halfway up the sidewalk, its windshield shattered. At the corner of the pavement, his dog lay dead. Tegart sprang out from the narrow passage between adjacent buildings, pointing his gun, his face pale but his manner impassive as he looked about him. There was a cut on Tegart’s cheek, bleeding from a shard of the windshield, which he wiped absently with a clenched fist.

  The early morning street was completely deserted; besides, no one wanted to be questioned as a witness. This was as expected, for the miscreants made a habit of shooting informers—or witnesses—and our interrogation methods were not exactly gentle.

  “Well, Aherne?” Sir said under his breath, and I told him what I had seen, adding “There’s blood on him. Also, he dropped this.” I gave him the book.

  Sir opened the flyleaf, on which was inscribed in fancy green ink:

  S. M.

  Duff Hostel

  “Well done,” said Tegart. The book was a university text of English essays. He shook it, and an unmailed postcard fell out. Tegart examined it closely.

  “It’s written to an address in Abdulpur in the Barisal postal district,” he said. “East Bengal Province.” He tucked it back into the book and handed it to me. “The killer reads English essays,” he said softly, “Charles Lamb’s ‘Dream Children’ has margin notes in royal blue ink.”

  I glanced at the notes. Same handwriting, I noted.

  “Aherne?” Tegart’s voice cut through my thoughts.

  “Duff Hostel, Sir?”

  “Yes, Aherne, students with initials SM. That hostel is for Hindu boys from outside the city, and likely he’ll be running to familiar territory.” He added, “The rooms are shared.”

  “I’ll look for the table that holds bottles of royal blue and green ink,” I told him. “That’s the color of the writing on the flyleaf.”

  Sir looked pleased. “By the time we get there, he will have escaped,” said Sir.

  “I’ll pick up all his mail—and books. I’ll see if the handwriting matches any other documents.” He nodded. “Shall I go to Headquarters after that to check for a list of accomplices, Sir?”

  “Not you, Aherne. I’ll have Lumsden do the paperwork,” said Sir, adding, “You had a good look at him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “You didn’t see anyone else?” I shook my head.

  “If he is from Barisal,” continued Tegart, “I’ll need you to go to the docks. You started the chase, Robert. I’ll let you finish it.” He flashed me one of his rare smiles. He was a hunter at heart.

  “Robert,” he whispered, “no reason to discuss this matter, now or later, with anybody else.” I wondered why he was calling me by my first name now.

  “But why did he have a book with him?” Sir whispered to himself.

  • • •

  FEW STUDENTS WERE left at the hostel and only four SMs: Satyendra Mutsuddi, Santimoy Mitra, Somenath Mookerjee, and Sibapada Mohanty. Mutsuddi and Mohanty were fat, thus clearly not suspect. Motilal had malarial fever and could barely stir. Mitra was missing. And he was the only student who had a half-empty bottle of green ink, besides the more common royal blue fountain-pen ink beside his desk. I rapidly checked his books, and the handwriting on the flyleaves and notes matched.

  Inside the box under his bed, I found no letters—just clothes, a tin of puffed rice, and an unfinished jar of mango chutney. The shirts were for a thin youth. I flung off the mattress from the bed, revealing a good number of envelopes and postcards: family letters, all from a village called Abdulpur near Barisal.

  I remembered reasoning that if Tegart was right, Santimoy Mitra would probably have fled home to Barisal, and the only quick way to do it was by boat. It would be too late for that very night, for I knew that the tide would have gone.

  When I returned right away to Tegart’s private office, Sir showed me the exact location of Abdulpur. He did not give me any official orders on paper, but sent me home for the night, instructing me where to meet him very early next morning. I was to arrive dressed as a North Indian merchant and plan to be absent from Calcutta for a week or so: On vacation, Sir decreed.

  A covered carriage picked me up near the Esplanade. The gas street lights were beginning to pale under the first hazy glimmer, but I could make out Tegart’s form in the black interior of the carriage.

  “A young man with a bandaged hand and no luggage left by boat yesterday,” he said. “About ten years ago, exactly at that spot, there had been an attempt. An Englishman, Ernest Day, was killed. Shot through the head. He was wearing a white shirt and khaki pants.” That was Sir’s usual attire, and Ernest Day had been about Tegart’s build. I knew the case.

  “Take as long as you need, but report only to me when you return. Only me.”

  I nodded, taking it in.

  “I wish I could go myself,” added Tegart, “but the Viceroy might be visiting Calcutta and I need to be present here. I’d have taken this vacation.” He smiled bleakly. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he added, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Robert, enjoy it.”

  He did not speak again until we reached the river. I understood that I was to get down there. From his corner of the carriage, Tegart handed me a bundle. It held a small compass that looked like a watch, a folded map, and a black pistol.

  “Untraceable,” he said, looking at me. “Get rid of it after. You’ll get yours back when you return.” He held out his hand for my service revolver, which I handed over wordlessly.

  “No trial, Robert,” he whispered, his arm on my shoulder, “no trial.”

  I nodded in the darkness. “Good luck,” he added. “Irishman to Irishman.” He had never thought me Irish before, I mused, unsure whether he was playing a private game with my head. His carriage rolled quickly away.

  The sailboat, the least conspicuous of vessels, eased into the shadowy river. I knew little of Barisal, of boats, or the watery, muddy delta of riverine Bengal. We sailed downstream with the wide pull of the current, towards the mouth of the nocturnal sea.

  • • •

  HUGGING THE COAST, which seemed nothing more than a low green hedge under enormous skies, we followed the river south and then east for two days. We passed delta islands verging on the sea, covered with mangroves, and every now and then numbers of egrets and parrots would rise, the egrets like wedges of paper, the parrots hurtling out like green projectiles, squawking and separating and coalescing into a mass again, seeking thicker tree cover after their short,
clamorous flights. On the afternoon of the third day I saw an enormous blue snake, its speckled back glistening in the falling sun. It wove its way, undulating along with the boat for a while, and then, just as silently, slid from sight. Between stretches of mangrove, crocodiles resembling charred driftwood lay on sparse bits of sand.

  Now the boat was headed north, upriver and away from the sea. We could not see the far bank, as if we were still sailing up another corner of the sea. Then it narrowed, although that simply meant that the distant other bank hove into view. On the near bank I could see some signs of habitation: the occasional mosque; a clutch of huts; saris hung out to dry; a temple or two, with small slices of green or saffron flags hanging limp in the still air.

  On the fourth day, we neared Barisal just as the sun began its rapid tropical descent. I got off alone at a landing where I would easily pass for a North Indian in my kurta-pyjama and a bania-merchant’s low skullcap, which hid my hair.

  Compass in hand, I knew exactly where to go along the darkening river.

  • • •

  I WARILY APPROACHED the dilapidated mansion close to the riverbank, having passed swamp-like fields and a straggle of miserable huts. When I came upon a deep and wide lake, a deeghi, behind this house of the Mitras, I became aware of a searing thirst. Crouching at the edge, I took a deep draught of water which smelt of moss and the rain of old monsoons, quite unlike the water I was used to in the city.

  I bided my time. Like that silent feathered hunter—the horned owl of night, neither white nor black, but a stubborn brown—I would strike with surprise and resolve. It had clearly been a grand house once, with a row of stately painted pillars in blues and scarlet, peeling and faded now, and adding to the air of desolation, banyan saplings grew out of cracks that ran all over the building. The front of the mansion sank within shadows cast by a vast peepul tree, a cracked dome looming above. A feeble moon appeared in the eastern sky. A jackal yowled, and some nocturnal creatures made their urgent way. A lamp appeared at a broken window, but the rest of the house lay dark.