many familiar faces were gone from the town : the postman , whose family had been there for 5 generations and whose delicate and humble demeanor was a comforting blessing upon whomever he visited , packed up his family in a wagon and left town ; lady saraswati , who had been a fixture at aunty durgas teahouse ( an establishment now defunct ) , fell extremely ill and passed away after 3 days of horrible symptoms resembling a mix of rubella , cholera , and pertussisthe family was then asked to release the body to the local public health officials for further study , and were paid a modest sum for signing some agreement whose details they were not at liberty to disclose ; the innkeepers wife also fell ill , as did the innkeeper , which prompted bunnu to contact the public health officials , in accordance with the recent formal decrees which had been posted all about town : within hours , a group of soldiers came and carried them out on stretchers , before loading them onto the bed of a wagon atop a stack of burlap sacks .