All that alcohol he’d sent for, it had been to dull the pain.

*

The one who’d written the letter, and the photographer and the reporter, and the college boys and girls—after they had all gone—Koton, Borka, Koka, Gyanobaan, Buddhimaan, Somnath, Abhay, Khororobi’s brother Jhaapi, Gobindo, all the boys rushed into the room and saw Harbart shivering. Gasping, clasping-unclasping, sweating. His shirt he’d thrown off. The table fan swung from side to side, and with it swung Harbart, trying to catch the breeze. They stopped it swinging, made him sit on his bed, made him drink a glass of water. Sent for tea, special tea, until slowly, Harbart began to calm down. But the fear wouldn’t leave his eyes. “Thumping inside,” he kept saying, “thump-thumping, thump-thumping inside …” My god, what plan is this?

“Boss, relax. Calm down. Have some more tea?”

“No! I’ve had my last supper. Just beating. Only beating! Crawling, still beating. Flat on the floor, still beating. Punching slapping kicking beating …”

Harbart let out a heartrending wail, then began to tug at his hair. Kicking away the pillow, he leapt to his feet, looked at himself in the mirror on the wall shelf and then, still sobbing, suddenly stood straight and still. Smiled. “Father-mother dead, khanki-kin, whoreson, wanted to earn your living by fucking with the ghosts? Couldn’t bugger the living, so you had to screw the dead? So, how does it feel now? To be pole-axed, rod-arsed? Deep in shit up to the roof of your mouth, how does it feel, Harbart? Har … bart, Ha … r … bart!”

Slapping his cheeks left and right, he begins to jump about the room. The boys grab him and drag him back to bed. His dhuti has fallen off. He is only in his underwear. He sits on the bed, his eyes closed, and sways, to and fro.

“I won’t speak anymore, I’m not speaking anymore. Not anymore, not a bubble more. Wait for as long as you want with the fish-cutting blade, won’t see no sign of me. Peeyu kahaan, peeyu kahaan!”

“Guru, get a grip, please! Why don’t you lie down?”

“No, let go. Stomach’s turning. Churning.”

“Shit.”

“Maybe. Let me try.”

If Harbart needs a shit or a bath, he has to go down the street and round the house to the back door. That’s where the servants were meant to go. As they glimpsed Harbart step out in his underwear, some kids on the street shouted “Titbird, titbird!” Koton rushed out: “One kick in your teeth, and you’ll shut up forever!” They ran away.

Back in the room, they wait for Harbart. They talk. “Once he’s had a shit, just see, boss will be fine again.”

The one named Daktar, he had a medicine shop—studied only till Class Seven, but he knew a lot. “I’m thinking something else. Often, before the heart chokes, one needs a shit, one wants to puke.”

“I’ve seen, when they’re hanged, they shit themselves.”

“Shut up! I’m talking of heartchokes, and you’ve gone off into hangings!”