I Am an Executioner

by Rajesh Parameswaran

  “Yes,” Manju said. “That’s why people call doctors, isn’t it? Can I make an appointment, please?”

  Gopi was surprised to find that Manju’s voice, transmitted over the anonymizing phone, had an authority he had never appreciated in real life, and Gopi felt suddenly uncertain of his ability to bluff through the situation.

  “Hello?” Manju asked.

  The silence grew, and now Gopi panicked. He hung up, and when the phone rang again, he ignored it.

  He had only a few minutes to wonder what in fact was wrong with his wife when he was interrupted again, this time by Vicente and Sandra walking in through the door. They held each other’s hands stiffly.

  The look in their faces struck Gopi with alarm. “Sorry to bother you, Doctor,” Vicente said. “But seems like, maybe, there’s a problem.”

  “I did everything well,” Gopi said. “What problem? Everything is fine.” Sandra’s face turned red, and Vicente looked at her, then at Gopi. And then Vicente began to cry.

  “He has pain,” Sandra tried to explain, as she and Gopi waited for Vicente to compose himself.

  Gopi saw that the young man had tied a white cloth around his forearm, and the cloth was soaked through with some dark fluid, and his hand and fingers below were plumply swollen.

  When he unwrapped the bandage in the examining room a few minutes later, the smell hit Gopi so hard he staggered to the door and leaned out of it for a few moments. When he came back, he tried to breathe through his mouth. He already knew from his reading what had to be done, and that there was no time to waste. As Sandra stood anxiously at the far end of the room, Gopi anesthetized Vicente’s arm and began to cut away the blackening flesh. He cut and he threw the sloppy matter into the trash can and closed the lid, but still the stench didn’t go away, so Gopi cut more. Blood oozed from the cavity in Vicente’s arm, filling the hole and spilling to the floor. Gopi spooned out the blood with a plastic cup and cut quickly before the hole filled again. Sandra held her hand to her mouth and cried, and Gopi told Vicente, “Tell her to stop moaning, won’t you?” but Vicente’s eyes were half closed and his head was nodding backward and he didn’t say anything. Gopi cut more and became very frightened when finally he encountered a length of white bone.

  After he and Sandra laid Vicente in the back of his car, Gopi watched Sandra drive away (on her way, we know now, to the Manvel General Emergency Room). Then he stood on the pavement, damp and terrified, and let his head slump down to see the footprint-spattered trail of red leading from inside the examining room all the way to the parking lot, to terminate there, at Gopi’s feet. Inside, minutes later, he didn’t notice the sound of the front door opening, or hear the footsteps leading to the examining room door, or see his wife walk in until she was two feet away from him.

  Manju and Gopi stared at each other in silence. She studied her husband’s bewildered eyes and looked at the lab coat he was wearing. She saw the gore-caked instruments, and she remembered Dilip Shenoy’s odd expression at the temple the day before, and the voice on the phone when she had tried to make an appointment. She clutched harder the library book she held in her arms, and remembered Gopi’s strange jokes in the bedroom, and the increasingly implausible stories about his advancements in television sales. And she remembered the lies Gopi had told everyone all his life.

  And Gopi—exhausted, for once guileless—quietly pried the book from her trembling hands, bookmarked and dog-eared, and stared dumbly at the picture it showed: a woman’s ovaries, bloated and blistering, laid out on a dissecting table, with a label that read INOPERABLE. The dull fear in his eyes was obvious to Manju.

  “What’s the matter?” Manju asked. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “You’re such a famous doctor. Can’t you help me? Hm?”

  Gopi was unsure, for a moment, if his wife was credulous or mocking, but something in her tone seemed to demand an answer.

  “I can try,” he said simply.

  There are those who will never accept what must have happened next. They don’t understand what Manju saw in Gopi, for a few moments, here at the dying-ember end of our story. But there is a reassuring certainty to some unlucky lives, which is to say that fear has no place for persons already doomed; and a kind of calmness descended on Manju, seeing her husband covered in some other man’s blood, seeing him drained and frightened. And isn’t it possible that Manju herself found in Gopi’s examining room the iodine and the novocaine, the knife and the needles? Manju herself lay down on the examining table, just as the Manvel General doctors, having gotten the details from Sandra, were phoning the police station.

