Song of Kali

Chapter Four

"Everything always seems better in the morning light," said Amrita.

We were having breakfast in the Garden Café of the hotel. Victoria was gurgling happily from the highchair the obliging waiters had brought us. The café looked out on the gardens which filled the courtyard. Workers on scaffolds called merrily to one another.

I drank my tea, nibbled on the toasted muffin, and read the Calcutta English-language paper. The editorial called for a more modern transit system. Ads sold saris and motorcycles. A smiling Indian family held up bottles of Coca-Cola. Nearby on the page there was a close-up photo of a corpse — decomposing, face laid open like a burst rubber tire, glazed eyes protruding. The body had been discovered in an unclaimed steel trunk in Howrah Railway Station just yesterday — Thursday, July 14 — and anyone who could furnish a clue as to the identity of the deceased should contact the Inspector of Police, Howrah, Govt Rly, and mention case No. 23 dt. 14.7.77 u/s 302/301 I.PC. (S.R. 39/77).

I folded the paper and set it on the table.

"Mr. Luczak? Good morning!" I rose to shake hands with the middle-aged Indian gentleman who had approached us. He was short, light-skinned, almost bald, and wore thick, hornrimmed glasses. His tropical worsted suit was impeccably tailored, and his handshake was gentle. "Mr. Luczak," he said, "I am Michael Leonard Chatterjee. Mrs. Luczak, a great pleasure to meet you." He bowed slightly and took Amrita's hand in his. "My sincere apologies for not meeting you at the airport last night. My driver mistakenly informed me that the Bombay flight had been delayed until this morning."

"No problem," I said.

"But unfortunate and inhospitable to have to enter a city without being properly welcomed. I do apologize. We are most pleased that you are here."

"Who is 'we'?" I asked.

"Please join us," said Amrita.

"Thank you. What a beautiful child! She has your eyes, Mrs. Luczak. 'We' are the Bengali Writers' Union, Mr. Luczak. We have been in repeated contact with Mr. Morrow and his fine publication, and we look forward to sharing with you the most recent work of Bengal's . . . no, of India's finest poet."

"So M. Das is still alive?"

Chatterjee smiled gently. "Oh, most assuredly, Mr. Luczak. We have received numerous correspondences from him in the past six months."

"But have you seen him?" I pressed. "Can you be sure it's M. Das? Why has he disappeared for eight years? When can I meet with him?"

"All in good time, Mr. Luczak," said Michael Leonard Chatterjee. "All in good time. I have arranged for an initial meeting for you with the executive council of our writers' union. Would two P.M. today be convenient for you? Or would you and Mrs. Luczak like a day to rest and sightsee?"

I glanced at Amrita. We had already decided that if I did not need a translator, she and Victoria would stay at the hotel and rest. "Today would be fine," I said.

"Marvelous, marvelous. I will send a car at one-thirty."

We watched as Michael Leonard Chatterjee left the café. Behind us, workmen on bamboo scaffolds shouted happily to hotel employees walking through the gardens. Victoria banged loudly on the tray of her highchair and joined in the merriment.

The billboard in the littered plaza across the street from the hotel was for the United Bank of India. It had no illustration, only black letters on a white background: Calcutta — Cultural Capital of the Nation? — A Definition of Obscenity? It seemed a strange way to advertise a bank.

The car was small, black Premiere with a driver in cap and khaki shorts. We set off down Chowringhee Road, and as we crawled through heavy traffic I had a chance to look at Calcutta in the daylight.

The scene was almost comical in its mad intensity. Pedestrians, flotillas of bicycles, oriental-looking rickshaws, automobiles, flatbed trucks adorned with swastikas, countless motorbikes, and creaking bullock carts all vied for our narrow lane of torn-up pavement. Cattle wandered freely, blocking traffic, poking their heads into shops, and wading through heaps of raw garbage which were stacked on curbs or piled in the center of the street. At one point the refuse lay knee-deep for three blocks, lining the street like a dike. Human beings also waded through it, competing with the cattle and crows for edible bits.

Farther on, schoolgirls in prim white blouses and blue skirts crossed the street in single file while a brown-belted policeman held up traffic for them. The next intersection was dominated by a small red temple that sat squarely in the center of the road. The sweet smell of incense and sewage came in through the open window of the car. Red banners hung from wires and decaying facades. And everywhere was the unceasing movement of brown-skinned humanity — an almost tidal flow of jostling, white- and tan-garbed population which seemed to make the very air heavy with its moist exhalations.

