Murugan gave a screech of laughter that went spiralling tinnily around the elevator. 'How did we get on this subject anyway?' he said. 'Oh yeah, you were telling me I'm going to be a deadbeat divorce if I go to Calcutta.'
Antar intercepted a stare from an acquaintance and dropped his eyes. He kept them down until they stepped off the elevator.
They went to a small Thai restaurant, right around the corner from the building where LifeWatch had its offices. The waiter took their orders, and a moment of constrained silence followed. It was Antar who spoke first. 'Why are you so determined to go to Calcutta?' he blurted out suddenly. He regretted it once he'd said it; he was not in the habit of inviting confidences from strangers, especially someone as loud and brash as this. Yet, appalled as he was by the man's voice and manner, he couldn't help feeling an inexplicable sense of kinship with him.
Murugan smiled. 'Shall I tell you why I have to go, Ant?' he said. 'It's simple: I don't know how many years I have left, and I want to do something with my life.'
'Do something with your life?' Antar said, on a note of derision. 'What you'll be doing is throwing away all your prospects – at LifeWatch, anyway.'
'But look at it this way,' said Murugan. 'You could find a thousand people – no, two thousand… maybe ten – who could do what I'm doing now. But you won't find another person alive who knows more than I do about the subject I specialize in.'
'And that is?' Antar asked politely.
'Ronald Ross,' said Murugan. 'Nobel-winning bacteriologist. Take it from me, as far as the subject of Ronnie Ross goes, I'm the only show in town.'
A look of some scepticism must have crossed Antar's face, for Murugan added quickly: 'I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but it's not really that big a claim. Ross wasn't a Pasteur or a Koch: he just didn't have as much variety to his game. His stuff on malaria was about the only cutting-edge work he ever did. And even that was a freak one-off thing. Do you know how long it took him?'
Antar answered with a polite shake of his head.
'The actual research, the hands-on stuff, took just three years, door to door; three years spent entirely in India. He kicked off in the summer of 1895, in a little hole-in-the-wall army camp in a place called Secunderabad and ran the last few yards in Calcutta in the summer of 1898. And for only about half that time was he actually in the lab. The rest went into cleaning up epidemics, playing tennis and polo, going on holidays in the hills, that kind of stuff. The way I figure it, he spent about five hundred days altogether working on malaria. And you know what? I've tracked him through every single one of those five hundred days: I know where he was, what he did, which slides he looked at; I know what he was hoping to see and what he actually saw; I know who was with him, who wasn't with him. It's like I was looking over his shoulder. If his wife would have asked, "How was your day, honey?" I could have told her.'
'And how did you get to learn about all that?' said Antar, raising an eyebrow.
'Look,' said Murugan, 'the great thing about a guy like Ronald Ross is that he writes everything down. You've got to remember: this guy's decided he's going to rewrite the history books. He wants everyone to know the story like he's going to tell it; he's not about to leave any of it up for grabs, not a single minute if he can help it. He's figured on a guy like me coming along some day and I'm happy to oblige. If you think about it, it's not a whole lot to know about: five hundred days of a guy's life.'
'Was Ross really that interesting?' Antar said.
'Interesting?' Murugan gave a shout of laughter. 'Yes and no. He was a genius, of course, but he was also a dickhead.'
'Yes,' said Antar, 'go on, I'm listening.'
'OK,' said Murugan, 'picture this: here's this guy, a real huntin', fishin', shootin' colonial type, like in the movies; plays tennis and polo and goes pig-sticking; good-looking guy, thick moustache, chubby pink cheeks, likes a night out on the town every now and again; drinks whisky for breakfast some mornings; wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life for the longest time; sort of thought he'd like to write novels; had a go, wrote a couple of medieval romances; then said to himself, "Hell, this isn't working out like I thought, let's try writing poems instead." But that didn't pan out either and then Pa Ross, who's this big general in the British Army in India, says to him, "And what the fuck do you think you're doing, Ron? Our family's been out here in India since it was invented and there's no goddam service here doesn't have a Ross in it, you name it, Civil Service, Geological Service, Provincial Service, Colonial Service… I've heard of them all, but no one told me about no Poetical Service yet. You need to dry out your sinuses, kid, and I'm going to tell you where you're going to do it so listen up. There's this outfit that's short on Rosses right now: the Indian Medical Service. It's got your name on it, written so large you can read it from a space shuttle. So kiss goodbye to this poetry shit, poetry just don't cut it."
'So young Ronnie snaps off a salute and scoots over to medical school in London. He coasts for the next few years, writing a few poems, doing gigs on open-mike nights, dreaming up outlines for his next novel. Medicine is the last thing on his mind, but he gets into the Indian Medical Service anyway and the next thing you know he's back in India toting a stethoscope and carving up vets. So he coasts again, a couple of years, playing tennis, riding, same old same old. And then one morning he gets out of bed and finds he's been bitten by the science bug. He's married, he's got kids, he's about to hit his midlife crisis; he should be saving for the power lawnmower and what does he do instead? He looks in the mirror and asks himself: "What's hot in medicine right now? What's happening on the outer edge of the paradigm? What's going to bag me a Nobel?"
And what does the minor tell him? You got it: malaria that's where it's at this season.
'So the bulbs go off in Ronnie's head until he's strung out like the Brooklyn Bridge on a clear night: "Sure," he says, "why didn't I think of it before? That's the ticket: malaria.'"
'Did Ross have malaria himself?' Antar asked.
'He got it about halfvay into his work,' said Murugan.
He directed a sharply appraising glance at Antar. 'Why'd you ask? Have you ever had it yourself?'
Antar nodded. 'Yes,' he said, 'a long time ago, in Egypt.'
Murugan sat up. 'That's funny,' he said. 'The malaria rates are pretty low in Egypt.'
'I suppose I was an exception,' said Antar.
'So was yours a freak case? Or was there a localized outbreak?'
'I don't know,' said Antar shortly.
'Do you ever get relapses?' Murugan persisted.
'Sometimes,' Antar said.
'That's how it goes,' Murugan said with a wry smile. 'You think it's gone for ever and suddenly, it's hey, long time no see.'
'So you get them too!' Antar said, raising his eyebrows.
'Do I ever!' Murugan laughed. 'But you know, I don't worry about it too much. I guess it's because malaria isn't just a disease. Sometimes it's also a cure.'
'A cure?' Antar said. 'For what?'
'Ever heard of Julius Wagner-Jauregg?'
'No.'
'He won the Nobel too; for stuff he did with malaria. He was even born the same year as Ronnie Ross, but in Austria. He was a psychologist: had a couple of serious run-ins with Freud. But the reason his name is up there in the bright lights is that he discovered something about malaria that Ross couldn't even have begun to guess at.'