The Calcutta Chromosome Read online

  Aghast, Urmila dropped to her knees. She began to sweep up the scattered earth and pottery, keeping her eyes on the floor, not daring to look up. She was near tears.

  Then a very large pair of hands descended to the floor, in front of her, filling her entire field of vision. The hands were matted with thick, curly hair and the knuckles were the size of walnuts. Distracted though she was, Urmila noticed that one of the hands was partly paralysed, with the thumb, lying stiffly curled against the palm. Then the hands began to help her, awkwardly sweeping the earth together.

  Urmila raised her head and found herself looking at the man who had followed Sonali into the shop. He was staring at her – not angrily, but with a fixed, appraising gaze. Something about his look frightened Urmila and she dropped her eyes.

  The next thing she knew, Sonali's arms were around her, helping her up. 'Poor thing,' she was saying to Mrs Aratounian. 'It's not her fault: I'll pay.'

  Urmila got a terrific scolding on the way back to school, in the van. But soon enough her teachers lost interest in her and began to gossip about Sonali Das and the man she was with.

  Urmila discovered to her surprise that she knew his name: it was Romen Haldar. She'd heard him talked about at home: he lived in a huge house just down the road from their flat. She knew he was a wealthy builder and contractor, and that he had a lot of influence in a major club. Her younger brother, who dreamt of playing in the First Division, often talked of him.

  Now, recalling the incident, Urmila was able to laugh. 'It was years ago,' she told Sonali. 'I knocked a pot of flowers out of your hand: chrysanthemums.'

  'I don't remember,' said Sonali.

  'Of course not,' said Urmila. 'But you were very nice about it. So was Mrs Aratounian. She became a real friend after that.'

  'So you know Mrs Aratounian well?' Sonali asked.

  'I visit her occasionally,' Urmila said, 'at her flat on Robinson Street. She's always been very kind to me. She's very interesting in her own crusty way. Besides, her flat is so peaceful – with all those plants and comfortable chairs and sofas. It's nice to escape from the magazine every once in a while. I drop in whenever I can.'

  'I heard Mrs Aratounian retired and sold Dutton's,' Sonali said. 'Must have made a fortune, with that location.'

  'I don't know,' Urmila said. 'I never asked. But actually I think she's having trouble making ends meet;'now that she's retired. She's always thinking up little schemes for making extra money. "I've been in business all my life," she says – you know how she talks – "and as sure as an egg's an egg, I'm not going to stop now.'''

  Sonali laughed. 'What are her schemes?' she said.

  'Her latest is that she's going to take in paying guests and turn her flat into a businessman's guest house.'

  'No!' Sonali exclaimed in disbelief.

  'Yes,' Urmila continued. 'She's even stuck a board on her door. The trouble is, no one ever sees it unless they're going up the stairs, so she hasn't had any guests yet.'

  'What made her think of it?' Sonali asked.

  'I asked her that,' said Urmila. 'And she said she got the idea because an old house on the other side of Robinson Street is being turned into a hotel, by a developer. She said: "The blackguard actually has the cheek to hang a sign on the lawn. Plain as a wart on the nose. 'Site for the Robinson Hotel.' If he can do it, why can't I?'"

  And then suddenly Urmila froze in an attitude of dismay with her hands clapped over her open mouth.

  Sonali smiled, and took a cigarette out of her handbag.. 'She meant Romen, I suppose?' she said drily, flicking open her lighter. 'Romen showed me that house on Robinson Street the other day. He's very proud of it; he's actually going to rebuild the place.' She puffed at the flame and allowed the smoke to curl slowly out of her pursed lips.

  Urmila began to mumble hurried apologies.

  Sonali laughed: 'Don't worry. I really don't mind what people say about Romen. You should hear how the wags go on about him at his club. Of course the Calcutta Wicket Club is the last place in the world where wags still survive and live to say waggish things. You should hear them when they start on Romen.'

  She gave Urmila a reassuring pat on the arm. 'Have you ever met Romen?' she said.

  'No.' Urmila shook her head. 'I just saw him that one time, at Dutton's, with you.'

  'I think you'd like him,' Sonali said. 'He's had an extraordinary life, you know.'

  'Really?' Urmila said in a noncommittal voice. She remembered hearing that Romen Haldar had started with nothing; that he'd arrived at Calcutta 's Sealdah Station without a coin in his pocket.

