Harbart Read online

  Harbart’s head was reeling. Kring kring hail the secret Kali, kring dring sri the funeral Kali, Om Kali, only Kali, frightful-figured, engrossed-and-enflamed-eyed Kali, impatient-for-the-taste-of-flesh-and-blood Kali. The adopted son, the throat-slit Jhulanlal, dances on, dances on, headless and heedless, his bottom still sticky with shit. Suddenly suit-clad long-late Lalitkumar appears, shouting, “Light! Light!” while downstairs never-late Girishkumar shrieks the hour with “Peeyu kahaan, peeyu kahaan!” and by the time this episode draws to a close Dhui the sky-skimmer is shrinking from miniature to minuscule until he is no more than a molecule yet his voice keeps growing and boom-booming until it is far beyond the decibels that the human ear can endure: “Harbart, you’ll burn on a wood pyre … Harbart, you’ll burn on a wood fire … Harbart, you’ll burn on a wood pyre … Harbart, you’ll burn on a wood fire …”

  *

  May 17, 1992. A letter arrived for Harbart. A letter typed on white paper. A letter that read thus:

  Dear Sir,

  From both the press and public reports, we have come to know of your “supernatural” prowess—hence, this letter from us to you. We, the members of the Rationalist Association, have for quite a few years now been exposing the people-fooling fraudulent feats of many saints and sages, many astrologers and godmen. We are not interested in how well you know our activities in this regard. But what we wish to avow, as far as you are concerned, is that establishing contact with dead souls is also nothing but fraud. The business you are conducting—exploiting the weakness of people—is a sham. On May 25, my colleagues and I will visit your office around 2 in the afternoon. Reporters from the two newspapers that have carried reports about you will also be present. If within three days of receiving this letter, you do not contact our offices with the promise of ceasing this trickery immediately and do not submit a written confession that your “supernatural” activities are in truth merely a charade, then we will be forced to assume that you have accepted our challenge.

  Yours truly,

  Pranab Ghosh

  General Secretary, West Bengal Rationalist Association

  Harbart flung the letter aside.

  “Illi! Fucking willy! So many big people—lawyers—doctors—everyone—believed but now all of a sudden blam, it’s a sham! Some strand of pubic hair from somewhere—and I have to go to him and confess. Why? I am a monkey and you’re my uncle? Carbuncle! Who are you? Over the nest a fuck-you flew. Come, come you shit-eaters you, such a tale I’ll tell you that your balls’ll ring like bells. Not making any trouble, not stepping out, not needling anyone, just got a dream, and set up shop—and those bastards are burning up inside! This is why the Bengalis are going to hell. Good, let them!”

  Harbart returns, with great gusto, to the adventures of Gopal Bhaar and the Spooks’ Soiree.

  Eight

  Like the thugee, swift and sudden, grab his throat and squeeze

  In an instant send to Death the one thirsting for release

  —Pramathanath Roychowdhury

  Monday, May 25, 1992. Harbart had left word at the tea shop that he’d need a few cups of tea sent across later. A client had come that morning too. From Bardhhaman. Harbart told him, sorry, not today. Told him, come back next week. Then he’d dusted the shelves, tidied his books. Requested Nirmala to sweep the room. Marik had given his word that he’d come as soon as he was back from Madras. So, the plan was progressing. That Marik was a generous fellow, with a heart as deep and wide as a river. Even before they’d started, how much he’d spent on whisky and cigarettes—a heartless man would never have done so much.

  Harbart had never imagined that so many of them would come in the afternoon. After an early bath and lunch, he’d thought he’d take a nap. But sleep refused to come. He read their letter again. Read and read and his lips curled in a contemptuous smile. There was a fly in the room. It buzzed against the windowpane. Crawled a step or two. Then flew around in a circle or two. Then came back and buzzed against the windowpane again. Harbart was contemplating what happens to flies when they die when Pachu from the tea shop escorted them in.

  “Here, the office. Kaka-babu, they’re looking for you. When I heard it was you they wanted, I walked them over.”

  So many people!

