Netherworld

by Lisa Morton

  “I know about Kali—I was just wondering about the artist.”

  “Oh. I am sorry—I do not know.”

  She was shown into a room that served as an office, and was greeted by Dennys Smythe-Bentley. He was a dapper, tall man, with a graying, neatly-trimmed beard and only a slight paunch. He wore a suit not unlike Diana’s own, and seemed to smile at that as he rose to meet her.

  “Ahh, Lady Diana Furnaval, I presume? A pleasure.”

  They clasped hands briefly, then Smythe-Bentley indicated a lovely lacquered chair near his large desk, covered with papers, pens, bottles of ink, and a hookah. The room was not as open as the sitting room had been, but was cooled by overhead punkahs operated by several Indian servants. Diana found it vaguely ridiculous that the man should have servants who did nothing but pull fans for him, and briefly wondered if she had any similarly-employed help back at Hampstead Hall. She hoped not.

  “I see you need help with some travel arrangements,” Smythe-Bentley said, indicating her letter.

  “Yes.”

  Diana had carefully reproduced a map to the Calcutta gateway included in The Book of Gateways, Conjurations and Banishments, and she handed this across the desk to him.

  He put on a pair of pince-nez and studied the map briefly. “I see. This location is somewhat northeast of the city; I believe it’s still wild there, just past the plantations. Jungle.”

  He set his spectacles down and stared at her curiously. “It’s rather a long way to go just to see another old temple. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “How far is it?”

  “Well, no more than a total of three hours travel time—but it might be dangerous.” Smythe-Bentley paused to re-light the hookah, then inhaled from it before chuckling and going on: “Traveling through the Black City is bad enough, let alone the jungle.”

  “The Black City?” Diana asked.

  “Yes. The northern part of Calcutta. Where the natives live, you know. We’ve plenty of temples within the city you could visit, although I’m not sure why you’d want to. Ugly things, if you ask me.”

  Diana nodded, then chose her words carefully. “Mr. Smythe-Bentley, I appreciate your concern, but it really is vitally important that I see this temple, and time is of the essence.”

  He took another long drag off the hookah, exhaled several perfect smoke rings, then jotted a few notes which he handed to Goompat.

  “Goompat, would you arrange these things for Lady Furnaval right away?”

  The servant glanced at the list, nodded, and strode from the room.

  Smythe-Bentley turned to Diana again. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather simply spend your visit to Calcutta here, Lady Furnaval? I know my wife would greatly enjoy your company, and we can offer you some very fine English food, or an afternoon visit to the local racetrack…?”

  Diana smiled slightly, and said, “Thank you, but my business is really very pressing. And truthfully, I welcome a chance to travel through the Black City.”

  He blinked in consternation. “I see. I take it you’re a fan of Lord Ripon, then?”

  Diana missed the connection, and Smythe-Bentley went on: “Our current viceroy. Chap actually believes the Indians should have their own representation in the local government. Swaraj they call it.”

  “And you don’t?” Diana asked.

  “Of course not. Now our last viceroy, Lord Lytton, he understood that these people are little better than apes. The idea of them having a voice in government…preposterous.”

  Diana couldn’t resist. “The last time we refused to give the locals a say in government, we lost America.”

  He glared at her for a moment, then pretended to busy himself with paperwork. “Yes, well, I’m afraid I’m really terribly busy, Lady Furnaval. Good day to you then.”

  She rose and left without another word, glad to be out of the man’s presence.

  Outside, she found Goompat and Yi-kin standing with a sedan chair, four half-naked Indian bearers, and two scowling locals in military garb. “Lady Furnaval, these men are sepoys—local soldiers—who will accompany you,” Goompat indicated them.

  The men looked tough, well-built and scarred, and they carried rifles and long, sheathed knives. “That’s very generous, but…are they really necessary?”

  “The jungle has tigers,” Goompat said.

  Diana had no more argument against the involvement of the sepoys.

