Birdsong in the Night: An excerpt

Editor’s note: Dr Datta, a man with a high self-regard, finds himself stranded at night at a bus stop during a violent rainstorm. There, he’s solicited by a young woman who, he figures out eventually, is a sex worker, a “wretched streetwalker”. Surprised by this encounter, the respected doc takes her back to his chambers and decides to conduct an impromptu medical exam. He’s expecting flattery and gratitude for this loud show of magnanimity, but her reaction alarms him. 

We feature this excerpt from ‘Incognita’, originally ‘Chhadmabeshini’, by the late Sunil Gangopadhyay, a towering heavyweight of Bengali literature. It’s part of Birdsong in the Night and Other Stories, a new collection of his short stories, translated into English by Chitrita Banerji, which brings into focus the stark realities of life in West Bengal in the ’70s. The story entitled 'Incognita' from Birdsong in the Night and Other Stories, by Sunil Gangopadhyay (translated by Chitrita Banerji) is excerpted by permission of Aleph Book Company. 

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He would have to get confirmation later of course with a Wassermann test. But he was positive now that the girl had syphilis. He came back to the examination room, and spoke to her.

‘You will have to take shots of 5,000 units of penicillin twice daily, for ten days at the very least. Morning and evening. If you wish, you can come here for the shots. I will tell my pharmacist to attend to you.’

The girl listened to him with wide-opened eyes, but did not answer.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘you can get up now. No need to keep lying there.’

‘What, finished already?’

She sat up on the bed, swinging her legs. Then she picked up the sari which had been flung over her, and put it to one side. Unnecessarily she untied and retied the drawstring of her petticoat; fastened together a pair of buttons on her blouse, raised her arms and fixed her hair. After all of this, she smirked once again, and stepped on to the floor. Finally, she started putting on her sari.

‘Where do you live?’ asked the doctor. ‘Can you manage to make your own way there so late at night?’

‘Why not? I do it every night. I don’t depend on cars and buses. I just walk. All right, I’m ready, let me have it.’

‘Have what?’

‘My money, of course. Or did you think you were going to get it for free?

This time the doctor went rigid with shock. He had never been so amazed in his whole life. This girl had the temerity to ask him for money! Nobody ever asked him for money; on the contrary, they paid him. How ungrateful could you get? He had just spent time giving her a free medical examination. With any other patient, he would have charged at least fifty rupees.

‘Give you money for what?’ he demanded.

‘Come on now. Do you think my time is worth nothing? You have to pay for it.’

By now the doctor was absolutely furious. This wretched streetwalker was telling him about the value of her time! She did not even realize what kind of a man she was speaking to, how successful a doctor he was. Every day his chambers were filled to overflowing with patients waiting to see him. Sometimes he even had to send them away for lack of time. And this girl was asking him to pay for her time.

‘Get out of here,’ he said. ‘I’m going to lock up.’

‘Get out my foot! You’ve got a few things to learn yet, mister. Give me my money or I won’t budge. You’ve got to pay for your fun, or didn’t they teach you that?’

‘Fun?’

‘Yes, fun. Some get it from sleeping with a woman, some just from holding and kissing her. You are the kind that gets pleasure from just looking. You made up all those excuses to look me over. If you want to see some more, you only have to tell me—I’ll show you anything.’

‘Quiet! I won’t have you speaking like this to me.’

‘Don’t try to shut me up, lovey. I came out to earn my living. If you hadn’t brought me here, I would have gone with someone else. So just hand over the money you owe me.’

‘Get lost, will you.’

The girl now took on an altogether different stance. She put her hands on her hips and undulated her body in an almost serpentine posture. She looked at him with narrowed, venomous eyes.

‘So, my fine gentleman, you think you’re going to cheat me out of my money? You think you can get away with abusing me. Want to find out whether I can get it out of you or not? Well, I’ll show you. Just remember, I’m only asking for money that’s mine by rights. Think I am going to go home with empty hands? I’ve just about had it with people like you. All play and no pay! Who the hell do you think you are?’

‘Please, stop shouting.’

‘Why shouldn’t I shout? Think you can get your pleasure without unloading your wallet? Who asked you to bring me in here then? If you don’t pay me what you owe me, I’ll scream the place down. So watch it.’

The girl had already raised her voice a lot. The doctor was terrified. The watchman was there outside. And the people in the house next door could probably hear her. He was never in his chambers after ten in the evenings. If his neighbours now came and saw him in here so late at night with a streetwalker—

He took his wallet out of his pocket, bent his head, and said, ‘How much?’

‘I charge fifteen rupees for an hour.’

The doctor picked out two ten-rupee notes from the thick wad of bills in his wallet and held them out.

‘I don’t have any change,’ she said.

‘That’s all right.’

The girl promptly grabbed the two bills, folded them eightfold, and inserted them into the front of her blouse. Then she managed a smile on her still angry face and said, ‘Bye.’

The doctor did not even look at her.

*****

The story entitled 'Incognita' from Birdsong in the Night and Other Stories, by Sunil Gangopadhyay (translated by Chitrita Banerji) is excerpted by permission of Aleph Book Company.