  Gopi was still nervous, no doubt. It took him some time to fathom the hopeless clarity of the situation. But Manju’s calmness would have calmed him, and soon he understood there was no help for either of them outside of that room. The news stations had even somehow gotten hold of the story—didn’t some of us hear the name on the radio and wonder who this doctor was, and if maybe we had met him at a function somewhere? And on his own, without asking, Gopi picked up the scalpel, knowing the red and blue lights would soon be shimmering through the cracks in the window blinds. We are with them as he picked up the scalpel and looked in Manju’s eyes, knowing what the police would have no choice but to do when they came through the door and saw him doing what he was about to do.

  But now those anxious police officers were still miles away along the highway. Vicente’s friends had left for work already. The dry cleaner’s clerk was late as usual. Only the skinny cows in their dirt-patch field could know what noises came from that desolate office building, and so there are some who will always have doubts—who will cling to their versions with the same shiftless confidence with which those cows stood waiting under the midday sun, dulled to their own fate or anyone else’s—and who will never believe what happened when Manju looked down, and followed the sure movements of Dr. Gopalarajan’s fingers, and smiled.

  FOUR RAJESHES

  DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION, RAJESH, to this yellowed photograph you purchased in a South Indian antiques market, a portrait of my own distinguished self: a turn-of-the-century Brahmin standing outside a mud-walled train station, wearing a crisp white vaishti edged in gold and a dark shut-coat buttoned smartly to the neck. My handsome face is capped with a majestic white turban; in my stern gaze and thin, unsmiling lips, you detect an autocratic temperament and anxious dignity reminding you of certain men in your own extended family. Around my neck, a garland of roses lies heavily, and the markings on my forehead show that, like you, I am an Iyer. Moreover, my name—P. Rajarajeshwaran Iyer—written across the portrait in a fine hand beneath my feet, seems a version of your own. (A grander version, to be sure.) Yet another coincidence: Painted on the building behind me, in block English letters, above some fuzzy chalk marks, is the word ROMBACHINNAPATTINAM—the name of your own ancestral village.

  Who was I, you wonder? Some distant ancestor, some early echo of yourself? What were my days like? To answer you: I was manager of Rombachinnapattinam’s first rail station, and, for all our similarities, my life was nothing like yours. For one, I lived in Rombachinnapattinam, a hamlet that had changed but little—prior to the introduction of the railroad—in its four hundred years of existence. The things you care about had nothing, and yet everything, to do with me. What do I mean? Allow me to tell you, in explanation, about a singular and profound incident in my life, to wit, my relationship with a peculiar young clerk in my office, to whom I will refer simply as R. (Allow me to tell you? My dear boy, having imagined my voice into existence, you give me little choice!)

  I was still new to my post when I met R. I sat writing at my desk and spied him peeking awkwardly into my office door. He stood there in vaishti and topknot, his face round with boyfat, barefoot and totally shirtless. He was a Brahmin, clearly, but a poorer sort than I. At once, I took him for one of the countless busybodies and bores who loitered at the station of a lazy afternoon to watch the Madras Mail arrive, pause briefly, and depart, and I was
a little peeved that my attendant and factotum, Dhananjayan Rajesupriyan, had not intercepted the lad, to direct him on to the platform where he should more properly have waited. Little did I know what impact this humble visitor would have on my life! But at the time, I fancied myself too busy to give him more than an irritated thought. I called out curtly, “Can I help you?”

  He did not answer, but continued, annoyingly, to stand there.

  “Young man, the Madras Mail arrives at three thirty-eight. You are early.”

  He shyly shook his head. At this point, thoroughly distracted from my work—I was preparing a letter, tactful but firm, to my nominal supervisor, who was also my fiancée’s uncle, the Manager of Outbound Trains and Village Personnel in Madras, petitioning him hastily to fill the position of administrative secretary in my office, a post that had been too long vacant, resulting in my having to perform such unpleasant tasks as penning with my own hand these letters of complaint, rather than dictating them, as would be more becoming to someone of my position—thoroughly distracted, I rose and approached my visitor. (By the way, there is no such thing as a “Manager of Outbound Trains.” You are taking strange liberties. Anyway, let it be.)

