Smoke and Ashes

by Abir Mukherjee

  ‘You better believe it.’

  ‘And you plan on staying long?’

  The door opened and in walked Annie. She wore a blue silk dress and an ornate diamond-studded silver necklace hung from her neck. It looked like she was preparing to go out for the evening.

  ‘That’s a good question,’ she said. ‘How long do you plan on staying, Stephen?’

  ‘For the foreseeable.’ He smiled.

  That was rather longer than I’d been hoping.

  Annie looked from him to me. ‘I see you’re both getting along.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Schmidt.

  ‘Like a church on fire,’ I said.

  ‘Can I get you a drink, Sam?’ she asked. ‘Stephen’s drinking bourbon.’

  ‘No thank you,’ I said stiffly. ‘I’m on duty.’

  ‘So what brings you here, Sam?’ she said as she walked over to the drinks cabinet and prepared what I assumed was a pink gin. ‘Have you caught the vandals who attacked my house?’

  ‘I was just telling Mr Smith here –’

  ‘Schmidt,’ he corrected me.

  ‘My apologies – Mr Schmidt here that we’re working on it. I came round to see that everything was in order.’

  ‘Everything’s fine, Sam,’ she said, turning and taking a sip of her drink. ‘Thank you for your concern.’

  ‘Are you planning on going in to town tonight?’ I asked. ‘Only, you might want to reschedule. The roads are blocked.’

  ‘Really?’ said Schmidt. ‘What is it this time?’

  ‘Another protest.’

  ‘Don’t these Indians ever get tired of it?’

  ‘They want to be rid of the King of England,’ I said. ‘I’d have thought that as an American you’d be appreciative of that.’

  Schmidt shook his head. ‘Not if it means missing a dinner date with Miss Grant here.’ He knocked back the last of his bourbon. ‘Come now, Annie,’ he said. ‘If Wyndham’s right and the roads are a mess, we should probably leave a little early.’

  It wasn’t what I’d meant. Instead of ‘reschedule’ I should have said ‘cancel’.

  Annie turned to me. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Sam?’

  ‘I just need a little of your time.’ I turned to Schmidt. ‘You don’t mind if I speak to Miss Grant privately? I need to apprise her of certain developments,’ I lied.

  Schmidt eyed me dubiously, then looked to Annie.

  ‘We have dinner reservations,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure whatever the captain has to tell me will only take a few minutes,’ she replied, before walking towards the door.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said, making to follow her. ‘Five at most.’

  ‘Dinner reservations,’ I said, when we were out of earshot, back in the hall. ‘I hope you’re making him take you somewhere expensive.’

  ‘What is it you wanted to tell me?’ she said, ignoring the comment.

  ‘There’s been an attack,’ I said, ‘over in Rishra. A Goanese Christian woman was murdered. The commissioner believes Indian radicals might have been responsible.’

  She looked at me blankly. ‘What has that got to do with me?’

  I was asking myself the same question. The truth was, very little, and possibly none at all, but after the attack on her house and the violent dispersal of the crowd at Das’s demonstration, I couldn’t help but feel a dread that things were spiralling out of control. As an Anglo-Indian, Annie was already a target, and maybe I feared that if the worst happened, I’d fail to save her. Just as I’d failed to save my wife, Sarah.

  ‘Things are turning ugly,’ I said. ‘Gandhi’s proclamation of independence by the end of the year has people from both sides on edge, and this bloody visit by the Prince of Wales is hardly helping matters. I don’t want you at risk if the bullets start to fly.’

  She touched my arm gently. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Sam.’

  ‘I’m serious,’ I said.

  She was silent for a moment. With one hand she pulled at the lobe of one her diamond encrusted ears.

  ‘If there’s nothing else, Sam, I’d better get back to Stephen.’

  ‘Are you sure about him?’ I said.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Is he really a chai-wallah? Everyone knows the Yanks don’t know the first thing about tea. My gut tells me he’s probably a bootlegger, in town to purchase distillation equipment.’

