‘Get out, go to your own room, I’m going to undress now, no one will stay here,’ the daughter screamed through clenched teeth.
‘My dear girl, I’m your mother, you don’t have to feel embarrassed before me. I had a mother, too—I never disobeyed her,’ the lady tried to explain.
‘Is that why you left home at eighteen? Ran away with the butler?’ the daughter shouted mockingly.
Her mother flew into a rage. ‘Pamela, the person I ran away with was your father!’
‘Yes, but he was a butler.’ The daughter burst into laughter.
I was feeling quite sick by now—where had I landed up? I could comprehend nothing of this world. I felt angry with Bose-da—he had abandoned me here and was sleeping peacefully.
Many familiar faces swam up before my eyes—Chhoka-da from Ramji Lane, Hejo from Umesh Banerjee Lane, Panu from Nabakumar Nandy Lane, Keshto from Kashundia; they were all fast asleep. Only I was awake—I didn’t want to be, but I was. I didn’t dare close my eyes.
Meanwhile the verbal skirmish continued in full swing next door—I had already learnt half the secrets about the lady’s butler-father. The mother eventually said, ‘Should I sleep next door then?’
‘Yes, yes, how many times do I have to tell you? And if you still don’t go, I’ll call the boy and have you thrown out.’
Bursting into tears, the mother said, ‘Will you be able to sleep by yourself—you won’t feel scared?’
Her daughter laughed loudly and said, ‘I know you’ll be by my side till the day I die.’
The mother probably took her leave now, saying, ‘Goodnight, my girl—God bless you.’
At last the light went out next door, and Shahjahan Hotel finally surrendered to the night. And timid sleep from Kashundia eventually summoned up enough courage to tiptoe into my room and hold me in a close embrace.
I have no idea how long I stayed that way, but suddenly I woke up—someone was knocking very lightly at the door. I’d tried to learn the telegraph at the George Telegraph institute once—I’d even bought a telegraph machine—and the sound was identical.
As soon as I got up and unlocked the door in the dark, I heard a soft masculine voice, ‘Pamela! So you opened the door. I thought you wouldn’t.’
In a sleep-slurred voice I cried in panic, ‘What? Who are you?’
The stranger probably realized his mistake. Running away with his head bowed, he said, ‘Sorry, wrong number.’
I was trembling by now—I couldn’t make out where the figure in the nightgown had disappeared. Turning on the light, I went outside and discovered Gurberia fast asleep on his stool. At his feet was a cat happily enjoying a night’s rest, while on the other side of the stool was another one doing exactly the same thing. Only a light was keeping vigil above Gurberia’s head—and even that seemed taken aback by the turn of events.
There was no question of going back to sleep. There seemed nothing for me to do but wait for morning. The dirty sky above Shahjahan Hotel was gradually clearing up. Just like a head clerk arriving early and waiting for the junior clerks to arrive, glancing at the clock every now and then, I stared at the eastern horizon. Darkness hadn’t quite disappeared yet—but the bride had started throwing coy glances from behind her golden veil. In that near-darkness I spotted a man in briefs and vest at the corner of the terrace, doing freehand exercises, jogging on the spot, just like in slow motion pictures.
A darkish man, not quite young—a tight, lithe figure with, as I could make out even from a distance, grizzled sideburns. I went closer and saw that while he exercised in concentration, water boiled on a stove before him—as he did his routine, he glanced occasionally at the water.
He smiled at me and said in chaste Bengali, ‘Good morning. Are you an early riser too?’
‘Oh no,’ I replied. ‘My mother couldn’t get me out of bed come what may, but for some reason I’m up early today.’
I realized he knew who I was when he said, ‘You’re here to replace Rosie, aren’t you?’
He introduced himself at last. ‘My name is P.C. Gomez, Prabhat Chandra Gomez. I’m the musician here—the bandmaster.’
‘Do you live here?’ I asked.
‘I have no choice,’ he said. ‘When the cabaret ends at night, buses or trams don’t run in the city.’
He went into his room, emerged with a glass of water and poured it into the pan on the stove. ‘I’ll make a cup for you as well.’
