Perhaps Tara had come home: Antar was sure he'd heard someone. He went to the wall and knocked: 'Tara, are you back?' There was no answer. He hurried over to his kitchen window and glanced at Tara's apartment, across the air-shaft. The lights were still off: she didn't seem to be home. He shrugged: it must have been a damp floorboard: there was no telling, in a building as old and creaky as this one. He leaned over the sink, splashed water over his face and reached for a kitchen towel. He went into his living room and seated himself at the keyboard. With a tap of a key he sent Ava shooting off to rummage through the ac

cumulated memories of all his old, superseded hard disks. It was not unlikely that a binary 'ghost' of Murugan's lost E-mail message had remained somewhere within the system. Even the faintest trace would be enough: Ava would do the rest.

Moments later a hand appeared on Ava's screen, gesturing morosely, fingers half open. Ava had recently begun to learn body-language – in Egyptian dialect of course – and this was her new way of indicating a negative.

Then the gesture changed: the fingers came together, pointing upwards, in a little dipping motion. That meant wait; there's more. Her screen went blank and her voice mechanism clicked on. The message might still be found, Ava told him. It would just take a while. It had been typed on one of those oldfashioned, contact-based alphabetical keyboards. The electronic signals emitted by the keys were probably still traceable. It was simply a question of matching the electronic 'fingerprint' of Murugan's E-mail message to every electronic signal that was still alive in the ionosphere. Antar keyed in a query asking how long the whole procedure would take.

Ava took a moment to answer. It would mean sifting through about six thousand eight hundred and ninety-two trillion cufiabytes, came the response, in other words, roughly eighty-five billion times the estimated sum of every dactylographic act ever performed by a human being. It was certain to take at least fifteen minutes.

Antar keyed in two names, Cunningham and Farley, and cut Ava loose.

Suddenly Antar was very tired. He looked down and noticed that there was a mild tremor in his hand. His heart sank as he touched his forehead and cheek. They were hot and clammy: it felt like the start of one of his bouts of fever. Evidently he would have to forgo his walk to Penn Station today.

In a way Antar was almost relieved. He decided to lie down while Ava searched the skies.

Antar had almost drifted off to sleep when Ava began to chirrup a summons twenty minutes later. Heaving off his bedclothes, he rose shakily to his feet and wrapped himself in a dressing gown. Then he made his way down the corridor to his living room.

A message was waiting for him on Ava's screen: the search had yielded a few traces of Murugan's lost E-mail message. But the signals were faint and possibly distorted. Ava had reconstructed a semblance of a narrative by running the retrieved fragments through a Storyline algorithm. But she was unable to vouch for the authenticity of the restored text.

Antar typed in a query asking if Ava could generate an imagesimulacrum of the text with her Simultaneous Visualization program. That way all he'd have to do to review the text was to lock himself into his Sim Vis visor. He could just lie back and watch: Ava would do the rest. His hands felt very unsteady now: he knew he wasn't up to the task of reading through a long document.

A hand appeared on Ava's screen, sketching a gesture of regret. The answer was negative: the text was too corrupt to do a continuous image conversion. The best she could do was provide a verbal rendition. Antar winced: he hated listening to Ava read, in her flat, uninflected voice. But on the other hand he was in no position to do it himself in his current state.

Reaching for his headphones, Antar snapped them into place.

Chapter 20

IT WAS PAST ELEVEN when Urmila got home. The flat was in darkness and everybody was in bed. She let herself in, as quietly as she could, and stood by the front door while her eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness. Her younger brother was snoring in the sitting room. He had played in a Second Division football match that afternoon: one of the stringers for the sports page had come over to the reporting desk to tell her that he'd almost scored. She tiptoed into the sitting room and found him lying on the sofa, with the light on. He was barebodied, dressed only in his team's blue sweatpants, with one foot on the floor and one arm thrown over the back of the sofa. His head was on the armrest with his tongue lolling out of his open mouth, trailing a ribbon of drool.

A plateful of food was waiting for her in the kitchen, under a net cover. The net seemed to dissolve when she turned the light on; a swarm of cockroaches melted away into the cracks and corners. 'Isn't anyone going to be allowed to sleep?' her older brother shouted, from the bedroom he shared with his wife and three children. 'Who's turned the light on at this time of the night? '

Urmila leapt for the switch, almost dropping her plate. During the day her older brother worked as a salesman for a company that marketed shares and stock offerings. In the evenings he earned a little extra by doing tuitions for schoolchildren. He was always exhausted at night. She stumbled out of the kitchen in the dark, balancing her plate carefully in her hands. She made her way to the bathroom, edging past the campbed where she slept, and half-closed the door before switching on a light. Seating herself on the edge of the bed she began to pick at the plateful of cold dhal and chapattis.

There was a rustle and a footstep in the landing and she looked up to see her mother, standing beside the camp bed, dressed in her white night-time sari. 'When did you get in?' her mother said sleepily. 'I waited and waited ... '

'Why?' said Urmila. 'You shouldn't stay up so late – you remember what the homoeopath said.'

Motioning to her to keep her voice down, her mother seated herself beside Urmila and put a hand on her knee.

'I had to tell you tonight Urmi,' she whispered. 'There's some good news, some really good news, I knew you would be so happy.'

'What?' said Urmila.

'That's what I was going to tell you: we had a phone call from the Secretary of the Wicket Club at eight o'clock. About your brother, Dinu. I was the one who answered and, let me tell you the first thing I said was: "Oh, if only my daughter was here, she would be so happy ... "

The member-secretary of the Wicket Club had telephoned, she said, to let them know that a senior incumbent of the club's executive committee was going to pay them a call the next day, in person, with a view to discussing Dinu's prospects.

'You know what this means Urmi?' her mother said, glowing with pleasure at the sudden good fortune that had befallen her son.

'What?' said Urmila.

'It means they want to give your brother a First Division contract. Everyone says so – if they're sending an E.C. Member then it means a First Division contract, definitely.'

'Are you sure?' said Urmila. 'We've heard this talk about a First Division contract so many times but nothing ever seems to come of it.'

'But this time's different,' her mother cried. She put an arm around Urmila's shoulders and pulled her close. 'Just think, Urmi; a First Division contract – money, maybe a flat. At last you'll be able to give up this stupid job and stay at home. Everything will be paid. Maybe we can even get you married before it's too late. We can put an advertisement in the papers . . . '

'Ma, that's enough,' Urmila said wearily, knowing exactly what was to follow: that her time was running out; her hair was thinning; she looked older than she should; the neighbours were talking about how late she got home . . .

