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Krishna, I said and opened the sack. There was something wrapped in a
loose bundle of rags.
What did he want?
I stared at the thing in my hands. It was an automatic pistol: metal,
chromed, tiny. It was as small and light as cap pistols I d played with as a boy.
But the muzzle opening looked real enough, and when I figured out how to
slide the small clip out, the jacketed cartridges were all too real. Tiny lettering
above the handgrip read GUISSEPPE .25 CALIBRE. Goddamn it to shit, I
said softly.
I said, What did he want? called Amrita.
Nothing! I yelled and looked around. Four steps took me to the closet.
Just to say good-bye.
What did you say just now?
Nothing, I stuffed the pistol and clip in the bag separately, wrapped them
tightly in rags, and tossed the bag as far back as I could on the wide shelf
above the hangars.
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You mumbled something, said Amrita as she emerged from the bathroom.
Just trying to get you to hurry up, I said and pulled a green knit shirt and
tan slacks from the closet and closed the door.
We made arrangements for a cab to take us to the airport at 4:45 A.M. and
then we turned in early. I lay there for hours, watching the silhouettes of fur-
niture slowly materialize as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
It would have been an understatement to say that I felt dissatisfied with
myself. I lay there in the moist Calcutta night and realized that my actions dur-
ing the entire time I d been in the city had been either pointless or hesitant or
both. Half the time I had behaved like a brainless tourist, and the other half I
had let the locals treat me like one. What the hell was I going to write about?
How had I let a city frighten me for no real reason? Fear . . . nameless, asi-
nine fear . . . had controlled my reactions more than any attempt at logic.
Krishna. That insane son of a bitch. What is the gun for? I tried to con-
vince myself that the present of the gun was another one of Krishna s sense-
less, melodramatic gestures, but what if it was part of some elaborate scam?
What if he contracted the police and told them that the American was carry-
ing an illegal firearm? I sat up in bed, my skin clammy. No. How the hell
could that benefit Krishna? Are handguns illegal in Calcutta? For all I knew,
Calcutta was the home office of the N.R.A.
Sometime before midnight I arose and turned on the tiny table lamp.
Amrita stirred but did not wake. Victoria was asleep with her rump raised
under the light blanket. The catches on the briefcase made a soft click in
the silence.
The pages were yellowed, tattered, and strewn about the inside of the
briefcase, but they were also numbered with bold strokes of a fountain pen
and it took me only minutes to set them in order. There were over five hun-
dred pages, and it made for a heavy stack of poetry. I smiled ruefully as I
thought of any American magazine editor being confronted with five hundred
pages of verse.
There was no cover page, no title, no cover letter, and no author s
name on the pages. If I hadn t know that the massive work was purported
to have been written by M. Das, there would have been no way to guess
from the manuscript.
The first page looked like a poor carbon copy. I leaned closer to the light
and began reading.
And the demon Mahishasura
Came forth from its vile pit,
Summoning its vast army to it,
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And Devi, Bhavani, Katyayani;
Parvati in her many robes,
Bid Siva farewell and rode forth
To do final battle with her foes.
Several more stanzas of this rough verse painted a grisly picture of the demon
Mahishasura, a powerful, malevolent thing which threatened even the gods.
Then, on page 3, the meter and voice changed drastically. I translated a
scrawled marginal notation as Kãlidãsa: Kumarãmbhava 400 A.D. new trans.
A fearful flock of evil birds
Ready for the joy of eating the army of demons
Flew over the host of the gods,
And clouded the sun.
Suddenly monstrous serpents, as black as powdered soot,
scattering poison from their upraised heads,
Frightful in form,
Appeared in the path of Parvati.
The sun put on a ghastly robe
Of great and terrible snakes, curling together,
As if to mark his joy
At the death of god or demon.
I yawned. A fearful flock of evil birds. God help me when I give this to Chet
Morrow. Nothing could help me if I brought this as my new Das epic to Abe
Bronstein. I skimmed through several pages of similar turgid verse. The only
reason I didn t put it down then was a vague curiosity as to how Parvati was
going to beat the apparently invincible Demon Mahishasura. Stanza after
stanza described the opening of the battle between the gods and demons. It
was vintage Homer via Rod McKuen.
Lighting heaven from end to end
With flames crashing all around,
With an awful crash, rending the heart with terror,
A thunderbolt fell from a cloudless sky.
The host of the foe was jostled together.
The great elephants stumbled, the horses fell,
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And all the footmen clung together in fear,
As the earth trembled and the ocean rose
To shake the mountains.
And, before the host of the foes of the gods,
Dogs lifted their muzzles to gaze on the sun,
Then howling together with cries that rent the eardrums,
Wretchedly slunk away.
I could identify with that. Still, I continued reading. Things looked bad for
the goddess Parvati. Even with the assistance of the great god Siva, she could
not best the mighty Mahishasura. Parvati was reborn as the warrioress Durga,
ten hands brandishing weapons of battle. Millennia passed as the struggle
progressed, but Mahishasura could not be conquered.
And before the very disc of the sun
Jackals brayed harshly together,
As though eager fiercely to lap the blood
Of the mightiest of the gods, fallen in battle.
The gods retreated from the field to review their options. Mere mortals peti-
tioned them not to abandon the earth to the less than tender mercies of
Mahishasura. A grim decision was made. The will of all the gods was bent to
dark purpose. From Durga s forehead leaped a goddess more demon than
divine. She was power incarnate, violence personified, unfettered even by the
bonds of time which held other gods and mere men in check. She strode the
heavens wrapped in darkness deeper than night, casting fear into the hearts
of even the deities who had brought her forth.
She was called to battle. She accepted the call. But before opposing
Mahishasura and the rampaging legions of demons, she demanded her sacri-
fice. And it was a terrible one. From every town and village on the young
earth, men and women, children and elders, virgins and depraved were
brought before the hungry goddess. Das s marginal note, only just decipher-
able, read: Bhavabhuti Malatimadhava.
Now wake the terrors of the place, beset
With crowding and malignant fiends; the flames
From funeral pyres scarce lend their sullen light
Clogged with fleshy prey to dissipate
The fearful gloom that hems them in. Pale ghosts
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