Fantasy For Good: A Charitable Anthology

by George R. R. Martin

  It’s been a horrible year, which means people make more of an effort to celebrate the pujas—none of that nonsense about staying indoors and being too cool to mingle with the crowd, with all the shoving and sweat that involves. No, they’re all out tonight, in their kurtas and their saris and for the younger ones, their rebel clothes, a little shoulder, a little back, a little leg. A few hours ago, they were all dancing and twirling with the crazy drummers, and getting high off the smoke and general frenzy in the air. It takes very little for people to cast off the whole city sophisticate thing and become the tribe that the pujas remind them they are.

  It’s the same thing ever year—the faces change a little, and the clothes change a little more, but it’s always the same people at the pandal. The cursory visit to the actual idols, token worship, the ten-minute awkward stand near the auditorium where some local hero wails lustily to the sound of—well, Bollywood now, but it used to be Tagore songs. Then, the real pujas begin—they eat like starving demons, find a chair in the park, and imagine themselves sleeping with all the hot young things roaming the pandal grounds. And the food is usually greasy and horrible, but they don’t care—they wake up next morning ready to do it again. That’s the beauty of pandal food.

  I love crowds. I’ve been at pandals, some years, where it’s just a family affair, and there are maybe fifty people around. These are all very high-class old-school Bengali zamindar family affairs, and they’re boring. This year, I’m doing a pandal in Salt Lake, which used to be a swamp, and then it was a quiet suburb, and now it’s a technology hub and almost a part of the city centre. Calcutta changes every year, even though the people who leave it and come only to visit complain that it doesn’t change at all. New things come and go like mushrooms, living and dying and coming back. The last couple of years, it’s been phones instead of cameras, everyone’s taking pictures of the same people and things they see every year and putting it up on the Internet. I guess it helps them feel alive. And it helps them pretend they’ve been to more pandals than they have. Saves time. Traffic is always terrible. All fourteen million Calcuttans are out on the streets, plus many times that number from outside.

  At one a.m., the lights around the idols are switched off, leaving only a few lamps and incense sticks to keep the goddess and her children assured that we all still love them. I heave a sigh of relief as the pandal finally empties, and then, when it’s dark, I change into my social clothes. When I step out, into the light, I’m looking pretty good—a handsome young Bengali man in a sharp kurta. It’s a classic look. Always works, always will.

  The stalls are shutting down, one by one—I grab the last dirty candyfloss from one stall, shoot the last set of balloons with an airgun at another. I ride the creaky merry-go-round—it’s for kids, really, but Akbar bhai, who runs it, owes me a favour or two. I know I look fairly ridiculous, a grown man on a children’s ride, but I don’t care. I’ve been working all day, and pandal management is one of the most stressful jobs in the world.

  Purab and Alok arrive in half an hour or so. The pandals they’re running this year are all nearby—we’d decided we’d do Salt Lake properly this year. We usually find ourselves slots in South Calcutta, where all the gorgeous women go, but Purab had insisted we try out the city’s new hub. And as they enter the park and wave at me, I notice they’re really giving the trying new things mission their attention this year—they’ve got a girl with them, a foreign girl.

  “This is Claudia,” says Purab, as I shake hands, awkwardly, with the girl. She’s wearing a sleeveless kurta over jeans, which is usually a college girl I-can’t-be-bothered-to-dress-up-but-look-at-my-excellent-muscle-tone thing, but she pulls it off.

  “Claudia is from the Netherlands,” says Alok gleefully. “She’s new in town.”

  “They told me you would be the best person to explain this whole puja to me,” says Claudia. “They said you know all about it.”

  I do know all about it. So I toss a few teenagers from the chairs they’ve been guarding savagely, and we sit down, and I explain the whole thing to her. How a pandal is more than just a tent with some clay figures in it. How the goddess Durga, after slaying several asurs and pulling off lots of classical dance moves, comes to her parents’ house with all her kids for a few days every year. Claudia has the usual questions—who are the four gods around the main Durga/lion/asur idol? Why does Ganesh have an elephant’s head? Why is he married to a banana tree? What are the peacock, the mouse, the owl and swan doing with the gods? Why are Durga’s kids doing nothing while their mother, in every pandal, is so hard at work slaying the horrific green asur with her spear and her angry lion?