Urmila broke in quickly, before the litany could get fully under way.

'Before you start planning my wedding,' she said, 'let's see if we can get the contract signed.'

Her mother did not fail to notice the sceptical note in her voice. 'I thought you would be glad, Urmi,' she said with a catch in her voice. 'I thought it would make you happy to hear our news. But instead all you do is pull a long face. You just don't care about us any more; all you think about is that awful job of yours.'

'Ma, if I didn't have the job,' Urmila said wearily, 'how would we get by? How far would Baba's pension go? How would we feed the children? Can you tell me that?'

Her mother paid her no attention; she was dabbing her eyes now.

'That's all you think about,' she said. 'Money, money, money. You have no place in your heart for our joys and sorrows. You should have seen how happy your brother was when I told him about the phone call from the Club: the first person he thought about was you. He said: "Didi must cook fish tomorrow, something special like ilish-mach so we can ask the Club's representative to stay for dinner."

Urmila threw her a look of disbelief. 'Ma, I can't cook fish tomorrow morning,' she said. 'I have to be at a press conference at nine – the Communications Minister is arriving on an early-morning flight from Delhi. That means I have to leave the house by eight fifteen at the latest otherwise I'll never get to Dalhousie on time. You know what the traffic is like.'

The first notes of a wail escaped her mother's lips. 'Urmi, what are you saying?' she sobbed. 'Are you saying your job is more important than your brother's life? Are you telling me that some umbrella-head minister from Delhi is more important than us?'

She sobbed on while Urmila sat silent on the edge of the bed. Finally she put her plate down and asked, in exasperation: 'Has someone bought the fish?'

'No,' her mother said. 'There wasn't time and none of us had the money. You'll have to get it tomorrow morning from Gariahat.'

'I can't go to Gariahat in the morning,' Urmila cried in protest. But she gave up the moment the words were out of her mouth. It was futile to argue; in the end, she knew, she would have to go herself. Her father wouldn't go because it would interfere with his early-morning breathing exercises; her brothers wouldn't go because they would be asleep; her sister-in-law wouldn't go because no one would dare ask her. And as for her mother, she wouldn't go either, and if she, Urmila, were to ask, she would burst into tears and say: 'How could you say this to me? Don't you know the homoeopath told me never to go out early in the morning because of my asthma?'

Then Urmila would want to point out that her asthma didn't stop her going to see her guru in Dhakuria every other day when he did his special dawn appearance to show himself to his followers in early-morning sunlight. But she knew she wouldn't say it, no matter how much she might want to. Instead of saying it to her mother, she would say it to herself, as she went hurtling towards Dalhousie in a minibus, with elbows digging into her back and her nose stuck in somebody's armpit. She would keep mouthing the words to herself over and over again – but you go to your guru every other morning, Ma – and she would get angrier and angrier until finally she did something terrible, as she did the other day, when her mother had made her run down to the ironing-man's stall to fetch her brother's football shorts before catching the minibus: she'd worked herself into such a fury, standing on the bus, mouthing her unsaid protests, that in the end she picked up her foot and jammed it down on someone's instep. She didn't even know why she'd done that; she just wanted to feel the crunch as the heel of her shoe dug into flesh and bone. And she had enjoyed herself too, exchanging insults with the fat little man whose foot she'd stepped on; they shouted at each other all the way from Lansdowne to Lord Sinha Road, until she finally reduced him to browbeaten silence.

. She felt her mother's hands gripping her shoulder. 'Don't fall asleep yet, Urmi,' she said. 'Tell me first: will you get the fish and cook it?'

'Maybe I won't have to,' she said sleepily. 'Maybe one of the fishsellers will come around.'

'But will you do it anyway?' her mother insisted.

'All right,' Urmila said, in resignation. 'I will - now let me go to sleep.'

Her mother gave her shoulder a pat. 'I knew you would,' she said.

'My sweet little Urmi. Oh, your brother will be so happy. You should have seen how excited he was when I told him that Romen Haldar was coming to our house . . . '

It took a moment for the name to filter through and then Urmila sat up, abruptly.

'Who?' she said, in surprise.

'Romen Haldar,' said her mother again. 'He's the one who's coming to visit us, from the Club. You know who he is don't you?'

'Yes,' Urmila said sleepily. 'Yes, I know who he is. It's just a coincidence, that's all.'

Chapter 21

ELIJAH MONROE FARLEY left for India in October 1893, Ava began, two years after his departure from the research laboratories of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Several friends and acquaintances travelled up to New York to send him off, including his mentor, the venerable malaria specialist W. S. Thayer, and the two other members of his erstwhile team, W. G. MacCallum and Eugene L. Opie. By the summer of 1894 the young Reverend Farley was installed in a small charitable clinic in the remote township of Barich, in the eastern foothills of the Himalayas. The clinic was run by the American Ecumenical Mission and its staff were the only trained medical personnel in the district. Farley was twenty-six, a tall, lanky man, with ginger hair and mossgreen eyes. Austere and contemplative by nature, he adapted easily to the rigours of his new calling. If at all he missed his earlier vocation as scientist, he let no one know: his every waking hour was consumed by the clinic.

Farley had been at the clinic five months before he had his first letter. It was from his old friend and colleague, Eugene Opie in Baltimore. The letter consisted for the most part of trivialities concerning the weather and the marital and professional circumstances of common acquaintances. But Opie also referred, though only in passing, to a research project that he and MacCallum had recently embarked upon. Writing in the careless shorthand of a busy research student, Opie did not take the time to spell out the theoretical implications of this work. But it was immediately clear to Farley that Opie and MacCallum were building on the findings of the Frenchman, Alphonse Laveran.

This unexpected piece of news plunged Farley into a state of perplexity. As a student he had paid little attention to Laveran's work, assuming it to be generally discredited. In this he had taken his lead from no less a person than William Osler, the guiding spirit of Johns Hopkins, who had publicly declared his scepticism of 'Laveranity'. Farley had left for India fully confident that Laveran's theory was headed for medicine's vast graveyard of discredited speculations: his astonishment at the news of its disinterment could not have been greater.

