The Calcutta Chromosome

by Amitav Gosh

SUDDENLY URMILA found herself shaking with indignation. She knew she was on the verge of one of those periodic seizures of outrage which sometimes gripped her when she was working on her investigative articles. She was so angry now that she stopped caring about the time about the press conference at the Great Eastern, the news editor, even the Minister of Communications from Delhi. She stuffed the pieces of fish back into the plastic bag and marched to the door. On her way out she snatched up the sheets of Xerox paper, crumpling them into a ball, in her fist.

  Her mother had come out of her bedroom to see what the matter was. Her mouth fell open, seeing Urmila marching out of the flat in her grease-spattered sari, clutching a ball of paper and a bag of fish. 'Where are you going, Urmi?' she cried.

  'I'm going to return this fish,' Urmila said, letting herself out. 'We can't eat this: it'll kill us. Look at this filthy paper it's wrapped in. I'm going to make that man take it back: I paid more than a hundred rupees for this fish. I'm not going to be cheated like this.'

  The front door of their flat opened on a narrow, corridorlike veranda that served three other apartments beside their own. Urmila was certain she would find the fish-seller outside, knocking on the doors of the other flats. But the veranda was empty: she looked to her right and then to her left. There was no sign of the young man with the basket of fish.

  Urmila stood undecided for a moment and then she went to the neighbouring door and rang the bell. Several minutes later the door opened and a middle-aged man dressed in pyjamas and a cotton vest looked out suspiciously. 'Yes?' he said. 'What do you want?'

  Urmila was momentarily at a loss for words: a long history of disputes and quarrels lay between this family and hers. Trying to smile, she said: 'Did a fish-seller ring your bell this morning? A young man in a T-shirt and a checked lungi?'

  The man looked her over sardonically, his eyes travelling slowly from the plastic bag stuffed with fish to her crumpled spice-stained sari.

  Urmila held her ground. 'Did you see him?' she said again.

  'No,' said the man. 'We were asleep until you rang the bell.'

  'What?' said Urmila. 'The fish-seller didn't come here? With the basket… '

  'What did I tell you?' the man snapped. 'Didn't I tell you we were fast asleep?' He slammed the door on her.

  Urmila ran up one flight to the fourth floor, the highest in the building. The floors in their building were exactly alike, each with four identical flats, lined up next to each other along an open veranda. There was no sign of the fishseller on the fourth floor. She turned and went pelting down, stopping at each landing to look up and down the long verandas. The man wasn't anywhere in the building so far as she could tell. She checked the veranda on the ground floor twice, and then ran out to the small paan shop on the pavement, near the entrance to the building.

  The stall-owner was sitting cross-legged on the counter, saying a prayer before starting the day's work. She had to wait until he opened one eye. 'What's this?' he said, in surprise, staring at her dishevelled hair and her crumpled night-time sari. 'Why are you outside in this state?'

  She asked him about the fish-seller, and he shook his head: 'No, I haven't seen anyone; I've just got here, as you can see.'

  She turned on her heel and headed down the road. 'Where are you going?' the paan-wallah called after her.

  'I'm not going to let that man rob me in broad daylight,' she said. 'I'm going to find him and get my money back.'

  The paan-wallah gave a derisory laugh. 'It's no use,' he said. 'Those vendors are too clever for the likes of you.'

  'We'll see!' Urmila shouted back, over her shoulder.

  RashBehari was thronged with its usual morning crowd of pedestrians, some hurrying towards Lansdowne, some towards Gariahat. People turned to stare at Urmila as she went marching along swinging her clenched fists. There were a few jeers and catcalls from loiterers, standing against the railings and squatting by the road. Urmila walked on, oblivious of her soiled sari and her soggy bag of fish.

  She turned into a lane, off RashBehari, and almost before she knew it she was standing before a pair of tall wroughtiron gates. A portly chowkidar in khaki uniform was on guard at the gate. Right above him was an elaborately carved marble nameplate, set deep in the wall. It bore the name 'Romen Haldar' written in richly ornamented, cursive Bengali.

  The chowkidar looked her up and down, suspiciously. 'What's your business here?' he said, placing himself in front of her, rapping his stick on his thigh.