  She looked at me incredulously. ‘Not your famous gut again, Sam. Stephen’s a tea merchant, not some American mobster. You just need to look at him to see he’s about as innocent as any man that’s ever turned up in Calcutta. In fact, that’s one of the things I like about him: he isn’t cynical about every bloody thing. He actually enjoys life. Not like you. You see it as some sort of penance, as though you’re constantly atoning for the sins of a past life like some bloody Hindu mystic.’

  Our voices must have travelled, as suddenly Schmidt was in the hallway.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Perfectly,’ Annie replied. ‘Captain Wyndham was just leaving.’

  ‘I need to get back to headquarters,’ I added for good measure.

  ‘At this time of evening?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve work to do,’ I said. ‘The Prince of Wales is arriving in two days.’

  Schmidt’s eyes lit up. ‘You’re involved with that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘The security measures need to be finalised. And more importantly, I need to arrest the vandal who broke Miss Grant’s window.’

  FIFTEEN

  I didn’t go back to Lal Bazar. Instead I went home. The events at Annie’s house had soured my mood, and besides, I needed a shot of kerdū pulp.

  The flat was once more in darkness as I entered, but Sandesh, alerted to my presence by the sound of the key in the lock, was already switching on the electric light in the living room.

  He wore a troubled expression.

  I asked him for a whisky and the kerdū juice, and flopped into an armchair.

  ‘Yes, sahib,’ he replied, but made no movement in the direction of the drinks cabinet. Instead he remained, hovering awkwardly, a few steps behind me. It didn’t take a detective to work out something was wrong.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘The kerdū gourds, sahib.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They have expired,’ he said nervously.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Two were remaining, sahib, but this afternoon I noticed they are rotten. So I went to market to obtain additional supply, but vegetable seller had none.’

  ‘Did you try somewhere else?’ I asked, attempting to hide my rising anxiety.

  ‘I searched in three different markets, sahib. Most items are in short supply today. Many farmers and stallholders are not coming into town or closing early due to the hartal at the bridge.’

  I felt the perspiration beading on my forehead. ‘Can’t you cut out the rotten parts and use the rest of what you have?’

  Sandesh shook his head. ‘I have thrown them out already.’

  Our rubbish, like that of all the apartments, ended up in a storage area at the side of the street, and was emptied by the municipal authorities on what seemed an arbitrary and almost capricious basis. For a moment, I considered asking him to retrieve the rotting kerdū gourds from the rubbish tip, but that was ridiculous. I might already have lost all respect for myself but I’d be damned if I’d allow my manservant to reach the same conclusion.

  ‘Just bring me the whisky.’

  I commended myself on my resolve as he handed me the glass. That’s the thing about addiction and denial: a small victory here and there can help to camouflage the bigger defeats. What’s more, I knew that in the face of the growing withdrawal pangs that were already wracking my body, my determination would soon falter, evaporating like morning dew on the Deccan.

  I downed the whisky and called to Sandesh to bring me another. The clock in the hall chimed a quarter to the hour as a black dog o
f a mood descended over me. The last forty-eight hours had been quite something. On top of two murders with seemingly no connections, but where the bodies had been mutilated in exactly the same way, I’d also witnessed Das’s peaceful demonstration forcibly broken up and the old man carted off by the military to God only knows where. It had been all I could do just to stop Surrender-not from going after them and wrecking his career. To add to it all, Annie was currently off having dinner with some Yank millionaire with a face fit to grace Time magazine and a smile worthy of the cover of Dentistry Weekly, while I sat here and contemplated salvaging rotten vegetables from the rubbish tip.

  If there was such a thing as Christmas cheer in Calcutta, it had singularly failed to find its way to Premchand Boral Street. But then I’d never much been one for the festive spirit. The last Christmas that seemed to stand out in my memory was that of 1913, the year before the war began.