Once introduced, these apprehensions of Laveranity revivified gradually insinuated themselves into the young missionary's mind, creating doubt and disbelief where certainty had reigned before. As the days passed these doubts began to work on him in subtle and unexpected ways, evoking once again the life he had forsaken, giving rise to an overwhelming nostalgia for the half-forgotten habits and routines of the laboratory. He began to bitterly regret the impulse that had caused him to leave his own microscope behind, at his family's New England home, or else it would have been all too easy to set up an improvised laboratory right where he was.

Then, by chance rather than design, he discovered, sandwiched within the pages of a prayerbook, the card of an English doctor, one Surgeon-Colonel Lawrie, of the Indian Medical Service. Farley had met Lawrie on one of his occasional visits to the Mission's headquarters in Cal-cutta. In the course of their brief meeting, the SurgeonColonel had informed him that he was on his way to Hyderabad, to take up an appointment as Professor in the Medical School recently founded by the prince of that state, the nizam. Fortunately, he had scribbled his new address on the back of his card and Farley lost no time in addressing a letter to him, enquiring into the present state of opinion regarding Laveran's theories. He had not long to wait: to his great relief Colonel Lawrie wrote back within the month. But the letter, when he read it, only deepened his puzzlement: the Colonel still appeared to hold to the belief that Laveranity was without foundation. Despite the efforts of certain acolytes, wrote the Colonel, it remained true, so far as rational opinion could discern, that Laveran's speculations were wholly without empirical foundation. He himself had recently been witness to a spectacle that had produced forcible proof of this in a manner that would have been comic had it not so dramatically shamed its protagonist.

A self-important and opinionated young army doctor, Ronald Ross had just been posted to the army hospital at Begumpett, not far from Hyderabad. Having more time on his hands than was good for him, Ross had taken it upon himself to begin an investigation into malaria – a disease of which he had no practical knowledge whatever. The young man had been overheard, not once but several times, at the Secunderabad Club, boasting of his familiarity with Laveran's chimera. Nor had he hesitated to accept an invitation to demonstrate the existence of this creature to the assembled faculty of the Nizam's School of Medicine. To this end, he had actually loaded some poor shivering unfortunate into a bullock cart and brought him rattling over to the School, eleven miles away. But of course when the time came, with everybody gathered in the lecture theatre, there was absolutely nothing to be found in the poor man's blood: not a trace of Laveran's fantastical creature. When asked for an explanation he had come up with some stuttering tale of how the creature had gone into temporary withdrawal: as though the parasite were a sleepy Latin in need of a daily siesta.

As far as he, Surgeon-Colonel Lawrie, was concerned this contretemps put paid to the matter, once and for all. However, the Colonel went on to add, he understood very well that in these matters a man might want to make up his mind for himself. One of his colleagues in the Medical Service, D. D. Cunningham, FRS, a very sound man and a scientist of some distinction, had the charge of a laboratory, in Calcutta. Although not comparable to the leading laboratories of Europe or America, Cunningham's facilities were certainly the best in India, and possibly within the whole continent of Asia. Cunningham was no more persuaded of Laveran's theory than anyone else, but he was a fair-minded man, and would gladly allow his facilities to be used for a good cause. Should the Reverend Doctor so desire, he, Surgeon-Colonel Lawrie, would be glad to write a letter of introduction to Cunningham, etc., etc. Farley wrote immediately to Lawrie, accepting his offer, and it was soon arranged that he would visit Cunningham's laboratory on his next trip to the Mission's Calcutta headquarters.

Farley boarded the train in a state of feverish anticipation. His excitement was in no way diminished when he disembarked at Calcutta's Sealdah Station three days later.

Promptly at five, the next afternoon, Farley presented himself for tea, at Dr Cunningham's boarding house. Dr Cunningham proved to be a large man of florid complexion. He greeted Farley with booming goodwill, and enquired in some detail after the health and well-being of his erstwhile mentor W. S. Thayer, whose work he knew and evidently admired. They conversed for some time about general matters and it soon became clear to Farley that whatever his earlier accomplishments, Cunningham had long since lost interest in research. He was not entirely surprised when Cunningham told him that he was to retire some three years hence, and that with his future leisure in mind, he had been exploring the possibility of establishing a private practice in Calcutta. When eventually the conversation veered around to the matter at hand, there was a disappointment in store for the young missionary. Cunningham informed him that due to an unforeseen circumstance, he was to leave Calcutta in a day or two: he had been summoned to Assam by a planter friend who had been taken suddenly ill.

'But don't look so stricken, my boy,' Cunningham bellowed, clapping Farley on the back. 'Tomorrow you can look at all the slides you want. Believe me, it won't take you very long to dispose of this Laveran business.'

The next day Farley's duties kept him at the Mission until well into the afternoon. As a result, it was not until four o'clock, when the sun was dipping low over the green expanse of the Maidan that he arrived at the Presidency General Hospital. Had the circumstances been other than they were, he may well have been tempted to spend a few minutes admiring the restrained elegance of the hospital's red-brick buildings and the well-tended lawns and treeshaded pathways that surrounded them. But being determined to make good use of such time as he had, Farley quickly ascertained the direction of Dr Cunningham's laboratory from an attendant and set off towards it at a brisk walk.

The laboratory was set well back within the hospital's spacious and thickly wooded grounds. It was screened from the main hospital complex by a tall thicket of bamboo, and upon catching his first glimpse of the building Farley was taken by surprise.

It looked nothing like any laboratory he had ever seen: certainly nothing could have been more unlike the sepulchral chambers of gloom that then served to house the laboratories of most universitie; in America and Europe. This was just an ordinary bungalow, of a type common to British military installations everywhere.

Standing in the shaded thicket with the bamboo stirring around him, Farley had an unaccustomed sense of unease. Casting a backward glance over his shoulder Farley saw no one around him, neither in the thicket, nor in the bungalow. Yet he had the distinct feeling that his presence had not gone unnoticed. Within moments, as though in confirmation, the bungalow's front door flew open, and the tall rubicund figure of Dr Cunningham stepped out on the veranda. 'Ah, there you are Farley,' he cried,

'they told me you were here. Well, don't just stand there, man; come on in. Let's settle this business once and for all.'

