Menagerie & other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries

by Saradindu Bandyopadhyaya

  Damayanti Devi glanced at her husband, her eyes shadowed by a trace of concern. Nishanathbabu asked, ‘Are you doing the cooking? Where is Mukul?’

  ‘Mukul has a splitting headache,’ Dayamanti Devi replied. ‘She’s not up to cooking today and has gone to her room to rest.’

  Nishanathbabu frowned and asked, ‘Why haven’t you sent for Bonolokkhi? She could have lent a hand.’

  ‘It’s not necessary. I can manage alone.’

  Nishanathbabu’s brows remained knotted in a frown as he turned away in silence. At this moment, a young man emerged from the bathhouse. Rubbing his wet hair with a towel, he said, ‘Kakima, quick! Hurry! I have to rush to Calcutta right away …’ As he said this, he peeped out from under the towel, spotted us and fell silent.

  ‘Lay out that mat and sit down,’ Damayanti told him. ‘I’ll get the rice. But not all the dishes are ready yet.’ She disappeared into the kitchen.

  The youth was obviously embarrassed at appearing before us half-clad. He drew the towel around his naked torso and proceeded to spread the mat on the floor. He was around twenty-six years old, muscular and handsome. Nishanathbabu regarded him with disapproval and asked, ‘Bijoy, you still haven’t gone to work?’

  Looking embarrassed, Bijoy replied, ‘I’m running a little late today, Kaka. Actually, I was doing the accounts …’

  ‘How is that going?’ Nishanathbabu inquired.

  ‘Should be done in a couple of days.’

  Nishanathbabu pursed his lips and made for the door. We followed. It was becoming obvious that ‘accounts’ was swiftly turning into a contentious issue in Golap Colony.

  At the door, I turned to catch Bijoy scrutinizing us with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. As our eyes met, he averted his own.

  When we came out, Byomkesh asked Nishanathbabu, ‘Was that your nephew? Is he the one who looks after the flower stall?’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  5

  We went back the same way we had come. Before we had reached the intersection, however, we came upon a young woman in the full flush of youth, shooing a flock of ducks along. She had not noticed us. She was bareheaded and wore a cheap striped cotton sari. Moving on unmindfully, she became aware of our presence and a frisson of mortification seemed to pass through her. With a quick flick of her wrist, she pulled the free end of her sari over her head to cover it and hurried away, abandoning the ducks she had been minding. She vanished among the small cluster of huts that stood together at the far end of the farm beside the well.

  ‘That was Mushkil’s wife,’ Nishanathbabu explained. ‘She is in charge of the farm’s poultry.’

  My mind received another jolt. In this place, master and employee seemed to be alike—they had both married a second time.

  Byomkesh asked, ‘Where was she headed?’

  ‘That’s the stable,’ Nishanathbabu said. ‘Mushkil lives there.’

  ‘She seems to come from a good family,’ Byomkesh observed.

  Nishanathbabu replied, ‘With these people, it’s hard to tell who comes from what kind of a family—they don’t have to conform to caste strictures.’

  ‘But they do have to abide by the constraints of purdah,’ Byomkesh countered.

  ‘They do, but not to any great extent. Nazarbibi is no longer self-conscious in our presence. Perhaps, she turned bashful at the sight of strangers like you.’

  Nazarbibi! If you considered the name’s meaning, wasn’t it very similar to Sunayana? It suddenly dawned on me that if someone committed a murder and wished to go into hiding, no place could serve as a better hideout than the women’s quarters of a Muslim household. I quietly sidled over to Ramenbabu and asked him, ‘What did you think?’

  Ramenbabu scratched his head uncertainly and said, ‘I’m afraid it’s not Netyakali, though it’s difficult to be absolutely sure …’

  I realized he was thinking of Netyakali’s incredible skill at make-up. But was it possible for Mushkil Mian’s wife to wear make-up round the clock?

  In the meantime, we had arrived at another house. It stood halfway down the road that ran parallel to the one where the dining halls were located. Byomkesh asked, ‘Who lives here?’

  ‘Professor Nepal Gupta and his daughter Mukul,’ Nishanathbabu replied.

