'More?' said Sonali. 'What do you mean?'
'I couldn't put my finger on it exactly,' said Urmila. 'But I was talking to Mrs Aratounian one day-'
'Had she read them?' Sonali interrupted, eyebrows raised.
'Oh no,' Urmila laughed. 'She doesn't have much time for writers. Besides, you know how she is: doesn't know a word of Bengali even though she's been here all her life. But she's very sharp you know and I often find that it helps to talk things over with her. She's given me a lot of good advice over the years: in fact it was she who suggested that I go to the National Library.'
'I see,' said Sonali. 'Go on.'
'So I told her about the stories and she agreed with me at once. "Dust in our eyes, my dear," she said. "Take my word for it. "'
'What did she mean?'
'She thought the stories were a message to someone; to remind them of something – some kind of shared secret. You know, like those strange little ads you sometimes see in the Personal columns?'
Sonali's eyes widened. 'That's interesting,' she said. 'It's possible. '
'So you do know something about the stories?' Urmila said eagerly.
Sonali took a sip of her tea. 'I don't know if it has anything to do with the stories you're talking about,' she said. 'But I do know that something very strange happened to Phulboni when he was in his twenties. And it did have something to do with a "Laakhan".'
'Really?' Urmila sat up eagerly. 'What happened?'
'It began with my mother asking him why he'd given up shooting.'
'Shooting?' said Urmila in astonishment. 'You mean Phulboni used to shoot?'
'Yes,' said Sonali smiling. 'He was a very good shot. I'll tell you how I found out.' She curled her legs under her and settled into the cushions that lined the sofa's armrest, her face lit by a fondly reminiscent smile.
'Phulboni was always in and out of our house when I was a child,' she said. 'He was like an uncle to me: I used to call him Murad-mesho. We were living in a tiny flat off Park Circus, just my mother and me. The flat was really very small, but we always had lots of guests – especially writers and artists: every evening there'd be at least half a dozen people there and Phulboni was one of the regulars. He always came wearing the same old pair of frayed trousers, the same worn leather belt, and starched white shirt. You know how starch always smells a little when you sweat? That's how he smelt: of cigarettes and sweaty starch.
'He was a splendid-looking man: over six feet tall, straight and lean as a lamp-post. He was very poor then and lived all by himself: his wife had left him and gone back to her family. The moment he arrived my mother would whisper to the servants to run down and get some biriani. He'd had a good job once, with a British firm, Palmer Brothers, but he gave it up when he started writing. He wanted to make his living as a writer but his work was just too difficult for the public: all those dialect words from languages no one had ever heard of. His father worked for one of those mountain maharajas in Orissa and he grew up in the jungle, speaking the language of the local people, running wild. That's why he later took the pen-name Phulboni, after the region.
'Living in the forest, he must have learned to shoot very early, but he never told anyone about it. It was quite by accident that I discovered that he was an excellent shot. 'Once, my mother was acting in a jatra somewhere on the outskirts of Calcutta. It was one of those places where the performance is under a huge circus tent. There's a round stage inside and at the same time there is a fair going on outside – you know, with phuchka-stalls and roundabouts and all that.
'I had squeezed into a little space under the wooden stage, and I was watching the crowd, making faces at the children, that kind of thing. The play was Marie Antoinette: Queen of France. My mother was playing Marie Antoinette, of course: she was getting on then, and if there was a wicked queen or a harridan of a mother-in-law she would invariably get the part. Ma was just launching into her big speech, you know, the famous one: "They don't have any rice? Then let them eat ledigenis."
'Suddenly I looked up and saw Phulboni coming in. I screamed and ran up to him, pushing through the crowd. Both of us had heard the speech a hundred times. I was bored so I didn't let him watch the play. Instead I made him walk around the fair, buying me jhalmuri and mihidana and that kind of thing. Then we came to one of those stalls with an airgun and lots of balloons lined up in rows. I began to tease him, saying why don't you try and shoot some of those balloons: you writers aren't good for anything. He kept saying no, no, no, but in the end he gave in. To my astonishment he didn't miss once in his first ten shots. I said: "That was just luck, let's see if you can do it again." He said, "All right," and took five steps back, and again he didn't miss a shot. He moved back still further: a whole crowd gathered to watch him. Not a single miss. In the end the stall-owner begged him to stop: "Sahib, please forgive me, but if I let you go on like this, what are my children going to eat?"
'I told my mother about the incident and she was just as surprised as I. Phulboni had never said a word to her about shooting or hunting. She asked him about it and he just laughed it off. But my mother wasn't one to give up. She got to work on him one day after he'd drunk a lot of rum and he told her a story. But he was very upset the next day: he said he didn't want the story to get around and made her promise never to tell anyone.'
'Oh, I see.' Urmila could not keep the disappointment out of her voice.
'In fact after that he began to avoid us,' said Sonali. 'In the last years of her life my mother became very worried about Phulboni. His behaviour became stranger and stranger as his fame grew. He'd get drunk and wander the streets all night as if he was looking for something: I've heard he still does. She wanted him to come and live with us but he wouldn't: he stopped seeing his old friends and wouldn't have much to do with anyone. He didn't even come to see her when she was dying. She was convinced that it was because he'd never forgiven her for getting that story out of him and she could never understand why. And I must say I couldn't either.'
'So she told you?' Urmila said.
'Yes,' said Sonali. 'Shortly before she died.'
Chapter 17
AFTER ALL THESE years, Antar still found himself gritting his teeth as he thought back to that day, at the Thai restaurant, remembering how he had sat in his chair, slumped in a stupor of mortification, trying to avoid the stares that were directed at him from the surrounding tables.
On the way out he had plucked up the courage to stutter an apology to the manager. 'I don't really know him at all,' he said. 'I met him for the first time today. The man's clearly mad. I've never had anything to do with him before, and I hope I never will again.' Back at the office he wasted no time in uploading everything he had on Murugan's case and sending the file back to the Swedish Director. 'If this is what it means to deal with the human side of things,' he recalled saying, 'I think I'd rather go back to accounts, thank you.'
By the time he left work, he was confident that he had put the whole business behind him. But he got home to find his answering machine blinking furiously: there were three messages on it. He had a twinge of apprehension: it was rarely that he had so much as a single message; he could not remember an occasion when he had had more. His instincts told him to touch the rewind button, wipe the tape clean. But instead, his hand went out and touched 'Play' – just to make sure, he told himself, just so he would know who it was.