The Calcutta Chromosome

by Amitav Gosh

  'But why Lutchman?' said Antar.

  'Let me put it like this,' said Murugan, 'whoever picked Lutchman knew exactly what they were doing. For one thing, they knew enough about microscopy to make sure that he didn't have any malaria parasites in his blood. Ronnie was being second guessed here. Somebody had figured out what was going to happen if Ronnie got a positive result after feeding Lutchman mosquito water. He was going to link the parasites to Doc Manson's theory and bingo! there goes the schedule. Months, maybe years could go by while Ronnie chases around Begumpett, making the 19th Madras Infantry drink dead mosquitoes.

  'So they stepped in; they sent him someone who didn't have any parasites. Remember that this is a place where the rates of malaria in the general population are so high they're off the charts. It isn't easy to find people who don't have any trace of the parasite in their blood. But these guys reach into their bag, pick out someone who's just right, and then they send him over to Begumpett General. It works: Ronnie's back on track, and right on schedule. And better still they've planted Lutchman exactly where they want him, where he can run interference for the whole team.'

  'But,' said Antar, 'wouldn't Ross have noticed something so obvious?'

  'Ronnie?' Murugan laughed. 'Ronnie wouldn't have noticed if Lutchman wore it on a T-shirt. If anything but a parasite comes calling, Ronnie's out to lunch. The way Ronnie tells it, he was short of help at the time, so he decided to hire Lutchman as a houseboy-cum-gofer. All that Ron ever knew about him was that his name was "Lutchman" and that he was a "dhooley-bearer" by trade.

  'For the next thirty-four months – the entire period that Ron's working on malaria – Lutchman sticks to him like roll-on deodorant. Starting May 1895, until July 1898, when Ron makes his final breakthrough in Calcutta, Lutchman almost never lets Ron out of his sight. He gets pretty good at doing luggage impersonations. "I left Secunderabad with the smallest possible 'kit'," says Ronnie, "my microscope and my faithful Lutchman."

  'It gets so that even Ron can't help noticing that Lutchman's making some pretty important connections for him. In April 1897, Ron takes a break in the Nilgiri Hills. He takes Lutchman with him, to Ootacamund – "a bit of England placed on the rounded tops of the Nilgiri Hills", says Ron. But Ron goes down to the Westbury coffee estate in a valley, looking for malaria parasites, and there for the first time in his life, he gets malaria.

  'While he's recouping Lutchman succeeds in planting a crucially important idea in his head: that the malaria vector might be one particular species of mosquito. "Oh, yeah?" says Ron; he thinks Lutchman's full of shit: he's been getting a lot of negative results but it's never occurred to him that they might have something to do with family differences among mosquitoes.

  "Tell you what, Lutch," says Ron, "next time I want your help I'll ask for it." But after Lutchman plants this little seed something begins to stir in the mud; a creature begins to take shape in Ron's head.

  'He starts eyeballing every different species of mosquito he can get his hands on. Trouble is Ron doesn't know a goddam thing about mosquitoes: he's never even heard the word anopheles. He ends up chasing after Culex, Stegomyia - going every which way but ahead. Now Lutchman cuts in once again. On August 15 1897 he goes into a huddle with the rest of his crew and decides something's got to be done double quick.

  'The way Ronnie tells it: "Next morning, 16 August, when I went again to hospital after breakfast, the Hospital Attendant (I regret I have forgotten his name) pointed out a small mosquito seated on the wall with its tail sticking outwards." Ronnie kills it with a puff of tobacco smoke and cuts it open: nothing. But at last he's on the right track: Lutchman's got him chasing after the real malaria vector. Ron still doesn't know they're called anopheles: names them "dappled-wing mosquitoes".

  'Next day Lutchman makes sure Ronnie gets more of the same: sends him a jarful of anopheles with the same attendant. "Sure enough," says Ronnie, "there they were: about a dozen big, brown fellows, with fine tapered bodies and spotted wings, hungrily trying to escape through the gauze covering of the flask which the Angel of Fate had given to my humble retainer! – dappled-winged mosquitoes'… " Angel of Fate my ass! With Ronnie it always has to be some Fat Cat way up in the sky: what's under his nose he can't see.