I was about to object, but he paid no attention. ‘Our first meeting,’ he said. ‘I’m an ordinary man, let’s celebrate with a little coffee.’
‘Coffee? At this hour?’
Gomez smiled. ‘Yes. At exactly four in the morning, I normally have a very strong cup, without milk or sugar. You won’t be able to stomach it so strong, so I’ll give you some sugar. But I have no milk—sorry.’
I felt quite miserable putting the gentleman to all this trouble at that hour of the morning.
Pouring coffee into the cup, he said, ‘Brahms, the great composer, used to have coffee like this every morning.’
As I sipped the coffee I heard how Brahms made his coffee—and how, while sipping this bitter, strong and black brew, he had composed four symphonies, two piano concertos, one violin concerto and a double concerto for violin and cello. I couldn’t quite follow all that Gomez said, but it was obvious that he was speaking with feeling. I was about to wash my cup, but he wouldn’t let me. ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ he smiled and said. ‘When Schumann visited Brahms, did he wash his own coffee cup?’
I had no idea who Schumann was. My expression probably indicated to Gomez the depth of my knowledge of music. ‘The great Schumann,’ he said. ‘One article by whom turned the unknown Brahms into an overnight celebrity.’
My relationship with music had never been a very sweet one, but I hid my ignorance and asked Gomez, ‘Does that mean I’m Schumann, the king of music connoisseurs?’
‘Maybe not, but you’re my guest,’ he said. Without changing the subject, he continued, ‘What I’ve learnt from Brahms is that no pain on earth is pain, no want is a want, no agony is agony. Glorifying all our thorns, the flower of music blooms.’
Meanwhile, the sun was climbing in the sky. Gomez smiled sweetly and went into his room, saying, ‘The boys are still asleep, they have to be woken up.’
And I returned to my room.
I simply couldn’t forget the night’s experience. I peeped out and discovered that the door to the next room was shut. But Gurberia walked in, tea tray in hand. In a couple of seconds, however, he was back outside, having deposited the tray, and, making a face, started muttering to himself, ‘What a problem—this cabaret woman will neither lock her door nor wear any clothes.’
I was sitting quietly in my room when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Bose-da. Entering and closing the door behind him, he said, ‘You don’t have to open the door yourself—just say, come in. And if you’re not in a position to open the door, say, just a minute. With that minute you can take up to half-an-hour in a hotel. Got your bed tea?’
‘Bed tea?’
‘Yes. The tea that the Shahjahans of Shahjahan Hotel drink in their beds, without brushing their teeth, is known as bed tea.’
I said, ‘I just had coffee...’
I didn’t have to complete my sentence, he seemed to have understood as soon as I opened my mouth. ‘Terrace coffee on the first day—you’re a very lucky chap. Only two people in the world drink coffee at that hour—our Gomez and Brahma from Germany.’
‘Brahms, not Brahma,’ I smiled.
‘Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Besides, hasn’t Shakespeare said, what’s in a name? If I call Brahms Brahma, will his standing as a composer suffer, or will the Brahmo Samaj stop worshipping their god?’
Glancing at me, he changed his tone. ‘Didn’t get any sleep last night?’ he asked.
‘No, I managed,’ I muttered.
Bose-da nodded in understanding. ‘One feels that way at
first—I did, too. But then your eyes will get used to it, you’ll start thinking of all this as everyday affairs.’
Getting up off my bed, he said, ‘Take a bath quickly, we’ll go downstairs together. Mr William Ghosh must have consigned fourteen generations of my forefathers to hell by now.’
Breakfast began with bread and butter and omelettes. I was surprised at the shape of the teacups—Bose-da observed my reaction and said, ‘These are known as breakfast cups. One likes having a little more tea at breakfast.’
We might have carried on talking, but the bearer informed us that someone was waiting outside for me.
‘For me!’ I was astonished, but before I could say anything more, the visitor came in—it was Byron.
‘Good morning, sorry for intruding without notice,’ he said.
Doing the introductions, I said, ‘Bose-da, this is Byron, he’s the one who got me my job here.’
Bose-da was about to introduce himself, but Byron smiled and said, ‘And you are Shankar’s friend, the right hand of the manager of Shahjahan Hotel, Satyasundar Bose. You’ve been working here for eleven years, before that you tried to use your uncle’s connections to get a job at the Grand.’
