"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.'"

Chapter Seven

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 Muktanadaji. 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. Muktanadaji 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 retrive 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.