Dan Simmons - Song of Kali

"Perhaps not," I said. "Why don't you come with me, Das? You don't have to stay here. Come with me. Publish it yourself."

Once, when I was seventeen, an idiot cousin dared me to play Russian roulette with his father's revolver. The cousin put the single cartridge in. He spun the chamber for me. In a second of pure, mindless bravado I remember lifting the gun, putting the barrel to my temple, and squeezing the trigger. The hammer had fallen on an empty chamber then, but since that day I had refused to go near guns. Now, in the Calcutta darkness, I felt I had again lifted a barrel to my head for no good reason. The silence stretched.

"No. You must publish it. It isss important."

"Why? Can't you leave here? What can they do to you that they haven't already done? Come with me, Das."

Das's eyes partially closed, and the thing before me no longer looked human. A stench of grave soil came to me from its rags. There were undeniable sounds behind me in the blackness.

"I choose to stay here. But it is important that you bring the Song of Kali to your country."

"Why?" I said again.

Das's tongue was like a small, pink animal touching the slick teeth and then withdrawing. "It is more than my final work. Consider it an announcement. A birth announcement. Will you publish the poem ?"

I let ten heartbeats of silence bring me to the edge of some dark pit I did not understand. Then I bowed my head slightly. "Yes," I said. "It will be published. Not all of it, perhaps, but it will see print."

"Good," said the poet and turned to leave. Then he hesitated and turned back almost shyly. For the first time I heard a note of human longing in his voice. "There is . . . something else, Mr. Luczak."

"Yes?"

"It would mean you would have to return here."

The thought of reentering this crypt after once escaping it made my knees almost buckle. "What is it?"

He gestured vaguely at Winter Spirits still lying on the table. "I have little to read. They . . . the ones who care for my needs . . . are able to get me books occasionally when I specify titles. But often they bring back the wrong books. And I know so few of the new poets. Would you . . . could you possibly . . . a few books of your choice?"

The old man lurched forward three steps, and for a horrifying moment I thought he was going to grasp my hand in his two rotted ones. He stopped in mid-motion, but the raised and bandaged hands seemed even more touching in their imploring helplessness.

"Yes, I'll get some books for you." But not come back here , I thought. I'll give some books to your Kapalika friends, but to hell with that return crap . But before I could phrase the thoughts out loud, Das spoke again.

"I would especially love to read the work of that new American poet, Edwin Arlington Robinson," he rushed on quickly. "I have read only one new poem of his, 'Richard Cory,' but the ending is so beautiful, so perfectly applicable to my own situation, to my own ambitions, that I dream about it constantly. If you could bring such a work?"

I could only gape. That new American poet ! Finally, not knowing what else to say, terrified of saying the wrong thing, I nodded. "Yes," I managed to get out. "I'll try."

The sad and twisted form turned and left the room. A second later so did I. The black curtains clung to me for a second as if restraining me, refusing to let me escape, but then I was free. Free!

Calcutta looked beautiful to me. Weak sunlight filtering through the clouds, crowds of people, the riot of afternoon traffic — I looked at it all with a joyous sense of relief that added a glow to the scene. Then I remembered Das's final comment and doubts assailed me. No, I would think about that later. For now I was free .

The two Kapalikas had been waiting at the bottom of the stairway. Their services as guides were needed for only a few minutes to lead me through the chawl to a main street where I managed to wave down a taxi. Before leaving me, one of them handed me a soiled card with the note In front of Kalighat — 9:00 scrawled on it. "This is where I'm to bring the books?" I asked the thinner man. His nod was both affirmation and farewell.

Then the black and yellow cab was poking through barely moving traffic and I spent ten minutes just reveling in my release from tension. What a goddamn experiencel Morrow would never believe it. Already I found it hard to believe. Sitting there, probably surrounded by crazy Calcutta street thugs, talking to what was left of one of the world's great poets. What a goddamn experience !

This kind of story would never work for Harper's . The National Enquirer , perhaps, but not Harper's . I laughed out loud, and the sweaty little cabdriver turned in his seat to stare at the crazy American. I grinned and spent several minutes writing potential leads and weighting the story so it would have the proper dried and cynical attitude for Morrow. Too late I realized that I should have been noting my location, but by then we were miles from where I'd hailed the cab.

Finally I recognized the large buildings that meant we were near the center of the city. About two blocks from the hotel, I had the driver let me put in front of a dilapidated storefront with a large sign proclaiming MANNY'S BOOKSELLER. The interior was a maze of metal shelves and tall heaps of books, old, new, some thick with dust, most from English publishers.

It took me about thirty minutes to find eight books of good, recent poetry. There was no collection by Robinson, but a Pocket Book of Modern Verse had "Richard Cory" as well as "The Dark Hills" and "Walt Whitman." I turned the yellow paperback over in my hands and frowned at it. Could I have misunderstood Das's message? I thought not.

Deciding nothing then, I nonetheless spent several minutes choosing the last two books just on the basis of their size. As the bookseller was counting out my change in odd-shaped coins, I asked him where I could find a drugstore. He frowned and shook his head, but after several attempts I explained my needs. "Ah, yes, yes," he said. "A chemist's." He gave me directions to a shop between the bookstore and the hotel.

It was almost 6 PM. when I got back to the Oberoi Grand. The Communist pickets were squatting along the curb, brewing tea over small over fires. I waved at them almost cheerily and reentered the air-conditioned security of another world.

I lay half dozing while Calcutta moved into evening. The buoyant excitement and relief had drained away to be replaced by a weight of exhaustion and indecision. I kept replaying the afternoon's encounter, trying in vain to lessen the incredible horror of Das's disfigurement. The longer I denied the images that flickered behind my closed eyelids, the more terrible their reality became.

". . . so beautiful, so perfectly applicable to my own situation, to my own ambitions, that I dream about it constantly."

I did not have to open the newly purchased paperback to know the poem of which Das had spoken.

"And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head."

Simon and Garfunkel had made that particular image accessible to everyone in their song of the previous decade.

I dream about it constantly.

It was almost seven P.M. I changed my trousers, washed up, and went downstairs for a light dinner of curried rice and fried dough that Amrita had always called poori but that the menu referred to as loochi . With the meal I drank two cold quart bottles of Bombay beer and felt less depressed by the time I went back up to the room an hour later. As I came down the hall I thought I heard the room phone ringing, but by the time I'd fumbled out my key the sound had stopped.