A Rising Man

by Abir Mukherjee

  On a whim I picked up the telephone and asked to be put through to Annie Grant at Writers’ Building. She answered on the third ring.

  ‘Miss Grant?’

  ‘Captain Wyndham? What can I do for you?’ She sounded distracted.

  ‘Would you care to join me for some lunch? If you’re free, that is?’ I told myself I’d use lunch as a pretext for questioning her further, but that was only half the story at best. I felt a gnawing in the pit of my stomach. It was ridiculous. How does a man survive three years of bombing, shelling and machine-gun fire and yet still tremble with nerves when asking a woman out for lunch? For a moment the line went silent. I held my breath and felt disgusted with myself.

  ‘I suppose I could make some time, Captain, but I’m not sure there’s much more I can say about Mr MacAuley that I didn’t tell you yesterday.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss Grant, perhaps I wasn’t being clear. I just thought it might be nice to have lunch… I don’t know many places here and wondered if you might be able to show me some… if you’re free, that is… my treat.’ Why did I need to make a conscious effort to stop talking?

  Her voice brightened. ‘Well, in that case, Captain, of course. Just give me fifteen minutes. I’ll see you on the steps outside my office.’

  Fifteen minutes later, I was waiting on the steps of the Writers’ Building and looking out over the square. She came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘Captain Wyndham.’ She smiled.

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘call me Sam.’

  ‘Well, Sam,’ she said, taking my arm and leading me down the steps, ‘shall we start your introduction to the culinary delights of Calcutta?’

  That sounded good to me, as did the word ‘introduction’. It suggested the promise of more to come.

  ‘How about that new place, the Red Elephant, on Park Street?’ she said. ‘It’s all the rage at the moment. I’ve been waiting for somebody to take me there.’

  I’d never heard of it. Not that it mattered. Whatever she suggested would have been fine with me, even a three-course meal at Mrs Tebbit’s.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said, so eagerly that she laughed like a schoolgirl on a picnic and I felt an irrational swell of pride. I suspected the laugh was for my benefit, but I didn’t care. Taking my hand, she led me to the street and hailed a passing tonga. And all the while I couldn’t help thinking how strange it felt holding another woman’s hand.

  The tonga wallah pulled on the reins and brought the contraption to a halt at the kerbside. He was a lean fellow, just muscle and sinew and skin tanned black by the Bengal sun. I helped Annie up on to the banquette, then climbed aboard myself.

  ‘Park Street chalo,’ she said. The tonga wallah gave another pull on the reins and pulled out into the stream of traffic. We headed in the direction of the Esplanade, away from the choked streets around Dalhousie Square and were soon travelling down Mayo Road towards the genteel thoroughfare that was Park Street.

  The Red Elephant was a discreet little place occupying the ground floor of a large four-storey building. There wasn’t much to see from the outside, just smoked-glass windows and a solid wooden door, in front of which stood an equally solid Sikh doorman. At times it felt as though every second Sikh in Calcutta was a doorman. You could understand why. They were so much bigger than the native Bengalis. As long as there were doors in Calcutta, a Sikh would never be short of employment. The fellow gave a curt nod and ushered us inside.

  The interior was dark and shiny, like some fashionable funeral parlour. Black marble floors, smoked-mirrored walls, ebony tables and against one wall, a bar, complete with black barstools and black barman.

  ‘Colourful place,’ I said.

  Annie laughed. ‘Once you get to know Calcutta, Sam, you’ll realise that the darker the restaurant, the more exclusive it is.’

  In that case, I reflected, the Red Elephant must have been as exclusive as they came.

  The trouble started with the maître d’, a pint-sized European, who materialised as if out of nowhere and barred our path. He was five feet four, maybe slightly taller with his nose in the air, and his demeanour was as dark as the rest of the place.

  ‘Do you have a reservation?’ he asked, the way a doctor might ask if you had syphilis. Judging by the number of empty tables, the lack of a reservation shouldn’t have been a problem. Nevertheless, he took a sharp intake of breath when we replied in the negative and consulted a ledger almost as tall as himself.

