The Setting Sun (5 page)

Stupidly, I didn’t buy water at the airport and soon I’m parched. Coming from an English winter, the light’s squint-bright, and I can only snatch glimpses of slums which seem to stretch to the horizon, where distant skyscrapers thrust up like something out of
Dallas
. Suddenly, we’re too close to a gorgeously painted lorry, ‘Horn OK Please’ emblazoned on its tailgate. I’m thrown forward violently as the brakes bite. The Ganesh statuette reclining on the rear-window shelf tumbles over my shoulder and catches in my shirt. Before the driver’s finished apologising, we graze a stick-like woman, dark as the tarmac she’s repairing, faded sari clamped between her teeth, basket of shingle on folded head-cloth, infant slung gracefully on one hip like a counterweight. At every junction,
bandy-legged boys with beatific smiles jog beside my window, proffering crimson candyfloss trapped in dusty cellophane, newspapers, snacks so salty-looking the mere sight of them leaches any remaining moisture from my gullet. The sickly jasmine air freshener is sometimes overwhelmed by the smell of fried food, melting bitumen and human waste sucked in through the fan. For what seems like hours, the skyscrapers float far away as ever in the milky haze. Are we driving round in circles? Scorched by dehydration now, I slip into an uncomfortable trance. The aching anticipation of finding out more about Bill alternates with stabs of apprehension. People say several terrorists are still on the run, all these days after the attacks. Perhaps the centre will be locked down, preventing me getting to the material I need? Have I been over-impulsive?

Forty-eight hours later, the answer seems to be yes. In fact I’m ready to abandon my trip. Bleary-eyed despite my early night, I report to Elphinstone Archives first thing the morning after I arrive. To my huge relief, there’s no sign of disruption. A twig-limbed man in khaki, who disconcertingly introduces himself with enormous pride as ‘the peon’, takes me from office to office, where successively more important officials smile and waggle their heads ambiguously. Eventually I reach the director’s suite, where a plump, bronze-coloured man with gold-rimmed glasses and silvery hair invites me to sit. I show my London University card and pronounce Professor Bhosle’s name, confident they’ll prove my open sesame. Dr Dhavatkar nods when I mention the historian, but clearly knows nothing about me. I’m baffled that Bhosle hasn’t kept his promise. The director returns my card.

‘You need an attestation from your embassy,’ he wheezes, scratching one smooth dewlap with the tip of his pencil. Sounds like he’s got a sore throat. I’m stunned. Why didn’t Bhosle mention this requirement? Or has it been introduced since the attacks?

‘My embassy? But if I have to go to Delhi, it could take days.’

He shrugs. ‘Sorry. That is the rule, only. Perhaps the consulate can have one faxed? It’s at Makers’ Chambers in Nariman Point.’

I sense the ghost of the young Bill, hovering just out of reach. It’s hard to contain my frustration.

Despite evoking the aura of the East India Company, Makers’ Chambers turns out to be a weather-stained 1960s concrete tower. Security is tight and the queues long. It’s getting to lunchtime before my turn comes. The young woman at the window is polite but firm. No, they can’t fax Delhi, I’ll need to go in person with my documents. I’m evidently looking disconsolate, because her expression suddenly softens.

‘Well, if Elphinstone will take an attestation from us,’ she eventually says conciliatingly, ‘I’ll see what we can do. You’ll have to leave your passport.’

The fee she demands is exorbitant. Still, much more convenient than going all the way to the capital. With Christmas and New Year approaching, I’m acutely aware of the need to be efficient with my time. But will Dhavatkar accept the letter? I need to find out at once. If not, I have to book for Delhi before the holiday rush begins. But first I need to see if Bhosle’s responded to the email I sent just before leaving London, asking if we can at least speak on the phone once I get to India.

Heading back to the archives, my tuk-tuk passes a scorched park where numerous cricket matches are underway. A huge banner hangs on the railings: ‘I cannot teach you violence. But I can teach you not to bow your head.’ Behind is a statue of the author, Gandhi dressed in a dhoti, his expression determined but benign. I wonder if it’s been put up as a riposte to the terrorists. The driver drops me at an internet café he recommends, the other side of Elphinstone. Accessing the internet involves checks, and the proprietor is suspicious that I don’t have my passport. Fortunately he knows my hotel and
after letting him use my mobile to make a confirmatory call, he nods.

‘Why all the questions?’

He shrugs amiably, his smile popping in and out beneath his moustache like a nervous mouse. ‘This terrorism.’

Over his shoulder a notice announces: ‘Phonography and Other Adult Material Not Allowed’. Phonography? I can’t help smiling. But to my intense disappointment, there’s no answer from my mysterious historian colleague. For the time being, I’m on my own.

I walk back to the Archives. So soon on from the atrocities, early morning Mumbai seems amazingly recovered. At each intersection up what used to be Hornby Road, the main thoroughfare of British Bombay, I have to perform a St Vitus’s dance to negotiate the torrents of people and hurtling traffic. Hornby’s a canyon of imposing buildings, storey piled on storey of monsoon-patterned brick, the pavement arcades now clogged with hawkers’ stalls. High on one edifice, a bush grows precariously from the crumbly facade. Nonetheless, I quickly realise I’m in one of the great Victorian cities, grand as the centre of Glasgow or Manchester, but subtly orientalised with ironwork jalousies, miniature domes and lancet windows. Wondering how his first impressions of the city compared, I excitedly try to identify the buildings Bill would have known: the Army and Navy Stores, which doubtless supplied his uniform, the Sassoon Memorial Library, and Watson’s, the infamous Raj hotel. It looks like a slum tenement now, part of one wing collapsed, the revolutionary ironwork frame an exposed and rusty skeleton.

