The Day of the Scorpion (35 page)

He opened the door of Room O. A cold dry draught and a faint humming in the darkness, a subtle lethal scent as of chilled milk in frosted zinc containers – a scent that always caught her high up in the nostrils and made her conscious of the space between her eyes – distinguished the room at once as one whose atmosphere was regulated by an air conditioner. She thought: I shall catch a cold. Captain Rowan entered the room ahead of her and switched on the light – an act which registered in her mind as a consequence of particular rehearsal rather than of general familiarity.

The room was a square of bare whitewashed walls. It contained a table and a chair. On the table, which was covered by a piece of green baize, were a carafe of water with an inverted tumbler over its neck, an ashtray, a pad, two pencils, a table-lamp and a telephone. The chair had its back to the door. It stood close to and facing the farther wall. Into that part of the wall a grille was let in at eye-level for someone sitting in the chair. Above the grille was a smaller grille with a fine steel mesh. The table was set against the wall to the right of the chair.

Captain Rowan went to the table and switched on the lamp. It threw a small pool of light on to the white notepad.

‘If you would sit, Lady Manners, I’ll turn off the overhead light.’

She sat, lifted her veil. She could see nothing through the grille, but when the overhead light went off the grille was transformed into a faintly luminous rectangle. She felt
Captain Rowan come close. He reached in front of her, manipulated a catch on the grille and opened it. Behind it was a pane of glass and behind the pane wide-spaced, downward-directed louvres of wood or metal. She found herself looking through the louvres into a room on a slightly lower level. There were a table, several chairs and a door in each of the three walls she could see. The table was covered in green baize. There were pads, pencils, two wafer carafes and – placed centrally – a telephone. Suspended above the table was a light. It was on and seemed to be powerful. There was no one in the room.

‘Actually there’s not much to explain,’ Captain Rowan said. ‘You can keep the table-lamp on without any light on this side of the window attracting attention from below. The light over the table down there is rather strong and the shade is adjusted so that the man sitting in the chair facing you tends to be a bit dazzled by it. I’ve tried it myself and I assure you that if you look up you simply can’t see this grille let alone see anyone watching through it. But if the table-lamp here distracts you, just switch it off.’

‘I think I should prefer it switched off.’

He pressed the button on the base of the lamp.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘now I feel less vulnerable.’

‘Good. The microphone is in the telephone down there.’ He switched the lamp on again. ‘This is the speaker, above the grille. When I get down I shall ask whether you can hear. If you can, press the button that you’ll find under the arm of the chair.’

She felt for it.

‘Yes, I have it.’

‘Would you press it now and watch the telephone downstairs?’

She did so. A green light on the instrument in the room on the other side of the grille came on in response to the pressure.

‘That is also your line of communication. If the relay system breaks down all you need do is press the button. I will then pick up the telephone and say “Hello”. Once the telephone is picked up there’s a direct private connection between this room and that. All you need do is pick your own
telephone up and tell me what’s wrong. My reply may not seem relevant, naturally. But please don’t hesitate to communicate if you think it necessary. The business can always be adjourned if you want to discuss any points with me.’

‘Thank you, Captain Rowan.’

‘Are you close enough to the grille?’

‘Yes, and I shall put on my distance glasses.’

‘Shall I turn the light off again?’

‘If you would.’

Again the room darkened and the picture of the room below became brighter, clearer. She leaned forward.

‘Then if everything is satisfactory, Lady Manners, I’ll leave you.’

She nodded and said, ‘Yes, please carry on with your own side of things.’

Presently she heard the door open. Light from the corridor came and went across the wall she faced. She fumbled for the clasp of her handbag, found it and opened a way for her hand into the familiar homely clutter. Without removing the case she opened it and took out her distance spectacles, put them on. Now she could appreciate the fuzzy quality of the baize, the contradictions of texture between the baize and the wood of the chair that would be the focus for her attention. There was a clock on the wall above the door behind the chair. It showed twenty minutes after ten.

