It was only shortly after Protima had returned with another splodgy red tilak from the temple priests on her forehead - ‘I was coming back on the Metro, only one in India, very quick journey' - that they discovered that, prayers to Goddess Kali or no prayers to Goddess Kali, everything was not for the best.
The door of their room, which they had not thought of locking, was thrust unceremoniously open. And there stood Assistant Commissioner Bhowmick. In full uniform. Swagger stick under his arm.
It took Ghote a second or two, sitting unable to move for shocked surprise on the flowery-topped stool beside the dressing-table, fully to absorb what he was seeing. Then in a burst of silent rage he thought, How is he daring to stand before me when he must be fully aware I know who set on to me those goondas under the Great Banyan. But perhaps, perhaps, he had counted on him not making the connection between a robbed wallet and a disappeared document.
Then he thought, Protima, she has never before seen this man, what will she be thinking? Wondering? Imagining? Fearing?
‘Mr Bhowmick,’ he said, the rage taking precedence over all else, ‘you are coming in here without even tapping the door. My wife is here. What are you meaning by this?'
ACP Bhowmick smiled, tigerishly.
'It is Mrs Protima Ghote I am here to see,' he said. ‘More than to see. To put under arrest.'
'Arrest? Arrest?' He struggled to believe what he had heard. 'But what for would you be arresting my wife?'
'On a charge of corruptly offering money to one by name Shibu.'
Corrupt? Offer-
He almost said, But it was myself who was offering that peon Shibu his bribe.
But Protima had now recovered from the sudden intrusion.
‘What nonsense you are talking,' she shot out. ‘I am not corruptly offering whatsoever.'
‘Madam, we have reason to believe differently. Unfortunately Shibu, who as you very well know was a peon employed by Mr Dutt-Dastar, a highly reputable lawyer in the city, is now deceased. Otherwise we would be able to confront you with him, and you would be already under arrest.'
Deceased. Out of the ACP's smooth talk Ghote had extracted that one word. Deceased.
With a stab of bitterness he decided not to puff out pointless questions. Deep down he knew how snake-birthmarked Shibu had not simply lost his post at Dutt-Dastar's chamber but had become deceased. Or rather why. Because he had sold that file marked Mrs Protima Ghote - Bombay. Had sold it to himself for the comparatively small sum of five hundred rupees. Except for that one disloyal act to A. K. Dutt-Dastar he would not have met his end. It was monstrous. Very well, Shibu was hardly a good man, no clerk Haripada. And, true, he had betrayed his master's trust, such as it was. But for that he did not deserve to die. To be brutally killed.
Then another thought. A brutal killing. That was what men of the stamp of M. F Tuntunwala and his Assembly House co-conspirator could order to be done. Perhaps they would go that far only with someone from among the hundreds of thousands of refugees who in the past had poured into the city, an almost nameless man whose death would pass unnoticed. But, pushed to an extreme, they would be willing to go further. To put an end to any life that stood in their way.
Then yet other thoughts came crowding in. Protima not just arrested but put behind bars. In the lock-up like a common woman criminal, some prostitute who had failed to pay a police jawan his weekly hafta or some petty female drug-seller of poor quality brown sugar, cramped and crowded in a hot and dirty cell. And later as an under-trial kept for years in a woman's prison, a place scarcely better. Rotting away.
Because this was no ordinary arrest, no arrest for a real crime that had been really committed. All right, Shibu had been bribed, if actually by myself, Protima's husband. But it was with only five hundred rupees, a small enough sum in this city riddled with corruption from bottom to top. And something else. The matter was hardly one to come under a senior officer whose duty it was to improve the traffic chaos of Calcutta, however that posting had been obtained.
No, it was plain. This whole business was in response to Protima's defiance this afternoon at A. K. Dutt-Dastar's chamber, her demanding the deeds of her own house. That was why she had been so easily promised them next morning. Because A. K. Dutt-Dastar had fully intended at once to report to M. F. Tuntunwala that his warning was being ignored. To report, well knowing that the Marwari millionaire would take immediate action. And now M. F. Tuntunwala through ACP Bhowmick was striking back.