Recovering, Farley made his way up the bungalow's steps, and shook Cunningham's large, fleshy hand. After a quick exchange of greetings, the older man put a hand on his shoulder and steered him toward the laboratory's open door. Farley stepped in, only to stop dead in his tracks when he discovered that he was being minutely observed by a sari-clad woman and a young man dressed in pyjamas and a laboratory tunic. The woman was watching him with a look of such piercing enquiry that he could not avert his gaze from her. Dressed in a cheap and brightly coloured cotton sari, she was neither young nor old, perhaps in her late thirties. When she had finished with her examination, she seated herself on the floor, with her knees drawn up in front. 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 chokraboy 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 socalled 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 sweetsmelling 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 ... '

'And who better to train one's assistants than oneself, my boy?' Cunningham countered. 'Far preferable, in my opinion, to being surrounded by over-eager and half-formed college students. One is spared the task of imparting much that is useless and unnecessary.'

'So it was you who trained the woman – Mangala?' Farley asked. 'Indeed I did,' said Cunningham, staring hazily into the middle distance. 'And a quicker pair of hands and eyes I had never seen before. But

... '

Pulling a long face, Cunningham tapped his head with a finger. 'But she's not all there, you see,' he said, 'her mind's been wasted – by disease, or licentiousness or who knows what?'

'And the young man?' Farley asked. 'What about him?'

'He's not been here long,' Cunningham said. 'Mangala brought him here: said he was from her own part of the country.'

'And where is that?'

'Not far from where you are,' Cunningham said. 'I believe the place is called Renupur – you may have passed it on your way here.'

'Why, yes,' said Farley. 'I passed through Renupur on my way to Calcutta.'

Farley was just about to ask the assistant's name when he heard a sound behind him. He rose and found himself looking directly at the woman, Mangala. She was glaring at him from across the room, and such was the anger in her gaze that it sent a chill down his back. As he made his way out, he noticed that she was conducting a whispered consultation with the young assistant. Farley had barely reached the bamboo thicket in front of the laboratory when he heard footsteps racing behind him. Moments later the assistant caught up with him and asked in a voice of polite, almost beseeching enquiry, exactly when it was that he planned to come the next day. Determined to retain the advantage of surprise, Farley gave him a noncommittal reply: 'I shall come when I find myself within the vicinity. My arrival need not interrupt your work for the day.'

With that he turned his back on the crestfallen assistant and walked away.

Through much of the night, for no reason that he could adduce, Farley prayed. Yet he could find no name for what it was that faced him and why he feared it. And this in turn became his very fear, that he could not name what he knew he must confront. All next morning he stayed in his room, touching neither food nor water, and did not emerge from his cubicle until the hour was well past noon. Thus, once again, it was late afternoon by the time he arrived at the Hospital. But today, unlike the day before, the sky was grey and overcast, and a strong wind was blowing across the Maidan. Approaching the laboratory, Farley had the feeling that the stands of bamboo that separated it from the hospital were alive, astir with movement. And when he stepped into the thicket he saw that there were indeed shadows ahead of him, on the path: three figures, cloaked and swathed, stumbling slowly towards the laboratory. Farley stopped, overcome with misgiving, and then, collecting himself he went forward again. When he was but a few yards behind the figures, he saw that the little group consisted of a man in a dhoti and a sari-clad woman. They were bearing between them another, almost inert, human figure. He approached them boldly, rattling his fob to make his presence known.' They stopped and turned to face him.

Farley's eyes went immediately to the figure in the middle. It was a man, possibly young, possibly in middle age, it was impossible to tell, for the hooded face was ravaged beyond description, the eyes turned upwards, showing only the whites, the skin mottled, flecked with scabs, the teeth in the open, drooling mouth sloping towards the throat as though knocked backwards. Farley's glimpse of him was brief, but his diagnostic sense, honed by months of practice in Barich, told him instantly that the man was in the last stages of syphilitic dementia. Overcome with pity, Farley stretched out a helping hand towards the stricken man. But no sooner had the man's companions caught sight of him than they fled, melting away into the darkness. Farley stared after them and then headed down the path, to the laboratory. When he was a few yards from the bungalow an unexpected sound came to his ears: a low chant, sung in unison by a number of voices. Slowing his pace, he listened carefully. It was soon evident that the source of the sound lay not in the bungalow but elsewhere. Looking carefully around, through the trees and bamboo thickets, Farley saw that a number of people had gathered around a low outhouse, a short distance away. They were squatting in a circle, around a fire, chanting to the accompaniment of hand-held brass cymbals, as though in preparation for a ritual or ceremony.

Curious now, he hurried towards the outhouse, but just then the main door of the laboratory flew open and the young assistant came running out. Under the guise of an effusive welcome, he ushered Farley quickly towards the laboratory.

Just as he was about to enter the laboratory, Farley noticed a great deal of activity in a nearby anteroom. The assistant tried to hurry him past but by dint of dragging his feet Farley managed to steal a quick glance into the room. The sight that met his eyes was so bewildering that he uttered no protest when his guide manoeuvred him through the laboratory door. What he saw was this: the woman Mangala was seated at the far end of the room, on a low divan, but alone and in an attitude of command, as though enthroned. By her side were several small bamboo cages, each containing a pigeon. Yet it was not the birds themselves, but rather the state they were in that amazed him. For they were slumped on the floors of their cages, shivering, evidently near death. Nor was that all. On the floor, by the divan, clustered around the woman's feet, were some half-dozen people in various attitudes of supplication, some touching her feet, others lying prostrate. Two or three others were huddled against the wall, wrapped in blankets. Although Farley had glanced into their scarred, unseeing faces for no more than an instant, he recognized at once that they, like the man he had seen in the bamboo thicket, were syphilitics, in the final stages of the terrible disease. Now the young assistant began once again to perform the charade of the previous day, fetching slides, and hurrying back and forth across the room as though egging him on towards some extraordinary discovery. Farley did not demur. He went mechanically about the business of examining the slides they presented him, while his mind remained fixed upon the extraordinary tableau he had glimpsed outside. If there was much that was bewildering about the strange scenes outside, there was one aspect of it that was perfectly comprehensible to Farley, from his own experience. More than once in Barich he had found himself becoming the reluctant repository of the last despairing hopes of a frantic and fearful family that had arrived at the clinic's doorstep carrying a mortally ill relative through forests and over mountains. He knew the faces of those people, the beseeching supplication in their voices, the waning light of hope in their eyes. His conscience called out to him to go outside and tell them not to waste their hopes on whatever quackery it was that this woman offered; to expose the falsehoods that she and her minions had concocted to deceive those simple people. It was his duty, he knew, to tell them that mankind knew no cure for their condition; that this false prophetess was cheating them of money they could ill afford. Yet he stayed where he was in the hope that with some patience he would be able to see the matter through to the end. Minute followed minute and hour followed hour, and still he kept his eye fixed upon the microscope, pretending to examine everything that was placed in front of him. As the hours wore on, he could feel the impatience growing around him; he could hear it in hurrying footsteps; he could feel it in the eyes that were boring through his back, willing him to leave so they could get on with whatever they had planned. But he stayed at his place, unmoving, immobile, to all appearances utterly absorbed in the slides. Then at last, when the daylight had nearly faded, Farley called out:

'Bearer, kindly light the gas lamps. I have a great deal more to do.'

