Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘Besides, Sarthey’s old now, must be all of a century. This murderer’s so quick he slips away from a hundred of us while the body’s still warm. He kills two steps away from a street full of people, and nobody ever sees him. Do you believe a pensioner so fleet that he skips by all of us? You’re tired, fellow. Get a bed and a bit of sleep.’

Sanjay wanted to say, the writing’s in me, I know it too well to mistake it, but Bolton walked away, his step weary, and so Sanjay left, the poster folded away into his coat pocket; there was nothing for it, he told himself, but to do it alone, I must stop him, I must. He hurried off to a barber-shop down the street; as a shining razor took the beard off his cheeks, he regarded the face that came up underneath, and certainly, it was not old, but it wasn’t young, it was frozen into some indeterminate imitation of life, and when the dresser poured some greasy dark stuff onto Sanjay’s temples and rubbed it into his clipped hair, a visage appeared in the mirror that was startling in its stark contrasts: the eyes sat like black opals against the matte white of his skin, the hair curved in lustrous black sweeps past reddened lips. A few streets away Sanjay found a haberdasher who provided silk shirts, crimson bow-ties, black coats, grey trousers, polished soft boots, a curious walking stick with a monk’s head as the handle and a long slim hidden blade below, and Sanjay thought as he straightened his collar, damn, I could pass for an Englishman.

‘Could I have these packages delivered, sir?’

‘That will not be necessary.’ Sanjay started so violently that he knocked over a stack of grey gloves onto the ground, and as the attendant bent over them Sanjay stumbled backwards, his hand over his mouth; the voice had come from his mouth — of that there was no doubt, but it seemed flat and disembodied, and of how it was happening he had no idea, because he could feel no tongue.

‘Are you sure of that, sir? It’s rather a lot and it’d be our pleasure.’

Sanjay turned away (mustn’t let him see the stump) and spoke through clenched teeth (watch the accent): ‘I would prefer not.’ There it was again, strange inflections for an Englishman, a little sing-song, but the drawl was about right, and it was undeniably and concretely a voice; he took up his packages and fled the stares of the shop-keepers, and outside, in a hansom he tried it again: ‘Do you know a good hotel, please?’ It seemed to be coming from his stomach and lower, from the bones of his thighs and the soles of his feet, and the driver’s answer was lost in the tears in Sanjay’s eyes, and the thought that after all the vernacular is not a matter of the tongue alone, that in this strange new world a man had to die and leave behind his native earth to speak a new language.

That night Sanjay left his hotel and walked the streets of London as an Englishman; he found that if he strode confidently he was stared at but left alone, and he had confidence because he had the clothes of a gentleman, and furthermore he had the sword-stick, and a cosh (purchased that afternoon at a sporting store) in his coat pocket. Besides weapons, he had information: Dr Sarthey, he had been informed by a long entry in Debrett’s, lived now in seclusion after a long period of service to the Empire; his wife had died after thirty-four years of marriage without issue, so the mansion in the West End was managed by servants; Dr Sarthey’s honours were many, including the C.B.E. and the thanks of the crown on more than one occasion; his publications were numerous and essential to the body of knowledge. Sanjay also knew that Sarthey did not entertain visitors, because that evening he had been turned away by a rotund butler who had refused to even enquire with the master, stating instead that the good doctor saw nobody, at all and ever, and no cards or letters either; Sanjay had thought a warning would suffice to prevent further outrages, that the fact that somebody knew would keep him away, and he had even said this to the butler: ‘Tell him I know it’s him,’ but at this the door had clicked shut firmly, and as he had lingered outside a high garden wall a policeman had appeared down the road, and Sanjay understood that Sarthey’s home was truly a castle, and so now he waited in the streets for the man.

The air seemed to be dense and heavy, so that the yellow lights threw a glowing, blurred haze onto the black walls; a blank window-front gleamed, and Sanjay thought, is it madness, why is he doing this? He tried to remember the woman’s name, the face that he had sentenced to death, somebody’s sister, and he shook in the darkness and had to lean against a cold wall and breathe long gulps of reeking air; no, it is not madness, not that at all, what did I think of in that moment, the pros of this and the cons of that, it is a clarity, a weighing of the advantages and the costs, yes, costs, it’s that, it’s a logic so sharp and inevitable that it cannot be stopped, it’s reason triumphant after all. When his fit of trembling passed Sanjay pushed himself up, steadied his grip on his sword-stick (remembering suddenly his uncle’s tale about a huge knot) and whispered, after a very long time, a little prayer for help to his gods, be with me now, and then he walked on.

He saw, now and then, women in the street, and he wondered at the poverty that drove them there in the midst of this terror, and of course it was more than hunger, it was the resplendent belief that life has in itself, the certainty that death could be real for everyone else, for you, but not for me; he spoke to these women, and he showed them a plate taken from a book about eminent men, a collection of laudatory essays (the one on the doctor entitled ‘The Discovery of Order’) intended to be inspirational; therefore the photograph pictured Sarthey with his chin uptilted, one hand laid across the chest with palm on the heart, there were deep wrinkles etched down from the lips and the hair was now a fine white cloud. Have you seen this man, Sanjay asked, think carefully, have you seen him, but they hadn’t, and when Sanjay said, stay away from him, you must stay away from him, they retreated instead from him — he was unable to keep the urgency from his voice, and he supposed the expression on his face was enough to frighten anyone in the dark, on one of these London nights. But he kept on, from lane to lane until he was faint with exhaustion, his thighs ached and his fingers cramped on the sword-stick; he paused finally by an empty cistern, leaning against a wall with a hand on a thigh, and the complete darkness seemed to reverberate with the harsh rustle of his breathing.

‘Well, is it you?’

The shadow by Sanjay’s right was leaning against the wall in exactly the same attitude as him, left arm on left thigh in mirror likeness, and then Sanjay flung himself away, stumbling on the cobble-stones and falling to the other side of the lane, when he looked up the figure was tall and dark against the sky.

‘One of the little harlots told me somebody was looking for my father, an interesting somebody. So interesting I had to leave her alone, lucky thing, and come looking for you. I knew it must be you. My father. Imagine.’ There was a rich laugh under the words, and when the face came forward into a flat sliver of moonlight the teeth were perfect and white, shiny, and the eyes above sparkling in young skin, youthful beyond all dreams, the jawline tight and elegant, the cheeks firm and red and handsome, the step was jaunty, and Sanjay felt the nausea bubble at the blossoming health of it, and he crouched over and vomited into the stones.

‘Come, come. And I was so glad to see you. At last, somebody to talk to. Somebody who understands.’

Sanjay scrabbled in the dirt and his hands found the rigidity of the stick, and in a single motion he drew and lunged, the sword sweeping across the other’s shoulder and chest, but Sarthey wasn’t there, the steel cut across stone showering blue sparks, and then Sanjay backed up the lane, the point swinging from one side to the other, searching for him, but the lane was empty, Sanjay’s eyes still saw the sparks in the darkness, and nothing else.