Baumgartner's Bombay (32 page)
Read Baumgartner's Bombay Online
Authors: Anita Desai
Then Lotte arrived, dragged out of her sleep and brought in by the excited neighbour. So fast did she come, hobbling, that she broke the heel off her red slipper. Then had to limp. Still, she burst in, clutching the hair that stood up on her head with one hand, the open front of her cotton dress with the other, herself looking the victim.
The crowd waiting in the room could not have asked for more: it was all they could have desired, the drama, the theatre, the raw emotions, everything. Speechless, yet audible in their horror and excitement, they watched the
memsahib
arrive, hobbling on broken red heels, holding together a torn red dress from which the white flesh spilt. It was wonderful,
perfect
– the
memsahib
giving a scream, clapping her hand to her mouth, standing struck, rushing forward, throwing herself on the corpse, weeping, ‘Hugo, Hugo,
mein Gott
, Hugo! What have you done?’
Memsahib
on her knees, dress rucked up to the thighs, red hair flying forwards, face buried on the old man’s chest, sobbing. Farrokh standing by, wringing his hands, whining like a character on stage, ‘Old
sahib
, good
sahib
– taking tea in my café every day, every day for twenty years now –’ then going down on his knees too and crying like a baby. All the crying anyone’s heart could desire, loud and shrill and scandalous. The audience shivered with delight.
The police chief shouldering his way in, swaggering, shouting, ‘What’s this? What is going on? Clear the way. Clear the room,’ and policemen swinging out with their batons. ‘Move back, move back.’ Even photographers on the scene – click flash, click flash. A chance of getting one’s photograph in the papers. Everyone surging forwards with new enthusiasm. Police batons flailing. ‘Clear out. Out.’
In the moment that the room was cleared of all crowds and even the police were outside, Lotte cast her eyes around the room in despair, saw the blood-stained postcards scattered over the rug and – partly in order to tidy up, tidy the room and restore it to normalcy, and partly out of a desperate wish to keep something of Hugo for herself – she threw herself on her knees and hurriedly, frenziedly gathered them up and hid them in her blouse. When the policeman opened the door again, she saw the crowds had been driven on to the landing, on to the staircase, into the hall. None willing to leave. Too much going on, too much still to happen. Jostling and gossiping, waiting and straining.
Finally the corpse being carried out. Everyone lurching forwards, holding their breaths, letting it out in a long communal hiss. The corpse – yes, dead, without any doubt dead. Wrapped in white sheets, the bloodstains hidden, but still a corpse, dead, heavy, wobbling. A certain respect due there. ‘Make way, make way,’ and people falling back. No
one
wanting to touch, to be touched by death, by the dead. Hands and handkerchiefs rising instinctively to mouths, noses. Not to breathe, not to breathe in death. Everyone drifting out on to the pavement to see it lifted into the hearse, to see the hearse go. Standing in the sun, speculating on the murder, the murderer. But the heat driving them away. Like knots of ants, unknotting, straying up and down the road, disappearing. Other things to do, after all. Have to get on, with living.
‘Thieves!’ Lotte screamed at those that remained in Baumgartner’s room. ‘What have you done? Who has done this?’ She gestured at the wreckage left behind like so much debris after a riot.
Farrokh shook his head. Chimanlal’s son blustered, ‘It must be cleared. The flat must be handed over. The police must cordon it off,’ and the landlord nodded his head, ‘Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes.’
‘Clear it away? Where will it go? Who will take it? It is Mr Baumgartner’s flat, these are his belongings,’ she shouted at them, her throat raw from weeping, her face and eyes as red as her anger. ‘Everything is his, no one can touch it.’
The police officer, Chimanlal’s son and the landlord kept away from her, by the door. Exchanging looks they chose the police officer to speak for them. ‘Madam, it is property of the police now. Police will keep till case is closed.’
‘Police? You thieves are going to keep Mr Baumgartner’s property?’ she screeched. ‘No, I will not permit! I am Mr Baumgartner’s friend – oldest friend –’
‘Oldest friend,’ Farrokh burst in passionately, ‘yes, yes.’
‘And I will not permit you to touch –’
Then Chimanlal’s son took over, realised he must take over. Strolling across to her, he spoke levelly, keeping his tone sensible. ‘No, madam, sorry, it has become police property because it is a police case. This murder.’
Lotte glared at him with a face crumpled with crying. She bared her teeth as if she would bite anyone who came near. But
instead
she nodded, kept nodding as if she were suddenly so old, she had lost control. Swinging around to the empty soiled divan, she muttered, ‘Yes, yes, I go now, I go, too.’
By the teapot, on the table, she spread out the cards, sniffing at longer and longer intervals. She moved them about till they were all in an orderly row before her. All. Each one stamped with the number: J 673/1. As if they provided her with clues to a puzzle, a meaning to the meaningless.
Acknowledgements
GAP PAA.ORG
I wish to acknowledge my debt to Professor Alex Aronson and Sir Denis Forman for reading Chapter 4 and making many helpful comments and suggestions; to Sybil Oldfield of the University of Sussex for providing me with much detailed information, and to Alicia Yerburgh for her patience and sympathy with yet another book.
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781448104529
Published by Vintage 1998
7 9 10 8
Copyright © Anita Desai 1988
The right of Anita Desai to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann Ltd 1988
The lines of ‘East Coker’ from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot are published by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd
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ISBN 97800994298527