Dan Simmons - Song of Kali

"No, Mr. Chatterjee, speaking as an Indian person, I do not agree that all of Calcutta's difficulties are simply a microcosm of urban problems everywhere."

Chatterjee stared at her over his fingers. Mrs. Chatterjee stirred uneasily. Victoria looked up at her mother but did not make a noise. I'm not sure what would have been said next if the first large raindrops had not chosen that second to begin falling around us like moist cannon fire.

"I think we would be more comfortable inside," said Mrs. Chatterjee as the full force of the storm broke around us.

The presence of Chatterjee's driver inhibited us during the ride back to the hotel, but we did communicate through elaborate codes known only to married couples.

"You should have worked for the United Nations," I said.

"I did work for the U.N.," said Amrita. "You forget that I worked there one summer as an interpreter. Two years before we met."

"Hmmm, start any wars?"

"No. I left that to the professional diplomats."

"You didn't tell me that you saw a woman almost electrocuted during breakfast."

"You didn't ask."

There are some times when even a husband knows when to shut up. We watched the passing slums through shifting curtains of rain. Some of the people there made no effort to get out of the downpour but squatted dully in the mud, heads bowed under the onslaught.

"Notice the children?" asked Amrita quietly. I hadn't, but I did now. Girls of seven and eight stood with even younger children on their hips. I now realized that this was one of the most persistent images from the past couple of days — children holding children. As the rain came down they stood under awnings, overpasses, and dripping canvases. Their ragged clothes were brightly dyed, but even the brilliant reds and royal blues did not hide the dirt and wear. The girls wore gold bracelets on their emaciated wrists and ankles. Their future dowries.

"There are a lot of children," I said.

"And almost none," said Amrita so softly that it was almost a whisper. It took me only a few seconds to realize that she was correct. For most of the youngsters we saw, their childhood was already past them. They faced a future of rearing younger siblings, heavy labor, early marriage, and rearing their own offspring. Many of the younger children we could see running naked through the mud would not survive the next few years. Those that did reach our age would greet the new century in a nation of a billion people facing famine and social chaos.

"Bobby," Amrita said, "I know that American elementary schools don't teach mathematics very seriously, but you did have Euclidean plane geometry in your secondary school, didn't you?"

"Yeah, even American high schools teach that, kiddo."

"Then you know that there are non-Euclidean geometries?"

"I've heard nasty rumors to that effect."

"I'm serious, Bobby. I'm trying to understand something here."

"Go ahead."

"Well, I began thinking about it after I mentioned alternate sets and experiments to Chatterjee."

"Uh-huh."

"If Indian culture was an experiment , then my Western prejudices tell me that it's a failure. At least in terms of its ability to adapt and protect its people."

"No argument there."

"But if it's just another set , then my metaphor suggests a much worse possibility."

"What is that?"

"If we think in terms of set theory, then I'm convinced that my two culture sets are eternally incompatible. And I am the product of these two cultures. The common element in two sets without common elements, as it were."

"East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet?"

"You see my problem, don't you, Bobby?"

"Perhaps a good marriage counselor could —"

"Shut up, please. The metaphor made me think of a more frightening analogy. What if the differences we're reacting to in Calcutta are the result of the culture's not being another set but a different geometry? "

"What's the difference?"

"I thought you knew Euclid."

"We were introduced but never got on a first-name basis."

Amrita sighed and looked out at the industrial nightmare through which we traveled. It occurred to me that this was Fitzgerald's industrial wasteland imagery from Gatsby taken to the tenth power. It also occurred to me that my own private literary references were beginning to be contaminated by Amrita's mathematical metaphors.

I watched as a man squatted by the roadside to defecate. He lifted his shirt over his head and prepared a small bronze bowl of water for the fingers of his left hand.

"Sets and number theories overlap," said Amrita. I suddenly realized by the tension in her voice that she was very serious. "Geometries don't. Different geometries are based on different theorems, postulate different axioms, and give rise to different realities."

"Different realities?" I repeated. "How can you have different realities?"

"Perhaps you cannot," said Amrita. "Perhaps only one is 'real.' Perhaps only one geometry is true. But the question is, What happens to me — to all of us — if we've chosen the wrong one?"

The police were waiting for us when we returned to the hotel.

"A gentleman has been waiting to see you, sir," said the assistant manager as he handed me our room key. I turned to the lobby expecting to find Krishna, but the man who rose from the plum-colored sofa was tall, turbaned, and bearded — obviously a Sikh.

"Mr. Luck-zak?"

"Loo- zack . Yes."

"I am inspector Singh of the Calcutta Metropolitan Police." He showed me a badge and a faded identity photo behind yellowed plastic.

"Inspector?" I did not offer to shake hands.

"Mr. Luczak, I would like to speak to you concerning a case which our department is investigating."

Krishna's got me into some sort of trouble . "And what is that, Inspector?"

"The disappearance of M. Das."

"Ah," I said and gave the room key to Amrita. I had no intention of inviting this policeman up to our room. "Do you need to speak to my wife, Inspector? It's time for our little one to eat."

"No. It will take only a minute, Mr. Luczak. I am sorry to interrupt your afternoon."

Amrita carried Victoria to the elevator and I looked around. The assistant manager and several porters were watching curiously. "What do you say we go into the License Room, Inspector?" This was the Indian hotel euphemism for a bar.

"Very good."

It was darker in the bar, but as I ordered a gin and tonic and the Inspector asked for just tonic, I was able to take time to appraise the tall Sikh.

Inspector Singh carried himself with the unselfconscious authority of a man who was used to being obeyed. His voice held the echo of years in England, not the Oxbridge drawl but the clipped precision of Sandhurst or one of the other academies. He wore a well-tailored tan suit that fell just short of being a uniform. The turban was wine-red.

His appearance confirmed what little I knew about Sikhs. A minority religious group, they made up possibly the most aggressive and productive segment of Indian society. As a people they tended to understand machinery, and although the majority of Sikhs inhabited the Punjab, they could be found driving taxis and operating heavy equipment throughout the country. Amrita's father had said that ninety percent of his bulldozer operators had been Sikhs. It was also the Sikhs who made up the upper echelons of the military and police forces. From what Amrita had told me, only the Sikhs had capitalized on the Green Revolution and modern agricultural technology to make a go of their extensive cooperative farms in the north of India.

It also had been the Sikhs who were responsible for many of the massacres of Muslim civilians during the partition riots.