Murder with Bengali Characteristics Read online

  Also by Shovon Chowdhury

  The Competent Authority (2013)

  ALEPH BOOK COMPANY

  An independent publishing firm promoted by Rupa Publications India

  First published in India in 2015 by

  Aleph Book Company

  7/16 Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110 002

  Copyright © Shovon Chowdhury 2015

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Aleph Book Company.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

  This one’s for my mum.

  She’s from Bhobanipur.

  DISCLAIMER

  Legal experts have certified that this work of art (henceforth referred to as ‘art’) does not, in any way, hurt sentiments, outrage the modesty of women, contravene the articles of the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885, or undermine the unity, integrity and stability of the Republic of India. This certification is for legal purposes only, and should not be construed to certify the quality of humour contained herein, or hereunder, as the case may be.

  ‘Lies written in ink cannot disguise

  truth written in blood.’

  ~Lu Xun

  1

  ‘You were the last person to talk to him while he was alive, sir.’

  The old party member lay on the bed, frozen in the act of choking. The Complete Works of Sharat Chandra Chatterjee, Volume 7, lay on his chest. His spectacles were broken, his hands were twisted. Death had come suddenly. His thumbs were missing.

  Inspector An Li frowned. He was standing in a small hut in the village of Motipur, near Jhargram, in the heart of Maoist country. Which ought to be all one country, now that China was in charge of Bengal, but the Maoists were waiting for the situation to stabilize. It was officially known as the Liberated Zone of Junglemahal. It was slightly larger than Belgium.

  He looked down at the shrunken, lifeless body, a hint of sadness in his clear, calm eyes. ‘That’s all I want,’ Gao Yu had once said. ‘A man with kind eyes and nice shoulders, who can make me laugh once in a while, and punch out people when I ask him to.’ She had often tried to make him do more with his hair, but he preferred it cropped close to the skull. It saved time in the morning.

  On the face of it, it was an open-and-shut case. It had thug written all over it, right down to the silver coin next to the pillow. Inspector Li was skeptical about the thug menace. The only shadow creatures he knew worked for the Ministry of Internal Security. Besides, he preferred facts to assumptions. Facts were solid. Assumptions had a way of changing. For example, he had assumed that his wife would stay with him, but the fact was she was shacking up with a businessman in Beijing who had a life-size replica of the White House in his garden. She had become the businessman’s top squeeze, and was bound to displace his wife in due course. Gao Yu and he used to be the Romeo and Juliet of the Beijing police, the tough cop and the hooker with the heart of gold. Li had always known she might leave him, but did it have to be for someone with leopard-print underwear and a diamond-studded cell phone? It was why he had asked for a Calcutta posting, after twenty years in Beijing. He couldn’t stand all the sympathy.

  The victim was a senior clerk in the fisheries department, and a lifelong party member. He was trotted out of the closet during elections, and trotted back in afterwards. He was one of the Men in Dhotis. The party needed a thin layer of clean white dhotis, a garment representative of old-school communists, for all the goons to hide behind. It also represented a rejection of Western influences, such as trousers. Several neighbours had expressed their regrets, and they seemed to be sincere. The dead man used to spend his evenings teaching local children for free. He would give a couple of biscuits, which was all he could afford, to the poor ones.

  Inspector Li picked up the dead man’s wallet. It was threadbare and patchy, like a dog with skin disease. It was also evidence. He took out the few tattered notes inside. He would give them to one of the neighbours for the funeral, and add a little bit more, for luck. The rest of its contents, he would study at leisure. He tucked in a visiting card, which seemed to be in Japanese. He felt a brief spasm of revulsion. He had been trained to hate the Japanese. The political climate had changed recently, so he was training himself to stop. China ruled Asia now. They were all one big happy family. The Japanese were the sons, the Koreans were the brothers, and the Bengalis were the idiot cousins. They hadn’t had time to figure out where people from places like Nagaland and Mizoram fit. They were too busy chasing them around the jungle. They were remarkably difficult to catch, and unexpectedly warlike. Casualties were heavy, and rising. The whole thing was far less fraternal than had originally been envisaged. Inspector Li was fond of travel, but that was one area he didn’t want to see in a hurry. In hindsight, joining North Tibet and South Tibet hadn't been such a good idea either, creating one vast province where everyone hated them. Between the Indians and them, there were more soldiers in the Indian subcontinent than anywhere else on the planet. The Assam Occupation Force alone was bigger than the entire US Army. Life was no picnic. For most Chinese officers in the New Territories, Calcutta was like a rest cure.

  A single gunshot rang out, somewhere in the distance. A CPM goon squad, probably. Or a Maoist execution. Or the People’s Armed Police, although they tended to be more liberal with ammunition. Or maybe it was barbarian-on-barbarian violence. It was none of his business. He had a crime of his own to investigate.

