Dan Simmons - Song of Kali

I nodded and snapped open the latches. It was not someone's lunch. The manuscript lay in a heap of several hundred pages. Some were typewritten, some were scrawled in longhand, and at least half a dozen different sizes and colors of paper had been used. I glanced at enough pages to confirm that it was poetry and that the manuscript was in English. "Okay," I said, "Let's get out of here."

I closed the briefcase and we had turned to choose a taxi when the Premiere screeched to a halt and Mr. Chatterjee and Mr. Gupta jumped out, shouting excitedly.

"Greetings," I said wearily. "What kept you?"

The apparition in the mirror was a mess. His hair was in disarray, his shirt was torn, his white cotton slacks were filthy, and there were fingernail tracks across his chest. I grimaced at myself and tossed the ruined shirt on the floor. I grimaced again as Amrita applied a cotton swab soaked with peroxide to my cuts.

"You didn't make Mr. Chatterjee or Mr. Gupta very happy," she said.

"It's not my fault that there wasn't a Bengali version of the manuscript."

"They would have liked to have had more time to study the English version, Bobby."

"Yeah. Well, they can catch excerpts in Harper's or wait for the spring edition of Other Voices . That is, if Morrow's experts decide it is a Das manuscript. I have my doubts."

"And you're not going to read it today?"

"Nope. I'll look at it tomorrow during the flight and study it when we get home."

Amrita nodded and finished swabbing the cuts on my chest. "Let's have Dr. Heinz look at these when we get home."

"All right." We went into the other room and sat on the bed. The electricity was out, the air conditioning had failed, and the room was a steam bath. Opening the windows only served to let in the noise and stench from the street below. Victoria sat on her quilt on the floor. She wore nothing but diapers and rubber pants and was wrestling with a big ball with bells in it. The ball was on top and appeared to be winning the match.

I had surprised even myself by not reading the manuscript immediately. I had never been known for either stifling my curiosity or deferring gratification of any sort. But I was tired and depressed and had a strong and completely illogical aversion to even looking at the manuscript until the three of us were safely out of the country.

Where had the police been? I had not seen the gray sedan again and now had my doubts as to whether it had ever actually followed us. Well, nothing else had appeared to work efficiently in Calcutta. Why should the police force be an exception?

"So, what do we do today?" asked Amrita.

I flopped back on the bed and picked up a tourist guide. "Well, we can see impressive Fort William, or view the imposing Nakhoda Mosque — which, by the way, was modeled on Akbar's tomb, whoever Akbar was — or go back across the river to see the botanical gardens."

"It's so hot ," said Amrita. She had changed into shorts and a T-shirt that read A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE HOUSE — AND THE SENATE. I wondered what Chatterjee would think if he saw her dressed that way.

"We could go to the Victoria Memorial."

"I bet they don't even have fans there," she said. "Where would it be cool?"

"A bar?"

"It's Sunday."

"Yeah. I've been meaning to ask. Why is it that every place closes down in a Hindu country on —"

"The park!" said Amrita. "We could go for a walk on the Maidan near the racecourse we saw from the taxi. There should be a breeze."

I sighed. "Let's try it. It's bound to be cooler than this place."

It was no cooler there. Small groups of beggars, a painful reminder of the morning's folly, flocked to us everywhere. Even the frequent and violent bouts of rainfall did not discourage them. I had long since emptied my pockets of change, but their insistent clamoring only grew louder. We paid two rupees to duck into a zoological garden in the park. There were only a few animals caged there, miserably swatting their tails back and forth to keep away clouds of insects, tongues hanging out from the heat. The zoo smell mixed with the heavy sewer sweetness of the river tributary that flowed past the park. We pointed out a tired tiger and some sullen monkeys to Victoria, but the baby wanted only to nestle against my damp shirt and sleep. When the rains struck again we found shelter in a small pavilion which we shared with a six- or seven-year-old boy who was watching over an infant lying on the cracked stone. Occasionally the boy would wave a hand to shoo the flies which hovered above the baby's face. Amrita tried talking to the youngster, but he continued to squat silently and stare at her with his large brown eyes. She pressed several rupees and a ballpoint pen into his hand and we left.

The electricity was on at the hotel, but the laboring air conditioner had not cooled the room appreciably. Amrita showered first and I had just pulled off my soaked shirt when there was a heavy knock at the door.

"Ah. Mr. Luczak! Namastey."

"Namastey, Mr. Krishna." I remained standing in the doorway, blocking it.

"You had a successful conclusion to your transaction?"

"Yes, thank you."

The heavy eyebrows went up. "But you have not read Mr. Das's poem?"

"No, not yet." I braced myself for a request to borrow the manuscript.

"Yes, yes. I do not want to bother you. I wish to give you this in anticipation of your meeting with Mr. M. Das." Krishna handed over a wrinkled paper sack.

"I have no plans to meet with —"

"Yes, yes." Krishna shrugged from the waist up. "But who is to know? Good-bye, Mr. Luczak." I shook Krishna's extended hand. Before I could look in the sack he was gone, whistling down the corridor toward the elevators.

"Who was that?" called Amrita from the bathroom. I sat on the bed.

"Krishna," I said and opened the sack. There was something wrapped in a loose bundle of rags.

"What did he want?"

I stared at the thing in my hands. It ws an automatic pistol: metal, chromed, tiny. It was as small and light as cap pistols I'd played with as a boy. But the muzzle opening looked real enough, and when I figured out how to slide the small clip out, the jacketed cartridges were all too real. Tiny lettering above the handgrip read GUISSEPPE .25 CALIBRE. "Goddamn it to shit," I said softly.

"I said, What did he want?" called Amrita.

"Nothing!" I yelled and looked around. Four steps took me to the closet. "Just to say good-bye."

"What did you say just now?"

"Nothing." I stuffed the pistol and clip in the bag separately, wrapped them tightly in rags, and tossed the bag as far back as I could on the wide shelf above the hangars.

"You mumbled something," said Amrita as she emerged from the bathroom.

"Just trying to get you to hurry up," I said and pulled a green knit shirt and tan slacks from the closet and closed the door.

We made arrangements for a cab to take us to the airport at 4:45 A.M. and then we turned in early. I lay there for hours, watching the silhouettes of furniture slowly materialize as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

It would have been an understatement to say that I felt dissatisfied with myself. I lay there in the moist Calcutta night and realized that my actions during the entire time I'd been in the city had been either pointless or hesitant or both. Half the time I had behaved like a brainless tourist, and the other half I had let the locals treat me like one. What the hell was I going to write about? How had I let a city frighten me for no real reason? Fear . . . nameless, asinine fear . . . had controlled my reactions more than any attempt at logic.