Calcutta. Sweet and putrid, the city's air filled every conceivable crack of stone, drifting in gently rolling waves of spice, excrements and human sweat down the narrow streets, towards the holy river Ganges. In the days before the blessing of the monsoon would come, breathing was nearly impossible each breath a mixture of the thousand secret smells of Calcutta, layered with the excruciating heat and all the untold secrets that made the city the sweltering hellhole she was. Swarms of flies gathered over the generous offerings of the holy cows on the streets, and one unlucky enough to pass by one of those offerings too closely would be surrounded by flies as if he himself were an offering, a gift, or a corpse floating down the Ganges, unburned, unmarked, nameless.
Under the banyan trees that guarded the larger streets, women sold spice, woven cloth, or themselves. Men, carrying buckets of cheap tap water on their shoulders, offered their tin cups to tourists, filled to brimming with waters that had never been clean. The Hooghly River, an offshoot of the holy Ganges, lay silent as a fat snake under the blaring eye of the sun. On the banks of the Ganges, the ashes from yesterday's ceremonial burning lay unstirred by wind or breath. The Ganges itself, placid, all-knowing, flowed without disturbance, washing the banks clean of ashes in gently rolling waves, carrying the remains of humanity towards the ocean.
He was bored to tears.
Schuldig flipped his heavy hair over one shoulder, cursing softly as the sweaty strands clung to the skin of his back. Below him, Calcutta's image was wavering for a moment as another wave of heat hit him, took his breath away. He inhaled and tasted each nuance of the boiling pot that called herself a town, each smell blending with another to create a new, different experience for his nose and tongue. Yes, Calcutta's air was heavy, and meaty - on a really hot day, one could almost cut the atmosphere with a knife.
He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke deeply, and with it, he inhaled life, and love, and death. Nowhere else had Schuldig ever felt so close to the bare essences of life as in Calcutta perhaps, because her people regarded death as a part of life, rather than an end to it. It was not uncommon to happen upon a ceremonial burning in the middle of the day, or stumble over a corpse in some street away from the overflowing boulevards. And cows. Cows everywhere. He hated them. All they did was shit and eat and piss; their excrements baked and stewed in the heat of the blaring sun, creating sufficient ground for flies and a universe of bacteria. He would not have been surprised if the Ebola virus were lurking in one of those shit heaps.
But Calcutta was also beautiful. If Tokyo was the Whore, then Calcutta was the Mother who had spawned her. She was lush, her ornamental palaces, exotic population, and never-ending nights and days magnets; one could spend a hundred years here and still discover something new each day. Even the filth, apparent everywhere, had its own kind of attraction; and the deities knew Schuldig had spend enough time in the dirt to appreciate that kind of beauty.
Schuldig turned from the window and leaned against the sill. They had bought quarters on Sudder Street, Calcutta's boulevard of broken dreams. Their rooms, large and airy, had walls painted in lightest aquamarine, the floor a satiated shade of violet. Beneath them was a brothel, and sometimes, at night, they heard the screams and the soft crying of boys and girls, but it was not enough to truly wrench them from their sleep. On the contrary, he and Farfarello enjoyed the company of a dark-skinned, bruised-eyed boy or girl once in a while. Their floors were made of violet tiles. It was easy to wash the blood off them.
The telepath's eyes found the shape lying on the large bed that stood in the middle of the room, its movements barely perceptible through the thick, white fly-net that hung from a hook in the ceiling and pooled over and around the bed that could easily have accommodated four or five sleepers. Through the half-open door that lead into a spacious living room, he heard the steady clicking sound of a keyboard; Schuldig rolled his eyes and exhaled smoke through his nose Nagi was probably hacking into some bank again, getting them insane sums of money of which they had in abundance. It had taken him and Farfarello two weeks to get the Japanese youth to go out on his own; but slowly, and surely, Nagi was finding his own way. He spent less and less time in their home, staying away three or four days and nights in a row sometimes. He did not tell them where he went, and they did not ask - meaning, Schuldig and Farfarello did not speak openly about Nagi's growing obsession with a young hacker who lived three streets away from them, and Nagi, knowing they knew, did not see the need to elaborate something that was already common knowledge.
The hacker, a girl of seventeen, was a pyrokinetic. They had met her on their way to India aboard a majestic cruiser they boarded in Greece. She had been on the way to the country of her birth, returning after spending two years with a wealthy executive in America. Apparently, the word of Eszet's fall had gotten around fast. For two months, the international news had reported strange incidents about influential people who vanished, or were found burned, brain dead, or simply blown to pieces.
