Mortal Fear (43 page)

ERIN> Im not sure I understand.

MAXWELL> You will. On that final trip to India, we crisscrossed the subcontinent in search of rituals and cults which had been outlawed by the British long before, but which rumor claimed still flourished in remote areas. Richard was no Western dilettante. He had friends all over the country, from the teeming cities to the village-dotted plains. At an isolated tribal village we were allowed to see a young boy dragged through the fields while a crowd
of farmers hacked the flesh from his body in strips, which they then buried in their fields to ensure fertility.

From there, we trekked to a high village where a certain Shakti cult was known to practice Tantrism of the Left Hand. Most Indian holy men practice asceticism as the route to what Westerners would call salvation. But Tantrics of the Left Hand Path are adepts. For them, self-denial brings pleasure. Their sacrament requires
breaking
each taboo in ritual fashion. No Westerner had ever witnessed these rites. Yet Richard, with the help of a guru, gained us admittance. At midnight in a cremation ground, eleven couples were seated in a circle. At their center sat a young woman, nude. There was chanting of mantras, then the woman was sprinkled with taboo substances such as meat and alcohol, which were shared by all. Then the remaining women removed their vests, which were placed by the guru in a box. Each man approached the box and selected a vest. His choice of vest determined the woman with whom he would couple during the ritual. As we stared from without the circle, the participants disrobed and began to copulate around us. No taboo of class or law was observed during this rite. If a man chose the vest of his sister, they made love as strangers, honoring the goddess by their rapture. For my father the experience was an epiphany, a validation of his life history. For me it was electrifying, the spiritual antithesis of a Roman orgy. It was holy sex. When the men and women around us finally began to allow themselves the release of orgasmwhich we had believed forbiddenI realized that this journey was not like the others. Time was funneling in upon itself, sucking me toward some great reversal.

Encouraged by our successes, we pushed farther into the interior. Our only protection in that hard land was our wits, our money, and the strength in our limbs. My father had a very bad time. Hemophilia deteriorates the joints, and Richards were failing
fast. But like mad white hunters pursuing elephants in search of the mythical ivory graveyard, we trod endless miles of grass and rock in search of the one significant cult of which Richard had found no extant trace. The Thuggee.

The Thugs were a robber caste which had flourished in India for centuries. They earned their livelihood by falling in with groups of travelers on the roads and then strangling them in their sleep. They stole all money and belongings, then expertly concealed the corpses. Nothing remarkable in that, of course. What made the Thuggee unique was that the murders they committed were part of their religion. They worshiped Kalithe goddess of death and destructionin her many forms. Kali the Black One, the Betrayer, the Difficult of Approach. For them, murder was a sacrament, and the profit gained their rightful due. The British claimed to have wiped out the Thugs by the end of the nineteenth century, but my father believed no cult which had thrived for centuries could be utterly stamped out in one.

He was right. After many weeks of following whispered directions bought too dearly and warnings shouted free of charge, we were admitted to the home of a man who confessed that Kalis cult of murder still existed. After a sleepless night talking to Richard (during which a considerable amount of money changed hands) the man admitted that he himself worshiped Kali and had been trained in the ways of the Thugs. For my father it was the culmination of a lifes work. But as he greedily absorbed the most arcane of Eastern secrets, I was striking up a relationship of my own.

The Thug had three daughters. Two chattered endlessly, but the middle daughter was silent. She was dark-skinned, of course, but also unutterably beautiful. She watched me wherever I went, and I watched her. On the third night she came to my pallet. It was the first consensual sex in my life with a woman who was not a whore. I did not have to
speak. The first time she lay as motionless as the dead beneath me. The second, she rose above me like a black goddess and chanted words that cleft my mind like a scimitar:
Is Kali, my Divine Mother, of a black complexion? She appears black from a distance, but when intimately known she is no longer so. Bondage and liberation are both of her making. She must always have her way
. In that instant this young girl smashed my spiritual chains and brought me to fierce, bursting climax. I was a man transformed.

In the morning I was amazed to learn that this proud girl spoke English, which was rare in the province. She had been taught it as a way to lull travelers into feeling safe. For three nights she initiated me into wonders I had never imagined, or had been sickened by when I did. I saw that all my life had been an obsessive exercise in compensation. I had been born with an incurable disease, cursed with fragility. Id watched my delicate mother perish for love, then sought a woman equal to her. But the daughter of the Thug was Catherines antithesis. Cold and hard outside, yet soft and fathomless at her core. I had feared unrestrained sex for so long. In my mind the
yoni
the opening in the womanwas a crevice through which a man would fall back into the mindless black maw of Nature. The women who had wanted me sought to enslave me, to bear children unworthy of my line. But the daughter of the Thug allayed my fears. She taught me that semen, once ejaculated into the fire of the
yoni
, could still be arrested and returned. That I would not be dissolved into her but rather purge myself of earthly lust and touch the stars. She was Death rendered tangible in flesh.

