by Dan Simmons
"I believe that Mr. Luczak should hear our offer," said Gupta suddenly. The others nodded. As if on cue, the lights went off.
It was pitch-black in the windowless room. There were shouts from various places in the building, and candles were brought in. Mr. Chatterjee leaned across the table and assured me that this was a common occurrence. It seemed that there were daily blackouts as the inadequate electrical power was shunted from one part of the city to another.
Somehow the darkness and candlelight seemed to accentuate the heat. I felt somewhat light-headed and gripped the edge of the table.
"Mr. Luczak, you are aware that it is a unique privilege to receive the masterwork of a great Bengali poet such as M. Das." Mr. Gupta's voice was as reedy as an oboe. The heavy notes hung in the air. "Even we have not seen the complete version of this work. I hope that the readers of your magazine appreciate this honor."
"Yes," I said. There was a drop of sweat beading on the end of Mr. Gupta's nose. Our shadows were thrown fourteen feet high by the flickering candlelight. "Have you received more of the manuscript from Mr. Das?"
"Not as of yet," said Mr. Gupta. His dark eyes were moist and heavy-lidded. Wax from the candles dripped onto the baize. "This committee is to make the final decision as to the disposition of the English-language version of this epic work."
"I would like to meet with Mr. Das," I said. The people around the table exchanged glances.
"That will not be possible." It was the woman who spoke. Her voice was as high and shrill as a saw moving on metal. The irritable, nasal tones clashed with her dignified appearance.
"Why is that?"
"M. Das has not been available for many years," said Gupta smoothly. "For some time we all believed that he had died. We mourned the loss of a national treasure."
"And how do you know that he is alive now? Has anyone here seen him?"
There was another silence. The candles were already half-consumed and sputtering wildly, although no breeze stirred. I felt terribly hot and a little sick. It seemed for a mad second that the candles would burn out and we would continue talking in the humid darkness, bodiless spirits haunting a decaying building in the belly of a dead city.
"We have correspondence," said Michael Leonard Chatterjee. He removed half a dozen crackling envelopes from his briefcase. "They establish beyond a doubt that our friend is still alive and living in our midst." Chatterjee wet his fingers and flipped through the tightly folded pages of flimsy stationery. In the dim light the lines of Indian script looked like magical runes, ominous incantations.
Mr. Chatterjee read aloud several passages to prove his point. Relatives were inquired about, common friends mentioned. A discussion from twenty years earlier was recalled in detail. There was an inquiry to Mr. Gupta about a short poem of Das's that had been paid for years before but never published.
"All right," I said. "But it's important for my article that I see Mr. Das personally so that I can — "
"Please," said Mr. Chatterjee and held up his hand. His glasses reflected twin flames where eyes should have been. "This may explain why it is impossible." He folded a page, cleared his throat, and began reading.
" . . . and so you see, my friend, things change but people do not. I remember the day in July of 1969. It was during the Festival of Shiva. The Times told us that men had left footprints on the moon. I was returning from my father's village: a place where men left footprints in the soil behind their laboring bullocks just as they have for five thousand years. In the villages our train passed by, the peasants labored to drag their heavy godcarts through the mud.
"All during that loud and crowded voyage back to our beloved city, I was struck by how empty and futile my life had been. My father had lived a long and useful life. Every man in his village, Brahman to Harijan, wished to attend his cremation. I had walked through fields, which my father had flooded and tilled and recaptured from the vagaries of nature long before I was born. After his funeral, I left my brothers and went to visit in the shade of a great banyan, which my father had planted as a youth. All around me were the evidences of my father's toils. The very land seemed to mourn his passing.
"And what, I asked myself, had I done? I would be fifty-four years old in a few weeks, and to what purpose had I spent my life? I had written some verse, amused my colleagues, and annoyed some critics. I had woven a web of illusion that I was carrying on the tradition of our great Tagore. Then I had enmeshed myself in my own web of deceit.
"By the time we reached Howrah Station, I had seen the shallowness of my life and art. For over thirty years I had lived and worked in our beloved city — the heart and bloodstone of Bengal — and never once had the essence of that city been recreated, nay, nor hinted at, in my feeble art. I had tried to define the soul of Bengal by describing its shallowest exterior, its foreign intruders, and its least honest face. It was as if I had tried to describe the soul of a beautiful and complex woman by listing the details of her borrowed garments.
"Gandhiji once said, 'A man cannot fully live unless he has died at least once.' By the time I had disembarked from my first-class coach at Howrah Station, I had acknowledged the imperative of that great truth. To live — in my soul, in my art — I would have to cast off the appurtenances of my old life.
"I gave my two suitcases to the first beggar who approached me. His look of surprise is still a source of some pleasure to me. What he later did with my fine linen shirts, my Parisian ties, and the many books I had packed, I have no idea.
