“Rowan-sahib!” His voice sounded anxious. “What are you doing here? And so early in the day?”
“Katachari is part of my district, is it not?” I demanded haughtily, “Surely I have the right to visit when I wish?”
Gokul lowered his eyes and muttered, “Yes, sahib.”
“Anyway, I have heard that the rishi is unwell and I have come to pay my respects.”
Gokul sighed. “Then I regret that the Rowan-sahib has made a wasted journey, for the holy man died several hours ago. The funeral is to be held at dawn tomorrow. There will be no need for you to stay now, sahib.”
“I am sad to hear this,” I lied, “I must then, of course, pay my respects to the rishi’s widow.”
“That would be most unseemly.”
I stared hard at the man. “I don’t see why,” I told him. “In my country, it is an obligation to condole with a widowed person. I am a representative of the Queen-Empress, and it is her respects which I bear. Surely there is nothing wrong with that, Gokul-sahib?”
Gokul looked around frantically at his cronies, but it seemed that none wished to give him support.
“Anyway,” I added, bending the truth somewhat, “it was the rishi’s own wish that I do him the service of seeing that all is well with his widow. He told me this himself when we met. You would not wish to go against Aditya’s own will.”
The zamindar gave in with bad grace and led me to Aditya’s hut. Chandira was waiting at the doorway, as if she was expecting me. She was still wearing the burkha and veil. As I neared, she made namaste and said, “You are welcome, Rowan-sahib, please enter our home.”
Gokul made as if to wait at the entrance but I stared hard at him until, with obvious bad grace, he made off. Waiting only to ensure that he had truly gone, I accepted Chandira’s invitation.
It seemed that even more incense sticks were being burned within the dwelling, and that Chandira had used rather more of her heady perfume than previously. This was understandable, though, for beneath the richness of the scents I caught a faint whiff of death.
I looked around for Chandira and saw that she had taken up position at the far side of the room by the small stove upon which flickered a small fire.
Aditya’s white-clad corpse lay on his charpoy, arms resting by the sides, a garland of variegated flowers about the neck. I stepped over and gazed down. The rishi’s flesh had assumed a greyish pallor, while the eyelids and cheeks were already beginning to fall in. I studied the lines and folds on that dead face and suddenly I had an inkling that Aditya’s claims for greatly advanced age might well be true.
I turned to Chandira, deciding that this was not the time for the customary florid overtures. I was blunt. “I hear gossip that you wish to become suttee.”
The woman inclined her covered head a little. “Not gossip but truth, Rowan-sahib,” she told me.
I sighed heavily and sat down on one of the stools. “Why do this thing?”
“It is what I wish for, more than anything in the world.”
I made a contemptuous gesture at Aditya’s still form. “You mean it’s what he wished for.”
“No, it is my wish, my desire even.” Chandira shook her head. “He died without even having expressed an opinion about it. If it was a matter of his wish, and I was able, I might well defy it, for he has used me ill and I have good reason to detest him.”
“You know that suttee is outlawed,” I said, “And that it is my duty to prevent your death.”
“Perhaps I can persuade the sahib that I should be allowed to do this thing.” Chandira lowered her veil, showing to me a face of sublime beauty, a face which could have been that of a temple statue given life. Dark and fascinating eyes were lined with kohl and rich, full lips were painted scarlet. I felt breath tightening in my chest.
She took away the covering from her head and then started to loosen her gown.
I found myself torn between a well of longing and a flame of indignation. Chandira was about to offer me the use of her body now in exchange for her right to die tomorrow.
The lonely young man in me wanted to leap up and clasp her in my arms. The well-trained bureaucrat suppressed the young man.
“Stop this now, Chandira!” I snapped. “My duty is clear and I will not let you seduce me from it!”
She paused, and then she laughed. It was a sad, empty noise which made me feel immensely foolish and pompous.
“Be at ease, Rowan-sahib,” she told me, “I have no intention of offering you love, or even the sham of love. But I must show you, so that you understand.”