  I tell her the stories. I explain to her that the moment every idol depicts—Durga, the warrior goddess, standing on her lion, driving her spear through the heart of the mighty asur, is more than just an action scene—it’s the moment the gods really defeated their mortal enemies, the asurs, really set the foundations of the world we live in now. I’ve told so many outsiders these stories I’ve got it all down perfectly, and she understands. Like all foreigners, she’s amazed at the way the whole city turns into a carnival, at the amount of work that goes into making hundreds of thousands of beautiful idols, incredible pandal tents—and how it’s all just thrown into the river when the festival is done. I learn something in exchange, though—the Dutch don’t really know what going Dutch means. It’s not an expression they use. Ah, cultural exchange. So glorious.

  “I’ve been to Rio during Carnival,” says Claudia. “But this is something else.”

  “Yes, it’s definitely very different,” says Purab with a knowing smirk. Like he’s ever been to Brazil. He definitely knows what he’s planning to do with Claudia later, though. She’s a lovely girl, and wins our hearts by bringing up something we’ve always wondered about the pujas.

  “So, the gods all made this ultimate warrior goddess Durga by adding their powers together because the asur was kicking their asses at combat, right? But what had the asur done that was actually wrong? As in, why is he the villain?”

  “Because he’s ugly,” says Alok. “And because he dared to take on the gods. So they ganged up on him. But there are tribes all over India who still think he got a raw deal—they think the pujas are a time of mourning, and actually worship the asurs. Of course most of these tribes are still living in the Stone Age.”

  “I wonder what would have happened if he’d won,” says Claudia.

  “Well, given what happened to the world after the gods won, you have to wonder,” says Alok. “Maybe the asurs would have handled things better. But we wouldn’t have had the pujas, so it all evens out.”

  “Well, I’m glad she won,” says Claudia. “Girl power, yes? It would’ve been a pretty shitty statue with the big demon killing the young goddess. Also, this is why Calcutta women, why Bengali women are so awesome, yes? The rest of the country is all about men.”

  Claudia has many more questions, but we have a problem: we’re all getting hungry. We’ve all been working hard all day, and nothing builds up an appetite more than watching other people eat. But we can’t really get started until Subir gets here.

  Subir makes his entrance at around three in the morning. He’s fairly drunk. We’re sitting around, four of us, in an empty field dotted with tacky plastic chairs. To my left, the pandal is asleep, empty except for a sleeping security guard. It’s quiet, though the field seems to throb with the echoes of the day’s chaos. The city is aglow, the sky grey and yellow, a dull wave of noise washing over us every now and then.

  “Anyone hungry?” Subir asks, and we all groan.

  “I’m sorted,” says Purab, a cloud of smoke drifting from his nostrils, the orange glow of his cigarette reflected in his large, round eyes. Claudia looks at him, and there’s a moment that passes between them that we all notice. Maybe Purab and Claudia might be one of those puja romances that really work out. Earlier the pujas used to be the only time in the year when young men and women could actually meet without
parents breathing down their necks. It was mating season, every year, and that was really why young people looked forward to it. Now times have changed, of course, and people meet each other all the time, in the real world and in cyberspace, but the ghost of mating seasons past still lingers over the whole city. People still have puja romances. It’s a thing.

  “Have you eaten?” Alok asks Subir.

  “Usual. Pandal food. This and that. Just got in from Maddox.”

  We have to pause for a bit while I explain to Claudia that Maddox square is Puja Mating Central, where you have to be seen if you’re hoping to make your mark in trendy Calcutta society.

  “Good crowd?” asks Alok, grinning.