  ‘Nepal Gupta …’ Byomkesh mused, ‘the name sounds familiar. I think his name was in the papers three or four years ago.’

  ‘Quite possible,’ Nishanathbabu remarked. ‘Nepalbabu was a professor of chemistry in a college. He used to go and work in the laboratory at night. On one such night, there was a terrible explosion in the lab and Nepalbabu was seriously injured. The authorities suspected that he had been secretly making bombs in the lab. Not only did he lose his job, he came under police surveillance as well. After the war, he was given a reprieve from police vigil, but he couldn’t get another job. Both his appearance and his reputation were ruined because of the explosion.’

  ‘Was he really making bombs? What does he have to say about it?’

  Nishanathbabu gave a derisive smile. ‘He claims he was making fertilizers.’

  We all laughed out loud. Nishanathbabu continued, ‘He hasn’t stopped making fertilizers even after coming here. He has set up a lab in his house; in other words, he has obtained gas cylinders, Bunsen burners, test tubes and retorts. He once made some fertilizer and handed it to me, claiming that if I scattered it in the soil beneath the papaya trees, the latter would bear giant-sized fruit. I wasn’t terribly keen on it, but he was insistent …’

  ‘So what happened eventually?’

  ‘All the papaya trees died.’

  We entered Nepalbabu’s cottage. A bare-bodied elderly man with his dhoti pulled comfortably up over his knees squatted on a charpoy in the drawing room with a chessboard laid out before him. A few chess pieces were arranged on the board and the gentleman was gazing at them intently. He was probably trying to solve those chess puzzles that came out in the English dailies—how to checkmate in three moves by starting with the white chess piece. We approached the doorway and stood on the threshold, but our presence did not even impinge on his consciousness.

  Nishanathbabu looked at us and smiled. We reasoned that this was the bomber-professor Nepal Gupta.

  Nepalbabu was Nishanathbabu’s age, but built like a thug. His complexion was a coppery brown; one side of his face had a rough, pitted texture, probably because of the burns sustained in the explosion. Perhaps, the face he had been born with wouldn’t have been quite so terrifying; but the way it was now, was enough to send a shiver down one’s spine.

  Nishanathbabu called out, ‘Hello, Professor, what’re you up to?’

  Nepalbabu took his eyes off the chess game and looked up. Those eyes alarmed me even more. They were shaped like ducks’ eggs and the blood was congealed around his irises. His stare was as fierce as a tiger’s.

  In a grating voice he said, ‘Nishanath, come on in. Who have you brought along?’

  I noticed that Nepalbabu addressed his benefactor as an equal; in fact, there was even a note of insolence in his tone.

  We entered the room. In a stab at civility, Nepalbabu tugged the edge of his dhoti down to cover his knees, but just barely. Nishanathbabu said, ‘They have come from Calcutta to see the gardens.’

  Nepalbabu made a derisive sound deep in his throat and asked, ‘What do you have in your garden that’s worth showing off? If you had used my fertilizers, there would have been something worth looking at.’

  ‘If I had used that manure,’ Nishanathbabu quipped, ‘my garden would be a desert by now.’

  Nepalbabu retorted heatedly, ‘Look Nishanath, don’t argue about something that’s beyond your ken. What do you know of soil chemistry? Those papaya trees died because the quantity of manure used was excessive—your gardeners are absolute nincompoops.’ He picked up a half-smoked Burmese cheroot from the charpoy and bit into it with gusto.

  Nishanathbabu replied, ‘Oh, let’s not get into that. What’s new in the lab these
days?’

  As he lit the cheroot, Nepalbabu answered, ‘I have begun to experiment with tobacco.’

  ‘So, now you’re going to kill humans?’

  Nepalbabu rolled his eyes and said, ‘Kill humans! Nishanath, your intellect is way behind the times; it has no understanding of science at all. Scientific skill can turn poison into manna, understand?’

  With a sly smile playing about his lips, Nishanathbabu replied, ‘When tobacco starts yielding manna, you’ll have to be the first one to taste it. Anyway, we’ll be off now. It’s getting late and I have to show them the rest of the farm before returning home. Oh, by the way, I heard that Mukul was down with a splitting headache?’

