Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre [130]
“Get over here quickly, and bring a whole suitcase full of film with you. You’re going to have hundreds of photos to take.”
The young man who had dreamed of making his name photographing glamorously dressed women, hurriedly threw on his clothes, loaded his Pentax and hopped on his scooter.
Before beginning the autopsies, it was essential that the two forensic pathologists devise a system for identifying the victims. Nearly all of them had been caught in their sleep and had fled their homes half naked. Satpathy enlisted the help of a squad of medical college students.
“Examine each corpse,” he told them, “and jot down its description in a notebook. For example, ‘circumcised male, approximately forty, scar on chin, striped underpants.’ Or again, ‘little girl aged about ten, three metal bracelets on right wrist, etc.’ Make a note of any deformities, tattoos and any distinctive features likely to facilitate identification of the victim by their next of kin. Then place a card with a number on it on each body.”
The doctor turned then to Godane. “You photograph the numbered bodies. As soon as you’ve developed your negatives, we’ll put them on display. In that way families will be able to try and find anyone they’ve lost.”
Next, addressing himself to everyone, he added, “Get a move on! They’ll be coming for the bodies!”
Soon the shutter on the Pentax was firing like a tommy gun over the stiffened bodies. Although he had spent years immortalizing the victims of minor accidents on glossy paper, Subashe Godane was suddenly face to face with a wholly different form of death: industrial death, death on a huge scale. While he was working, he found himself wondering whether he had not photographed a particular young woman in a multicolored sari, or a particular little girl whose long braids were adorned with yellow marigolds, on a previous occasion. Perhaps on Hamidia Road, or in the jewelry market at the great mosque, or near the fountain in Spices Square. But that night his models’ eyes had rolled back into their skulls, the amber tint of their skin had turned the color of ashes and their mouths had set into dreadful rictuses. Godane had difficulty continuing with his macabre documentary. All at once he thought he was seeing things. By the light of his flash, he saw the features of a face twitch. Two eyes opened. “This man isn’t dead!” he yelled to Satpathy who came running with his stethoscope. Sure enough, the man was still alive. The doctor called for a stretcher and had him taken to a recovery ward where he regained consciousness. He was wearing a railway worker’s tunic. It was V.K. Sherma, the deputy stationmaster who had saved hundreds of passengers by risking his life to get the Gorakhpur Express to leave.
There were other shocks in store on that tragic night. Two female corpses were brought in by unknown persons. When Satpathy examined them, he realized that they had not been killed by gas but murdered. One had a deep wound to the throat, the other had burns to a substantial part of her body. The catastrophe had provided the killers with the perfect alibi. The doctor also saw the corpse of the same little boy three times, labeled with three different numbers. It was a fraudulent act that would enable his family to claim three times the insurance compensation the American multinational might pay.
Other parents refused to accept the awful reality. A young father placed his son’s corpse in the arms of Dr. Deepak Gandhe, one of the doctors on duty.
“Save him!” the stranger pleaded. “Your child is dead!” replied Gandhe, trying to give the little body back to his father.
“No! No! You can save him!”
“He’s dead, I tell you!” insisted the doctor. “There’s nothing I can do for him.”
“Then the man ran off, leaving the child in my arms,” Deepak Gandhe would recount. “In his heart of hearts he was convinced that I could bring him back to life.”
On dissecting the first corpses, the two forensic pathologists could hardly believe what they found. The blood of a gray-goateed Muslim, into which Satpathy dipped