Moments later the burkha fell about her feet and she stood there naked. Something in her tone of voice had chilled me, and now I was able to gaze at her without desire.
Chandira’s form was graceful, alluring, but in that dim light it seemed somehow to be disproportionate. There also appeared to be some disparity in the flesh tints, and many parts of her body – her neck, for instance, and at the joints – were encircled by weird, bangle-like tattoos. She walked towards me, until just inches separated us.
She offered her right hand and against my will I took it in one of mine. Her palm was silken soft and surprisingly cool. With her free hand she indicated the marking about her wrist.
“Look closely, sahib.”
I did so, then I rose quickly to my feet and gripped the woman by the arms. She stood passive as I examined the other tattoos.
But those were no tattoos. They were broad bands of stitches, hundreds of fine, close, delicate sutures layered over faint, long-healed scars.
I heard again Aditya’s voice, a mocking remembrance. “Kumud had fair looks . . . Radhika’s was the body which most delighted my senses . . . Shamin’s arms . . . Phoolan’s legs . . . Harpal’s hands and feet . . .”
I dropped my hands from Chandira and stepped back, hoping that my sudden horror was ill-founded. “It’s not possible . . .” I muttered.
A tear spilled from the corner of an eye, slipping its sad course down the woman’s cheek. “No, it is not possible . . . but it is true. Chandira is the name he gave to this . . . creation . . . He could not bring himself to let his favourites rest in peace and so he used the best attributes of each to give life to . . . Chandira.”
I slumped back onto the stool. It was either that or perhaps faint. “But how . . .” I floundered.
“He told both of you, you and Barr-Taylor-sahib, of his will-power, of how he could conquer death. Over the years, he told many sahibs. None believed him. He frightened you with a demonstration, but no doubt you thought that he had mesmerized you.
“After the death of each favourite, his will power held the . . . essentials . . . from corruption. He held them over the years until he had sufficient to join as one and breathe life into her. Such was his power that I live now, even beyond his own death. But that will power is slowly waning.”
She held out her hand again, this time placing it delicately beneath my nostrils. At first there was only the musk of her perfume, and then I noticed that beneath the exotic fragrance was another aroma, the slightest hint of decay. The suggestion of death in the hut did not come from Aditya’s remains alone.
I got up and walked from Chandira’s home without another word. Gokul was waiting by my horse. He asked me something but I don’t know what it was. I made some sort of non-committal comment and rode from the village.
When I reached that half-hidden jungle temple, I reined in and clambered down from the horse. I had some thought that perhaps Prithivi could help solve my dilemma. My old school chaplain would have been shocked. Army chaplains in barracks all over India would be shocked. And Mushtaq Khan, if he knew, would throw a blue fit. But, I reasoned, this was a Hindu matter, and a Hindu goddess was better qualified than God or Jesus or Allah to help.
I stepped through the trees and came to where the goddess sat. Something was different here now. The petals woven about Prathivi had faded and withered, like a dotard’s skin, and as I gazed a great insect crawled from o
ne of the stony nostrils, weaving about in parody of a blindly feasting grave-worm.
I was up early again the next day. This time, as I stepped from the bungalow, strapping on my Webley in its large holster, Mushtaq Khan was waiting for me.
“Where are you going this time, sahib?”
“I must go to Katachari on urgent business,” I told him. “There will be no need for you to come.”
“If you hope to stop the suttee single-handed, Rowan-sahib, then you are a very foolish young man,” the Pathan told me. He folded his arms across his chest and glowered at me. “Allah knows that these Hindus are little better than sheep, but when their beliefs are interfered with they are very dangerous sheep.
“And you, Rowan-sahib, are stubborn, as stubborn as any young warrior from my own hills. If I were your father, I would be concerned. Concerned and . . . proud. I will not be able to sway you from your duty, so do not try to sway me from mine. Come, sahib, our horses are saddled and ready.”
Katachari was quiet and deserted when we reached it, the only life to be seen or heard; a few pi-dogs, some poultry searching the dust for tit-bits, the odd raucous crow.
