"Sanjay was waiting in the shadow of the wall. 'Hurry!' he hissed. It was after eleven. We were miles from the Kapalikas' temple. Together we hoisted the two bodies over the wall.
"The journey from the cremation grounds to the Kapalika temple was the stuff of nightmares — absurd nightmares. Our burdens rolled around in the back as Sanjay weaved in and out of traffic, forcing bullock carts off the road, causing pedestrains to leap into piles of garbage to escape being run down, and blinking his lights frantically to warn oncoming trucks that he would not surrender the right of way. Twice we had to bounce up on the sidewalks as he passed on the left. A wake of shouted obscenities marked our path through Calcutta that night.
"Finally, the inevitable occurred. Near the Maidan, Sanjay attempted to cross three lanes of oncoming traffic at an intersection. A metropolitan policeman jumped down from the giant tractor tire on which he was directing traffic and threw up his hand to halt us. For a mad second I was convinced that Sanjay was going to run him down. Then he slammed both feet on the brake and pulled back on the steering wheel as if he were trying to rein in a runaway bullock. Our van skidded broadside, almost tipped over, and came to a stop a foot from the policeman's outstretched palm. The engine stalled. One of the corpses in the back had tumbled forward until its bare foot protruded between the driver's seat and me. Luckily, the shroud was still tangled about both bodies. I hastily pulled the sheet over the foot just as the furious traffic policeman came around to Sanjay's side of the van. He leaned in the right window, and his face was almost rippling with outrage.
"'What in fuck do you fucking well think you're fucking doing?' The officer's broad helmet bobbed as he shouted. I thanked all of the gods that he was not a Sikh. He was screaming at us in a West Bengali dialect. He punctuated his shouts with blows to Sanjay's door with his heavy lathi stick. A Sikh — and most metropolitan police tend to be Sikhs — would have been using the club on our heads. They are strange people, Sikhs.
"Before Sanjay could frame an answer or restart the engine, the policeman took a step back and threw his hand to his face. 'Pah!' he yelled. 'What the fuck do you have in there?'
"I sank in my seat. All was lost. The police would arrest us. We would get imprisoned for life in the terrible Hooghly Prison, but that would be only a few days because the Kapalikas would kill us.
"Sanjay, however, grinned broadly and leaned out the window. 'Ah, most honorable sir, surely you recognize this truck, sir?' He banged on the dented door with his palm.
"The policeman frowned fiercely but took another step back. 'Hmmrr,' he said through his hand.
"'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Sanjay, still grinning stupidly. 'It is the very property of Gopalakrishna Nirendrenath G. S. Mahapatra, Chief Beggar-master of the Chitpur and Upper Chittaranjan Union! And in the back are six of his most profitable and pitiable lepers. Very profitable beggars, honored sir!' Sanjay started the engine with his left hand and indicated the dark rear of the van with a sweep of his right hand. 'I am an hour late returning Master Mahapatra's property to their feeding-sleeping hall, respectful sir. He will have my head. But if you arrest us, honorable constable, I will have, at least, an excuse for my unworthy tardiness. Please, if you wish to arrest us I will open the back for you. The lepers, sir, however profitable, can no longer walk, so you will have to help me carry them out.' Sanjay fumbled at the outer door latch as if to get out.
"'No!' cried the officer. He shook the lathi club at Sanjay's fumbling hand. 'Begone! Immediately!' And so saying, he turned his back on us and walked quickly to the center of the intersection. There he began waving his arms and blowing his whistle at the screaming mass of tangled traffic which had blocked three streets in the short time he had been absent from his tire.
"Sanjay wrenched the truck into gear, drove around the snarled pack of vehicles by driving across the grass of Plaza Park, and turned against oncoming traffic onto Strand Road South.
"We parked as close as we could to the warehouse. The street was very dark, but there was a lantern in the back of the truck. Sanjay had to light it so we could untangle our offerings from the cords of my corpse's shroud. By my watch, a gift from Sanjay, it was ten minutes before twelve. My watch often ran slow.
"I could see by the sudden leap of light from the lantern that Sanjay had carried what had once been an old man from the cremation grounds. The corpse had no teeth, only a wisp of hair, and cataracts on both eyes. It was tangled in a spiderweb of ropes from my corpse's covering.
"'Damn!' muttered Sanjay. 'It's like a stinking parachute. No, there's a fucking net tangled in with the tarp.' Sanjay finally had to use his teeth to bite through the cord.
"'Quickly,' he said to me. Take that cloth off yours. They will not want it covered.'
'"But I don't think . . ."
"'Do it, dammit,' snapped Sanjay in a full rage. His eyes seemed to leap out of his red face. The lantern spat and hissed. 'Shit, shit, shit!' he exploded. 'I should have used vow as I first planned. It would have been so damned simple. Shit!' Sanjay angrily lifted his corpse under the arms and started dragging it free of the severed ropes.
"I stood there, transfixed, numb. Even when I slowly began untying the final knots and tugging away the last cords, I was not aware of what my hands were doing. I tell you what, Jayaprakesh. You are a victim of social injustice. Your plight touches me. I will lower the rent from two hundred rupees a month to five rupees. If you need a loan for the first two or three months, I will be happy to advance it.
"Tears ran down my cheeks and fell to the shroud. From far away I heard Sanjay's cry to hurry, but my hands moved slowly and methodically to untie the last of the tangled lines. I remembered my tears of gratitude when Sanjay took me in as a roommate, my surprise and gratitude at his including me in his Kapalika initiation.
"I should have used you as I first planned.
"I wiped brusquely at my eyes, angrily pulled the shroud away, and threw it into the far corner of the van.
"'Ayeeeaa!' The scream was torn out of me. I leaped backwards and slammed into the wall of the van, almost pitching forward onto the thing revealed before me. The lantern tipped over and rolled along the metal floor. I screamed again.
"'What?' Sanjay had run back to the van. Now he stopped and clutched at the door. 'Arhhh . . ."
"The thing I had carried like a bride from the cremation grounds may once have been human. No longer. No trace remained. The body was swollen twice the size of a man — more a giant, putrid starfish than a man. The face had no shape, only a white mass with wrinkled holes and swollen slits where the eyes, mouth, and nose might once have been. The thing was a sick simulacrum of a human form, crudely molded of suppurating fungus and dead, distorted meat.
"It was white — all white — the white of the bellies of dead carp washed up from the Hooghly. The skin had the texture of bleached, rotted rubber, like something peeled and shaped from the underside of a poisonous toadstool. The corpse was bloated taut; inflated from the awful internal pressure of expanding gases and organs swollen to the bursting point and beyond. Fractured splinters of ribs and bones were visible here and there in the puffy mass like sticks embedded in a rising dough.
"'Ahh,' gasped Sanjay. 'A drowning victim.'
"As if to confirm Sanjay's statement, there came a whiff of foul river mud, and a sluglike thing appeared in one of the black eyeholes. Glistening feelers tasted the night air and then withdrew from the light. I sensed the movement of many other things in the swollen mass.