  Inspector Li picked up the dead man’s mobile. It was surprisingly advanced for such a poor man—a limited edition Heavenly Body i26. The last call was to Bijli Bose. Could it really be him? The patriarch of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)? The grand old man of the party? He was reputed to be 121 years old. He had kept himself young by sucking the blood of the youth of Bengal, according to one version. Others thought it was because he drank nothing but the finest Scotch. Could this poor old man have been in touch with such an exalted personage? Perhaps they were old party comrades, just spending an evening chatting about their days of struggle. It seemed unlikely. From what he had heard, Bijli Bose was not sentimental.

  This was the point where he was supposed to forget he had seen his name. No one messed around with former politburo members, even if they were darkies. It was a matter of principle. And this one was special. This one was held in high esteem by the Motherland. He had helped prepare the way. Nothing good could come from pursuing this.

  He took out his own phone, noted the number, and called. ‘Hello?’ said a dry, quavering voice, echoing faintly, like a voice from the crypt. The video took time to kick in. ‘Hello,’ said the voice again, and then Bijli Bose shimmered into view. He was the Living Mummy. There was no flesh on his face, just paper dry skin stretched tight across bone, thin wisps of hair across an egg-like head.

  ‘Who?’ he whispered.

  Bijli Bose spoke very little, to conserve energy, except when he was having fun, or when money was involved. Despite assurances from the Resurrection Engineers, he feared that his new lifespan was limited.

  Inspector Li waved briefly. He refused to salute a mobile phone.

  ‘I ha
ve a party member of yours…’

  ‘Who is dead. Yes.’

  ‘News travels fast.’

  A smile flitted across his thin slit mouth.

  ‘You were the last person alive to talk to him, sir.’

  Bijli Bose remained still for a while. Had he fallen asleep? His eyes were still open. Inspector Li waited patiently.

  ‘Come. Tomorrow. Morning,’ said Bijli Bose.

  He remained on screen, mouth slightly agape, until a servant stepped into the frame and disconnected.

  Inspector Li put the phone down and had one last look at the victim. A woman, weeping silently, was trying to put his limbs in order. Someone else came in with flowers. They covered his body with a crumpled, fraying sheet.

  2

  ‘Why do you think they still have mounted police in Calcutta?’

  ‘I’ll stick it in your father’s ear!’ roared the young man, supporting his wounded colleague, who was struggling to pick up a stone near his feet.

  ‘Oye! Oye! Oye!’ said a voice from the crowd across the street. It was a mob of wiry young men, with a soft centre, consisting of several plump men and a middle-aged lady in spectacles. The middle-aged lady was screaming dementedly, waving her fists in the air, but her voice was too thin to carry. They were losing the verbals, and she knew it. The other side were far more robust and poetic. It was time to escalate. Three of the boys broke free and charged. Their shirts were open and their pants were tight. One of them carried a placard which said ‘Not forgetting, never forget!’ The others held their ranks and hurled missiles. Their aim was terrible. ‘Call your father,’ screamed one of them, ‘I want to play ping pong with his balls!’

  A battered police jeep was parked on the corner of Chowringhee and Park Street. The policemen were sharing a cigarette. This kind of thing happened all the time. It would have been rude to interrupt. People valued good manners above all else, here in Calcutta, capital of the Bengal Protectorate.

  The march of tradition was halted by foreign elements. Two sleek, black personnel carriers drove up, and parked themselves in the middle of the road. Genuine Chinese policemen from the Ministry of Internal Security leaped nimbly from their vehicles and fanned out. They were not to be confused with the People’s Armed Police, who spent most of their time spying on the Ministry of Internal Security, and made sure everyone met their execution quotas. They reported to a completely different faction of the Standing Committee, although no one was quite sure which one.

  The Calcutta Police dropped their cigarettes, got back in their jeep, and drove away. The Chinese were supposed to be advisors, but everyone knew the score. The Internal Security troops carefully and deliberately shot a few of the hooligans on the edge of the melee. Then they waded in and methodically beat the crap out of the rest. They remained expressionless throughout. Their movements were precise. They spoke very little. As usual, they took all the fun out of it. With the local police, on the rare occasions that they took action, there was blood and passion, the hurling of mighty curses, mothers and sisters invoked in vain, blows exchanged in anger. The lunge. The clutch. The heave into the van. There was a certain intimacy. With the Chinese, the whole process was soulless. It was like batting against a bowling machine. The miscreants were soon trooping into custody, heads bowed, dispirited. The language barrier made things worse. What was the point in asking a man to fry an omelette on his mother’s cunt if he couldn’t understand what you were saying?

  As a result of what would later be filed by Crazy Wu as Chowringhee Mass Incident No. 39, Verma and Agarwal were late. They had been hurrying towards Park Street, where all the bars were. Many people had found themselves similarly delayed. A few of the thirstier ones had tried to mingle with the rioters and slip through, and were now en route to the lock-up, unable to explain that it was alcohol and not disloyalty that had motivated their actions. Now that the rioters had been dispersed, eager patrons were jostling each other, stopping occasionally to gape at the pornographic magazines for sale on the crumbling footpath, their paper-screen covers shimmering in the evening light.

