A Dead Hand (26 page)

As the brittle paper wrapper disintegrated in my hand, I held its contents, a square of carpet. It was like a swatch, a store sample, but roughly cut, velvety with a floral design and part of a margin on one side, tightly woven and dusty on the underside. No other obvious markings, though the pattern on the upper side was distinct: green strands, yellow petals, on a deep red background. It had been coarsely scissored, like a bite out of a big rug.

No message. I sat staring at it. My first thought was to search for bloodstains or any identifying marks. I found nothing; even the pattern was unrevealing, not to say banal. But as an unexpected chunk of material, it was so odd as to seem meaningful—that is, a deliberate riddle. I could not at first imagine who'd sent it, but I related it to what I'd been told by Mina at the cemetery:
Carpet was parceled. Body was inside.

I sat back and sighed. This was like blunt trauma, a colossal interruption of my writing. My work lay on the table. I knew that I could not return to it until I had solved the problem.

That was the strangest thing of all. During the trip to Assam and in writing about Mrs. Unger, I hadn't thought about Rajat and the hotel, the discovery of the corpse, his running away, and how from the very beginning I'd been asked by Mrs. Unger to solve this mystery and vindicate Rajat. So overwhelmed had I been by her that I'd neglected to follow up on the information I'd found: the rudeness of the Ananda's manager, the details that Mina Jagtap had given me.

How did this parcel find me? The thought fluttered through my mind. But it was naïve of me to wonder. Calcutta was a city almost without tourists. I had been here more than two months, walking the streets and openly asking questions. Though there must have been many foreigners in the city, it sometimes seemed that I was one of about a dozen resident
ferringhis.
I was easy to spot. That explained how the parcel found me, but not why.

I immediately suspected Mina. Who else? She knew I was inquiring, she'd been fired from the Ananda, so she had a reason to help me. No note: the swatch was self-explanatory—cut from a carpet, probably the one that had held the body.

Wanting to please Mrs. Unger, to remind her that I was still pursuing the problem she had posed to me, I called her cell phone, an emergency number she'd given me. "Emphasis on 'emergency.'" I got one of those messages:
The mobile customer is either currently out of service or out of range.

I wanted to show her that I was on the scent. I got into a taxi, with the square of carpet in my briefcase, and went to the Lodge in Alipore. I had never dared to go uninvited before, but today I had an excuse—this ambiguous clue. I could prove that I was busy on her behalf, and grateful to her.

Writers talk to themselves, and traveling writers talk to themselves constantly. People on their way to a meeting prepare their lines. I began to rehearse a little speech in my head.

"See what I've done?" I would say. "You asked me to investigate the bizarre event at the Ananda, and I've obeyed you. I have a few leads. The dead boy was brought to the hotel in a carpet, and I have a piece of that carpet, sent anonymously to me at my hotel, probably by someone who wants me to know the truth. I think it might be a former employee. I've got it right here."

The gate to the courtyard was padlocked, and the courtyard itself was empty. I called out to the chowkidar, who stood in the shade holding his badge of authority, a long thick club.

"
Namashkar.
"

He pretended not to hear, but I kept calling and embarrassed him into coming over.

"Please let me in."

"Cannot." He looked solemn and stubborn but confident, happy to be unhelpful.

"I have to see Ma." Everyone knew her by that name.

"Not available." He smacked the club against his palm, as if to remind me that he was in charge. The club was dark from being handled.

I felt awkward talking to him through the iron bars of the gate, especially here, where I'd always been welcome. I could hear the children screeching inside, some of them singing.

"I'll write Ma a note. You can give the note to her."

I imagined writing
I must see you at once.
She would forgive me for intruding. I was making progress in solving the mystery. I had a dead hand, I had a piece of carpet, I had a witness.

As I began to scribble my appeal on a page of my pocket notebook, the chowkidar said, "Not here."

"Not in the Lodge?"

"Not in Calcutta."

"Where is she?"

He gestured past the wall with his big club. "Gone to U.P."

You-bee
was what he said. I knew he meant Uttar Pradesh.

"Where in U.P.?"

"Pactory. Meerjapur."