At this the assistant began to expostulate: 'But, sir, there is nothing here, you will see nothing, you are simply wasting your time, for no reason.'

Farley had been hoping and waiting for precisely such a moment. Now, raising his voice, he said: 'Hear me well: I shall not leave this laboratory until I have seen the transformations that Laveran described. I am willing to stay here all night, if need be: I shall stay as long as I must.'

With that he lowered his head to the microscope once again. But in the meanwhile he had taken the precaution of placing the glass tumbler before him again, and now out of the corner of his eyes he saw the assistant snatching up a set of clean slides and slipping away to the anteroom. Once he was gone, Farley made his way silently across the laboratory. Flattening himself against the wall, he crept towards the door until he had manoeuvred himself into a position where he could look into the anteroom without himself being detected. Farley had steeled himself for anything, or so he thought, but he was unprepared for what he saw next. First the assistant went up to the woman, Mangala, still regally ensconced on her divan, and touched his forehead to her feet. Then in the manner of a courtier or acolyte he whispered some word of advice in her ear. She nodded in agreement and took the clean slides from him. Reaching for the birdcages she allowed her hand to rest upon each of the birds in turn, as though she were trying to ascertain something. Then she seemed to come to a decision; she reached into a cage, and took one of the shivering birds into her lap. She folded her hands over it and her mouth began to move as though muttering a prayer. Then suddenly a scalpel appeared in her right hand; she held the bird away from her and with a single flick of her wrist beheaded the dying pigeon. Once the flow of blood had lessened, she picked up the clean slides, smeared them across the severed neck, and handed them to the assistant.

Farley had the presence of mind to go hurrying across the room to his microscope. No sooner had he seated himself than the young man came in.

'Please examine these now, sir,' he said with a wide smile. 'Maybe you will at last achieve success in your quest.'

Farley turned the slides over his hand. 'But,' he said, 'these are not properly stained: the blood on them is still fresh.'

'Yes, sir,' said the assistant, offhandedly. 'Perhaps that which you are looking for can only be seen in freshly drawn blood.'

Farley placed the slide under the microscope and looked into the instrument. At first he saw nothing unusual; nothing that would have indicated to him, had he not known, that this exhibit came from a pigeon. He noticed the familiar granules of malarial pigment. But then suddenly he saw movement; under his eyes amoeboid forms began to squirm and move, undulating slowly across the glassy surface. Then all at once there was a flurry of movement and they began to disintegrate: it was then that he saw Laverari's rods appear, hundreds of them, tiny cylindrical things, with their pointed, penetrating heads piercing the bloody miasma. The sweat began to drip off Farley's forehead now, as he watched the horned creatures burrowing, writhing, wriggling in frantic search. His breath grew laboured; his head began to spin. He sat up, gasping, the sight of these wilful, struggling creatures still vivid in his eyes. His gaze strayed to the window, and discovered a row of faces lined up against the glass, watching him, as he squirmed in his seat, mopping his brow. His eyes locked with Mangala's; she was standing in front of all the others, staring at him, smiling to herself. Clutched in her hand, in full view, was the body of the decapitated bird, the blood still oozing from its macabre wound.

'Tell him,' the woman said with a mocking smile, 'tell him that what he sees is the creature's member entering the body of its mate, doing what men and women must do ... '

And here, at this point of revelation, which shows that Farley had already arrived at the conclusion that was to make his erstwhile team-mate famous, the narrative ends. For now, unable to contain himself any longer, Farley flung the slides at the woman and stalked quickly out of the laboratory.

But before franking the letter for the post, next morning, Farley added a few scribbled lines in the margin: 'In haste: much that I feared has been confirmed in these last hours. Shortly before matins, there was a knock on my door: it was Cunningham's young assistant. He told me –

oh so many things – I shall write of them all to you in time. Suffice it to say for the present, that everything is other than what it appears to be, a phantom of itself. The young man has promised to reveal everything to me if I would but accompany him to his birthplace. Fortunately the place of which he spoke is not far from the location of my clinic. We are to leave tomorrow: I shall write again and in greater detail, dear friend, once I know more ... '

But Elijah Farley never reached Barich: he disappeared during the journey, never to be seen again. The police discovered that he had indeed boarded the train at Sealdah, as scheduled, but had disembarked before his destination at a remote, rarely used station called Renupur, in severe monsoon weather. A guard was said to have reported later that a young man had been seen carrying his luggage.

Abruptly Ava began to beep: Rest indecipherable, unable to continue

...

Chapter 22

MURUGAN could not get to sleep.

Sweltering under the mosquito net, he lay awake, watching the ceiling fan beat the heavy monsoon air, its stubby blades flashing hypnotically in the thin crack of light that was shining through the stubbornly unfastenable balcony door. The bedclothes had bunched up around his waist in moist, sweat-soaked clusters. Taking off his vest, he rolled it into a ball and dropped it out of the mosquito net. He was naked now, except for his cotton boxer shorts. The generator was still pounding away at the wedding down the road. The music seemed even louder now. But somehow, despite all that noise, he could hear the mosquitoes clearly, droning patiently around the bed, testing for openings, gathering in excitement every time a hand or a foot brushed against the fabric. Soon he couldn't tell whether the buzz was inside the net or outside; whether the tingling in his limbs came from their interrupted probings or the chafing of the moist sheets. He flattened himself against the mattress and tried to lie still. Spreadeagling his arms and legs he waited – waited to discover whether they were really inside the net; whether his inflamed skin would allow him to discern the feel of their bites.

It was strangely intimate to lie there like that, against damp cloth, spread out in that elementally open posture of invitation, of embrace, of longing. When he looked down at his body, lying flat on the bed, he could not tell whether he was waiting for them to show themselves to him, or whether he was showing himself to them: displaying himself in those minute detailed ways that only they were small enough to see, to understand, because only they had eyes that were designed to see not the whole but the parts, each in its uniqueness. Involuntarily he flexed his shoulders, arching his back, offering himself up, waiting to discover where they would touch him first, where he would first detect the tingling prick of their bites, on his chest or his belly, on the muscle of his forearm or the weathered codpiece of his elbow.