As I reach Elphinstone, my mobile goes. It’s the consulate. There appears to be a problem with my passport. Have I ever lost one? I struggle to remember. Yes, once in Carcassonne. But it was found and returned. Not before I’d had a new one issued, I suddenly recall. The man’s voice is distinctly suspicious.

‘The system’s registering a problem, only. We’ll have to look into it.’

To my intense frustration, he can give me no time frame. I feel marooned, the hours already ticking away uselessly, eating into what little time I have. I jog up the stairs to the archives to be told Dhavatkar’s not returned from lunch. His subordinate’s charming, but has an accent so thick it takes me a while to understand that he’s inviting me to park myself at a desk in the archives while I wait. He leads me to a dusty room the size of a squash court, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and perhaps a dozen carrels. The tall windows at the far end are nailed shut above piles of what look like ancient mail sacks, dusty and forlorn. A couple of ceiling fans tick listlessly, tugging the stale air up and down. Some desks are occupied, others stacked with pyramids of reserved material. I can’t resist opening the ledgers on the table I’m shown to. They’re written in beautiful faded copperplate, regular as print, and concern shipping in the 1790s. Perhaps some clerk in the original Maker’s Chambers produced them? Ink has bled through the pages and the paper’s brittle. Worried I’ll cause further damage, I push them to one side and take out my pad to scribble some bullet points. What I’m after all seems hopelessly broad: Indian Police, Hoors, Satara, Parallel Government. How am I even going to get started?

Soon the supervisor approaches to say the director may not be returning at all today. He’s unwell. I’m thoroughly demoralised now. I’ve invested so much in this trip, financially and emotionally, and seem to have come to a complete dead end before I’ve even begun. The feeling’s made worse by awareness that right here, under my nose, are the documents which will unlock Bill’s past. Dhavatkar might be off for days. What if he refuses the attestation when he returns? But without my passport, I can’t book for Delhi. It takes me a moment to understand that the man’s saying I’m welcome to wait, just in case, though I can’t order any material. Hungry, heat-sapped
and with jet lag weighing again, I ponder going back to the hotel to eat and rest. But I can’t face the steamy, teeming streets just yet. I decide to read for an hour to take my mind off things, until it cools down.

How different my entire trip might have been if I’d left then. Almost as soon as I’ve taken Nirad Chaudhuri’s
Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
out of my bag, a tall, angular man flops into the adjoining carrel. Opening a daunting-looking set of leather-bound reports, he begins writing furiously. He’s around sixty, with lank salt-and-pepper hair and a walrus moustache. He glances up with droopy eyes and smiles briefly, before returning to his task. Eventually, I lay my book down and prepare to leave. My neighbour glances at the cover.

‘Ah, Nirad Chaudhuri, so good on the problems facing historians in India,’ he mutters approvingly. ‘What brings you here? For Chaudhuri you need Calcutta.’

‘Actually, I’m researching the Indian Police in Bombay in the 1930s and 40s.’

His tawny eyes light up. I give a brief account.

‘Your father’s name?’

I offer my visiting card. His gaze lingers a moment, then he stands up briskly, a gangling man in a white Nehru shirt, faded blue slacks and outsize trainers. A faint fragrance of flowery cologne. ‘Do you have time for chai?’ I warm to him.

In the Elphinstone canteen, he extends his hand a little circumspectly, as if it’s an unfamiliar manouevre. ‘Rajeev Divekar.’

He orders glasses of tea. When they come, a fly bobs just below the milky surface of mine. I pretend to sip while he fiddles with my card.

‘Does the name mean something?’

When he nods, I almost swallow the fly.

‘Can’t remember where exactly. A couple of years ago I
was working on the history of the Maharashtra police force, the successor to the old Bombay IP your father worked in. So many names and dates.’ He tells me a bit about his project.

‘Were you in the police yourself?’

Rajeev looks up with hooded eyes. ‘Let’s say I’m an independent scholar with an interest in policing and security issues.’ He writes my contact details in a tatty notebook.

‘So your father was pukka IP?’ He’s clearly impressed. I explain about Bhosle’s email, why I know so little about Bill’s career and my problems starting my researches.

‘Never mind,’ Rajeev nods sympathetically. ‘I have something to get you going. Lucky you caught me. This is my last day here before the holidays.’

Back in the reading-room, he pulls a slim blue volume from a stack of gazetteers on his desk. It’s the
History of Services, Bombay Province
.

‘This records every posting of everyone ever employed by the British government.’

I’m shivering with excitement. He checks the index, before flicking back to the relevant page.

‘Look, your father was in the second-last cohort appointed from England. There were only four probationers in 1938, and two more in 1939. Once war started, recruitment from the UK was suspended.’

Bill’s entry shows that after joining up in Bombay, he attended the Central Police Training School in Nasik for two years, followed by six weeks’ military instruction in Colaba Barracks.

‘Just down the road from here,’ Rajeev explains.

Then Bill returned to Nasik as probationary Assistant District Superintendent.

‘Nasik’s about five hours inland by train.’

But here’s a puzzle. There’s a long hiatus, between March 1941 and January 1943. Was this when Bill was in what’s now Pakistan, suppressing the Hoors? After another period in Nasik, I see he was transferred to Satara in January 1944, where – according to Professor Bhosle – he worked against the Parallel Government. Now his rank is Special Additional Superintendent. What does ‘Special’ signify? In 1946, he’s posted to Ahmedabad, today in the neighbouring state of Gujarat. Then the record stops. Why?