No Country: A Novel

by Kalyan Ray

  I stumbled away towards the quay where last they had touched land, this Ireland. A fishing boat was getting ready to leave.

  “Where do you head, friends?” I asked in as calm a voice as I could muster.

  “To Galway, sir, if you’re for it.”

  “Aye, ’twill do,” I said, throwing my satchel on deck.

  They pushed off directly. As we went into the early-morning glimmer, floating on this murderous sea, I saw on the beach Poor Madgy Finn, dancing round and round, her voice singing a cracked song, the burden of which I could not catch over the water. It sounded like “Moo—ma—gy, Moo—maa—gy!” in a mad ecstasy, over and over again.

  From Galway, I caught a ship to Liverpool, where after a single night of drinking at a portside tavern, I took a ship straight back to Calcutta.

  The voyages I had undertaken are my testaments of loss, I have thought in my grief during these months on the seas. I would see the blue around me and wonder if my child had the blue of her mother’s eyes. I could barely watch the reds of sunsets without recalling the texture of my mother’s hair, its flaming abundance. I was sure that my daughter would inherit that. At other times I wondered if she had her mother’s sweet nature or my mother’s bold irrepressible heart. And when night came, my soul was seeped in its colours of despond, bitterly awake to the injustice of it all. I would have exchanged my years of life with Brendan’s short one, for he had known my child, cradled her, stood where I should have been. I would exchange my joyless life for that death.

  On the bleak endless water, I had no one to mourn with, only the ones to mourn for.

  After ten months and twenty-seven days I have returned to Calcutta, which I mean to make my home now, not knowing any other. Your people are mine, Doorgadass-Babu, for you had saved my desperate life once and soothed my heart—but that such knowledge and sorrow awaited me, I would not have known.

  Come soon to my house when next you are in Calcutta. I await you eagerly, sir. You will see, I promise, I shall forthwith learn to speak Bengali, not with the disdainful accent of the English, but as a native Bengali does. For the nonce, as you have taught me, I am working at my business, which grows apace. I have received good counsel from your friend Prince Dwarkanath Tagore. He is a grand man indeed. I am learning my way.

  I have no pity for the Englishman in my trade, though I deal in his territory. I exact my price with no let or mercy. I have discovered that the English have great respect for money, but then it is a rare man who does not. I keep my wary distance from them. What I feel most amazed by is how many of my landsmen work willingly for them. What magic do these English have? Or is it the headiness of power over others that corrupts us, even in our innocent sleep—and the English are no different from any of us, but for chance or history or happenstance. In that case, why is it that the Irish have suffered so much, for so many centuries?

  Will a time come when the Irish will raise their sudden hands, holding whatever poor improvised weapons they can find? And what will the English call them then? Heroes of their own destiny, or brigands, merchants of terror—besmirching their desperate courage and lack of standing armies for chivalric battles which always favour the great powers and their sciences of war?

  The English have their cannons, their ships, and their factories. But I feel that the Irish will not forever be the followers of the likes of Daniel O’Connell, who sought Irish freedom under English laws. He called off the Great Meeting of Clontarf—and was hauled to a British jail. We shall rise, Doorgadass-Babu. I hope to see that day. We shall be irrepressible brothers in that struggle—Irish and Indian. But I also know that our peoples will need to find themselves—in their own proud, rightful angers.

  I remain,

  Your most loyal and respectful friend,

  Padraig Robert Aherne

  Robert Aherne

  Barisal, East Bengal

  1931

  I thought of the anguish Padraig had endured, and what a balm my grandmother Kalidasi must have been to him. With her, Padraig took back what he could from Death, naming his only son after his lost friend.

  I held out the papers, and noticed Santimoy looking at me, eyes full of compassion. In him, I had seen only a fleeing figure, a frightened subject to be chased and shot dead. Now I looked at him, truly for the first time. He smiled shyly at me.

  “When did Doorgadass-babu receive this letter from my grandfather?”

