Short Story
Unclaimed Corpse
artwork by apurba kanti das
Jamshed Choudhury said to his son, "Tipu, go at a run to Tarafdar and tell him to come over. Tell him I sent you, and he is to come immediately." Tipu asked, "If he asks me why, what do I tell him?" "Tell him your head's cracked, you idiot," Jamshed snarled at him. "Tell him 'I don't know.'"As soon as Tipu left he called out to Jhunu. "Are you going to the academy today?" Jhunu said, "Today we have our examinations." "So what? What will you do by learning how to sing? All that nonsense stops today. I'm not going to stand for it anymore. All of you are getting out of hand any..."
Mariam now came forward to intervene. "Why are you shouting at him? If he wants to go..."
"He's not going."
"Why are you raising such a fuss? If something happens would you be able to stop it? Do you have the guts? What are they going to do, stay inside and wag their tails? He is going to go..."
"They're all spoilt, all this love you heap on them has turned their heads. Don't you know I'm saying it for their own good?" Mariam said, "Just because you're afraid because God knows whose corpse is lying outside, you've started this ruckus! Aren't there other people living all around us? Are they all frozen with fear like you?"
"If something happens then you'll come to your senses."
"Whatever happens will happen," Mariam said. "Everybody knows we're not into anything fishy. Because of you Tipu doesn't even leave the house. And you've made the girl huddle inside the house all day." Soon Tarafdar made his appearance. "What's the matter?"
"Have you heard?"
"You mean the corpse, is that..."
"I get up in the morning and see it, right across the window. Can you imagine!" Tarafdar sat down and drank a glass of water, then said, "Haven't been able to find out whose corpse it is? Most likely some guerrilla-lad. What do you think?"
Jamshed Choudhury said, "Somebody from the neighbourhood certainly?"
"Who knows? Nobody seems to recognize him. That's the puzzle. Who's lying there dead..."
"I think it's some neighbourhood kid the army shot during the night and left him there. The parents must be just turning their faces away out of fear they'll get caught." Tarafdar said, "That's impossible. How can they see that and sit by silently? Would you have done it?"
"Anything's possible."
"Could be somebody from outside the neighbourhood, just happened to die here." Jamshed Choudhury responded, "What a thing to happen. What if they start to make a fuss about it? And they can involve us in it if they want to. I wonder if the corpse was found somewhere else, and in the dark somebody out of enmity with me dragged it opposite my window..."
"Do you have enemies like that?"
"Could be. Who knows what lurks in somebody else's heart? I don't consider everybody to be a good person. When I first started to live here I had a lot of problems. The people around here are not good, you know that, you've suffered here too. You're still running back and forth to the courts..." Tarafdar replied, "That's different. Now, what are you going to do about this?"
"I've forbidden the children to go outside."
"What good will that do?"
"They won't get involved in something stupid."
"Some brains you have got there! The moment I saw it what I did was send the whole family to their uncle's house in Shantinagar because I thought if they stayed here the chances of getting involved in something nasty would increase..."
"What do you mean?"
"Suppose the army uses this as an excuse to make an appearance, the thana and police get involved, what happens then? If they want witness statements there's no way to say no. As it is, I'm leaving for my office soon..."
Jamshed Choudhury said, "So tell me what to do. What a trouble to land into..."
"Why don't you inform the police?"
"And land myself into further trouble..."
"Well, you have to decide what you're going to do. I have to go soon..."
"How about doing this? How about contacting the neighbourhood Razakar camp? If one gave them some money perhaps they'd remove the corpse."
"That they might, but it's better not to have contact with them. None of them are from good families, all of them are dregs from the streets. When I see them I turn my face away. Good to stay at arm's length from them." It seemed to Jamshed Choudhury as if Tarafdar didn't want to get involved too closely in the matter. He bade goodbye to Tarafdar and stepped back into his house.
He told Jhunu, "Go for your examination. Don't waste any more time, just go..." Mariam raged at him, "All this for nothing. Why did you kick up such a hullabulloo?"
He sent Tipu off to his uncle's house in Kamalapur. After Jhunu had left, he put his eye to a crack in the window and said, "Why not do one thing?" Mariam asked, "What?"
"How about making an anonymous telephone call to the police station?"
"Why not just go there and report it? Later on they might ask, there was a corpse beside your house so why didn't you report it to us? Then what?" Jamshed Choudhury said, "My head is jammed. You know what, why doesn't Abdul go out at an opportune moment and just drag the corpse off to one side--"
"And then if they start after him about it?"
"Well, supposing he went away after that. Why not let him go off to his village for a while?" Mariam said,
"And who is going to look after the house? It's easy to say he should go off to his village, but where are we going to get someone else to do the housework?"
Jamshed Choudhury sighed, "You people are impossible! You can't go without a servant for a single day. If you lived abroad you would be carrying the full load yourselves, all this living-like-nawabs business…" A little later two khaki-clad Razakars were spotted approaching the house. They came and inspected the corpse, turning it this way and that. Then they knocked on Jamshed Choudhury's door.