"Out of town," "on a buying trip," "away for a bit," "picking up some children," she always said to explain her absences. She never told me where. This was more specific, a factory in Mirzapur. I was not sure where Mirzapur was, but I knew it was not near Calcutta.

In the taxi on the way back to the Hastings, I asked the driver where it was.

"Varanasi side," he said.

"Far?"

"Five hundred twenty kilometers."

"How long to drive?"

"Not drive. Train better. Fourteen hours."

I considered going there so that I could say, "Look what I've got!" But I thought better of it. It would be ridiculous and premature to show up with the dead hand and the piece of carpet. I needed more evidence. I wanted to amaze her, to show her that I cared. I hoped that she'd be pleased, that she'd reward me. I longed to see her smile at me, to touch me with her secret blessing.

At some yellow hour of the Calcutta night, sleepless in the light pollution of street lamps, alone with this problem, I thought: It must have been Mina who sent it. But had she gotten this fragment of carpet from the hotel itself? She wanted to help without being directly implicated. I needed to spend a night at the Ananda.

I hated the sight of the hotel. I associated it with death and deceit. I disliked the manager, Biswas, for his rudeness, for being unhelpful. And he had abused Mina. He'd fired her for showing me the register. And in this hot weather there was no more uncomfortable part of Calcutta than high-density New Market—the milling crowds, the stink and noise of traffic, the litter in the streets. Here were the cheapest hotels, with pompous names: the Savoy, the Ritz, the Astoria, New India, Delight, Krishna Chambers, and among them the Ananda.

Seeing me approach with an overnight bag, the girl sitting just inside the door raised her head and called to someone.

Mr. Biswas loomed behind her, materializing out of the hot shadows, wrapped in the puffy gauze of his dhoti, wearing a khadi vest. I had forgotten how hairy his ears were, how yellow his fingernails, how red his teeth, how sour his expression.

He must have warned the girl to look out for me. It didn't matter. He knew me only as a nuisance. He wasn't seriously threatened; he was annoyed because I hadn't rented a room.

"Remember me?"

"How could I forget you, sir," he said, swelling a little with belligerence.

"I need a room."

"As you wish." He said something to the girl in Bengali, and hearing him, she reached for my bag.

I clung to it. It was ridiculously light—suspiciously so. "Never mind."

"We are here to serve you," Mr. Biswas said. Every word he spoke sounded either sarcastic or insincere.

"A single room. What are your rates?"

"Standard is four hundred. Facing street. Deluxe is more. Surcharge for garden view. Supplement applies to suite."

Mina had told me that Rajat had stayed in number fifteen. I asked for that room.

"Garden view. Six hundred rupees. Payable in advance."

That was about sixteen dollars. I handed over the rupees. Mr. Biswas licked his thumb and counted them, then gave them to the girl. He was eyeing me sideways, working a wad of betel nut in his mouth. He spat a gob of reddened saliva at the side of the doorway, a fresh streak among dried-out drips.

"Passport," he said, and beckoned with his skinny fingers.

We were still standing on the top step of the Ananda. I slipped my passport out of my pocket, held it away from him, and said, "I want it back."

"After transfer of details, full name and visa number."

Only then did he allow me into the hotel. He took his place behind the window of the check-in desk and opened my passport. He pressed it against the desk with the flat of his hand, then spat into a bucket, licked red betel juice from his lips with an even redder tongue, then turned the pages slowly.

"I will send to room."

"I'd rather wait."

He shrugged and went on turning pages, and when he found the page with my India visa he used a key on a bracelet to unlock a drawer beneath the desktop. He slipped out a large bound volume that I recognized as the register and slowly copied my name, my date of birth, my visa number and place of issue. Then he replaced the volume and locked the drawer again.

"Your papers." He handed me my passport.

I had hoped to get a look at the register again, for Rajat's details. No such luck.

"This way, sir," the young girl said.

I followed her up the stairs, liking the way her sari tightened like a sling around her swaying bottom as she climbed. She carried a thin gray towel, a small rectangle of soap wrapped in wax paper, and on one finger the loop of a key, which was wired to a large wooden tag inked with the number fifteen.