  “He didn’t,” said the old man. “My father died in Burma not long after Padraig Aherne wrote him. This was among his papers brought back to me. I never returned to Calcutta, never cared for cities. We had all we needed here. I kept the letter, meaning to send it back to Mr. Aherne, who had urged me many times to come to Calcutta where business was thriving, but I never did. Years later I heard that Mr. Aherne had died. I had not yet returned the letter.”

  “May Mr. Aherne have his g-grandfather’s letter?” asked Santimoy. Ramkumar put it in my hands as I held them open. I bowed my head. I was to give my father the news of his half sister’s birth and death.

  “Please call me Robert,” I said.

  • • •

  “WHAT WILL YOU d-do now, Robert?” asked Santimoy. I knew that he was asking the question for both of them, grandfather and grandson.

  “I’ll catch a boat from Barisal dock and tell Tegart, man to man.”

  “That’s your plan, Robert?” Ramkumar was bitter. “Simply talk to Tegart, and he will be converted? You will read him your grandfather Padraig’s letter—and Tegart will understand, because he is an Irishman. Is that it? You told us that he is from the North, and his kind suppressed his fellow Irish before they won their freedom in the South. There’s Tegart, and then there’s Dan Breen. Don’t you see the difference?”

  “Ramkumar-babu,” I said firmly, “do not take me for a child.”

  “What, th-then?” asked Santimoy.

  “I tracked down Santimoy and shot him dead in the night. I threw the body in the river, so no evidence remains. On the way back, I fell sick.”

  “Tegart is too clever to fall for this lie,” said old Ramkumar.

  “I have not finished.” My voice silenced them both. “Monimoy will take up his job in the minor judiciary service in Dacca. There he will work for the British government, a civil servant, and refuse to discuss the tragic death of his brother. In a few years, he can retire—if he pleases.”

  Ramkumar flashed me a quick comprehending smile. Santimoy nodded as he too began to understand my stratagem.

  “It is not the first time my b-brother and I used to trick our friends and t-teachers, by pretending to b-be the other. It was usually my b-brother’s idea,” he began, then grew thoughtful. “I shall b-become my brother Monimoy for the r-rest of my life! Each t-time someone speaks my n-name, I will become my b-brother again and again. My n-name is gone. Which p-part of me will live?”

  The old man left the room in silence.

  “I will give you something,” I said to the young man, unwrapping my bundle. “This is your pistol now. Use it if you have to defend yourself. I am done using guns.”

  I lay down to sleep for one more night in this grand and doomed house, thinking of the rows of pillars along the graceful verandah outside, their colours flaking, ochre and blue, all of which would soon fall to ruin and be reclaimed by the tropical grasp of vegetation in this land where houses stand as long as people live in them.

  • • •

  FROM THE DOCKS I went directly home to see my father; I had been away for over three weeks, leaving no explanation. Here I was, touched by mortality, gaunt from that encounter. Yet I had retrieved Padraig Aherne’s letter from its grim domain and oblivion, although it bore Death’s finger-smudge in every line. I would need to explain to my father how I came by it—and Tegart’s murderous subterfuge would unravel.

  So let it happen, I decided.

  I came upon my father sitting in his study, peering in the afternoon light at me through the open door. With a gasp he stood up,
reaching for me.

  “Robert?” he whispered uncertainly. “Oh is that you, Son?” I could not tell if I was holding him up, or he sustaining me, clasping hands, as if to be sure of each other’s proximity.

  “I have something for you,” I told him, “from Grandpa Padraig.”

  As he looked up in confusion, I gave him the letter and watched him unwrap the silk swath and gaze transfixed at the name and address and the postal seal. He read as if the world around us on Elliot Road had ceased to exist. When finally he laid down the final page and looked up, I saw tears streaming down his face.

  “I had a sister,” he said. “Maeve.”

  He was mourning his dead. I had pored over the letter on the way back, and could easily recall the creak of the mast, the occasional snap of the sail, as if my sailing from Barisal had merged somehow with Padraig’s voyage.

  “My father could never bring himself to speak of his grievous visit to Ireland. He must have thought of it every day of his life. What must he have felt, each time he called my name! Yet he needed to remember.”

