The Indian Clerk (43 page)
Authors: David Leavitt
"I know. But why should he want Carr now? It's obsolete. He's miles beyond it."
"I believe it is a source of comfort to him. I have observed that he often reads through the numbered equations, at night,
when he cannot sleep."
"Comfort from Carr?"
"Yes, sir." Mahalanobis adjusts his turban. "Well, I shall be going now. Good day."
"Good day."
Then Mahalanobis leaves, as quietly as he came, so that Hardy is once again alone amid Ramanujan's few possessions; these
few signposts to a life about which, he realizes, he knows far less than he thought. The portrait of Leibniz hangs on the
wall. From the hearth an elephant-headed figure gazes at him. He has four arms. A rat sits at his feet. From the kitchen the
familiar pot of
rasam
gives off a sour smell. Hardy peers into it and sees that the silvering on the inside is wearing away.
He takes
Raymond
with him when he goes. Despite himself he finds that he's become intrigued by the mystery: the seance, the passage from Horace,
ghosts and visions. So much he doesn't know! On the stairs he encounters a bedmaker, carrying a mop and a pail. Who supplies
her with her mop? And how has the porter managed to memorize all the keys? Yet the world goes on, the tumblers ceaselessly
click, the mops ceaselessly slap the floors. And all the while Hardy, blind to nearly everything, cuts his steady, narrow
path through the wilderness.
It is only as he enters the porter's lodge that it hits him. Zero and infinity. The things we can never know because they
are unknowable and the things we can never know because there are too many of them. An infinitude of them. From this coupling
a life is born.
"Did the Indian find you, sir?" the porter asks.
"Yes, he did. Thank you. Here's the key."
"Very good, sir," the porter says, and slips the key back onto his immense ring. How many keys are there? One of them, Hardy
knows, opens his own door, while others open the doors of the absent and the dead.
E
ARLY IN THE SUMMER, Sophia Hardy dies. In Cranleigh, the vicar of Hardy's childhood, now middle-aged and corpulent, pays a
call on him and Gertrude. He tells them that he will pray for their mother, which strikes Hardy as provocative, considering
his own outspoken atheism and Gertrude's indifference to religion. "You must miss her very much," the vicar says, sounding
like Norton, to which Hardy wants to reply: No. Her dying was tedious. Perhaps not for her; she had pain to keep her occupied,
and plenty of company, the living and the dead parading in and out of her room in rapid succession. Men and women they had
never heard of, a sibling drowned in infancy, their father (but rarely). Toward the end, her hands were always busy. She seemed
more engaged by life than she had in years. She talked constantly, though in the last days they could make no sense of what
she was saying. Until then, every time she had gone to the brink of death she had come back again, but each time she was less
connected to the world of the living, as if she had left another piece of herself behind. And then, on a Thursday morning
in June, she actually died. Perhaps it was because Hardy, for once, hadn't got back in time to give her a reason to revive.
He was stuck in Cambridge due to mysterious railway delays. By the time he arrived in Cranleigh she had been dead two hours,
the divergent series that was her dying—halfway, then a quarter way, then an eighth—having at last made its crossing into
infinity. When Gertrude told him, he embraced her—not in grief but in joy. At last it was over for both of them.
Of course they tell the vicar none of this. Their mother was an observant woman, and out of respect for her, they go through
the formalities required of and by vicars: making arrangements for the funeral, giving this man, who really knows nothing
about their mother, the information he needs in order to deliver the eulogy. After half an hour, he announces that he must
go, and Hardy sees him to the door. Dusk is just beginning to fall. "I haven't forgotten that conversation we had," he says
in the doorway. "Do you remember? We were walking in the fog."
"Yes, I remember," Hardy says, and doesn't say that he's surprised that the vicar remembers. After all, it was years ago.
The vicar was at most twenty-five, whereas today he's . . . fifty-four? Is it possible?
"I thought you impudent at the time, though now I see that I should have taken you more seriously. I should have prayed for
your salvation. You have grown into a nonbeliever."
"That's true."
"But a peculiar kind of nonbeliever. Always trying to outwit God. Let me give you fair warning, you shall lose in the end."
"Who told you this?"
"A ship bound from Sweden, a gale at sea . . ." The vicar touches Hardy on the shoulder, and he draws back. "Consider the
possibility, at least, of grace. Perhaps God wanted you to survive. And perhaps you do believe. Otherwise, why fight so hard?"
"How do you know all this?"
"On another subject, I gather your Indian student is not well. I'm sorry."
"Thank you."
"Please tell him he is in my prayers."
"Why? He's not your religion."
"Prayer may transcend the particularities of faith. It may help him to know that others are thinking of him."