Mushtaq Khan pointed beyond the village. “The burning ground is about a mile that way,” he said. We rode on.
A little way on we began to hear a low, rhythmic drone. Although not yet fully audible, it was a sound filled with foreboding. The further we rode, the louder the drone became, until at last it was clear. It was the chanting of many voices, a repetitious, hypnotic, “Ram-ram . . . ram-ram . . . ram-ram . . .”
At length we came upon the thickly-clustered chanting crowd. There were many more than belonged to Katachari: people must have travelled from great distances around to attend the cremation. From our vantage point on horseback, we could see clearly over their heads.
The funeral pyre – a platform of interwoven sticks and branches soaked in ghee – was about head height, roughly the same length, and perhaps four feet wide. The corpse, blanketed with great masses of flowers, rested on the top, and Chandira knelt at its head, hands clasped before her. She had discarded the burkha for a plain white sari. The area was filled with the combined stenches of decomposition and ghee.
We dismounted and approached slowly. Some of the mourners at the back of the crowd had seen us and glared threateningly.
I unstrapped my pistol and handed it to Mushtaq Khan. “Wait for me here,” I instructed.
“They’ll tear you to pieces, sahib!” he protested.
“Wait for me,” I repeated. I clasped the old man’s shoulders. “It will be all right.”
“Very well, sahib.” His hawk’s eyes glared and his tone was grudging. He laid one hand upon his dagger and brandished my pistol with the other. “But let one of those unbelievers raise a hand against you and they’ll find what it means to have the Pathans fall upon them,” he growled. “If we die, we die together giving a good account.”
I pushed my way into the crowd which parted before me. I think it was bravado that carried me through, that and their astonishment at my foolhardiness. I reached the pyre where the Brahmin priests were chanting their prayers. Gokul stood to one side clutching a burning faggot of wood. As I reached them, the prayers turned to cries of outrage.
I held out a hand. “Give me the torch, Gokul-sahib,” I ordered.
“Go!” he hissed. “Go now you foolish young man, we have no wish to harm you.”
“Give me the torch!” I repeated, filling my voice with as much quiet savageness as I could muster.
The zamindar did so, reluctantly. The crowd fell silent, waiting I believe for the command to rend me.
I turned to look at the woman on the pyre. Her face was older, much older, than before and I detected livid streaks of subcutaneous mortification. Her cheek bones had become prominent, the flesh below them concave, and her eyes, now lacklustre, were already sinking back.
“Namaste, Chandira,” I greeted her.
She bowed a little. “Namaste, Rowan-sahib.” Her voice was but a dry croak.
“Your husband once told me that I was to perform a service for him. I am here to give that service.”
Stepping forward, I thrust the torch deep into the tinder of the funeral pyre and leapt back as the mound of wood and ghee ignited with a roar.
I like to believe that I saw a look of gratitude and peace pass over Chandira’s withering face before the purifying flames engulfed her.
Kim Newman
Completist Heaven
Already widely regarded as a broadcaster, film critic, and the author and award-winning editor of several non-fiction books, Kim Newman has added the role of successful novelist to his résumé over the past few years with such titles as The Night Mayor, Bad Dreams, Jago, the acclaimed Anno Dracula, The Quorum and The Bloody Red Baron.
A regular contributor to such anthologies as Dark Voices: The Pan Book of Horror, Best New Horror and the Mammoth series, his short fiction has recently been collected in The Original Dr Shade and Other Stories and Famous Monsters. He also co-edited the anthology In Dreams with Paul J. McAuley, and is the author of several successful gaming novels under the pseudonym Jack Yeovil.
As the writer explains: “I was inspired to write ‘Completist Heaven’ by the sad case of a friend who ruined his mind and health noting movie trivia for a series of reference books. Personally, I kicked the biscuit habit years ago. But it really annoys me when American magazines refer to a film which doesn’t exist called The Cat People, and I have twice looked out my video of Cat People to make sure they’re wrong . . .”
