by Dan Simmons
"During the night, an electric line had fallen from the portico. It dropped across the courtyard lawn, but no one had thought to repair it or to shut off the current. Waiters ducked it on their way to the pool area. The Untouchable woman encountered it in her clipping and went to move it out of her way. It was not insulated.
"When she touched it, she was knocked backwards violently; but she could not let go of the wire. The pain must have been very great, but she let out only one terrible cry. She was literally writhing on the ground, being electrocuted before our eyes.
"I say 'our,' Mr. Chatterjee. The waiters stood by with their arms folded and watched. Workmen on a platform near the woman looked down without expression. One of the pilots near me made a small joke and turned back to his coffee.
"I'm not a quick-thinking person, Mr. Chatterjee. All of my life I've tended to let other people carry out even the simplest actions for me. I used to beg my sister to purchase train tickets for us. Even today, when Bobby and I order a pizza to be delivered, I insist on his placing the telephone call. But when half a minute had elapsed and it became obvious that the men in the courtyard — and there were at least a dozen — were not going to prevent this poor woman from being electrocuted, I acted. It did not take much thought or courage. There was a broom near the door. I used the wooden handle to move the wire from her hand."
I stared at my wife. Amrita had mentioned none of this to me. Chatterjee was nodding in a distracted way, but I found my voice first. "Was she badly hurt?"
"Evidently not," said Amrita. "There was talk of sending her to hospital, but fifteen minutes later she was cutting the grass once again."
"Yes, yes," said Chatterjee. "That is quite interesting but should not be taken out of context — "
"The second incident occurred only an hour or so after that," Amrita continued smoothly. "A friend and I were shopping for saris near the Elite Cinema. Traffic was backed up for blocks. An aged cow was standing in the middle of the street. People shouted and honked but no one tried to move it. Suddenly the cow began urinating, pouring a powerful stream into the street. There was a girl on the sidewalk near us — a very pretty girl, about fifteen years old, wearing a crisp white blouse and red kerchief. This girl immediately ran into the street, thrust her palm into the stream of urine, and splashed some on her forehead."
Leaves rustled in the silence. Chatterjee glanced at his wife and looked back at Amrita. His fingertips were tapping silently against each other. "That is the second incident?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Surely, Mrs. Luczak, even though you have been out of your country — India — since your childhood, you must remember the respect we bestow upon cows as symbols of our religion?"
"Yes."
"And you must know that not all people in India have the Westerner's . . . ah . . . horror at the idea of class differences."
"Yes."
"And did you know that urine . . . especially human urine . . . is thought by many here to have strong spiritual and medicinal properties? Did you know that our current Prime Minister, Mr. Moraji Desai, drinks several ounces of his own urine each morning?"
"Yes, I know that."
"Then, in all honesty, Mrs. Luczak, I do not see what your 'incidents' reveal except perhaps culture shock and a revulsion at your former culture's traditions."
Amrita shook her head. "Not just culture shock, Mr. Chatterjee. As a mathematician I tend to view different cultures rather abstractly, as adjoining sets with certain common elements. Or, if you will, as a series of human experiments as to how to live, think, and behave toward one another. Perhaps because of my own background, because I moved around so much as a child, I've felt a sense of some objectivity toward different cultures I've visited and lived in."
"Yes?"
"And, Mr. Chatterjee, I find some elements in India's set of cultural mindsets that few other cultures have — or, if they did possess them, have not chosen to retain. I find in my own country here an ingrained racism that is probably beyond current comparison. I find here that the nonviolent philosophy which I was raised in — and feel most comfortable with — continues to be shattered by deliberate and callous acts of savagery by its proponents. And the fact that your prime minister drinks several glasses of his own urine each day, Mr. Chatterjee, does not commend the practice to me. Nor to most of the world. My father often reminded me that when the Mahatma went from village to village, the first thing he would preach would not be human brotherhood or anti-British stratagems or nonviolence, but the basics — the absolute basics — of human hygiene.
"No, Mr. Chatterjee, speaking as an Indian person, I do not agree that all of Calcutta's difficulties are simply a microcosm of urban problems everywhere."
Chatterjee stared at her over his fingers. Mrs. Chatterjee stirred uneasily. Victoria looked up at her mother but did not make a noise. I'm not sure what would have been said next if the first large raindrops had not chosen that second to begin falling around us like moist cannon fire.
"I think we would be more comfortable inside," said Mrs. Chatterjee as the full force of the storm broke around us.
The presence of Chatterjee's driver inhibited us during the ride back to the hotel, but we did communicate through elaborate codes known only to married couples.
"You should have worked for the United Nations," I said.
"I did work for the U.N.," said Amrita. "You forget that I worked there one summer as an interpreter. Two years before we met."
