The Calcutta Chromosome

'Is it hard work?' Antar said, trying to sound sympathetic.

'Hard work!' cried the Director laughing sarcastically. 'That's the problem; there's no work at all, now that the river doesn't flow through the city any more. I have to make work for the office. I keep recommending projects but the people here won't let the Council touch a thing: I've never seen anything like it. In the last year they've only let us start one project. And you know what that is?'

'What?' said Antar.

'A shelter!' said the Director, throwing up his hands. 'A shelter for the needy is how we describe it. They have a big fort here, called Fort William. It was built by the British in the eighteenth century. The Council requisitioned it, but then couldn't figure out what to do with it. The only thing everyone could agree on was the shelter idea. So that's what I do now, I run a shelter.'

He had finished dressing and was sitting at his terminus, looking through his files. 'All right, what was it you were asking about?' he said, looking over his shoulder. 'An ID card in an inventory? That's easy -there's only one place it could have come from.'

He made a couple of short-sighted jabs at his keyboard. 'Yes,' he said. 'I thought so. It was in an inventory that came from the Fort William Shelter.'

'Go on,' said Antar.

'Well,' said the Director, 'it seems to have been found in the Department of Alternative I

He gave Antar a wink, over his shoulder. 'What we oldtimers used to call asylums,' he said. 'It says here it was entered into the system this morning. They found it while registering an inmate. They always do a strip search when they bring someone in.'

Peering into the panel, he gave Antar a sly grin. 'From what I can see here,' he said, 'I would say the guy you're looking for is experiencing an i

'Who was he?' asked Antar.

'He wouldn't give a name,' said the Director.

'Where was he found?'

The Director peered at his panel again. 'It says here,' he said, 'that he turned himself in at a railway station – a place called Sealdah.'

'When can I talk to him?' said Antar.

'You want to talk to him?' groaned the Director. 'You realize I'll have to bring him here? This is the Council's only secured communications facility here – right in my home. What if he experiences an alternative i

'I'll make sure you're insured,' said Antar. 'Just have him here: as soon as you can.' He cut the Director off before he could protest.

Then he stumbled back to bed.

Chapter 37

WALKING PAST the pavement stalls on Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Road, Urmila caught a whiff of the irresistible smell of fish cutlets and dhakai parotha wafting through the doors of the Dilkhusha Cabin.

'I'll die if I don't eat soon,' she remarked to Murugan.

She lost no time in propelling him into the eatery. Leading him to a curtained booth, she slid on to a bench and signalled to Murugan to seat himself opposite her. A waiter appeared almost immediately, with two limp menu cards in his hand. Urmila ordered for them both, and as soon as the waiter left, she pulled the curtain shut.

'Tell me,' she said, leaning across the table. 'Who is this Lachman you keep talking about?'

'You mean Lutchman,' Murugan corrected her. 'That's how Ro

'But the name must have been Lachman,' said Urmila. 'Ross probably just spelt it in a British kind of way.'

'Same difference,' said Murugan. 'Who knows what his mother called him? We weren't there. Anyways, Lutchman was this young guy who walked into Ro

him the way to go. He claimed to be a "dhooley-bearer" by trade, but my guess is that he was leading Ro

'But,' said Urmila, 'how would he have known about where to lead Ronald Ross?'

'It's a long story,' he said. 'I'll cut it short for you: a few years ago I found a letter that was written in Calcutta, by an American missionary doctor called Elijah Farley. Before he got religion Farley was doing medical research back in the States, at Johns Hopkins. As a student he'd worked with some of the biggest names in malaria research.

'Well, the last thing he ever wrote was this letter in which he described a visit to Cu

'Don't talk so fast,' said Urmila. 'I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to tell me. Are you talking about Cu

Murugan laughed: 'No. Cu

'So who was doing this work, then?'

'The way Farley saw it,' said Murugan, 'it was the people in the lab, Cu

'But surely,' said Urmila, 'Cu

'It's like this,' said Murugan. 'Cu

'Who were they?' Urmila asked. 'And where did he find them?'

'In the last place anyone would think of looking,' said Murugan. 'At Sealdah railway station. The station hadn't been around that long, but if you wanted to find people who were pretty much on their own, down and out with nowhere to go, that was the place to look. Cu

'So he taught them?' said Urmila. 'And trained them and so on?'

'Not really,' said Murugan. 'He may have taught them how to read a little English and he probably showed them a couple of things – but just monkey-see, monkey-do kind of stuff. They probably didn't give a shit anyway. But there was this one person, a woman, who took to the lab like a duck to water. My guess is that within a few years she was way ahead of Cu

'But who was this woman?' said Urmila. 'And what was she called?'

Murugan smiled: 'The way Farley tells it,' he said, drawing his sleeve across his damp forehead, 'her name was Mangala.'

Urmila gasped. 'Mangala?' she cried. 'You mean like Mangal-bibi -like the name the girl said?'

'I guess you could call her a prototype,' said Murugan. 'And as for who she was – who knows? The only indication we have that she even existed was in this letter written by Elijah Farley. And even that letter isn't around any more: at least it's untraceable in the catalogues.'

'What did Elijah Farley say about her?'

'Not much,' said Murugan. 'All he knew was what Cu