Both of us were surprised—Bose-da simply couldn’t believe it.
‘There’s nothing to be surprised at,’ said Byron. ‘We’re private detectives, we have to be in the know—knowledge is our capital, and information our business.’
He broached the real subject at last. ‘Should I leave?’ asked Bose-da.
‘No, no, not at all, I need you. I got some bad news this morning, which is why I came immediately.’
‘What news?’ I asked.
‘My dear friend, Rosie is probably coming back.’
‘What!’ I cried out in anguish.
Byron said, ‘Mrs Banerjee has got some news of her husband. Her brother Khoka Chatterjee in Bombay has tracked him down, using the address I’d sent. All the admonitions have brought Banerjee’s attention back to family life—and Chatterjee has managed to pacify Rosie. Since Banerjee is on his way back, how can Rosie be left behind, especially in Bombay?’
I wasn’t prepared at all for such news early in the morning.
‘Don’t lose heart yet,’ said Byron. ‘I’ll meet Marco Polo before I leave—but the problem is, what if no other post is available?’
Bose-da thought for a while, and then cheered up and said, ‘Not to worry.’
Without wasting any more time, the two of them went off to meet Marco Polo. Not daring to go in with them, I paced outside the room. Mathura Singh asked, ‘Why are you waiting here? Please go in.’ I couldn’t tell him why. The three dignitaries had, in the meantime, started their conference over my future. I gave thanks to God, who had, unasked, given me friends like Bose-da and Byron, who in times of trouble fought for me without expecting anything in return.
When they emerged after about fifteen minutes, both were smiling. ‘If you have any thanks to give,’ said Byron, ‘reserve them for Mr Bose. It was he who explained in clear terms to Marco Polo how two persons are not enough to man the reception counter, how there’s no one to sell tickets for the cabaret, how he has no choice but to take the orders for food and drinks at Mumtaz himself even after ten hours at the reception desk.’
I looked at Bose-da gratefully. He clapped me on the back and said, ‘You’ve been sitting and thumping on the typewriter all these days—now you’ll have to stand with us and do some real work. Rosie or no Rosie, you’ll be on duty with us at the counter. The gain is mine, Mr Byron. Where’s the pleasure of being alive unless you get an obedient wife or a faithful assistant?’
‘Counter duty?’ I asked.
‘Yes, yes, it’s not very difficult, anyone can do it,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to get a couple of suits made—but you don’t have to foot the bill, the hotel will pay.’
‘But you people rattle off so many languages effortlessly—I can’t speak any of them properly,’ I said apprehensively.
Bose-da laughed loudly and said, ‘Let’s go to the counter, I’ll tell you about my experience.’
William Ghosh was waiting at the counter for Bose-da, his papers all in order. Bidding him goodbye, Bose-da said, ‘Since the boss isn’t giving you dictation now, you might as well run my errands, and I’ll teach you the trade secrets one by one. As I was saying, when I got the job, the advertisement they had put in the papers implied that they wanted someone who knew English like Shakespeare, Bengali like Tagore, and Hindi like Tulsidas—salary: seventy-five rupees. And in response they got me. I had all the qualifications, but a little mixed up—English like Tulsidas’s, Bengali like Shakespeare’s and Hindi like Tagore’s. But does that mean things have come to a standstill? Not at all. Anyway, forget all this nonsense and come round behind the counter.’
4
Now for the receptionist’s tale, also the tale of the reappearance of a woman capable of sending an entire hotel into a flurry of excitement, a woman named Rosie. The story of how, thanks to Bose-da’s benevolence, I learnt the different aspects of working in a hotel, how I learnt to please people, and how from my vantage point at the counter I saw the black magic of Calcutta unfold before my eyes.
But before all that, Sutherland’s saga. Even after all these years his face still floats up before me.
Sutherland’s lovely oval eyes reminded me of Lord Krishna.
Bose-da said, ‘You’re rather narrow-minded, trying to slap an Indian metaphor on to everything. Even if the metaphor isn’t appropriate, you won’t relinquish it. You cling to the Ishwar Gupta of old: observe, my countrymen, in how many ways I love my country’s dogs, casting aside foreign gods.’