  Urmila pushed him aside, barely pausing in her stride. 'You don't need to concern yourself with my business,' she said. 'You stay where you are and think about your own business.'

  She marched off, down the driveway towards the covered porch that led into the house. The chowkidar gave chase, waving his stick and shouting: 'Stop: You can't go in.'

  'Tell me something,' Urmila threw back at him, over her shoulder. 'Did the fish-seller come here today?'

  'What fish-seller?' said the chowkidar. 'We don't have any fish-sellers coming here. Do you know whose house this is?'

  'Yes,' said Urmila.

  With a sudden burst of speed, the chowkidar ran around her, trying to block the driveway. But Urmila was used to forcing her way past doorkeepers and secretaries; he was no match for her. She stepped around him, unimpressed. He followed, mouthing imprecations.

  The chowkidar's shouts caused a stir inside the house. An elderly man appeared on the porch, pen in hand, dressed in a starched white kurta and dhoti. 'What's the matter?' he demanded, peering irritably down the driveway.

  He spotted Urmila and a frown appeared on his forehead. 'Yes, what is it?' he said, looking her over distastefully. 'What do you want? No appointments today – all appointments have been cancelled.'

  Urmila ignored him. 'I want to see Mr Romen Haldar,' she said.

  The secretary glowered at her, over the rim of his spectacles. 'What business do you have with Mr Haldar?' he asked.

  'I want to ask him about a fish-seller who came to my flat this morning,' Urmila said defiantly.

  The secretary's jaw dropped. 'Fish-seller?' he said. 'What fish-seller?'

  'A young man,' Urmila said. She tried to describe him but all she could recall of his appearance was a fading T-shirt and a big, gap-toothed grin. 'He sells fish here regularly,' she said. 'He was on his way here right now; he told me so.'

  She lifted up the packet of fish and held it out towards the secretary. 'Look: he sold me this just this morning.'

  The secretary recoiled. 'Keep that filthy thing away from me,' he cried, snatching back a spotless, cotton-clothed arm. 'What nonsense is this? No fish-seller has set foot in this house for years.'

  'He told me that he sold fish to Mr Haldar.'

  'He was lying,' said the secretary.

  Urmila stared at him, her head reeling. 'But the man told me… ' she began.

  The secretary made an impatient gesture. 'Enough,' he said. 'You can be off now.'

  Urmila's tone hardened. 'No,' she said. 'I will not leave until I see Mr Haldar himself.'

  'I see,' said the secretary. Raising a hand, he made a sign to the chowkidar, who was standing at the door. 'Shyam Bahadur,' he said. 'Show this lady the way out.'

  Urmila pointed a finger at him, looking him directly in the eyes. 'I don't think you know who I am,' she said, in a firm, cool voice. 'Let me tell you: my name is Urmila Roy and I am a Calcutta reporter. Perhaps you should think a little before you do anything.'

  The secretary's scowl deepened and he launched into a threat-laden diatribe. Urmila listened quietly; she had become all too used to situations like these over the last couple of years. In her own way she had even come to relish them.

  She waited impassively until he ran out of breath. 'Now will you please take me to Mr Haldar?' she said, silkily. 'Quickly, please; I don't have much time. In a short while I have to be at the Great Eastern Hotel, for a press conference with the Minister of Communications.'

  The secretary began to splutter. 'You don'
t understand,' he said, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his spotless kurta. 'I can't take you to Mr Haldar because I don't know where he is. He's disappeared. He's missed two appointments already.'

  Urmila stared at him, open mouthed, 'But he's meant to come to our flat for dinner tonight,' she began to explain, meaninglessly. 'That's why I'm cooking this fish; that's why I'm going to be late for the press conference… ' She shook the bag of fish under his nose once again.

  The secretary sneered. 'You're either mad or dreaming,' he said. 'Mr Haldar is booked on a flight to Bombay this evening – he has to attend a meeting there. He had no plans to visit you or anyone else here.' With a gesture of dismissal, he turned to the chowkidar. 'Take her away,' he said. 'I'm not going to waste any more time on this nonsense.'

  Urmila allowed herself to be led out of the room, but at the porch she broke suddenly free. 'You're lying,' she shouted, shaking off the chowkidar's hand. 'I don't believe you. You're not going to get away with this -you'll see… ' The chowkidar placed a restraining hand on her arm.