"Hmmm, start any wars?"
"No. I left that to the professional diplomats."
"You didn't tell me that you saw a woman almost electrocuted during breakfast."
"You didn't ask."
There are some times when even a husband knows when to shut up. We watched the passing slums through shifting curtains of rain. Some of the people there made no effort to get out of the downpour but squatted dully in the mud, heads bowed under the onslaught.
"Notice the children?" asked Amrita quietly. I hadn't, but I did now. Girls of seven and eight stood with even younger children on their hips. I now realized that this was one of the most persistent images from the past couple of days — children holding children. As the rain came down they stood under awnings, overpasses, and dripping canvases. Their ragged clothes were brightly dyed, but even the brilliant reds and royal blues did not hide the dirt and wear. The girls wore gold bracelets on their emaciated wrists and ankles. Their future dowries.
"There are a lot of children," I said.
"And almost none," said Amrita so softly that it was almost a whisper. It took me only a few seconds to realize that she was correct. For most of the youngsters we saw, their childhood was already past them. They faced a future of rearing younger siblings, heavy labor, early marriage, and rearing their own offspring. Many of the younger children we could see running naked through the mud would not survive the next few years. Those that did reach our age would greet the new century in a nation of a billion people facing famine and social chaos.
"Bobby," Amrita said, "I know that American elementary schools don't teach mathematics very seriously, but you did have Euclidean plane geometry in your secondary school, didn't you?"
"Yeah, even American high schools teach that, kiddo."
"Then you know that there are non-Euclidean geometries?"
"I've heard nasty rumors to that effect."
"I'm serious, Bobby. I'm trying to understand something here."
"Go ahead."
"Well, I began thinking about it after I mentioned alternate sets and experiments to Chatterjee."
"Uh-huh."
"If Indian culture was an experiment, then my Western prejudices tell me that it's a failure. At least in terms of its ability to adapt and protect its people."
"No argument there."
"But if it's just another set, then my metaphor suggests a much worse possibility."
"What is that?"
"If we think in terms of set theory, then I'm convinced
that my two culture sets are eternally incompatible. And I am the product of these two cultures. The common element in two sets without common elements, as it were."
"East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet?"
"You see my problem, don't you, Bobby?"
"Perhaps a good marriage counselor could — "
"Shut up, please. The metaphor made me think of a more frightening analogy. What if the differences we're reacting to in Calcutta are the result of the culture's not being another set but a different geometry?"
"What's the difference?"
"I thought you knew Euclid."
"We were introduced but never got on a first-name basis."
Amrita sighed and looked out at the industrial nightmare through which we traveled. It occurred to me that this was Fitzgerald's industrial wasteland imagery from Gatsby taken to the tenth power. It also occurred to me that my own private literary references were beginning to be contaminated by Amrita's mathematical metaphors.
I watched as a man squatted by the roadside to defecate. He lifted his shirt over his head and prepared a small bronze bowl of water for the fingers of his left hand.
"Sets and number theories overlap," said Amrita. I suddenly realized by the tension in her voice that she was very serious. "Geometries don't. Different geometries are based on different theorems, postulate different axioms, and give rise to different realities."
"Different realities?" I repeated. "How can you have different realities?"
"Perhaps you cannot," said Amrita. "Perhaps only one is 'real.' Perhaps only one geometry is true. But the question is, What happens to me — to all of us — if we've chosen the wrong one?"
The police were waiting for us when we returned to the hotel.
"A gentleman has been waiting to see you, sir," said the assistant manager as he handed me our room key. I turned to the lobby expecting to find Krishna, but the man who rose from the plum-colored sofa was tall, turbaned, and bearded — obviously a Sikh.
"Mr. Luck-zak?"
"Loozack. Yes."
"I am inspector Singh of the Calcutta Metropolitan Police." He showed me a badge and a faded identity photo behind yellowed plastic.
"Inspector?" I did not offer to shake hands.
"Mr. Luczak, I would like to speak to you concerning a case which our department is investigating."
Krishna's got me into some sort of trouble. "And what is that, Inspector?"
"The disappearance of M. Das."
"Ah," I said and gave the room key to Amrita. I had no intention of inviting this policeman up to our room. "Do you need to speak to my wife, Inspector? It's time for our little one to eat."
"No. It will take only a minute, Mr. Luczak. I am sorry to interrupt your afternoon."
Amrita carried Victoria to the elevator and I looked around. The assistant manager and several porters were watching curiously. "What do you say we go into the License Room, Inspector?" This was the Indian hotel euphemism for a bar.
"Very good."
It was darker in the bar, but as I ordered a gin and tonic and the Inspector asked for just tonic, I was able to take time to appraise the tall Sikh.
