Part IV
Spirit
He who sees in me all things, and all things in me, is never far from me, and I am never far from him.
THE BHAGAVAD GITA
Chapter 20
The road was just wide enough for the two of us to walk side by side. The grass on either side was as high as an elephant's eye. We could see blue sky above us, and exactly as far along the path as the next curve, which could have been any distance away, because there's no perspective in an unbroken green trench. We'd been traveling on this road most of the day, and passed only one old man and a couple of cows, but now we could hear what sounded like a large party approaching us, not far off, perhaps two hundred yards away. There were men's voices, a lot of them, footsteps, some dissonant metal drums, and most disturbing, the continuous screams of a woman either in pain, or terrified, or both.
"Young masters!" came a voice from somewhere near us.
I jumped in the air and came down in a defensive stance, my black glass knife drawn and ready. Josh looked around for the source of the voice. The screaming was getting closer. There was a rustling in the grass a few feet away from the road, then again the voice, "Young masters, you must hide."
An impossibly thin male face with eyes that seemed a size and a half too large for his skull popped out of the wall of grass beside us. "You must come. Kali comes to choose her victims! Come now or die."
The face disappeared, replaced by a craggy brown hand that motioned for us to follow into the grass. The woman's scream hit crescendo and failed, as if the voice had broken like an overtightened lute string.
"Go," said Joshua, pushing me into the grass.
As soon as I was off of the road someone caught my wrist and started dragging me through the sea of grass. Joshua latched onto the tail of my shirt and allowed himself to be dragged along. As we ran the grass whipped and slashed at us. I could feel blood welling up on my face and arms, even as the brown wraith pulled me deeper into the sea of green. Above the rasping of my breath I heard men shouting from behind us, then a thrashing of the grass being trampled.
"They follow," said the brown wraith over his shoulder. "Run unless you want your heads to decorate Kali's altar. Run."
Over my shoulder to Josh, I said, "He says run or it will be bad." Behind Josh, outlined against the sky, I saw long, swordlike spear tips, the sort of thing one might use for beheading someone.
"Okey-dokey," said Josh.
It had taken us over a month to get to India, most of the journey through hundreds of miles of the highest, most rugged country we had ever seen. Amazingly enough, there were villages scattered all through the mountains, and when the villagers saw our orange robes doors were flung wide and larders opened. We were always fed, given a warm place to sleep, and welcomed to stay as long as we wished. We offered obtuse parables and irritating chants in return, as was the tradition.
It wasn't until we came out of the mountains onto a brutally hot and humid grassland that we found our mode of dress was drawing more disdain than welcome. One man, of obvious wealth (he rode a horse and wore silk robes) cursed us as we passed and spit at us. Other people on foot began to take notice of us as well, and we hurried off into some high grass and changed out of our robes. I tucked the glass dagger that Joy had given me into my sash.
"What was he going on about?" I asked Joshua.
"He said something about tellers of false prophecies. Pretenders. Enemies of the Brahman, whatever that is. I'm not sure what else."
"Well, it looks like we're more welcome here as Jews than as Buddhists."
"For now," said Joshua. "All the people have those marks on their foreheads like Gaspar had. I think without one of those we're going to have to be careful."
As we traveled into the lowlands the air felt as thick as warm cream, and we could feel the weight of it in our lungs after so many years in the mountains. We passed into the valley of a wide, muddy river, and the road became choked with people passing in and out of a city of wooden shacks and stone altars. There were humped-back cattle everywhere, even grazing in the gardens, but no one seemed to bear them any mind.
"The last meat I ate was what was left of our camels," I said.
"Let's find a booth and buy some beef."
There were merchants along the road selling various wares, clay pots, powders, herbs, spices, copper and bronze blades (iron seemed to be in short supply), and tiny carvings of what seemed to be a thousand different gods, most of them having more limbs than seemed necessary and none of them looking particularly friendly.
We found grain, breads, fruits, vegetables, and bean pastes for sale, but nowhere did we see any meat. We settled on some bread and spicy bean paste, paid the woman with Roman copper coin, then found a place under a large banyan tree where we could sit and look at the river while we ate.
I'd forgotten the smell of a city, the fetid m��lange of people, and waste, and smoke and animals, and I began to long for the clean air of the mountains.
"I don't want to sleep here, Joshua. Let's see if we can find a place in the country."
