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over and handed it to the man in the backseat.
He made no effort to take the books.  Please get in, Mr. Luczak.
 Why?
The man sighed and rubbed at his nose.  The poet wishes to see you. It
will be brief. He says you agreed to this.
The heavyset driver frowned and turned sideways in his seat as if to
say something. The man in the back put a hand lightly on the other s wrist
and spoke.  The poet has something he wishes to give you. Please get in,
Mr. Luczak.
I was amazed to find myself bending to enter the vehicle. The door
slammed and we accelerated into traffic. Into the Calcutta night.
Rain and flames. Highways, side streets, alleys, and muddy ruts past over-
grown ruins. The glow of lanterns and reflected city lights. And through it all,
I waited for the Kapalika to turn to me, to demand to inspect the books. I
waited for the shouts and fists to follow.
We rode in silence. I held the sack of books on my lap and kept my face to
the window, although I remember seeing little detail except my own pale
reflection staring back. Eventually we stopped before a high iron gate.
Somewhere nearby, two tall brick chimneys poured flame into the night. This
was not the way I had come before. A man in black came out of the drizzle
and opened the gate to let us pass.
The headlights revealed empty brick buildings, railroad sidings, and a
small mountain of dirt on which an abandoned truck lay half-buried in the
weeds. When we finally stopped, it was in front of a wide door illuminated by
a yellow bulb. Insects threw themselves at the light.
 Get out, please.
There were doors and corridors. Two men in black carrying flashlights
joined us. From somewhere there came the muted strum and crash of sitar and
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drums. At the top of a narrow staircase we stopped and the men in black
spoke sharply to the driver. Then came the search.
One of the men took the sack of books. I stood passively while rough
hands patted my sides, poked along my inner thighs, and ran quickly up and
down my legs. The driver opened the package and took out the first three
paperbacks. He flipped the pages almost angrily, tossed them back in, and
removed a larger, hardback book. He showed it to the other three. It was not
the Durrell anthology. The man in khaki tossed it back in, folded the sack,
and handed the package to me without speaking.
I stood there and began to breathe again.
The Kapalika in black gestured with his flashlight and I followed him up
another short staircase and then to the right down a narrow hallway. He held
a door open, and I entered.
The room was no larger than the first one we had met in, but there were
no curtains here. A kerosene lantern sat on a wooden shelf next to a porcelain
cup, some wooden bowls, a few books, and a tiny bronze statue of the
Buddha. Strange that the avatar of Kali should keep an image of Buddha near.
Das sat hunched and cross-legged on the floor near a low table. He was
studying a slim book, but he looked up as I entered. The brighter light made
his affliction all the more evident.
 Ah, Mr. Luczak.
 Mr. Das.
 You were kind to return.
I looked around the tiny room. An open doorway in the back led to dark-
ness. From somewhere came the smell of incense. I could faintly hear the dis-
cordant strumming of a sitar.
 Those are the books? asked Das and gestured clumsily with his heavily
wrapped hands.
 Yes. I knelt on the wooden floor and set the package on the low table. An
offering. The lantern hissed. The greenish-yellow light illuminated circles of
flaking corruption on the poet s right cheek. Deep fissures in his scalp showed
whitely against the darker skin. Mucus clogged Das s torn nostrils, and his
breath whistled audibly over the hiss of the lantern.
 Ahh, sighed Das. He laid his hand almost reverently on the wrinkled
paper.  Manny s Booksellers. Yes, I used to know him well, Mr. Luczak. Once,
during the war, I sold Manny my collection of romantic poets when rent
money was scarce. He set them aside until I could buy them back some years
later. Das s large, liquid eyes turned up to look at me. Again I was all but over-
whelmed by the knowledge of pain visible there.  You brought the Edwin
Arlington Robinson?
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 Yes, I said. My voice trembled and I roughly cleared my throat.  I m not
sure that I think as much of him as you do. You might reconsider. His  Richard
Cory really is not worthy of a poet. It holds out no hope.
 Sometimes there is no hope, whispered Das.
 There s always some hope, Mr. Das.
 No, Mr. Luczak, there is not. Sometimes there is only pain. And acquies-
cence to pain. And, perhaps, defiance at the world which demands such pain.
 Defiance is a form of hope, is it not, sir?
Das looked at me for a long minute. Then he glanced quickly toward the
darkened back room and lifted the volume he had been reading.  This is for
you, Mr. Luczak. He laid it on the table so that I would not have to take it
from his hands.
It was an old book, thin, beautifully bound, with thick, heavy parchment
pages. I ran my hand over the embossed fabric cover and opened it. The
heavy pages had not yellowed or grown brittle with age. The spine had not
stiffened. Everything about the thin volume spoke of craftsmanship and care.
Some of the poems were in Bengali, some in English. Those in English I
recognized immediately. The flyleaf held a long inscription in Bengali, but the
same hand had penned a final note in English: For young Das, the most promising
of my  Chosen Eight. Affectionately  The signature would have been indecipher-
able had I not seen it very recently, behind glass, hastily scrawled beneath a
Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Rabindranath Tagore, March 1939.
 I can t accept this, sir.
Das only stared at me. The eyes were ancient beyond age, sad, yet lit with
a purpose I had not seen before. He stared at me and I did not argue again.
A tremor went through the poet s body, and I realized what exertion it
must take for him to speak, to concentrate. I rose to leave.
 No, whispered Das.  Closer.
I dropped to one knee. There was a smell that rose from the poor man s
disintegrating flesh. My own skin crawled as I leaned over to hear better.
 Today, he rasped,  I spoke of power. All violence is power. She is such
power. She knows no limits. Time means nothing to Her. Pain carries the
sweet smell of sacrifice to Her. This is Her time. Her song knows no ending.
Her time has come round once again, you see. He slipped into Bengali, then
a smattering of French, then a torrent of Hindi. He was raving. His eyes were
focused elsewhere, and the pained, sibilant rush of words went nowhere.
 Yes, I said sadly.
 Violence is power. Pain is power. It is Her time. Do you see? Do you see?
His voice rose to a shout. I wanted to hush him before the Kapalikas rushed
in, but I could only stay there on one knee and listen. The lantern sputtered in
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rhythm to his agitated hissing.  The centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]