Inspector Singh carried himself with the unself-conscious authority of a man who was used to being obeyed. His voice held the echo of years in England, not the Oxbridge drawl but the clipped precision of Sandhurst or one of the other academies. He wore a well-tailored tan suit that fell just short of being a uniform. The turban was wine-red.
His appearance confirmed what little I knew about Sikhs. A minority religious group, they made up possibly the most aggressive and productive segment of Indian society. As a people they tended to understand machinery, and although the majority of Sikhs inhabited the Punjab, they could be found driving taxis and operating heavy equipment throughout the country. Amrita's father had said that ninety percent of his bulldozer operators had been Sikhs. It was also the Sikhs who made up the upper echelons of the military and police forces. From what Amrita had told me, only the Sikhs had capitalized on the Green Revolution and modern agricultural technology to make a go of their extensive cooperative farms in the north of India.
It also had been the Sikhs who were responsible for many of the massacres of Muslim civilians during the partition riots.
"Cheers," said Inspector Singh and sipped at his tonic water. A steel bracelet rattled against his heavy wristwatch. The bracelet was a constant symbol of his faith, as was the beard and a small ceremonial dagger he would be carrying. A security guard at the Bombay airport on Thursday had asked a Sikh ahead of us in line, "Are you carrying any weapons other than your sabre?" The rest of us had submitted to body searches, but the Sikh had been passed through after his negative grunt.
"How can I help you, Inspector?"
"You can share any information you have about the whereabouts of the poet M. Das."
"Das has been missing for a long time, Inspector. I'm surprised you're still interested."
"M. Das's file is still open, sir. The 1969 investigation concluded that he was most probably the victim of foul play. Does your country have a statute of limitations on murder?"
"No, I don't think so," I said. "But in the States we have to produce a body for it to be a murder."
"Exactly. That is why we would appreciate any information you could share with us. M. Das left many influential friends, Mr. Luczak. Many of these people are in even more respected positions now, eight years after the poet's disappearance. We would all be relieved to conclude this investigation."
"All right," I said, and proceeded to tell him of my involvement with Harper's and the arrangement with the Bengali Writers' Union. I debated telling him about Krishna and Muktanandaji, and then decided that such a fantastic story would only cause complications with the police.
"So you have no confirmation that M. Das is alive other than the poem which you may or may not receive through the Writers' Union?" asked Singh.
"That and the letter Michael Leonard Chatterjee read at the meeting with the executive council," I said. Singh nodded as if he was well aware of the correspondence.
He asked, "And you plan to pick up the manuscript tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Where will this take place?"
"I don't know. They haven't told me yet."
"At what time?"
"Again, they haven't told me."
"Will you meet with Das at this time?"
"No. At least, I don't think so. No, I'm sure I won't."
"Why is that?"
"Well, all of my requests to meet with the great man and actually confirm his existence have met with a stone wall."
"A stone wall?"
"Negative response. A flat refusal."
"Ah. And you have no further plans to meet with him later?"
"No. I'd hoped to. My article certainly needed an interview. But to tell you the truth, Inspector, I'll be just as happy to get the damned manuscript, take my wife and child with me out of Calcutta tomorrow morning, and leave it to the literary experts as to whether M. Das wrote the poem."
Singh nodded as if this was a reasonable enough attitude. Then he jotted a few things in a small spiral notebook and finished his tonic. "Thank you, Mr. Luczak. You have been most helpful. Again, I apologize for taking up your Saturday evening."
"Quite all right."
"Oh," he said, "there is one thing."
"Yes?"
"Tomorrow, when you go to pick up the alleged Das manuscript, would you have any objections to police officers from the Metropolitan Force discreetly following you? It might help us in our investigation."
"A tail?" I said. I sipped at the last of my drink. If I objected, I might cause trouble for myself, and the cops would almost certainly still follow us. Besides, having the police nearby might allay some of the anxiety I was feeling about the rendezvous.
"Your associates need not know," added Singh.
I nodded. Personally, I didn't give a damn if Chatterjee, Gupta, and the w
hole Union became implicated. "All right," I said. "That would be fine. If it would help in your investigation. I have no idea myself whether Das is really alive. I'd be happy to help."
"Ah, excellent." Inspector Singh rose and we shook hands at last. "Have a good trip, Mr. Luczak. I wish you luck with your writing."
"Thank you, Inspector."
The rain continued falling for the rest of the evening. Any lingering thought Amrita and I had of spending Saturday night out on the town was squelched by the sight of mud, monsoon, and squatting misery we would glimpse when we opened the curtains. The tropical twilight was a brief transition between the gray, rainy day and the black, rainy night. A few lanterns glowed from under canvas across the flooded plaza.