Death in the East

by Abir Mukherjee

  I nodded and headed back towards the door, past an ashen-faced, open-mouthed Whitelaw. Rebecca was standing in the open doorway and I grabbed her arm, taking her with me as I rushed down the stairs. We were almost at the front door before I released my grip.

  There was a look of fear in her eyes. ‘What are you doing?’

  I tried to keep my voice low. ‘What happened?’

  The girl looked at me. ‘I don’t know. When Bessie didn’t come down for a cup of tea this morning, I went up to fetch her but found the door locked. I could hear noises inside, so I fetched Mrs Rosen and we broke the door down.’

  Before I could say anything further, she’d opened the front door and plunged into the crowd, hurrying towards Brick Lane in search of a passing cab.

  The street was narrow and always bustling with traffic, yet there was a point, a few yards to the south, where the road widened and where the cabbies rested their horses while waiting for passing trade. Today, however, the spot was empty. The girl tried to hail a couple of passing carriages but neither stopped. She was about to try again when I stepped out into the road, raised my hand and ordered the driver to stop. The power of the police uniform never failed to impress me. The cabbie pulled sharply on his reins, bringing his nag to a halt.

  I ordered the passenger, a suited, booted, well-coiffured gent, out. He wasn’t best pleased, but one of the dependable features of the British middle class is their unquestioning obeisance of anyone in a uniform.

  ‘So who’s going to be paying my fare then, son?’ grumbled the cabbie as I directed him along Fashion Street towards number 42. ‘I picked up that gent in Bethnal Green. Was takin’ ’im all the way to Ludgate Circus.’

  ‘I’ll pay it,’ I said, ‘and the fare to the hospital.’

  The cabbie smiled at me through a yellow, well-ventilated mouth. ‘Very good of you, sir.’

  I pulled some coins from my pocket. ‘Here,’ I said, handing them to him. ‘Forget the change.’

  That bought me a tip of his head and another yellow smile.

  Back in the house, Ludlow and Whitelaw had fashioned the sheet on which Bessie lay into a makeshift stretcher. At the doctor’s direction, Whitelaw, the cabbie and I carried her gently down the stairs and out to the hackney carriage. By now, more constables had arrived and were busy corralling the crowd.

  ‘Do you want me to go with her and the doctor?’ I asked Whitelaw.

  ‘So you’re a medical man, are you, Wyndham?’

  ‘No …’ I stammered. ‘I just thought –’

  ‘Leave the thinking to me, son,’ he said. ‘You stick to what you’re good at. Stand here and make sure no one comes in or out.’

  EIGHT

  February 1922

  Assam

  ‘Grab a broom,’ said Fitzgerald.

  We’d left our dormitory, all seven of us, and joined the straggle of inmates, making for the compound near the main monastery building. There, a rake-thin monk in an orange robe was handing out brooms to the assembled congregation.

  ‘First task, every morning,’ continued the American, ‘is to sweep the ashram. Everyone gets involved. Everyone able to stand, that is.’

  I looked over at Cooper. He was leaving that morning but had still joined the queue for a broom.

  ‘You know, I never in my life picked up one of these before coming here,’ said Fitzgerald, brandishing the broom in his large hands like a child with a special toy. He stared at it, fascinated. I might have laughed but I realised that I too hadn’t held one in years. Not since arriving in India.

  ‘You spoken much to Brother Shankar?’ He pronounced it Shankaar, placing emphasis on the second syllable. ‘He talks a whole heap about the road to enlightenment. Says that the best place to start is right here, sweeping this floor.’ The American stared at the broom once more. ‘I reckon the guy might be on to something.’

  I quickly began to understand what he meant. There was something soothing in the rhythmic motion of sweeping the dust and the leaves that had fallen overnight into the compound, and soon I found my mind wandering. Once more I recalled the previous night: the angelic vision and Adler’s restraining hand as a monk placed something in my mouth. A recollection of the taste and texture of it came back to me. Rough, herbal. Like a spinach leaf, only thicker, waxier. More bitter.