  “Lovely. Before you ask me what the pandal looks like, don’t; I don’t think I even looked at it. The girls just get hotter every year. Such fit, firm bodies they have now, and not afraid to show them! There was this one chick, my god…she could get on a lion and slay me any time. But why do you ask? You’ve not eaten?”

  “No. I think I’m going to go find dinner now, in fact. Want to come?”

  “Not if you’re going South-side. Won’t find transport back at this hour, and I have to be at work in the morning.”

  “We all have to be at work. Come on!”

  “Sorry.” Purab gestures towards Alok and Subir. “You want to go with him?”

  “Depends where you’re going,” Alok grins. “I’m not hungry, but I’m up for some fun. Where will the good girls be, this time of night? Subir? You up for some romance? There’s no point just hanging around with us guys, you know.”

  Subir doesn’t say anything. But he glares at Alok, and we all laugh, though this is a jibe that gets repeated every year at every possible occasion. Subir rises and burps, indicating his willingness to leave. So we bid our goodbyes to Purab and Claudia get into my car.

  As I drive off, I see Purab, shaking his head, walk into the pandal with Claudia—she’d been talking about getting another look at the idols before they left. Claudia blows me a kiss as they enter, fading into the shadows cast by the lamps in front of the idols, until they’re just a suggestion of a moving shape, grey-green in the light from a huge glowing ad hoarding across the street proclaiming the virtues of some antiseptic or other.

  We turn the corner and drive on. Alok’s next to me, smiling a secret smile to himself as he scans the streets, marvelling at the new, flashing lights and bright colours of the city we watched change before our eyes. We’re from the north, of course, and we’re all old enough to remember when everything was different; when you could smell the earth and the river, when the pujas, while still a huge carnival, were about people not things, not about smartphones and Best Pandal TV contests, when the lights on the street, the decorations, were wonders to gaze in awe at. When the pujas were a source of faith and mystery. Ah well, we were younger ourselves, then, and you feel things more deeply when you’re young.

  “I want to tell you something,” says Subir suddenly. “I’m gay.”

  If he expects us to be shocked, he’s in for a disappointment. “We know,” says Alok. “And we’ve always felt bad for you during the pujas—Calcutta’s not really a good hunting ground for attractive men, is it? Still, at least some of them have a little muscle now. If they’d only stop wearing net-vests at pandals, you’d be ok.” Subir grumbles, and is silent.

  Enough conversation. It’s time to eat.

  At Maddox, Mating Central, we find what we’re looking for—an attractive young couple wandering around in a little winding lane near the pandal. We get out of the car. They don’t even notice us until we’re right next to them. It’s over quickly, without much of a struggle. Subir eats the boy, I eat the girl, and Alok watches, smiling, snacking on a hand. She’s very tasty, though her strange foreign perfume leaves an acid taste in my mouth. Give me old-fashioned sweat any day.

  It’s almost dawn now. Time to go to work. We drive back to Salt Lake, and I drop Alok and Subir at their pandals. I park my car and walk inside my pandal. I clean up the smear of blood near the lamp—Purab’s getting sloppy in his old age. Poor Claudia. She was nice. Did she come to India to find herself?

  “Couldn’t save her, could you?” I ask the Durga idol. She stares back at me, her fiery eyes unmoving. I scream at her, at the whole family for a while, ancient challenges, taunts. I wish they’d come back, fight me again. I miss them. Where did they go? Why did they leave?

  But it’s morning now, and the pandal workers will be here soon… I slouch up to the divine family and their pets. I assume my position, below Durga’s spear, in front of the lion’s mouth. I stretch my face into a mask of anger and fear, my fangs glistening in the lamp-light, my body now green, strong, well-fed. I freeze. Soon the day will be here, and so will I. Waiting. Maybe you’ll come visit me, laugh at the silly asur. And I’ll be watching you. Maybe I’ll like you. Maybe you’ll look good.

  I love pandal food.