  Six or seven boys. Some with glasses. Beards. Shoulder bags. Two girls. Without stopping to say a word they just kept surging in. Harbart saw, outside, a tall boy in thick glasses pointing a finger at his signboard above the door, pointing it out to a girl in a salwar-kameez. The girl reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a camera, twisted the lens like a black gun muzzle, and clicked.

  One man said, “So you’re Harbart Sarkar.” Then: “Pranab-da, please come in.”

  The room had only one chair. On it sat Pranab Ghosh. So this was the man who had written the letter. The girl in the salwar-kameez walked in. And immediately, in a flurry of camera-flashes, took photographs of Harbart, of his room. Harbart slid to a corner of the bed. Moved his pillows. Asked the rest to sit beside him. One or two sat. The others stashed themselves against the wall. The one in jeans and a shirt who came in a little later, Harbart had thought that person was a man—that was the one who took out a cassette-tape recorder, pressed the Record button, and placed it beside Harbart on the bed.

  Pranab Ghosh took off his glasses. Without the high-powered lenses, his eyes seemed almost blank.

  His voice, when he began speaking, was deep.

  “Since you never came to us, it is obvious that you have accepted our challenge.”

  The letter had contained that same word, challenge. But the word left Pranab Ghosh’s mouth with such a sharp edge to it that Harbart felt a stab at his breast.

  “Actually, I don’t write much. Don’t even know where your office is. So I thought, what’ll I do by going there anyway? Besides, what crime have I committed that I have to go at all? Not been well, either. Had dengue. Just sitting up.”

  “That’s all very well. But what you just said, that you’ve committed no crime—that’s an outright lie. You have committed a terrible crime. And you are still committing it.”

  “What I’ve committed, if I really have committed, why don’t you tell me what it is? Wait, wait—let me open the window. It’s too hot in here.”

  “No crime? Cheating, spouting nonsense, and milking people for money—how can you say you’ve committed no crime?”

  “Who did I cheat? Let the bastard come and say, put a hand to his heart and say, I’ve cheated him!”

  Harbart had gotten angry and begun to shout. One of the boys said, his voice calm and cold, “Here, here—don’t raise your voice. Don’t use slang.” Then he turned to the camera-clicking girl and said, “See, as soon as you expose them, they begin to scream and shout. They think that all this melodrama will help them get away with it.”

  “But he seems to be a dud,” replied the girl. “Although, Mickey, his profile’s a lot like Monty Clift’s, no?”

  The girl called Mickey burst into peals of laughter.

  “Oh, he’s a sweet, cute, small-time crook.”

  Even Pranab Ghosh was laughing now. “Exactly!”

  Harbart got angrier. “Don’t think your English talking scares me! Fucking English!”

  Now it was Pranab Ghosh’s turn to raise his voice. “Shall I give you proof? Of your cheating?”

  “Give—if you have the guts to give, give me proof.”

  “A foreign woman called Tina paid you a visit—yes?”

  Beautiful young Belgian actress Tina. So beautiful. Blue eyes. Trills of laughter. Only, when she spoke of her mother, those eyes brimmed over with tears, her laughter lay down in sorrow—how Harbart’s heart had ached for her.

  “Yes. A doctor came with her—I forget his name.”

  “What you told Tina—I have the cassette. Want to hear it?”

  Harbart was at a loss to underst
and any of this. What was happening? And why was it happening?

  From the recorder, Pranab Ghosh takes out the cassette and puts in another. Presses Play and Fast Forward together, so there emerges a strange set of squeaks and shrieks. He quickly presses Stop, then Play again. Tina’s laughter. Harbart’s voice: “Very good. Very good.” The doctor’s laughter. Sounds from the street. Stop. Fast Forward. The cassette rolls on. Stop. Play. Harbart hears his own voice: “Yes, such are these inexplicable arrangements. But her mother is well, I see. On the fifth plane, where the moderately virtuous dwell. O Doctor, tell her, tell her not to be sad at all. After all, how many succeed in climbing to that fifth floor? Most manage at most to scramble to the first or second only. But her mother’s run really far, I tell you, Doctor. One more floor and such eternal joy—just one more floor and she’ll be free!”

  Doctor: “Let me tell her what you’ve just said.”

  Harbart: “Yes, yes, tell her. Let her be happy.”