The fan became a blur; the mosquito net melted into a milky fog. He was floating outside it now, looking in, at people he knew, knew very well, even if only through books and papers. And now he was in again, inside the net; he was one of them too, lying on a hard hospital charpoy, stripped, naked, watching the English doctor uncork a test tube full of mosquitoes into his net. In his fist he still clutched the coins he had been given at the hospital gates. He held on to them tightly, savouring their feel, their reassurance; they were so cool to the touch, so hard edged; they made everything so simple, so clean: a handful of coins, a rupee, for handing on the thing that lived in his blood, for safekeeping, to the doctor.

He saw faces around his bed now, rippling, like reeds, beyond the surface of the mosquito net, faces that were watching him, studying his body, as it lay there in its urgent nakedness; faces he knew, or recognized, a grey-haired woman smiling through twinkling bifocals; a gaptoothed boy, grinning, circling the bed; an old man with tears in his eyes, peering at him in the darkness; a thin, young woman, holding hands with her friend. They were standing around his bed in attitudes of concern, like nurses and doctors' assistants, waiting for him to sink into anaesthetized oblivion. And now the bearded Englishman reappears, dressed in his white coat, smoking a cigar, armed with half a dozen test tubes; he reaches in, with a little butterfly net, pulls it out and expertly traps an engorged mosquito in a test tube, covering the opening with a handkerchiefwrapped thumb. He holds up the test tube and shows it to the others and they clap; they are excited, full of encouragement. The Englishman draws mightily on his cigar and puffs into the test tube; the insect dies, the tiny buzzing creature that is carrying his blood inside it. The doctor holds it up and shows it to the others, they reach for it eagerly; they want to see it for themselves; this extrusion of his flesh, and in their eagerness the test tube slips from their fingers, falls to the floor, shatters, filling the room with a thin tinkle of breaking glass. Murugan sat suddenly upright, the sweat pouring off his face, not sure whether he was still dreaming or awake. The net was buzzing with mosquitoes; he could see them dancing like motes, in the finger of light that bisected his bed. His whole body was aflame, covered with bites. He had been scratching himself furiously in his sleep; he could see blood on his fingernails, and on the sheets.

He climbed out of the bed and walked around the room, scratching hard. The air was heavy with the smell of his own sweat. He opened the door and stepped out on to the balcony.

The street below was empty now, but the generator was still running in the building down the street. The archway at the entrance to the wedding seemed brighter than ever, flooding the street with light. Relays of workers were running back and forth through the entrance, loading their bamboo handcarts with stacks of folding chairs and tables. Suddenly, with a squeal of rubber, a taxi came shooting around the Rawdon Street corner and stopped at the gates of the old mansion at number three. A woman in a sari stepped out. She was too far away for Murugan to get a look at her face, but the light from the wedding arch was just strong enough to give him a glimpse of a streak of white, running through her hair. Taking a key out of her purse, she unlocked the gates and went in.

Murugan waited a minute to see if she would come out again and then went back into the bedroom. He was getting into bed when he heard the click of a closing door somewhere near at hand. Getting out of bed, he stuck his head into the corridor. The flat was dark and still. He fetched a torch and made his way across the drawing room to Mrs Aratounian's bedroom. Lowering himself on one knee, beside the closed door, he put his ear to the crack. He heard a soft, rhythmic sound inside: like gentle snoring – or possibly a fan. It was hard to be sure. Murugan hesitated, wondering whether he ought to make sure that Mrs Aratounian was all right. He decided against and tiptoed quickly back to his bedroom. Just as he was about to step through the door he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his right foot.

Swearing softly, he stooped to investigate. There was a small gash in his heel. He had cut it on a sharp object, something that was lying on the floor, glinting in the halflight.

He picked it up and looked at it. It was an inch-long shard of thin glass, probably from some kind of tube.

Chapter 23

IT WAS PAST ONE when Sonali decided to go looking for Romen: she couldn't keep still and sleep was out of the question. Fortunately, at exactly the right moment, one of her neighbours came home from a party, in a taxi. Snatching up her handbag, Sonali ran down and jumped in, without really giving any thought to where she would go. On an impulse, recalling Romen's overheard conversation at the gates of the Wicket Club, she told the taxi driver to go to Robinson Street. She couldn't think of what Romen might be doing there at this time of the night. Yet somehow, when the taxi stopped at the gates of the old house she had an inexplicable feeling that Romen was inside. Fortunately he'd left behind a set of keys at her flat a few days ago: she'd put it in her handbag and forgotten to give it back.

She managed to find the key to the gate, but once she was in she wasn't sure of what to do next. She made her way down the gravel path, to the portico, and looked in through the door. Itwas very dark inside; she couldn't see very far. Cupping her hands, she shouted: 'Romen, are you there?'

She wasn't surprised when there was no answer: a generator was making a terrific noise next door. She could hardly hear her voice herself. She always carried a small torch in her handbag, for power cuts. She took it out and shone the light into the vast hallway ahead. The beam circled slowly through the darkness, picking out randomly scattered piles of mattresses, charpoys and battered cooking utensils. Romen had brought Sonali to the house once, a few months before,'

to show off his new acquisition. The hallway was full of people then, cooking, eating, sleeping, feeding their children. The entire construction gang was living in the gutted shell of the house. They were from Nepal and there were about thirty of them altogether, not including the old women who had been brought along to look after the children. They cooked their meals in a paved courtyard at the back and slept in the hallways and under the portico, spreading out their mattresses and charpoys wherever they could. They were all related, Romen had told her, sons, grandsons, daughters-in-law, sons' wives, mothers, aunts: a whole village on the move.

She looked around once again, peering into the uneasy shadows that skimmed over the murky gloom of the hallway. Their belongings were all there, just as she remembered, but none of them seemed to be anywhere in sight. Crossing the threshold, she took a few tentative steps into the hall. Then she caught a whiff of an odd smell and came to a sudden halt. It

smelled like smoke at first, and she had a moment of panic, wondering whether there was a fire somewhere within. She sniffed the air again, and was startled to catch the distinctive odour of incense, the sweet, acrid smell of burning camphor. It was sweeping into the hall in clouds, from somewhere at the back.