And striking hard.
What to do? Really just only one answer. M. F. Tuntunwala wants the land on which Protima's house stands. It is the key to his plan to make crores of rupees out of the building of that new colony. And to get hold of that single place where a road can easily be built to the heart of the wetlands he is prepared to go to any lengths, having poor Shibu killed, putting my wife - my wife - in jail for year upon year. More, we are powerless to stop him. So it is a matter now of cowing down to ACP Bhowmick and stating we are ready to sell.
It cannot be anything else.
A tiny current of pleasure trickled then through the deepest part of his mind. Bombay. Back to Bombay. Life to be as it was before Protima was getting that letter.
'Mr Bhowmick,' he said with extreme caution, ‘is this a matter we may discuss?'
Again the ACP smiled.
But, Ghote thought, this is a smile with less of tiger.
He had not, however, reckoned with his wife. She, too, must have been thinking, and on much the same lines as himself. But she had come to a very different conclusion.
'What nonsense you are talking,' she fired off at him. 'No, Mr Bhowmick, there is nothing to discuss. I am well knowing you are making these threats so that I will agree to sell the house I am wishing from my heart's core to keep. But your threat is empty. I have bribed nobody. If you attempt to arrest me you will find yourself in trouble.'
ACP Bhowmick's eyebrows rose in his long, pale brown, oval face.
'I hardly think so,' he said. 'If it was not you yourself who handed a sum of five hundred rupees to that wretched peon, it was your money handed to him by your husband. And I can assure you that when I decide someone is to go to jail, to jail they go.'
Something in his silver-tongued certainty must have got through to Protima.
She turned to Ghote.
‘It is nonsense he is talking?' she asked, and there was not much certainty in her voice now.
He stayed silent for a moment.
How to answer? Only one way.
‘No. Not nonsense. There are very few times when, if a senior police officer is prepared to go to any lengths, he cannot put someone behind the bars, convicted or not. Whether it is in Bombay or Calcutta.'
He hated to see the look on her face then. The man she had with such confidence sent off to fight her cause at The Sentinel after the setback under the Great Banyan.
But the look was there. Even she must now be admitting that they were defeated.
ACP Bhowmick, however, spared her putting that into words.
‘Yes,' he said, ‘you could, of course, be charge-sheeted with this very serious crime, an offence under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. However, we in the police have a certain discretion in such matters, and I think I can safely say to you that, were you to leave Calcutta once and for all, I would be able to use such influence as I happen to have to see that you would hear no more of this matter.'
‘Very well,' Protima said, her voice lifeless as an answering machine's.
Ghote expected ACP Bhowmick to go then. He had achieved his object. Protima had abandoned her intention of staying in Calcutta. M. F. Tuntunwala's new nominee, whoever that might be, could buy the house whenever he pleased. But the tall, smartly uniformed assistant commissioner just stood where he was, looking thoughtful.
At last he spoke.
'You need not of course leave us this very evening, or even tomorrow morning. I hope I am able to behave like a gentleman. You can have what time you may nee
d. I imagine, for instance, that you will wish to instruct Mr Dutt-Dastar about the sale of this house you have inherited. And there is the Kali Puja festival at the weekend. It would be a pity for you to miss that.'
What is this, Ghote asked himself? Oh, yes, I am not at all falling for behave like a gentleman. But why is he inviting us to delay our departure? We could instruct, as he is saying, that scamster Dutt-Dastar as easily from Bombay as from here.
'There is one thing perhaps I should add,' ACP Bhowmick went on. 'I shall feel it necessary to have a watch set on you both. I don't like to think you may still believe you can get your own way.'
He smiled. A gentle-looking smile.
'In fact,' he said, 'the watch is already in place. I hardly doubted you would agree to leave Calcutta when I made my request.'
'But then,' Ghote asked, prickling with suspicions,
‘why it is you are saying we should be in no hurry to go?'
'Ah. That's acute of you. But I should expect nothing less from a Bombay Crime Branch officer.'
So he...?
‘Yes, Inspector, I have friends in senior Bombay police circles. I have made a few discreet inquiries.'