"I'm not sure I'd agree with that. In my experience, when people pray for the dying, they die faster, either because they
assume that prayer will do the job and stop taking care of themselves, or because the knowledge that all these people are
constantly praying for them makes them feel obliged to get better, and the pressure does them in."
"An interesting theory. In that case you should say nothing to your student, though of course I shall pray for him nonetheless.
Well, goodbye, Mr. Hardy." And the vicar holds out his hand. Hardy takes it: limp fingers slide alongside his palm. Then the
vicar walks away, leaving Hardy to wonder, once again, who told him about what happened in Esbjerg. Was it Gertrude? It seems
unlikely. Their mother, then? But did he send their mother a postcard? He can't remember.
He reenters the house. Gertrude is opening the curtains, letting pale light into a room that has been dark for weeks. He goes
to her, and at last they give into a giddiness that has been building for hours. They summon Maisie and together, with euphoric
abandon, the three of them move the bed in which Mrs. Hardy died out of the drawing room, return the furniture to its original
configuration. Light, light! Gertrude sweeps, brushing away the dust that was once their mother's skin, while Maisie scours
the floors. After that they're not sure what to do, so they play a game of chess. Hardy, to his own surprise, loses. This
seems to delight his sister, who bursts, once again, into laughter. Then they seem to run out of laughter, and they go to
bed, even though it's still early, even though the light hasn't yet drained from the sky.
In the morning they take a walk through the village. Men and women they hardly recognize—shopkeepers, former students of their
father's, grown into middle-aged men—salute them and offer condolences. When they get home, Gertrude is agitated. "It's only
a matter of time," she says, taking off her gloves. "Mark my words, the undertaker's going to ring up and tell us that Mother's
woken up and proposed a game of Vint." She laughs again, and this time her laugh is shrill, slightly mad.
"It seems unlikely," Hardy says. "Though with Mother, you never know."
"What do you call it—the place an undertaker does his . . . whatever he does?"
"I have no idea. Parlor? Studio?"
"Salon?"
"Like a French hairdresser." Suddenly Hardy too is laughing; both of them are laughing like children, the laughter infectious,
until they are literally on the floor, with tears in their eyes.
Two days later the vicar presides at the funeral. They manage to get through it without cracking a smile, though Hardy nearly
breaks down when, during his eulogy, the vicar refers to their mother as "a crack card player." After that there is a reception,
ghostly figures, few of which they recognize, standing about the drawing room holding cups of tea, while Maisie serves sandwiches
that no one dares eat. And why is it, Hardy wonders, that eating after a funeral is construed as disrespectful to the dead?
As he drinks his tea, he watches the vicar eyeing the sandwiches, observes with pleasure the spiritual battle that is clearly
raging in the vicar's soul, between longing and calling, the lure inherent in the demonic sandwiches and the will to resist.
And in the end, resistance wins. "He must be so proud of himself," Hardy says to Gertrude after the last of the guests has
left and they are gorging themselves on the sandwiches. "No doubt back at the rectory he's making sandwiches for himself right
now. Huge sandwiches, the sort that Americans eat." Gertrude laughs so hard she nearly chokes.
Such hilarity! Going to bed that night, Hardy is amazed: he never imagined death could be such a lark. And what comic turns
will the next day bring? The next day they have an appointment with their mother's solicitor, the elderly Mr. Fanning, who
seems to have stepped out of another century, brought forward by Wells's time machine complete with his fountain pens and
his nibs and his hand-written ledgers. Of course this is a much more serious business. The truth is, neither of them knows
how much money their mother had. And given that, in all likelihood, Hardy's never going to write his book about Vint, or his
murder mystery, he could use some money. So could Gertrude. Thus they listen closely as Mr. Fanning, with great formality,
reads out the terms of the will. As expected, both the house and the estate are to be divided equally between the children
of the deceased, Godfrey Harold and Gertrude Edith. As for its value . . . Here Mr. Fanning pauses; puts down the will. "Unfortunately,"
he says, "it appears that in her last years your mother allowed . . . certain debts to accrue."
"What kind of debts?" Hardy asks.
"Most are of the ordinary variety, monies are owed to shopkeepers, for coke and for the delivery of milk. And of course the
doctor's bills. But there are other debts—older debts—these she seems to have inherited from your father. He had borrowed
some money, many years ago, and with interest the amount owed is now . . . considerable."
"She never mentioned any of this."
"I rather suspect that she hoped that if she simply stuffed the notices in a drawer, they would, as it were, disappear. Such
is often the case with elderly persons."
"How much is owed?" Gertrude asks.
"Not so much that the estate cannot pay it. But there will be very little left over."
"Does that include the house?"
"No, the house is safe."
"Thank heavens for that," says Gertrude. "Thank heavens, at least, for that."
