Red Earth and Pouring Rain (76 page)

‘How do you know this?’

‘I met the man and he told me.’ He motioned at himself, at his clothes. ‘He did this to me. You will not believe me, but will
you believe me if you see it?’

Abberline drew his hand back from the bell, and now there was a troubled look on his face. ‘See what?’

Sanjay said: ‘Do you believe that I am speaking to you?’

‘Yes, of course you’re speaking to me.’

‘But look. I have no tongue.’ Sanjay opened his mouth wide and stepped up to Abberline, who laughed and then despite himself
looked, and then threw himself back, knocking the chair over, and backed up to the wall. Sanjay edged closer to him, pointing
at his mouth. ‘I have no tongue, and yet I speak. I tell you again, you have no idea what there is on your streets.’

Abberline was silent for a long moment. ‘If what you say is true, why is he doing this?’

‘He is looking for something.’

‘What?’

Sanjay leaned forward. ‘Is there a woman in these streets, of the streets, who is with child?’

Abberline took Sanjay back on the streets, where they talked to patrolling policemen, to plain-clothes constables, and others,
informers, whom the inspector knocked up out of their dark houses and to whom he posed the same question, but nobody had an
answer; the night passed, and Sanjay felt fear, once he heard a quavering cry and he and
the inspector started and bumped into each other, then stared trembling into the dark until Abberline said curtly, ‘Cat.’
Sanjay felt the weight of Abberline’s curiosity, he knew the other wanted to know about his connection to Sarthey, but this
was no time for talk, and so they hurried from alley to alley, always with the same question, which the inspector hid among
half a dozen others, have you seen anyone suspicious, have you heard any noises; Sanjay understood that the Englishman was
doing this despite himself, that he could not believe and yet believed, and so he waited impatiently, shifting from one painful
leg to another, until always the question: A woman with child?

It was very late, past three, when a little policeman named Rollow, a sturdy small man standing straight for Abberline, answered
crisply why yes, and then stepped back as Sanjay came forward, mouth working, and Abberline asked who, tell us, man.

‘Her name is Mary Kelly.’

‘Where?’ said Sanjay, ‘Where?’

Rollow glanced back and forth from Sanjay to Abberline, then cleared his throat. ‘She dosses, sir, in a room at Miller’s Court.’

Number 26, Dorset Street, was in darkness as Sanjay and the inspector stepped carefully around the house; each breath cost
Sanjay an effort and robbed him of hearing, his pulse beat so loudly that finally he stood still, absolutely still, and Abberline’s
face was sweaty in the flickering light from a lamp overhead, they looked at each other and they could hear nothing but Sanjay’s
hands were shaking, he turned his head carefully, something small buzzed through the light and its shadow magnified spun like
a wheel on the walls of Miller’s Court, Sanjay turned his head carefully, not knowing what to look for but examining every
brick, the irregular paving stones, the long pipe running up on the wall, and level with his heart there was a small diamond
of light, so tiny that it disappeared when he looked directly at it, but when he turned away it appeared again, a point of
light in the wall. He stepped up to the wall, one two three, settling his feet on the ground slowly like an embrace, and his
outstretched hand found a sheet of glass, a window, and cloth, a window with one pane broken in it, the gap stuffed with rags
and letting through just one burst of light, Sanjay bent his face down (feeling a sensation of falling) and leaned close to
the glass, pulled softly at the
cloth with his forefinger, and the edge of glass stands sharply in his vision and what is beyond is indistinct for a moment
but then it swims and clears into a black bag, a square black leather bag which is open and from which protrudes a steel handle,
and beyond that on the floor is a pool of blood, there is a bed, on the bed there is a person, a woman but her face has been
cut away, the body has been blasted the flesh peeled from the thighs to the bone, and Sarthey is leaning over her in his shirtsleeves,
rolled up, he is concentrated and the light shines on his temples and the long forehead, he picks up her hand and places it
slowly and surely in her stomach, in the red cavity where her stomach used to be, the room is red, he places her hand in herself,
he is speaking, his voice is steady and calm and low, Sanjay can hear each word clearly, Sarthey says: ‘See. See. See, India,
this is your womb. This is your heart. This is your bone.’