  The doolie was another matter. Goompat gestured that she should enter, and the bearers immediately moved to their positions, preparing to lift the poles that the covered seat rested upon. “I’d really prefer to walk.”

  Goompat said, “The chair is more comfortable, my Lady.”

  When Diana didn’t move, Yi-kin stepped closer and added, “And more safe. You are British lady in Calcutta. I can walk.”

  “Yi-kin, do you mean to say you’re going with me?!” she asked.

  “Yes. I want to see gateway,” he answered, as if stating that he wanted to visit a garden or shop he’d heard about.

  Diana considered trying to send him away, but realized he quite intended to accompany her. Besides, he might prove helpful.

  “Very well, then.”

  Reluctantly she turned to the doolie and stepped in, seating herself as Goompat closed the small door behind her.

  “Be careful, Lady Furnaval,” Goompat said softly, and Diana couldn’t help but think that he showed considerably more grace and compassion than his employer.

  Almost immediately the chair rose and began moving forward with surprising speed. Diana pushed aside the curtains to her right and leaned out, curious about this mode of transportation—

  – and immediately regretted the action.

  The back of the man directly in her view wasn’t just marked by this employment, it was actually mutilated. His right shoulder, which bore the weight of the pole, was so calloused it was actually several inches higher than his left; as she watched, the pole rubbed the skin open and blood began to trickle down the man’s side. And yet the man kept up a constant stream of chatter with his co-workers, apparently inured to physical agony.

  She saw Yi-kin walking swiftly to keep up with the coolies’ pace, and she called to him. He approached the window, and Diana leaned down to ask, “Yi-kin, how much are these men being paid?”

  “I do not know. I will ask.”

  Yi-kin trotted up to the coolie Diana had been observing, and exchanged a few words with the man. He dropped back to the side of the sedan and informed her, “Sixpence each.”

  “Per hour?”

  “Per day,” Yi-kin casually answered.

  My God, Diana thought, sixpence per day? That’s little better than slavery. No wonder they all look underfed.

  “Tell them there’ll be handsome bonuses at the end of the day, when we return to the Althea.”

  Yi-kin ran to the coolie again, spoke to him briefly, and then a cry of joy went up from the four bearers. The pace quickened.

  In a few minutes they’d left the “White City” behind, and were heading north on crowded, narrow Chitpore Road. Diana felt as if she were seeing the real Calcutta now, not the faux London suburb the British had tried to impose upon the place. The sedan bearers were astonishingly agile as they negotiated the chair past butcher shops displaying goat carcasses, vendors with carts full of huge, yellow pumelos, women dressed in bright yellow, crimson or purple veils, and children who glimpsed Diana’s white skin and ran after the doolie with outstretched hands.

  Mina caused a few heads to turn, as Diana allowed her to peer up out of the sedan, and there was one near-disaster when Diana had to restrain Mina from going after a live cobra performing for a snake charmer. The pursuing children laughed at the cat’s antics and pointed, and Diana laughed with them.

  At one point Yi-kin disappeared briefly into the crowds, then returned with a small paper-wrapped bundle which he passed through the doolie’s window to Diana. “Try this. Very good.”

  Diana pulled ba
ck the paper and saw a small dark brown sphere; a heady, sweet aroma rose from it, and her first bite left her senses nearly overcome with a milky sweetness.

  “This is delicious, Yi-kin! What is it?” she asked.

  “Ladikani.”

  Diana finished the sweet, then returned to examining the passing scenery.

  The chair wobbled from side to side as the coolies deftly traversed the winding road and the traffic, which now included a horsedrawn tram. At one point they came to a halt, and leaning out the window Diana saw a shouting crowd centered around an ox-drawn cart that had tipped over. Her bearers suddenly stopped and looked around, shouting suggestions at each other in Hindi. They spotted an open alleyway to the left and headed for its shadows. The mouth of the alley was narrow, and for a moment Diana felt certain the chair would prove too wide; but the four bearers deftly negotiated the way and soon they’d left the tumultuous bustle of Chitpore Road behind.

