Song of Kali

  "Her fourth hand was no longer empty. The burden she dangled by the hair swayed slightly. The expression on its young face was one of mild surprise. The dripping made a soft, starting-of-rainfall sound on the floor.

  "I had heard no outcry.

  "'Kali, Kali, balo bhai,' we sang. 'Kali bai aré gaté nai.'

  "The Kapalikas filed out. A man in black led us to a door in the darkness. In the anteroom we put on our sandals and left the building. Sanjay and I found our way through the maze of alleys to Strand Road. There we hailed a rickshaw and returned to our room. It was very late.

  "'What did she mean?' I asked when both of the lanterns were lit and we were in our charpoys and under the blankets. 'What kind of offering?'

  "'Idiot,' said Sanjay. He was trembling as fiercely as I was. His string bed shook. 'We have to bring her a body by tomorrow midnight. A human body. A dead body.'"

  7

  "Calcutta, Calcutta, you are a night obsessed field,

  infinite cruelty,

  Serpentine mixed current, on which I flow

  to who knows where."

  — Sunilkumar Nandi

  Krishna stopped translating. His voice had grown more and more hoarse until the croak of it perfectly complemented his toad-like eyes. It was with an effort that I looked away from Muktanandaji. I

  realized that I had become so absorbed that I had forgotten Krishna's presence. Now I felt precisely the same irritation at him for stopping that one would feel toward a balky tape recorder or a television that malfunctioned at an inappropriate time.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  Krishna tilted his head, and I turned to look. The white-stubbled proprietor was approaching us. Incredibly, the huge room had emptied without my noticing it. Bulky chairs were upended on all of the other tables. The fans had ceased their slow turning. I glanced at my watch. It was 11:35.

  The proprietor — if that is what he was — grumbled at Krishna and Muktanandaji. Krishna flicked his hand tiredly, and the man repeated something in a louder, more petulant voice.

  "What's the matter?" I asked again.

  "He must close," croaked Krishna. "He is paying for the electricity."

  I glanced at the few dim bulbs still glowing and almost laughed aloud.

  "We can finish this tomorrow," said Krishna. Muktanandaji had removed his glasses and was rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

  "The hell with that," I said. I flipped through the few bills of Indian currency I'd brought with me and handed the old man a twenty-rupee note. He remained standing and mumbled something to himself. I gave him ten more rupees. He scratched at his whiskery cheeks and shuffled back toward his counter. I had parted with less than three dollars.

  "Go on," I said.

  "Sanjay was confident that we could find two corpses before midnight. This was, after all, Calcutta.

  "In the morning, as we rode to the center of the city, we asked the Harijan dead-animal transporters if they ever carried human bodies in their trucks. No, they answered, the City Municipal Corporation hired other men — poor men but men of caste — to go out in the mornings and retrieve the bodies which inevitably littered the sidewalks. And that was only in the business and downtown sections. Farther out, where the great chawls began, there was no arrangement. Bodies were left to the families or dogs.

  "'Where are the bodies taken after they are collected downtown?' asked Sanjay. To the Sassoon Morgue, was the reply. By ten-thirty that morning, after eating a breakfast of fried dough along the Maidan, Sanjay and I were at the Sassoon Morgue.

  "The morgue took up the first floor and two basement levels of a building in the old English section of the city. There were stone lions still guarding the front steps, but the door there was locked and boarded, obviously unused for many years. All business went through the back entrance where the trucks came and went.

  "The morgue was crowded. Sheeted bodies lay on carts in the hallways and even outside the offices. There was a very strong smell. This surprised me.

  "A man carrying a clipboard and wearing a yellow-stained white uniform came out of his office and smiled. 'Can I help you?'

  "I had no idea what to say, but Sanjay began speaking immediately, convincingly. 'We are from Varanasi. We have come to Calcutta because two of our cousins, unfortunately dispossessed of their lands in West Bengal, recently came to the city to find other work. Alas, it seems they have taken ill and died on the streets before finding dutiful employment. The wife of our poor second cousin informed us of this by letter before she returned to her family in Tamil Nadu. The bitch made no attempt to retrieve the body of her husband or our other cousin, but now we have come, at great expense, to return them to Varanasi for proper cremation."

  "'Ahh,' the attendant grimaced. 'Those accursed Southern women. They have no sense of proper behavior. Animals.'

  "I nodded agreement. It was so easy!

  "'Man or woman? Old, young, or infant?' asked the morgue man in a bored voice.

  "'Pardon?'

  "'The other cousin. I presume the wife who left was married to a man, but what was the sex of the other family member? And the age of each? Also, on what day would they have been collected? First, what sex?'

  "'A man,' said Sanjay.

  "'Female,' I replied at the same time.

  "The attendant stopped in the act of leading us into another room. Sanjay gave me a look that could have removed skin.

  "'My apologies,' said Sanjay smoothly. 'Kamila, Jayaprakesh's poor cousin, is certainly female. I can think only of my own cousin, Samar. Jayaprakesh and I are related only through marriage, of course.'

  "'Ah,' said the attendant, but his eyes had narrowed as he looked from one to the other of us. 'You would not, by any chance, be students at the University?'