  Doctor: “He is saying that your mother is now on the fifth plane which is the realm of beings with moderate virtues.”

  Tina: “What, oh yes, how exciting—tell him that he is marvelous, a master …”

  Doctor: “Tina is saying that you possess extraordinary powers.”

  Stop.

  Pranab Ghosh takes out that cassette. Puts back the first one. Rubs his glasses with his handkerchief and puts them on. Then presses Record again. “Do you know who Tina really is? A member of the Geneva-based international rationalist movement. That Tibetan lama in London—the one with all the politicians in his pocket—trapped by Tina and now languishing in jail. In Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines—do you know how many miracle-men she has proven to be frauds? We’re the ones who sent her to you. To let her see one of our typical specimens.”

  “How can that be? There was that doctor with her, explaining what I was saying.”

  “That doctor? Yes, Alok is most certainly a doctor. And a founding member of our organization.”

  “So what, for god’s sake.”

  “So what? So we have proved that you are a cheat. A crook. Tina’s mother is hale and hearty—and alive! And you packed her up and moved her off right onto the fifth plane? Apart from that, you’re obviously illiterate—you don’t have a spot of the sophistication required to efficiently pull off this kind of thing. If you did, you wouldn’t have spelled Shanta as Santa. Bimalendu is part of a famous theatre group. He came to you too—yes, yes, that trunk with the sister’s body in so many pieces. He clearly marked how uncomfortable you were at the mention of Lalbazar. So. Now, it’s your call. What do you call yourself, Mr. Conversations with the Dead?”

  “More like Major General of the Crap Army!” says one of the bearded boys.

  And everyone roars with laughter. Harbart breaks out in a sweat. Grows red in the face. Pulls out from the shelf Accounts of the Afterlife and Mysteries of the Afterlife.

  “Ever heard of these, have you? You really think I’m cheating? Read, read and then see if you understand, what the different plans are, what the different arrangements are.”

  We don’t need to read any of that.”

  “Same old planchette,” said the camera girl, flipping through Accounts of the Afterlife, “same old spirits. Bullshit.”

  “Won’t look,” shouted Harbart, “won’t learn! Only gad about all afternoon, barging into people’s houses and fighting—aren’t you ashamed?”

  “You’ll know who’s the one to be ashamed when the police come and drag you away.”

  “Why, why will the police drag me away? So easy it is?”

  “Yes, indeed it is. Because that bullshit you fed Tina, you fed it to a lot of others and got a lot of money. That is cheating. That is theft. Wait and see what happens when we hand in our report.”

  “What’ll happen?”

  “The police will come. And arrest you.”

  “No! The police won’t come! I had a dream. Binu was killed by the police. Binu was shot by the police.”

  Harbart began to scream at the top of his lungs, began to weep and wail: “The police won’t come. I didn’t lie. Ghosts have been. They always will be.”

  At a sign from Pranab Ghosh, the girl clicked photo after photo of Harbart having hysterics. Then she lit a cigarette. Outside the door linger a crowd of the neighborhood boys—but even they didn’t dare to come forward. All that police-police had made them wary.

  “The best medicine for such specimens is Stalin,” said one of the boys stashed against the wall, “If only he’d fallen into Stalin’s hands. Straight up firing squad.”

  “All that Lenin–Stalin even I know, ok?” shouted a Harbart now in the cold grip of terror, “The police won’t come. The police don’t hurt the innocent. The police will catch you instead. I can see the God of Death circling you already.”

  “Alright. We’re off. But as soon as we get Tina’s report, we’ll make our move.”

  “Shut up! Fucking English! I’ll also do what I have to do! Only fucking English! Ever seen a double chang? Eh? Seen a double chang?”

  “Do whatever you want. But know this, we will not spare you nor any other swindler like you. Wipe out every godman we can find. Won’t spare even one.”

  “Alright, alright, we’ll see who does what.”

  It is not clear whom Harbart meant when he said we. As they began to walk out of the room, Harbart began to whirl about in a frenzy: “Oh, oh, how I fucked them well and good! Cat, bat, water, dog, fish! Cat, bat, water, dog, fish!”

