Dan Simmons - Song of Kali

I came to his "The Song of Mother Teresa" with new eyes. Less visible to me now were the academic echoes of Tagore's influence in the hopeful theme and more apparent were the blunt references such as ". . . street death / curb death / the hopeless abandonments she moved among / a warm infant's plaint for succor / against the cold breast of a milkless city." I wondered then if Das's epic tale of the young nun who heard her calling while traveling to another mission, who came to Calcutta to help the suffering multitudes if only by providing them a place to die in peace, would ever be recognized as the classic of compassion I felt it was.

I turned the book over to look at the photo of M. Das. It reassured me. The high forehead and sad, liquid eyes reminded me of photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru. Das's face had the same patrician elegance and dignity. Only the mouth, those slightly too-full lips upturned at the corners, suggested the sensuality and slight self-centeredness so necessary in a poet. I fancied that I could see where Kamakhya Bharati had received her sensuous good looks.

When I clicked off the light and crawled in next to Amrita, I felt better about the coming day. Outside, the rain continued to tear and batter at the huddled city.

It was a strange mixture of people that set off for the manuscript rendezvous on Sunday morning. Gupta had called at 8:45. We had been up for two hours. During breakfast in the Garden Café, Amrita had announced her decision to go along on this trip and I couldn't sway her from it. Actually, I was relieved at the idea.

Gupta began the phone conversation in the inimitable style of all Indian telephonic communications.

"Hello," I said,

"Hello, hello, hello." The connection sounded as if we were using two tin cans and several miles of string. Static rasped and snickered.

"Mr. Gupta?"

"Hello, hello."

"How are you, Mr. Gupta?"

"Very fine. Hello, Mr. Luczak? Hello?"

"Yes."

"Hello. The arrangements have been . . . hello? Mr. Luczak? Hello?"

"Yes. I'm here."

"Hello! The arrangements have been made. You will come alone when we meet you at your hotel at ten-thirty o'clock this morning."

"Sorry, Mr. Gupta. My wife's coming. We decided that —"

"What? What? Hello?"

"I say, my wife and child are coming along. Where are we going?"

"No, no, no. It is arranged. You are to come alone."

"Yes, yes, yes," I said. "Either my family goes along today or I don't go at all. To tell you the truth, Mr. Gupta, I'm a little tired of this James Bond bullshit. I came twelve thousand miles to pick up a piece of literary work, not to sneak around Calcutta alone. Where is the meeting to take place?"

"No, no. It would be better if you were to go alone, Mr. Luczak."

"Why is that? If it's dangerous, I want to know —"

"No! Of course it is not dangerous."

"Where's the meeting to take place, Mr. Gupta? I really don't have time for this nonsense. If I go home empty-handed, I'll write some sort of article, but you'll probably be hearing from my magazine's lawyers." It was an empty threat, but it caused a silence broken only by the hiss, crackle, and hollow clunks normal to the line.

"Hello? Hello, Mr. Luczak?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Your wife will, of course, be very welcome. We are to meet M. Das's representative at Tagore's home —"

" Tagore's home?"

"Yes, yes. It is a museum, you know."

"Marvelous!" I said. "I had hoped to see Tagore's house. That's excellent."

"Mr. Chatterjee and I will be at your hotel at ten-thirty o'clock then. Hello, Mr. Luczak?"

"Yes?"

"Good-bye, Mr. Luczak."

Gupta and Chatterjee did not show up until after eleven, but Krishna was in the lobby when we went down. He was wearing the same soiled shirt and rumpled trousers. He acted overjoyed to see us, bowing to Amrita, tousling Victoria's thin hair, and shaking my hand twice. He had come, he said, to inform me that our "mutual friend, Mr. Muktanadaji" had used my most gracious gift to return to his village of Anguda.

"I thought that he said he couldn't go home again."

"Ahh," said Krishna and shrugged.

"Well, I guess both he and Thomas Wolfe were wrong," I said. Krishna stared a second and then exploded with a laugh so loud that Victoria began to cry.

"You have received the Das poem?" he asked when both his laughter and Victoria's crying had subsided.

Amrita answered. "No, we're going to get it right now."

"Ahh," smiled Krishna, and I could see the gleam in his eyes.

On an impulse I asked, "Would you like to accompany us? Perhaps you'd like to see what kind of manuscript a waterlogged corpse can produce."

"Bobby!" said Amrita. Krishna only nodded, but his smile was more sharklike than ever.

Gupta and Chatterjee were less than thrilled at the size of our party. I didn't have the heart to tell them that an unknown number of Calcutta's Finest were also going along.

"Mr. Gupta," I said, "this is my wife, Amrita." Pleasantries were exchanged in Hindi. "Gentlemen, this is our . . . guide, Mr. M. T. Krishna. He will also accompany us."

The two gentlemen nodded tersely, but Krishna beamed. "We have already met! Mr. Chatterjee, you do not remember me?"

Michael Leonard Chatterjee frowned and adjusted his glasses.

"Ah, you do not. Nor you, Mr. Gupta? Ah, well, it was some years ago, upon my return from Mr. Luczak's fair country. I petitioned for membership in the Writer's Union."

"Oh, yes," said Chatterjee, although it was obvious that he remembered none of it.

"Yes, yes." Krishna smiled. "I was told that my prose 'lacked maturity, style, and restraint.' Needless to say, I was not granted admission to the Writers' Union."

Everyone squirmed in embarrassment except for Krishna. And me. I was beginning to enjoy this. Already, I was glad that I'd invited Krishna along.

It was a crowded little Premiere that drove east from the hotel. Gupta, Chatterjee, and Chatterjee's liveried driver were crammed into the front seat. As far as I could tell, the driver had one arm out the window, the other hand was frequently adjusting his cap, and he was driving with his knees. The effect was no different than usual.

In the back, I sat squeezed between Krishna and Amrita holding Victoria on her lap. We were all perspiring freely, but Krishna seemed to have started earlier than the rest of us.

It was absurdly hot. Upon leaving the air-conditioned hotel, Amrita's camera lens and Chatterjee's glasses had steamed up. It was at least 110 degrees, and my cotton shirt immediately became plastered to my back. In the littered plaza across from the hotel, forty or fifty men squatted with their bony knees higher than their chins, trowels, mortar boards, and plumb bobs on the pavement in front of them. It seemed to be some sort of work lineup. I asked Krishna why they were there, and he shrugged and said, "It is Sunday morning." Everyone else seemed satisfied with this Delphic utterance, so I said nothing.

Moving down Chowringhee, we made a right turn in front of Raj Bhavan — the old Government House — and drove south on Dharamtala Street. The air coming in the open windows did not cool us but rasped at our skins like hot sandpaper. Krishna's matted hair whipped around like a nest of snakes. At every stop sign or traffic policeman, the driver would turn off the engine and we would sit in sweaty silence until the car moved again.

We drove east onto Upper Circular Road and then swung onto Raja Dinendra Street, a winding road which paralleled a canal. The stagnant water reeked of sewage. Naked children splashed in the brown shallows.