  Before offering a reply, Nepalbabu took long puffs at his cheroot and fouled the air in the room quite thoroughly. Then he said, ‘Mukul’s head! I don’t quite know; perhaps it is aching.’ Having dismissed this trifling issue in his inimitable manner, he went on, ‘Even as a layman, untutored in the ways of the world of science, you should have been aware that a new medication has to be first tested on inferior creatures such as rats or guinea pigs. If the results turn out to be positive, it is tried on humans.’

  ‘But what if the outcome of the trial involving human beings is fatal?’

  ‘It has to be tried on those individuals whose deaths would be of no great loss to mankind. There are many such useless fools whose deaths would benefit the world.’

  ‘That there are.’ Nishanathbabu delivered this loaded statement and moved to the door. But Byomkesh had no intention of departing so soon. So he asked Nepalbabu, ‘Are you a wizard at chess?’

  For the first time, Nepalbabu sized Byomkesh up with his wild eyes and asked, ‘Do you know how to play the game?’

  With an immense show of modesty, Byomkesh answered, ‘A little.’

  Nepalbabu began to set the chess pieces on the board and invited, ‘Well, come on then; let’s have a game.’

  ‘Oh no, no!’ Nishanathbabu protested. ‘If you start now, it’ll be well over two hours before the game draws to a close.’

  ‘It might be over in ten minutes for all you know,’ Nepalbabu retorted. ‘Come on, let’s begin.’

  Byomkesh’s eyes signalled a message to us as he sat down to the game. Within moments, both of them were lost to the world. Nishanathbabu said under his breath, ‘Nepal seldom gets a companion to play with, now that he has got hold of one, he won’t let go easily. Come on, let’s be on our way so that we can finish the tour.’

  We left. The purpose behind our exploration of the farm was one which did not demand Byomkesh’s presence. Ramenbabu, on the other hand, was indispensable.

  As we left the cottage, the sound of a window being thrown open behind us made all three of us turn. At an open window of the cottage stood a young woman, about nineteen years old. She stared at us with deep apprehension in her eyes. When she noticed us turning to look, she hastily shut the window.

  The fleeting glance was enough to tell us she was attractive; she had a fair complexion, thick, wavy black hair and a slightly wiry build. Ramenbabu stood stock-still, his gaze still on the closed window. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

  Nishanathbabu replied, ‘Mukul—Nepalbabu’s daughter.’

  Ramenbabu drew a deep breath and expelled it noisily. ‘I have seen her before,’ he said. ‘I have seen her in the film studios …’

  Nishanathbabu paused for a while, then asked gently, ‘But she isn’t Sunayana, is she?’

  Slowly, Ramenbabu shook his head. ‘No … probably … not Sunayana.’

  6

  As we proceeded on our tour, I asked Nishanathbabu, ‘Tell me, how long have Nepalbabu and his daughter been here?’

  ‘Nearly two years, give or take a month.’

  I made a mental note of the fact that it was roughly around the time of Sunayana’s disappearance from Calcutta. I asked again, ‘You don’t recall the exact date?’

  Nishanathbabu pondered for a while before answering, ‘They arrived two years ago … probably in the month of July. I remember it was a couple of days after my wife discontinued her studies.’

  ‘Your wife … studies …?’

  ‘Oh, my wife had got it into her head lately that she wanted to be educated and acquire English manners. Over a ten-month period, she had visited Calcutta quite regularly and had enrolled herself in a girls’ school there. But eventually, she gave it all up because she wasn’t up to it. A couple of days after she left school, Nepalbabu arrived with Mukul.’

  I digested this piece of information and returned to the earlier topic. ‘What duties on the farm is Nepalbabu in charge of?’

  Nishanathbabu’s smile was vitriolic. ‘He conducts scientific experiments, plays chess and nit-picks over everything I do.’

  ‘Over what you do?’

  ‘That’s right. He doesn’t approve of the way I run the farm. He believes if he were to administer it, the place would run better.’

  ‘In other words, he does precious little?’

  After a moment of silence, Nishanathbabu replied, ‘Mukul is a very hard-working girl.’

  Mukul may well have been hard-working; she made up for her father’s utter uselessness through her own untiring efforts. But why had she developed a headache when she heard of our arrival? Besides, what reasons could she have for scrutinizing us from the window?

