Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

Sanjay gagged, and then vomited up some white liquid that fell soundlessly back to earth; Sarthey shook him violently, so that his limbs flew about like a puppet’s and his head snapped back and forth. ‘What do I want?’

And Sanjay said in his beautiful and hollow British accent, ‘You want never to die.’

Sarthey screamed, a wild bellow of satisfaction that rolled out over the city, ‘Life life life,’ and Sanjay felt the grip on his shoulder release and he was dropping, and Sarthey’s voice was in his head as the ground rotated underneath him: ‘I wish to report my conclusions: I noticed in myself an ability to fly, to cut myself away from the bonds of earth, but still, I grew old. I was free of gravity but not from the dreadful iniquity of entropy. Decay is not fair, it just ain’t. I wanted to be pure and incorruptible, the first thing, the cause itself, free like a blade of fire in the dark. I couldn’t reason it out, there was no answer. Every time I wielded my scalpel I grew stronger but I still aged slowly, wrinkled and dropped, stunk and pissed. The ageing was retarded, slowed, but it still happened. Damned unfair. But I applied myself, I gave it a try for the old school. Observe, observe. Think it through.’ Now the ground is rushing up and Sanjay watches buildings expand and lights are flashing up and he calls Sikander my brother and it is too late. ‘Apply logic. Go back to beginnings. Then I got the answer. Go back to the beginning, what everything starts with. That beginning is what I’ve been looking for. It’s filthy but it’s what I need. In the beginning is the heat. Tonight I’ll get what I want. Or tomorrow. But you can’t. You’re dead.’

But Sanjay wasn’t dead, because he wasn’t yet ready to give up life, or life was not willing to give him up, he could no longer tell; he lay on a roof-top, not dead, but every time he tried to move he felt the broken bones all through his body grate against each other, and the sun moved in a grinding arc across the sky, and he saw his father and mother walking through a garden; a tiger painted by gold light on a green forest floor; a burning building and gears turning in circles; a cannon-ball bouncing in the air; a royal lady named Janvi throwing dice on a chaurasa board, laughing, and covering her mouth with her hand; an elephant dancing along a road lit by moonlight; a Calcutta road inhabited only by sweet-sellers and wine-merchants; a boat drifting down the Gomti and a voice singing, Jaane na jaane gul na jaane, baag to saara jaane hai; a regiment of cavalry speeding to a gallop and lance-points lowered; his uncle’s dragging walk and soft querulous body and his voice whispering, the world is endless and the road is long, sing, my friend, sing, everything that dies must be born. Sanjay was not dead but he knew he had broken, and the pain flew along his limbs, but he felt the fragments knitting together, the pieces pulling together, and though he wept from the ache and his hands twisted and grabbed at the brick underneath, he became alive and whole again; when he was able to push up to a sitting position it was night and he cursed at the fatigue in his bones, he felt old, shaky, and afraid.

He came down to the street by dropping down the wall, skinning his palms as he clawed at the masonry; he had found the sword-stick on the roof, and now he used it as a walking-stick as he hurried towards the station. He knew now what Sarthey was looking for, and how he knew this he did not know, it had come to him when he lay on the roof, and once he knew, it was so obvious that it seemed like he had always known it, but he could do nothing without Bolton or Abberline. He knew what it was but they might know where to find it, and so he stumbled along, wondering whether it was too late, whether Sarthey had already completed his quest; at the station there was no sign of Bolton, and the sergeant on duty was openly suspicious of Sanjay’s attire, which by virtue of being covered with dust and ripped in several places was now far from gentlemanly. But when Sanjay asked after Abberline, insisting that he had the most urgent information to convey, the gravity of his tone was apparently persuasive, because he was ushered into Abberline’s office.

‘Jones, is it?’ said Abberline. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

‘Never mind,’ said Sanjay. ‘I know what he wants.’

‘Jones, if you don’t go home immediately I am going to arrest you on suspicion and I am going to sling you into the bloody gaol and I’m going to keep you there.’

