by Tabish Khair
‘That day, sahib, my father had only good omens: he walked the entire length without a drop of water spilling from his lota. The other jemadaars spilled a little, but not enough to cause any worry to their gang members. Our gang members though, were elated with my father’s performance: the clear blue sky rang with their cheers. And we set out that very moment, they in pursuit of the career they had practised for years, I to a new life, a life that I had eagerly anticipated — sahib, I cannot convey to you how eagerly one anticipates adulthood and initiation into the profession of one’s forefathers in the deluded lands of Hindoostan! Alas, in my joy, I could not even have begun to imagine the life I was being initiated into...’
‘And yet, Amir Ali,’ said I musingly, ‘would you have hesitated if you knew what lay in wait for you beyond the dust-shrouded miles, along the narrow roads and travel-tracks on which you had embarked? Would you have hesitated to embrace the dictates of the bloodthirsty religion of Bhowanee, to walk in the steps of your father as he had walked in the steps of his father, and so on and so forth to the misty ends of time in Hindoostan?’
‘Forsooth, sahib. Forsooth. You know how it is.’
9
Jaanam,
I never knew my father. I was a few months old when he died, and I was brought up by Mustapha Chacha and his wife. Even my mother I only have faint recollections of, for she was carried off by fever and delirium four years after my father’s death. But Mustapha Chacha and Chachijaan and their two sons, one three years older than me and the other eight years younger, were my family. I never felt the lack of my parents, and when I finally left to be apprenticed to a babu in Patna at the age of fifteen, following in the footsteps of my older cousin Hamid Bhai-for Mustapha Chacha could sense which way the wind of progress was blowing, and in any case our ancestral lands were not enough to comfortably sustain more than one family — I felt more lonely than I ever had.
Perhaps more lonely than I have felt in London because here, on the second day of my arrival with Kaptaan Meadows, I met you, and ... Oh, what can I say, jaanam, about meeting you? It was almost half a year ago: how time flies! The weather was more or less like it is these days, a bit colder then, because it was early spring — I remember distinctly that your Queen had not yet been crowned- and I was still not used to the climate. I remember that when you walked into the kitchen, I mistook you for a visitor and not a servant, and addressed you as such. Later, after you had laughed at my mistake and corrected me, I saw that your clothes were threadbare and dirty, and wondered why I had not noticed them earlier. But truly, jaanam, the moment you walked in, all I could see was your face, which you always manage to scrub clean, and your dark brown hair, tied into a neat bun. And I got my laugh at you too, for you assumed that I was a rich nobleman from ‘Persia’, and were disabused of it only when you returned to the house the next day and asked Nelly Clennam, the cook, who, with her instinctive dislike of me, informed you that I was only a ‘paid servant’ and had been a murderous ‘thug’ in India, and that it was a danger to all servants, God preserve honest people, and not least to her — for she was a decent woman and had always been, so help me God — to have thugs and murderers living in the houses of gentle folks like the Captain but then it is well known that going abroad puts strange ideas in the minds of people and though it was not her position, or habit, to utter a word against her employer, it would be said by many that to harbour a nigger, lordey, a cannibal in the kitchen was not only a danger but an act verging on the unchristian ... I remember you recounting the introduction as a breathless monologue to me in Nelly’s voice — you are a gifted mimic, jaanam — and for days I burst out laughing (much to Nelly’s horror, I dare say) whenever I came across her.
But all that seems such a long time ago. Our initial hesitation in addressing each other, your surprise at my English, your interest in all that I had seen out in the wide world which fascinates you, the first walk that we took in crowded London, the first time, only a few weeks ago, when you took me to visit your aunt and the opium den — though you call it by a polite name, just as you do not fully acknowledge that what I take occasionally is a variety of opium too; no, it is not just an ‘Oriental medicine’, as you prefer to call it. It was in that den that the wizened old woman raised you and it is there you still return to sleep on the nights when you do not seek shelter in one of the houses you clean. I remember that you were both proud and ashamed of your background: you had to show the place to me, you are too proud to deny it, but you also had to excuse it by giving it a different name. And I could see the relief in your eyes when I told you about the various names of the lotus flower, surely the most beautiful and sacred of flowers in India, and how the most common and esteemed name for it is ‘that which grows in the mud.’ Intoxicated by your smile, I had applied the description to you and confessed that I was secretly writing a series of letters addressed to you, letters to keep a record of what had happened and what was happening to me.