She took a few more steps into the darkness, and now her ears, growing accustomed to the mechanical roar next door, picked up another sound: a hollow, rhythmic noise just distinguishable from the throbbing of the generator – a sound of drumming, familiar from pujas and festival days, when drums pounded in worship all over the city. The sound grew louder as Sonali approached the grand ceremonial staircase that lay at the back of the hall. Suddenly the curved banisters were in front of her, their ragged, splintered rails wreathed in smoke. Shining the torch upwards she saw that smoke was pouring into the stairwell from above. It hung thick around her, diffusing the beam of the torch into a milk-white glow.

The staircase was a rusted shell; the last time she saw it the workers had just begun the job of stripping it down to the steel scaffolding, as a preliminary to restoring it to its original glory, when it had swept upwards in a grand curve of mahogany and wrought iron. 'The structure is still sound,' Romen had told her. She had followed him gingerly, stepping from foothold to foothold, and had counted herself lucky when she made it to the top without a fall. Looking at it now, curling up into the smoke, like a gigantic vine, she shied away, wiping her watering eyes. Then, making up her mind, she took a grip on the banisters and pulled herself up a couple of steps.

She stood on a steel rail and shone the torch ahead until it fell upon a length of rusty metal, lying exposed under a plank of rotten wood, a couple of steps further up. That was what Romen had said to do, she remembered now: don't step on the wood - keep to the steel frame. She leaned forward and jumped. Her foot slipped but she managed to catch hold of the banisters. Trying not to look down, she shut her eyes and breathed deeply, struggling to steady herself. She climbed crablike to the next foothold, biting the torch between her teeth, using her hands as well as her feet. She went up the next few steps the same way, rounding the curve of the staircase. After a few more steps she stopped to catch her breath and pointed the torch ahead. The landing at the top of the staircase was no more than a few yards away now. The drumming seemed very close; she could feel it reverberating in the metal, under her hands and feet. When her hand reached the landing she took the torch out of her mouth and placed it on a ledge. She heaved herself up and collapsed on the floorboards.

The drumming was all around her now, so loud and close that she could not tell which direction it was coming from. As she was turning to look, her sari brushed against the torch and knocked it over. It rolled a couple of inches, eluding her hand, and fell off the edge of the landing. She watched as it went spinning down the stairwell, its beam circling around the hall until it hit the floor and went out. Stifling a sob, she sat up. She began to pat the floorboards around her, trying to orient herself, swivelling all the way around, banging her hands on the splintering wood. Then it dawned on her that she no longer knew which way she was facing – towards the staircase or away from it: her disorientation was complete.

She could feel her chest constricting. She knew she would panic if she stayed on the floor any longer, flailing about, blinded by sweat and smoke, deafened by the noise. She climbed to her feet and saw a dull orange glow somewhere ahead of her, within the whirling clouds of smoke. She took a step towards it and then lowered herself to her hands and knees. She couldn't trust herself to walk on the rotten floor and began to crawl instead, inching slowly towards the glow, shutting her eyes against the stinging smoke.

When she had advanced a couple of yards, she saw that the light was shining out of an arched doorway. Now suddenly she knew where she was: she was facing the entrance to the largest room in the house, a huge woodpanelled mirrored chamber that had once served as a reception room. Ramen had insisted on bringing her up to see it – it was the pride of the house, he said, and he was going to restore it to its former state. She pushed herself closer to the archway and figures began to take shape in the smoky glow ahead of her. They were sitting crosslegged on the floor, with their backs to her, facing in the other direction. She saw a couple of heads first, and then more, and more, until the whole room seemed to be filled with people. They were chanting something and some were keeping time with drums while others were beating little hand-held cymbals.

She could not bring herself to go forward and there was no going back; she would never be able to find her way down without the torch. Then she remembered something that Romen had showed her on their visit: the reception room had a small raised gallery at the back, a minstrel gallery Romen had called it. He had led her up to it, to show her how immense the room looked from up there. She tried to calm herself now, to think back to that day, several months ago. They had reached the gallery by climbing up a narrow, steep staircase, almost like a ladder. Sonali made an effort to calm herself so she could recall where those stairs were.

She crept forward another yard or so and spotted the entrance to a little anteroom to her right. Edging towards it, she drew level with the entrance and glanced in. At the far corner, she spotted the opening that led to the gallery, glowing orange against the velvety darkness of the room. There were no people in the anteroom, so far as she could tell. She slipped around the corner and rose to her feet. Then she edged along the wall, with one arm stretched out until her hand hit upon the cold metal of the stepladder. She stepped back and looked at the opening to the gallery: it was directly above her now. All she could see was the flickering orange glow of a fire, reflected through clouds of smoke. She took a grip on the ladder and climbed quickly up. At the top, the smoke suddenly welled up in her face, forcing itself into her lungs. She stuffed the end of her sari into (her mouth, in an effort to choke back a cough, and looked in.

The narrow, flimsy looking gallery was empty. Pulling her feet up, she sank down and flattened herself on the floor of the gallery. She noticed now that the smoke was even thicker here than it was below; trapped by the ceiling, it swirled around the gallery in dense clouds. Lowering her face, she held her sari pressed against her watering eyes. They were smarting so much now that she knew she would not be able to keep them open for more than a few seconds at a time. When the stinging had dulled a little, she thrust her head to the edge and looked down. She caught a glimpse of the tops of dozens of heads, some male, some female, young and old, packed in close together. Their faces were obscured by the smoke and flickering firelight but she spotted a couple of weatherbeaten Nepali faces that she was sure she had seen before, when Ramen last brought her to the house. For the rest it seemed like a strangely motley assortment of people: men in patched lungis, a handful of brightly painted women in cheap nylon saris, a few young students, several prim-looking middle-class women – people you would never expect to see together.

Narrowing her eyes against the smoke, Sonali followed their gaze to the fire, burning at the far end of the room: a heap of coal-dust was glowing red in a brazier, improvised from a battered cement pan. Then she had a shock: somewhere among the faces around the fire she spotted a face she knew. She looked again: it was a skeletally thin boy in a Tshirt. Sonali reeled: it was the boy who had been living in her servant's room for the last few months, there could be no doubt about it. He was smiling, saying something to the person next to him. There was a small clearing in front and every now and again the boy and the others around him would reach in and touch something. Sonali could not see what it was: her view was blocked by several closely packed heads. The crowd was bunched thickly around whatever it was that was lying there; everybody in the room seemed to be staring at that space.