  Sonali nodded. 'You'll see,' she said. 'He's not at all the person people make him out to be. You'll meet him tonight: it's him I'm waiting for. He said he'd come over this evening.'

  The taxi stopped at a pair of heavy steel gates. Sonali began to fumble in her handbag, looking for money to pay the driver.

  A uniformed chowkidar stepped out of a booth. He took a careful look before allowing the taxi to enter the exclusive residential complex. There were four blocks of flats in the estate, set well apart, each at an angle to the others, so that every veranda looked out on its fair share of Alipore's greenery.

  As the taxi swung around the complex, Sonali glanced at one of the estate's parking areas. Urmila followed her eyes to a discreet little sign hanging over an empty spot. It said: Reserved, R. Haldar.

  Sonali sighed. 'Romen isn't here yet,' she said. 'We can talk until he comes.'

  Chapter 11

  SCRIBBLING A DATE on the restaurant's brightly coloured paper napkin, Murugan placed it before Antar.

  'Here's the deal,' he said. 'It's May 1895. We're in the military hospital in Secunderabad, it's so hot the floors are shimmering, no fans, no electricity, a roomful of jars, all neatly stacked up on shelves, a desk with a straight-backed chair, a single microscope with slides scattered about, one guy, in uniform, hunched over the microscope and a swarm of orderlies buzzing around him. That's Ronnie and the other guys are the chorus line, or so Ronnie thinks anyway. "Do this," he says and they do it. "Do that," he says and they scramble. That's what he's grown up with, that's what he's used to. Mostly he doesn't even know their names, hardly even their faces: he doesn't think he needs to. As for who they are, where they're from and all that stuff, forget it, he's not interested. They could be buddies, they could be cousins, they could be cell-mates; it would be all the same to Ronnie.'

  'Wait a minute,' Antar interrupted. 'May 1895? So Ronald Ross is at the beginning of his malaria research?'

  'That's right,' said Murugan. 'Ronnie's just got back from a vacation in England. While he was over there, he met with Patrick Manson, in London.'

  'Patrick Manson?' Antar raised an eyebrow. 'Do you mean the Manson of elephantiasis?'

  'That's the man,' said Murugan. 'Manson's one of the alltime greats; he's lived in China so long he can skin a python with chopsticks; he's the guy who wrote the book on filaria, the bug that causes elephantiasis. Now he's back in England where he's become the Queen's head honcho in bacteriological research. Doc Manson wants to get the malaria prize – for Britain, he says, for the Empire: fuck those Krauts and Frogs and Wops and Yanks. He may be a Scot but come gametime he roots for Queen and Country: you don't have to sell him on how no Scotsman ever saw a finer sight than the London turnpike: he's bought it already.'

  'If I remember correctly,' Antar said, 'Manson proved that the mosquito was the vector for filaria. Am I right?'

  'Right,' said Murugan. 'Now he's got a hunch that the mosquito has something to do with the malaria bug too. He doesn't have time to do the work himself so he's looking for someone to carry the torch for Queen and Empire. Guess who walks in? Ronnie Ross. Trouble is Ronnie's not exactly a front runner at this point. In fact the century's biggest breakthrough in malaria research has happened recently but it's passed Ronnie by. Way back in the 1840s a guy called Meckel found microscopic granules of black pigment in the organs of malaria patients – black spots, some round, some
crescent shaped, tucked inside tiny masses of protoplasm. For forty years no one can figure out what this stuff is. The breakthrough comes in 1880: Alphonse Laveran, a French army surgeon in Algeria, runs out to get some lunch, leaving a plate cooking under his 'scope. He gets back from his hickory-grilled merguez and guess what? One of those crescent-shaped granules is moving. He sees it beginning to jive, turning into a miniature octopus, throwing out tentacles, shaking the whole cell.

  'So Laveran puts two and two together: hey, this thing moves, it's a bug. He faxes the Academy of Medicine in Paris; tells them he's found the cause of malaria and it's a critter, a protozoan – an animal parasite. But Paris doesn't buy it. Pasteur's the boss out there and he's sent the smart money chasing after bacteria. No one buys Laveran's protozoan critter: it's like he said he found the yeti. Some of the biggest names in medicine get busy refuting "Laveranity". The only converts are the Italians: they become born-again Laveranites. In 1886 Camillo Golgi shows that Laveran's parasite grows inside the red blood cell, eating its host and shitting black pigment; that the pigment collects in the centre while the bug begins to divide; he demonstrates that the recurrence of malarial fevers is linked to this pattern of asexual reproduction.