At which you said, but then you will have to teach me to read first. Alas, I had replied, even if I taught you to read your own language, it would be of no use to you — for I am writing to you in Farsi, one of my languages. You grew thoughtful and asked me, how do you address me in your language? And I replied, honestly: jaanam. Is that ‘Jenny’ in your language, you asked No, I said, it sounds like it, but it means ‘my precious’ or ‘my life.’ I had blurted it out in a moment of bravado, and I was already regretting it, for you went quiet for a second, and then you laughed and said, I should slap your face, you ... you thug. But you said it with a twinkle in your eye and a few moments later, for the first time, under a gas lamp swarming with insects, we held hands. It was then that you asked me to tell you more about the places I had known in the past — my village, my province and, of course, Patna.
But what can I tell you of Patna, jaanam? It is a place you had never heard of. And yet, there was a time when in all of Asia and perhaps beyond, you would have been laughed at if you said you had not heard of Patna. It would be like someone here, in London, claiming not to have heard of Paris or Rome. Patna was a city of a thousand gardens, a hundred schools, but they are all gone. Now it is simply a provincial headquarter, sustained by the presence of the Company, its bureaucrats and its soldiers, its shipping from the ghats. But this is not shipping on a grand scale. The docks in Patna do not harbour brigantines, bulkats or schooners; it is cluttered with small boats, dinghies, baulias and woolocks. Sometimes a larger craft belonging to some trading company casts anchor to pick up a load of opium or girmitiyas. But by and large, Patna is nothing but a minor stop on the Ganges, its broad banks lined with wheat or rice to the north and west of the city and with poppy flowers to the east.
No, I will leave Patna out of my story. It lies there, unremarkable. Next to an impassive Ganges across which the wind blows slowly, sometimes with the smell of wild flowers and sometimes the stink of human refuse and dead bodies. In the monsoon, the Ganges swells and inundates most of Patna. Even this is hardly remarked upon. In the winter, mists seep across the banks and fold the two-storey buildings in their embrace. No one speaks of Patna with love: people only speak of places they have left or the places they are going to.
I did not know where I was going. So I spoke of the place I had left: our ancestral lands in the village, tilled by Mustapha Chacha and his youngest son Shahid, with occasional labour hired by the season. The other clerks in the babu’s office came from similar places. They knew what I spoke of. Hamid Bhai himself had now moved to a lawyer’s office as a munshi. He was married and lived with his wife’s family, in a small house in Maruganj, while I shared two rooms near the Chowk with five other apprentices. Hamid Bhai had two children, but he came to see me almost every other evening, at least until he started being sent out of town on business by the lawyer. And always our conversation turned to the lands in our ancestral village. It was not just that we had grown up on those paltry acres, eaten the crops they yielded, drunk the milk of cows pastured there.
That land was in our blood; for generations we had watered it with our sweat. But it was also on our minds, for we knew the difficulties of Mustapha Chacha.
Did I say our ancestral lands were not enough to sustain more than one family? Would that it was our sole problem! For then, perhaps, I would not be the thug that Kaptaan Meadows wants me to be, and Mustapha Chacha and his family — my family — would still be alive. For you see, jaanam, our ancestral lands, like everything from the past, were both a blessing and a curse.