  I’d met Sarah a few months earlier, and at that point, I’d had little notion that just over a year later, I’d end up marrying her, but still, I was doing my best to court her. I took her to see Marie Lloyd at the Pavilion and skating on the frozen pond in Victoria Park. That was eight years, and a lifetime, ago.

  As with Annie, Sarah too, when I met her, had her fair share of suitors. But they’d never worried me. I was a different man back then, younger, and cocksure. The competition had been different too: intellectuals and political radicals, rather than the millionaires and maharajahs that vied for Annie’s affections. The men were worlds apart but, in essence, not that different. Sarah’s admirers tried to intimidate you with their intellect, while Annie’s used their wealth, and I didn’t know which group I despised more.

  Sarah died at the fag-end of the war, an early victim of the influenza epidemic that would kill so many. I hadn’t been by her bedside; didn’t even know she was dead until months later. Rather I was in hospital myself, pumped full of morphine and recuperating from war wounds which, if there truly was a God, would have killed me. Instead I’d survived, continuing to live, when death would have been preferable and more justified.

  Maybe Annie was right. Maybe my penance was a life sentence.

  It was Sarah’s death that had driven me to Calcutta, and it was Annie’s presence that had made me stay. And yet Sarah’s memory still lived with me and shamed me daily. I hated to think what she’d make of me now: a whisky-soused opium fiend. Would she recognise any part of the man she’d married? The thought burned like a red-hot needle in my temples and I did my best to force it out.

  I checked my watch. It was getting late. Where was Surrender-not?

  He should have returned from Lal Bazar by now. Part of me suspected he was attempting to find out where the military were taking Das. He might even have tried to accompany them, but that would have been pointless. The military weren’t in the habit of letting any policemen tag along, let alone a native one.

  I got up, grabbed my jacket and headed for the door, more to escape my thoughts than to go looking for the sergeant. I walked down the stairs, out of the building’s front door, and sat down on the edge of the veranda. I lit a cigarette and waited for Surrender-not.

  The evening air was cool and the street, like some cold-blooded creature, was taking its time coming to life. Only a few lights were on in the bedrooms of the bordellos and the usual stream of punters had dwindled to a trickle, the others possibly suffering from frostbite of the libido. I smoked the cigarette down to the butt then threw it onto the pavement and made a start on another. It didn’t look as though Surrender-not was coming back any time soon. I just hoped he was still at Lal Bazar, working on the mass of paperwork necessitated by our inquiries up in Rishra. He was a conscientious fellow after all – even more so these days, when he seemed to go out of his way to avoid me in the evenings. I didn’t blame him. If I could have avoided it, I wouldn’t have spent any time with me either.

  The door opened behind me, spilling yellow light onto the concrete veranda. I turned to see one of the girls from the brothel next door standing there – a silhouette in a sari.

  ‘Kee korchho, Captain, sahib?’ she said in that mock-scolding tone women often use with men they can’t shout at outright. I recognised the voice; we’d exchanged pleasantries on a few occasions, but that had been a while back, and for the moment her name escaped me.

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m sitting here, having a cigarette,’ I said, waving the fag at her.

  She shook her head. ‘You can’t smoke here.’

  ‘I bloody can,’ I said, taking a drag. Sometimes I wondered what the matter was with these people. What was the point of being masters in their country if an Englishman couldn’t even enjoy a cigarette in peace?

  ‘Mr policeman, sahib, you are driving away our customers,’ she said, taking a step onto the veranda as though about to shoo me away like a mongrel dog. I remembered her name. Purnima. I recalled Surrender-not being quite taken with her, which is to say that, as with all pretty women, he’d found her beguiling, and that was enough to prompt him to spend a few days finding out as much as he could about her – making enquiries of her acquaintances, checking police records, and generally everything short of actually talking to her. It was a pointless exercise of course, but part of me suspected that might just be why he did it.

  He’d even told me what the name meant, but I couldn’t remember. Probably something to do with the sun or the moon or a goddess. Most women in India seemed to be named after one of that particular trinity.