  'On August 20 1897 Ronnie makes his first major breakthrough: he sees the placement of Plasmodium zygotes in the stomach sac of Anopheles stephensii. "Eureka," he says to his diary, "the problem is solved."

  "Whew!" says Lutchman, skimming the sweat off his face. "Thought he'd never get it."

  'Later Ron asks him: "Yo, Lutch, where'd you get that hot tip about mosquito species?" Lutchman plays dumb: "Oh, some villagers up in them hills happened to mention it one morning while grazing their goats." And you know what? Ron buys it. He thinks Lutchman hit upon this bright idea while gambolling in the hills with happy natives.

  'What gets me about this scenario is the joke. Here's Ronnie, right? He thinks he's doing experiments on the malaria parasite. And all the time it's him who is the experiment on the malaria parasite. But Ronnie never gets it; not to the end of his life.'

  Chapter 12

  THE TAXI SLOWED to a crawl on Chowringhee. Every time Murugan turned to look back he was certain he'd spot the boy with the printed T-shirt, weaving through the traffic at a run. But there was still no sign of him when the taxi turned onto Theatre Road. Murugan's fingers began to unclench.

  Halfway down Theatre Road Murugan spotted a roadside vendor selling rubber slippers and stopped the taxi. He spent several minutes choosing one for himself and felt much better for it. He jumped into the taxi and waved the driver on, impatient to get back to the guest house on Robinson Street.

  The guest house was one thing he could congratulate himself on. It was just down the road from where Ronald Ross had lived while he was in Calcutta. Ross had stayed at a 'Europeans only' boarding house at number three; the Robinson Guest House, where Murugan was staying, was on the fourth floor of number twenty-two.

  Murugan had found the place entirely by accident, listed in a dog-eared typewritten roster at the airport's tourist information desk. The woman behind the desk had been trying to nudge him towards five-star hotels like the Grand and the Taj. She was doubtful when he picked the Robinson Guest House. It was a recent entry on the list, she told him; she couldn't vouch for it, she didn't know of anyone who'd stayed there. He would do better to go to a hotel.

  'But it's exactly where I want to be,' Murugan said in triumph, 'on Robinson Street.'

  He had no idea what it would be like of course, and was pleased when Robinson Street proved to be leafy and relatively quiet, lined with large modern blocks of flats and a few old-fashioned colonial mansions. Number twenty-two was one of the older buildings, a massive four-storey edifice, studded with graceful columned balconies: probably once the grandest building on the street, its Doric facade was now much bruised and discoloured, its plaster blackened with mildew.

  He went up to the fourth floor in a rattling birdcage of a lift that ascended through the centre of a winding teakwood staircase. When the lift came to a stop Murugan stepped gingerly onto the splintered planks of a wooden landing. A beam of sunlight, shining through a hole in a stained-glass window, revealed a small sign beside the tall door to his right. It said: The Robinson Guest House. Beneath it was a nameplate for N. Aratounian.

  Dragging his leather suitcase behind him, Murugan went to the door and rang the bell. Several minutes later he heard footsteps on the other side. Then the door swung open and he found himself looking at an ashen-faced, elderly woman in a frayed dressing gown and rubber slippers. 'Hi,' said Murugan, sticking out a hand. 'Any vacancies today?'

  Ignoring his hand, the woman looked him up and down, frowning through her gold-rimmed bifocals. 'What do you want?' she said, peremptorily.

  'A room,' said Murugan. He tapped the sign by the door. 'This is a guest house, right?'

  Mrs Aratounian cocked her head so she could examine him through the lower halves of her gl
asses. 'I don't believe you've introduced yourself,' she said.

  'The name's Murugan,' he said. 'But feel free to call me Morgan.'

  Mrs Aratounian sniffed. 'You'd better come in, Mr Morgan,' she said. 'I don't have much to offer by way of accommodation but I'll show you my spare room. You can decide for yourself whether you want to stay or not.'

  She led Murugan through a musty drawing room, cluttered with doilied peg-tables, silver-framed photographs and porcelain statuettes. Pushing open a door, she ushered him into a large sun-lit room with very high ceilings. A mosquito-netted bed stood marooned in the centre of the marble floor, like a drifting raft. Directly above it, suspended from an iron hook, hung a bulbous, long-stemmed ceiling fan.