  As a solo writer, KEVIN J. ANDERSON has written several Star Wars novels as well as X-Files tie-ins, and he’s co-authored over a dozen novels in the Dune universe with Brian Herbert. He is well known for the Saga of Seven Suns series of original novels, as well as the Terra Incognita trilogy, the Dan Shamble, Zombie PI series and many more.

  REBECCA MOESTA is the author of a Buffy novel and three Junior Jedi Knights Star Wars books. Together with husband Kevin she has written fourteen more Star Wars novels, along with multiple tie-ins and movie novelizations. They have also released the Crystal Doors trilogy together.

  See more at wordfire.com/

  Loincloth

  Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta

  All alone in the props warehouse on the back lot of Duro Studios, he made his case to Shirley in his mind, rehashing the argument they had had the night before. This time, though, he was bold and articulate, and he easily convinced her.

  Walter Groves opened another one of the big crates and tore out the packing straw mixed with Styrofoam peanuts. “Not exciting enough for you, huh? You don’t feel fireworks? I’m too sedate-not a man’s man? Think about it, Shirley. Women say they want nice guys, the shy and sensitive type, men who are sweet and remember birthdays and anniversaries. Isn’t that what you told me you needed-someone just like me? You’ve always despised hypocrites. But what do you do? You fall for a bad boy, someone with tattoos and a heavy smoking habit, someone who can’t keep a job for more than a month, someone like that last jerk you dated, who treated you rough and left you out in the cold.

  “But I loved you. I treated you with respect, drove you to visit your grandmother in the hospital, and fixed your computer when the hard drive crashed. I got out of bed when you called at three in the morning and came to your apartment just to hold you because you had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep. I gave you flowers, dinners by candlelight, and love notes-not to mention the best six months of my life. ‘Someday, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon’”—he pictured himself as Bogart in Casablanca—“you’ll realize what you threw away. But I won’t be waiting. I’m a good man, and I deserve a wonderful woman who values me for who I am, who appreciates my dedication, and wants a nice, normal life. Go ahead. Have your shallow, exciting fling with Mr. James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. I’ll find someone sincere who wants Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  Scattering straw and packing material, he pulled a long plastic elephant tusk out of the prop box. The faux ivory was sharp at one end and painted with “native symbols”. He glanced at the label on the box: JUNGO’S REVENGE. After marking the name of the film on his clipboard, he listed the stored items beneath the title. He sighed.

  If only he could have come up with just the right answers last night, maybe Shirley wouldn’t have dumped him. If only he could have been tough like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, confident like Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, or romantic like Dermot Mulroney in The Wedding Date. Instead, he had squirmed, speechless with shock, his lower lip trembling as if he were Stan Laure
l caught in an embarrassing failure. Walter had made no heartfelt appeals or snappy comebacks; those would have been as much fiction as a script for any Duro Studios production.

  Shirley had grabbed her stuff-along with some of his, though he hadn’t had the presence of mind to mention it—and stormed out of the apartment.

  Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. That’s who she reminded him of.

  The large black walkie-talkie at his hip crackled, and even through the static of the poor-quality unit, he heard the lovely musical speech of Desiree Drea. Her voice never failed to make his heart skip a beat, then go back and skip it all over again. “Walter? Mr. Carmichael wants to know how you’re coming with the props. He needs me to type up the inventory.”

  “I… um… I—” He looked down at the box, searching for words, and seized upon the letters stenciled to the crate. “I’m just now up to Jungo’s Revenge. I’ve finished about half of the work.”

  As Desiree responded, he could hear the producer’s voice bellowing in the background. “Jungo! It’s all worthless crap. Trash it.”

  The secretary softened the message as she relayed it. “Mr. Carmichael suggests that it’s of no value, so please put it in the Dumpster.”

  “And tell him he damn well better stay until he finishes,” the voice in the background growled. “We need that building tomorrow to start shooting Horror in the Prop Warehouse.”

  “Tell him I’ll do what needs to be done,” Walter said, then clicked off the walkie-talkie, though he would gladly have chatted with Desiree for hours. He didn’t have anything better to do that evening than work, anyway. He was very conscientious and would finish the job.