Susan Munro

Susan Munro is reconstructed through a search that yields no confirmed account of her later life. Once a singer on Park Street, she is remembered by others as a woman who left Calcutta with Commander Shannon for Illinois; whether she returned, what name she may now use, and what became of her remain unresolved.

Identity and Earlier Work

The narrator first asks women who entered their profession after the war whether they know Susan Munro, identifying her as someone who used to sing on Park Street. They have not heard of her, and question why a former Park Street singer would have ended up among them. Their surprise marks the distance between Susan’s remembered occupation and the circumstances in which the narrator is now searching for her.

A second woman recognizes the name Susan and recalls her as the seller of cakes who began singing in her place for a salary of ten rupees. The account gives Susan an earlier working life as well as a point of entry into singing, but the speaker is not favorably disposed toward her; her recollection is therefore both useful and colored by personal judgment.

The Account of Commander Shannon

When the narrator asks whether Susan has returned, Lisa supposes that Commander Shannon must have turned her out. Lisa says the American soldiers could obtain what they wanted by paying, and describes Shannon as having taken a woman with a bad reputation to Illinois and recast her, in Lisa’s telling, as a virgin. Lisa also says he wanted to marry Susan in Calcutta but ultimately lacked the courage to do so. Since Susan still had a husband in the eyes of the law, Lisa suggests that the obstacle could be ignored in Illinois, where no one knew the truth.

These claims establish neither Susan’s actual legal circumstances in Illinois nor the nature of her life there. They are Lisa’s account, delivered with marked disapproval. She speculates that Shannon may have expelled Susan and wonders what name Susan might have adopted; the narrator receives no confirmation that she has returned at all.

An Unfinished Search

The narrator treats Lisa’s recollection as the recovery of a chapter that had seemed inaccessible. He is tempted to tell her what he knows and ask whether she remembers a night at the Shahjahan Hotel with a foreigner called Marco Polo, but chooses not to. The withheld question connects Susan’s past to the narrator’s own memories without establishing what Lisa would have recalled or what Susan’s part in that night was.

Susan consequently remains an absent figure whose history emerges in fragments: a singer’s work on Park Street, a ten-rupee wage, and a reported departure for Illinois with Shannon. The search brings the narrator closer to a buried episode, but it does not settle Susan’s fate. Lisa’s uncertainty about her return and name leaves the central personal history open.