"We are supposed to follow this river to the sea to reach Tamil. Where the river goes, so go the people."
The river - wider than any in Israel, but shallow, yellow with clay, and still against the heavy air - seemed more like a huge stagnant puddle than a living, moving thing. In this season, anyway. Dotting the surface, a half-dozen skinny, naked men with wild white hair and not three teeth apiece shouted angry poetry at the top of their lungs and tossed water into glittering crests over their heads.
"I wonder how my cousin John is doing," said Josh.
All along the muddy riverbank women washed clothes and babies only steps from where cattle waded and shat, men fished or pushed long shallow boats along with poles, and children swam or played in the mud. Here and there the corpse of a dog bobbed flyblown in the gentle current.
"Maybe there's a road inland a little, away from the stench."
Joshua nodded and climbed to his feet. "There," he said, pointing to a narrow path that began on the opposite bank of the river and disappeared into some tall grass.
"We'll have to cross," I said.
"Be nice if we could find a boat to take us," said Josh.
"You don't think we should ask where the path leads?"
"No," said Joshua, looking at a crowd of people who were gathering nearby and staring at us. "These people all look hostile."
"What was that you told Gaspar about love was a state you dwell in or something?"
"Yeah, but not with these people. These people are creepy. Let's go."
The creepy little brown guy who was dragging me through the elephant grass was named Rumi, and much to his credit, amid the chaos and tumble of a headlong dash through a leviathan marshland, pursued by a muderous band of clanging, shouting, spear-waving decapitation enthusiasts, Rumi had managed to find a tiger - no small task when you have a kung fu master and the savior of the world in tow.
"Eek, a tiger," Rumi said, as we stumbled into a small clearing, a mere depression really, where a cat the size of Jerusalem was gleefully gnawing away on the skull of a deer.
Rumi had expressed my sentiments exactly, but I would be damned if I was going to let my last words be "Eek, a tiger," so I listened quietly as urine filled my shoes.
"You'd think all the noise would have frightened him," Josh said, just as the tiger looked up from his deer.
I noticed that our pursuers seemed to be closing on us by the second.
"That is the way it is usually done," said Rumi. "The noise drives the tiger to the hunter."
"Maybe he knows that," I said, "so he's not going anywhere. You know, they're bigger than I imagined. Tigers, I mean."
"Sit down," said Joshua.
"Pardon me?" I said.
"Trust me," Joshua said. "Remember the cobra when we were kids?"
I nodded to Rumi and coaxed him down as the tiger crouched and tensed his hind legs as if preparing to leap, which is exactly what he was doing. As the first of our pursuers broke into the clearing from behind us the tiger leapt, sailing over our heads by half again the height of a man. The tiger landed on the first two men coming out of the grass, crushing them under his enormous forepaws, then raking their backs as he leapt again. After that all I could see was spear points scattering against the sky as the hunters became, well, you know. Men screamed, the woman screamed, the tiger screamed, and the two men who had fallen under the tiger crawled to their feet and limped back toward the road, screaming.
Rumi looked from the dead deer, to Joshua, to me, to the dead deer, to Joshua, and his eyes seemed to grow even larger than before. "I am deeply moved and eternally grateful for your affinity with the tiger, but that is his deer, and it appears that he has not finished with it, perhaps..."
Joshua stood up. "Lead on."
"I don't know which way."
"Not that way," I said, pointing in the direction of the screaming bad guys.
Rumi led us through the grass to another road, which we followed to where he lived.
"It's a pit," I said.
"It's not that bad," said Joshua, looking around. There were other pits nearby. People were living in them.
"You live in a pit," I said.
"Hey, ease up," Joshua said. "He saved our lives."
"It is a humble pit, but it is home," said Rumi. "Please make yourself comfortable."
I looked around. The pit had been chipped out of sandstone and was about shoulder deep and just wide enough to turn a cow around in, which I would find out was a crucial dimension. The pit was empty except for a single rock about knee high.
"Have a seat. You may have the rock," said Rumi.
Joshua smiled and sat on the rock. Rumi sat on the floor of the pit, which was covered with a thick layer of black slime. "Please. Sit," said Rumi, gesturing to the floor beside him. "I'm sorry, we can only afford one rock."
I didn't sit. "Rumi, you live in a pit!" I pointed out.
