Neel Mukherjee - The Lives of Others

‘Look, I’ll hope you’ll pardon me for saying this, but this is how these people operate. We’ve been seeing cases like this crop up all over the city. They play a very long game, get your trust completely, then one day’ — he claps his hands — ‘all into thin air, both servant and jewellery. For what is he doing it? What is the motive?’ the Inspector continues, saying the word in English, moteebh , and repeating it with pride — ‘What is the moteebh ? You know all about the problems with his son, Dulal; they happened at your factory, union leader and all that. Did you know that Dulal set up an electrical-goods store in Jadavpur after he lost his job at Bali? The shop’s not doing well, he’s drowning in debt. Where do you think the money to set up in retail business came from? There was no way out for Madan but to get his hands on some money quickly. Hence the burglary.’

Sadhya and Chhaya exclaim in concert, ‘What? What are you saying? We didn’t know all this. .’

Neither did Adi, but he is not going to let his surprise show. He is the one who asked SP Dhar and Inspector Saha for a favour — to ‘talk’ to their colleagues in Bali and enlist their ‘help’ when union troubles were beginning to get out of hand — and he cannot give the Inspector the pleasure of showing his amazement, if the SP and the Inspector have made Dulal’s subsequent business a matter for their interest. The Ghoshes have not forgotten that the police refused to come when Prafullanath went to confront Dulal, but they can do little in retaliation. In the coalition government the issue of labour unrest had been moved, in a shrewd manoeuvre by the CPI(M), from a law-and-order issue under the Home Ministry, a Congress portfolio, to the domain of the Labour Minister, a CPI(M) man. Or so SP Dhar had said then, his voice dripping with well-honed regret and affront at such political football. It strikes Adi again that it had suited the police very well to say that their hands were tied. But why then this ongoing show of concern, of consultation and democracy, with the SP coming to inform him about Supratik, and now the Inspector being all solicitous and chummy and a bit too forthcoming with explanations over Madan-da’s arrest? Atonement for that error with his father? Or, more likely, that they do not want to burn the bridge, however unimportant and small, with the Ghoshes?

He recoils inwardly at the man’s professional mixture of authority and ingratiation, but brings himself to look at the Inspector’s face to be reminded of those shifty eyes again; yes, they are the same if tinier than last time because the Inspector’s face is puffing up as if in geometric progression with age. Inspector Saha turns to Adi, to appeal to a man about matters of the world that men understand better, and catches Adi looking at him then averting his eyes instantly as their gazes meet, but not before Adi has noticed the Inspector’s recognition turn into something that Adi cannot quite put his finger on, something truculent, something that resides more in the territory of power than obsequiousness.

Inspector Saha continues as if nothing has passed between them: ‘And, of course, we have cast-iron proof: we found the ring in his room. How else would you account for that?’ he asks triumphantly.

Purnima echoes him, ‘Yes, how else? How else?’

Chhaya cannot let this pass, so she begins, ‘Oh, I’m sure there can be many explanations for that—’ but stops abruptly because she does not have a single one handy and it would not do to be asked and have nothing to show; such loss of face in front of Purnima.

Sandhya, suddenly mindful of the fact that the Inspector has not been offered a cup of tea, leaves the room to direct the staff in the kitchen; there is no Madan-da to look after these things any more.

Inspector Saha says, ‘The big question facing us now is how to recover the items? Has he sold them? Is he using someone as a fence? We’re questioning him to see what we can unearth.’

Priyo flinches; he has some understanding of the exact nature of this ‘questioning’ business. It would have been preferable to follow the kind of natural unspooling of these things that happened in more common, lower-middle-class neighbourhoods — a hue and cry raised after the accused, a ragtag bunch of people gathered to beat him in public into confessing — rather than have the police question him in jail. At least with the method where people took the law into their own hands, they, the Ghoshes, could have been witness to the rough justice of the crowd, they could have seen the worst, they could even have intervened. They would not have had to speculate about what was being done to the unfortunate old man in the foetid privacy of prison.

Inspector Saha says, ‘You understand we’re living through difficult times. President’s Rule again, twice in as many years. Governments rising and falling as if they’re doll’s houses, terrible law-and-order situation, getting worse by the day. Heh-heh-heh-heh, who knows what lies in store tomorrow?’

There, that fawning laugh again, Adi thinks, as he suppresses a shudder; the SP had clearly trained his junior well. Hearing it is like having a bucket of cold snot thrown on you; you want to rub yourself with a loofah afterwards for hours. As if in rhythmic response, the fan flutters the pages of the Charu Paper calendar on the wall; it sounds like mockery.

Sandhya comes in with a tray of tea and snacks — only Marie biscuits; no Madan to direct the rustling-up of delights — and sets it down on the coffee table. She says, ‘Ma wants to come downstairs.’

Adi says, ‘Let me go up and help her’ and leaves the room with his wife. Who knows what lies in store tomorrow? Could the Inspector have been trying to send some kind of message to him? Why the prefix of that insinuating laugh otherwise? Could SP Dhar have sent Saha for that very purpose?

Inspector Saha is still distributing meaningless reassurances like cheap boiled sweets at a children’s party when Charubala comes into the room, supported on one side by Adi and on the other by Sandhya. The Inspector does not stand up.

All through the previous night Charubala has lain awake thinking of the configuration of words she would use to tell the policeman several things: how wrong he was, how one could trust Madan blindly, how they were not going to tolerate this terrible error of their Madan being in jail. . She had driven herself to a keen point of agitation, even anger, but seeing the Inspector sitting right in front of her, slurping tea noisily from his saucer, dunking biscuits into his cup, that anger somehow dissipates. He is, after all, a policeman of senior rank, not a constable, but a powerful, well-connected person, and Charubala has never been able to shake off an early fear of both policemen and Englishmen.

All the impassioned speeches in her head fade to a meek, plaintive, ‘Inspector-babu, Madan is innocent. You must kindly release him. I give you my word that he hasn’t done this.’

Inspector Saha pulls off the difficult trick of looking concerned, condescending and respectful all at once; a miracle, Adi notes, given that a complex of emotions would find it tricky to play quickly through all that flesh and adipose tissue. Then he is gone, with an ominous, ‘Not everything is in our hands, as you think. Some things are in yours too. Also’ — here he pauses at the threshold of the living-room door, turns round, flashes his yellow teeth in a way that makes Adi wonder how a smile so greasy can have such a sharp, dangerous edge — ‘we don’t usually come to people’s homes to update them on the state of an investigation, they usually come to the police station. I came as a personal favour to Adi-babu. After all, Boro-saheb Dhar, Adi-babu and I go back so many years, we have so much history between us, heh-heh-heh-heh.’