Alan Foster: Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

Because the tiger had now acquired a taste.

It made the news, of course. The next day, free readers drifted among the morning commuters, teasing them to purchase and download the body of the report as well as the rest of the paper. Getting off at the museum, Jena Chalmette took note of the flashing, hovering words as they flicked past her in search of paying downloaders. She did not buy the report, or the paper that contained it. Not because it was potentially too distressing, or too gory. Actually, she was very much interested in death and its many manifestations. She envied the unknown tiger capabilities that were so much greater than her own.

Not that she hadn't done all right with what small talent she had.

Tall and decidedly non-Indian, Jena had been born in France. In the south of France, to be precise, near the Pyrenees and the border with Andorra. She had become interested in India and its rich history and multifarious cultures as a teenager. Unhappily, as a teenager she had also become deeply interested in assorted threads of mysticism. This had been the despair of her quiet mother and the outrage of her loud father. Her mother had reacted to the situation by becoming more and more withdrawn and by making ever more frequent trips to an online pharmacy, from which she drew enervation if not real peace. Her father, considering himself a practical man, had tried to beat the impractical obsession out of his daughter.

Predictably, Jena had reacted by running away, to Outer Mar seilles. There she had met Jean-Paul, who had introduced her to many things seventeen-year-old girls think they know all about but soon come to realize are entirely new to them. Among the delights the lan guorous, swarthy, serpentine Jean-Paul had introduced her to were group sex, wherein she was expected to share herself freely with his acquaintances; pharmaceuticals even her mother had never thought to try; and petty theft to support their respective habits-his that was well developed, and hers that was new and growing.

Eventually she had settled on rapture-4. It sharply enhanced her emotions and heightened her perceptions. She believed it also altered the reality around her, allowing her to see things the sight of which was otherwise denied to mere mortals.

It was while semicomatose in the throes of a particularly deep and spiritual rapture-4-induced mental trip that she found herself face-to-face with Kali.

She knew Kali quite well, from her years of reading. But she had certainly never expected to encounter the goddess in person. Con fronting the wide-eyed, gaping Jena, the goddess held a sword in one hand and the head of a recently slain demon in another while her other two hands beckoned encouragingly to the young woman

kneeling at her feet. A necklace of fifty skulls garlanded her neck, one for each of the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, and each of her earrings was a dead body. She wore only a girdle comprised of the hands of dead men. Her eyes were red and her breasts and body smeared with blood. She was nigitrna , the ultimate reality, beyond name and form. The bright fire of truth that burns away everything, including clothing.

Her ivory-white teeth symbolized purity, while her red, extended tongue signified her delight in the enjoyment of everything that society considers forbidden. Smiling, she extended a welcoming hand downward. Taking it, Jena rose, utterly entranced.

"Dance with me," the goddess invited her. "The world is created and destroyed in my dancing. Your redemption lies in awareness that you are invited to take part in my dance, to yield yourself to the beat of my dance of life and death."

So Jena danced with the goddess. Entering the squalid fourth-floor walk-up they shared, a startled Jean-Paul nearly swallowed his Galois before trying his best to bring her out of her daze. He'd seen people on bad trips before, had partaken of a few himself. All he had to do was take one look at Jena's enraptured, glowing, thoroughly stoned expres sion to know that his girlfriend of the moment was way, way gone. But it was only when he saw the empty capsule box and realized just how much rapture-4 she'd taken this time, without him present to keep an eye on and moderate her consumption, that he realized the seriousness of the situation.

If he couldn't bring her down, she might never come out of it. Without her feet ever leaving the ground, she would just keep on floating, floating-until the life floated right out of her.

"Jena! Wake up! Merde , you stupid girl, stop stumbling around and listen to me!" Grabbing her by both arms, he began to shake her violently. When that didn't work, he started slapping her. Methodi cally, hard, back and forth right across the face. It had no effect. Jena fought weakly to pull away from him so she could continue dancing with the goddess, her smile blissful, her eyes focused on something he could not see.

"Confront death, my child," the goddess was urging her. "Accepting the eventuality of death will free you. I am your true mother. Accept me, and I will release you to act fully and freely, release you from the nasty, restraining constraints of pretense, practicality, and rationality." One of two left hands rose. It was missing its little finger. This reminded Jena of something, but she was too far gone to make the connection. "Accept me, serve me, and find my finger. I will be your mother, as I am mother to all. I will protect you."

"Yes," Jena murmured. "Yes, Mother. I will do it."

"Do what? You stupid bitch, do you want to OD? Wake up . Come out of it! I'm not taking you to the hospital! I can't risk getting arrested again."

An angry Jean-Paul smacked her again, harder than ever. Crimson began to trickle from one corner of her mouth. Reaching up, she touched the flow and gazed down at her red-stained fingertip with childlike wonder. Blood. Mother Kali would be pleased.

"I-I'm sorry, Jean-Paul." She shook her head, blinked, finally looked up at him and smiled faintly. "I'm all right now. It's moder ating."

"Damn good thing, too." Roughly, he let go of her. "I thought I was going to lose you. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a dead body in this town?"

"No." She put a reassuring hand on his arm. "Tell me. How is it done?"

Sudden uncertainty colored his expression as he looked back at her. "You really want to know?" Her eagerness seemed genuine, guileless. So he told her. It gave him yet another opportunity to play the big man, the knowledgeable one.

Later, they made love on the old mattress on the floor that served for a bed. Later, she killed him, wielding a kitchen knife with all her weight behind it, plunging it so deeply into his chest that the tip passed between two ribs to emerge from his back. She dedicated the slaying, the first of what she hoped would be many such sacrifices, to Mother Kali, who had finally shown her the Way. The next day she made arrangements for the disposal of his corpse, scrupulously fol lowing the directions he himself had described to her the previous afternoon. Then she sold what she could, packed a single suitcase, and bought a one-way ticket to India. To Sagramanda, where the most prominent temple of Kali in the entire country was located. It seemed the logical place to begin looking for the missing finger of a goddess.

She considered placing a farewell call to her parents. She had not spoken to her father for years, to her mother in months. But there was really no need, she assured herself. She was no longer part of their world.

Besides, she had a new mother now. One who would look after and protect her in ways she had never imagined.

She shook the last of the old thoughts out of her mind as she approached the museum. She had visited here many times before, searching the corridors, the less-visited rooms, for signs of the Mother's missing digit. Always without success. The ticket-taker recognized her as a regular and did not even ask to see the annual pass she had bought. Neatly, even primly, dressed, she attracted no more than the usual attention. Years living beneath Sagramanda's sun had turned her skin the color of weak tea. Youth kept it free of blemishes. In her lean, tall, almost model-like slenderness, she was moderately attractive without being eye-catching. Her height alone was enough to draw the atten tion of those local men brave enough to approach her. Whenever she felt too many native eyes on her, she would don large, ugly glasses.