The Calcutta Chromosome

'And you're not now?'

'No,' said Antar.

'Yeah.' Murugan pursed his lips, as though confirming something to himself. 'I could tell.'

'How?'

'Just could,' said Murugan. 'So let's hear it, Ant: you paying alimony too? You seem to know a lot about the subject.'

'No!' Antar said vehemently. 'My wife died, in her first pregnancy…'

'That's too bad,' said Murugan. 'Were you together long?'

'Yes.' The directness of the question took Antar off guard. 'I was orphaned you see, and her family kind of adopted me when I was in my teens, in Egypt. She was everything to me-' He cut himself short, flustered.

Murugan pulled a sympathetic face: 'Shit happens.' He glanced at his watch and pushed his chair back. 'Come on, let's go grab a bite.'

Antar's head was reeling from the barrage of questions. 'Grab – a – bite?' he said, momentarily uncomprehending.

Murugan gave a hoot of laughter: 'Get some lunch, something to eat.'

Antar had brought his lunch with him, of course. It was right behind him, in his briefcase; a sandwich and an apple. He liked to have lunch in his cubicle, by himself. But he could not bring himself to say so now.

'All right,' he said. 'Let us go.'

Out in the corridor, on the way to the elevator, Murugan declared cheerfully: 'Sounds like you got a pretty raw deal, huh?'

Trying to turn the conversation away from himself, Antar said quickly: 'And what about you?'

'My divorce was pretty straightforward,' Murugan said offhandedly as they joined the lunchtime queue at the elevator bank. His voice seemed to grow louder as they stepped into the elevator. 'The whole thing was a mistake – arranged by our families. Didn't last but a couple of years. No kids.'

Murugan gave a screech of laughter that went spiralling ti

Antar intercepted a stare from an acquaintance and dropped his eyes. He kept them down until they stepped off the elevator.

They went to a small Thai restaurant, right around the corner from the building where LifeWatch had its offices. The waiter took their orders, and a moment of constrained silence followed. It was Antar who spoke first. 'Why are you so determined to go to Calcutta?' he blurted out suddenly. He regretted it once he'd said it; he was not in the habit of inviting confidences from strangers, especially someone as loud and brash as this. Yet, appalled as he was by the man's voice and ma

Murugan smiled. 'Shall I tell you why I have to go, Ant?' he said. 'It's simple: I don't know how many years I have left, and I want to do something with my life.'

'Do something with your life?' Antar said, on a note of derision. 'What you'll be doing is throwing away all your prospects – at LifeWatch, anyway.'

'But look at it this way,' said Murugan. 'You could find a thousand people – no, two thousand… maybe ten – who could do what I'm doing now. But you won't find another person alive who knows more than I do about the subject I specialize in.'

'And that is?' Antar asked politely.

'Ronald Ross,' said Murugan. 'Nobel-wi

A look of some scepticism must have crossed Antar's face, for Murugan added quickly: 'I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but it's not really that big a claim. Ross wasn't a Pasteur or a Koch: he just didn't have as much variety to his game. His stuff on malaria was about the only cutting-edge work he ever did. And even that was a freak one-off thing. Do you know how long it took him?'

Antar answered with a polite shake of his head.

'The actual research, the hands-on stuff, took just three years, door to door; three years spent entirely in India. He kicked off in the summer of 1895, in a little hole-in-the-wall army camp in a place called Secunderabad and ran the last few yards in Calcutta in the summer of 1898. And for only about half that time was he actually in the lab. The rest went into cleaning up epidemics, playing te

'And how did you get to learn about all that?' said Antar, raising an eyebrow.

'Look,' said Murugan, 'the great thing about a guy like Ronald Ross is that he writes everything down. You've got to remember: this guy's decided he's going to rewrite the history books. He wants everyone to know the story like he's going to tell it; he's not about to leave any of it up for grabs, not a single minute if he can help it. He's figured on a guy like me coming along some day and I'm happy to oblige. If you think about it, it's not a whole lot to know about: five hundred days of a guy's life.'

'Was Ross really that interesting?' Antar said.

'Interesting?' Murugan gave a shout of laughter. 'Yes and no. He was a genius, of course, but he was also a dickhead.'

'Yes,' said Antar, 'go on, I'm listening.'

'OK,' said Murugan, 'picture this: here's this guy, a real huntin', fishin', shootin' colonial type, like in the movies; plays te

'So young Ro

And what does the minor tell him? You got it: malaria that's where it's at this season.