  Diana involuntarily tensed when she glanced to her left and saw they were passing a row of human arms and legs.

  Upon closer examination, she realized the limbs were actually clay, and belonged to hundreds of realistic, life-sized statues that were stacked up against one side of the alley. She saw Christian saints, local deities…and Kali. Everywhere, Kali, with her bloody tongue, third eye and sinuous arms.

  Now she saw the makers of these marvels; potters squatted at work in dusty alcoves along the alley, fashioning the figures, molding clay and dressing them in real fabric.

  When the alley broadened slightly, Yi-kin edged up to the window again, apparently having anticipated Diana’s questions.

  “The Indians say this place is called Kumortuli. These people—the Kumors—are very famous.”

  “No doubt. Their work is breathtaking.”

  Just before they left Kumortuli behind, they moved past a completely finished statue of Kali, one that had been painted and dressed, and Diana couldn’t help but feel that the statue was somehow watching her even as she was watching it.

  The ubiquitous presence of Kali was one thing she wouldn’t miss about Calcutta.

  Not long after the inadvertent side trip to Kumortuli, the landscape changed from urban crush to rural space, puckha buildings giving way to lush, open fields. They negotiated a dirt road between two-wheeled carts pulled by cream-colored oxen, and trains of camels bearing crates.

  The plantation fields were hot magenta in color, and it took Diana a few seconds to realize what crop would provide that startling hue:

  The poppy.

  Of course. Poppies, their vivid blooms interspersed with bulging sacs waiting to be harvested and converted into the profitable opium.

  “Yi-kin,” Diana called, leaning out of the jostling sedan’s window. When he’d turned to her, she begged, “How much farther? There’s no reason I can’t get out and walk now, is there?”

  Yi-kin called to one of the sepoys (whose named Diana learned was Amitabh), and conversed with him briefly, then returned. “He say we are almost there, and that please, memsahib should stay in doolie until we arrive.”

  Diana surveyed the landscape beyond the road. In one direction poppy fields led off to a distant view of the Hooghly; in the other, they were bordered by thick jungle.

  Arrive where? she wondered.

  A mere twenty minutes later, her question was answered.

  The bearers stopped, and lowered the doolie before a rickety building that was set on the edge of one of the plantations. Diana gratefully stepped from the sedan, and examined the exterior of the building.

  It seemed to be a sort of way station, not quite an inn, but more than some mere shack.

  Most spectacular, however, was the sight of a herd of elephants grazing nearby.

  It was the first time Diana had seen this many of the great beasts gathered at once, and the sight was truly impressive. The pachyderms flapped ears and tails lazily in the heat, their trunks reaching up to pluck leaves from tall trees on the edges of the jungle. From Diana’s satchel, Mina eyed the elephants, her nose working furiously to parse the strange scents.

  Amitabh went into the one-story building, and returned a few seconds later with an Indian man, who took one look at Diana and burst into smiles and bows.

  “Welcome, memsahib, welcome!”

  Diana returned one bow, and the man grinned even wider. “We are honored by your presence!”

  “Thank you,” she answered, then muttered a quiet aside to Yi-kin. “What are we doing here?”

  “Here is where your map say we go into jungle to find temple.”

  “Ahh.” Diana now saw a trail leading from the main road, into the thick growth. “Do we walk?”

  “Oh no, siu je,” Yi-kin answered. “We ride animal.”

  At first Diana thought he meant a horse…then she realized he was referring to the beasts. “Surely you don’t—”

  She was cut off by the supercilious Indian man. “These elephants are very good! You will like riding one!”

  Diana stared from the elephant rental agent to the elephants to the two amused sepoys and then Yi-kin. “We’re actually going to take an elephant into the jungle?!”

  Amitabh stepped up and addressed her directly in heavily-accented English. “The jungle has tigers. Tigers do not kill elephants.”

  Diana could hardly deny the logic of that.