Calcutta in the light was impressive, perhaps a trifle intimidating, but it caused none of the strange fear and anger of the night before. I closed my eyes and tried to analyze the fury that had seized me on the bus, but the heat and noise prevented me from concentrating. Every bicycle bell in the universe seemed to be combining with car horns, shouts, and the rising susurration of the city itself to create a wall of noise that was almost physical in its impact.

The Writers' Union had its headquarters in a gray, hulking structure just off Dalhousie Square. Mr. Chatterjee met me at the base of the stairs and led the way to the third floor. The room was large and windowless. The fading remnants of a fresco looked down from the begrimed ceiling, and seven people looked up from a green-baized table.

Introductions were made. I was terrible at remembering people's names in the best of circumstances, and I felt a sense of vertigo as I tried to fix the lists of Bengali syllables I was hearing with the brown and cultured faces. The only woman there, tired face, gray hair, and heavy green sari, which she was constantly readjusting on her shoulder, seemed to be named Leela Meena Basu Belliappa.

There were several minutes of small talk made difficult by our dialects. I found that if I relaxed and let the singsong rush of Indian English flow over me, the meaning came soon enough. The choppy lilt of their speech was strangely soothing, almost hypnotizing. Suddenly a white-smocked retainer appeared from the shadows and distributed chipped cups heavy with sugar, clotted buffalo milk, and a little tea. I sat between the woman and the director of the executive council, a Mr. Gupta. He was a tall, middle-aged man with a thin face and a ferocious overbite. I found myself wishing that Amrita had come along. Her stolid presence would have been a buffer between me and these intense strangers.

"I believe that Mr. Luczak should hear our offer," said Gupta suddenly. The others nodded. As if on cue, the lights went off.

It was pitch-black in the windowless room. There were shouts from various places in the building, and candles were brought in. Mr. Chatterjee leaned across the table and assured me that this was a common occurrence. It seemed that there were daily blackouts as the inadequate electrical power was shunted from one part of the city to another.

Somehow the darkness and candlelight seemed to accentuate the heat. I felt somewhat light-headed and gripped the edge of the table.

"Mr. Luczak, you are aware that it is a unique privilege to receive the masterwork of a great Bengali poet such as M. Das." Mr. Gupta's voice was as reedy as an oboe. The heavy notes hung in the air. "Even we have not seen the complete version of this work. I hope that the readers of your magazine appreciate this honor."

"Yes," I said. There was a drop of sweat beading on the end of Mr. Gupta's nose. Our shadows were thrown fourteen feet high by the flickering candlelight. "Have you received more of the manuscript from Mr. Das?"

"Not as of yet," said Mr. Gupta. His dark eyes were moist and heavy-lidded. Wax from the candles dripped onto the baize. "This committee is to make the final decision as to the disposition of the English-language version of this epic work."

"I would like to meet with Mr. Das," I said. The people around the table exchanged glances.

"That will not be possible." It was the woman who spoke. Her voice was as high and shrill as a saw moving on metal. The irritable, nasal tones clashed with her dignified appearance.

"Why is that?"

"M. Das has not been available for many years," said Gupta smoothly. "For some time we all believed that he had died. We mourned the loss of a national treasure."

"And how do you know that he is alive now? Has anyone here seen him?"

There was another silence. The candles were already half-consumed and sputtering wildly, although no breeze stirred. I felt terribly hot and a little sick. It seemed for a mad second that the candles would burn out and we would continue talking in the humid darkness, bodiless spirits haunting a decaying building in the belly of a dead city.

"We have correspondence," said Michael Leonard Chatterjee. He removed half a dozen crackling envelopes from his briefcase. "They establish beyond a doubt that our friend is still alive and living in our midst." Chatterjee wet his fingers and flipped through the tightly folded pages of flimsy stationery. In the dim light the lines of Indian script looked like magical runes, ominous incantations.

Mr. Chatterjee read aloud several passages to prove his point. Relatives were inquired about, common friends mentioned. A discussion from twenty years earlier was recalled in detail. There was an inquiry to Mr. Gupta about a short poem of Das's that had been paid for years before but never published.

"All right," I said. "But it's important for my article that I see Mr. Das personally so that I can —"

"Please," said Mr. Chatterjee and held up his hand. His glasses reflected twin flames where eyes should have been. "This may explain why it is impossible." He folded a page, cleared' his throat, and began reading.

". . . and so you see, my friend, things change but people do not. I remember the day in July of 1969. It was during the Festival of Shiva. The Times told us that men had left footprints on the moon. I was returning from my father's village: a place where men left footprints in the soil behind their laboring bullocks just as they have for five thousand years. In the villages our train passed by, the peasants labored to drag their heavy godcarts through the mud.