Afterward, at home, they are not, for once, laughing. "I wonder why Father was borrowing money," Hardy says. "Do you suppose
he had a mistress? Or gambled?"
"Father? Don't be ridiculous."
"You never know. Down, please." It's the terrier again, pawing at Hardy's knees as he takes off his hat. "Well, at least when
we sell the house we'll get something."
"Sell the house? What are you talking about?" Gertrude grabs the dog to her breast.
"But I thought you wanted to move to London."
"Perhaps, yes. But even if I did . . . I won't have this house sold. This is where we grew up, Harold. We must keep it in
the family."
"I don't think it likely that either of us is going to have children."
"You can't be sure of that."
"What, are you suggesting I might marry?"
"Are you suggesting I never will?"
Suddenly she starts to weep. He is bewildered. "Gertrude," he says, but she won't meet his eye. She's buried her face in the
fur of the dog's back, the poor dog, now absolutely still in her arms, as unequal to her mawkishness as he.
"Gertrude, why are you crying?"
"Isn't that obvious? Our mother has just died."
"But yesterday you were glad."
"Not that she was dead. That it was over. It's not the same thing. Are you honestly saying you don't see the difference?"
He says nothing. She puts the dog down. "You must feel it too," she says.
"What?"
"Grief."
But the fact is, he doesn't. Nor can he make sense of the change that has come over his sister. After all, wasn't she insisting,
just a few days back, that it was only the burden of having to care for their mother that kept her in Cranleigh? And now the
burden has been lifted, and she won't lift a finger to escape. Instead she goes to bed. She takes out her glass eye and settles,
as she has all her life, into the narrow bed of her childhood.
Now her attitude toward him changes—subtly but distinctly. For the first time in their lives she appears to regard him as
an adversary. Though they never speak of it, the house, and their very different ideas as to what they should do with it,
becomes a barrier. The flat in Pimlico is empty; Alice Neville has moved, with her husband, to Bayswater. Yet Gertrude, despite
the removal of this last obstacle, won't go into London even for a weekend. "I'm frightened by the air raids," she says; whereas
Hardy himself isn't the least frightened by the air raids. On the contrary, he relishes the possibility of being caught in
one, seeing the zeppelins passing overhead like great airborne whales. And why? He knows that, were he ever actually to have
to endure an air raid, he wouldn't be so flippant. Norton got caught in an air raid, and afterward, for two days, he could
not stop shaking. And yet . . . how to explain this secret longing he nurtures for apocalypse? Others share it, he suspects.
Catastrophe might shake them all from their anomie. Sometimes late at night, from the window of the flat in Pimlico, he gazes
out at the black sky, hoping to witness brilliant illuminations, hear distant roaring. But he never does. It seems that the
sky glows orange, that sirens wail, only when he is in Cambridge or Cranleigh. Every day the papers publish lists of the dead,
every day he scans them, looking for familiar names. If there are fewer and fewer, it is only because so many of the men he
knows have died already. There is not an infinite supply of youth. And though he never sees Thayer's name, this doesn't mean
Thayer isn't dead. Meanwhile he waits for a note, and none comes.
For reasons he cannot quite deduce, he starts to spend more time at Cranleigh than he did before his mother died. Gertrude
affects indifference not just to his presence but to his efforts to win back her sympathy. One afternoon when they're having
lunch outdoors, on the back lawn, he even tries to make friends with her dog. Gertrude seems hardly to notice. "Here Daisy,"
he calls, and throws an old tennis ball across the lawn. But even though Daisy chases after it and picks it up, she won't
bring the ball back to him; instead she runs up to him and, when he tries to take it from her mouth, darts away; runs up to
him again and darts away again, over and over.
"This is ridiculous," he says, after a few minutes. "You're supposed to want to chase the ball."
"She's a terrier, not a retriever," Gertrude says. "Probably in a minute she'll be trying to bury it."
"Then why am I bothering?"
"No one asked you to." His sister smiles over her knitting, some strange fragment of a sweater that hangs from her needles,
its ragged edges dragging the remnants of the lunch on her plate. "You should really get yourself another cat."
"I suppose I will someday. Here, Daisy!" And he gets up and runs after Daisy, which delights her to no end. She drops the
ball; nudges it with her nose; waits until he's reaching to pick it up and then grabs it away again. "Damn you!" he cries
in exasperation, for he's learned that what she really wants is to torment him. And wouldn't you know? She keeps leading him
back to the spot where, thirty-five years ago, he swung a cricket bat, heard a cracking noise, reeled back, and saw his sister
splayed out, her skirt blown up over her underpants. Always that spot. The grass stayed red for weeks, until the spring came,
and the gardener cut it, and it was green again.