Sanjay turned, brushing past Abberline, and was at the door pulling at the knob, which would not turn. He held it with both
hands and then it suddenly gave way, and he fell forward into the room, past Abberline’s arm which came in through the window,
he had reached in and pulled back the bolt, and Sarthey was still intent on what he was doing. Sanjay had the sword-stick
out and was thrusting but Sarthey turned and took it from him easily, plucked it from the air and twisted it away, reversed
it, Sanjay scrambled back but Sarthey fixed him easily with a stab that caught him through the middle, he sat down suddenly,
the blade through him. Sarthey raised a finger at him, admonishing, and Abberline was behind him, swinging a cosh, which made
a solid thumping noise on Sarthey’s head, who turned and lifted the inspector off his feet with a swing of his arm and bounced
him off the wall to collapse slowly. Sarthey stepped over his shins, to the door, which he shut quietly, when he turned Sanjay
saw his eyes, brilliant and calm, and Sarthey stepped back to the bed, from his bag he lifted an implement, a long knife that
Sanjay remembered. Sarthey bent over and worked, Sanjay heard small shifting liquid sounds, then Sarthey lifted something
up, holding it in both cupped hands, and Sanjay shut his eyes but the image remained and it was useless, he opened them and
Sarthey was staring at the thing in his hand (a piece of somebody, somebody, Sanjay thought), a wet knot of tissue and blood
and fluids, Sarthey was muttering, ‘Heat, heat, heat,’ an expression of exultation and joy on his face, then what was in
his hands began to glow, to burn not with flame but an inner radiance brighter than a thousand suns, it seared the room white
and Sarthey flung it away into the fireplace and clutched at his eyes, smoke between his fingers, and yet the radiance grew
brighter and then it was unbearable to look at and Sanjay turned his face away. When he looked again there was nothing in
the fireplace but a blackened and melted utensil of some kind, and Sarthey was kneeling near the bed, his head in his hands,
he raised his head slowly and his eyes had become black craters, burnt and bleeding, but it was the skin on his hands that
Sanjay watched with horror, because it was spotting, where it had been hard and uncreased it now grew wrinkled, it loosened
and grew old. Across the room Abberline was watching, his mouth working, pressed against the wall, and now Sarthey’s face
was changing, his hair was vanishing, his cheeks fell, sores appeared on his neck, and his shoulders lost their bulk and he
grew old. Finally he slumped to the floor and lay twisted, his clothes puddling around the shape of the thin limbs, and his
face, with its charred holes, gazed straight upwards with a look of insulted and indignant surprise.

Sanjay pushed himself to his feet, and worked at the sword-stick until it fell to the ground, and the clatter it made seemed
to start Abberline from a daze: he jumped up, scooped up the weapon, and brought it down in a huge overhead sweep onto Sarthey,
and the blade passed through Sarthey’s neck with a dry rustle, easily, and the head rolled to one side, there was no blood,
only a little arid exhalation of wind, the fingers on the hand that Sanjay could see crumbled, and collapsed into a fine dust,
the body disappeared and the white shirt lay flat on the ground, the fine leather boots lay empty, and still the lips on the
head worked, the creased skin jumped back and forth, the nostrils expanded and contracted, and the eyes yet seemed to be staring
blindly.

Abberline covered his face with his forearm, and wept: ‘What is this? What is this?’

Sanjay shook his head. ‘He cannot die.’

‘Why?’

‘He has found what he wished for.’

‘What? What was that?’

‘Eternal life.’

The cold air rushing down Sanjay’s neck made his new wound ache,
but he felt as if its frigid flow were the only thing holding him back from the black precipice of exhaustion; they were in
a dog cart speeding towards the edges of the city, with Abberline driving, and the black bag under the seat with its unspeakable
burden, next to a shovel. After what had happened, it seemed to Sanjay that Abberline’s return to practicality was quick to
the extreme and therefore hugely admirable: he had muttered under his breath, wiped his face a couple of times, and then he
was suddenly walking about the room taking charge; he had stuffed the rags back into the broken window, he had gathered up
the sword-stick and its sheath, he had opened the bag and swept up all of Sarthey’s instruments into it, he had lifted the
clothes on the floor without flinching, and finally he had brought himself to nudge the head into the open bag, which he then
clicked shut. All this time Sanjay had stood with his face to the wall, trying not to look at the woman on the bed, shaking,
and when Abberline had tapped him on the shoulder he burst out, ‘Who is she?’