"All during that loud and crowded voyage back to our beloved city, I was struck by how empty and futile my life had been. My father had lived a long and useful life. Every man in his village, Brahman to Harijan, wished to attend his cremation. I had walked through fields which my father had flooded and tilled and recaptured from the vagaries of nature long before I was born. After his funeral, I left my brothers and went to visit in the shade of a great banyan which my father had planted as a youth. All around me were the evidences of my father's toils. The very land seemed to mourn his passing.

"And what, I asked myself, had I done? I would be fifty-four years old in a few weeks, and to what purpose had I spent my life? I had written some verse, amused my colleagues, and annoyed some critics. I had woven a web of illusion that I was carrying on the tradition of our great Tagore. Then I had enmeshed myself in my own web of deceit.

"By the time we reached Howrah Station, I had seen the shallowness of my life and art. For over thirty years I had lived and worked in our beloved city — the heart and bloodstone of Bengal — and never once had the essence of that city been recreated, nay, nor hinted at, in my feeble art. I had tried to define the soul of Bengal by describing its shallowest exterior, its foreign intruders, and its least honest face. It was as if I had tried to describe the soul of a beautiful and complex woman by listing the details of her borrowed garments.

"Gandhiji once said, 'A man cannot fully live unless he has died at least once.' By the time I had disembarked from my first-class coach at Howrah Station, I had acknowledged the imperative of that great truth. To live — in my soul, in my art — I would have to cast off the appurtenances of my old life.

"I gave my two suitcases to the first beggar who approached me. His look of surprise is still a source of some pleasure to me. What he later did with my fine linen shirts, my Parisian ties, and the many books I had packed, I have no idea.

"I crossed the Howrah Bridge into the city knowing only one thing — I was dead to my old life, dead to my old home and habits, and necessarily dead to the people I loved. Only by entering Calcutta afresh, as I had some thirty-three years earlier as a hopeful, stammering student from a small village — only then could I see with the clear eyes I would need for my final work.

"And it is that work . . . my first true attempt to tell the story of the city which nurtures us . . . to which I have devoted my life. Since that day many years ago, my new life has led me to places I had never heard of in my beloved city — a city which I had foolishly thought to have known intimately.

"It has led me to seek my way among the lost, to own only what has been cast off by the dispossessed, to labor with the Scheduled Classes, to seek wisdom from the fools of Curzon Park, and to seek virtue from the whores of Sudder Street. In so doing I have had to acknowledge the presence of those dark gods who held this place in their palms before even the gods themselves were born. In finding them I have found myself.

"Please do not seek me. You would not find me if you searched. You would not know me if you found me.

"My friends, I leave it to you to carry out my instructions in relation to this new work. The poem is incomplete. Much more work must be done. But time grows short. I wish to have the existing fragments disseminated as widely as possible. Critical response means nothing. Credits and copyrights are unimportant. It must be published.

"Respond via usual channels.

— Das"

Chatterjee quit reading, and in the silence the distant carnival of street sounds became faintly audible. Mr. Gupta cleared his throat and asked a question about American copyrights. I explained as best I could — about both the Harper's offer and the more modest proposal from Other Voices. More discussion and questions followed. The candles burned low.

Finally Gupta turned to the others and said something in rapid-fire Bengali. I again wished that Amrita had come with me. It was Michael Leonard Chatterjee who said, "If you will wait outside in the hall for just a moment, Mr. Luczak, the Council will vote on the disposition of M. Das's manuscript."

I rose on pin-cushion legs and followed a servant with a candle out into the hallway. There was a chair on the landing and a small round table upon which the candle was placed. Some pale light came up the stairwell from frosted windows facing Dalhousie Square, but the dim glow only made the darkness in the corners of the landing and the branching corridors seem more absolute.

I had been sitting there for about ten minutes and was on the point of dozing when I noticed movement in the shadows. Something was moving stealthily just out of the circle of light. I lifted the candle and watched as a rat the size of a small terrier froze into immobility. Pausing at the edge of the landing, its long tail flicked wetly back and forth across the boards. Feral eyes gleamed at me from the borders of the light. It advanced half a step, and a chill of revulsion rippled through me. The thing's movement reminded me of nothing so much as a cat stalking its prey. I half rose and gripped the flimsy chair, ready to hurl it.

Suddenly a louder noise behind me caused me to jump. The shadow of the rat blended into the shadows of the hallway and there was a scrabbling as of many claws on woodwork. Mr. Chatterjee and Mr. Gupta emerged from the black council room. Flames reflected on Mr. Chatterjee's glasses. Mr. Gupta took a step forward into my pulsing circle of light. His smile was eager and his teeth were long and yellow.

"It is settled," he said. "You will receive the manuscript tomorrow. You will be contacted about arrangements."