10
‘I must say that I am disappointed, sir. Extremely disappointed. The subject here is deficient in the size and strength of the cervical vertebrae, which you have expertly preserved. The organ of Conscientiousness, as the upper and forward parts of the parietal bone indicate, is also small. This combination, lack of Firmness and Conscientiousness, places the subject exactly where, as you have informed me, he died: in the workhouse. And while it is true that this, this Thing, is a highly developed example of such characteristics, it is also true — need I remind you, sir? — that you have already brought me at least two such specimens. I must say that my museum does not need any more like this one, and if you cannot find me better examples, I am sorry to say, my man, I will have to dispense with your services.’
John May has never heard M’lord sound so angry. True, his lordship does not look angry: his mask — a different one this time — hides his expression. He does not even raise his voice in anger. His gestures and the volume of his voice are deceptive: he appears to be holding forth on a pleasant topic to a friend or a colleague. And yet, John May knows his cold choice of words suggests glowing anger. This, John May thinks with approval and admiration, is how the nobility get angry. They do not rant or shout like the riffraff do. They do not grow red in the face like the mob. And yet, their anger cuts into you like a thin steel blade.
John May looks into the eyes of the stuffed fish, observing it for the first time in this private parlour of the Prize of War public-house, a small part of him remarking on the shoddiness of the work, the transparency of the colours painted on the fins. The skull, on the other hand, which he had unwrapped and quickly wrapped again for M’lord moments ago, is a superior specimen of work. Despite the rush to prepare it, all art, all colouring is invisible. It appears just a skull, somehow clean, unstained and dry, something skulls never are in nature. John May feels a slight twinge of resentment at M’lord’s lack of attention to the finesse of his craft, but he also knows that M’lord is right. It is the third such skull he has sold to him in a year. But finding different kinds of skulls is difficult. John May has, over a couple of years, supplied roughly thirty different types of skulls to M’lord. He feels that all of London, no, all of England, does not contain much more variety. The only really exceptional skull he can think of at the moment sits on the old woman who runs that disgusting opium den, and she is nowhere close to death.
‘M’lord’, he says in a placatory tone. ‘M’lord, I always do my best in your service. But at the moment this city does not seem to contain anything else.’
‘In that case, my man’, says M’lord, standing up, putting on his gloves and picking up the wrapped skull in one fluent, habitual movement, ‘you have nothing more to offer me.’
The potted plants and stuffed animals in the room suddenly seem to have stranded John May in a jungle: he is lost. His greatest source of income is on its way out of the door. He runs after M’lord, tugging at the gentleman’s sleeve like a common beggar. ‘M’lord, M’lord, if you give me time, I will provide you other specimens... rare ones, M’lord.’
M’lord shakes him off without stopping in his stride, and hisses: ‘Two weeks then. Two weeks from this date. Leave your message in the usual way if you have something to offer me. And, sir, this is your last chance. Your last chance, sir.’
11
The one-armed bartender, sweating as profusely as ever and using the same rag to wipe his forehead and the glasses, pushes two glasses of rum hot towards John May and Shields. John May, contrary to custom, makes no effort to pay, forcing Shields to fish out a few coins and put them on the counter, grumbling under his breath.
The bartender looks at the couple with malicious irony. ‘His Lordship left in a dudgeon, didn’t he?’ he remarks to no one in particular.
‘Blast his bloody Lordship’, mutters John May. He is surprised that the bartender has noticed. He drains his rum hot in one gulp, and takes a few seconds to stifle a cough as his eyes mist over.
The bartender laughs and moves on to other customers in the stifling, smoky room. Shields sits, stolid and unmoved, waiting for the inevitable outburst from John May. And it comes. John May starts off by making fun of Shields, calling him names just short of giving offence, and then proceeds to espouse a platform of radical socialism, almost suggesting that people like M’lord ought to be treated the way ‘those frigging Frogs’ treated their royalty in 1789. After five minutes of this, John May calms down, orders a round of beer and cocks an eyebrow at Shields, who has not said a word to interrupt the outburst.
‘So, my friend’, says John May, ‘it looks like we are out of business.’