Just before it showed twenty-five past the door below it opened and Captain Rowan entered. He put his briefcase on the table and sat in the chair the prisoner was to sit in and gazed at a point directly in front of him. His voice reached her rather metallically from the wall just above her head.

‘The table is on a low dais and someone seated opposite sits slightly higher than the person in this chair. The head of the person in this chair is therefore raised a bit when he looks the other person in the eye. So.’ Captain Rowan raised his head fractionally. ‘You should now have a fuller face view. More chin and less forehead. If you have heard and understood please press the button twice.’

She did so. The green light on the telephone pulsed on and off, on and off.

‘Good. Perhaps we should test the telephone connection.’
‘He stood, leaned over and picked the receiver off the rest. She turned to her right, groped for her own instrument, found it, lifted the receiver and placed it against her ear. His voice was now in the instrument.

‘Can you hear me?’

‘Yes, thank you. It’s working perfectly.’

‘Shall we begin, then?’

‘Please.’

‘I’ll wait until I hear you put your phone back.’

She replaced the receiver.

He looked up, narrowing his eyes against the bright light, put his own receiver down and said – his voice coming again through the speaker – ‘I assure you no one can see the little window. I’m going outside for a moment. A clerk will come in. When I return I shall have an official from the Home and Law department of the Secretariat with me. The clerk and the official are both Indians. The clerk’s duty is to make a shorthand transcript of the proceedings. The official from the Home and Law department is here because of the nature of the business which H.E. felt shouldn’t be left entirely in the hands of someone on his private and personal staff.’

Rowan, while talking, had come round to the other side of the table and stood with his back to her. He took some papers from the briefcase. She saw him hesitate over the buff envelope which she had returned to his care.

He said, ‘Although H.E. handed this envelope to me without explaining what was in it I gather it’s a photograph of the man in question. I feel I ought to warn you that if so it was probably taken the year before last, sometime in August 1942. There are bound to be changes.’ He put the envelope back in the briefcase. He looked round the table, then walked across to the door under the clock, opened it and went out.

She glanced at the clock. It showed about a quarter of a minute short of ten-thirty. The door on the left of the room opened. The clerk came in – a middle-aged Indian with a balding head and gold-rimmed spectacles. He wore a home-spun cotton shirt and dhoti. His feet, sockless, were tucked into black leather shoes. He came down to a chair placed several feet to the left-rear of the table almost out of her sight, and sat. The sounds he made were clearly relayed. She could
just make out his crossed legs and the shorthand notebook which he held ready on his knee. He made a few marks on it with his fountain pen, testing the nib and the flow of ink. Satisfied, he put the cap back on the pen and began to adjust the folds of his dhoti. It seemed an act of vanity, like that of a woman wearing a long-skirted dress making sure it hung gracefully. She particularly noted the action. The clerk was unaware of the presence of an invisible audience. He coughed, cleared his throat, began to tap the pen on the notebook; puk, puk, puk. She found herself fighting a tickle in her own throat and then remembered that no one could hear her if she coughed to clear it. She did so. The tapping continued uninterrupted: puk, puk, puk, puk.

Abruptly the door under the clock opened again – the tapping stopped and the clerk stood – and Captain Rowan entered followed by the official from the Secretariat – a lean elderly Indian wearing a grey chalk stripe suit and a pink tie. He carried a black document case. He cast an upward glance in the direction of the grille, then came and sat with Captain Rowan. Their backs were towards her. They sat with plenty of space between them. Midway, on the other side of the table, the empty chair faced her directly and her view of it was not obscured. The crackling of the papers the two men were leafing through was now the only sound.

‘Shall we begin?’ Captain Rowan asked suddenly.

The lean Indian’s voice was soft and low-pitched.

‘Oh yes. I am quite ready if you are.’

‘Tell them we are ready, Babuji.’

The clerk went to the door in the right-hand wall, opened it and spoke to someone in Hindi, then closed the door again and went back to his chair.