"I crossed the Howrah Bridge into the city knowing only one thing — I was dead to my old life, dead to my old home and habits, and necessarily dead to the people I loved. Only by entering Calcutta afresh, as I had some thirty-three years earlier as a hopeful, stammering student from a small village — only then could I see with the clear eyes I would need for my final work.
"And it is that work . . . my first true attempt to tell the story of the city which nurtures us . . . to which I have devoted my life. Since that day many years ago, my new life has led me to places I had never heard of in my beloved city — a city which I had foolishly thought to have known intimately.
"It has led me to seek my way among the lost, to own only what has been cast off by the dispossessed, to labor with the Scheduled Classes, to seek wisdom from the fools of Curzon Park, and to seek virtue from the whores of Sudder Street. In so doing I have had to acknowledge the presence of those dark gods who held this place in their palms before even the gods themselves were born. In finding them I have found myself.
"Please do not seek me. You would not find me if you searched. You would not know me if you found me.
"My friends, I leave it to you to carry out my instructions in relation to this new work. The poem is incomplete. Much more work must be done. But time grows short. I wish to have the existing fragments disseminated as widely as possible. Critical response means nothing. Credits and copyrights are unimportant. It must be published.
"Respond via usual channels.
— Das"
* * *
Chatterjee quit reading, and in the silence the distant carnival of street sounds became faintly audible. Mr. Gupta cleared his throat and asked a question about American copyrights. I explained as best I could — about both the Harper's offer and the more modest proposal from Other Voices. More discussion and questions followed. The candles burned low.
Finally Gupta turned to the others and said something in rapid-fire Bengali. I again wished that Amrita had come with me. It was Michael Leonard Chatterjee who said, "If you will wait outside in the hall for just a moment, Mr. Luczak, the Council will vote on the disposition of M. Das's manuscript."
I rose on pin-cushion legs and followed a servant with a candle out into the hallway. There was a chair on the landing and a small round table upon which the candle was placed. Some pale light came up the stairwell from frosted windows facing Dalhousie Square, but the dim glow only made the darkness in the corners of the landing and the branching co
rridors seem more absolute.
I had been sitting there for about ten minutes and was on the point of dozing when I noticed movement in the shadows. Something was moving stealthily just out of the circle of light. I lifted the candle and watched as a rat the size of a small terrier froze into immobility. Pausing at the edge of the landing, its long tail flicked wetly back and forth across the boards. Feral eyes gleamed at me from the borders of the light. It advanced half a step, and a chill of revulsion rippled through me. The thing's movement reminded me of nothing so much as a cat stalking its prey. I half rose and gripped the flimsy chair, ready to hurl it.
Suddenly a louder noise behind me caused me to jump. The shadow of the rat blended into the shadows of the hallway and there was a scrabbling as of many claws on woodwork. Mr. Chatterjee and Mr. Gupta emerged from the black council room. Flames reflected on Mr. Chatterjee's glasses. Mr. Gupta took a step forward into my pulsing circle of light. His smile was eager and his teeth were long and yellow.
"It is settled," he said. "You will receive the manuscript tomorrow. You will be contacted about arrangements."
5
"No peace in Calcutta;
Blood calls at midnight . . .
— Sukanta Bhattacharjee
It was too easy. That was the thought that entered my mind as I was driven back to the hotel. I had held an image of being the trench-coated investigative journalist — Jesus, in that heat — carefully following up clues to piece together the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of the phantom Bengali poet. Now, on my first afternoon in the city, the puzzle had been assembled for me. Tomorrow, Saturday, I would have the manuscript and be free to take Amrita and the baby and fly home. What kind of article would that make? It was too easy.
My body insisted that it was early morning, but my wristwatch said it was five P.M. Workers were emerging from the age-stained office buildings near the hotel like white ants from gray stone carcasses. Families were brewing hot water for tea on the broken sidewalks while men with briefcases stepped over sleeping infants. A man in rags squatted to urinate in the gutter while another bathed in a puddle not six feet away. I brushed through the Communist pickets and entered the air-conditioned sanctuary of the hotel.
Krishna was waiting in the lobby. The hotel's assistant manager was watching him as though Krishna were a known terrorist. Little wonder. He looked even wilder than before. His black hair leaped out in electric exclamation marks, and the toad-like eyes were wider and whiter than ever under dark brows. He grinned widely when he saw me and came forward with hand extended. I was shaking it before I realized that the cordial greeting was Krishna's way of validating his presence to the assistant manager.
"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 airconditioning 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 worldliness 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 fragrant pulse of femininity that seemed to emanate from her like a redolent breeze.
I had always associated the word voluptuous with a Rubens's 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?"