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‘Yes, sir,’ Ben mumbled. ‘You mustn’t worry.’
Finally Carter opened his eyes and Ben realised with horror what the flames had done to them.
‘Ben, do as I said. Now.’ He was trying to shout but his voice was consumed by pain. ‘Go and see that woman. Swear to me you will.’
Ben heard footsteps behind him. The red-haired doctor grabbed his arm and began dragging him out of the ambulance. Carter’s hand slipped from Ben’s and was left suspended in mid-air.
‘That’s enough,’ yelled the doctor. ‘This man has suffered enough already.’
‘Swear you will!’ groaned Carter, reaching out to him.
The boy watched in dismay as the doctors injected another dose of sedative into the headmaster.
‘I swear, sir,’ said Ben, not knowing if Carter could still hear him. ‘I swear.’
Bankim was waiting for Ben outside. A short distance away stood the members of the Chowbar Society and everyone else who had been present when the disaster occurred. They were all watching Ben and appeared anxious and distressed. Ben approached Bankim and looked straight into his eyes, which were bloodshot from the smoke and tears.
‘Bankim, I need to know something,’ said Ben. ‘Did anyone called Jawahal visit Mr Carter?’
Bankim looked blank.
‘Nobody came today,’ replied the teacher. ‘Mr Carter spent the morning at a meeting with the Town Council and came back around twelve o’clock. Then he said he wanted to go and work in his office and didn’t want to be disturbed, not even for lunch.’
‘Are you sure he was alone when the blast occurred?’ asked Ben, praying that he’d get a positive reply.
‘Yes … I think so,’ answered Bankim, although there was a shadow of doubt in his eyes. ‘Why do you ask? What did he say?’
‘Are you completely sure, Bankim?’ Ben insisted. ‘Think carefully. It’s important.’
The teacher looked down, rubbing his forehead, as if he were trying to find the words to describe what he was barely sure of remembering.
‘About a second after the explosion I thought I saw something, or someone, come out of the office. It was all very confusing.’
‘Something or someone?’ asked Ben.
Bankim looked up and shrugged his shoulders.
‘I don’t know what it was,’ he replied. ‘Nothing I can think of can move that fast.’
‘An animal?’
‘I don’t know. It was probably just my own imagination.’
Aware of Bankim’s disdain for superstition and alleged supernatural phenomena, Ben knew the teacher would never admit to having seen something that was beyond his powers of analysis or understanding. If his mind couldn’t explain it, his eyes couldn’t see it. As simple as that.
‘If that’s the case,’ Ben insisted one last time, ‘what else did you imagine?’
Bankim looked up at the blackened gap that a few hours earlier had been Thomas Carter’s office.
‘I thought this thing was laughing,’ Bankim admitted in a whisper. ‘But I’m not going to repeat that to anyone.’
Ben nodded and, leaving Bankim by the ambulance, he walked over to his friends, who were desperate to hear about his conversation with Carter. Only Sheere observed him with visible concern, as if, deep in her heart, she alone was capable of understanding that Ben’s news would steer events down a dark and fatal path from which none of them would be able to escape.
‘We need to talk,’ said Ben calmly. ‘But not here.’
I RECALL THAT MAY MORNING AS THE FIRST SIGN OF a storm that was relentlessly closing in on us, shaping our destiny, building up behind our backs and swelling in the shadow of our complete innocence – that blessed ignorance which made us believe we were worthy of a special state of grace: because we had no past we felt we had nothing to fear from the future.
Little did we know that the jackals of misfortune were not pursuing poor Thomas Carter. Their fangs thirsted for younger blood, blood infused with the stain of a curse that could not be hidden, not even among the noisy street markets or in the depths of Calcutta’s deserted palaces.
