by Satyajit Ray
‘What’s your name?’
Schering’s lips parted. In a low yet clear voice, he answered.
‘Hieronymus Heinrich Schering.’
‘It’s for the first time . . .’ Busch said in a choked voice, ‘for the first time he is telling his own name!’
I put forth my second question.
‘What’s your profession?’
‘I am a professor of physics.’
‘Where were you born?’
‘Austria.’
‘In which city?’
‘Innsbruck.’
Inquiringly, I looked at Busch. Busch nodded to say that it was all falling into pattern. I turned my attention back to Schering.
‘What’s your father’s name?’
‘Karl Dietrich Schering.’
‘Do you have any siblings?’
‘I’ve a younger sister. My elder brother is dead.’
‘When did he die?’
‘During the First World War. On the 1st of October 1917.’
In between my questioning, I was glancing at an astonished Busch. His repeated nodding confirmed Schering’s answers.
‘Did you go to Landeck?’
‘Yes.’
‘For what purpose?
‘I’d some work with Lubin.’
‘What work?’
‘Research.’
‘On what subject?’
‘BX 377.’
Busch whispered to say this is the code for their research.
I returned to my questioning.
‘Did you finish your research?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it a success?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was the subject of your research?’
‘We had invented a new formula for an atomic weapon.’
‘Were you returning to Walenstadt after finishing your work?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you carrying the papers of this research?’
‘Yes.’
‘The formula as well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was there an accident on the way?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
Busch placed his hand on my shoulder. I know why. I’d been noticing a state of restlessness in Schering. He now licked his lips, and blinked his eyelids once. The veins were swollen at his temples.
‘I . . . I . . .’
Schering stopped speaking. He was now breathing heavily. I’m convinced that he has grown anxious as he had let out the secrets of his invention.
I pressed the green button to stop the battery. There was no point in further questioning him under the present circumstances. We could wind up the rest tomorrow.
The moment I removed the helmet from Schering’s head he leaned against the chair. He then took a deep breath, shut his eyes then opened them at once, looked around and said, ‘A cigar . . . a cigar . . .’
I wiped the sweat from Schering’s forehead. Busch looked a bit embarrassed. He cleared his throat and said, ‘But there are no cigars. No one smokes a cigar in this house. Would you like a cigarette?’
Ulrich took out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered him one. Schering didn’t take any.
I asked, ‘Did you have a box of cigars of your own?’
‘Yes, I did,’ Schering replied. He looked tired and restless.
‘Was it a black case?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘In that case, it’s with Willie. Will you please look for it, Clara?’
Clara immediately left the room in search of her son.
The nurse took Schering’s hand and helped him lie on the bed. Busch went near the bed and with a smile said, ‘Do you remember it now?’
In response, Schering stared at Busch looking very surprised. In a calm voice he asked, ‘Remember what?’
This question from Schering didn’t please me at all. Busch, too, looked puzzled. He gathered his wits and calmly said, ‘But you’ve answered all our questions correctly.’
‘What questions? What have you asked me?’
Now I briefly described our question-answer session held a few minutes ago. Schering remained quiet for a while. He gently put his hand on his head and looking at me asked, ‘What did you put on my head?’
‘Why do you ask this?’
‘I’m in pain. I feel as if hundreds of pins are pricking inside my head.’
‘You’ve already had a head injury. When you fell down the hill you injured your head and lost your memory.’
‘I anyway had a head injury. Why should I fall down the hill?’
All three of us stared at each other.
Clara returned. She was carrying the cigar case I’d already seen. She gave it back to Schering and apologized, ‘I don’t know when my son took this to his room. Please don’t mind.’
Busch once again cleared his throat and said, ‘I hope you now remember that you smoke cigars.’
Schering took the box in his hands and closed his eyes. He genuinely looked tired. We realized it was time to leave this room.
After putting back the Remembrain into my bag, we returned to the drawing room. I was going through a mixed feeling of elation as well as anguish. If you regain your memory after wearing the helmet, why must you lose your memory all over again? Does that mean Schering’s head injury is rather grave?
The other three did not look that dejected.
Ulrich was, of course, ecstatic about my machine. He said, ‘There’s no doubt that your invention is a real milestone. This is no mean feat: to bring out the right answers to all the questions you put to him, knowing he had a complete loss of memory!’
Busch said, ‘Actually the door to the memory is so tightly shut that it’s not completely opening up yet. All we can do is to wait till tomorrow. Once more we need to put the helmet on him. Our part would only be to extract answers from him. We have to find out what transpired in the car before the accident. The rest will be handled by the police.’
Around 8 p.m. Busch called up the police to get the latest report. There’s still no news about the driver, Heinz Neumann. Does that mean Neumann, along with the formula BX377, has been buried under the snow forever?
9 March
When I didn’t get any sleep till 2 a.m., I finally took Somnonil, a pill of my own invention, and fell into a deep sleep for three-and-a-half hours. In the morning, when I was just thinking of checking my machine to see if it was functioning fine, I heard a knock on my door. I opened the door and saw Schering’s nurse. She looked agitated.