Chandra, as was the pyrokinetic's name, had brought Nagi into contact with a large and widespread web of gifted all over the world. Most of them had come from Rosenkreuz, or had spent some time there. Some of them had been living in small groups, like Schwarz once had. Through that web, the remaining members of what once had been Schwarz learned that gifted all over the world were moving, leaving Eszet's clientele in ruins behind them. Of course, some remained with their clientele, too old or too settled in themselves to try a new start. But the rest of them?
"It's nearly like a fucking exodus," Nagi had said.
Schuldig did not really care. Apart from Chandra, they had met a few other gifted during the three months before they had arrived in India. A few of them they had killed, seeing that they had been loyal to Eszet, some had gone the way of all flesh because Farfarello had been bored. Things had changed, but then again, they had not. Everything had changed - nothing was different.
The scraping of chair legs on tile announced Nagi's resurrection from the virtual world. Schuldig cocked his head and listened to the sounds of jangling keys and the snapping of a laptop being closed. A minute later, the front door to their quarters opened and closed.
"That brat finally gone?"
The dark, soft voice sent a shiver up the German's spine. His looked at the shape on the bed and noted the yellow burn of a single eye levelled on him. His ever-present grin widened as Farfarello moved beneath the fly-net, lifting the hem of the heavy material to stand and stretch. The Irishman's skin was still as white as snow; no matter how long Farfarello stayed in the sun, his skin would not darken, would not take on the sunburnt quality of Schuldig's shoulders after the German had fallen asleep on their balcony once, would not yield to colours such as the soft golden tan Nagi was beginning to develop. Seven months in India, and Farfarello was still snow-born.
"He's off to see Chandra, I guess." Schuldig lifted his hair from his neck, wishing the monsoon would come. A few days of blessedly cool air would be worth the deadly humidity afterwards.
"Well, there's a surprise..." Farfarello trailed off and lazily skulked over to his lover, leaning his elbows on the sill, looking out at the city. He wore a pair of boxers, the only other items that could be classified as 'clothing' a narrow leather collar around his throat, his eye patch, and the twenty-one earrings that curved up the delicate shells of his ears. They were small, silver hoops, all, but one of them - from the Irishman's left ear dangled a palm-long, thin strip of gold. He had found this particular earring in the pocket of one of his leather pants when they had returned to the hotel in Vienna; blood still caked on the metal.
"You don't have to be so darn sarcastic. Do you want to go out tonight?" Schuldig picked his cigarettes up from the low table that stood next to the window and lit one, holding the smoke in until his head began to swim. "We could go to that amusing little club again..."
"Think they found the mess in the basement by now?"
The telepath laughed, the sound turning into a purr as Farfarello lifted one hand and trailed his fingers up the German's sweat-slick spine, tracing the intricate curls and the swirling colours of the peacock feathers that sprung from the small of Schuldig's back and fanned out towards his shoulders.
"We could make another mess," Schuldig said, but the words came out half-heartedly, more so since Farfarello was now standing and nibbling on his jaw. His left hand still tracing the tattoo on Schuldig's back, Farfarello's right hand rubbed lazy circles on the other's flat stomach, fingertips dipping beneath the waistband of the lose, wide trousers the German was wearing. Despite the warmth, Schuldig felt Goosebumps on his arms. He threw his cigarette out of the window without sparing it a second glance and wound his arms around his lover's back, pulling him close.
"Or, we could simply stay here?"
Farfarello chuckled, tongue lapping at the hollow of Schuldig's throat, moving over his collarbones.
"Thought you'd never ask."
Once again, the dance began of nimble fingers, sharp teeth and gentle tongue, of slick flesh and moist breath. Once again, they drowned in each other. Rediscovering each other every time they made love, or fucked, for there is a difference, Farfarello and Schuldig tumbled onto the bed made for more than two sleepers; every crease of skin, every scar, every secret fold a world waiting to be experienced. In the end, one learns that we don't always need to be entertained by our loves and lovers - in the end, all we need is a home, a haven, a place we can return to.
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?
Because you don't need me.
And the lidless eye moves, away from the scene, out of the quarters that lie above a brothel, to look at the city, at the chaos of life. It looks, long, taking in as much as possible, never flinching once, never looking away once. There is much to behold in this world of darkness and light - one only has to know what to look for.
That is how the story ends.
Ningengirai, 2001-05-16
For or during this story died: 77 litres of tea, 132 packs of Lucky Strike cigarettes, one hamster, one mother, the 'q' key on my keyboard (though fixed now), one friendship, and one tea cup with a smiley on it. I sometimes think that coding this darn thing took me longer than actually writing it. However, I am happy I've finished it, both writing and coding.