by Dan Simmons
The two Kapalikas above us leaned and strained to see, but the alley was in almost total darkness once again. I thought that I could see Krishna and the other man pivoting in awkward jerks, two clumsy dancers in slow motion. Sparks flew as the Kapalika's knife hand was slammed repeatedly into the brick wall. Then I thought I saw Krishna behind the other, pulling back long hair, forcing him face first into the yielding pit. I squinted in the darkness and thought I saw Krishna's knee in the Kapalikas arching back, forcing him deeper, deeper . . . but then Krishna was next to me, tugging me with him, wading with me away from the window.
The two Kapalikas disappeared from the dim rectangle above us. Our own movement was nightmarishly slow. One of us would become stuck and use the other's body as leverage to free himself.
I had waded most of the length of the alley when a sudden thought made me want to retch again. There was no light ahead of us. What if we're going the wrong way, toward a brick wall, a dead end?
We were not. Five more waded steps, and the alley turned sharply to the right and the level of trash diminished. Fifteen more steps and we were out.
We stumbled out onto a wet and empty street. Rats brushed by our ankles, hopping in their panic, and splashed off through rain-filled gutters. I looked left and right but could see no sign of the last two Kapalikas.
"Quickly, Mr. Luczak," hissed Krishna; and we ran across the street, moved quickly over tilted slabs of sidewalk, and blended into the dark shadows under sagging metal awnings. We ran from shop to shop. Occasionally there would be sleeping forms in the wet doorways, but no one called out; no one tried to stop us.
We turned down another street and then dodged through a short alley onto an even wider street where a truck was just disappearing from sight. There were streetlights here, and an electric glow came from numerous windows. Above us, a red flag flapped in the breeze. I could hear the sound of traffic on nearby streets.
We stopped for a minute in the dark doorway of a caged and shuttered store. We were both gasping, bent over from the pain of exertion, but Krishna's narrow face showed the gleeful, blood-sport mask of joy I had seen there that first night on the bus. He started to speak, took another breath, and straightened up.
"I will leave you now, Mr. Luczak," he said.
I stared at him. He steepled his fingers, bowed slightly, and turned to walk away. His sandals made soft sounds in the puddles.
"Wait!" I cried. He did not stop. "Just a minute. Hey!" He was almost lost to the shadows now.
I took a step forward into the pale circle of the streetlight. "Stop! Sanjay, stop!"
He stopped. Then he turned and took two slow steps in my direction. His long fingers seemed to twitch. "What did you say, Mr. Luczak?"
"Sanjay," I repeated, but it was more of a whisper this time. "I'm right, aren't I?"
He stood there, a basilisk with a wild corona of dark hair framing his terrible gaze. The smile appeared then and widened into something far worse than a shark's grimace. It was the grin of a hungry ghoul.
"I'm right, aren't I, Sanjay?" I paused to take a breath. I had no idea what to say next. But I had to say something — anything — to keep him at bay. "What's your game, Sanjay? What the fuck is going on?"
He did not move for several seconds; and I half expected a silent rush, long fingers reaching for my throat. Instead, he threw back his head and laughed. "Yes, yes, yes," he said. "There are many games, Mr. Luczak. This game is not yet over. Good-bye, Mr. Luczak."
He turned and trotted into the darkness.
14
"Calcutta is a terrible stone in my heart."
— Sunil Gangopadhyay
If I had found a taxi sooner . . .
If I had gone straight to the hotel . . .
It took me the better part of an hour to get back to the hotel. At first I staggered from street to street, staying in the shadows, freezing when I saw anyone walking my direction. Once I jogged through an empty courtyard to get to a wider avenue from which came the sound of traffic.
A man lurched out of a shadowed doorway at me. I yelled, jumped back, and threw up my fists in an instinctive gesture. I screamed again when my little finger tried to bend with the rest of my left hand. The man — an old man in rags with a red bandana around his forehead — stumbled back in the act of saying "Baba" and let out his own scream of fear. The two of us left the courtyard in different directions.
I came out onto the avenue to see trucks passing, private cars swerving around cyclists, and, most welcome of all, a public bus moving slowly down the street. I banged on the side of the moving vehicle in my eagerness to board it. The driver stared as I dumped a pocketful of coins at him. Along with the required paisas there must have been several days' worth of his salary in the American money I dumped there.
The bus was crowded, and I squeezed through the standing passengers to find a position less visible from the street. There were no straps. I grabbed a metal bar and hung on to it as the swaying bus ground through gears and lurched from stop to stop.
For a while I fell into a half-dream state. The overload of the past few hours had left me drained of everything except the desire to stand there and be safe. Many blocks had passed before I realized that a wide space had been opened around me and that the other passengers were staring.
Haven't you ever seen an American before? I thought at them. Then I looked down at myself. My clothes were soaked and reeking from the unmentionable filth I had waded through. My shirt was ripped in at least two places and no one could have guessed that it had once been white. My bare arms were caked with scum and my right forearm was still redolent from my own vomit. The little finger on my left hand protruded at an impossible angle. From the way my brow and forehead felt, I had the beginning of a spectacular bruise there, and caked blood still adorned my brow, eyelid, and cheek. No doubt my hair and expression looked wilder than Krishna at his wildest.