‘Dr Schering is calling for you. There’s an urgent need.’
‘How’s he now?’
‘Very well. He slept soundly last night. The headache is no longer there. He is a completely changed man now.’
Still in my nightgown, I went to Schering’s room. He greeted me with a bright smile and wished me good morning. I asked him, ‘How are you?’
‘I’ve completely recovered. And my memory is all back. Your machine is indeed a marvellous one. But just one request. Whatever I have disclosed about our research in response to your question, please keep to yourself.’
‘There’s no need to mention this. You can completely rely on our discretion.’
‘One more thing. I want to find out about Lubin. I want to know where he is. Is he, too, lying in bed, injured?’
‘No. Lubin is dead.’
Schering’s eyes widened. ‘He is dead?’
I said, ‘It’s by the sheer grace of God that you’ve survived.’
‘And the papers?’ Schering sounded desperate.
‘Nothing has been recovered. What’s really worrying is that the papers along with the driver have disappeared. Do you think you can enlighten us about this?’
Schering slowly nodded his head and said, ‘Yes, indeed I can.’
I drew up a chair and sat next to his bed. The people in this house were yet to wake up. Never mind. Since such an opportune moment was right here, I’d continue wi
th the conversation. I asked, ‘Why don’t you tell me what had happened exactly?’
Schering said, ‘After leaving Landeck and crossing the border of Finstermuntz, we were in Switzerland. Travelling further for a few kilometres we reached the small city of Schlientz. The car halted there for fifteen minutes. After having beer in a shop we resumed our journey, but within ten minutes the car appeared to have developed some trouble and the driver, Neumann, stopped the car to locate the problem. He seemed to check under the bonnet and then called for Lubin. The moment Lubin went towards him, Neumann struck him with a wrench on his head, rendering him unconscious. Naturally, I stepped out of the car. But Neumann was a very strong man. I lost out in the scuffle and he struck me on the head with that same wrench, knocking me unconscious too. After this, I remember nothing.’
I said, ‘It’s easy to predict the rest. Neumann put both of you in the car, pushed the car into the gorge and then fled with the research papers.’
I’d heard the phone ring a while ago. Now I heard the stomping of feet on the wooden floor. Busch ran into Schering’s room. His eyes were gleaming.
‘They have found some papers in the gorge near the accident site. The writing on them has more or less disappeared but it’s not difficult to guess what papers these are.’
‘Which means the formula hasn’t been lost!’ Schering exclaimed.
Busch looked quite perplexed when he heard these words from Schering. I explained to him what had occurred this morning. Busch said, ‘I hope you can now gather what happened—perhaps Neumann never took the formula. He may have fled carrying the cash and a few valuables with him.’
‘How can you say that,’ said Schering, sounding very worried. ‘Apart from important documents we also had some not so important papers. The papers which have been recovered from the gorge may not have any connection with the research papers.’
Schering is right. It can’t be ascertained from a few faded papers that Neumann hasn’t taken the formula with him. Anyway, Busch and I decided that after having breakfast, we both would visit the accident spot, leaving Schering with Ulrich. We’re hoping against hope that we may recover a few more papers which may contain the formula. The accident site between Remus and Schlientz is twenty-five kilometres away. At the most it’ll take us a quarter of an hour to reach there. I feel it’s much more important to look for the papers rather than for the driver. It doesn’t matter if they are all washed out. I have the expertise to decipher such texts.
Now it’s 8.30 a.m. We’ll leave in ten minutes. Though I’ve no clear idea why, somehow I feel a bit bothered. There seems something wrong in this whole affair. But I can’t exactly pinpoint what it is.
But I’m certain about one thing, though. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my machine.
10 March, 11 p.m.
I’ve come out of an unending and terrifying nightmare. I’m yet to recover from this ordeal. I know I’ll finally come out of this only when I get back to Giridih and its normal environs. I could never believe that such a horrifying incident could take place against the backdrop of such a charming city. I could hardly believe that a horrifying incident like this could take place . . .
When Busch, Hans Berger of the Swiss police and I left for the accident site yesterday morning, I looked at my watch. It was quarter-to-nine. One could see ice everywhere—on the roads, on the hills and on the peaks. Even though the windows of our car were rolled down, judging by the restless trees one could gauge the speed of the wind. Busch was driving; I sat next to him and Berger was sitting at the back.
It took us one hour and ten minutes to reach our destination. We had halted for three minutes in Remus where we met a man from the police department. I was told that they still had no news of Neumann. Investigations were on in full swing and they had even announced a reward of 5000 francs for finding Neumann.
The natural surroundings of the accident site are beautiful. The gorge alongside the road is three-and-a-half thousand feet deep. When you look down you can spot a narrow river. I thought to myself that if the documents had gone floating in the river then the chances of recovering them were rather bleak. The road here is so wide that unless someone deliberately pushes a car or the driver loses his mind there’s no chance of the car falling straight down the ravine. I could see some cops near the hill, and on the road across I spotted some jeeps and cars. Clearly they were keeping no stone unturned in this investigation. Busch and I began to climb down the hill . . .