  Trying to evade his grip Urmila stumbled. And then the gravel path was flying up to meet her.

  Chapter 27

  WHEN NEXT she opened her eyes Urmila was lying in the shade of the pillared portico of the Haldar mansion. Her sight was blurred and her head was spinning. A large indistinct shape was hovering above her, and beyond it were about a dozen hazy faces, looking anxiously down at her. A voice was shouting in her ear; she couldn't tell what it was saying; the accent was odd. Someone was fanning her with a newspaper; someone else was offering her a glass of water. The chowkidar was somewhere in the middle distance, gesticulating and arguing with someone she couldn't see.

  Gradually, as her vision cleared, she saw that the large blur in front of her was a face, the face of a man, a man with a short, trimmed beard. He looked somehow familiar. 'Miss Calcutta:' he was shaking her shoulder. 'Come on, wake up. Where'd you get these? I've got to know.'

  'Get what?' she said. He was waving something at her, but she couldn't see what it was.

  'These,' he said impatiently. 'This stuff you brought with you; these papers.'

  Brushing his hand away, she sat up. 'Who are you?' she said. 'Why are you shouting at me like this?'

  He looked at her nonplussed. 'Don't you remember me?' he said. 'We met that day, at that auditorium.'

  'What do you mean, we met?' she said. 'I don't know your name, or who you are, or what you do or anything.'

  'I'm L. Murugan,' he said. 'I work for LifeWatch.' Murugan took out his wallet and handed her a card. 'I know who you are,' he said. 'I don't recall the name exactly, but I know you work for Calcutta magazine.'

  'That's all you need to know,' she said. 'Now kindly explain what you are doing here.'

  'Me?' said Murugan. 'I wanted to ask Mr Haldar's permission to visit his Robinson Street property, so I thought I'd come and introduce myself.'

  'And why were you shouting at me?'

  'I've got to know where you found these.' He produced the crumpled bits of Xerox paper she had found in the packet of fish. 'Can you tell me?'

  'How dare you?' she cried. She lunged at his hand and snatched the papers away. 'These are mine. They belong to me.'

  'They're not yours,' he said, grabbing at them. 'They have nothing to do with you.'

  'They're mine and I'm going to keep them,' said Urmila.

  She screwed the papers into a tight little ball and tucked them into the front of her blouse.

  Murugan gritted his teeth. 'Look,' he said. 'You've found something that just might be the key to one of the mysteries of the century, and all you want to do is start a custody battle?'

  Urmila rose slowly to her feet. 'Why do you want them so much?' she said. 'They're just bits of waste paper.'

  'OK,' said Murugan. 'I'll tell you what: I'll save you the trouble of flushing them down the toilet. Give them back to me.'

  'There is no need to get agitated,' she said coldly. She rose to her feet, and directed a look of enquiry at the faces around her. 'Where's my fish?' she demanded, of no one in particular. Someone handed the soggy packet back to her. Taking a firm grip on it she set off down the path, towards the gate.

  Murugan ran after her. 'Wait up,' he said, trying to collect himself. 'Look, what is it that you want? Do you want money or something?'

  She threw him a contemptuous glance and walked on. 'Then what?' said Murugan.

  'I want to know what's in those papers.'

  He caught hold of her elbow. 'Look,' he said, in as placatory a voice as he could muster. 'You haven't even told me your name. All I know about you is that you work for Calcutta .'

  'My name is none of your business,' she answered, shaking his hand off. 'And kindly do not touch me.'

  'Oh, so is that going to be your attitude?' said Murugan, his voice rising. 'So what shall I call you, then, since I'm not going to be granted the honour of an introduction? Miss Calcutta? Or perhaps even just Calcutta, or would that be too intimate? Too affectionate, you think? Your husband might begin to suspect some hanky-panky, some panking hankies, some untoward hanking and panking… '

  'I'm not married,' Urmila said coldly.

  'Oh, better and better: you just made my day, Calcutta, I'm going to count the seconds till the hanking ends and the panking begins, but before we start heaving our hanks let me tell you something, Calcutta, let me feed a little factoid into your database: let me tell you how this works: let me set your priorities a little more in line with the real world. You don't get to ask me the questions: you see what I'm saying? It's Dr Morgan who gets to decide what you deserve to know and when.'