  "'No,' smiled Sanjay. 'I work at my father's rug shop in Varanasi. Jayaprakesh helps his uncle farm. I have some education. Jayaprakesh has none. Why do you ask?'

  "'No reason. No reason,' said the attendant. He glanced at me, and I worried that he could hear the loud thudding of my pulse. 'It is just that on occasion medical students from our university here . . . ah . . . lose loved ones on the street. This way, please.'

  "The basement rooms were large, damp, cooled by throbbing air conditioners. Water had streaked the walls and floors. Bodies lay naked on gurneys and tables. There was no order to their placement except for rough segregation by age and sex. The children's room we passed was quite crowded.

  "Sanjay specified a date a week earlier as the time of our cousins' passing. It seemed that our cousin Samar had been in his forties.

  "The first room we entered held about twenty men. All were in various stages of decomposition. It was not very cool in the room. Water dripped openly onto the corpses in a vain attempt to chill them. Both Sanjay and I lifted our shirts to our mouths and noses. Our eyes watered.

  "'damned power outages,' grumbled the attendant. 'Every few hours these days. Well?' He walked over and pulled sheets off the few covered forms. He extended his hands as if offering a bullock for sale.

  "'No,' said Sanjay peering grimly into the first face. He went to another. 'No. No. Wait . . . no. It is hard to tell.'

  "'Mmmm.'

  "Sanjay moved from table to table, cart to cart. The terrible faces stared back at him, eyes filmed over, jaws locked open, some with swollen tongues protruding. A few grinned obscenely as if courting our choice. 'No,' said Sanjay. 'No.'

  "'These are all that came in during that week. Are you sure you have the dates right?' The morgue attendant did not try to hide the boredom and skepticism in his voice.

  "Sanjay nodded, and I wondered what game he was playing. Identify someone and let us be gone! 'Wait,' he said. 'What about that one in the corner?'

  "The cadaver lay alone on a steel table as if it had been tossed there absentmindedly. The knees and forearms were half-raised, the fists clenched. The corpse was almost bald and had its face turned to the dank wall as if shamed by its own limp nakedness.

/>   "'Too old,' muttered the attendant, but my friend had taken five quick steps to the corner. He leaned over to look at the face. The raised white fist of the corpse brushed against Sanjay's lifted shirt and bare belly.

  "'Cousin Samar!' cried Sanjay with a half-sob. He clutched at the stiffened hand.

  "'No, no, no,' said the morgue man. He blew his nose into the tail of his stained tunic. 'He came in only yesterday. Too new.'

  "'Nonetheless, it is poor Cousin Samar,' said Sanjay in a choked voice. I saw real tears in his eyes.

  "The morgue attendant shrugged and checked his clipboard. He had to look through several layers of forms. 'No identification. Brought in Tuesday morning. Found naked on Sudder Street . . . appropriate, yes? Estimated cause of death — broken neck resulting from fall or strangulation. Possibly robbed for his clothes. Estimated age, sixty-five.'

  "'Cousin Samar was forty-nine,' said Sanjay. He dabbed at his eyes and returned the shirt to his nose. Again the attendant shrugged.

  "'Jayaprakesh, why don't you look for Cousin Kamila?' said Sanjay. 'I will make arrangements for the transporting of Cousin Samar.'

  "'No, no,' said the morgue man.

  "'No?' Sanjay and I said together.

  "'No.' The man frowned down at his clipboard. 'You cannot transport this body until it is identified.'

  "'But I just identified him. It is Cousin Samar,' said Sanjay, still clutching the corpse's gnarled fist.

  "'No, no. I mean officially identified it. That must be done at the post office.'

  "'The post office?' I said.

  "'Yes, yes, yes. The city administration has its Office of Missing Persons and Unclaimed Bodies there. Third floor. After proof of identification is made, there is a two-hundred-rupee fee to the city. Two hundred rupees for each identified loved one, that is.'

  "'Ayeeh!' cried Sanjay. 'Two hundred rupees for what?'

  "'For the official identification and certification, of course. Then you must go to the Municipal Corporation offices on Waterloo Street. They are open to the public only on Saturdays.'

  "'That is three days away!' I cried.

  "'Why must we go there?' asked Sanjay.

  "'To pay the collection fee of five hundred rupees, of course. For their transporting service.' The attendant sighed. 'So, before releasing the body, I must have the identification certificate, the identification payment receipt, the collection payment receipt, and, of course, a copy of your License to Transport Deceased Persons.'

  "'Ahhh,' said Sanjay. He released Cousin Samar's hand. 'And where do we get such a license?'

  "'From the Bureau of Licenses in the State Administrative Offices near Raj Bhavan.'

  "'Of course,' said Sanjay. 'And it costs — '

  "'Eight hundred rupees per deceased person you wish to transport. There is a group rate for more than five.'

  "'Is that all we need?' asked Sanjay, and his voice held the edge to it that I often had heard just before he struck out at walls or kicked the little Burmese children who cluttered our courtyard and stairways.

  "'Yes, yes,' said the attendant. 'Except the death certificate. I can make that out.'