Jamshed Choudhury glared at his wife and said, "See what's happened now, just what I had feared." Mariam said, "Instead of huddling behind a veil inside the house, go and talk to them." Jamshed Choudhury replied, "You've got the brains of a chicken. That's why they call you women. Always coming to a snap decision."
Mariam covered her head with her sari-end and opened the door. One of the Razakars asked, "Where's the man of the house?"
"Gone to the office. Why? What do you want?"
"There's a dead body lying next to your house."
"Yes, I noticed it this morning."
"Have you informed the police station?"
"Who's going to do it? There's nobody really in the house--"
One of the Razakars was very young. He now spoke up, "It's been lying there all this time, and you haven't bothered to inform anybody about it?" Mariam replied angrily, "Well, that's your responsibility. There's things to do here, there's office and jobs. Where is the time to do these things?"
The other, older Razakar, who had been standing silently with his face averted, now said, "It's lying beside your house. This could be trouble for you…"
Mariam said, "All right, we'll see to it then. We know what happens afterwards with these things…" The Razakar was a bit taken aback by Mariam's spirited demeanour. He said meekly, "Well, this is a legal matter, so…"
"What do you know about legal matters? All you know is how to be a Razakar," Mariam now screeched. "My husband is going to call the Army from his office. There's a Razakar camp right under our noses, and yet we have a corpse lying beside our house. All they do is wander around enjoying themselves. Why can't the body be dragged to the river and dumped there?"
The young Razakar replied, "We came as soon as we got the news."
"Where were you the whole night?"
"The army and police don't have guard duties."
"If the army comes, what will you have to say for yourself? I know you people very well. The army will have you hopping all over the place…"
The young Razakar seemed to think of something and stepped forward. In a low voice he said, "Murad Bux has done this. The body was lying on the other side of the road. He hired some people and had it dragged to the back of your house." The trouble with Murad Bux had started after they had bought this plot of land in Rayer Bazar. Ever since then Murad Bux had been after Jamshed Choudhury, but had not succeeded in doing anything. Even when the house was being built he had hired some youths who one night had knocked over a side wall.
Mariam said in a commanding voice, "We know that too…"
"So what is to be done now?"
"You find out. You are on duty, and some goons drag a corpse and dump it beside somebody else's house. We'll see what happens when the army comes around." The young Razakar now said uneasily, "We didn't know it then. It wouldn't have happened had we known…"
"There's still time," Mariam replied. "Get a few people and take the body away to Hatkhola. That should take care of the problem. If you need money I can give you some."
Mariam closed the door immediately after saying this.
A little later the two Razakars returned with some youths. Again the young Razakar knocked on the door. "Auntie," he said, "give us twenty Rupees. We'll dump the corpse in the Buriganga." After giving them the twenty Rupees Mariam let her breath out in relief. Jamshed Choudhury put his eye to the crack in the window, absorbed in watching the removal of the corpse. When it was lifted from the ground he saw that either jackals or dogs had torn at the face in such a way as to render identification impossible. This was a good development. If the body could be identified then no doubt the problem would be compounded. With his eye glued to the window crack, he grew angrier and angrier at Tarafdar: The selfish fool! If the body had been lying beside his house we would have seen how lightly he would have been gadding about! At this moment it was to the jackals, dogs and even Razakars that he felt grateful to--that Tarafdar was one man without a conscience! He felt bitter towards the whole nation, the people, everything; he had no reverence left for anybody.
After the body had been removed he left his post at the window, called for Abdul, took out some money from beneath the mattress and said, "Here, take the bag and go to the bazaar. If anybody asks, say I'm not at home, I'm at the office." After Abdul had left for the bazaar Mariam asked, "What's going on?"
"What's going on is you," said Jamshed Choudhury in a light-hearted tone, attempting a joke. "Haven't you let loose the rumour that I'm at the office. Now if I go out what'll happen if somebody sees me."
"You're something else again!"
Jamshed Choudhury said laughingly, "Well, something good came out of it, I got a day off for nothing…" After some time Mariam saw that Jamshed Choudhury had turned the dressing table mirror to the side and was sitting very silently at the head of the bed. She said, "What's the matter?"
"The matter is good""
"'Good' meaning?"
"'Good' meaning good…" and saying this, Jamshed Choudhury crawled forward on the bed, got down, rushed over to the door and bolted it. Mariam said, "A fine man you are!"
Jamshed Choudhury clasped Mariam in his two arms and said, "After how many days have I got the house to myself. Uh, just give it a thought!" Mariam freed herself from him and said, "You're getting more and more idiotic with each passing day, chee!"
Jamshed, pulling his wife toward the bed, remembered some lines of a song Jhunu would sing: Nowhere am I forbidden to wander lost In my mind... Shahed Mansur lives in Sussex, UK.
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