Sonali shut her smarting eyes and let her head drop to the floor. Her sari was drenched and she could barely move her limbs. The floor seemed to turn under her: she knew she was very close to losing consciousness. Then there was a stir in the crowd and Sonali forced herself to look down again. A figure had come out of the shadows: it was a woman and she was dressed very plainly – in a crisply starched sari, with a white scarf tied around her hair. Her figure was short and matronly and Sonali took her to be in late middle age. She looked very familiar; Sonali was certain she was someone she had once known but hadn't seen in years. She had a cloth bag slung over one shoulder, an ordinary cotton jhola, of the kind that every student takes to college. In her left hand she was carrying a bamboo birdcage. She seated herself by the fire and placed the bag and the birdcage beside her. Then, reaching into the bag, her movements brisk and businesslike, she took out two scalpels and a pair of glass plates.

She arranged the plates and the scalpel in front of her, on a piece of white cloth, and reached into her bag again. She took out a small clay figure and touched it to her forehead, before setting it down beside her. Then she reached out, placed her hands on whatever it was that was lying before the fire and smiled – a look of extraordinary sweetness came over her face.

Raising her voice, the woman said to the crowd, in archaic rustic Bengali: 'The time is here, pray that all goes well for our Laakhan, once again.'

Suddenly Sonali was struck by a terrible sense of foreboding. Raising her head as high as she dared she looked again into the space by the fire. She caught a glimpse of a body, lying on the floor. The drumming rose to a crescendo: there was a flash of bright metal and a necklace of blood flew up and fell sizzling on the fire. Sonali's head crashed to the floor and everything went dark.

THE DAY AFTER

Chapter 24

IT WAS seven fifteen in the morning and Urmila was nearing the end of her tether. She was in the kitchen, grinding spices, perspiration dripping off her face on to her grease-spotted sari. She had already been up an hour: she had given her parents their breakfast; she had cleaned the kitchen; she had fed and bathed her nephew and niece; she had washed her younger brother's uniform for his afternoon football match. She would have to leave within the hour if she was to be on time for the press conference at the Great Eastern Hotel. But there was still the business of the fish to deal with, and there was no sign of a fish-seller yet. Urmila looked out of the kitchen window, trying to estimate how long it would take her to run to Gariahat Bazaar and back. She was in trouble, she knew, unless something miraculous happened soon: it would take at least half an hour if she had to go down to the bazaar, what with picking out a fish and bargaining and all the rest – there was no way around that.

The flat was on the third floor, boxed in on every side by other multistorey buildings. The kitchen window was the only part of the flat that had a view, other than the balcony. It commanded a glimpse of a sliver of the city: she could see the ragged, spreading skyline of south Calcutta stretching away longitudinally, from the park below – a vista of mildewdarkened roofs vanishing into the smudged glow of a lowering monsoon sky.

Down below, in the park, the usual half-dozen cricket matches were already in progress. She could hear the thud of wood on leather and a few drowsy voices, shouting encouragement. In another corner of the park half a dozen men were busy swinging clubs and doing push-ups, below the tin roof of a body-building school. Further away, RashBehari Avenue was stirring in anticipation of rush hour. But the roadsides were still relatively empty except for a few shoppers hurrying back from Gariahat Bazaar, along the short-cut, with clumps of vegetables hanging over the tops of their nylon shopping bags.

The short-cut to Gariahat Bazaar curved off from the main avenue a few hundred yards away. It was a long, narrow lane whose principal landmark was a rambling, oldfashioned house, with a gravel driveway, a pillared portico and a well-tended garden. The house was clearly visible from the kitchen: Urmila's eyes often fell on it when she was working there. It was Romen Haldar's residence.

Just then the doorbell rang.

'The bell's ringing, Urmi,' her mother called out from her bedroom.

'Can't you hear it?'

Her father was out on the balcony with his paper, going through the Announcements column, a favourite morning pastime. He was reading the entries out aloud to himself, spitting out the names like chewed fishbones. He put the paper on his knees and looked up. 'Who is it?' he called out. 'Someone go and have a look.'

Almost immediately her sister-in-law's voice came floating out of her bedroom: she was feeding her baby and couldn't get out of bed. Her older brother had already left to catch a morning train. Her younger brother was in the bathroom, snapping his fingers and singing, 'Disco diwana'. Then her mother called out, in her softest, most cajoling voice: 'Go and have a look, Urmi, no one will if you don't ... '

I'm busy here! she wanted to scream. Can't you see; I'm busy here, trying to get things ready before going to work ... ?

The doorbell rang again and now her six-year-old nephew ran into the kitchen and began to tug at her sari. 'Open the door, Urmi-pishi,'

sang the boy. 'Urmi-pishikirrni-pishi, open the door, open the door ... '

She slammed the heavy pestle on the pitted surface of the mortar, brilliantly coloured now with turmeric and chili, and pushed past her nephew, who was lying flat on the floor. The boy stretched out his hands as she went by and fastened his fingers on the bottom of her sari. She dragged him along for a couple of paces and then slapped his clenched fist.

He erupted into a wail and went racing to his parents' bedroom, crying: 'She hit me, she hit me, kirmi-pishi hit me ...'

As she undid the doorlatch, Urmila heard her sister-in-law's voice break into a scream: 'How dare you hit my son?'

She flung the door open and found a young man standing outside, beside a large covered basket. She had never seen him before; he looked very young to be a vendor. He was dressed in a lungi and a greying Tshirt.

'You slut,' the voice followed Urmila through the open doorway.

'You think I don't know what you're up to, coming home late every night? I'll teach you a lesson; I'll teach you to hit my children ... '

Urmila stepped out and slammed the door behind her. Embarrassment lent a note of shrillness to her voice as she snapped: 'What's the matter? What do you want?'

The young man gave her a cheerful grin, exposing a wide gap in his front teeth. Urmila was suddenly ashamed, mortified at the thought that she had allowed her sister-in-law to provoke her in front of a complete stranger. Inadvertently, she drew the back of her hand across her forehead. Her face contorted into a grimace as the ground spices burnt a smarting furrow across her face and brow. She wiped her eyes hurriedly with the end of her sari.

'What do you want?' she said again, more evenly.

The young man was squatting beside the basket now. With another smile he pulled back a layer of paper and plastic to reveal a pile of fish, gleaming silver in the earlymorning light.

He grinned. 'I just came to ask whether you need any fish this morning, didi,' he said. 'That's all.'

Chapter 25