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Chapter 21

Chapter 21

"You make a very attractive woman," Rumi said from the comfort of his pit "Did I tell you that my wife has passed on to her next incarnation and that I am alone?"

"Yeah, youhis daughter back "What happened to the rest of your family, anyway?"

"They drowned"

"I'es?"

"No, at hoone to the market to buy some swill, and there was a sudden downpour When we returned" He shrugged

"I don't mean to sound insensitive, Rumi, but there is a chance that your loss could have been caused by - oh, I don't know - perhaps the fact that you LIVE IN A FUCKING PIT!"

"That's not helping, Biff," Joshua said "You said you had a plan?"

"Right Ru that these pits, when so hides?"

"Yes, it is work that only Untouchables may do"

"That would account for the lovely sht?"

"Yes, urine, redients"

"Show me the pit where the urine is condensed"

"The Rajneesh fa there"

"That's okay, we'll bring them a present Josh, do you have any lint in the bottom of your satchel?"

"What are you up to?"

"Alchemy," I said "The subtle manipulation of the elements Watch and learn"

When it was not being used, the urine pit was the hoive us loads of the white crystals that covered the floor of their horown daughter, and three little ones Another little son had been taken for sacrifice at the festival of Kali Like Rumi, and all the other Untouchables, the Rajneesh family looked more like skeletons mummified in brown leather than people The Untouchableonly a loincloth, and even the wo as nice as the stylish sari that I had purchased in the marketplace Mr Rajneesh coed me to drop by after the next monsoon

Joshua pounded chunks of the crystallized mineral into a fine white pohile Ru pit (a firebox had been gouged out of the stone under the pit) which the Untouchables used to render the flowers froo shrub into fabric dye

"I need brimstone, Rumi Do you knohat that is? A yellow stone that burns with a blue flas?"

"Oh yes, they sell it in the market as some sort of medicine"

I handed the Untouchable a silver coin Go buy as much of it as you can carry"

"Oh h money May I buy some salt hat is left?"

"Buy what you need hat's left over, just go"

Rumi skulked away and I went to help Joshua process the saltpeter

The concept of abundance was an abstract one to the Untouchables, except as it pertained to two categories, suffering and animal parts If you wanted decent food, shelter, or clean water, you would be sorely disappointed a the Untouchables, but if you were in the allstones, fins, feathers, ears, antlers, eyeballs, bladders, lips, nostrils, poop chutes, or any other inedible part of virtually any creature that walked on, swam under, or flew over the subcontinent of India, then the Untouchables were likely to have what you wanted lying around, conveniently stored beneath a thick blanket of black flies In order to fashion the equipment I needed for my plan, I had to think in terms of animal parts Fine unless you need, say, a dozen short swords, bows and arrows, and chain mail for thirty soldiers and all you have to ith is a stack of nostrils and three e, but Ithe Untouchables, surreptitiously healing their maladies, I barked out my orders

"I need eight sheep bladders - fairly dry - two handfuls of crocodile teeth, two pieces of rawhide as long as ain as wide No, I don't care what kind of anie it I need hair fro if you ht oxtails, a basket of wool, and a bucket of rendered fat"

And a hundred scrawny Untouchables stood there, eyes as big as saucers, just staring attheir wounds, sicknesses, and insanities, without any of thereed that this was the wisest tack to take, as we didn't want a bunch of healthy Untouchables athletically bounding through Kalighat proclainer, thus attracting attention to us and spoiling my plan On the other hand, neither could we stand there and watch these people suffer, knowing that ell, Joshua - had the power to help the one of theer anytime anyone said the word "Untouchable" Later he toldup the opportunity for palpable irony I cringed when I saw Joshua touching the lepers a them, as if after all these years away from Israel a tiny Pharisee stood on my shoulder and screamed, "Unclean!"

"Well?" I said after I'd finished my orders "Do you want your children back or not?"

"We don't have a bucket," said one woman

"Or a basket," said another

"Okay, fill some of the sheep bladders with rendered fat, and bundle the wool in soo, we don't have a lot of time"

And they all stood and looked at ed They just looked at reat, but you do knohat I a?"

A young er Kali by depriving her of her sacrifices"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Kali is the bringer of destruction, without which there can be no rebirth She is the ree that ties us to the er her, she will deprive us of her divine destruction"

I looked at Joshua across the crowd "Do you understand this?"

"Fear?" he said

"Can you help?" I asked in Aramaic

"I'ood at fear," Joshua said in Hebrew

I thought for a second as two hundred eyes pinned me to the sandstone on which I stood I reashes on the wooden elephant statues at the altar of Kali Death was their deliverance, was it?