  The chores lasted about an hour, and, having returned my broom, I once more followed my dorm-mates, this time into the large, open courtyard dominated by the statue of the goddess Kali, beside which a small fire burned, tended to by an old monk squatting on his haunches.

  The inmates gathered in rows, segregated, informally, by race. Unusually, we Westerners gravitated towards the back: our natural sense of privilege for once eclipsed by an aversion to offering invocations to a heathen deity, even while we sought salvation from her monks.

  Brother Shankar walked along our row handing out sticks of incense, and, like the others, I took one as he passed. Around us, the monks lined up in their saffron robes, chanting their mantras and offering up prayers to the goddess. Beside me, Adler stood head bowed in reverence. The Frenchman, Lavalle, wore a look of disdain that suggested a degree of distaste for the whole business or a severe case of indigestion.

  The air filled with the fragrance of sandalwood and one by one the rows of devotees approached the fire, lit their incense sticks in its sacred flame, then planted them in the soft ground in front of the idol. When it came to our turn, however, no one moved. Instead Brother Shankar returned and took the sticks from us.

  ‘What now?’ I whispered to Fitzgerald.

  ‘Joge,’ he replied.

  I felt a sweat break out on my forehead. Weak from hunger, fatigued from my exertions of the night before and with my muscles still cramping from opium withdrawal, the last thing I needed now was to embark on a session of physical jerks. I was, of course, free to walk away – the exercises weren’t compulsory – and yet, because there were natives present, I felt I had no choice but to take part. It was a curious thing. I was an opium fiend, the lowest of the low, and hardly a poster boy for the campaign to defend the prestige of the white man, and yet such was the nature of empire that, even now, part of me believed that I had to maintain a certain standard. As though it was vital to show that an English opium fiend was superior to a native opium fiend. And the worst of it was, I did this not so much for my own sake, but because I felt the natives expected it of me.

  As it happened, there was nothing to be scared of. Joge turned out to be little more than some stretching and breathing exercises, the most peculiar of which involved pressing down with a finger on one nostril and inhaling deeply through the other while wearing an expression of extreme surprise. As with the rest of the morning’s theatrics, I went along with it, mainly because I had nothing to lose.

  It must have been close to eight by the time these callisthenics drew to a close. I couldn’t be sure because my watch had been confiscated along with my clothes and was now, according to Brother Shankar, stored safely in a strongbox somewhere in the ashram. The exercises were followed by roll call, then a breakfast of more rice, more dal and more herbal tea.

  Over breakfast, Adler explained the daily routine of monastic life.

  ‘They like you to get involved,’ he said, mopping up the last of his dal, ‘preparing the meals, helping in the fields. You could even take part in the prayers, assuming you were that way inclined. But I would suggest that, today at least, you save your strength. Just rest in the dormitory. Take the steam bath, then maybe read a book.’

  After breakfast, I joined the others in bidding adieu to Cooper, which proved to be a surprisingly emotional affair, tinged with more tears than an Italian funeral.

  ‘When you suffer alongside a man,’ said Adler, ‘you build a bond with him. And that bond is all the stronger because no one else quite understands that shared suffering.’

  I knew what he meant. I’d spent three years in the trenches after all.

  Sweat: tar black, opium-lea
vened, leached from my pores, and trickled earthward, returning to the Indian dust from whence it came. I lay on my back on a plank bed, a glistening forearm over my eyes.

  The air hung like sweet, sweltering fog, singeing the skin and stinging the sinuses, the silence punctuated by the lonely, metronome splash of water condensing on the concrete ceiling and falling to the dirt floor. To one side, a wood-fired stove broiled gently, a thin metal chimney running from it to a hole in the roof. Atop it, a pan filled with water and leaves, blackened and battered with age, sat bubbling. The steam’s herbal tang reminded me of a Turkish bath. Missing, though, was the birch branch for self-flagellation. Penitence in the ashram took a different form.