"Hi," I said and gave a limp wave at the group. Women raised their saris over their faces, and the entire huddle pressed back until the driver shouted at them not to crowd him.
A thought occurred to me then. Where the hell was I? For all I knew, this might have been the nightly express to New Delhi. At the very least, the odds were great that I was going the wrong way.
"Does anyone here speak English?" I asked. The staring passengers pressed even farther away from me. I bent and peered out the barred windows. A few blocks passed before I saw the neon-lit facade of some sort of hotel or café. Several black-and-yellow cabs were parked out front.
"Hold it!" I called. "I'll get out here." I pressed through the quickly parting throng. The driver screeched to a halt in the middle of the street. There was no door to be opened. The crowd made way to let me pass.
I argued with the drivers for several minutes before I remembered that I still had my wallet. The three drivers had taken one look at me and decided that I was not worth their time. Then I remembered to take out my wallet and hold up a twenty-dollar bill. Suddenly the three were smiling, bowing, and opening their car doors for me. I settled into the first cab, said "Oberoi Grand," and closed my eyes. We roared away through rain-slick streets.
Several minutes later I realized that I was still wearing my watch. The dial was difficult to read, but when we passed a lighted intersection I could make it out. It said 11:28 . . . that was impossible! Only two hours since the car had brought me to Das? A lifetime had passed since then. I tapped the crystal, but the second hand continued pulsing steadily.
"Hurry!" I said to the driver.
"Atcha!" he called back happily. Neither of us had understood the other.
* * *
The assistant manager saw me enter the lobby and watched me with an expression of horror. He raised his hand. "Mr. Luczak!"
I waved at him and entered the elevator. I did not want to talk to him. The adrenalin and mindless euphoria were wearing away to be replaced by nausea, fatigue, and pain. I leaned against the wall of the elevator and held my left hand steady. What would I tell
Amrita? My thoughts stirred sluggishly and I settled on a simple tale of being mugged. I would tell her the rest of the story someday. Perhaps.
It was midnight, but there were people in the hall. Our room door was open and it looked as if a party were going on. Then I saw the Sam Browne belts on the two policeman and the familiar beard and turban of Inspector Singh. Amrita called the police. I said I'd be back in thirty minutes.
Several people turned to watch me approach, and Inspector Singh stepped toward me. I began inventing details of the mugging — nothing serious enough to keep us in Calcutta an extra day! — and waved almost jauntily at the police. "Inspector! Who says there's never a policeman around when you need one?"
Singh said nothing. Then the scene registered on my exhausted mind. Other hotel guests were milling around, staring at the open door of our room. The open door.
I pushed past the Inspector and ran into the hotel room. I do not know what I expected to find, but my racing heart slowed as I saw Amrita sitting on the bed, speaking to an officer taking notes.
The relief made me sag back against the door. Everything was all right. Then Amrita looked at me; and in the pale, controlled calm of her absolutely expressionless face, I could see that everything was not all right after all. It might never be all right again.
"They've taken Victoria," she said. "They've stolen our baby."
"Why did you let her in? I told you not to let anyone in. Why did you let her in?" I had asked the same thing three times before. Amrita had answered three times. I sat with my back against the wall where I was slumped to the floor. My forearms rested on my raised knees and my broken finger jutted whitely. Amrita sat very straight on the edge of the bed, one hand lying primly atop the other. Inspector Singh sat nearby in a straight-backed chair, scrutinizing the both of us. The door to the hall was closed.
"She said she had brought the material back," said Amrita. "She wanted to exchange it. You and I were leaving in the morning."
"But . . . aw, Christ, kiddo — " I stopped and lowered my face.
"You didn't say not to talk to her, Bobby. I knew Kamakhya."
Inspector Singh cleared his throat. "Yet it was very late, Mrs. Luczak. Did this cause you any concern?"
"Yes," said Amrita and turned toward Singh. "I kept the chain hooked and asked her why she had come so late. She explained . . . she seemed embarrassed, Inspector . . . she explained that she had not been able to leave the house until her father was asleep. She said that she had called twice earlier."
"And had she, Mrs. Luczak?"
"The phone did ring twice, Inspector. Bobby had told me not to answer it. I didn't."
They both looked at me. I met Singh's gaze. I could not meet Amrita's.
"You are sure that you do not require medical assistance, Mr. Luczak? There is a doctor on call with this establishment."
"No. I'm sure." After the first few minutes, when Singh had asked what had happened to me, I had blurted out the entire story. It could not have been very coherent, but I omitted nothing but the fact that I had been the one who gave the pistol to Das. Inspector Singh had nodded and taken notes as if he heard such stories every evening.
It did not matter.
He turned back to Amrita. "I'm sorry to make you go back over this again, Mrs. Luczak, but can you estimate how long you were out of the room?"
Amrita trembled a bit through her icy control, and I could see the pit of hysteria and grief that lay under the surface. I wanted to go to her and take her in my arms. I did nothing.
