Dan Simmons - Song of Kali

"Your impressions of Calcutta, Mr. Luczak?"

Chatterjee's sudden question caught me off guard. I took a drink of Scotch and let the warmth spread for a second before answering. "Calcutta is fascinating, Mr. Chatterjee. It's far too complex a city even to react to in two days. It's a shame we won't have more time to explore it."

"You are diplomatic, Mr. Luczak. What you mean to say is that you find Calcutta appalling. It has already offended your sensibilities, yes?"

"Appalling is not the correct word," I said. "It's true that the poverty affects me."

"Ah, yes, poverty ," said Chatterjee and smiled as if the word had deeply ironic connotations. "Indeed, there is much poverty here. Much squalor by Western standards. That must offend the American mind, since America has repeatedly dedicated its great will to eliminating poverty. How did your ex-President Johnson put it . . . to declare war on poverty? One would think that his war in Vietnam would have satisfied him."

"The war on poverty was another war we lost," I said. "America continues to have its share of poverty." I set my empty glass down, and a servant appeared at my elbow to pour more Scotch.

"Yes, yes, but it is Calcutta we are discussing. One of our better poets has referred to Calcutta as that 'half-crushed cockroach of a city.' Another of our writers has compared our city to an aged and dying courtesan surrounded by oxygen tanks and rotting orange peels. Would you agree with that, Mr. Luczak?"

"I would agree that those are very strong metaphors, Mr. Chatterjee."

"Is your husband always so circumspect, Mrs. Luczak?" asked Chatterjee and smiled at us over his glass. "No, no, you should not be concerned that I will take offense. I am used to Americans and their reaction to our city. They will react in either one of two ways: they will find Calcutta 'exotic' and concentrate only on their tourist pleasures; or they will be immediately horrified, recoil, and seek to forget what they have seen and not understood. Yes, yes, the American psyche is as predictable as the sterile and vulnerable American digestive system when it encounters India."

I looked at Mrs. Chatterjee, but she was bouncing Victoria on her lap and seemed not to hear her husband's pronouncements. At the same instant Amrita glanced at me, and I took it as a warning. I smiled to show that I was not going to get argumentative. "You may well be right," I said. "Although I wouldn't presume to say that I understood the 'American psyche' or the 'Indian psyche' — if there are such things. First impressions are necessarily shallow. I appreciate that. I've admired Indian culture for a long time, even before I met Amrita, and she's certainly shared some of the beauty of it with me. But I admit that Calcutta is a bit intimidating. There seems to be something unique . . . unique and disturbing about Calcutta's urban problems. Perhaps its only the scale. Friends have told me that Mexico City, for all of its beauty, shares the same problems."

Chatterjee nodded, smiled, and set down his glass. He steepled his fingers and looked at me the way a teacher looks at a student who may or may not be worth investing more time in. "You have not traveled extensively, Mr. Luczak?"

"Not really. I backpacked through Europe some years ago. Spent some time in Tangiers."

"But not in Asia?"

"No."

Chatterjee dropped his hands as if his point had been amply demonstrated. But the lesson was not quite over. He snapped his ringers, fired a command, and a moment later the servant brought out a slim blue book. I could not make out the title. "Please tell me if you find this a fair and reasonable description of Calcutta, Mr. Luczak," said Chatterjee and began to read aloud:

He stopped, closed the book, and raised his eyebrows in polite interrogation.

I had made no great objection to continuing to act as a straight man if it amused our host. "It has its relevant parts," I said.

"Yes." Chatterjee smiled and held up the book. "This, Mr. Luczak, is a contemporary account of London written in the 1850's. One must take into account the fact that India is only now embarking on its own Industrial Revolution. The displacement and confusion which shocks you so — no, no, do not deny it — these are necessary by-products of such a revolution. You are lucky, Mr. Luczak, that your own culture has gone beyond that point."

I nodded, and resisted the impulse to tell him that the description he'd read would have been apt for the neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago where I'd grown up. I still felt it was worth one more effort to clarify my feelings.

"That's very true, Mr. Chatterjee. I appreciate what you say. I was thinking something similar on the ride here today and you've clarified the point very well. But I have to say that in our brief time here, I've sensed something . . . something different about Calcutta. I'm not sure what it is. A strange sense of . . . violence, I guess. A sense of violence seething just under the surface."

"Or insanity perhaps?" asked Chatterjee flatly.

I said nothing.

"Many would-be commentators on our city, Mr. Luczak, make note of this supposed sense of all-pervading violence here. Do you see that street? Yes, that one there?"

I followed his pointing finger. A bullock cart was moving down the otherwise empty side street. Except for the slowly moving cart and the multi-trunked banyan trees, the scene could have been in an old, well-worn section of any American city. "Yes," I said. "I see it."

"Some years ago," he said, "I sat here at breakfast and watched as a family was murdered there. No, murdered is not the correct word. They were butchered, Mr. Luczak, butchered . There. Right there. Where the cart is passing now."

"What happened?"

"It was during the Hindu-Muslim riots. There had been a poor Muslim family that lived with a local doctor. We were used to their presence. The man was a carpenter and my father had used his services many times. Their children had played with my younger brother. Then, in 1947, they chose the tensest time of the riots to emigrate to East Pakistan.

"I saw them come up the street, five of them counting the youngest child, a babe in her mother's arms. They were in a horse-drawn wagon. I was eating breakfast when I heard the noise. A crowd of people had intercepted them. The Muslim argued. He made the mistake of using his braid whip on the leader of the mob. There was a great surge forward. I was sitting right where you are, Mr. Luczak. I could see very well. The people used clubs, paving stones, and their bare hands. They may well have used their teeth. When it was over, the Muslim carpenter and his family were stained bundles on the street. Even their horse was dead."

"Good God," I said. And then, into the silence, "Are you saying that you agree with those who say there's a streak of insanity in this city, Mr. Chatterjee?"

"Quite the contrary, Mr. Luczak. I mention this incident because the people in that mob were . . . and are . . . my neighbors: Mr. Golwalkar, the teacher; Mr. Sirsik, the baker; old Mr. Muhkerjee who works in the post office near your hotel. They were ordinary people, Mr. Luczak, who lived sane lives before that regrettable incident and who returned to sane lives afterward. I mention this because it shows the folly of anyone who singles out Calcutta as a bedlam of Bengali insanity. Any city can be said to have such 'violence seething just under the surface.' Have you seen the English-language newspaper today?"