A Dead Hand (7 page)

"I have some spare time." I wanted to say more, that I had nothing but time, that I was grateful for her attention precisely because I had failed to make anything of my visit, that I had nothing to write about, nothing in my head, and only the slightest desire to make notes. Looking at the hotel would help me kill one of my vacant hours.

She saw the earnest, perhaps pathetic willingness on my face and looked almost pityingly at me.

"You'd be doing Rajat an enormous favor," she said.

"I want to do you a favor too."

"We're a happy little constellation," she said. "You could be part of it."

"I'd like that."

"It's, um, a shabby little hotel called the Ananda, behind New Market—the Hogg Market."

"The corpse just turned up in the room?"

"I have no idea. Rajat was hysterical. He'd been traumatized. All I know is that is what he told me, that he saw the dead person and he ran."

"When did this happen?"

"It was three weeks ago. Charlie and I were out of Calcutta then. That's why Rajat was in the hotel. He was waiting for us to come back."

"So you don't know more than that?"

Her obstinate smile of disapproval had never looked brighter.

"Don't you see?" She was beaming at my stupidity, pushing the door open to take me back to the lobby of the mansion and the waiting car. "That's why we were counting on you."

All this kindness and consideration—the car, the driver, the masseurs, Mrs. Unger's surprise appearance, the massage, the teasing conversation about the hotel, then the car again, the driver again—seemed so generous and helpful, anticipating my desires.

But when it was over and I was back on my verandah with (at Mrs. Unger's suggestion) a glass of mango juice, I realized that I'd been manipulated. Every move had been planned, and I had allowed myself to be exposed—manipulated in every sense, exposed in every sense.

When you're alone in a distant city, floating as foreigners do, and someone is kind, the kindness is magnified and so is your gratitude. If you're a man and that kind person is a woman, you might feel you've been touched by an angel.

A first-time traveler might have been smitten. I was not. I had been traveling too long not to be suspicious of such attention. I had not forgotten that this had all come about because Mrs. Unger had asked me a favor. She had been specific at first, but had gotten me to the Lodge and into her hands by a deft series of moves, the way someone might try to sell you something expensive—in the very manner an Indian might sell you a carpet. "Have a cup of tea, sir. No need to buy, just look..."

I was almost persuaded. But some people are so smooth, their very persuasiveness is suspect, again like the Indian in the carpet emporium who marshals so many arguments in favor of the value of the thing he's trying to sell you, you are convinced it's a fake.

It was hard for me in the midst of this to see Mrs. Unger as an American. The finely draped sari and the meticulous henna tattoos on her feet impressed me, but I'd seen other Americans with that studied appearance. Her haughtiness and her decisive manner made me listen, but something else bothered me—her presumption. She wanted me to do her a favor; she, like her Indian counterpart, wouldn't take no for an answer. And there was the sequence of events, from the drink at the Oberoi to today, her hands on me. She had planned everything, as an angel might, as someone diabolical too, and she'd thought I hadn't noticed her calculation.

The very skill of the manipulation made me doubtful, the way the sweetest words can make you shrink in fear.
I won't hurt you
can sound terrifying. I did not want to fall too fast. Mrs. Unger seemed to know a lot about me.
Your friends at the consulate.
She knew my work and where I lived, and she probably knew that I was living hand-to-mouth. But what she didn't know, because wealthy people never seemed to know this, was that I had all the time in the world. I didn't want to be possessed by her.

I did not hear from her after that. Not a word. After the imploring letter, the pleasant meeting, the magic fingers—nothing. She had occupied two full days of my time in Calcutta and now I spent a day waiting, feeling uncomfortable, in suspense and sensing rejection.

She had teased me, made me feel helpless, invited me to the inner room of her strange mansion, which I thought of as Mrs. Unger's vault; and now she was inaccessible.
I know what you want
was a tease, but truthful. It put me all the more in her power, because she knew, because she denied me.

That night I made some notes, something to the effect that the first infatuation of a love affair is a delusion of possession. Nothing else matters. And about how I enjoyed the feeling for its making me youthful. But I also knew that it made me obvious and foolish, even ridiculous, because I was middle-aged and out of ideas.

With time on my hands, I decided to investigate her request by paying a visit to the Ananda Hotel.

The Ananda was one of many narrow, decaying four-story hotels on a side street off New Market. A persistent beggar, a woman with a baby, pleaded with me, dogging me for a whole block, moving as quickly in bare feet as I did in sturdy shoes. I was reminded of Howard's story of the nanny who used her boss's child for begging. I got rid of her with five rupees, and seeing my money a tout shouldered me aside, chanting, "Shawls, pashminas, scarves—for you, sir, shahtoosh," while another tout with a skinny sweaty face howled, "What you want, sir? Anything!"

What I wanted was to get a clear view of the Ananda as I dodged oncoming traffic and the march of pedestrians. Approaching the hotel, I was spotted by a man sitting in front of the Taj Palace, another flophouse, who said, "Try here, sir. Best price."

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."

"Mrs. Unger is entirely self-funded. Famous for not asking for donations. She doesn't have to file a financial statement because she isn't accountable to anyone. So we have no idea how extensive her foundation is. That's one way of keeping secrets—pay for the whole thing yourself. It's also one way of being a saint."

I had begun to scribble some of this on a piece of paper, thinking I'd add it to my diary, and I'd become so preoccupied, I'd fallen silent.