Theroux Paul - A Dead Hand - A Crime in Calcutta

He said something to the driver. Then, as the car slowed down, "Better we pass on foot."

"How far?"

Instead of answering, he gestured vaguely with the back of his hand. He gathered his umbrella and briefcase, and sighed as he got out of the car.

Ahead was a stucco wall about eight feet high with shards of glass embedded in the top, bristling like crude spikes. The gate was a pair of high steel doors, painted green and stenciled with a number. As I kicked along the dusty path, stumbling on tussocks and loose rocks, I thought: Mrs. Unger comes here?

A man in a heavy suit of fuzzy brown wool like an old-fashioned army uniform stood at the gate. He wore a black beret and carried a shiny black club that he brandished like a truncheon. He had a brass plate pinned to his shirt, official-looking, like the chowkidar at the Lodge.

Mr. Ghosh spoke to him in what I supposed was Hindi, first a greeting, then what sounded like a hectoring explanation.

"Not possible," the guard said in English.

Mr. Ghosh rested on his umbrella, using it as a cane. He spoke again.

The guard made an ambiguous head-bob and repeated, "Not possible."

Mr. Ghosh turned to us and said, "Not open to public."

"Wait a minute," Howard said, becoming decisive. He briskly approached the guard and looked him in the eye. He took out his passport and, nudging Mr. Ghosh aside, held it open the way a policeman shows his badge. He said, "I am from the United States consulate general in Calcutta. Do you see this? We are here on official business. Please open the gate and let us in."

The guard looked at Howard's diplomatic passport. He muttered and then withdrew. After a few minutes another man appeared, this one in shirtsleeves, and he examined the passport. Satisfied that it was genuine, he backed away, and the next sound I heard was the hasp being lifted and the steel bolt shot. The door swung open.

"Coffee, tea?" the man said.

I said no. Howard said yes. We had tea in the man's office. Howard whispered to me that since we were lucky to have gained entry, we had to observe the courtesies.

The man said his name was Joshi. Born in Ahmedabad, he had come to Mirzapur to learn the weaving trade. He was about forty or so, potbellied, with thin arms and a string around his wrist. "I am plant manager. Supervise, yes, I can do. Imitate I cannot. Weaving is very demanding," he said, wagging his head to indicate the depth of his seriousness.

"I suppose it's very technical," Howard said.

"So technical," Mr. Joshi said. "First, design is made. Then master plan, each knot specified. We are having rooms where designers toil. They are pukka artists, no doubt. The weavers read designs. We have yarn, hand-spun. Dyeing vats. All facilities."

"Do any of your carpets look like this?"

I showed him the patch of carpet.

"It seems one of ours," Mr. Joshi said. "We have specific naksha for this. That is, master plan. This pile I recognize too."

"It is like signature, I tell you," Mr. Ghosh said, not to be outdone. "I have informed the American gentlemen of this."

Mr. Joshi worked his thumbnail into the pile. He said, "Not first quality," and smiled. "Not valuable. Not collectible. Third quality. Parlor unit."

"How would this carpet be sold?"

"As export item. Machine-spun yarn. Not vegetable color. Chemical dye. Standard naksha. " He flipped it over. He dug his nail into it again, as though determining whether it was edible. "This piece is export only. You found in America?"

"Calcutta," I said.

He stared at the fragment in his hands, then he smiled. "Not possible."

"What if it was taken without your notice, or stolen by an employee?"

"Our employees are living on site. On premises thieving is minimal."

"By some miracle, this carpet ended up in Calcutta. It found its way to a hotel, where it was cut into pieces. That's where I came across it."

"I have no knowledge of this unauthorized usage," Mr. Joshi said.

Howard said, "We'd like to see your workshop."

"Not possible," Mr. Joshi said.

"We'd like to meet your employees."

"Not available." He pretended to be impassive, but I could see he was adamant.

Even Howard, the soul of politeness, hated to be rebuffed. He said, "You are the supervisor, Mr. Joshi?"

"Yes, sir. Plant manager."

"Who is your boss?"

"The sahib, sir."

"We want to meet the sahib."

Mr. Joshi's face became waxen, and he swallowed hard as he seemed to make a rapid calculation that showed in his glistening eyes.

"Sahib very busy, sir."

"Give him this card." Howard handed Mr. Joshi his business card from the consulate, with the American eagle embossed in gold on it. "Please tell him we want a word with him."

Mr. Joshi fingered the card, studied it with his lips.

"Chowkidar has passed me this card already," he said, and then wagged his head, the wobble that meant yes.

After Mr. Joshi left the room, Mr. Ghosh said, "Chap is doing level best."

Howard simply shrugged. "We've come all this way. Why not give it a shot?"

We sat in the tiny office, tired from the long night in the train, weary from the rebuffs. It was hotter here than in Calcutta, the slimy heat of the river thickening the air. We had not washed. We had hardly eaten.

"Better we go to Hotel Janhavi and make telephonic inquiries from there," Mr. Ghosh said.

We did not reply. I was not sure what to do, though what Mr. Joshi had said reassured me. The carpet was definitely from this factory. It had arrived at the Ananda rolled around a dead child and had turned up in Rajat's room. So, some of the pieces fit in some larger scheme, but the scheme itself was a mystery. Who was the boy? Where had he come from? Why had he been brought to the Ananda, and why did the poor boy have no fingerprints? Perhaps the loss of fingerprints was associated with his weaving, as Dr. Mooly Mukherjee had suggested.

All these disjointed speculations should have prepared me for anything, yet I was not prepared for what happened next.

A series of bangs, each one louder than the one before, seemed more jarring in the heat. A door slammed in the hallway, then Mr. Joshi's door was flung open. Charlie Unger stood before us, very red in the face, his white kurta spotless.

"What are you doing here? What do you want?"

A person reveals his true personality in a show of temper. Charlie had never been more than a smirking shadow before, seeming to resent my being with his mother; or he had sulked and been oblique, but always enigmatic. All his talk of liking my writing had not convinced me. Now he was fussed and furious, hands on hips, defying us — defying me, his hating eyes dancing in anger, his lips twisted in disdain, the real Charlie.

"We'd like to look at your factory." It was just an assumption that it was his, but he didn't deny it.

"Does Mother know you're here?"

"In a way, she sent us here."

"That's crap. She would have called." He turned to Howard. "Who are you?"

"You have my card," Howard said. "I'm from the consulate."

"You have no business here."

"As Mr. Joshi probably told you, we want to look around."

"Listen, doll, take your friends and leave. Go back to wherever you belong. You don't belong here."

Howard visibly stiffened at this, yet when he spoke he was calm and exceedingly polite. "Please have another look at my card. You'll see I'm public affairs officer at the consulate. I am answerable to the State Department for the activities of all Americans in my area. Mirzapur is in it, and so is Calcutta. That would include you."

"I have news for you, doll," Charlie said, trying to interrupt.

But Howard continued: "If you want to go on doing business here, you'll show us your factory, your workshops, and your employees. We're not leaving until we see them."