Dan Simmons - Song of Kali

"Ah, Mr. Luczak! Very good to see you again! I have come to help you in your search for the poet, M. Das." He continued to pump my hand. He was wearing the same soiled shirt as the night before and smelled of musky cologne and sweat. I felt the sweat drying on my own body as the fierce air-conditioning raised goose bumps along my arms.

"Thank you, Mr. Krishna, but there is no need." I extricated my hand. "I've made all the necessary arrangements. I'll be completing my business here tomorrow."

Krishna froze in place. The smile faded, and the brows came even closer together over the great curve of nose. " Ahh, I see. You have been to the Writers' Union. Yes?"

"Yes."

"Ah, yes, yes. They would have had a very satisfactory story to tell you about our illustrious M. Das. You were satisfied by their story, Mr. Luczak?" Krishna almost whispered the last sentence, and his look was so blatantly conspiratorial that the assistant manager frowned across the entire length of lobby. God knows what he thought I was being offered.

I hesitated. I didn't know what the hell Krishna had to do with the whole thing, and I didn't really want to take time to find out. I mentally cursed Abe Bronstein for poking around in my arrangements and inadvertently putting me in touch with this creep. At the same time I was acutely aware of Amrita and Victoria waiting for me and of my own irritation at the direction this assignment was taking.

Interpreting my hesitation as uncertainty, Krishna leaned forward and grasped my forearm. "I have someone for you to meet, Mr. Luczak. Someone who can tell you the truth about M. Das."

"What do you mean, the truth? Who is this person?"

"He would rather I not say," whispered Krishna. His hands were moist. There were tiny veins of yellow in the whites of his eyes. "You will understand when you hear his story."

"When?" I snapped. Only the sense of incompleteness I had felt in the car kept me from telling Krishna to go to hell.

"Immediately!" said Krishna with a triumphant grin. "We can meet him at once!"

"Impossible." I abruptly pulled my arm out of Krishna's grasp. "I'm going upstairs. Take a shower. I promised my wife we would go out to dinner."

"Ah, yes, yes." Krishna nodded and sucked on his lower teeth. "Of course. I will make the arrangements for nine-thirty o'clock, then. That will be sufficiently good?"

I hesitated. "Does your friend wish to be paid for his information?"

"Oh, no, no!" Krishna raised both palms. "He would not allow such a thing. It is only with the greatest difficulty that I have convinced him to speak to anyone about this."

"Nine-thirty?" I asked. The thought of going out into the Calcutta night filled me with a vague sickness.

"Yes. The coffee shop closes at eleven. We will meet him there."

Coffee shop . The words had an innocuous familiarity to them. If there were some angle I could use in the article. . . .

"All right," I said.

"I shall be waiting for you here, Mr. Luczak."

The woman holding my child was not Amrita. I stopped with my hand still on the doorknob. I might have stayed like that or even retreated into the hall in confusion if Amrita had not emerged from the bathroom at that moment.

"Oh, Bobby, this is Kamakhya Bharati. Kamakhya, this is my husband, Robert Luczak."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Luczak." Her voice was wind through spring blossoms.

"Nice to meet you, Miss — ah — Bharati." I blinked stupidly and looked at Amrita. I had always thought that Amrita's features approached true beauty with her guileless eyes and the honest planes of her face, but next to this young woman I could see only the lines of approaching middle age in Amrita's flesh, the slight double chin, and the bump on the bridge of her nose. The afterimage of the young woman stayed in my retinas like a flashbulb's optical echo.

Her hair was jet-black and hung to her shoulders. Her face was a sharpened oval, perfect, punctuated with soft, slightly tremulous lips that seemed designed for laughter and great sensuality. Her eyes were startling — huge beyond all probability, accentuated by eye shadow and heavy lashes, pupils so dark and so penetrating that her gaze stabbed like dark beacons. There was something subtly oriental about those eyes while at the same time they projected a Western, almost subliminal sense of innocence and wordliness warring within.

Kamakhya Bharati was young — in her mid-twenties at most — and wore a sari of a silk so light that it seemed to float an inch above her flesh, buoyed up by some fragant pulse of feminity that seemed to emanate from her like a redolent breeze.

I had always associated the word voluptuous with a Rubens' weightiness, masses of alluring flesh, but this young woman's thin body, half-perceived through shifting layers of silk, struck me with a sense of voluptuousness so intense that it dried the saliva in my mouth and emptied my mind.

"Kamakhya is the niece of M. Das, Bobby. She came to inquire about your article, and we've spent the last hour talking."

"Oh?" I glanced at Amrita and looked back at the girl. I could think of nothing else to say.

"Yes, Mr. Luczak. I have heard rumors that my uncle has communicated to some of his old colleagues. I wished to know if you had seen my uncle . . . if he is all right. . . ."Her gaze dropped and her voice trailed off.

I sat on the edge of an armchair. "No," I said. "I mean, I haven't seen him but he's all right. I'd like to, though. See him. I'm doing an article —"

"Yes." Kamakhya Bharati smiled and set Victoria back in the center of the bed where her blanket and Pooh-bear lay. Elegant brown fingers brushed over the baby's cheek in an affectionate gesture. "I will not bother you further. I wished only to inquire about the health of my uncle."

"Of course!" I said. "Well, I'm sure we'd like to talk to you, Miss Bharati. I mean, if you knew your uncle well . . . it would help me out in my article. If you could stay a few minutes. . . ."

"I must go. My father will expect me to be home when he arrives." She turned and smiled at Amrita. "Perhaps I could talk when we see each other tomorrow, as we discussed?"

"Marvelous!" said Amrita. It was the first time I'd seen her so relaxed since London. She turned to me. "Kamakhya knows of a good sari dealer not far from here, near the Elite Cinema. I really would like to buy some material while we're here. That is, if you won't need me tomorrow, Bobby."

"Mmm, I'm not sure," I said. "Well, plan on your trip. I don't know when they'll arrange their appointment for me."

"I will call you in the morning then," said the girl. She smiled at Amrita, and I found myself jealous, wishing that I had been the recipient of that benediction. She rose and shook Amrita's hand while simultaneously adjusting her sari with the graceful move of her hand so universal with Indian women.

"Very good," said Amrita.

Kamakhya Bharati bowed slightly to me as she moved to the door. I returned the nod and then she was gone. A slight, tantalizing scent remained.

"Sweet Christ," I said.

"Relax, Robert," said Amrita. The proper British tones held a hint of amusement. "She's only twenty-two, but she's been engaged for eleven years. She's to be married this October."

"Damned waste," I said and dropped onto the bed next to the baby. Victoria turned her head and waved her arms, ready to play. I swung her up in the air. She made noises of delight and kicked her feet. "Is she really Das's niece?"

"She used to help him with his manuscripts. Sharpen pencils. Go to the library for him. Or so she says."

"Yeah? She must have been ten years old." Victoria squealed as I swung her in an arc, spun her around, swung her back.

"Thirteen when he disappeared. Evidently her father had a falling-out with Das right before their father died."