Neel Mukherjee - The Lives of Others

‘What? Why so silent?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘Do you want to see some of the ornaments I’m going to wear?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Kalyani says, her habitual wariness at being upstairs cast aside at last.

But Baishakhi makes no move to show her anything. She asks, ‘Listen, do you know who I’m getting married to?’

Again, a brief nod.

There is a brief flare of irritation from Baishakhi — ‘The cats’ got your tongue or what?’ — then subsidence into alternating between distracted fidgeting and aimless inertia. ‘What have you heard about him?’ Baishakhi asks her cousin.

Kalyani, so unexpectedly put on the spot, becomes even more tongue-tied than usual. She cannot read the question at all, but feels under pressure to answer it, otherwise she may be told off again. But what can she say?

‘What? Why aren’t you saying anything?’

‘I. . I haven’t heard anything about. . about him,’ Kalyani manages to bring out.

‘Why such hesitation? Tell me the truth, what have you heard? You clearly must have heard something, otherwise why did you stammer and halt?’

This has the effect of terrifying the girl, so her stilted reply — ‘No, no, I’m telling you the truth, I’ve heard nothing, I was thinking, that’s why I paused’ — comes out all wrong: hesitant, deliberated, protesting too much.

Baishakhi uses some false logic to trick Kalyani. ‘You live on the ground floor, so surely you hear a lot of stuff that people say, coming and going. Downstairs is full of people all the time. Tell me, tell me what you’ve picked up.’

‘Nothing, really, I’m touching you’ — here she moves closer and places her hand on Baishakhi’s arm — ‘and saying, “I’ve heard nothing”.’

‘If you’ve lied while touching me, you know I’ll die, don’t you?’

‘But I’m telling you the truth,’ Kalyani insists again.

‘All right, just tell me one thing: do they say good things about him or bad things?’

‘Good things, good things only.’

‘Aha, caught you, then they do talk about him and you know what they say. You lied. Which means I’m going to die. On the second night of my wedding I’m going to die.’

Kalyani nearly shrieks, ‘No-o-o-o-o’, then remembers just in time where she is, so it comes out low.

Baishakhi changes the subject suddenly. ‘Listen, will you be my nit-bou at the wedding?’ she asks.

‘What’s nit-bou?’

‘A kind of bridesmaid. You’ll have to accompany me to my in-laws’ and return after three days.’

Kalyani, now wide-eyed, takes some time to process this utterly unexpected gift. Then she nods energetically.

‘Then you could wear one of these saris,’ Baishakhi says, adding to the giddiness.

A cold thought strikes Kalyani. ‘What if my mother says no?’

‘Tell Kakima that I suggested it.’

Kalyani is now all assailed by doubt; this is not going to happen, her mother is almost certain to veto it and, if not she, then her grandmother, definitely.

Just as suddenly as the beginning of her flash of generosity, Baishakhi’s interest in her cousin switches off, before the girl has had time to work out fully the treat that has been handed her.

‘All right, you go back downstairs now, I have lots to do,’ Baishakhi says.

Kalyani lowers her head and leaves the room, but not before stealing a final glance at Baishaki, who lies reclined on the bed, squashing some of her new clothes, chewing her nails and staring at the ceiling, looking both languid and restless, her pose not that of someone who has just announced that she has lots to do.

Dhiren tracked Senapati’s movements. Somehow the fact that it was winter seemed to be significant — it would have to be done now, when the dark came early and stayed for long.

Who would have thought that something as thickly crowded and public as the annual winter mela in the neighbouring village of Gidighati would present us with the opportunity? We did not go following him there; that was a matter of chance. We went to the mela to meet other activists in the area, mostly AICCCR members, formally or informally, and to discuss strategies and update each other with news of our respective villages. It was a good place for such things: we wouldn’t stick out as strangers; there was a sea of men, women and children in which we could become invisible. It was here that we learned what was going on in other villages, in other districts (24 Parganas, Hughli), even in Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga and Champaran in Bihar, Koraput in Orissa.

There were couriers and Communist Revolutionary members here. There were rumours floating about of the formation of a new party, cleansed of all revisionism, bringing together all ex-CPI(M) members, some AICCCR people and the CR group, under one umbrella.

The din of the mela was somehow comforting: local drums; palm-leaf flutes; wooden flutes; performing singers; people talking and shouting and laughing and haggling; squealing and crying children; calls advertising wares; a horbola, mimicking all kinds of bird calls and animal sounds; several bahurupis, each performing dozens of roles and changing his appearance accordingly. .

I recognised several farmers from Majgeria. At one point Dhiren gripped my arm and said — Come.

I went with him, pushing through the crowd. We stopped at what seemed a random spot. I could see a line of people selling things: toddy, fritters, dried chillies, pinwheels, painted terracotta toys.

Dhiren said through his mouth firmly pressed — That fat man, bending down, buying toy bow-and-arrows, that’s Senapati Nayek.

I nodded very slowly.

— How are we going to keep an eye on him in this mela?

— Follow him until he leaves.

— All of us?

— Yes, otherwise we’ll lose each other.

— But. . but. . we have nothing with us.

I knew what he was saying. I couldn’t answer him. A wasted day when the target was so near, when the causes were so immediate: that would not be good. Yet an impromptu individual action — but how? where? with what? — seemed dangerous and could set us back in Majgeria for ever. Besides, we needed the farmers with us, we could not be an assassination squad of three acting on their behalf. Everything about this looked, felt, smelled wrong. And yet that prodding inside, that we were letting an opportunity slip, wouldn’t leave me. Us.

It remained this kind of welter until sundown. We were tense and bored at the same time, a dangerous combination, as we tailed Senapati for what felt like hours and hours. He met a lot of people he knew. Sometimes he became one of a group of three or four or five. Sometimes he was alone. He watched a bahurupi performance, alone, for a while — we too caught it, although on the margins of our concentration; the bahurupi was enacting Hanuman setting Lanka on fire — then moved on to the corner where the local liquor was being sold. We looked at each other with despair.

Samir said — He could be here for ever. Especially if it leads on to visiting a prostitute, as these things do.

The gap between sunset and darkness was short. It would be the easiest thing in the world to lose him to the night now. Bands of people were leaving, the mela was breaking up. There were no lights in the eight-mile walk to Majgeria. An idea had been going through my head ever since Senapati had sat down to drink. I outlined this to Samir and Dhiren, then we looked for holes in it. There were many, but we had progressed from the anxious chaos and flailing around that had held us when we first spied the moneylender.

Dhiren began to walk back to the village while Samir and I moved closer to our drinking quarry. There were enough people for us not to stand out. I was thinking of how wrong I had been to believe that taking a man out was a matter of swift action, impulsive, done on the crest of a wave of great passion. And there I was, stalking someone, and it felt like the growing of paddy from seed to harvest.