  The heat reminded me of Calcutta before the monsoon: that torrid, clinging, sweltering miasma that hung for months like a fever over the city until finally breaking to the blessed, life-affirming rain. I recalled that first Calcutta summer: when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of shade, and midday purdah and the release of late afternoon when the temperature dropped but the humidity remained. I thought of Surrender-not and his walks by the river at sunset to catch the single whisper of wind to be found there. I thought too of Annie Grant, the woman who had been the source of so much, if not happiness, then at least hope in my life since I’d arrived in India. I didn’t know whether I loved her. I didn’t know if it was even possible for me to love another after the death of my wife, but I did care for her. As for her feelings, if she had ever loved me, then that love had been tested to, and well past, breaking point. I couldn’t blame her for that. I was hardly an easy man to love, even at the best of times, and if there was one thing you could say about the last few years, it was that they’d hardly been the best of times. I usually didn’t like thinking about it. After all, to dwell on matters of love, like admitting to a liking of French food, is a rather distasteful and decidedly un-English state of affairs. But here, in the heat and isolation of a steam-powered concrete box, my mind returned to her and what I might do upon my return, to right things with her.

  I lay there in little more than a loincloth, basting like a pig in an oven. Yet as experiences in the ashram went, this was one of the most pleasant, and over far too soon.

  The door opened and the heat evaporated like a pleasant dream. At the threshold stood a native monk with a gamcha folded over his wrist like a waiter at the Ritz.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Brother Shankar wishes to see you.’

  I dried and dressed in my ashram best – shirt and drawstring trousers – then slipped the sandals onto my feet and followed him across the noonday courtyard.

  He left me at the door to Shankar’s room, with a smile of such serene contentment that, anywhere else, I’d have suspected him of having just smoked a pipe of O himself.

  From inside came the inflexion of pleasant conversation and the timbre of a woman’s voice. I knocked gently, yet firm enough to silence the discourse within.

  It was Shankar who answered.

  ‘Come in.’

  I opened the door, entered, and quickly became aware of the weight of two sets of eyes upon me. The small room smelled of expensive perfume. I breathed it in, lapping it up like a starving man.

  ‘There you are, Sam,’ beamed the monk, rising from his chair. He walked over and placed a protective hand on each of my shoulders, then turned to show me off to his guest.

  ‘I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. This is Mrs Emily Carter.’

  Seated on a chair in front of Shankar’s desk was a woman of about thirty. She smiled, white teeth between rouged lips, and I realised I’d seen her before. The blonde angel from the previous night.

  ‘You seem familiar,’ I said. ‘Last night, did you help me back to my dormitory?’

  Emily Carter sat there, a vision in a summer dress, and gave a nod. ‘I thought maybe you wouldn’t recall.’

  ‘Mrs Carter helps out with some of our female patients at the ashram,’ said Shankar. ‘She found you wandering in the courtyard. I thought it might be nice for her to meet you under more … benign circumstances.’

  That was an interesting way of putting it. By benign, I took him to mean circumstances where I wasn’t raving like a lunatic.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Carter,’ I said. And it was. A real pleasure. We might all be created in the image of the Divine, but some of us were clearly closer to the original than others. It wasn’t just her film actress looks. There was something more, something inextricably linked to the kindness she’d shown me the night before.

  ‘She’s also a great benefactor of our work here.’

  ‘She seems very much the good Samaritan,’ I said.

  Emily Carter waved away the compliment, on her finger a wedding ring the size of the iceberg that sank the Titanic catching the light.

  ‘Brother Shankar tells me you’re up from Calcutta, Captain Wyndham.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Thought I’d get away for a few weeks. See the sights of Assam.’

  Once more, she flashed that heavenly smile. ‘I hope you’ll get a chance to do just that. Once you’ve completed your time here.’

  My mouth was suddenly as dry as the salt plains of Gujarat. ‘I … I hope so too.’

  Before I could make any further scintillating comment, there came a knock. The door opened and the monk who’d led me over appeared once more.

  ‘Mrs Carter,’ he said, ‘your car has arrived.’