"What's your name?"

"Chitra, sir."

"What happened to Mina?"

"Gone, sir. Sacked, sir. I am Mina replacement."

"Why was Mina sacked?"

"She giving manager angerness."

"What happened?"

"He beating her, sir."

"Why did he beat her?"

"I not knowing."

"Where's your home?"

"Assam side, sir."

"I was in Assam recently."

"Are you enjoying, sir?"

"Very much."

"Thank you, sir. Tea gardens beautiful. Also trees. Also Brahmaputra River."

I remembered Mrs. Unger saying,
The real aristocrats of the world are the native peoples, the so-called tribals in India, the Mizos, the Nagas in Assam.
But all I could recall of Assam was the Kamakhya temple, its floor running with blood; the child whores of Nagapatti; and the hotel room, Mrs. Unger lying beneath my trembling hands.
Show me what you've learned from me.

We had come to the second floor. Chitra led me along the corridor, away from the bright front window and the growl of traffic—bells and horns and human cries, a density of noise. She opened the door to number fifteen and paused at the threshold to let me pass.

"Toggle switch for fan here," she said, flipping it, and the overhead fan croaked and began to turn like a heavy bird beginning to rise, groaning on its outstretched wings.

She placed the towel and soap on the bed and stood before me awkwardly, bowing slightly. She had a sad face, and her attempt to smile made it sadder: narrow shoulders, a thin breastless body, bony hands, skinny feet.

I held out some money, two hundred rupees that I had counted on the way up the stairs.

"Thank you, sir." And at once the money disappeared into her sari, as she hid it without looking at it.

"Chitra, I need you to help me."

She stared, fearful, widening her eyes, pressing her lips together.

"I want to look into some other rooms."

She ungummed her lips. "All locked, sir."

"But you can unlock them."

"I cannot, sir."

She looked anguished, and without another word she backed away and shut the door.

I lay on the bed listening intently—would Chitra tell the manager what I had said? I was so anxious that I was rigid, afraid to move lest I miss hearing something; and in this state of nerves I exhausted myself. I slept suddenly, dreamlessly, then woke gasping in the dark, jarred by a slamming door. Still in my clothes, I did not at first have any idea where I was. The bed stank; the dust in my nostrils alarmed me. I had the notion that someone intended to kill me. That was when I opened my cell phone and shone it around the room.

Without turning on the bedside lamp, using only the light from my cell phone, I got up and listened at the door. I could see that it was not yet nine—I'd been sleeping for about two hours. I opened the door carefully and saw that the corridor was in shadow, the only light the reflected glare from the window that gave onto the rear. I crept from one door to the next, noting the numbers, hoping that I'd find one ajar. They were locked and silent. This was not a busy hotel.

The stairwell was in shadow too. Peering down, I could see where the small lobby emitted some light onto the lower landing, but above me was only darkness. I climbed into this darkness, holding up my cell phone, taking care not to make the stairs creak.

I could just make out three numbered doors, one of them partly open. Keeping motionless, listening closely, I tried to determine whether anyone was inside. No voices, no snoring. Putting one foot slowly in front of the other, nudging the door with my knuckles, I eased it open wider.

As I lifted my cell phone it seemed to explode in my hand, jangling—a call. In a panic I stabbed at the answer button to silence it.

A squawk from the room and a rattle of an iron bed frame: a man had risen in the shadowy interior, glowing in his pajamas, flopping forward, and began berating me in Bengali.

"Can you hear me?" came from my phone, a woman's voice.

"Sorry," I said to the advancing man, and into the phone, "Yes, yes."

It was Mrs. Unger. I hurried to the stairs (the Indian in the room still hissing at me) and cupped my hand over my phone. "I have some news."

"What is it? Where are you?"

"In the hotel." I was whispering, padding down the stairs, now at my own landing, hurrying to my room.

"I can't hear you."

"I've made a breakthrough. I've got a very good lead. I can't talk now."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I need to see you."

"I'll be fascinated to know what you found. It's so important to clear Rajat. I'm sure that he was so upset he was imagining it."