  ‘I’m afraid it could be difficult,’ he said, in a manner that suggested I’d just asked him to perform surgery.

  ‘You don’t look that busy,’ I said.

  The man shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I’ve nothing till at least three o’clock.’

  ‘You don’t have a single table till then?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, then turned to Annie. ‘Maybe you should try somewhere further down the street?’

  Her expression changed abruptly, as though the man had slapped her.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, taking my arm, ‘let’s try somewhere else.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, turning to the maître d’. ‘Surely you must be able to squeeze us in somewhere?’

  He shook his head again. ‘I fear sir may be new to Calcutta.’

  People had been saying that to me a lot, as though Calcutta was so very different from everywhere else in the empire. It was getting to be annoying.

  ‘Where do you think I’m from,’ I asked, ‘Timbuktu?’

  ‘Please, Sam,’ Annie said, ‘just leave it. For my sake?’

  I wasn’t about to argue with her. Instead, I glowered at the maître d’, then turned and followed Annie out.

  ‘What was his problem?’ I asked when we were back on the street. She didn’t answer, just kept walking with her back to me. I’m not exactly the most accomplished reader of women, but I could tell she was upset. ‘Are you all right?’

  She turned towards me. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

  ‘I think you should tell me the truth.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It’s not as though it’s the first time.’

  I still had no idea what she was talking about. ‘Not the first time for what?’

  She looked at me. ‘You really are an innocent, aren’t you, Sam?’ She sighed. ‘There was no table for us because it doesn’t set the right tone for my sort to be seen there. Let’s just say you’d have had no trouble if you’d turned up with an English girl.’

  My blood boiled. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘All that nonsense because you’re part Indian?’

  I might have been new to Calcutta and a stranger to its ways, but this was grotesque and I’d had enough of it. I turned to go back inside, not entirely sure what I was going to do, but I was a policeman and throwing your weight around was something you learned pretty early in the job.

  She took my arm. ‘Please, Sam. Don’t,’ she said wearily, her eyes glistening with the first hint of tears. It was enough to take the wind out of my sails.

  ‘All right,’ I said eventually, ‘but we still need to eat.’

  She thought for a moment, then her face lit up. ‘There is a place near here you might like. It’s nothing fancy, though.’

  If it made her happy, it was fine by me. She turned and hailed a couple of rickshaws.

  We pulled up outside a shabby little building whose front opened on to the pavement. A hoarding mounted on the first floor read, ‘The Glamorgan Hotel’. The place was packed. White-shirted waiters buzzed between diners squashed in around small square tables. The restaurant covered two floors, a main area and a mezzanine. The decor was simple, whitewashed walls and checked tablecloths, and all around the smell of honest cooking. A bank of fans whirred from the ceiling high above.

  I paid the rickshaw wallahs as Annie led the way into the restaurant. A rotund Anglo-Indian in a grimy apron and a handle-bar moustache came over and greeted her like an old friend.

&nb
sp; ‘Miss Grant!’ he gushed. ‘What a pleasure to see you again. It’s been such a long time I was beginning to worry!’

  ‘Hello, Albert,’ she said, taking his hand and giving him the sort of smile I’d hoped was reserved just for me. ‘This is my friend, Captain Wyndham. He’s new in town and I thought I’d take him to the best restaurant in all Calcutta.’

  ‘You are too kind, Miss Grant!’ he effused. Then, taking my hand, he shook it vigorously, ‘An honour to make your acquaintance, sir!’

  ‘Albert,’ said Annie, patting him on the shoulder, ‘is a Calcutta institution. His family have been running this place for almost forty years.’

  Albert beamed at her, then led us up the sagging steps of a narrow staircase to the mezzanine, where fewer tables were occupied. He selected one that offered a view of the restaurant below. ‘Special section,’ he effused, ‘reserved for my favourite customers!’

  He left and returned some moments later with two dog-eared menus. The general hubbub of conversation floated up from the tables below. I looked down a list of dishes that read more like incantations from some foreign holy book than items on any menu I was used to.