  When I approached him, R. folded his hands in respectful greeting. I realized that he was not a mere boy, as I had first suspected. In fact, only a couple of years separated us.

  “Namaskaram, sir,” he said. “My name is Rombachinnapattinam R., father being Rombachinnapattinam N———, grandfather being Rombachinnapattinam V———. I am knocking on doors of kindly recommended Brahmin professionals because—”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “—because I am badly in need of a job to feed myself and my good mother—”

  “Your good mother …”

  “My good mother, good sir, and my good wife, myself being recently engaged for marriage. Being recently engaged, good sir, I do not know what to do, and come humbly to you for guidance and the generosity of your good offices, as I have been highly recommended by the late Dr. T. Lumbodharan, headmaster of Rombachinnapattinam Higher Secondary School, who had oftentimes told me that the order and capacities of my mind are not those of the average or commonplace person.”

  “The order and capacities of … dear fellow, do speak slowly!”

  “Good sir. My name is Rombachinnapattinam R. Father being Rombachinnapattinam N———. Grandfather being Rombachinnapattinam V———.”

  “Good God.”

  “Good sir!”

  “Ha!”

  Immediately, I forced a cough to mask my impetuous guffaw. A sweaty, twice nervous, villagey youth like R. come begging at my office would normally have earned from me a brief hearing and a curt dismissal. But there was something about this hapless fellow that made me a little hesitant to show him the door too quickly. I felt an unaccountable warmth toward him. His pitiable shyness, his touching excitement on meeting a man so far above him in accomplishment and station—a nervousness that amounted to a strange exuberance, his simple courage in thus approaching me, and the fact that he was a needy Brahmin and had been recommended by my own late headmaster—all this disposed me to deal gently with the odd fellow. He stood before me with hands clasped meekly on his ample stomach, looking up with large, beseeching eyes. A drop of sweat rolled in and out of the furrowed flesh of his brow, wormed its wet way down the crest of his capable nose, and hung for one pendulous moment.

  Before it completed its descent, I had made an impetuous decision. “How is your handwriting, young man?” I asked him.

  “Quite legible, sir,” he replied.

  And on the spot, I hired him as my secretary. After conveying to him the particulars of the job, I asked him to report the following morning, presentably, in shirt and sandals.

  Why did I take such a decision? It was one of those moments when the electric current of instantaneous affection arranges in its circuit a haphazard constellation of objective facts, arranges them in one’s mind into an apprehension or intuition, that is less than a reasoned judgment but more than a whim, but which has the feeling of a definite conclusion.

  In short, I have no idea why I took the decision. But I had no qualms about my choice, and I called for Dhananjayan Rajesupriyan to bring us tea, as a sort of celebration. Dhananjayan had been outside sweeping the platform, and when he came in carrying a platter with two steaming tumblers, he glanced at portly young R. sitting across from me, and promptly spilled the scalding tea all over my desk, soaking my moot half-finished letter, and sending warm dribbles onto R.’s lap.

  Such clumsiness was unlike Dhananjayan, so, rather than thrash him, I only twisted his ear until he yelped. Then I apologized to R. with profusion, and the good man good-naturedly took his leave.

  Dhananjayan Rajesupriyan was a lad of nineteen. A Vaishya from a poor and backward family of tinsmiths, he had been with me since the opening of our railroad station in 1908, some twelve months previous, an event which truly was the most exciting occasion in the memory of our southern village of Rombachinnapattinam. True, it was not much of a station—a mud hut with one large office, and a palm-roofed platform, but it bore the seal of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. And I was its manager. Yes, its manager—at the tender age of twenty-four. See, we Rombachinnapattinam Iyers have a comfortable kind of greatness in our genes, a tendency toward the early achievement of plummy bureaucratic positions—a trait I urge you (wouldn’t writing be easier if you found a sinecure?) not to squander. In my case, success was the consequence of certain strategic positionings on the part of my mother. Through her extensive network of distant family connections, she had secured for me a marriage to the niece of the aforementioned Manager of Outbound Trains. The engagement ceremony was some months hence, but I was already enjoying the fruits of the union.