  “Do you think he ever discussed all this with Grandmother Kalidasi?” I asked doubtfully.

  “I am sure he did,” said my father simply. “If you had known your grandmother, you would understand how soothing she was. Otherwise my restless father would never have retrieved what peace of mind he did. He learned to love again.”

  “Then why did she not tell you about Maeve and Brigid?”

  “I cannot tell, Son. I think she did not know how, and thought my father should do it, and then the time never came. That is how stories are lost in all families.”

  “But sometimes,” my father added in the silence, “our stories come looking for us.”

  Mathur brought in the lamps.

  “I need to get something else done,” I told my father.

  “You will be back, won’t you, Son?” he asked anxiously.

  “Yes,” I told him firmly. “Yes, I will come back to you, Baba.”

  • • •

  TEGART WAS NOT in his office. As I walked downstairs, Colson saw me and gestured towards the basement. “He’s expected there,” he said, surprised that I had not snapped him the customary salute.

  I went to the basement interrogation room, where a snared suspect was being interviewed, but Tegart had not arrived yet. There was a strong smell of urine on the floor where the suspect was hog-tied, the soles of his feet crisscrossed with welts. A naked electric bulb dangled overhead, and a pasty-white gecko on the ceiling made a clicking sound, its blue organs pulsing within its translucent skin. Biswas and Lumsden walked in, nodded at me, and sat down sipping tea, oblivious of the others. The men I had worked with for seven years seemed different to me, feral and predatory.

  “How much like them have I become in these years?” I wondered, gritting my teeth, smoking Woodbine after Woodbine as I waited.

  I felt Tegart’s pale eyes on me the moment he walked in. “Has he said anything useful yet, Lundy?” he barked at Monty Lundy, who was holding a cane.

  “He keeps repeating that his name is Sharma and he came from Chhapra by train three days ago looking for work and knows nobody.” Monty, a recent recruit, was sallow from exhaustion.

  “Tch, tch,” Tegart commented, “but observe.” Effortlessly he kicked Sharma’s kidney. The man made no noise, but began twitching, teeth biting down in involuntary jitters on his bleeding tongue.

  “Does he know where the post office is?” asked Tegart. “Other details? If he’s really come from Chhapra, he’s written home. When did his train arrive? Was that time checked with the railway boys? Did he come through Howrah or Sealdah station?”

  “Er, no, Sir,” conceded Lundy, overwhelmed.

  “Information, Lundy. Everything else is unimportant,” said Sir. “Everyone out of here.” He slammed the door behind us.

  The door opened after just twenty minutes. I could hear Sharma moaning inside.

  “We have the place and person—we pick the time to raid their nest: Just after midnight,” Sir announced as he turned to leave with the group. He opened his palm, looking absently at a couple of dice, then tossed them aside.

  “Come up to my office, Aherne,” he said, starting for the stairs.

  Standing in the stairwell to collect my thoughts, I lit another cigarette. In the brief flare of the match, I saw that the dice were, in fact, human teeth.

  • • •

  “YOU GOT ILL.” Tegart stared keenly at me. The light in his office was harsh.

  “Yes, but I completed my job first. I got sick. I recovered.”

  “Ah . . . I was wondering if . . . if I needed to send Biswas to clean up after you.”

  “It is done.”

  “Consummatum est, eh? We do not need to think of Santimoy anymore?”

  I looked him steadily in the eye. “No, Sir, no need.”

  “And the gun?”

  “There is no gun. I tossed it in the river. But I need to talk—” Tegart cut me off. “Well, Aherne, just so you know. We found the actual scoundrel who tried to do me in. But there was no way to let you know at the time. That Santimoy was just a student. Too bad about him, eh?”

  I stood aghast, yet knew that this kind of thing would happen again. I almost missed the import of what he said next.

  “I’m finished with India, Aherne,” he announced. This is a trick, I thought.

  “No, it’s not what you think” Tegart was trying to read my face. “London needs me in Palestine. I’m asking you to come with me.”