"Well, yes, that is true. Where do Untouchables live in your land?"
"Untouchable?"
"Yes, the lowest of the low. The scum of the earth. None of the higher caste may acknowledge my existence. I am Untouchable."
"Well, no wonder, you live in a fucking pit."
"No," Joshua said, "he lives in a pit because he's Untouchable, he's not Untouchable because he lives in a pit. He'd be Untouchable if he lived in a palace, isn't that right, Rumi?"
"Oh, like that's going to happen," I said. I'm sorry, the guy lived in a pit.
"There's more room since my wife and most of my children died," said Rumi. "Until this morning it was only Vitra, my youngest daughter and me, but now she is gone too. There is plenty of room for you if you wish to stay."
Joshua put his hand on Rumi's narrow shoulder and I could see the effect it had, the pain evaporating from the Untouchable's face like dew under a hot sun. I stood by being wretched.
"What happened to Vitra?" Joshua asked.
"They came and took her, the Brahmans, as a sacrifice on the feast of Kali. I was looking for her when I saw you two. They gather children and men, criminals, Untouchables, and strangers. They would have taken you and day after tomorrow they would have offered your head to Kali."
"So your daughter is not dead?" I asked.
"They will hold her until midnight on the night of the feast, then slaughter her with the other children on the wooden elephants of Kali."
"I will go to these Brahmans and ask for your daughter back," Joshua said.
"They'll kill you," Rumi said. "Vitra is lost, even your tiger cannot save you from Kali's destruction."
"Rumi," I said. "Look at me, please. Explain, Brahmans, Kali, elephants, everything. Go slow, act as if I know nothing."
"Like that takes imagination," Joshua said, clearly violating my implied, if not expressed, copyright on sarcasm. (Yeah, we have Court TV in the hotel room, why?)
"There are four castes," said Rumi, "the Brahmans, or priests; Kshatriyas, or warriors; Vaisyas, who are farmers or merchants; and the Sudras, who are laborers. There are many subcastes, but those are the main ones. Each man is born to a caste and he remains in that caste until he dies and is reborn as a higher caste or lower caste, which is determined by his karma, or actions during his last life."
"We know from karma," I said. "We're Buddhist monks."
"Heretics!" Rumi hissed.
"Bite me, you bug-eyed scrawny brown guy," I said.
"You are a scrawny brown guy!"
"No, you're a scrawny brown guy!"
"No, you are a scrawny brown guy!"
"We are all scrawny brown guys," Joshua said, making peace.
"Yeah, but he's bug-eyed."
"And you are a heretic."
"You're a heretic!"
"No, you are a heretic."
"We're all scrawny brown heretics," said Joshua, calming things down again.
"Well, of course I'm scrawny," I said. "Six years of cold rice and tea, and not a scrap of beef for sale in the whole country."
"You would eat beef? You heretic!" shouted Rumi.
"Enough!" shouted Joshua.
"No one may eat a cow. Cows are the reincarnations of souls on their way to the next life."
"Holy cow," Josh said.
"That is what I am saying."
Joshua shook his head as if trying to straighten jumbled thoughts. "You said that there were four castes, but you didn't mention Untouchables."
"Harijans, Untouchables, have no caste, we are the lowest of the low. We may have to live many lifetimes before we even ascend to the level of a cow, and then we may become higher caste. Then, if we follow our dharma, our duty, as a higher caste, we may become one with Brahma, the universal spirit of all. I can't believe you don't know this, have you been living in a cave?"
I was going to point out that Rumi was in no position to criticize where we had been living, but Joshua signaled me to let it go. Instead I said, "So you are lower on the caste system than a cow?" I asked.
"Yes."
"So these Brahmans won't eat a cow, but they will take your daughter and kill her for their goddess?"
"And eat her," said Rumi, hanging his head. "At midnight on the night of the feast they will take her and the other children and tie them to the wooden elephants. They will cut off the children's fingers and give one to the head of each Brahman household. Then they will catch her blood in a cup and everyone in the household will taste it. They may eat the finger or bury it for good luck. After that the children are hacked to death on the wooden elephants."
"They can't do that," Joshua said.
"Oh yes, the cult of Kali may do anything they wish. It is her city, Kalighat." ["Calcutta" on the Friendly Flyer map.] "My little Vitra is lost. We can only pray that she is reincarnated to a higher level."
