"I pressed back against the side of the van and slid my way to the rear door. I would have pushed past Sanjay and run into the welcoming night, but he blocked me, pushed me back into the narrow chamber with the thing.

"'Pick it up,' Sanjay said.

"I stared at him. The fallen lantern threw wild shadows between us. I could only stare.

"'Pick it up, Jayaprakesh. We have less than two minutes until the ceremony begins. Pick it up.'

"I would have jumped Sanjay then. I would have happily choked him until the last gasps of life rattled out of his lying throat. Then I saw the gun. It had appeared in his fist like the lotus flower suddenly popping into the palm of a clever traveling magician. It was a small pistol. It hardly looked large enough to be real. But it was. I had no doubt of that. And the black circle of the barrel was aimed right between my eyes.

"'Pick it up.'

"Nothing on earth could have made me pick up the thing on the floor behind me. Nothing except the absolute certain knowledge that I would be dead in three seconds if I did not comply. Dead. Like the thing in the van. Lying with it. On it. With it.

"I knelt, set the lantern upright before it sputtered out or set fire to the shroud, and put my arms under the shape. It seemed to welcome my grasp. One arm moved against my side like the furtive touch of a timid lover. My fingers sank deep into the white. The flesh felt cool and rubbery, and I was sure that my fingers would break through at any second. Soft things shifted and stirred inside it as I backed out of the van and took a step. The thing sagged against me, and for a second I felt the terrible certainty that the corpse would deliquesce and flow down over me like moist river clay.

"I raised my face to the night sky and stumbled forward. Behind me, Sanjay shouldered his own cold burden and followed me into the Temple of the Kapalikas.

We sang the sacred words from the Satapatha Brahmana.

"'And the order of sacrifice shall be this . . . first man, then horse, bull, ram, and goat . . . Man is foremost of the animals and most pleasing to the gods. . . ."

"We knelt in the darkness before the jagrata Kali. They had dressed us in plain white dhotis. Our feet were bare. Our foreheads were marked. We seven initiates knelt in a semicircle closest to the goddess. Then there was an arc of candles and the outer circle of Kapalikas. In front of us lay the bodies we had brought as offerings. On the belly of each corpse a Kapalika priest had placed a small white skull. The skulls were human, too small to be from adults. The empty sockets watched us with the same intensity as the goddess's hungry eyes.

"The head of our eighth initiate still hung from the hand of Kali, but now the young face was chalk-white and the lips had pulled back into a rictus grin. The corpse, however, was gone from its place at the base of the idol and the goddess's bangled foot was raised over empty air.

"I felt almost nothing as I knelt there. My mind continued to echo Sanjay's words. I should have used you. I was a provincial fool. Worse than that, I was a provincial fool who could never go home again to the provinces. Whatever else came from this night, I knew that the simple verities of life in Anguda were forever behind me.

"The temple fell into silence. We closed our eyes in dhyana, the deepest contemplation possible only in the presence of a jagrata. Sounds intruded. The river whispered half-perceived syllables. Something slithered across the floor near my bare feet. I felt nothing. I thought nothing. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the crimson tongue of the idol had lolled farther from the gaping mouth. Nothing surprised me.

"Other Kapalikas came forward until each of us had a priest kneeling in front of us, facing us across the obscene altars we had supplied. My Brahman was a kindly-looking man. A banker, perhaps. Someone who was used to smiling at people for a living.

"My priest lifted my right hand and turned it palm up as if he were about to read my fortune. His other hand went into the loose folds of his dhoti. When it emerged, I saw the quick gleam of sharp steel.

"The chief priest placed his forehead against the raised foot of the goddess. His voice was very soft. The goddess will be pleased to receive your flesh mixed with blood.'

"The other priests all moved in unison. The blades slid across our palms as if the Kapalikas were whittling bamboo. A fat sliver from the meaty portion of my palm sliced off neatly and slid across the blade. All of us gasped, but only the fat man cried out in pain.

" Thou who art fond of sacrificial meat, O Great Goddess. Accept the blood of this man with his flesh.'

"The words were not new to me. I had heard them every October during the modest Kali Puja in our village. Every Bengali child knows the litany. But never had I seen more than a symbolic sacrifice. Never had I seen a Brahman hold high a pink circle of my flesh and then bow to insert it in the gaping mouth of a corpse.

"Then the smiling, apologetic little man across from me took my injured hand and turned it palm downward. The Kapalikas in the darkness behind us began to recite the holiest of the Gayatri mantri in perfect unison while the dark drops fell slow and heavy to the white surface of the drowned thing at my knees.

"The mantra ended, and my banker-priest deftly retrieved a white cloth from his tunic and bound up my hand. I prayed to the goddess that it would soon be over. A sudden hollowness and sickness had risen in me. My arms began shaking and I feared that I might swoon. The fat man three places from me did faint, falling forward across the cold breast of the toothless old female corpse he had brought. His priest ignored him and returned to the darkness with others.

"Please, goddess, let it end, I prayed.

"But it did not end. Not yet.

"The first Brahman raised his forehead from the jagrata's foot and turned to us. He walked slowly along our semicircle as if inspecting the bodies we had brought as offerings. He paused for a lengthy moment in front of me. I could not raise my eyes to meet his. I was convinced that the drowned corpse would not be found worthy. Even now it gave off a stench of river mud and corruption like a foul breath rising from its gaping maw. But a second later the priest moved on in silence. He inspected Sanjay's offering and moved farther down the line.

"I risked a sideward glance in time to see the bare foot of the priest roughly push the fat man's bulk off its cold pillow. Another Kapalika hurried forward and hastily set the child's skull back in place on the cadaver's sunken belly. The fat initiate lay unconscious next to his cold crone, two unlikely lovers torn from their embrace. Few of us doubted whose countenance the dark goddess would next raise up by the hair.