  We had reached the intersection. The road stretched ahead and beyond. Huts and cottages stood here and there along the route. The huts were separated by wide stretches planted with rose bushes and other floral plants. In spite of regular and plentiful irrigation, the plants were wilting.

  At the crossing, Nishanathbabu pointed to the huts at the far end and told us, ‘Rashik lives in the hut that’s furthest from here. The one on this side belongs to Brojodas; there he is, sitting on the porch, busy with something.’

  He made his way to the hut. ‘Hello, Brojodas, what are you up to?’ he asked.

  On the porch in front of the hut, an elderly man with a pestle gripped between his knees was grinding something into powder. A short, rotund man with a salt-and-pepper thatch of hair, he wore beads around his neck. A tilak of sandalwood paste marked his forehead, indicating that he was an ardent devotee of the god Vishnu and belonged to the Vaishnav faith. At the sound of Nishanathbabu’s voice, he stood up respectfully and replied with a smile, ‘One of the cows is ill. I am preparing a laxative for her—neem leaves, the husk of sesame seeds and some herbal seeds.’

  ‘Oh, good. If you can manage to do so, just coax Professor Gupta into having some too—it’ll be quite effective.’ Nishanathbabu turned away.

  Brojodas continued to smile to himself as he stood there. But his eyes, unlike the dreamy ones of the typical Vaishnav lost in the devotional rasas, were alert and watchful. He did not allow the query that evidently sprang to his mind on seeing two strangers to pass his lips. Nishanathbabu too, did not introduce us.

  On our way back, Nishanathbabu volunteered, ‘Brojodas was not born a Vaishnav. But ever since he became one, the cattle and dairy have really prospered. He takes very good care of them and he has also picked up some veterinary skills. You see, a devotee of that faith is duty-bound to see to the welfare of cows and bulls.’

  There was a hint of derision in Nishanathbabu’s tone.

  ‘What was he before he embraced this faith?’ I asked.

  ‘A clerk in the record office of the justice department. I’ve known him for a good many years now. He didn’t earn much of a salary, but his tastes ran to music, fun and frolic. The clerks who work in these offices often make an extra buck on the sly, but Brojodas was once responsible for a serious offence. He accepted a bribe for expunging an important document from the office records.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He was found out. As it happens, I was the one who caught him. The case went to court and I had to appear as a witness. He was jailed for six years. In the meantime, I had resigned from my post and started the farm. After he was released, Brojodas lande
d up at my doorstep right away. He was a different man. The rigours of prison life had honed him into an ardent Vaishnav. Although it was my testimony that had sent him to jail, he seemed deeply beholden to me instead of nursing a grudge. Since then, he has been living here’

  ‘The old whore turns devout,’ I quipped.

  After a moment of silence, Nishanathbabu observed, ‘Not quite that either. I’m not referring to spiritual upliftment here. But I have noticed that he does not lie any more.’

  While still in conversation, we had been moving towards another hut. As we paused before it, the soft strains of the sitar wafted out from inside. In answer to my inquiring glance, Nishanathbabu replied, ‘The doctor Bhujangadhar. He plays the sitar.’

  Ramenbabu listened to the music intently and remarked, ‘He’s a master at it—that’s the raga Gaur Sarang.’

  Perhaps, Dr Bhujangadhar had spotted us through the window, because the music was cut off in mid-note. He came out on to the porch and said, ‘Hello, Mr Sen, why are you standing out in the sun? Do you want your blood pressure to shoot up?’

  Dr Bhujangadhar was nearly forty years old and sturdily built. His face wore a twisted look of utter disdain, as if the razor-sharp intelligence within—impeded from flowing down a straight path—had been warped into seeking out a perverse route.

  ‘I am showing them around the farm,’ Nishanathbabu explained.

  The doctor replied, ‘Your timing is perfect. All three of you will come down with the seasonal cold and flu and it will be up to this debarred doctor to cure you all.’

  ‘Well, no, we are going back right away. We just wanted to look in on Bonolokhhi.’

  With a derisive smile, the doctor asked, ‘And why is that? Is Bonolokhhi an exhibit in your farm, that you would want these gentlemen to have a look at her?’