Joshua patted the Untouchable's hand. "Why did you call Biff a heretic when he told you that we were Buddhist monks?"
"That Gautama said that a man may go directly from any level to join Brahma, without fulfilling his dharma, that is heresy."
"That would be better for you, wouldn't it? Since you're on the bottom of the ladder?"
"You cannot believe what you do not believe," Rumi said. "I am an Untouchable because my karma dictates it."
"Oh yeah," I said. "No sense sitting under a bodhi tree for a few hours when you can get the same thing through thousands of lifetimes of misery."
"Of course, that's ignoring the fact that you're a gentile and going to suffer eternal damnation either way," said Josh.
"Yeah, leaving that out altogether."
"But we'll get your daughter back," Joshua said.
Joshua wanted to rush into Kalighat and demand the return of Rumi's daughter and the release of all the other victims in the name of what was good and right. Joshua's solution to everything was to lead with righteous indignation, and there is a time and a place unto that, but there is also a time for cunning and guile (Ecclesiastes 9 or something). I was able to talk him into an alternate plan by using flawless logic:
"Josh, did the Vegemites smite the Marmites by charging in and demanding justice at the end of a sword? I think not. These Brahmans cut off and eat the fingers of children. I know there's no finger-cutting commandment, Josh, but still, I'm guessing that these people think differently than we do. They call the Buddha a heretic, and he was one of their princes. How do you think they'll receive a scrawny brown kid claiming to be the son of a god who doesn't even live in their area?"
"Good point. But we still have to save the child."
"Of course."
"How?"
"Extreme sneakiness."
"You'll have to be in charge then."
"First we need to see this city and this temple where the sacrifices will be held."
Joshua scratched his head. His hair had mostly grown back, but was still short. "The Vegemites smote the Marmites?"
"Yeah, Excretions three-six."
"I don't remember that. I guess I need to brush up on my Torah."
The statue of Kali over her altar was carved from black stone and stood as tall as ten men. She wore a necklace of human skulls around her neck and a girdle made of severed human hands at her hips. Her open maw was lined with a saw blade of teeth over which a stream of fresh blood had been poured. Even her toenails curved into vicious blades which dug into the pile of twisted, graven corpses on which she stood. She had four arms, one holding a cruel, serpentine sword, another a severed head by the hair; the third hand she held crooked, as if beckoning her victims to the place of dark destruction to which all are destined, and the fourth was posed downward, in a manner presenting the goddess's hand-girded hips, as if asking the eternal question, "Does this outfit make me look fat?"
The raised altar lay in the middle of an open garden that was surrounded by trees. The altar was wide enough that five hundred people could have stood in the shadow of the black goddess. Deep grooves had been cut in the stone to channel the blood of sacrifices into vessels, so it could be poured through the goddess's jaws. Leading to the altar was a wide stone-paved boulevard, which was lined on either side by great elephants carved from wood and set on turntables so they could be rotated. The trunks and front feet of the elephants were stained rusty brown, and here and there the trunks exhibited deep gouges from blades that had hewn through a child into the mahogany.
"Vitra isn't being kept here," Joshua said.
We were hiding behind a tree near the temple garden, dressed as natives, fake caste marks and all. Having lost when we drew lots, I was the one dressed as a woman.
"I think this is a bodhi tree," I said, "just like Buddha sat under! It's so exciting. I'm feeling sort of enlightened just standing here. Really, I can feel ripe bodhies squishing between my toes."
Joshua looked at my feet. "I don't think those are bodhies. There was a cow here before us."
I lifted my foot out of the mess. "Cows are overrated in this country. Under the Buddha's tree too. Is nothing sacred?"
"There's no temple to this temple," Joshua said. "We have to ask Rumi where the sacrifices are kept until the festival."
"He won't know. He's Untouchable. These guys are Brahmans - priests - they wouldn't tell him anything. That would be like a Sadducee telling a Samaritan what the Holy of Holies looked like."
"Then we have to find them ourselves," Joshua said.
"We know where they're going to be at midnight, we'll get them then."
"I say we find these Brahmans and force them to stop the whole festival."
"We'll just storm up to their temple and tell them to stop it?"
"Yes."
"And they will."
"Yes."
"That's cute, Josh. Let's go find Rumi. I have a plan."
