Just as this incident brought Harbart close to the hearts of many, so too another incident took place, to understand which one will, of course, have to be open to an elaborately esoteric explanation. The blows that rained upon his head, both front and back, must have jostled Harbart’s still-solidifying brain, or else how could a memory from fifteen years ago come to him so suddenly, slipped into the envelope of such an extraordinary dream? This intervention led the story of Harbart’s life around a new bend in the road and—even though it may have been pure coincidence—what was cause for abundant astonishment was that the father of killed-by-a-police-bullet-in-1971 Binu, yes, the very father of Harbart’s Naxalite nephew Binu, Harbart’s Krishna-dada had come to Calcutta for some work and was, in fact, at that very moment, in their very house.

I said, “Look, Dinanath, yesterday’s incident must have been preying upon your mind. Hence, those terrible scenes playing across your dreams. Now come, everyone, try and sleep in peace.”

“What, sir, did you just say?” roared Dinanath. ‘Are you calling me a liar? Dismissing my words as mere dream? I do not lie—I did not dream. All that I told you I saw with my own eyes. If you do not believe me, ask them. We could surely not all have been dreaming the same dream!”

—The Horribly Haunted Circus

*

But oh-woe, where is his Buki gone? On that top-terrace, now sits only a Star TV satellite dish: Harbart gone. Soviet Union gone. Hippodrome Circus gone. The famous Dinu Hotel beside the Gosain house on Simla Street, gone. “Since the eyes of the great and gracious Sri Sureshchandra Basu were always-almost closed, everyone called him the Grand Great Shut Eye.”

He’s gone, too.

Rabba! Rabba!

Four

Hark! Hark! The trumpet blows,the trumpet!

—Rangalal Bandyopadhyay

Binoy, aka Binu, came to Calcutta, to study Geology Honors at Asutosh College. Many years ago, when Harbart was a little boy, Binu had taught him a rhyme: “Cop-sticks, broom-sticks, nothing scares the Comminists.” Binu moved into that room on the streetside, that room at the back of the house. Krishnalal had come with him, to settle him in. A bed was bought. A mattress. Jyathaima brought down the bundle of bed linen hanging from the roof of the second-floor veranda, and took him a pillow.

Slowly, a Winchell Holmes, and then many other shaheb-written volumes, filled the shelves carved into the wall.

Binu. Serious. Average height and build. Sweet of speech.

One morning—it must have been around nine, then—Binu was stretched out on his stomach in bed, a pillow tucked under his chest, writing something. Harbart opened the door a crack and peeped in. Binu looked up and smiled. “Harbart-kaka! What are you looking at? Come in, come in.”

Harbart and Binu grew quite close. Harbart liked Binu’s friends too. They would let him have the odd cigarette. Chat with him. But then would come a time when Binu would say, “Harbart-kaka, now, if you don’t mind …” And Harbart would realize that Binu was asking him to leave them alone for a bit. But he didn’t mind that, for Binu was never rude.