  “The Holy Land! Why?”

  “Jerusalem, first. I’ll be rebuilding the police stations in Palestine into better strongholds, with the best interrogation facilities. They are calling them Tegart Forts! I also think a high wall through the entire country makes sound sense. The locals don’t understand, so we must persuade them to tell us what they are thinking.”

  “So you are not going to retire in England—or was it Northern Ireland—and keep a dog or two?”

  “Oh, there will be plenty of dogs.” He laughed. “I’ve already sent for trained Doberman and Alsatian dogs from South Africa. They’re most effective in controlling the locals there. Why not in Palestine? Man’s best friends, eh?”

  “Sir,” I said, “I want to leave the police force.”

  “Excellent, excellent. Great things to be done in Palestine, Robert!” He bent to show me some maps, unaware of my grimace.

  “Sir,” I began. It’s like tearing off skin, I thought, I will need to do it at one go. “I want to leave you. I resign.”

  “Think it over, son.” Tegart was watching my face carefully. “There’s time—and a whole world out there. Palestine!”

  “No.” I refused to look away from his eyes. “No. I have no quarrel in Palestine. I am Indian.” I felt I had finally earned the right to say this word.

  • • •

  I WALKED FOR a long time in no particular direction, and in a sweaty daze found myself at the gates of the cemetery, where a boy was selling tuberoses and a single astounding bouquet of red roses. Buying the slender white flowers, I walked in. The trees overhead made it a private evening as I stood before the graves of my grandfather and grandmother.

  I put the tuberoses on Padraig’s grave. Then I thought, how ungallant of me. I went right back and returned with the bouquet of roses for my grandmother. Red for the dark beauty of Kalidasi Euphonia Aherne. I stood there, absurdly and unexpectedly happy.

  In this mood, as I walked along Park Street, then took a by-lane to return home, I glimpsed the shining marquee of the Elphinstone Picture Palace. On an impulse, I bought a ticket for the cinema and sat near the front on a cheap wooden seat. I had not even cared to find out the name of the show which had already started. I settled down under the great screen above me. And then I saw Queenie.

  Through the long crepuscule of the theatre, smoky fingers emerged from a hole in the back wall, and conjured before my astounded eyes my first love, whom I had lost to an incomprehen
sible world. When the show ended, the credits rolled, and I read the name she had christened herself: Merle Oberon.

  I came outside to the brightly lit lobby where a counter sold candy, sodas, and glossy picture magazines. I picked up a magazine with her picture on its cover. In it I read, incredulously, that she had been born to English parents in Tasmania. Merle Oberon, the Hollywood star, would have to lie to Estelle O’Brien Thompson all her life. There they were, twinned, on the shiny page: beautiful and unblemished to the eye.

  Instead of making her real, the blue-grey pencils of light had transformed her into a being unreal and remote. The pain of her memory had long been a part of me, as if her shadow had replaced mine behind me. But now I felt it move and stir on its own, and begin to inch away. As I stepped out of the theatre foyer, I felt free. I was not born in Tasmania. I too knew what rebirth was and had earned the right to honour my dark grandmother with roses. I wanted, simply, to return home.

  On the familiar sidewalk that led back to Elliot Road, I thought how, as a policeman, I had marooned myself. I felt a longing for my father’s music, my neglected books, and my lost friends. I knew Krikor now ran his father’s business. Tony still lived in his parents’ flat, although his father was dead now. I had not even gone to his funeral, I thought with shame. I resolved to visit Tony and his mother.

  Will my lost friends forgive and accept me? I wondered. Can they find it in themselves to take and bind me into their circle of affection again? I felt tears I could not control. Through the familiar lanes a cool breeze stirred the trees along the street, its moist aroma presaging rain.

  My father sat in his small locus of light, listening raptly to his phonograph, while I stood at the threshold watching him, letting the music possess me. When I entered and sat on the floor next to his chair, peering into the sheet music spread on his lap, the violins wove around the cello, and the piano stepped in on tiny feet, and soon I was the one turning the pages while my father rested his palm on my shoulder.