  At the far end of the room was a small balcony. Crossing the room, Murugan went out, leaned over the balustrade and looked up and down the street – from the tree-lined cemetery at the Loudon Street end, to the traffic on Rawdon Street, to his right. Shading his eyes, he threw a glance diagonally across at number three Robinson Street. He caught a brief glimpse of a large, old-fashioned colonial mansion, set within high walls and surrounded by ornamental palms. He noticed that the front of the house was covered with bamboo scaffolding and that the driveway was littered with piles of bricks and cement.

  Murugan pumped a fist: the location was as good as he could have hoped. 'I'll take it,' he said to Mrs Aratounian. He dumped his luggage on the bed, took a shower and went off to look for the Ross memorial.

  That was just a few hours ago, but now, Robinson Street looked quite different. It was packed with cars, all the way down its length: not the usual Ambassadors and Marutis but big expensive Japanese and German cars. The cars were disgorging men in starched dhotis and kurtas and bediamonded women in dazzling saris. A wedding was in progress in the compound of a large multi-storeyed block of flats. Music was blaring under the chequered awning of a colourful pandal. A brilliantly illuminated archway over the entrance bore the legend 'Neeraj weds Nilima', spelt out in flowers. The whole street was lit up – all except number three which seemed, in contrast, to be sunk in a well of darkness although it was right next door to the wedding.

  Walking towards the guest house Murugan paused at the gateway of number three. All he could see of the mansion was the high wall, plastered with handbills and painted slogans; the brilliance of the surrounding lights seemed to have deepened the shadows around the compound. Going over to the steel gates, he saw that they were fastened by a heavy chain. He banged on the gates, just in case there was a watchman inside to let him in. There was no answer. Stepping back, Murugan looked up at the mansion's looming silhouette: it was much more imposing close up than he had expected.

  Suddenly, there was a power cut and the lights went out, all the way down the street. There followed an instant of absolute stillness; everything seemed to go quiet, except the chirruping of the cicadas in the nearby trees and the trumpeting of conches in the far distance. In that instant Murugan heard the soft bell-like ringing of metallic cymbals, somewhere within the mansion. He looked up, at the shuttered windows above, and saw a flickering orange rectangle materialize in the darkness.

  He jumped, startled, and looked again. It was merely dim firelight, leaking through the ragged edges of a rotten window frame. Then with a deafening roar, a generator came on at the wedding next door, and an interrupted filmsong screeched upwards through the octaves as a recordplayer came slowly back to life.

  Murugan was certain now that the mansion wasn't empty: from the sound of it there was some kind of ceremony under way inside. He stepped up to the gates and rattled the chains. To his surprise, they fell away from the gatepost: someone had forgotten to lock them.

  Murugan pushed the gate open and stepped in. It was dark but his keychain had a small flashlight attached. He took it out, switched it on and shone it ahead. The beam lit upon heaps of bricks and cement, lying in the driveway. There was a colonnaded portico at the apex of the curved drive, covered with a net of bamboo scaffolding. Murugan could see a doorway beyond, leading into the pitch-dark interior of the house.

  Bits of grit and cement lodged in Murugan's rubber sandals as he walked up the driveway. He shook them out and went up to the portico. It led into a vast hallway. He pointed his flashlight into the darkness. The beam skimmed over piles of mattresses and mosquito nets, stacked neatly in the corners.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: 'Anyone in?' His voice was no match for the deafening roar of the nearby generator. He looked around, following the uneasy shadows that skimmed over the cavernous darkness of the hallway. Then his ears picked up a sound, a dull pounding, like a drum. It seemed to be somewhere within the house, but it was hard to be sure because of the generator and the blaring loudspeakers.

  He was about to go further into the hallway when a second beam of light appeared in the doorway. He heard an angry voice shouting: 'Who is that? Kaun hai? What are you doing here?'

  He spun around and his flashlight fell on a man in a Nepali cap, running towards him, gesturing angrily with a chowkidar's nightstick.

  Murugan gave him a two-fingered salute, affecting a cockiness he did not feel. 'Just looking around,' he said.

  The Nepali watchman shook his stick under Murugan's nose, turned him around and began to push him down the steps of the portico.

  'Just taking a look,' Murugan said mildly. 'I didn't touch a thing.'

