Dan Simmons - Song of Kali

The phone rang.

We all stared. It was one of the extra phones. Singh answered it. "Ha?" There was a long silence. "Shukriya," he said at last, and added, "Very good, sergeant."

"What is it?" I demanded.

Inspector Singh stubbed out his cigarette and stood. "There is little else we can do tonight, I am afraid. I will return in the morning. My men will be in the adjoining rooms through the night. Any call to your room will be monitored by an officer at the switchboard downstairs. That was my sergeant on the phone. The address Kamakhya Bahrati gave the shop was a false one, of course. She had returned to the shop to pick up the fabric in person. It took some time for my men to locate the street number she had given the store, since the address is in a location where there are few buildings." He hesitated then and looked at me. "The address she gave is a public laundry park," he said. "A laundry park and cremation grounds."

Amrita was by far the braver and the smarter of the two of us during the hours and days that followed. I might have remained sitting on the bed for hours after Singh left if Amrita had not taken charge, gotten me out of my reeking clothes, and set the broken finger as best she could using a small toothbrush holder as a splint. I threw up again when she tugged the finger into place, but there was nothing left to vomit and the dry heaves would have soon turned to sobs of fury and frustration if Amrita hadn't thrust me under the shower. The water was tepid and under-pressured, but wonderful. I stood there for half an hour, actually falling asleep for a while, allowing the flow of water to pound away memories and terrors. Only a fierce core of sorrow and confusion continued to burn through my fatigue as I dressed in clean cotton and joined Amrita for a silent vigil.

Tuesday morning arrived as we sat together watching the Calcutta sunrise throw a wan, gray light through the open curtains. Temple bells, trolley bells, vendors' cries, and random street sounds came to us with the first light. "She'll be all right," I would say at intervals. "I know she will, kid. She'll be all right."

Amrita said nothing.

At exactly 5:35 A.M., the telephone rang. It was the room phone. I lunged across the room at it.

"Hello?" I thought I could hear an extra hollowness to the line. It was as if I were talking into a cave in the earth.

"Hello? Hello? Mr. Luczak, hello?"

"Yes. Who is this?"

"Hello? This is Michael Leonard Chatterjee, Mr. Luczak."

"Yes?" Are you the go-between? Are you involved, you bastard ?

"Mr. Luczak, the police came to my home during the night. They told me about the disappearance of your child."

"Yes?" If this was going to be just a sympathy call, I would hang up. But it was not a sympathy call.

"The police awoke me, Mr. Luczak. They awakened my family. They came to my home . They seem to think that I am somehow involved in this event. They interview me in the middle of the night , Mr. Luczak."

"Yeah? So?"

"I am calling to strongly protest this aspersion on my character and invasion of my privacy," said Chatterjee. His voice became higher and shriller as he began to shout. "You should not have given them my name, Mr. Luczak. I am a person of some stature in this community. I will not have such aspersions cast on my character, sir. You have no right."

"What?" It was all I could do to get the single syllable out.

"You have no right , sir. I warn you, any accusations you might make, any mention of my name, any involvement of the Writers' Union in your personal problems, Mr. Luczak, will result in legal action from my barrister. I am warning you, sir."

There was a hollow clunk as Chatterjee hung up. The line continued to hiss and crackle for several seconds, and then a second crash came as the policeman at the switchboard hung up. Amrita was standing next to me, but for a second I could not speak. I remained standing there, squeezing the receiver as if it were Chatterjee's neck, my rage reaching the point where blood vessels burst or tendons snap.

"What!" demanded Amrita, shaking my arm. I told her.

She nodded. Somehow the phone call vitalized her into action. First, using one of the extra lines, she called her aunt in New Delhi. Her aunt knew no one in Bengal, but she had friends who had friends in the Lok Sabha , one of the houses of government. Amrita simply told of the kidnapping and asked for help. I could not fathom what form that help could take, but the mere fact of Amrita's acting made me feel better.

Next she phoned her father's brother in Bombay. Her uncle also owned a construction company and was a man of some influence on the west coast of the subcontinent. Although he had been awakened from a sound sleep by a niece he had not heard from for a decade, he promised to get on the next plane to Calcutta. Amrita told him not to — not yet — but did ask him to contact any Bengal authorities who might help. He promised to do so and to keep in touch.

I sat listening to the elegant Hindi phrases and watched my wife as I would a stranger. When she later told me the substance of the calls, I felt the reassurance that a child knows when hearing adults confer with other adults over important matters.

Before Inspector Singh arrived at eight-thirty that morning, Amrita had called Calcutta's three main hospitals. No, no American children or light-skinned children fitting that description had been admitted overnight.

Then she called the morgue.

I could never have made that call. I could not have stood there as she did, back straight, voice steady, and inquired of some sleepy stranger as to whether the body of my child had been brought in during the dark Calcutta night.

The answer was no.

Only after she thanked him and hung up did I see the trembling begin in her legs and move up her body until her hands shook and she had to cover her face with them. I went to her then and took her in my arms. She did not release her tense control, not yet, but she bowed her head into the hollow of my neck and we rocked back and forth together, saying nothing, rocking together in the shared pain and ache of it.

Inspector Singh brought no news.

He sat and drank coffee with us around the small table in the room. Men in helmets came and went, delivering papers, receiving instructions.

Singh told us that security officials at the airport and train stations had been notified. Did we have a photograph of the child? I did. It was two months out of date. Victoria had much less hair then. Her face was less distinct. Beneath her dimpled legs I could see the orange blanket, a forgotten artifact of that distantly carefree Memorial Day picnic. I hated to give up the photograph.

Singh asked more questions, gave reassurances, and left us. A thin police sergeant poked his head in and reminded us in broken English that he would be next door. We nodded.

The day passed. Amrita had lunch brought up. Neither of us ate. Twice I took long showers, the door left open so that I could hear Amrita or the phone. My flesh still smelled of the previous night's foulness. I was so tired that I felt disconnected from my body. My thoughts circled around and around like a loop tape.

If I had not gone.

If I hadn't got in the car.

If I had returned sooner.

I turned off the water and slammed my fist into the tile.

By three P.M. Singh had returned with two other officers from the Metropolitan Force. One spoke no English. The other had somehow acquired a cockney accent. Their report was not helpful.

No one named M. T. Krishna was teaching at the University. Five instructors named Krishna had taught there during the past decade. Two had retired. Two were now in their mid or late fifties. One was a woman.