  "'Aghhh,' breathed Sanjay. 'The cost?'

  "'A mere fifty rupees,' smiled the attendant. 'Then there is the matter of the rent.'

  "'rent?' I repeated, speaking through my shirt.

  "'Yes, yes, yes. We are very crowded, as you can see. There is a fifteenrupee per day rental fee for space provided.' He consulted the clipboard. 'Your cousin Samar's rent comes to 105 rupees.'

  "'But he's only been here one day!' I cried.

  "'True, true. But I fear we must charge for the entire week because he received special facilities because of his . . . ah . . . advanced stage. Shall we look to your Cousin Kamila now?'

  "'This will cost us almost two thousand rupees!' exploded Sanjay. 'For each body!'

  "'Oh yes, yes,' said the morgue man with a smile. 'I trust that the rug business in Varanasi is healthy these days?'

  "'Come along, Jayaprakesh,' said Sanjay as he turned to leave.

  "'But what about Cousin Kamila?' I cried.

  "'Come along!' Sanjay said and pulled me from the room.

  "There was a white truck outside the morgue. Sanjay approached the driver. 'The bodies,' he said. 'Where do they go?'

  "'What?'

  "'Where do the unclaimed bodies go when they're taken from here?'

  "The driver sat up and frowned. 'To Naidu Infectious Diseases Hospital. Most of them. They dispose of them.'

  "'Where is that?'

  "'Way out on Upper Chitpur Road.'

  "It took us an hour to get there by streetcar through heavy traffic. The old hospital was crowded with people hoping to recover or waiting to die. The long hallways, overflowing with beds, reminded me of the morgue. Birds came in through the bars on the windows and hopped among the tousled sheets, hoping to find stray crumbs. Lizards skittered across the cracked walls and I saw a rodent scurry under a bed as we passed.

  "A mustached intern suddenly blocked our path. 'Who are you?'

  "Sanjay, taken by surprise, gave our names. I could tell that his mind was working furiously to concoct an adequate story.

  "'You're here about the bodies, aren't you?' demanded the intern.

  "We both blinked.

  "'You're reporters, aren't you?' asked the man.

  "'Yes,' agreed Sanjay.

  "'damn. We knew this would get out,' growled the intern. 'Well, it's not our fault!'

  "'Why not?' asked Sanjay. From his skirt pocket he removed the battered old notebook in which he kept records of the Beggarmasters' payments, our laundry bills, and our market lists. 'Would you care to make a statement?' He licked the end of a broken pencil.

  "'Come this way,' snapped the intern. He led us through a ward of typhoid patients, into an adjoining kitchen, and outside past heaps of garbage. Behind the hospital there was an empty weeded field that covered several acres. In the distance were visible the burlap lean-tos and tin roofs of a growing chawl. A rusting bulldozer sat in the weeds and against it leaned an old man with baggy shorts and an ancient bolt-action rifle.

  "'Heeyah!' screamed the intern. The old man jumped and shouldered the rifle. 'There! There!' cried the intern and pointed out into the weeds. The old man fired and the sound of the shot echoed off the tall building behind us.

  "'Shit, shit, shit!' yelled the intern and bent quickly to rise with a large stone in his hand. Out in the weeds, a gray dog with prominent ribs had raised its head at the sound of the gunshot and now stared at us. The scrawny beast turned and loped off with its tail between its legs and something pink in its mouth. The intern threw his stone, and it dropped into the weeds halfway between him and the dog. The old man at the bulldozer was wrestling with the bolt of the rifle.

  "'damn,' said the intern and led us out across the field. There were scars and mounds of dirt everywhere, as if the bulldozer had pawed at the earth here for years like a huge house cat. We stopped at the edge of a shallow pit where we had first seen the dog.

  "'Ay!' I said and backed away. The rotting human hand that rose out of the moist soil had brushed against my sandal and touched my bare foot. Other things were visible. Then I noticed the other pits, the other dogs in the distance.

  "'It was all right ten years ago,' said the intern, 'but now, with that industrial basti coming so close . . . ' He broke off to throw another rock at another pack of dogs. The animals calmly trotted into the bushes. Behind us, the old man had succeeded in ejecting the spent cartridge and was levering another bullet in.

  "'Were these Muslims or Christians?' asked Sanjay. His pencil was poised.

  "'Hindus, most likely. Who knows?' the intern spat. 'The crematoria do not wish to have unpaying customers. But the damned dogs have been digging them up like this for months now. We were willing to pay until . . . Wait. You have heard about what happened today? That is why you're here, is it not?'

  "'Of course,' Sanjay said blandly. 'But perhaps you wo
uld like to tell us your side.'

  "I was barely listening. I was too busy looking around, noticing the other bits and pieces rising from the churned soil like dead fish rising to the surface of a pond. From what I could see, there seemed little hope that Sanjay and I could find an intact offering here. Ravens circled overhead. The old man had sat down on the metal tractor tread and appeared to be dozing.

  "'There have been many complaints about today's business,' said the intern. 'But we had to do something. Make sure that you report that the hospital was prepared to pay for the cremations.'