Harbart returns, with great gusto, to the adventures of Gopal Bhaar and the Spooks’ Soiree.

Eight

Like the thugee, swift and sudden, grab his throat and squeeze

In an instant send to Death the one thirsting for release

—Pramathanath Roychowdhury

Monday, May 25, 1992. Harbart had left word at the tea shop that he’d need a few cups of tea sent across later. A client had come that morning too. From Bardhhaman. Harbart told him, sorry, not today. Told him, come back next week. Then he’d dusted the shelves, tidied his books. Requested Nirmala to sweep the room. Marik had given his word that he’d come as soon as he was back from Madras. So, the plan was progressing. That Marik was a generous fellow, with a heart as deep and wide as a river. Even before they’d started, how much he’d spent on whisky and cigarettes—a heartless man would never have done so much.

Harbart had never imagined that so many of them would come in the afternoon. After an early bath and lunch, he’d thought he’d take a nap. But sleep refused to come. He read their letter again. Read and read and his lips curled in a contemptuous smile. There was a fly in the room. It buzzed against the windowpane. Crawled a step or two. Then flew around in a circle or two. Then came back and buzzed against the windowpane again. Harbart was contemplating what happens to flies when they die when Pachu from the tea shop escorted them in.

“Here, the office. Kaka-babu, they’re looking for you. When I heard it was you they wanted, I walked them over.”

So many people!

Six or seven boys. Some with glasses. Beards. Shoulder bags. Two girls. Without stopping to say a word they just kept surging in. Harbart saw, outside, a tall boy in thick glasses pointing a finger at his signboard above the door, pointing it out to a girl in a salwar-kameez. The girl reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a camera, twisted the lens like a black gun muzzle, and clicked.

One man said, “So you’re Harbart Sarkar.” Then: “Pranab-da, please come in.”

The room had only one chair. On it sat Pranab Ghosh. So this was the man who had written the letter. The girl in the salwar-kameez walked in. And immediately, in a flurry of camera-flashes, took photographs of Harbart, of his room. Harbart slid to a corner of the bed. Moved his pillows. Asked the rest to sit beside him. One or two sat. The others stashed themselves against the wall. The one in jeans and a shirt who came in a little later, Harbart had thought that person was a man—that was the one who took out a cassette-tape recorder, pressed the Record button, and placed it beside Harbart on the bed.

Pranab Ghosh took off his glasses. Without the high-powered lenses, his eyes seemed almost blank.

His voice, when he began speaking, was deep.

“Since you never came to us, it is obvious that you have accepted our challenge.”