Theroux Paul - A Dead Hand - A Crime in Calcutta

" Namashkar " she was saying, and " Apni keman achen? " — hello and how are you? in Bengali.

They were fine, they said, Bhalo achhi, or more often, just okay, Thik achhey.

She patted the child she carried, or swung her and shifted her like a doll. I guessed the little girl to be six or so, but an Indian child that size could have been older. Poverty diminished them, shrunk them, gave them extraordinary bodies, spindly legs or swollen bellies. Some children had faces like old men, and some of the mothers looked like haggard girls.

Rajat was following her progress through the room. He said, "She's thinking, Why aren't there more of them? But it's not that easy." He watched her stoop to speak to a group of anxious children. "She knows just how to calm them."

"Why should they be afraid?"

Now he became unreadable again, with an expression that seemed like contempt for my ignorance, another snub for the big, uncomprehending foreigner.

He went on praising Mrs. Unger, but I was thinking how he'd called her bloodstained ("It's a good color for Ma"), and I could not take my eyes off the dark blood on the hem of her white sari, the blood that was dried and crusted on her feet.

Shaking her head, looking disapproving, she was deep in discussion with Charlie. He was taller, so he had to stoop slightly, and it was easy to tell that she was the authority figure.

"I'm sorry," Charlie said to her as I drew close to them.

Still holding the child, she headed for the door, and I took this as a signal that I should follow.

"Bye, Mother."

Another snub to me, because at this point I was right behind her, leaving the room. She had given me the big soft basket that served as her handbag.

In the car, she said, "Charlie hates me."

"He has his life," I said, another banality. I did not know anything.

The small girl sat between us in the back seat.

"That seemed a good turnout."

"Not good at all. The room should have been full. Think of all the children who are not there, who missed this chance. It breaks my heart."

She seemed entirely unselfish speaking this way, wanting more work, seeing her role in terms of rescue. And I had my selfish thought again: a woman so concerned with human welfare will look after me. That was how she had seemed to me, like a benefactor. I had known her as someone wholly committed to giving. She hugged the small girl.

"Her name is Usha," she said. "Isn't she sweet? It means 'dawn.'"

"Was that her mother in the room?"

Mrs. Unger smiled at me, as if I had said something very foolish.

"I am her mother."

WAS IT POSSIBLE to desire anyone more than I desired Mrs. Unger? I didn't think so, even in middle age, after all my lessons in love. I had never felt this way, utterly abstracted and dependent, like a small boy clinging to his mother. It was love of a rarefied kind: I was her devotee. I had nothing to offer her except my loyalty. She had everything to offer me. When I could not see her I felt mournful, almost ill. Yet I preferred to be alone rather than with other people — Howard or Parvati. It seemed disloyal to spend time with anyone else. This devotion was the sort that deprived a person of family and friends; they were no use — worse, they were an intrusion. And I needed my secret.

Howard persisted. He called to arrange meetings. Could I talk to the Theosophical Society? Could I give a lecture at the university in Burdwan? What about the Book Week in Ballygunge?

Normally I might have said yes, but somehow his requests appalled me, shamed me, made me sad.

"I can't, I'm really sorry," I said, and was almost tearful, thinking: I have nothing to say to anyone. I am empty.

"I've got some great stories for you," he said.

He liked telling me the more colorful ones ("You could use this in an article"). One was about two American Foreign Service officers, both of them men, who were involved in a murder-suicide. "It happened in Equatorial Guinea, but maybe you could give it an Indian background." Another was about an American consul's wife who sang Tagore songs and had a cult-like following. "Maybe something in the water here — a lot of foreign women get goddess complexes." And there was the Monkey Man: "A large monkey roams neighborhoods, causing mayhem. He killed a commissioner on the roof terrace of his residence. A bunch of vigilantes went out to catch Monkey Man. There were hundreds of Monkey Man sightings. People are still terrified of Monkey Man — possibly a hairy man, possibly a huge monkey. Wouldn't that make a great short story?"

It was the sort of thing people had been saying to me my whole writing life. If only he knew the fantastic narrative I was living with Mrs. Unger, for which I had no vocabulary.

The rattling bell on my old room phone nagged me. I hoped it was Mrs. Unger. It was Howard, and I was at once suspicious. Skilled at getting people to say yes, he had a special, softly insistent yet deferential voice for eliciting agreement. He was used to dealing with difficult people — stubborn Bengalis, pompous matrons, commissars of the Communist Party of Bengal, obnoxious State Department types — and though he was now a public affairs officer, he had served time as an assistant consul, dealing with any number of mendacious visa applicants.

"Paul Theroux wants to see you. He's in Calcutta."

"I've never met him," I said. "How does he know I'm here?"

"I told him. He's a huge fan." That had to be bull. "I mentioned that you once asked about Mrs. Unger." Before I could dismiss this, he said, "He also asked about her."

My whole body went slack. I felt my throat constrict, my voice go small.

"Is that why he's here?"

"I don't think so." Howard put on more of his special "selling" voice. "He was supposed to open the Calcutta Book Fair, but it was scrubbed at the last minute over a lawsuit by some local people who said it would create pollution. Isn't that funny? You might be able to use that in a story."

But I was still thinking of He also asked about her, and I was too numb to reply.

"We were having a drink at his hotel yesterday, and out of the blue he said, 'Does the name Merrill Unger mean anything to you?'"

In a voice I barely recognized I said, "What did you say?"

"I said that I knew someone else who'd asked me the same question."

I could not speak. Since I'd met her, I'd felt I had her to myself — and she had me. We were each other's secret. Even her sly inquisitive son could not have known what went on between us. We met covertly, by assignation, and she worked her tantric magic on me in semidarkness, by the light of flickering oil lamps in her vault at the Lodge.

Foolishly, early on, I'd dropped her name to Howard, not realizing that he'd remember. I thought I'd been so offhand. But as a Foreign Service officer he was alert to the slightest suggestion of any new fact or query. His job was to know as much as possible about the Americans in Calcutta, to keep track of them, to make connections. He didn't know much about Mrs. Unger, so on this slender association he wanted to find out more. Arranging a meeting, putting me in touch with someone like Theroux, he might find something out — about us, about her. I had taken Howard to be a friend, but no matter how casual he seemed, a diplomat is never off duty. His first duty was to the flag, and keeping the flag waving was his job.

"I don't know him," I said. "I've never met him."

"This is your chance."

Howard was shrewd, but he had no idea of the antagonisms that exist among writers.