  'Ronnie's a wallflower while this party's heating up. He's on the anti-Laveran bench. He thinks Laveran's bug doesn't exist: he's spent the last several months trying to catch a glimpse of it and hasn't succeeded. He's even published an article trying to prove that Laveran was hallucinating. The first time Ronnie ever sees the bug is in Manson's lab. He converts, and Manson sends him hustling back to India to look for the vector.'

  Antar broke in: 'So it was Manson who was responsible for conceiving of the connection between malaria and mosquitoes?'

  'It wasn't exactly a new idea,' said Murugan. 'Most cultures that had to deal with malaria knew there was some connection. '

  'But,' Antar persisted, 'you're saying it's Manson who first gave Ross the idea?'

  'You could say Manson pointed in the general direction,' said Murugan. 'Except that he sent him down the scenic route. He had this screwball theory that the malaria bug was transmitted from mosquito to man via drinking water. His plan was to get Ronnie to do the grunt work on this theory of his.'

  'And Ross believed in this theory?'

  'You bet.'

  'So what happened?' said Antar.

  'OK, we're back in 1895, right? Ross can't wait to get started on Doc Manson's mosquito-juice theory. He gets off the ship at Madras and takes a train up to join his regiment, the 19th Madras Infantry. They're stationed in a neighbourhood called Begumpett in Secunderabad. On his way up Ronnie sticks needles into anything that moves. When he pulls into Begumpett he begins to offer money for samples of malarial blood – real money, one rupee per prick! Think about it. This is 1895; one rupee can buy a family of four enough rice to last a month. There's so much malaria in this place, the mosquitoes are doing double shifts and can't keep up. And here's Ronnie willing to pay real money for a few drops of malarial blood, and he can't find a single taker. Someone's put out the word that this weird doctor's blown into town and he gets his rocks off putting naked guys into bed with mosquitoes. No one's going near him; they're crossing the street to get away. Suddenly Ronnie finds himself starring in a bad-breath commercial: every time he steps out on Main Street, Begumpett, it's empty.

  'Then suddenly his luck changes. On May 17 1895, just when it begins to look really hopeless, he gets his first perfect case of malaria – a patient called Abdul Kadir. Ronnie goes into high gear: he strips Abdul Kadir, shoves him into a bed, drapes a wet mosquito net over him and releases a test-tube full of mosquitoes into it. Next morning he harvests his crop and suddenly Ronnie's laboratory is the happening place in Begumpett. Until then he's observed only two of the flagellate forms of the parasite. On May 18 he flattens one of Abdul Kadir's mosquitoes (mosquito number 18) and he finds sixty parasites in a single field. He's so excited he does back-flips all the way to his desk. He's found a "wonder case" he writes Doc Manson. That's just the beginning. The first time Ronnie sees the crescentsphere transformation of the parasite is on June 26 1895, in Abdul Kadir's blood. Over the next couple of months Abdul Kadir's blood guides him through all the critical phases of his research.'

  'Can a single case make that much difference?' said Antar.

  'Ronnie thought so,' said Murugan. 'He was convinced that Abdul Kadir was crucial to his work. He'd looked at a fair number of blood samples already but none of them ever showed him what Abdul Kadir's did. You'd think a bug like the malaria parasite wouldn't look for any teacher's pets, but maybe it doesn't work that way. Maybe it shows itself more clearly in certain cases. That's what Ronnie thought, anyway. He became hooked on Abdul Kadir and his blood. Days when Abdul Kadir's parasites went into remission Ronnie was climbing the walls. "Alas! the wonder case which fortune has sent me is drying up", he wrote Doc Manson on May 22. The dickhead had an ego so big he thought Fortune was putting him on its cover. He clearly knew that Abdul Kadir was a special case. But he never stopped to ask himself how come this guy just walked through the door when he needed him most. He thought it was just luck.'

  'Let me be clear about this,' said Antar. 'Are you suggesting that Abdul Kadir's arrival at the hospital on May 17 wasn't just coincidence?'

  'You've got to wonder,' said Murugan. 'Look at it this way: Ross knows no one else will come near him even when he doubles or triples his one-rupee per prick rate; on July 17 he writes Doc Manson: "The bazaar people won't come to me even though I offer what is enormous payment to them. I offer two and three rupees for a single finger prick and much more if I find crescents – they think it is witchcraft." But Ronnie never stops to ask himself: why's this guy Abdul Kadir here, if no one else is? How come he doesn't think this is witchcraft? What makes him so special? Where's he from? What's he doing here? What's his story? We're not talking deep therapy: just plain, everyday curiosity. But Ronnie keeps all his curiosity for the life cycle of the malaria parasite; about the life cycles of its hosts he couldn't care less.'