On the night before my father and I were to leave, I spoke out at the dinner table. In my best attempt at his dialect, I humbly asked the Thug for his daughters hand in marriage. He opened his stinking mouth and belly-laughed in my face. I was humiliated, blinded by rage and embarrassment. But of course Richard knew exactly what to do.
With a bemused smile he removed a leather case from his robe, laid a thousand British pounds on the table, and told the fat man he wanted the girl for me. The Thug snapped up the money and agreed without demur. At first I did not understand. I thought some exorbitant fee for sex had been arranged. But just as I was about to make a fool of myself, the situation became clear. My father had bought the girl outright. Not for the night, but for life.

ERIN> You mean like a _slave_?

MAXWELL> Exactly. The Thug had sold his daughter for two thousand dollars. I had no idea how she would react to this arrangement, but when we departed the next morning, she fell in behind us with a cotton bag hanging from her hand.

A fortnight later, waiting in the Delhi airport for the first leg of our flight home, my father collapsed. At fifty-five he had already outlived most hemophiliacs of his generation, and the strain of the journey had finally caused a terminal bleeding incident. I married the Thuggees daughter to gain her U.S. citizenship. At the ceremony I told an Indian magistrate that her name was Kali, and no one objected. Kali I have called her to this day. We watched over Richard as he died, then spread his ashes over the Ganges and took the next plane out of the country.

This is my early life, Erin. The seed of my becoming. My strengths I have passed over in silence. Kali remains with me still, as my concubine. Understanding that I could never bear children by her, she allowed me to sterilize her. In this pure form she has purged the lust from my body, watched over me, held my subconscious at bay while assisting in my lifes work.

How do you judge me, Erin?

MAXWELL> Are you there, Erin?

ERIN> You lied to me, Max.

MAXWELL> How did I lie?

ERIN> You told me youd never been married. But you married Kali. Youre still married to her.

MAXWELL> Only as a convenience! To gain her entrance into the U.S.

ERIN> Its obviously more than that.

MAXWELL> It was the only thing I could do under the circumstances. Just as you did when you married!

ERIN> I know. Just dont lie anymore, okay?

ERIN> Are you there, Max? Jesus, I didnt realize the time. This is my husbands afternoon off. He could get home any minute. I had a gift for you, something I thought youd like. But I guess it will have to wait.

MAXWELL> What is this gift you speak of?

ERIN> A photograph of myself. For you. I told you Id been looking for someone here. And I wanted to be ready if I found him. And you seem to think I have. What I told you is true. The truly transcendent aspect of my existence is my beauty. I know that. A famous writer once asked me a question he said I wouldnt accept at face value, but one that was born from honest curiosity. The question was, What does it feel like to inhabit such a beautiful body? And the thing I tried to make him understand is that I dont _inhabit_ my body. I AM my body. And I want to give that as a gift to you. As a beginning. I may not be as fair-skinned as your mother, but I know Im fairer than your Indian girl. _Much_ fairer. Maybe Im too vain, but right now it seems the only thing I can give you to match what youve given me.

MAXWELL> How can you give this photograph to me?

ERIN> I have it on a disk. In a special kind of file. A JPEG file.

MAXWELL> You know how to encode and transmit a JPEG file?

ERIN> I do now. A friend showed me how. She scanned my photo with a hand scanner. The quality of the image isnt that great, but the photo itself I like. If you want to see it, weve got to do it right now, though, or else wait until at least tomorrow.

MAXWELL> I wish very much to see it. Let me give you my e-mail address.

ERIN> Cant I just send it to Maxwell?

MAXWELL> No. Send it to [email protected] you have that?

ERIN> Im printing my screen. Wheres that? Its not an EROS address.

MAXWELL> Its in Finland. Ill get it, though.

ERIN> Well if you dont, assume that my husband got home. Dont try to contact me. No e-mail or anything. Ill try again the next chance I get.

MAXWELL> Perhaps tonight?

ERIN> I doubt it. What you told me is a lot to absorb. You must know that.

MAXWELL> I have faith in you.

ERIN> Remember one thing, Max. Im worthy of my Dark Prince. After youve seen my photograph, youll know that. The next question is, are you worthy of me?

MAXWELL> You still have no idea whom you are talking to. Youre like the desert traveler who stooped to touch a glimmer of gold in the sand. When he tried to pick it up, he found it would not move. Only when tons of earth-moving equipment had been hauled in did he realize that he had touched the finger of an enormous golden Buddha buried in the sand. That is what you have done today. You have touched the tip of my finger.

ERIN> Good-bye, Max. Sweet dreams.

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