The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s. Brian Aldiss
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in with Chundaprassi, walking sedately through the puddles and wet ash; now he stopped in some confusion and gazed into the wrinkled face of his companion.
‘Professor – you are a professor, so you understand many things above the powers of ordinary men such as myself – though even as I say “ordinary men such as myself”, I am conscious of my own extraordinariness. I am a unique being –’
‘Of course, of course, and the point really cannot be too greatly emphasised. No two men are alike! There are a thousand characteristics, as I have always maintained –’
‘Quite so, but I’m hardly talking about a characteristic, if you will forgive my being so disagreeable as to interrupt you when you are plainly just embarking on an interesting if somewhat long lecture on human psychology. And forgive me, also, if I seem to be talking rather like a Dostoevsky character – it’s just that lately I’ve been obsessed –’
‘Dostoevsky? Dostoevsky?’ The professor scratched his head. ‘Naturally I am familiar with the major writing of the Russian novelist … But I fail momentarily to recall which of his novels is set, even partially, in Benares.’
‘You mistake my meaning – unintentionally, I’m sure, since a little sarcasm is positively beyond you. I happen to be in a spot, professor, and if you can’t help, then to hell with you! My trouble is that my ego, or my consciousness, or something, is not fixed in time or space. Can you believe me if I tell you that no more than a couple of hours ago, I was a Belgian dentist at a seaside resort?’
‘Allow me to wish you good night, sir!’ The professor was about to turn away when Morilal grasped him by one arm.
‘Professor Chundaprassi! Please tell me why you are going so suddenly!’
‘You believe you are a white man! A Belgian white man! Clearly you are victim of some dreadful hallucination brought about by reading too much in the newspapers about the colour bar. You’ll be a Negro, next, no doubt! Good night!’
He pulled himself free from Morilal’s grip and tottered hurriedly from the burning ghat.
‘I will be a Negro and be damned to you, if I so desire!’ Morilal exclaimed aloud.
‘Congratulations, sir! You are quite right to exercise your freedom of judgment in such matters!’ It was one of the bathers who spoke, a fat man now busily oiling his large and glistening breasts; Morilal had noticed that he was avidly listening to the conversation with the professor and had already taken a dislike to the man.
‘What do you know about it?’ he enquired.
‘More than you may think! There are many people like yourself, sir, who are able to move from character to character, like birds from flower to flower. I myself, but yesterday, was a beautiful young Japanese lady aged only twenty years with a tiny and beautifully-proportioned body, and a lover of twenty-two of amazing ardour.’
‘You are inventing filth, you fat old Bengali!’ So saying, he jumped at the man, who tripped him neatly but failed to stand back in time, so that Morilal took him with him as he fell, and they rolled together, hands at each other’s throat, down the slimy steps into the Ganges.
He dragged himself out of the river. For a while, as he lay on the bank with his head throbbing, he thought he had experienced another epileptic fit. Something of the chequered past came back to him, and he dragged himself up.
He was lying half out of a shallow stream, under a stone bridge. As he got to his feet, he saw the stream cut through a small country town. The place seemed to be deserted: so empty and so still that it looked almost like an artificial place. Slowly, he walked forward, down the curving street, staring at the small stone houses with their gardens neat and unmoving in the thin sun.
By the time he reached the other end of the street, where the buildings stopped and the fields began again, he had seen nobody. The only movement had come from an old cat, stuffily walking down a garden path. As he looked back the way he had come, he saw that he had just passed an unpretentious building bearing the sign POLICE STATION. For several minutes, he stared at it, and then moved briskly towards it, opened the door and marched in.
A portly man with a grey moustache that drooped uncomfortably over his lips sat reading a newspaper behind a counter. He wore a green uniform. When the door opened, he looked up, nodded politely and put down his paper.
‘What can I do for you, sir?’
‘I want to report a murder. In fact, I want to report three murders.’
‘Three murders! Are you sure?’
‘Not really. I don’t know whether I killed the persons concerned or not, but it must be worth checking. There was a friend of mine, a producer, and my fiancée, and a poor black man in India. I can give you their names. At least, I think I can remember. Then there’s the time and place …’
His voice died. He could see it was going to be difficult. His impulse had been to enlist help; perhaps it had not been a wise impulse. And had he ever been anyone else, or had it all been the product of a fever?
The policeman slowly came round the counter, adjusting his face until it was absolutely without expression.
‘You seem to have some very interesting ideas, sir, if I may say so. You wouldn’t mind if I ask you a question before you go any further? Good. You say you don’t know whether you killed these unknown persons or not?’
‘I – I get blackouts. I am never myself. I seem to work through a lot of different people. You’d better assume I did kill them.’
‘As you like, sir. Which brings me to my next question. How do you mean, one of them was a black man from India?’
‘It was as I said. He was very black. No offence meant – it’s just a fact. Quite an amusing man, now I come to think of it, but black.’
‘His clothes were black, sir?’
‘His clothes were white. He was black. His skin. Good heavens, man, you stare at me – I suppose you know that the people of India are pretty dark?’
The policeman stared at him with blank astonishment. ‘Their skins are dark, you say?’
‘Am I offending you in some way? I didn’t invent the idea, don’t forget! As sure as the good Lord took it into his head to make you and me this rather unattractive pink-white-grey tone, he made the Indians more or less brown and the Negroes more or less black. You do know that Negroes are black, I suppose?’
The policeman banged his fist on the desk. ‘You are mad! By golly, you are mad! Negroes are as white as you are.’
‘You mean the Negroes in Africa?’
‘Negroes anywhere! Whoever heard of a black Negro?’
‘The very word means black. It’s from a Latin root or something.’
‘From a Greek root meaning tall!’
‘You liar!’
‘You simpleton!’ The policeman leant over and grabbed his newspaper, smoothed it out angrily with his fists. ‘Here, this will show you! I’ll make you admit your stupidity, coming in here and playing your pointless jokes on me! An intellectual, I can see!’
He ruffled through the paper. Moore caught a glimpse of its title The Alabama Star and stared up incredulously at the policeman. For the first time, he realised the man’s features were distinctly negroid, though his skin was white and his hair fair and straight. He emitted a groan of fright.
‘You a Negro?’
‘Course I am. And you look at this news item – FIRE IN NEGRO UNIVERSITY. See that picture. See any negro there with black skin? What’s got into you?’
‘You may well ask, and I wish you’d stop grasping my shirt like that – it feels as if you have some chest hair with it, thanks. I’m not trying to play a joke on you. I must be in – well, I must be in some