There’s a footway and the slope is not that dangerous either. From afar I could hear the ringing of bells. Perhaps some cows were grazing. Swiss cows wear big bells. And the sweet sounds add to the charm of the surroundings.
We first needed to see the site where the car had crashed as well as the spot where Lubin’s body was found. A thick carpet of ice surrounded us and occasional blobs of snow fell off the branches of tamarisk, beech and ash trees.
However, even after hunting for forty-five minutes, we couldn’t locate a single piece of paper. After climbing down from the spot of the crash for about 500 feet, what I discovered was simply unexpected.
This discovery was mine alone. Everyone was looking for pieces of paper. But my own scrutiny didn’t escape the branches and the leaves of trees. I stood under an oak tree, thickly covered with leaves, and when I looked up what I observed was neither scraps of paper nor snow. My sense of observation is ten times more powerful than that of a policeman. I immediately realized that the object was a piece of cloth. I gestured at Berger and pointed my finger towards the tree. The moment he saw that, he swiftly climbed up a branch. Within minutes I heard his agitated voice. He screamed in his mother tongue, German—
‘Da ist eine leiche! I can see a dead body!’
The body was brought down within five minutes. Because of the snow, even after so many days the body had remained intact. It was no trouble to figure out that the body was that of the driver, Heinz Neumann. The pocket of his coat contained his driving licence and some personal identity cards. Neumann’s body showed signs of broken bones, and there were marks of injury on his face and hands. There’s no doubt that he, too, had fallen out of the car on to the oak tree.
Does that mean that Neumann, after rendering both Schering and Lubin unconscious and while pushing the car with the bodies in it, himself slipped and fell down the ravine? Or could someone else have done him in? Whatever the case, the police department need not work any further to look for Neumann.
I must also mention that no research related papers were located in the pockets of Neumann’s clothes. If these are located within the gorge, well and good, otherwise this was the end of the BX377 affair . . .
We left for Walenstadt at 11 a.m. We were both in a state of complete exhaustion. This was partly due to the exertion of climbing up and down the hills as well as the discovery of the body. Coupled with this, like the previous night, today, too, there was something that made me very uneasy. Occasionally, I react to a chain of thought—trying to connect to something—but that thought process swiftly snaps and goes into oblivion. Remembrain was still with me. I didn’t feel like staying away from it. Once I thought of asking Busch to question Schering, but I soon realized I’ve no idea about the kind of queries to frame in order to restore his memory. I decided to drop the idea.
It was getting a bit cloudy and the moment our car stopped at the gate it began to drizzle.
Schering was as baffled as us when we told him about the discovery of Neumann’s body. He said, ‘The death of two people along with an absolute waste of seven years of sheer hard work.’ He took a deep breath and then remarked, ‘It’s good in a way.’
We looked at Schering in surprise. He seemed dejected and said, ‘I anyway had no wish to work on any weapon of mass destruction. The offer first came from Lubin. Though I’d initially protested, I inadvertently got involved as Lubin was a very close friend of mine since college days.’
With a smile, Schering looked in my direction. ‘Do you know what
inspired us to work on this invention? I’m particularly telling you since you’re an Indian. Lubin knew Sanskrit. He happened to have read an amazing scripture written in Sanskrit kept in the Berlin Museum. The name of this scripture was Samarangan Sutram (Techniques of Warfare). It mentioned countless descriptions of combat mechanisms. After reading the books, Lubin conceived the very idea of this invention. Never mind . . . perhaps what has transpired will prove to be good in the end and actually be a blessing in disguise.’
I’ve heard of Samarangan Sutram but never had the fortune to read it. But the fact that Indians had devoted very special thoughts to warfare mechanisms long, long ago becomes quite apparent when you read the Mahabharata.
There was no point in detaining Schering any more. When we had been away he’d called up a friend in Altdorf asking him to come and fetch him. Altdorf is seventy-five kilometres away from here. Schering’s friend said he’d come in the evening to pick him up.
*
All afternoon the four of us whiled away the hours in conversation. Around 3.30, a brand-new, fashionable red car appeared in front of our house. A well-built man more than six feet in height and aged around forty, wearing a leather jerkin and corduroy trousers, alighted from the car. Judging from his tanned face I could gather (and was later told what I thought was right) that his actual passion is climbing and that he has climbed the highest mountain, Monte Rosa, in Switzerland, five times. Otherwise he is a lawyer by profession. Needless to mention though, he is Schering’s friend, Peter Frick. Schering bade farewell to everyone. Once more, he highly praised my appliance and then left for Altdorf.
After ten minutes of his leaving, when Clara was about to serve us lemon tea and cake on the table, like a flash everything became clear about what had been bothering me for so long. And right then, alarming everyone in the room, I jumped up from the sofa, looked in Busch’s direction and said, ‘Let’s go. We need to reach Altdorf right away.’
‘What does that mean?’ Ulrich and Busch spoke in unison.
‘Never mind the meaning. We can’t afford to lose any time.’
Noticing my eagerness to get going at once, even at my age, both Busch and Ulrich got up immediately. Running up three steps at a time I asked Busch, ‘Have you got a gun? I haven’t brought mine.’