Theroux Paul - A Dead Hand - A Crime in Calcutta

But I kept going, up the stairs and into the incense stink and gloom of the Ananda, its lobby no more than an entryway with a window like that in a ticket office. A calendar, a blotter, a bell. I rang the bell.

A thin small woman appeared, and instead of a sari she wore a faded pink dress with a white collar, her hair plaited into one thick braid which lay on her back.

"Good afternoon, sir."

"Do you have any vacant rooms?"

"Yes, sir. Single. Double. Garden view. Family suite. Which, sir?"

"I'm not sure. Can I see some?"

Without replying she plucked some keys from hooks on a board just inside the ticket window. Following her up the stairs — no elevator — I asked her her name.

"Mina, sir."

"Christian?"

"Indeed, sir."

"What's your family name?"

"Jagtap, sir."

"Thanks for helping me, Mina."

"Pleasure, sir."

The first room was small and stifling. She showed me the bathroom, the plastic shower stall, the closet, the cot.

"Double is next door."

The double was only a little bigger, with two cots separated by a low table, on which a vase held two extravagant plastic blooms. I found these rooms depressing and almost frightening in their rankness, with the tang of mice and roaches, airless and entrapping.

"This hotel was mentioned by someone I know."

"Thank you, sir."

"He had a little problem when he was here." I had looked at the calendar. Three weeks ago, Mrs. Unger had said. That was the weekend of the seventh. I said, "Around the seventh or so. Did anything unusual happen then?"

"No, sir."

"It might help if I knew what room he was in."

"Nothing unusual, sir. Not on premises."

"Let's go downstairs, Mina."

At the ticket window she replaced the keys on the hooks. "Which room do you wish to book, sir?"

"I'm not sure. It's not for tonight. Some other time." She shrugged and turned away. I said, "Mina, I need to see your guest register."

The big old-fashioned clothbound ledger lay out of reach on a shelf, just inside the window.

"Cannot, sir. Register contains confidential information."

What annoyed me was the efficient way she dismissed my request, with a perfectly formulated phrase in good English. It was an Indian rebuff, articulate and final.

But I said, "Do you have a brother, Mina?"

"Three, sir."

"What if one of them was missing? What if your mother was desperate to know his whereabouts? Wouldn't you want someone to help you?"

"Sir" — and she looked anguished—"register cannot be shown to general public for examination without manager's permission."

"Mina, I don't want to examine it. I only want to look at one page." I could see her weaken, a slackening in her shoulders, a tilt of her head. "Please. Just the page showing the weekend of the seventh."

Without speaking, she slid the ledger onto the counter under the grille. She opened it, wet her thumb, and whittled away at the corners of the pages, and when she found the right page she glanced behind her in the direction of the manager's office and propped the book open before me.

Five days were shown. This was not a busy hotel. I was looking for Rajat's name. I wanted to find his room, the rate, any information under Remarks, his home address, anything. All the names I saw were Indian. His name was not there. I turned the page.

"You said weekend seventh."

"I may have been mistaken."

But there was no Rajat on that page either. I turned back to the week before the seventh.

"Please, sir."

I was running my finger under each name, seeing "Rajat" nowhere, when Mina snatched the register away. At that moment, the front door opened and a man in a white kurta glared at me with blazing eyes, his calculations as obvious as the tremor on his face and his fierce discolored teeth. His sudden anger convulsed him and gave him a neuralgic gait.

"He demanded to see, sir." Mina was breathless with panic.

In one limping movement the man stepped behind the counter and with a furious uppercut slapped the register shut. He shoved it onto a high shelf and pushed Mina aside — bumped her with his arm — his eyes wide, his lower lip jutting beneath his nose.

"I was checking the rates," I said.

"Rates are not there. Rates are here," he said, tapping the glass of the counter with a yellow fingernail. Under the glass was a small card with columns, headed Room Rates — Daily — Weekly — Monthly. "Register is strictly confidential." He spoke as though in stereo, in two directions, to Mina and me.

I thanked him, but as I was leaving I heard him shout — a bawling in Bengali, the sort of rage I'd heard before in India, uninhibited indignation, pure fury, always a man screaming at a woman.

That night back at the Hastings, I called Howard on his cell phone. He said he was working late at the consulate.

"You still here?" he asked.

I knew he was teasing me, but I was bothered by the seriousness that lay beneath his teasing, because I could not easily explain why I had lingered in Calcutta. I had given him the idea that I was going to make my way south and then eventually west to Mumbai, where I'd be catching a direct flight back to the States.

"Doing a little work," I said. This much was true. I'd written those lines about the air in Calcutta reminding me of the times I'd emptied a vacuum cleaner bag; I'd made those notes about Mrs. Unger's opinions; I'd started a journal that might form the basis of a story, one of those idle, meandering, time-filling, and self-important diaries that love-struck people keep when they have no one to console them. Calcutta Diary I'd written on the lozenge-shaped front label, hoping it would enliven my dead hand.

Howard said, "Parvati was asking about you."

The gifted Parvati, another inaccessible woman, whose very presence was a reminder that I was old and pale and out of ideas.

"How is she?" I asked, hoping I sounded interested.

"Why don't you ask her?"

Just hearing her name, and talking to Howard, I realized how much I had to conceal. In the four days since seeing Howard and Parvati, a great deal had happened: the letter from Mrs. Unger, the meeting with her and her son and Rajat at the Oberoi Grand, the massage at the Lodge, the rebuff at the Ananda, and my gloom caused by (I guessed) thwarted desire.

"Anyway, it's nice to hear from you," he said.

"I had a question."

"Shoot."

I said (the big lie I had rehearsed), "I had an e-mail from someone in the States saying that I should look up a certain American in Calcutta. I was wondering if you'd heard of her."

"Try me."

"Mrs. Unger. I think her name is Merrill."

"Philanthropist," Howard said. "With all that that implies."

"Please don't be enigmatic."

"I am being enigmatic. I am indulging in ambiguity. And you notice I am using the historical present, Bengali style."

"So do you know her?"

"Only heard about her. Bossy, wealthy, motherly, famous for her saris. I had the idea that she came here originally to work with the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's outfit. But that might be wrong. I know she has her own outfit, mainly humanitarian. She works with street kids, orphans. She relates to Indians — that's the secret of her success. Other people find her unapproachable."

"So she's well known."

"Well known for her independence. She avoids us."

"Why would that be?"

"Low profile. It's not odd for Americans in India. Lots of them come here to connect, or to indulge themselves for all sorts of reasons. A lot of them are looking for outsourcing, joint partnerships, high-tech ventures, cheap labor. And some are looking for spirituality, even sainthood. Maybe a few are looking for both."

"I thought you had to keep tabs on Americans here."