  Soon, Verma and Agarwal were standing in front of Olypub. They took a moment to look up fondly at the sign, which was still crooked. The doorman was inside, in the corridor, slumped in a chair. He was in his seventies, too young to be a waiter. It was a sore point with him. He ignored them as they entered. No one had tipped him in decades. He was nursing his resentment well, and biding his time. They climbed the rickety stairs. The stench was like a fog. The air was full of smoke, and intellectual banter.

  They could just as well have met in Agarwal’s enormous family complex on Lord Sinha Road, built to resemble an ocean liner, where alcohol was taboo, and everyone secretly drank in their rooms, but they had fond memories of Park Street. They were drinking buddies from college, when their funds had been low. They sat at their usual table. The waiter brought them chilli chicken and whisky. The chilli chicken was terrible, the whisky harsh and raw. The helpings of both were lavish. This was why Agarwal swore by the place. He was an active seeker of value. His fortunes had been built on this skill. Rats scurried under the tables, stopping occasionally to sniff their feet. Verma was relieved that they were ordinary rats, not the semi-sentient goblin creatures of the Dead Circle in New New Delhi. Calcutta had never been nuked, and had kept it that way by inviting in the Chinese. It was ten years since the war. The Indians had rebuilt New New Delhi, but the area where Mumbai used to be was still radioactive.

  Sanjeev Verma took a sip of his whisky. It burnt his throat. He was going soft thanks to all the Blue Label. His bootlegger provided a regular supply, at prices lower than Scotland. He took another sip. He had to get used to it. If he wanted to maintain a regular supply of Blue Label, he needed Agarwal’s help, and Agarwal would faint if he suggested drinking it. He was a cheapskate. He had built a nightclub in his basement so that his children could avoid cover charges. Verma needed his help because the mine in Chhattisgarh which they jointly owned was in extreme jeopardy. It was true that his South African mercenaries were doing an excellent job of beating off the Maoists, despite the fact that they drank their body weight in beer. Luckily, the Maoists in the heartland were heavily invested in the encirclement of Patna, where the fighting was hard. They had no time for petty mining barons like them. But now the clouds of war were looming over his dark house, with the Competent Authority in New New Delhi spoiling for a fight, and the Chinese responding to his insults with equivalent skill and ferocity. If these two titans clashed, their mine would become a war zone, and their business would go straight to hell. It would almost certainly be confiscated by the Ministry of Defence, which had diversified over the years. His cousin Mehta had proved unhelpful in the matter of hiring the Indian Army, which would have established the sort of patron-client relationship that was invaluable in a situation like this. It was time to look beyond family. His father had always emphasized the value of family, but Verma had never been convinced. His generation trusted friends more. He had flown down to Calcutta, getting shot down only once in the process, in the hope that Agarwal would be able to do something. He had patron-client relationships of his own. So far, he had spent just a few hours in the city, but he was beginning to have his doubts.

  ‘This type of thing happens all the time here?’ he asked. ‘What about Chinese discipline?’

  ‘Bengalis are not so easy to discipline,’ said Agarwal, who was Marwari. ‘Believe me, we’ve being trying for generations.’ He spoke fluent Bengali himself. His family had spent over a hundred years in Calcutta, watching it transform from British to Communist to Chinese, with little bouts of anarchy in between. According to legend, the family had emigrated from Rajasthan with just a blanket and a small water jug, although it was hard to imagine all of them fitting under one blanket. It had been a large family, even then. Their women were notoriously fertile. They had been at the forefront of the Marwari takeover of the Bengal economy, driven by a combination of the Marwari talent for making money, and
the Bengali conviction that such things were beneath them.

  ‘The band of our business is getting bajao-ed, boss!’ said Verma. His voice was booming, befitting his size. Several of the other patrons looked up disapprovingly, interrupted in their discussions of fiction and poetry. They were bhadralok, proper people, not like the lumpen on the street. Those were the little people. Little people had loud voices, due to their lack of refinement. ‘Our case is closing. Our asses are being taken. Our ganesh is flipping. As it is, we have to worry about the Maoists. Once they take Patna, they’ll turn their full attention to us. Then our story is finished.’

  ‘Maoists your side are still very violent,’ said Agarwal, ‘the ones this side are much more peaceful. They have allied with the Chinese to create a better society.’

  ‘Forget about society,’ said Verma. ‘What did society ever do for us? If a war starts now, we’re jacked out of shape. I was hoping we could start some sort of gadar here, so that the Chinese get nervous. Then they’ll be too busy suppressing the Bongs to think about war. But it looks like there’s already gadar here. Then why are the Chinese taking pangas? Are they mad or what?’

  Agarwal tittered. ‘What, that little thing you just saw? You should see what happens after a Mohun Bagan–East Bengal match. Why do you think they still have mounted police in Calcutta?’

  Verma gulped down the rest of his whisky and waved at the waiter. This was going to be even tougher than he had thought. New New Delhi was no picnic, what with all the mutants and the biker boys and Delhi Police, but Calcutta was at a different level. It was surprising. Bongs were so thin, and the ones in New Chittaranjan Park seemed so peaceful. He remembered what a former pickpocket from Calcutta had once told him. ‘These Bengalis, they look very thin,’ he had said, ‘but when they hit you, they hit very hard.’ He had clearly been reminiscing.