Shields looks at him, sipping his beer.
‘Do you understand, my obdurate friend?’ John May likes using cultivated words at times, especially on people like Shields who are mostly incapable of understanding a word of more than six letters. ‘Do you get it? No more purchases, no more Things.’
‘But surely, John May’, replies Shields slowly, as if the effort of thinking is sufficient to slur his speech, ‘surely there are other places. Things are still in demand. The vivisectionists, the...’
John May makes a gesture of repugnance and irritation. ‘Pennies’, he barks, ‘pennies.’ And then he stops. He remembers that Shields has no idea how much M’lord pays for the skulls. Shields is only a resurrectionist, a common stealer of dead bodies from graveyards, to be sold to surgeons and scientists and students. It is an increasingly risky business, especially after the troubles over the Italian boy, and it still pays well. But it does not pay a fraction of what M’lord pays John May for the skulls, especially in the beginning, when the specimens were always of a new ‘type.’ John May cannot reveal this to Shields; he has not shared his extra profits with Shields. He returns to his beer.
12
But the beer is not enough to drown John May’s thoughts. His mind keeps going back to the money he has made, the money he could still make. All he needs is a remarkable skull. And there are a few walking around in London. For instance, the beggar outside Hyde Park, or the lascar he has occasionally seen selling tracts, or that old woman... Each has an exceptionally interesting skull: deformed, ridged, extraordinary, fascinating to men of science. Unfortunately, the skulls sit on living shoulders, shoulders that give no sign of going under, of being killed by disease or age or accident.
Accident.
The word gives John May pause for thought. London is a place of accidents. They happen all the time: workers falling off scalloldings, children run down by carriages, women getting crushed between coal wagons, men falling into sewer holes, explosions, drownings, houses collapsing as if they were balloons pricked by an invisible pin. Why, when was it, not more than a few years ago, certainly, when a respectable woman, her babe in her arms, fell through the rotten floor of a privy and drowned in the filth underneath. Accidents are what happen most often in London.
But John May dismisses the thought. It is a temptation. But surely it is wrong.
13
Two beers later, John May is less sure about the wrongness of his idea. He thinks of the old woman in the opium den: what is her entire life but a continuous accident? Could one even pity such a person, a woman who lives by prostituting herself to lascars and Chinamen, by selling opium in a pigsty? A woman who can hardly be understood when she speaks? Is she a real woman? Is she even truly human? Would it be a crime in the eyes of God or man, if something were to happen to such a woman? Or would it be a service to s
ociety — and, of course, to M’lord’s science?
Not that M’lord would want to know. Yes, John May is convinced of that. M’lord would take the skulls as long as he did not know how they were procured. Why else did he hide behind a mask? May knows enough of the rich and the cultivated to be certain of this. But Shields, now Shields is another matter. Shields will need to be sounded out.
‘Another round’, shouts John May to the bartender, thumping his empty mug on the table. ‘Another round of the same for me and my good friend here.’
14
[WILLIAM T. MEADOWS, NOTES ON A THUG: CHARACTER AND CIRCUMSTANCES, 1840]
‘The three gangs decided to go in different directions, sahib, having agreed to meet after six months. This was the usual process. We took what was perhaps the best route — to Patna, and from there through Allahabad to Benaras, a route much travelled by pilgrims as well as traders. And just two days later, I was initiated into the intricacies of my new profession.
‘It was a humid afternoon, hotter than the season warranted. I remember this clearly. Perhaps because it was the kind of weather that frays tempers, that brings people into conflict, causes arguments. The kind of weather that makes mosquito bites itch for longer, that attracts flies to your eyes. Perhaps if the weather had not been what it was, we would not have found our first victim so soon. Who knows, sahib, for lacking your great God of Reason, we can only comprehend the ways of Allah or Bhowanee with dread and suspicion, always fearing that what we know is not enough. As it happened, we were still outside Patna when one of our sothaees returned with news.’