Absurdly Ghote felt flattered. Till he thought. To have gained the good opinion of a man like Assistant Commissioner Bhowmick, in the pocket of M. F. Tuntunwala and some pillar of West Bengal Government, what of kudos is that?
‘And I am sorry to tell you,' the ACP went on, ‘what I learnt about you was not what I had hoped.'
Ghote looked up, startled, from the stool where he had continued to sit.
‘However, Inspector, perhaps I may find after all that my friends at your Crawford Market Headquarters have not quite plumbed your depths.'
What the hell was this damned Bengali talking about?
‘How shall I put this? Mrs Ghote, you will be able tomorrow to receive from Mr Dutt-Dastar, not the deeds of the house you fondly hoped for, but at least a sum of money for its sale.'
Protima, who had been sitting cross-legged up on the bed, stirred uneasily. Ghote hoped she would not burst out again with some hopeless defiance.
‘I think it maybe more convenient,' ACP Bhowmick went on, ‘if you were to receive that purchase price -alas, not what it would once have been - in cash. I believe, in fact, Mr Dutt-Dastar will have a suitable large briefcase in which you may carry it away.'
Ah, black money transaction, Ghote thought. He must be hoping that with a taint of illegality about this money we will be bound to keep our mouths shut. Well, we would do that in any case. This whole business is hardly a good story to be telling.
But why then is he stating that whoever he was speaking to at Headquarters in Bombay has not - what it was, his bloody Bengali expression? - plumbed my depths?
He soon learnt.
'Mrs Ghote,' the ACP said, 'I see a large tilak on your forehead. Am I right in thinking that like a good Bengali lady you have been worshipping at the Kalighat Tfemple?'
'Yes . . .'
Protima sounded as puzzled, and as subdued, as he was himself.
'Good, good. So may I suggest that on Saturday, at the start of the Kali puja, you should visit the temple once more? Just before your departure from Goddess Kali's city. There is a flight to Bombay at about 9 p.m., and I have taken the liberty of getting you tickets for it. But it would be altogether appropriate, I think, for you to worship at Goddess Kali's shrine on your way to the airport, just as you are about to leave Calcutta for ever.'
Protima gave him a yet more puzzled look, as he took from his uniform jacket pocket a plain envelope and put it down among the scatter of combs, brushes and cosmetics on the dressing-table.
Ghote, reflecting for an instant that here were air-tickets they would not have to pay a bribe to get, thought he was beginning to see what was coming.
'And, as you will be about to leave,' the ACP went on, 'I suppose it would be no more than a sensible precaution to take with you, besides your baggages, that large black briefcase Mr Dutt-Dastar is going to give you. Considerable sums of money should be properly looked after.'
Now Ghote saw it all. And knew why ACP Bhowmick had hoped his informant in Bombay had not plumbed the depths of the man they must have described to him as a hundred per cent honest officer. And he saw, too, that they had not plumbed those depths. Honest he might be. But not to absolute one hundred per cent. No, when he was pushed to his depths, when it was a matter of saving his wife from undeserved prison, he could agree to pay over, not a five-hundred rupee bribe, but one for a much greater sum and to an individual much higher in the social scale than wretched dead Shibu. That was the truth. The bitter truth.
'Considerable sums,' he snapped out, glaring at the man who had known he was not a hundred per cent honest, 'should be looked after, yes? But not, you are telling us, so well that we do not forget somehow to set down such a sum somewhere in all the crowd at the Kalighat Tfemple on Saturday. To be picked up by other hands. Yes?'
ACP Bhowmick smiled.
Chapter Twenty
They hardly spoke after ACP Bhowmick had left. Ghote had roused himself after a little to ask Protima if, having missed the Fairlawn's pallid mulligatawny soup and solidly satisfying bread-and-butter pudding while praying to Goddess Kali, she was hungry.
'No, I am not wanting anything.'
End of communication.
He had fallen back then into his half-savage, half-sad thoughts.