  The whirling makes him dizzy. He bumps against the bed. Falls to the floor. Gets up. The more afraid he grows, the more he rants and raves. He begins to drip with sweat and then suddenly he stops, stares at Binu’s bed, mattress, pillows. Binu had been shot by the police. Would the police kill him too? And Tina! Who could imagine a woman so wretched? Such a sinful girl! So, this—this is what lay in your heart?

  “Cat, bat, water, dog, fish, cat, bat, water, dog, fish, cat, bat, water, dog, fish, cat, bat …”

  Outside, on the street, they were walking away, Pranab Ghosh more or less in the center of their group. “Pranab-da,” said Mickey, “I must say that the man was very crude.”

  “So? You can be as crude as you want in this country, but you’ll never run short of clients.”

  “Remember that levitation case in Baruipur?” one of the boys said, “What was that chap’s name?”

  “Moslayuddin?”

  “Yes, yes, Moslayuddin. Now that man was tremendous smart.”

  “Well, then, if you must, I think the really clever pack was that other lot.”

  “Which lot, Pranab-da? Those Tarapith ones?”

  “No, no, those other ones, the seven astrologers, on TV—remember?”

  “Oh yes, but Pranab-da, they were totally urban. No wonder they were smart.”

  “But isn’t Harbart urban too?”

  They have no answer. They say nothing. Pranab Ghosh says nothing too. Then: “Sometimes I wonder why people do these things. You will be mistaken if you think that, like Casanova, all of these men have a carefully laid-out plan.”

  Mickey was surprised. “Which Casanova, Pranab-da?”

  “The Casanova you know, the great lady killer. He was clever indeed. Passed himself off as an occultist in order to impress the girls. But what about Cagliostro—what was his motive? Rasputin, on the other hand, is easy to explain. He’d managed to impress even Goethe. Great rascal. There’s also the Count of St. Germain. Fascinating. In comparison, what can we call the fellow we’ve seen? Gopal Fool.”

  The one who’d written the letter, and the photographer and the reporter, and the college boys and girls—after they had all gone—Koton, Borka, Koka, Gyanobaan, Buddhimaan, Somnath, Abhay, Khororobi’s brother Jhaapi, Gobindo, all the boys, rushed into the room and saw Harbert shivering. Gasping, clasping-unclasping, sweating. His
shirt he’d thrown off. The table fan swung from side to side, and with it swung Harbart, trying to catch the breeze. They stopped it swinging, made him sit on his bed, made him drink a glass of water. Sent for tea, special tea until slowly, Harbart began to calm down. But the fear wouldn’t leave his eyes. He kept saying, “It’s all become a googly, all a googly! Oof, thumping inside, thump-thumping inside … My god, what plan is this?”

  Nine

  Impenetrable, impassable void, unseeing eyes

  Such flames! Such fumes! Beyond—what lies?

  —Akshay Kumar Boral

  Nine a.m. Nine-thirty. Ten. The signboard-stripped door refused to open, so they began to knock and bang. Koka, Borka, Somnath came running, their eyes still heavy with sleep, their mouths still stinking of the night before.

  “Harbart-da! Harbart-da!”

  The knocking and the shouting was loud enough to be heard on the second floor. Dhanna told Phuchka, “Go and see, no.’

  Phuchka went, one cheek still covered with shaving cream. He was a businessman, a practical man. He quickly figured that something was wrong. He was the one who told them to break down the door. The door was broken in—and the smell of death that had festered all night burst out into the open with a whoosh. Phuchka ran back upstairs. Told Dhanna. Dhanna, dazed and disoriented, began to scream: “Killed himself! My brother’s killed himself!”

  Dhanna-boudi and Nirmala rushed downstairs. Then, crying, slowly climbed back up. Jyathaima had not understood, at first. Then she’d fainted in shock. It is impossible to tell which happy memory had flashed across Girishkumar’s mind when he spotted the crowds outside the house. But a “Peeyu kahaan! Peeyu kahaan!” reminded everyone of his presence.

  Gobi, Hartal, etc.—Dhanna’s friends arrived.

  “Hey, don’t touch the body. Don’t touch nothing in the room.”

  “Open the window, Hartal-da?”

  “Didn’t I tell you to touch nothing? Suicide case. Anyone touches anything and the cops’ll tie his testicles in a knot.”