‘Mary Kelly, I presume.’

‘Yes, but who is Mary Kelly?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yes. We must be out of here.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yes. Are you hurt badly?’

‘I will be all right. But I’m sorry.’

‘I understand. Come.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Will you shut your mouth and come?’

Sanjay let himself be led out; Abberline picked up a key from the table and locked the door behind them, and then they were
fleeing, and Sanjay said nothing more but the same words repeated themselves endlessly in his mind: I’m sorry. Now they were
on a dark road, with Abberline going recklessly fast, and Sanjay heard another whisper, a succession of words, and he couldn’t
tell if it was real, or if his mind was conjuring it up out of the drumming of the wheels, clean, it said, the world must
be clean, clean, clean; Sanjay was tired of listening, and thinking, and he wanted to sleep, but he knew it wouldn’t come
yet.

They stopped next to an enormous iron gate, and Abberline led the
way over a fence; once on the other side Sanjay could feel grass underneath his feet.

‘What is that smell?’ he said.

‘It’s a cemetery.’

The odour lay over the ground thickly so that there was no escape from it; when Sanjay covered his nose he could feel it burning
in his throat, and it was the effluvia of flesh rotting away, the slow dissolution of the tissues and muscles, of the ground
permeated by the gasses from human bowels; it made Sanjay’s eyes stream and his stomach clench. They emerged from the bushes,
and Sanjay saw the darker shape of a church against the dark sky, its steeple and the soaring reach of the towers; finally
Abberline stopped, next to a large mausoleum, and began to dig close to one of its walls, and Sanjay stood looking at the
elegant outline of the church, tracing it from one end to another, anything to keep back the memory of the room at Miller’s
Court, and he kept his hand over his nose, but all his attempts were useless, and his mind skittered along the edge of madness
and rot.

‘Help me,’ Abberline said. He had the bag at the bottom of the hole, and now they pushed the earth back in, and tamped it
down, and yet Sanjay heard the voice whispering, clean, clean, clean, but he knew now that he was dreaming it, because the
thing in the bag was buried, and that he wanted nothing more than to be away. Finally Abberline finished, and they hurried
away, and the horse was shivering against the fence; as they got in Abberline caught Sanjay by the elbow. ‘Is it finished.’

‘It is.’

‘I saw the blade go through you, and yet you are not dead. What are you? What was he?’

‘We were, we were just ordinary people. We were changed by something.’

‘What?’

‘It was distance, I think, and a kind of dream.’

‘Magic? Do you mean to say, over there? In India?’

‘Yes, it was magic all right. But it was never Indian.’

Abberline turned his head away. ‘I must be insane.’

They were jolting along now, and Sanjay had to call over the wind to Abberline. ‘Is there no chance of it being uncovered
over there?’

‘No. They won’t dig up that patch. Under that mausoleum, I mean. There’s a member of the royal family buried there.’

When they reached the city it was early morning, and Abberline left Sanjay at the hotel, telling him to wait, to go nowhere,
and went back to the station to await the discovery of the body; Sanjay spent the day lying on the bed, always a step away
from sleep, his eyes on the white ceiling; he felt as if something was over, as if a curtain had come down, but he had no
strength to draw a moral, and so he examined the plaster minutely, understood the intricate tracery of the cracks, the patterns
of the trowel-strokes that were still apparent. Finally he could bear the stuffiness of the room no more, and he went out
and walked the streets till evening; the noise was enough to distract him, and he paid no attention to where he was going,
and when dusk came he found himself in front of a large palace, next to a huge gate guarded by tall soldiers. A number of
carriages rolled through the gate, which closed behind them and a crowd of onlookers cheered; the man next to Sanjay turned
to him: ‘That was the queen. Queen-Empress Victoria herself.’

Sanjay turned and looked, and the man whose face was sparkling with a huge, excited smile was a very small Indian, a slight
man with small shoulders who was wearing a dark evening suit and a tall chimneypot hat; his English was careful and controlled,
and for all his efforts had a Gujarati lilt under it; and he was very young, maybe seventeen or eighteen.