  The watchman launched into a long tirade; Murugan could only catch snatches of it: he was telling him that no one was allowed in, there was construction going on inside.

  Halfway down the driveway, the watchman reached up and pointed angrily at a large tin signboard. It was nailed into the trunk of a tree, beside the driveway. Murugan was surprised that he had missed it on his way in. It said: Site for the Robinson Hotel : private property; no trespassing; pro prietor and developer Romen Haldar.

  Murugan shook his arm free and went over to take a closer look. The watchman followed close behind, his voice growing louder.

  Murugan turned on him suddenly. 'Who's that?' he said. 'Who is Romen Haldar?'

  The watchman paid no attention to his question. He took hold of his elbow, jerked him sideways and began pushing him towards the gate. Murugan caught a glimpse of the hilt of a sheathed kukri, sticking out of the top of his trousers.

  As the watchman pulled the gate open, Murugan turned to take a last look, shining the beam of his flashlight into the debris-strewn garden. It fell upon a clothes line, strung between the trunks of two palms. Hanging amongst the dhotis, underwear and saris was a T-shirt with a print of palm trees and a beach.

  Then the watchman gave him a shove and slammed the gates shut.

  Chapter 13

  ANTAR POURED Murugan another cup of the restaurant's hot green tea. 'Do you have any theories about who Lutchman really was?'

  'I've got some leads,' said Murugan. 'Too many, maybe. As I see it, he was all over the map, changing names, switching identities. My suspicion is that he was the pointman for whoever was the real brain behind the scheme.'

  'I see,' said Antar. 'But do you know anything at all about him apart from what Ross had to say?'

  'As a matter of fact I do,' said Murugan. 'There's a reference to him in a diary.'

  'Whose diary?' said Antar.

  'It's like this,' said Murugan. 'There was this one guy we know about who once spent a weekend in the house that Ron lived in, in Secunderabad. Lutchman was part of the household too: in fact he was almost like family for Ron.'

  'Go on.'

  'Remember,' said Murugan, 'that by the time Ron starts working on malaria he's a happily married man with a couple of kids. But he's also an army officer, working under military conditions of service. That means that while he's frying in the Secunderabad heat, his wife and kids are living up in the hills, with a parallel army of British military wives.

  'Ron gives his extra-scientific life in Secunderabad exactly two sentences in his Memoirs: "On the 23rd [of April 1895] I left f
or Secunderabad… and I lived there in a bungalow en garcon, with Captain Thomas, the Adjutant, and Lieut. Hole, both first-rate fellows. We had our mess, and there was the Secunderabad Club, where we played golf and tennis; but I kept no ponies, as I expected to be put upon special malaria work at any time."

  'You don't have to break a sweat trying to imagine Ron's set-up in Secunderabad: it's straight out of one of those BBC rent-a-serials: sprawling colonial bungalow; whitewashed walls, mile-high ceilings, cool, dark interiors, elephants parked in the driveway, turbaned servants salaaming the sahibs, doped-out punkahwallahs stirring the air with palm-leaf fans, polo ponies, tennis rackets, cummerbunds, the whole fucking paratha.

  'He calls it a bungalow, but don't let him fool you: this place has a couple of dozen rooms, and half an acre of garden. Then there are the servants' quarters, way out back, where you can hardly see them: a long, low line of rooms. The rooms are pretty small, but some of them have six or seven people living inside and some have whole families in residence. This is where Lutchman moves in, exactly a month after Ron arrives in Secunderabad. But Lutchman's quite high up in the pecking order: he's been personally selected by the big doctor sahib. He gets a room to himself. He moves in all his stuff and gets nicely settled in.

  'To Ron this bungalow-shit is pretty routine; he hardly notices it: ho hum another day. If he wasn't living like this out here in Secunderabad he would be doing the same somewhere else. Around the world there are thousands of British army officers who are living exactly this way – in South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya, you name it. Most of them are dickheads who'd believe you if you told them that Plasmodium was Julius Caesar's middle name. It just so happens that in this particular bungalow in Secunderabad there's this one guy who's doing world-class science, and who's so caught up in what he's doing he hardly notices whether there's anything happening around him and there is, there's a lot happening around him, only the stupid son-of-a-bitch is such a fucking genius he doesn't know.