I’M PLUMBING additional channels, homing on signals from as far away as Hilversum and Macao. With each twiddle, the dish outside revolves like Jodrell Bank stock footage from the Quatermass serials. Lightning crackles above the garden, approximating a Karloff-Lugosi mad lab insert shot from the 1930s.
Unimaginable images and sounds are pulled down from the skies. With the new reflectors, this satellite system can not only haul in everything being broadcast but anything that has ever been broadcast. Shows listed as lost or wiped are beaming out to Alpha Centauri; now, those signals can be brought unscrambled back to Earth.
This is my creation. Fuelled by coffee bags and custard creams, I have substantially made the system myself, like Rex Reason assembling the Interocitor in This Island Earth. It was an interesting technical exercise, jacking in all the signal boosters and calibrating the dish to the minutest fraction. My redundancy money was well spent, despite what Ciaran said when she left for the last time.
I admit it’s true: I could spend the rest of my life eating biscuits and watching repeats on television. There is so much to see, so much to discover . . .
Just tuning the first channels, I come across a Patrick Troughton Doctor Who which does not officially survive, and a stumbling, live Sherlock Holmes from the late 1940s. If anyone on Mars or Skaro makes television programs, this dish will pick them up. To be honest, there is no need ever to leave the house except for groceries. Everything ever hurled out over the airwaves, on film or videotape, will turn up eventually. The full listings edition of What’s On TV looks like a telephone directory.
This is Completist Heaven.
Whoever assigns frequencies has a sense of humour, though it often takes minutes to get the joke. Channel 5 is a perfume infomercial. Chanel No. 5. Channels 18 to 30 are vérité footage of drunken Brits being obnoxious on holiday in Greece, with “The Birdy Song” on a tape-loop soundtrack. Channel 69 is Danish porno. Channel 86 is Get Smart reruns. Maxwell Smart was Agent 86. I clock a Martin Kosleck cameo in a vampire episode and make a mental note to list it on Kosleck’s file card. Channel 101 is disgusting true-life mondo horror, rats and bugs and atrocity and burial alive; in a minute, I remember that in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Room 101 is where you face the most frightening thing in the world.
What does that leave for Channel 1984?
Channel 666 is either a director’s cut of The Omen or a Satanic televangelist. In the thousands, most
of the channels are date-tied: Channel 1066 is a historical drama in unsubtitled Norman French; Channel 1492 is a collage of Columbus movies with Jim Dale being tortured by Marlon Brando; Channel 1776 is that Bilko episode set during the Revolutionary War. Channel 1789 is a miniseries about the French Revolution: Jane Seymour goes nobly to the guillotine while Morgan Fairchild knits furiously in the first row. It’s not in Maltin, Scheuer or Halliwell, so it must be new. I don’t count miniseries as movies, so I don’t have to watch further, though I’m sure that’s Reggie Nalder dropping the blade.
I hit Channel 1818. Dyanne Thorne, a couple of melons down the front of her SS major’s uniform, tortures someone in black and white. A girl in a torn peasant blouse squeals unconvincingly as a rat eats cold lasagna off her exposed tummy. I figure this is a print of Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS that I’ve never seen. I get out the file card for the film and my notes make no mention of a rat torture quite like this. This is the sort of revelation I pay the monthly fee for: it is quite possible no one has ever seen this version of the movie before. I take up my red ball pentel, and prepare to jot down any information. The store of human knowledge must always be added to.
The crowning moment of my life was when my letter in Video Watchdog finally corrected all previous misinformation and established, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the correct German running time of Lycanthropus, aka Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory or I Married a Werewolf. Ciaran was especially cutting about that. Many people don’t understand, but without accuracy all scholarship is meaningless and the least we can do is lay down the parameters of what we are talking about. Now my mission in life is to force all periodicals and reference books to list Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General (the title as it appears on the screen) under M for Matthew rather than W for Witchfinder. Ignorant souls, starting with the film’s distributors, have been committing this error since 1968. Heathens who list the Michael Reeves movie under C for The Conqueror Worm are, of course, beneath contempt and not worth considering.
The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) Page 58