Cunningham must have noticed Farley's discomfiture, for he said: 'Don't pay the slightest attention to her; she loves to stare at people.'
'Who is she?' Farley asked in an undertone.
'Oh, she's just the sweeper-woman,' Cunningham said offhandedly. Only then did Farley notice that she was holding in her hand the mark of her trade, a sweeper's jharu.
'She's a bit of a dragon,' Cunningham continued, 'been here for ever. You know what they're like: like to give visitors the once-over. Don't let her put you off; there's no harm in her.'
Farley saw her exchanging a glance with the young man who was standing beside her and he had the distinct feeling that a smile and a nod had passed between them, an almost imperceptible gesture of dismissal. Then the woman rose to her feet, turned her back on him and went over to the far corner of the room, as though to indicate that she had exhausted her interest in him.
Farley felt the blood rushing to his face.
'Don't pay her any attention;' Cunningham said to Farley, with a wink, 'she's a little touched… you know.'
He motioned to the young man to present himself. 'And this chokra-boy here,' he said with a loud satirical laugh, 'is a bearer who I've trained to help with my slides. I suppose you could call him my assistant.'
Leading the way between the laboratory's tables, Cunningham pointed to a microscope. 'You can work here,' he said to Farley. 'My bearer will get you your slides.' He allowed himself a snort of laughter as he let himself out: 'I hope you find what you are looking for.'
Farley seated himself at a microscope, and over the next hour and a half the assistant brought him several dozen slides to look at. Since the man was a menial employee Farley was not surprised that Cunningham had not taken the trouble to tell him his name. But now, as he sat watching him work, he was impressed by the young man's deftness: given his circumstances, his efficiency struck him as quite remarkable.
But the slides he presented to Farley held no surprises. They bore dry stains, and were of a familiar kind, with the black pigmented cells of malarial blood much in evidence. He had seen dozens like them as a research student in Baltimore. Of Laveran's parasite, he saw no sign whatever. Indeed, he would soon have abandoned the effort if it had not been for an odd little incident.
After he had been looking into the microscope for an hour or so, Farley grew thirsty, and asked the young assistant for water. A tumbler was duly fetched and placed in front of him. He drank half the water and, wanting to save the rest for later, placed it within easy reach, just behind his microscope.
Several minutes later, glancing away from the microscope, he made the discovery that he could see the whole room behind him, mirrored on the convex surface of the glass tumbler. He thought no more of it, but the next time he looked up his eyes were arrested by a scene that was now unfolding behind him.
The assistant, who had gone over to fetch a tray of slides, was whispering with the woman in the sari. It was soon clear that it was him, Farley, they were talking about: the distorted reflections of their faces seemed to take on a grotesque and frightening quality as they nodded and pointed across the room. Farley quickly lowered his head to the microscope, while watching the glass out of the corner of his eye.
What he saw next was even more startling than what had passed before. At the end of the whispered conversation it was not the young assistant but the woman who went over to the stack of drawers by the wall; it was she who selected the slides that were to be presented to him for examination. Watching carefully, Farley saw her picking them out with a speed that indicated she was not only thoroughly familiar with the slides but knew exactly what they contained. Farley could now barely restrain himself. His mind began to spill over with questions: how had a woman, and an illiterate one at that, acquired such expertise? And how had she succeeded in keeping it secret from Cunningham? And how was it that she, evidently untrained and unaware of any of the principles on which such knowledge rested, had come to exercise such authority over the assistant? The more he reflected on it, the more convinced he became that she was keeping something from him; that had she wished she could have shown him what he was looking for, Laveran's parasite; and that she had chosen to deny it to him because, for some unfathomable reason, she had judged him unworthy.
Farley would now gladly have walked away from this place, this so-called laboratory, whose all too familiar instruments seemed to be turned to purposes as perverse as they were inscrutable. Yet he knew that if he left now he would for ever afterwards be tormented by uncertainty and doubt. He had no option but to pursue his enquiry no matter where it led.
And so Farley willed himself to stay where he was, with his eye fixed upon the microscope, staring sightlessly at the meaningless slides that were placed in front of him by the young assistant. After a full half-hour had passed, he said to the young man: 'I have not seen any sign of the parasite today, but I have it on good authority that it does indeed exist. So I shall have a word with Cunningham-sahib, and with his permission, I shall return tomorrow to continue my researches.'
At this a look of utter consternation descended on the assistant's hitherto smiling face. Farley saw him shooting a glance at the unnamed woman, who was watching them keenly from the other end of the laboratory. Then he launched upon a string of stammering protests: it was unnecessary to return the next day; there was nothing to be seen, it was just a pure waste of time, and anyway Cunningham-sahib would be away; better return later, some other day… in a fortnight, or a month hence, perhaps there would be something to see then…
The vehemence of his protests were such as to confirm Farley's suspicions: the man could not have indicated more clearly that he, and his silent companion across the room, were keen to rid themselves of him; that his presence the next day would disrupt some previously conceived connivance, some event or events that they had already planned, counting on Cunningham's absence.
Perceiving that he now held the advantage, Farley brushed past the pleading assistant, saying: 'Nevertheless I shall return tomorrow.'
With that he went to find Cunningham.
The Englishman was in the next room, seated on a chaise longue, puffing dreamily on a long-handled pipe. When Farley asked for his permission to continue the next day, he blew out a plume of sweet-smelling smoke and cried: 'Why, certainly, my boy! If you are determined to persist in your quest for this phantom of Laveran's, do come back, as often as you like. I'll tell them to expect you.'
On the point of taking his leave, Farley hesitated. He looked quickly about, to make sure that they were alone, and then, approaching the seated Englishman, he dropped to his knees.
'If I may enquire, sir,' he whispered in Cunningham's ear, 'under what circumstances did you admit this woman into your laboratory?'
'Mangala?' said Cunningham, pointing his pipe-stem over his shoulder.
'If that is her name, yes.'
'If you're asking me how I found her,' Cunningham said, 'the answer is I found her where I find all my bearers and assistants: at the new railway station – what do they call it? – oh yes, Sealdah.'
'At the railway station, sir?' gasped the astonished Farley. 'Exactly so,' said Cunningham. 'That's the place to go if you need a willing worker: always said so – it's full of people looking for a job and a roof over their heads. See for yourself the next time you're there.'
'But, sir,' Farley exclaimed, 'to take on untrained and uneducated… '