Neel Mukherjee - The Lives of Others

Madan pauses, maybe to draw some succour from this, then continues, ‘They came to search my room, so I said search away, I have nothing to hide. They begin to look, sweeping things aside, turning everything inside out, upside down, but what possessions do I have, nothing much, they knock everything down and. . and suddenly one of them. . the small, dark one with the pot-belly, he says he has found something, it was under the brass statuette of Krishna in my room. . Boro-boüdi, I had forgotten that it was hollow inside, the thought never crossed my mind in all these years that something could be hidden there. . god is punishing me, I know, he’s punishing me for I don’t know what, but for some sin, otherwise why would that ring be hidden under his statue? The policeman shows it to me and asks. . asks what else am I hiding and where have I hidden everything, then. . then he slaps me. . he hits me and shows me the ring and asks do I recognise it. .? And I say that I don’t, it’s not mine, how can I afford such a thing and he says, Oh, I see that every joint in your body is aware of the price and value of such things; he taunts me. . Ma, what can I say?’

He stops to draw breath and the reactions to his words all rush to crowd into the vacuum of that lull.

‘Purnima’s ring in your room? This. . this cannot be believed,’ Chhaya says, only now beginning to let the fact permeate her understanding.

‘But how did it get there?’ Priyo says rhetorically.

‘Who put it there?’ Adi asks.

‘Did they find anything else? Not in your room,’ Chhaya hastily adds, ‘but elsewhere? Have all the rooms been searched?’

‘My head is reeling,’ Charubala says feebly. ‘Purnima’s ring in our Madan’s room,’ she keeps repeating, as if articulating the words will give the scarcely credible occurrence the solidity of fact.

‘Where are the police?’ Adi demands.

‘Yes, why have they not notified us of anything?’ Priyo says. He feels oddly polarised; on the one hand, it is his wife’s jewellery that has been stolen; on the other, the sympathies in the room are all directed at the man accused of the theft. Should he be angry with Madan-da and break the solidarity that has developed in the room? But how can he will himself to side with the accusers of this man who is part of his earliest memories, a man who has never been anything but upright and honest, who has treated him only with affection and indulgence? But then why is he pricked by this sense of betrayal towards his wife when he acknowledges his natural feelings for this man? It is just as well that Purnima does not form part of the parliament to which Madan-da has brought his supplication.

When the constables enter the sitting room, all four of them, they are adamant about taking Madan away. ‘For questioning,’ they say.

‘What are these questions that have to be asked in the police station?’ Charubala asks. ‘Why can’t you question him in front of us now?’

‘We have orders,’ one of them answers.

‘Who has given the orders?’ Adi is on a roll now that he knows he is dealing with minions. ‘Ask your inspector to come and talk to me.’

But the roar behind the words is half-hearted and the constables on duty, bred to detect, because their livelihoods depend upon that talent, the tiniest movements in the hairsprings that drive power, know instinctively that Adi is not the one calling the shots, not in this particular game; his roar is of the child wearing a lion mask on stage.

Madan prostrates himself at Charubala’s feet and howls, ‘Ma, I’ve eaten your salt, I would never do something like this, I’d much rather take poison than steal from you, Ma, Ma, please tell them they’re making a mistake.’ Then, in his fear and anguish, he turns erratic with his targets — he clings first to Adi’s feet, then to Priyo’s, crying, ‘Bor’-da, Mej’-da, I’m telling the truth, I’m touching you and saying this, if it’s a lie, god’s going to bring down endless punishment on me, I didn’t take Mejo-boüdi’s ornaments, I swear I didn’t. Please save me, save me!’

Sandhya turns to her husband and says with something approaching anger, ‘Why can’t you do anything? Why are you sitting there silently?’

No one moves. The despair has turned everyone to stone; Adi and Priyo seem unable to move their feet away from where Madan is writhing.

As he is hauled up and pushed out of the room he turns to the ineffectual gallery one last time. Something has changed. The tears on his face are not yet dry. His mouth is now twisted not with agony, but with contempt. He snarls, ‘This is how it ends, I should have known. The milk and the mango-flesh mell, the mango-stone is always rejected.’ He tries to laugh mockingly, but it comes out as a short, acid bark. There is a disparate crowd outside, people in the street, outside the houses, faces at windows, figures standing on their verandahs, all feasting on the unexpected treat of a man’s supreme public humiliation; fodder for conversation through the shrivelled days of dearth.

An ashy gloom descends on the house; its grasp is tight, but the effect it has on the Ghoshes is one of slackness. Even the recurring and compulsive discussions are underlined by tiredness, resignation. The questions go around in a barren loop: how could the burglar have got hold of the keys to Purnima’s safe? It must be an inside job or else how could he have known which was the right key? How could the heist have happened right under their noses? Where was Purnima when the theft was in progress? How come no one had noticed anything? It had to be an inside job, in that case. But who on the inside? They chase their tails, but like clockwork toys whose wind-up energies are coming to the end.

Charubala has to explain the events to her husband, now slow-witted with illness, several times before he can comprehend the narrative. He says, ‘The police are right. Never trusted that man, especially after he put his son up to all that union mischief. The enemy inside is far more powerful than the enemy outside.’

Charubala retorts sharply, ‘If all fathers had to suffer for the deeds of their sons, you wouldn’t have been here to make these tart comments.’

Supratik is back home well before dinnertime. Sandhya hovers around in his room, trying to help him put his things back in their place while simultaneously keeping up a running commentary of the day’s events, which her son has missed. Supratik goes through the usual motions of a periodic ‘Hmmm’ or ‘I see’ or ‘Really?’

Sandhya asks, ‘You are the clever one, can’t you shed some light on this?’

He answers, ‘If Madan-da has really taken Boro-kaki’s jewellery, all power to him. They are poor people, the stuff is going to be useful to them. Your lot have more than enough already.’

It is not until later, not until she is in bed, picking over the day, knotting and reknotting all that has happened, unable to sleep, that his outrageous words return to her and she notices, for the first time, that he said ‘your lot’ and not the usual, expected ‘we’.

Inspector Saha comes along the following day and attempts to convince the Ghoshes of Madan’s culpability. ‘Who else knows the ins and outs of the family, the smallest details?’ he asks. ‘Who is in charge of what set of keys, which key opens which safe and which almirah, who comes in, who goes out of the house and when, the routine of every single one of you — who knows all this? We have ruled out the others. Gagan, your driver, doesn’t stay in the house overnight. Besides, he hardly ever comes inside. Malati and Kamala — well, they would have needed a man’s help to do it. The day-maids who do the cleaning and the laundry, likewise. Who does that leave?’

Sandhya says, ‘But. . but he is like one of us. He has been with us since my husband was one year old.’