  Emily Carter rose from her chair.

  Venus ascending.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, Captain. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

  Shankar clasped her hands in his and beamed a smile. ‘Thank you, Emily, for everything.’

  A moment later she was gone, leaving only the memory of her wrapped in the lingering fragrance of her perfume. I caught Brother Shankar’s expression: the distant, faraway look that suggested thoughts not entirely consistent with monastic life. Not that I blamed him. Emily Carter looked like the sort of woman who would unsettle any red-blooded male, monk or otherwise, including old Devraha Swami or the Pope for that matter.

  ‘Interesting lady,’ I said.

  ‘Hmm?’ Shankar snapped out of his reverie. ‘Oh yes, wonderful. Simply wonderful. She’s done so much for us since coming to Jatinga. Most English ladies wouldn’t be seen dead up here at the ashram. It’s not the done thing to keep company with drug addicts or Hindus. Mrs Carter, though,’ he marvelled. ‘What a lady. She comes up here every few weeks to help out in any way she can. Mainly with the women patients, naturally, but also in the kitchens at times. She’s a real interest in things: from the running of the ashram to the preparation of the herbal cures.’

  ‘Careful,’ I said. ‘Next thing you know you’ll have her converting to Hinduism and I’m not sure her husband would approve.’

  Shankar’s expression darkened. ‘No fear. She’s shown no interest in that.’

  Through the window behind him, I saw Emily Carter cross the courtyard to where a large black car stood waiting. At her approach, a chauffeur exited the car with alacrity and quickly opened the rear door. She graced him with a smile then she lowered her head and disappeared inside.

  The driver closed the door behind her, and made his way to his own seat. The engine growled to life and within seconds the car was heading for the ashram gates, throwing a halo of dust skywards in its wake.

  With the memory of Mrs Carter lingering pleasantly in my head, and with time to spare before lunch, I left Brother Shankar and went off in search of the ashram library.

  The room was larger than I’d expected, though what expectations I should have of an ashram library are still unclear to me. Three walls were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves of religious texts. There was something for everyone, assuming you liked your literature with a theological bent, from thick, hide-bound, hand-printed tomes with covers decorated with fine filigree detailing, to the flimsy, mass-produced, badly bound paperbacks that every book-wallah in Calcutta’s College S
treet sold by the barrow-load for a few annas each.

  I wondered why Adler had suggested I come here. It was obvious I was no scholar of Sanskrit, and even if I had been interested in learning the Hindu holy texts, today was hardly the most auspicious occasion on which to start. Then I noticed that a few dusty shelves near the bottom of one wall contained a number of books in English, and to my joy, these weren’t even religious tomes. I knelt down, scanned them quickly and smiled. Towards the end of one row was a title I recognised. I wiped the dust from the spine. The Four Just Men. It was a detective novel published back in 1905. I knew, because I’d bought it the week it had come out. It had been a bestseller, not because it was any good, but because the author, Edgar Wallace, had left out the last chapter. Instead he’d advertised in the Daily Mail, offering £250 for the correct solution to the crime. Of course Wallace, like most writers, overestimated his own intelligence. For a start, the solution wasn’t that hard to figure out – as a young beat copper in the East End of London at the time, I’d managed it and duly wrote in to the Mail. More importantly, Wallace forgot to state there would be only one winner, so anyone who wrote in with the right answer was entitled to the money. The upshot was that Wallace went bankrupt, and seventeen years on, I was still waiting for my £250.

  I picked up the book and walked back to the dormitory, lay on my bunk, and to the hum of prayers and the twitter of birds, I opened the book.

  ‘If you leave the Plaza del Mina, go down the narrow street, where, from ten till four, the big flag of the United States Consulate hangs lazily …’

  I closed the book and placed it on my chest. It was strange how 1905 kept cropping up. Since arriving in Assam, it seemed as though an unseen presence was directing my thoughts back to that year: the figure at Lumding station; the memories of Bessie Drummond; the compassion shown by the Jew, Adler; and now this book.