"A minute, Inspector. Perhaps not that long. I was speaking to Kamakhya when suddenly I felt very dizzy. I excused myself, went into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, and returned. Perhaps forty-five seconds."
"And the child?"
"Victoria . . . Victoria was asleep there. On the bed near the windows. We use . . . we use the pillows and cushion as a kind of . . . she likes to nestle, Inspector. She likes her head to be against something. And she won't roll off with the cushion there."
"Yes."
I pushed myself to my feet and walked to the foot of Amrita's bed. Anywhere as long as I didn't have to look at the other bed with it's empty circle of pillows and Victoria's blue and white blanket, still crumpled and moist where she had pulled it against her face in her sleep.
"You've heard all of this before, Inspector," I said. "When are you going to quit asking questions and get busy hunting for . . . for the person who has our baby?"
Singh looked at me with dark eyes. I remembered the pain in Das's gaze, and I understood a little better now that there might be no limit to hurting.
"We are searching, Mr. Luczak. The entire Metropolitan Police Force has been notified. No one in the hotel saw this woman leave. People on the street do not remember seeing such a person carrying a child or a bundle. I have sent a car to the address which Mrs. Luczak remembers from the sari shop. As you see, we have extended extra phone lines from the adjoining rooms so that we can receive communications while your line remains open."
"Remains open? Why?"
Singh glanced down, ran a thumb along the sharp crease of his trousers, and looked back. "For a ransom demand, Mr. Luczak. We must assume that there will be a ransom element to this kidnapping."
"Ah," I said and sat down heavily on the bed. The words had cut through me like sharp metal tabs that had to be swallowed. "I see. All right." I took Amrita's hand in mine. It was cold and limp. "But what about the Kapalikas?" I asked. "What if they're involved?"
Singh nodded. "We are checking into that, Mr. Luczak. You must remember that it is very late."
"But I gave you the description of the factory area where I met Das."
"Yes, and that may prove to be very helpful. But you should understand that there are scores of such places near the Hooghly in Old Calcutta. Hundreds, if you count warehouses and dock areas to the north. And all of them are private property. Many are owned by foreign interests. Are you sure, Mr. Luczak, that this place was near the river?"
"No. Not positive."
"And you remember no landmarks? No street names? No easily identifiable references?"
"No. Just the two chimneys. There was a slum — "
"Was there any sign that this was a permanent location for these men? Any sign of long-term habitation?"
I frowned. Other than Das's meager shelf of belongings, there had been no such sign. "There was the idol," I said at last. "They used the place as a temple. That idol couldn't be too easy to cart around."
"The idol that walked?" asked Singh. If there had been the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice, I would have gone for him then, broken finger and everything.
"Yeah."
"And we do not know that they are involved, do we, Mr. Luczak?"
I cradled my hand and glared at him. "She's M. Das's niece, Inspector. She's bound to be involved somehow."
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no'?"
Singh took out a gold cigarette case. It was the first time that I had ever seen anyone in real life tap a cigarette against a cigarette case before lighting up. "I mean, no, she is not M. Das's niece," he said.
Amrita gasped as if someone had slapped her. I stared.
"You said, Mrs. Luczak, that Miss Kamakhya Bahrati was the niece of the poet M. Das. The daughter of Das's younger sister, according to her own account. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"M. Das had no sisters, Mrs. Luczak. At least, none who survived infancy. He had four living brothers, all farmers, all citizens of the same village in Bangladesh. You see, I have been case officer on the disappearance of Mr. M. Das for eight years. I am well acquainted with his circumstances. If you had mentioned being contacted by this woman when we spoke, Mr. Luczak, I could have informed you of this fact." Singh exhaled smoke and removed a shred of tobacco from his tongue.
The phone rang.
We all stared. It was one of the extra phones. Singh answered it. "Ha?" There was a long silence. "Shukriya," he said
at last, and added, "Very good, sergeant."
"What is it?" I demanded.
Inspector Singh stubbed out his cigarette and stood. "There is little else we can do tonight, I am afraid. I will return in the morning. My men will be in the adjoining rooms through the night. Any call to your room will be monitored by an officer at the switchboard downstairs. That was my sergeant on the phone. The address Kamakhya Bahrati gave the shop was a false one, of course. She had returned to the shop to pick up the fabric in person. It took some time for my men to locate the street number she had given the store, since the address is in a location where there are few buildings." He hesitated then and looked at me. "The address she gave is a public laundry park," he said. "A laundry park and cremation grounds."
Amrita was by far the braver and the smarter of the two of us during the hours and days that followed. I might have remained sitting on the bed for hours after Singh left if Amrita had not taken charge, gotten me out of my reeking clothes, and set the broken finger as best she could using a small toothbrush holder as a splint. I threw up again when she tugged the finger into place, but there was nothing left to vomit and the dry heaves would have soon turned to sobs of fury and frustration if Amrita hadn't thrust me under the shower. The water was tepid and underpressured, but wonderful. I stood there for half an hour, actually falling asleep for a while, allowing the flow of water to pound away memories and terrors. Only a fierce core of sorrow and confusion continued to burn through my fatigue as I dressed in clean cotton and joined Amrita for a silent vigil.
