Blood on Their Hands By Sarah Das Gupta

That day we had visited the Marble Palace in Kolkata. It would have been ideal for Sleeping Beauty. The magnificent ballroom with its dusty chandeliers, the wax-covered candelabra.

I could imagine ghostly dancers; their silk gowns sweeping the floor and hear the faintest echo of a Strauss waltz drifting along the colonnades. I stopped in front of a haunting portrait of a young man in a smoking jacket and a beautiful lawn shirt. My reverie was broken by a blaring horn from a taxi. Less than half an hour to catch the Delhi train!

I was probably already drowsy in the warm autumn sunlight as the train pulled out of Howrah. I remember a group of boys at the very end of the platform before a strangely languid mood lulled me into a deep sleep.

On the Day of the Dead, fog hung over the Lower Circular Road Cemetery in Kolkata. Sculptured angels loomed out of the mist above the grandest tombs. Most of these were relics from British Rule in India. The shadowy figure of a man appeared, under a clump of funereal yews. He turned, livid skin, stretched over the skull, revealed the veins beneath. He held out a skeletal hand. I grasped it, feeling mesmerised, touching with warm hands, cold bone. He wore a Victorian smoking jacket, well-cut black, velvet trousers, and an exquisite shirt of the finest white lawn.

As he held my hand, the cold knuckle bones knocked against my living fingers. We stood in asumptuous ballroom. In candlelight, couples floated across the floor. They turned and circled to a Viennese waltz; their elegant movements reflected on the mirrored walls. My escort led me into a dark, smoke-filled side room.

“No harm if I indulge for a while?”

“It’s suffocating here,” my voice seemed far off, as if belonging to one of the elegant dancers.

The smell was sweet like syrup, with a hint of flowers. Shadowy figures lay on silk-covered ottomans. Smokers held bamboo pipes, with lamps to vaporise the contents. A group of Indian Nautch dancers moved sinuously to the insistent beat of the tabla. Dark waterfalls of hair, and silk saris, shimmered. The rhythm quickened, the dancers were a carousel of colour and movement. The drum beat grew frenzied, desperate.

A drunken Englishman, judging by his voice and accent, grabbed the prettiest girl, tearing her blouse and sari. The trembling moment of silence that followed was shattered by a pistol shot! A young Indian servant was wrestled to the floor. Blood sprayed across the smokers.

Crowds gathered round the dead drunkard as his corpse slid to the floor. A patch of blood stained the delicate, saffron silk

The effects of the opium, the heady music the dying embers, the flickering shadows, I felt myself falling into a dark abyss...

The Delhi train stopped at Kharagpur. I sat up sleepily, “Why have I got blood on my dress?”

“Better on the dress than the hands,” an old Sikh murmured.

BEHIND THE STORY:

I lived and worked in Kolkata, West Bengal for many years. Two years ago, on returning to the city, I visited the Marble Palace, built in the 19th century for a wealthy Bengali family. It had a powerful atmosphere of the past. You could imagine the ballroom full of dancers and music. I would not have been surprised to have met a ghost from another era. I had previously walked round the cemetery in Lower Circular Road where many British from the Victorian era are buried.

ABOUT:

Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge, UK who started writing a year ago while in the hospital following an accident. She is a disciplined writer, working for seven hours most days. She holds a degree in History from the University of London and a Certificate in Education from the University of Hull. As an English teacher for over sixty years, she has read and taught much of English Literature. Sarah enjoys writing poetry, fiction, and memoirs. One of the great rewards of writing is the research involved. She has written on the lives of creatures ranging from giant turtles to beavers and from Indian women working on construction sites to the fashion industry's sustainability. Her work has been published in over 150 magazines including American Writers Review, New English Review; Perfect Haiku, Songs of Eretz, and Dipity whose editor published her first poem. Many years ago in India, she contributed to The Statesman's book reviews and the regular feature The Calcutta Notebook. Her current ambition at 82 is to have a chapbook published.

EDITOR'S SONG PAIRING: Cselotei Peter --- 05.11: Viennese Waltz - Secrets (59 BPM)