  ‘Maybe you should order for both of us?’ I said.

  She smiled and summoned a waiter who was hovering nearby and ordered a couple of dishes. The waiter nodded and disappeared down the stairs.

  ‘Glamorgan?’ I said. ‘Strange name for a restaurant.’

  ‘It’s an interesting saga,’ she replied. ‘The tale, as Albert tells it, is that his grandfather Harold was from around those parts. He came to Calcutta as a sailor on one of the old clippers. One night he got so drunk that he never made it back to the docks and his ship set sail without him. At first, he tried to sign on as a crewman on another ship heading west – he had a wife and family back home – but it was coming up to monsoon season and there were precious few vessels prepared to risk the voyage. Of those that did, none were prepared to take on a crewman with Grandpa Harry’s reputation. Finally he gave up, and reconciled himself to waiting several months in Calcutta before heading home. In the meantime, however, fate intervened. One day he met a Bengali girl, a nauch dancer. Poor Harry was smitten, captivated by her dancing. Forgetting about his family back in Wales, he set about wooing the girl, which was no mean feat for a penniless sailor, but he must have managed it because he ended up marrying her – not in a church, of course, but in a Hindu ceremony for whatever that’s worth – and spent the rest of his life in Calcutta. His sailing days were over and the only other thing he was any good at was cooking. So with what money he managed to scrape together, he opened this place and named it after his homeland. It still serves the best Anglo-Indian food in the city.’

  ‘A love story?’ I said. ‘That’s nice to hear. From what I’ve seen, most British and Indians tend to be at each other’s throats.’

  She smiled. ‘There was a time, Sam, when the Indians and the British got on extremely well. The sahibs wore Indian clothes and followed local customs. And, of course, they took native wives. It was good for the Indians, too. The British brought with them new ideas that led to an explosion of culture among the Bengalis. It triggered what they like to call the Bengal Renaissance. Over the last hundred years, this little place has churned out more artists, poets, philosophers and scientists than half of Europe. At least, that’s what the Bengalis would tell you.

  ‘The irony is that the new ideas brought by the British, of democracy and empirical reasoning, the ones they were so proud of and which the Bengalis took to heart so keenly, are the very ideas that the government now finds so dangerous when they’re espoused by people with brown skin.’

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘Who knows?’ She sighed. ‘Maybe it was the Mutiny? Maybe it was just time? After all, they say familiarity breeds contempt. I sometimes think the British and the Indians are like an old married couple. They’ve been together for what seems like forever; they fight and might think they hate each other, but at heart there will always be some mutual love there. Once you’ve been here a bit longer I think you’ll notice it too. They’re kindred spirits.’

  She was insightful, and obviously an intelligent woman. Beauty and intellect – it was a powerful combination. In that respect, she reminded me somewhat of Sarah.

  ‘And what about you, Miss Grant?’ I asked. ‘Are you British or Indian?’

  She gave a hollow laugh. ‘If an Indian doesn’t see me as Indian and an Englishman doesn’t see me as British, then does it really matter what I think I am? To be honest, Sam, I’m neither. I’m just a product of that first doomed flowering of British and Indian affection a hundred years ago, when there was nothing wrong with Englishmen marrying Indian women. Now we’re just an embarrassment; a visible reminder to the British that they didn’t always think of themselves as superior to the natives. You know what they call us, don’t you? Domiciled Europeans. That’s the official term. It sounds almost dignified until you consider what it actually means. We’re acknowledged as European but we have no home in Europe. You see, that fraction of Indian blood condemns us as outsiders, generation after generation.

  ‘And as for the Indians, they look upon us with a mixture of loathing and disgust. We’re the symbol of their precious Indian womanhood abandoning its culture and purity, and the inability of Indian men to stop it. To them we’re out-castes, quite literally; the physical embodiment of their impotence.