"What is your name?" I asked the man who had stepped out of the crowd

"Nagesh," he said

"Stick out your tongue, Nagesh" He did, and I threw back the cloth that covered my head and loosened it around ue

"Destruction is a gift you value?"

"Yes," said Nagesh

"Then I shall be the instrulass dagger from the sheath in esh stood, passive, wide-eyed, I drove ht the dagger down across his throat I lowered hiround as the red liquid spurted over the sandstone

I stood and faced the crowd again, holding the dripping blade over ht to your people the gift of Kali, now bring me what I ask for"

They e of starvation

After the Untouchables scattered to do , Joshua and I stood over the bloodstained body of Nagesh

"That was fantastic," Joshua said "Absolutely perfect"

"Thanks"

"Had you been practicing all that time ere in the monastery?"

"You didn't see me push the pressure point in his neck then?"

"No, not at all"

"Gaspar's kung fu training The rest, of course, was from Joy and Balthasar"

I bent over and opened Nagesh'svial from around my neck and put a drop of the antidote on the Untouchable's tongue

"So he can hear us now, like when Joy poisoned you?" Joshua asked

I pulled back one of Nagesh's eyelids and watched the pupil contract slowly in the sunlight "No, I think he's still unconscious fro the pressure point I didn't think the poison would work quickly enough I could only get a drop of poison on er when I loosened my sari I kneould keep him down, I just wasn't sure it would put him down"

"Well, you are truly a us, now, Biff I'm impressed"

"Joshua, you healed a hundred people today Half of theht of hand"

My friend's enthusiasranate juice? I can't figure out where you concealed it"

"No, actually I was going to ask you about that"

"What?"

I held my arm up and showed Joshua where I had slashed my orist (the source of blood for the show) I had been holding it againstand as soon as I reain I sat down hard on the sandstone andyou could help me out with this," I said before I fainted

"You need to work on that part of the trick," Joshua said when I caht not always be around to fix your wrist" He was speaking Hebrew - that meant for my ears only

I saw Joshua kneeling above me, then beyond him the sky was blotted out by curious brown faces The recently esh, how'd the rebirth go?" I asked in Sanskrit

"I esh said "I have been reincarnated, once again, as an Untouchable And I have the saly wife"

"You challenged master Levi who is called Biff," I said, "of course you didn'tSee, destruction isn't the big favor you all thought it was"

"We brought the things you asked for"

I hopped to ized "Nice," I said to Joshua "I feel like I just had one of those strong coffees you used to make at Balthasar's"

"I miss coffee," said Josh

I looked at Nagesh, "I don't suppose you"

"We have swill"

"Never rowing up in Galilee, you never think you'll hear yourself say: "Okay, Untouchables, bring me the sheep bladders!"

Ruoddess Kali was served by a host of black-skinned fe men to corners of the altar and copulate with theoddess's saw-tooth maw above

"Okay, Josh, you're one of them," I said

"What are you gonna be?"

"The goddess Kali, of course You got to be God last time"

"What last time?"

"All of the last times" I turned to my intrepid minions "Untouchables, paint him up!"

"They're not going to buy that a burr-headed Jewish kid is their goddess of destruction"

"O ye of little faith," I said

Three hours later ere again crouched beneath a tree near the temple of Kali We were both dressed as wo arland of severed heads, played tonight by painted sheep bladders filled with explosives and suspended aroundstrands of elephant tail hair Any observers who h to noticeoff of Joshua and oo from the bottom of Rue to ask what the substance had been in life, but if there was a place where they allowed vultures to ripen in the sun before pounding theht amount of buffalo squat, then Rue red rings around Joshua's eyes, fitted hi of oxtails, and affixed to his torso six pert little breasts fashioned from pitch

"Stay away froo up like volcanos"

"Why did I have to have six and you only had to have two"

"Because I aarland of skulls and the extra arms"

We'dthe molded arms in place over the fire The women made a harness that held the extra arms in place under oo They were a little wobbly, but they were light and would look realistic enough in the dark

It was still hours froht, when the children would be hacked to death, but anted to be there in tiers if we could Now, the wooden elephants were empty on their turntables, but the altar of Kali was already filling with gruesooats had been laid on the altar before the goddess, and the blood ran slick over the stones and in the grooves that channeled it into large brass pots at the corners of the altar Female acolytes carried the pots up a narrow ladder at the back of the great statue of Kali, then duh the goddess's jaws Below, by torchlight, worshipers danced in the sticky shower as the blood flowed down upon them