  ‘What customers?’ I said. ‘No one’s even entered the street since I’ve been sitting here.’

  She came out, sat down beside me and held out her hand for a cigarette. I passed her one.

  ‘Do you blame them?’ she said, taking a puff as I held a match to the fag. ‘One sahib sitting here on our doorstep. And he is a police-wallah too. They take one look at you and tell the rickshawpuller to keep walking.’

  ‘They must have phenomenal eyesight to make me out in the dark at that distance. Psychic too, no doubt, if they can tell I’m a policeman. You must have the most accomplished clientele in the city. Which reminds me, soliciting is illegal in Calcutta. I could have you arrested.’

  ‘Please,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Everyone knows police don’t arrest working girls. They wait round the corner for the clients, then threaten to lock them in prison if they don’t pay a bribe.’

  That much was true. Prostitution, like drug trafficking, fell under the remit of Callaghan’s Vice Division, but halting the comfort trade was like holding back the tide – or stopping the non-violence movement. You could arrest every hooker in town tonight and the brothels would be full of new girls by tomorrow. Now and again, the police made a show of conducting raids, mainly for the benefit of the papers, but most of the time Callaghan’s men restricted themselves to drugs, and it was the officers from the local thanas who stepped in to fill the void, waiting in alleyways to catch the girls’ clients and fleece them as a means of income supplementation.

  ‘Also, if you did try to arrest me,’ she continued, ‘you would have three problems.’

  ‘Three?’ I asked.

  ‘Three.’ She nodded. ‘One: you cannot arrest me only without arresting also all the other girls in the street. It will look like favouritism. Two: everyone knows all the jails are full. You have nowhere to put us.’

  ‘And three?’

  ‘Three,’ she said emphatically, ‘with all the girls gone from the street, this will become a respectable para and the landlord will triple your rent.’

  I couldn’t fault her logic. Indeed, Bengali women were often a force to be reckoned with. Once they’d got an idea in their heads, there was no dissuading them. My own theory as to why Bengali men spent so much of their time talking politics and agitating against British rule was because it was easier to protest against our tyranny than that imposed upon them at home by their womenfolk. At the very least, the matter merited further study.

  ‘Now go,’ she co
ntinued as she stood up. ‘Take one of your walks. Go wherever it is you go to half the night.’

  I was about to protest, but then I thought, why not? It was still early but it was dark, and I might as well head off and take my chances in Tangra rather than hang around Premchand Boral Street, putting off the punters and smoking till the fags ran out.

  I stood up, gave her a nod and headed out into the night.

  The nearest tonga rank was a few streets away and I made straight for it. In the early days, I’d avoided it, using tongas from further afield and frequently changing my route, but of late I’d dropped all pretence, the urge for a hit of O trumping any thoughts of precaution. But that was something I was about to regret. As I turned into College Street, a fair-haired, well-built man, English judging by the cut of his suit, stood reading a newspaper under the glow of a lamp post. He looked up as I approached and something in his expression suggested familiarity.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a light, would you?’

  Instinctively I reached into my pocket for the book of matches, tore one off and struck it. The gentleman held out his hand, but in it was not a cigarette but a revolver. From behind me came the sound of a car drawing to the kerb. I looked round to see a rear door open.

  The flame on the cardboard match burned down, singeing my fingers and I threw it to the kerb.

  The man gestured towards the car with his gun. ‘Get in,’ he said.

  I considered objecting, but it’s tough to argue with a revolver pointed at your stomach. Instead I did as I was told and got into the car, followed by my new friend with the gun. There was another suited gorilla waiting in the back, which made things rather cosy. Up front an Indian driver put his foot down as soon as the door was closed.

  I breathed in and tried to keep calm, telling myself that my captors seemed far too polite to be the sort to kidnap me just to put a bullet in my brain. Besides, I reasoned, if my execution was on the cards, whoever had ordered it would have sent natives rather than Englishmen for that particular job. It was cleaner that way.