  A short time later, an elephant bearing a battered old wooden howdah was produced (for which the rental agent apologized profusely, since he was sure a great British lady deserved a better one of gold and jewels). The rental fees were argued and paid, arrangements made for the bearers to wait, and Diana, Yi-kin and the two Indian soldiers climbed a short ladder while the elephant knelt on all fours. The howdah was a small platform perched atop the beast, covered overhead and contained two settees, one placed behind the other. She and Yi-kin moved to the front, while the sepoys claimed the rear. A local Indian was hired as the mahout, or driver, and he rode bareback atop the elephant’s broad neck. As the animal lumbered to its feet, Diana found herself clutching at the arms of the settee anxiously, but then the elephant righted itself, and the ride became surprisingly smooth. The elephant moved forward at a moderate but steady gait, and they’d soon left behind the road and fields and were swallowed by the encroaching greenery of the Indian jungle.

  The path was just barely wide enough to accommodate the elephant’s bulk, and they often felt vines or fronds brush the top of the howdah. The only marks of civilization they saw, besides the trail, were occasional bamboo poles placed near the path, usually topped with tattered old pieces of cloth or shriveled leaves.

  “Amitabh,” Diana asked over one shoulder, “what do those bamboo poles represent?”

  Amitabh said, “Each pole marks a place where a tiger has killed a man.”

  Diana was suddenly very glad they hired the elephant.

  Unfortunately the elephant didn’t seem very glad to have them, after a short trip. Or, more precisely, the elephant’s driver didn’t.

  They’d ridden perhaps two miles into the jungle when the mahout abruptly stopped his elephant, brought it to a kneeling position, and called something to the passengers in the native Hindi language.

  Amitabh and the other sepoy shouted something back, and it soon became apparent to Diana that an argument was going on between the elephant driver and the soldiers.

  “Amitabh, what’s happening?” she asked.

  He called something to the elephant driver which only caused the man to shake his head and gesture firmly at the ground, then turned to Diana. “He says he will not go further.”

  “How far are we from the temple?” Diana asked, suddenly worried.

  “Maybe a mile,” Amitabh answered.

  “Surely he can take us all the way,” she pleaded.

  Amitabh shook his head. “He says there are phansigars.”

  When Diana looked perplexed, Amitabh added, “Thuggees.”

  Aaahhh, Diana thought, now Thuggees I know.

  T
he books she’d studied on Calcutta and India had described the murderous cult dedicated to worship of Kali, and claimed they had slain as many as two million unwary travelers, using their signature method of strangulation by a length of cloth known as a ruhmal.

  The Thuggee cult had also been (supposedly) successfully suppressed in the 1830s by a British police organization known as the Thuggee and Dacoity Department.

  “I thought the Thuggees were basically dead,” Diana said.

  “Not dead,” Amitabh grunted, and hefted his rifle. “You can walk?”

  She nodded.

  “We walk, then. The temple is this way.”

  Diana followed the sepoys and Yi-kin down from the elephant, and they started off down the trail on foot. They’d only gone a short distance when Amitabh glanced back and shouted in alarm.

  The mahout had remounted the elephant, somehow got it turned around on the narrow trail, and was heading back the way they’d come.

  The soldiers ran a short distance after them, but the animal was moving quickly and they soon realized they couldn’t stop it. They paused in the midst of the jungle trail, anxious and bewildered, and turned back to Diana and Yi-kin.

  “Well,” Diana said, watching their transportation disappear from sight around a bend in the trail, “that wasn’t a very wise investment, was it?”

  The Indians grunted and led the way on through the jungle.

  Although it was warmer than she would have liked, and steaming, Diana nevertheless enjoyed the trek; free from either doolie or elephant, she was happy to stretch her legs and admire some of the spectacular flora and fauna up-close. Mina, likewise, meowed for release, and although Diana was hesitant to let Mina roam free until they got closer to the gateway, she finally gave in to the feline’s whining and set her down on the trail. Mina immediately ran to the edge of the jungle to sniff a strange flower, then trotted complacently alongside Diana’s feet.

  They’d walked perhaps a half-mile when Diana began to suspect they were being followed.