‘That’s not fair!’ I said. ‘I’m turning a foreigner into my country’s god.’
‘However much you publicize him, was our Kishenchand as tall as Sutherland?’
‘We don’t measure our gods’ greatness with a tape measure,’ I said.
‘Perhaps not, but in describing Radhika’s physical beauty you leave no part from head to toe untouched,’ he shot back immediately. ‘Our gods were as short as we are,’ he continued, ‘while if anything can be compared with Sutherland, it’s Greek sculpture. You don’t have to go to Greece to see samples of it—the few that remain in old aristocratic houses in Calcutta will tell you what I mean. If one of those statues were lost, Sutherland could take its place.’
Even today, when Sutherland’s appearance becomes a bit hazy in my memory, I put Bose-da’s advice to reverse use and visit an old house I know on Chitpore Road to look at a nude male sculpted in the Grecian style. The exquisite figure has been damaged badly by neglect and vandalism—one arm is broken, a part of the face has disappeared in an accident. But that doesn’t pose any problem—in fact, it makes things easier, for I can see all over again the agony on his face at the cemetery in Lower Circular Road.
I had just started my career at the Shahjahan when I first saw Sutherland. I was told he had come to India on behalf of the World Health Organisation. I didn’t see him for quite a while after that, and I didn’t enquire after him either—after all, so many people came to the hotel every day and left. How many of these daily arrivals and departures could I remember? I’d heard that he had come in connection with work on an important vaccine, and that he had left India with the germs of a few dangerous diseases preserved in an icebox.
The next time I saw him was on the terrace of Shahjahan. The flight from London had landed at Dum Dum well after the scheduled time the previous night, so that by the time Dr Sutherland came back to the hotel, I was fast asleep in my room. I hadn’t even dreamt that when I woke up the next morning, it would be to find him in an easy chair on the terrace. In a singlet and trousers, he was gazing at the eastern horizon like a man in a trance. The rumbling of early morning buses and trucks floated in from the road in the distance, and he seemed to be listening intently to these sounds. Taken by surprise, I rushed back into my room. I was wearing nothing but a lungi.
Whe
n Gurberia turned up with the bed tea I asked, ‘How did that gentleman get to the terrace?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ he said. ‘Bose sahib came upstairs with him at night—number three seventy was empty, we put him in there.’
‘Are these rooms given out to guests?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know what Bose sahib’s plans are.’ I knew Gurberia was a little unhappy with Bose-da, and there was good reason for it—Parabashia was arranging a match for his daughter with a chap from the Coffee House. ‘He isn’t doing anything for me,’ Gurberia continued, ‘and yet he brings that gentleman up here late at night. I got scared at first—the naked ladies were sleeping in the three rooms over there. If it hadn’t been for Bose sahib, I wouldn’t have let the gentleman in—Markapala sahib has issued strict orders.’
I had learnt a lot of new words from Gurberia: he called Marco Polo Markapala. But I still didn’t know who had given the sobriquet ‘naked ladies’ to the foreign cabaret dancers.
Even the origin of Gurberia’s own name was shrouded in mystery. Bose-da claimed that a forefather of Gurberia’s must have savoured ‘gur’ or molasses in Uluberia, a small town close to Calcutta, and coined this name. Gurberia denied this stoutly. First, both he and his father were fond of fried stuff, neither was partial to ‘gur’. And secondly, no ancestor of theirs had ever been to Uluberia—their field of activity was strictly limited to Calcutta; specifically, they had long been associated with the problems of the distribution of potable water in the city. His uncle used to repair the Corporation’s water pipes, and his father was the ‘whole-time’ plumber of Shahjahan Hotel. But all his life, he had regretted earning less than the waiters despite being a technical hand. Waiters earned much more through tips than they did through their salaries, which was why this far-sighted father had got his son to take up a hotel job instead of becoming a plumber.
‘It’s all fate, sir, why else should I get terrace duty?’ asked Gurberia.
‘But guests have started coming to the terrace, too, so your luck seems to be changing,’ I said.
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