  She narrowed her eyes. 'Is that so?' she said.

  'You want an explanation,' he said. 'You're going to get it. But I'm going to choose the weapons and the venue.'

  He ran to the road and stopped a taxi.

  'Po G. Hospital,' he said, to the Sikh driver. 'Quick; let's go.'

  Chapter 28

  ANTAR SHIVERED: he felt distinctly ill now. He would have to find a way of letting Tara know that he wasn't up to having dinner with her.

  Fortunately she'd been wearing a beeper the last few weeks. Switching screens, he keyed in a few words: Regret must cancel dinner; explain later. He called up her number and dialled the message through.

  The beeper had come with a new job Tara had found, a few weeks ago. The woman she was working for now was a stockbroker who often worked late: she liked to stay in constant touch with her four-year-old and had insisted that Tara carry a beeper.

  The job was a good one, Tara said, much better than the one she'd lost: the pay was fair and better still, the boy was good-natured and his mother relatively undemanding. Tara never lost an opportunity to thank Antar for helping her to find the job.

  But the truth was that if Antar had helped at all, it was only in a rather roundabout way. One morning, about a month ago, he had noticed her hanging about her apartment at a time when she was usually out at work. Pushing up the kitchen window, he called out: 'What's the matter? Not going to work today?'

  She stuck her head into the air-shaft, and gave him a rueful smile. Her wispy hair was tied in an untidy knot and she looked as though she hadn't bothered to change after getting out of bed.

  'I would if I could,' she said. 'But the job's not mine any more.'

  'What happened?'

  'Well,' she said. 'The gloss that was put on the matter was that I had rather reluctantly been allowed to depart. But the fact was they needed someone with the right papers so they could get a tax write-off.' She shrugged and made a face.

  'Oh,' said Antar. 'Well, that's too bad.' It took him a moment to digest this bit of news.

  'Haven't you found anything else yet?' he said. 'I thought babysitters were snapped up the minute they hit the market.'

  Tara shook her head resignedly. 'The best jobs are posted on the Net,' she said. 'And I can't afford a susbscription. Come to think of it, I can't afford a computer and wouldn't know what to do
with it if I could.'

  'On the Net?' Antar was astounded. 'Babysitting jobs? You're joking. Surely?'

  'I wish I were,' she said. 'But it's true. I've looked in the Irish Echo and India Abroad: not a thing in either.'

  She gave him a bleak smile and a nod. 'I must go now,' she said. 'Or my tea will get cold. And the way things are going, I suspect it wouldn't be wise to waste a tea bag.' She ducked back inside.

  The conversation resounded in Antar's mind through the day as he sat staring at Ava's screen: the precariousness of her circumstances weighed on him in ways he couldn't quite understand. The next morning he was in and out of the kitchen every few minutes until he spotted her, pottering around her apartment.

  Leaning over the sink, he shouted: 'Listen: I have an idea.'

  She gave him a wan smile. 'Yes?' He could tell she'd been up late, worrying.

  'I have an old laptop in my cupboard,' he said. 'I could hook it up with Ava and run a cable through to you. You could have as much time on the Net as you wanted. I've upgraded it a couple of times and it can run the software. The Council gives me twenty hours a week free, and I hardly ever use even a fraction of that. I've got at least a thousand hours coming to me. You can have them.'

  Her thin, fine-boned face lit up. 'Really?' she said. 'Could you really do that?'

  She hesitated, as though she couldn't believe her luck: 'Are you sure it would be all right? I don't want to get you in any trouble.'

  Antar made an attempt at nonchalance. 'It's very irregular, of course,' he said. 'The Council's paranoid about security. But I think I can rig it. If you're careful and you don't try to fool around we'll both be all right.'

  'I'll be very careful,' she said earnestly. 'You have my word: I won't do anything that might get you in trouble.' Antar set up the link later that day.

  It gave him a twinge to leave his old laptop behind with her: it was an early nineties Korean-made model, sleek and black, with beautifully rounded edges. He'd always loved it: the heft and weight of it in his hands, the muted click of its keyboard, its old-fashioned chrome detailing.