For an instant Lady Manners closed her eyes. When she opened them the room still contained only the three men. Her hand tugged at the pleats and mother-of-pearl buttons and then lay inert. She breathed in and out slowly in an attempt to slow her heart-beat. The door opened again. She could not see who opened it because it opened on a side that would hide whoever entered until he was inside the room out of range of the door’s arc. For a moment or so the door
remained as it was at an angle of ninety degrees to the wall and no one came from behind it.

When he did he came hesitantly – a dark-skinned man dressed in loose-fitting grey trousers and a loose-fitting collarless grey jacket buttoned down the front. He wore chappals without socks. Having emerged beyond the range of the door he stopped and glanced at the occupants of the table and then at a man who was holding him by the right arm – to guide or restrain, or both; it wasn’t easy to tell. The other man was in uniform – khaki shirt and shorts. He wore a pugree and carried a short baton. The hand on the arm suggested authority but also aid or comfort such as might be given in an unfamiliar situation to a man who normally gave no trouble, whose mind and body were disciplined to routine and were slow to respond to unusual demands.

The hand was on the arm for no longer than a few seconds. The guard let go, came to attention and dismissed, closing the door behind him. The man in the floppy collarless jacket and trousers stood alone.

‘Sit down, please,’ Captain Rowan said. He indicated the chair.

It was the same profile as in the photograph: the same neat, masculine ear. But not the same. The face of the man in the photograph had been held erect, was well fleshed; a dark, handsome face with hair that curled – a bit unruly on the forehead. This man’s hair looked as though it had been cropped some months ago and had not grown out in its former fashion. Under the brown pigment of the face there was a pallor. The cheek was hollow. The head looked heavy, as if long stretches of time had been spent by the man, seated, legs apart, hands clasped between them, eyes cast down, considering the floor, the configuration of the stone. He moved towards the table, stood by the chair, still in profile.

‘Baitho,’ the official from the Home and Law department repeated.

The man extended his right hand, clutched the back of the chair and then with an awkward movement twisted round and sat, holding the back until the weight and position of his body forced him to release it. He gazed down at the table. His
shoulders were hunched. It looked as if he might have his hands between his knees.

‘
Kya, ham Hindi yah Angrezi men bolna karenge?
’ Captain Rowan asked.

Briefly she had an impression from the man’s glance at Rowan of eyes startlingly alert, in sockets which compared to those she recalled from the photograph were large and deeply shadowed. The man looked down again.

He said, ‘
Angrezi
.’ The voice was notably clear.

‘Very well. In English, then.’

Rowan opened a file.

‘Your name is Kumar, your given name – Hari.’

‘
Han
.’

‘Son of the late Duleep Kumar of Didbury in the county of Berkshire, England.’

‘
Han
.’

‘At the time of your detention you were living at number 12 Chillianwallah Bagh in Mayapore, a district of this province.’

‘
Han
.’

‘The occupier of the house in Chillianwallah Bagh being your aunt, Shalini Gupta Sen,
née
Kumar, widow of Prakash Gupta Sen.’

‘
Han
.’

‘You were taken into custody on August the ninth, nineteen forty-two by order of the District Superintendent of Police, in Mayapore, and detained for examination. On August the twenty-fourth as a result of that and subsequent examinations an order for your detention under Rule 26 of the Defence of India Rules was made and you were thereupon transferred in custody to the Kandipat jail, Kandipat, Ranpur, where you have remained in accordance with the terms of the order.’

‘
Han
.’

‘I understood you elected to speak in English. So far you have answered in Hindi. Do you therefore wish to have these proceedings conducted in Hindi and not English?’

Again Kumar looked up from the table, but this time his glance was not brief and only now was she convinced that the man in the room was the man in the photograph and the
conviction did not come from the speaking of his name or his acknowledgement of it but from the sudden resemblance to the photograph that had become superimposed on his prison face, the prison structure of bone. The resemblance, she thought, must lie in the expression. He gazed at Captain Rowan in the way that he had gazed to order into the lens of a camera – as into a precision instrument that could do no more than the job it was designed for and could not penetrate beyond whatever line it was he had drawn and chosen to make his stand behind, the demarcation line between the public acceptance of humiliation and the defence of whatever sense he had of a private dignity.