  ‘The worst of it is the hypocrisy. To our faces, both the English and the Indians can be perfectly pleasant, but in their own way, they each despise us. But then, this is a land of hypocrites. The British pretend they’re here to bring the benefits of western civilisation to an ungovernable bunch of savages, while, in reality it’s only ever really been about petty commercial gain. And the Indians? The educated elite claim they want to rid India of British tyranny for the benefit of all Indians, but what do they know or care about the needs of the millions of Indians in the villages? They just want to replace the British as the ruling class.’

  ‘And the Anglo-Indians?’ I asked.

  She laughed. ‘We’re as bad as the rest of them. We call ourselves British, mimic your ways and talk about Britain as the “old country”, when the closest most of us have ever been to England is Bombay. And we’re positively beastly to the natives, calling them things like wog and coolie, as though by treating them in such a fashion we’re showing you how different we are to them. And we’re ever so patriotic. Did you know that our most common Christian names are Victoria and Albert? We’re the most loyal people in the empire. And why? Because we’re terrified of what will happen to us if and when the real British do leave.’

  ‘A whole country of hypocrites and liars?’ I said. ‘Maybe you need to be less cynical, Miss Grant?’

  She smiled that wonderful smile at me as Albert arrived with our desserts.

  ‘Well, maybe not everyone,’ she said, placing a hand on Albert’s arm as he set down the plates. ‘As far as I’m aware, when Albert here says he makes the finest caramel custard in India, he’s telling the truth.’

  We finished lunch and made small talk over coffee. She asked about my family. I told her I had none. It was the truth, or at least a version of it.

  Till now we’d studiously avoided any mention of MacAuley. Still, his presence hung over the table like Banquo’s ghost. In the end, I’d no choice but to raise it as subtly as I could.

  ‘How are things at the office?’ I asked.

  ‘Pretty chaotic,’ she said. ‘Though nowhere near as bad as yesterday. There’s so much that Mr MacAuley was dealing with, so many things that required his signature, that half the department came to a standstill without him. But things are getting better slowly.’

  ‘Has his successor been appointed yet?’

  ‘Not officially, but it’s clear that Mr Stevens will be getting the job. He’s taken on most of Mr MacAuley’s responsibilities and I’ve already been appointed his secretary.’

  ‘That’s fortunate. I’ll n
eed to interview him. Can you arrange an appointment for me?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll get on to it as soon as I get back to the office, but it might take a while. He’s snowed under with work.’

  ‘What’s he like, by the way?’ I asked, recalling what MacAuley’s manservant had said.

  ‘Mr Stevens? Nice enough, I suppose. He’s one of the younger generation, keen on modernising everything.’

  ‘Did he get on with MacAuley?’

  She smiled. ‘Let’s just say they didn’t always see eye to eye. MacAuley was rather set in his ways. He didn’t care for some of the suggestions that Stevens made.’

  ‘Did they ever argue?’

  ‘Now and again.’

  ‘Recently?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Please, Annie,’ I said. ‘You’re not betraying any confidences and it’s important you tell me.’

  She stirred her coffee. ‘Last week,’ she said, ‘Thursday or Friday, I forget exactly when. Stevens barged into MacAuley’s office. It’s next door to mine and the connecting door was ajar. He all but accused MacAuley of doctoring some legislation.’

  ‘Did he threaten him at all?’

  She hesitated again. ‘Not in so many words, but he did suggest MacAuley would regret it.’

  That was interesting.

  ‘And how did MacAuley respond?’

  ‘Well, he was hardly a shrinking violet.’ She laughed. ‘He gave as good as he got.’

  ‘Do you know what the legislation related to?’ I asked.

  ‘Rubber,’ she replied. ‘Something to do with importation duties from Burma, I think.’

  ‘They had an argument about tax rates?’ I asked, deflated. So much for the possibility that MacAuley had been bumped off by a jealous colleague. Civil servants weren’t exactly known for their passions, and even if they were, a disagreement over rubber taxes hardly seemed to constitute grounds for murder. I changed tack.

  ‘Did MacAuley ever take work home with him?’

  ‘All the time, unfortunately,’ she said. ‘The man lived for his work.’