  My managerial post was made immeasurably more pleasant by the presence of my cleaning person and Man Friday, Dhananjayan Rajesupriyan. Dhanu was diligent, neat, and responsible; indeed, I delegated to him much of the drudging work of managing the station—selling tickets, cleaning and maintaining the tracks, raising and lowering the flags—and he ably handled it all, on top of his more menial chores. But his youth made him sometimes impulsive and irritable.

  For example, later that day, he apologized to me most gravely for having spilled the tea. I assured him it was no matter, but then he frowningly added, “But I don’t like that fellow.”

  “Don’t like him!” I asked, surprised but not a little amused by his effrontery. “Bold boy! Why not?”

  “Because I think he is odd.”

  “Why, Dhananjayan Rajesupriyan, he is no odder than you, my good man,” I laughed. In truth, I was a little touched. Dhananjayan was very protective of me, and he felt obliged to be skeptical on my behalf.

  “Dhanu,” I asked, in a mood to express my appreciation, “after work today, take me to your father’s tin shop.”

  “But my father is not there today,” Dhananjayan protested.

  “And do you need your father for everything, silly boy?” I asked. “Can’t you do me a simple favor by yourself?”

  As my peon and I walked away from work that afternoon, and found ourselves alone outside the empty tin shop, and I had glared into silence the nakedly staring neighbors, some of whom had the temerity to shout rudely at me as I passed; after we were inside and had closed the door, Dhananjayan did not bother to point out that my roof was of tile, not tin. And after I had taken from Dhanu the rough, sweet kisses and greedy caresses for which I relied on the boy, I removed two annas from my cloth purse and pressed them in his palm, telling him all the while that he was a badly behaved young man, who, unless he shaped up, would amount to absolutely nothing—our respite over and my tenderness requited, my manager’s personality was again ascending.

  (May I interrupt myself? The preceding paragraph is unspeakable, disgusting, implausible, and totally unlike me. You have a vulgar imagination! I know that to you I am just a man in a photograph—and indeed, I appreciate your efforts in bringi
ng me to a kind of puppetlike life and transcribing my words as I speak them, even down to these too clever asides—but please consider that no doubt I was a real man, with an impeccable reputation in my time. What will people think? In any case, I am eager to get through this and have done with it, so leave it be.)

  Like you, Dhananjayan—diligent, dutiful chap—smiled grimly, ignoring my admonishments. He endured my affectionate pinch on his nose, and clasped the money perfunctorily. What was going on in young Dhanu’s head, I don’t know, but I meant those annas only as a token of affection, not as a price for his silence!

  And in any event, the next day, Dhanu and I spoke not a word of our pleasures the previous evening—pleasures which in the moment seemed each time simple and necessary, but which nevertheless gave me afterward a queasy feeling, a sense that I was doing something secretly monstrous. This morning held a particular distraction: when I arrived at work, R. was already there, cheerfully seated on the floor, scribbling in his tea-stained and stiff-paged notebook. The shirt he wore was threadbare, long faded of any decipherable color. He’d pushed his sleeves past his elbows, but when he rose to greet me, they slipped two inches past the tallest of his fingers. On his feet were thin and cracked chappals, and his vaishti was the same one, tea-spattered, that he had worn the previous day.

  His appearance filled me with pity—he must have been poor indeed, and before even seating him, I instructed him on the location of my favorite tailor, and pressed a few annas from my own purse into his hand, telling him it was an allowance provided by the Railway for the outfitting of its employees. Then I showed him to his desk, advised him on the locations of our files, explained the timetables and the receipts. I have a very particular method of organization, which I decribed in no small detail, and he absorbed it all with great equanimity. I directed him on the arrangement and processing of the bags of mail that we were charged with transferring, letters from the people of Rombachinnapattinam to other towns throughout the Madras Presidency, and vice versa. He observed everything closely, and I could already see that he would be an attentive and fastidious clerk to me.