‘I don’t care if you stand me against a wall and shoot me. But listen to me. Was there a murder last night? No? Then there will be one tonight. If you listen to me we can stop him.’ Abberline reached out towards the bell on his desk. ‘Did one of you constables not see a man a minute or two before a body was found? A youngish man, who looks to be about thirty? A very pale complexion? White tapering hands?’ Abberline paused with his hand on the bell. ‘His eyes. The most striking thing about him is his eyes. They glow in the dark, they are luminous and unnatural. They talked about the cold.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I met the man and he told me.’ He motioned at himself, at his clothes. ‘He did this to me. You will not believe me, but will you believe me if you see it?’

Abberline drew his hand back from the bell, and now there was a troubled look on his face. ‘See what?’

Sanjay said: ‘Do you believe that I am speaking to you?’

‘Yes, of course you’re speaking to me.’

‘But look. I have no tongue.’ Sanjay opened his mouth wide and stepped up to Abberline, who laughed and then despite himself looked, and then threw himself back, knocking the chair over, and backed up to the wall. Sanjay edged closer to him, pointing at his mouth. ‘I have no tongue, and yet I speak. I tell you again, you have no idea what there is on your streets.’

Abberline was silent for a long moment. ‘If what you say is true, why is he doing this?’

‘He is looking for something.’

‘What?’

Sanjay leaned forward. ‘Is there a woman in these streets, of the streets, who is with child?’

Abberline took Sanjay back on the streets, where they talked to patrolling policemen, to plain-clothes constables, and others, informers, whom the inspector knocked up out of their dark houses and to whom he posed the same question, but nobody had an answer; the night passed, and Sanjay felt fear, once he heard a quavering cry and he and the inspector started and bumped into each other, then stared trembling into the dark until Abberline said curtly, ‘Cat.’ Sanjay felt the weight of Abberline’s curiosity, he knew the other wanted to know about his connection to Sarthey, but this was no time for talk, and so they hurried from alley to alley, always with the same question, which the inspector hid among half a dozen others, have you seen anyone suspicious, have you heard any noises; Sanjay understood that the Englishman was doing this despite himself, that he could not believe and yet believed, and so he waited impatiently, shifting from one painful leg to another, until always the question: A woman with child?

It was very late, past three, when a little policeman named Rollow, a sturdy small man standing straight for Abberline, answered crisply why yes, and then stepped back as Sanjay came forward, mouth working, and Abberline asked who, tell us, man.

‘Her name is Mary Kelly.’

‘Where?’ said Sanjay, ‘Where?’

Rollow glanced back and forth from Sanjay to Abberline, then cleared his throat. ‘She dosses, sir, in a room at Miller’s Court.’

Number 26, Dorset Street, was in darkness as Sanjay and the inspector stepped carefully around the house; each breath cost Sanjay an effort and robbed him of hearing, his pulse beat so loudly that finally he stood still, absolutely still, and Abberline’s face was sweaty in the flickering light from a lamp overhead, they looked at each other and they could hear nothing but Sanjay’s hands were shaking, he turned his head carefully, something small buzzed through the light and its shadow magnified spun like a wheel on the walls of Miller’s Court, Sanjay turned his head carefully, not knowing what to look for but examining every brick, the irregular paving stones, the long pipe running up on the wall, and level with his heart there was a small diamond of light, so tiny that it disappeared when he looked directly at it, but when he turned away it appeared again, a point of light in the wall. He stepped up to the wall, one two three, settling his feet on the ground slowly like an embrace, and his outstretched hand found a sheet of glass, a window, and cloth, a window with one pane broken in it, the gap stuffed with rags and letting through just one burst of light, Sanjay bent his face down (feeling a sensation of falling) and leaned close to the glass, pulled softly at the cloth with his forefinger, and the edge of glass stands sharply in his vision and what is beyond is indistinct for a moment but then it swims and clears into a black bag, a square black leather bag which is open and from which protrudes a steel handle, and beyond that on the floor is a pool of blood, there is a bed, on the bed there is a person, a woman but her face has been cut away, the body has been blasted the flesh peeled from the thighs to the bone, and Sarthey is leaning over her in his shirtsleeves, rolled up, he is concentrated and the light shines on his temples and the long forehead, he picks up her hand and places it slowly and surely in her stomach, in the red cavity where her stomach used to be, the room is red, he places her hand in herself, he is speaking, his voice is steady and calm and low, Sanjay can hear each word clearly, Sarthey says: ‘See. See. See, India, this is your womb. This is your heart. This is your bone.’