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The hell with that, I said. I flipped through the few bills of Indian cur-
rency I d brought with me and handed the old man a twenty-rupee note. He
remained standing and mumbled something to himself. I gave him ten more
rupees. He scratched at his whiskery cheeks and shuffled back toward his
counter. I had parted with less than three dollars.
Go on, I said.
Sanjay was confident that we could find two corpses before midnight.
This was, after all, Calcutta.
In the morning, as we rode to the center of the city, we asked the Harijan
dead-animal transporters if they ever carried human bodies in their trucks.
No, they answered, the City Municipal Corporation hired other men poor
men but men of caste to go out in the mornings and retrieve the bodies
which inevitably littered the sidewalks. And that was only in the business and
downtown sections. Farther out, where the great chawls began, there was no
arrangement. Bodies were left to the families or dogs.
Where are the bodies taken after they are collected downtown? asked
Sanjay. To the Sassoon Morgue, was the reply. By ten-thirty that morning,
after eating a breakfast of fried dough along the Maidan, Sanjay and I were at
the Sassoon Morgue.
The morgue took up the first floor and two basement levels of a building
in the old English section of the city. There were stone lions still guarding the
front steps, but the door there was locked and boarded, obviously unused for
many years. All business went through the back entrance where the trucks
came and went.
The morgue was crowded. Sheeted bodies lay on carts in the hallways and
even outside the offices. There was a very strong smell. This surprised me.
A man carrying a clipboard and wearing a yellow-stained white uniform
came out of his office and smiled. Can I help you?
I had no idea what to say, but Sanjay began speaking immediately, con-
vincingly. We are from Varanasi. We have come to Calcutta because two of
our cousins, unfortunately dispossessed of their lands in West Bengal, recently
came to the city to find other work. Alas, it seems they have taken ill and died
on the streets before finding dutiful employment. The wife of our poor sec-
ond cousin informed us of this by letter before she returned to her family in
Tamil Nadu. The bitch made no attempt to retrieve the body of her husband
or our other cousin, but now we have come, at great expense, to return them
to Varanasi for proper cremation.
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Ahh, the attendant grimaced. Those accursed Southern women. They
have no sense of proper behavior. Animals.
I nodded agreement. It was so easy!
Man or woman? Old, young, or infant? asked the morgue man in a
bored voice.
Pardon?
The other cousin. I presume the wife who left was married to a man, but
what was the sex of the other family member? And the age of each? Also, on
what day would they have been collected? First, what sex?
A man, said Sanjay.
Female, I replied at the same time.
The attendant stopped in the act of leading us into another room. Sanjay
gave me a look that could have removed skin.
My apologies, said Sanjay smoothly. Kamila, Jayaprakesh s poor cousin,
is certainly female. I can think only of my own cousin, Samar. Jayaprakesh and
I are related only through marriage, of course.
Ah, said the attendant, but his eyes had narrowed as he looked from one
to the other of us. You would not, by any chance, be students at the
University?
No, smiled Sanjay. I work at my father s rug shop in Varanasi.
Jayaprakesh helps his uncle farm. I have some education. Jayaprakesh has
none. Why do you ask?
No reason. No reason, said the attendant. He glanced at me, and I wor-
ried that he could hear the loud thudding of my pulse. It is just that on occa-
sion medical students from our university here . . . ah . . . lose loved ones
on the street. This way, please.
The basement rooms were large, damp, cooled by throbbing air condi-
tioners. Water had streaked the walls and floors. Bodies lay naked on gurneys
and tables. There was no order to their placement except for rough segrega-
tion by age and sex. The children s room we passed was quite crowded.
Sanjay specified a date a week earlier as the time of our cousins passing.
It seemed that our cousin Samar had been in his forties.
The first room we entered held about twenty men. All were in various
stages of decomposition. It was not very cool in the room. Water dripped
openly onto the corpses in a vain attempt to chill them. Both Sanjay and I
lifted our shirts to our mouths and noses. Our eyes watered.
damned power outages, grumbled the attendant. Every few hours these
days. Well? He walked over and pulled sheets off the few covered forms. He
extended his hands as if offering a bullock for sale.
No, said Sanjay peering grimly into the first face. He went to another.
No. No. Wait . . . no. It is hard to tell.
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Mmmm.
Sanjay moved from table to table, cart to cart. The terrible faces stared back
at him, eyes filmed over, jaws locked open, some with swollen tongues protrud-
ing. A few grinned obscenely as if courting our choice. No, said Sanjay. No.
These are all that came in during that week. Are you sure you have the
dates right? The morgue attendant did not try to hide the boredom and skep-
ticism in his voice.
Sanjay nodded, and I wondered what game he was playing. Identify someone
and let us be gone! Wait, he said. What about that one in the corner?
The cadaver lay alone on a steel table as if it had been tossed there
absentmindedly. The knees and forearms were half-raised, the fists clenched.
The corpse was almost bald and had its face turned to the dank wall as if
shamed by its own limp nakedness.
Too old, muttered the attendant, but my friend had taken five quick steps
to the corner. He leaned over to look at the face. The raised white fist of the
corpse brushed against Sanjay s lifted shirt and bare belly.
Cousin Samar! cried Sanjay with a half-sob. He clutched at the
stiffened hand.
No, no, no, said the morgue man. He blew his nose into the tail of his
stained tunic. He came in only yesterday. Too new.
Nonetheless, it is poor Cousin Samar, said Sanjay in a choked voice. I
saw real tears in his eyes.
The morgue attendant shrugged and checked his clipboard. He had to
look through several layers of forms. No identification. Brought in Tuesday
morning. Found naked on Sudder Street . . . appropriate, yes? Estimated
cause of death broken neck resulting from fall or strangulation. Possibly
robbed for his clothes. Estimated age, sixty-five.
Cousin Samar was forty-nine, said Sanjay. He dabbed at his eyes and
returned the shirt to his nose. Again the attendant shrugged.
Jayaprakesh, why don t you look for Cousin Kamila? said Sanjay. I will
make arrangements for the transporting of Cousin Samar.
No, no, said the morgue man.
No? Sanjay and I said together.
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