  'So what are you suggesting?' Antar said sharply.

  'I'm not suggesting anything at this point,' said Murugan. 'I'm just giving you the facts and the chronology.'

  'All right,' said Antar. 'Go ahead.'

  'OK,' said Murugan. 'We fast forward to the week after Abdul Kadir's arrival: May 25 1895. Doc Manson thinks Ronnie's getting sidetracked, so he's written to remind him of his theory: that "the beast in the mosquito… gets to man in mosquito dust". He wants Ronnie to make a cocktail from dead mosquitoes and feed it to someone.

  'Ronnie gets out his glasses and starts mixing. Trouble is, he hasn't got anyone to give it to: can't find anyone fool enough to volunteer. Same old story: Ronnie's in his lab in Begumpett, all dressed up and nowhere to go.

  'And what do you know? Ronnie gets lucky once again. Or maybe it's not just luck; maybe he left Doc Manson's letter out on his desk and someone read it. Maybe. Anyway, on May 25 1895, at exactly 8 p.m., a guy called Lutchman walks into Ronnie's life. He volunteers to drink Ronnie's cocktail. Ronnie pops the corks and breaks out the mosquito margarita.

  'This Lutchman's a "healthy looking young fellow" Ronnie notices: just the guinea pig he's been looking for. He explains the experiment to Lutchman and hands him the dead-mosquito concoction. Lutchman makes like he doesn't already know what it is, and swigs it. Ronnie's a little anxious but he doesn't let on. All he knows about Lutchman is that he's a "dhooley-bearer": in other words the British government pays him to shovel shit. Ronnie knows Her Imperial Majesty wouldn't be too pleased about this little experiment of his if she got to hear of it up in her castle on London Bridge or wherever. Later he covers his tracks by writing Doc Manson: "Don't for heaven's sake mention Lutchman at the British Medical Association… he is a government servant. To give a government servant fever would be a crime!"

  'Lutchman has a fever next morning: 99.8 at 8 a.m. ("Looking ill", Ronnie notes). Looks like it's time for Doc Manson
to jump out of his bathtub; maybe malaria really is spread through mosquito-dust. Ronnie gets ready to pop the corks; he's about to call his agent. But then comes the letdown. Young Lutchman doesn't just look healthy; he is healthy. He's allergic to mosquito-dust, is all. A day later he's so fit he could run the Begumpett marathon: no sign of malaria in his blood. That's the end of the line for the mosquito-dust theory. Ronnie's free to go back to Abdul Kadir again: he's been headed off at the pass.'

  'Wait, wait,' Antar broke in. 'I want to be clear about this. Are you arguing that Lutchman was sent to Ross's lab specifically in order to disprove Manson's theory?'

  'I'm not arguing anything,' said Murugan. 'Just taking the facts as they come. And the facts are these: Ronnie's been working on the malaria bug for about a month when Abdul Kadir and Lutchman walk into his life. Ronnie hasn't made a secret of what he's doing: he's put the word out about needing malaria patients. If someone was watching let's just say if - if someone was watching, if someone was looking for a research scientist to do certain kinds of experiments, then this is when they would have picked up the buzz. So this someone, who's watching carefully, maybe reading Ronnie's lab notes and his letters to Doc Manson, this someone decides, OK, it's time to get a new player in place. The first thing they've got to do is to make sure Ronnie doesn't get any patients. So they spread the word about witchcraft; it flies through the bazaar; Ronnie becomes the bogeyman of Begumpett.

  'By mid-May they know Ronnie's getting desperate, no patients, no parasites, no nothing. He can't get anyone to come to his parties and he can't figure out why. This is when they send him Abdul Kadir who's got industrial-size parasites; they hold Ronnie's hand as he puts his first twos and twos together; they're happy, everything's on schedule, they're leading Ronnie exactly where they want him to go. And then Ronnie gets his letter from boss-man Manson; suddenly everything flies off track. Ronnie goes off into left field, with this mosquito-powder stuff. They go wild: they know there's nothing at the end of that trail; they have to find a way to turn him back in the right direction. So what do they do? They send him Lutchman.'