Why are there in the world such men as Assistant Commissioner Bhowmick? Clever men, men good at their work, who nevertheless cannot resist climbing up by the wrong means? Damn it, not only has the man made himself the puppet of some high-up at Assembly House here, corruptly paying for promotions and postings, but now even he is demanding money from us.
Why did we have to come up against the man wanting money, and no little amount, for using - what he was saying? - such influence as I happen to have to allow us to get out of this accursed city without Protima being arrested? It is wrong. It is unfair.
What have I done to deserve this? Paid out one bribe for the best of reasons? Surely just only for that I do not deserve to be facing so much of troubles. And Protima also. She is losing now all the inheritance, all the happiness she had thought it would bring, her huge Diwali present. Because her simple, honest wishes went against the monstrous wishes of men like M. F. Tuntunwala and Assistant Commissioner Bhowmick.
Now it was Protima's turn to murmur a few battered-down words.
'What we are to do now?'
'Nothing,' he answered, finding nothing else to say.
'Nothing? You are meaning we must be just going from Calcutta? Paying him all that I was inheriting?'
'Yes.'
'But, no. No, no, no. We cannot do nothing. We cannot be just lying down under this.'
'But what else can we do? We are caught. We have come up against a force altogether too strong for us. You could say we are lucky that we are escaping so easily. You were hearing what was happening to that wretched fellow, Shibu?'
'Yes, he was saying something about him. But I was not altogether understanding. He has died, Shibu, yes? But that is meaning the evidence against us is so much less.'
He sighed.
'It is not that the fellow has happened to die. It is that he has paid the full penalty for trying to be more cunning than Mr M. F. Tuntunwala and Mr A. K. Dutt-Dastar.'
'You mean . . .? You are saying . . .?'
'I must spell out same? Yes, then. Shibu was murdered, and we are lucky that someone has not been paid, been bribed, to murder us also. For being in the way when some big-big man is wanting something. We are lucky that we have just only been made to leave Calcutta and take that briefcase Mr Bhowmick was describing to put down somewhere in the Kalighat Tfemple for himself to pick up.'
‘But that is wrong.'
‘Yes. It is wrong. But it is. It is. And nothing we now can do will change it.'
Then they had gone to bed. Not, though, to sleep. Either of them. And not in th
e darkness of the stuffy old-style British room to encourage each other with a murmured inquiry or endearment.
In the morning it had been little different. Protima, despite having missed the meal the evening before, hardly did justice to her breakfast porridge and rejected altogether her kipper.
‘You should eat,' Ghote said.
‘I cannot.'
‘Well, I also am not having very much of appetite.'
He heaved a long sigh.
‘You know,' he added, ‘your puris are much more to my liking. It will be nice no longer to have to eat stuff of this sort. To be at home once more.'
It was a foolish thing to say, though well meant.
Protima, her bhadrolok life snatched away, burst into tears and ran from the room.
He sat where he was, knowing that she would need time before she was willing to hear his apologies and explanations.
Conflicting emotions. Embarrassment at what the others in the room might be thinking. The hotel proprietress was still striding about with the ever-ready fly-swat she was accustomed to go round with at mealtimes. For a moment he thought of how he had seen himself crushed like a fly when M. F. Tuntunwala had so scathingly trounced him. The Western guests were making a heavy show of not having noticed tearful Protima. The handful of Indians in the room were frankly looking on. And, overwhelming the embarrassment, there came a twisting sadness at how this defeat was keeping Protima and himself apart when only by supporting each other could they in any measure deal with it.
He abandoned the now altogether uncrisp piece of toast on his plate and made his own way out of the room. Ringing in his ears as he went came the booming voice of the white-haired bald Englishman - must be an old Calcutta hand - whom a few minutes before he had half-heard still attempting to get Mr Deen Kogan -never now to advise on Protima's house - to visit the ruined Clive Mansion. Apparently with no success, since their talk now seemed to have become somewhat personal. ‘All very well, Mr Kogan, to talk about colonialism, but, let me tell you, in our day we ran a fair administration with a proper judiciary far beyond any possibility of being bribed. And now? Now everyone's on the bloody take.'
Bribery, Corruption Also Page 19