Almost two days had passed before Gopal heard of it. One evening Dantu, his hollow face haggard and strained, knocked at the door of the room he was staying in then. Gopal, he said pleading, sucking his teeth in distress, can you come with me to see Balaram now? I can’t face him alone — not with what I have to say to him.
Come where? Gopal said in surprise.
To the hospital, of course.
Hospital? Gopal cried. What do you mean?
Dantu took off his spectacles and squinted at him: Don’t you know? And then he hit himself on the thigh. Of course, he exclaimed, no one remembered to tell you about it. I was too busy with Balaram in the hospital, and the other Rationalists … well, there aren’t any other Rationalists now. Those who haven’t gone over to the Science Association are busy trying to keep out of sight.
Gopal caught his arm and dragged him into the room, and later they almost ran all the way to the hospital. When they reached the foot of Balaram’s bed, Gopal saw him smiling through the twin white mounds of his plastered legs and he collapsed on to a chair.
Balaram surveyed them calmly: Well? There was no answer. Gopal panted helplessly, staring at the white expanse of plaster. In the end it was Dantu who broke the silence.
Balaram, he said abruptly, I’ve come to tell you that I’m leaving the Rationalists, too.
Balaram nodded as though he had expected it; and Dantu, who had braced himself for an argument, was suddenly deflated. I told you, he said weakly, I told you it wouldn’t work. I told you it was a mad idea.
Balaram shrugged, smiling: But I had to try, didn’t I? Grimacing, Dantu began to drum on the rusty steel bedpost.
And you, Dantu? Balaram said. Are you joining the Science Association, too?
Dantu snorted: You should know better than that, Balaram. He began to say something else, stopped, and toed the floor meditatively. Then with a long sigh he patted Balaram’s plaster casts. All right, Balaram, he said, I’ll go now.
Quickly Balaram called out: Wait. He reached under his pillow and drew out a book wrapped in a tattered brown-paper cover. Give me your pen, he said to Gopal and, taking it, began to scribble on the title-page.
When he had finished he held the book out to Dantu. Here’s something for you, he said gravely. Look after it; put it in that old bookcase of yours.
The book fell open in Dantu’s hands and he saw that it was the Life of Pasteur. Biting his lip, he squeezed Balaram’s shoulder. Don’t worry, he said. I’ll look after it. He raised the book in a brief salute, and hurried away.
Don’t lose it, Balaram called out after him. You’ll need it someday; someday it’ll help you remember Reason.
It’s all my fault, Gopal said afterwards, wringing his hands. I’m responsible, no one else. I shouldn’t have let it happen.
What could you have done? said Balaram.
I don’t know, but I shouldn’t have let it happen. I knew it would happen, I knew it. I should never have let you become president of the Rationalists. I foresaw it: I knew you would bring disaster on yourself and the society if you ever became president.
Balaram laughed and winced a moment later, as a spasm of pain shot out of his legs. Do you really think, he groaned, that there was anything you could do about it? You’re wrong if you do. Nothing you or I could have done would have made any difference. This happened because it had to happen. There’s a meaning in it — for me.
Oh God, thought Gopal, he’s going to start lecturing again, in this state. Aloud he said: Balaram, don’t start making up one of your theories again. There’s no meaning in this. It was just an accident. You shouldn’t have run and you shouldn’t have jumped. They wouldn’t have done anything at all. It was just a moment’s foolishness — an accident. Now you should rest.
Balaram pounced on the inconsistency: If it was just an accident, why did you say you shouldn’t have let it happen? Nobody can prevent accidents.
Gopal, confused, said huffily: Don’t be silly, Balaram, and you shouldn’t argue in this state. It was an accident. Everybody says so. And accidents happen by chance. Chance doesn’t have a meaning — that’s why it’s chance.
Balaram chuckled with delight and winced again. An event, he said, is what you make of it. You don’t really believe it was an accident, either. It had a meaning, and you know what the meaning was. You just said so. I shouldn’t have run. I should have stood my ground. I know that now, and next time I shall stand my ground, for Reason has nothing to fear.
Balaram, Gopal said wearily, it was just an accident.
It wasn’t any ordinary accident, Balaram said. And the proof of it is that it fell into the lap of the man who could make the best use of it. All right, you tell me, when that plane had a whole country, a whole state, a whole district, a whole village to choose from, why did it crash on Bhudeb Roy’s school, a few yards away from his wife? Why?
Why? echoed Gopal.
Because that plane was a gift from the sky.
And from the very first hour Bhudeb Roy showed that he was not the man to throw away a gift.
After he had led Parboti-debi back to the safety of their house, he went back to the school and took charge at once of the villagers’ haphazard fire-fighting efforts. Under his coolly efficient direction they soon reduced the flaming wreck to a sizzling, steaming heap of metal. But they could not prevent more than half the school from burning down. When the last embers were finally stamped out, only a few rooms, including Bhudeb Roy’s office, were left standing.
Bhudeb Roy did not pause for an instant. He called for the tough young men who collected his rents from the shanties. At the same time he sent his sons out to recruit a few more. Within half an hour he had twenty willing and hungry young recruits. He armed them with stout wooden sticks and ordered them to herd the villagers out of the school grounds. When that was done he deployed them around the school and left them to guard it through the night.
Next morning, after breakfasting, he went to the school and conducted a careful inspection to make sure that the wreck of the aeroplane had not been tampered with at night. Then he had his office desk carried out. He placed it carefully in the shade of a remnant of the school’s veranda. He wedged himself behind it, spread a cash register open and sent his sons out to let it be known that he was ready to take bids.
Soon a crowd thronged into the school, and Bhudeb Roy was glad that he had had the foresight to organize a private army to keep things under control. Under the watchful eyes of his lean young men, the bids poured in, in a well-organized, disciplined kind of way.
Bolai-da decided that the metal sheets of the fuselage would make a good roof for his expanding cycle and hardware shop. It would be a kind of advertisement as welclass="underline" people would go out of their way to visit a shop which had an aeroplane for a roof. And, besides, at the time business was so good that he had money to waste. So he made an opening bid of five hundred rupees. But other people had the same idea. In the long run good steel or aluminium or whatever it was, polished and factory-made anyway, would be cheaper than corrugated iron. In the end Bolai-da outlasted the others — he was a little carried away by the sight of all that shining silvery metal and its cabalistic decorations of figures and numbers — but he had to pay almost a thousand rupees.
Parts of the wings sold well, too: people bought them to put across ditches and canals as tidy little bridges. Bhudeb Roy managed to coax a total of five bridges out of those two wings. He sold them for four hundred rupees each. There were good bits of glass to dispose of after that, and rubber, and a whole heap of nuts and bolts.