Cyberabad Days (6 page)

     "The man, look at the man ..." Kyle wanted to shout, but that wonder/ horror was behind him, a dozen more unfolding on every side as the phatphat hooted down ever narrower, ever darker, ever busier streets. "An elephant, there's an elephant and that's a robot and those people, what are they carrying, that's a body, that's, like, a dead man on a stretcher oh man ..." He turned to Salim. He wasn't scared now. There were no bodies behind him, squeezing him, pushing him into fear and danger. It was just people, everywhere just people, working out how to live. "Why didn't they let me see this?"

     The phatphat bounced to a stop.

     "This is where we get out, come on, come on."

     The phatphat was wedged in an alley between a clot of cycle rickshaws and a Japanese delivery truck. Nothing on wheels could pass, but still the people pressed by on either side. Another dead man passed, handed high on his stretcher over the heads of the crowd. Kyle ducked instinctively as the shadow of the corpse passed over the dome of the phatphat, then the doors flew up and he stepped out into the side of a cow. Kyle almost punched the stupid, baggy thing, but Salim grabbed him, shouted, "Don't touch the cow, the cow is special, like sacred." Shout was the only possible conversation here. Grab the only way not to get separated. Salim dragged Kyle by the wrist to a booth in a row of plastic-canopied market stalls where a bank of chill-cabinets chugged. Salim bought two Limkas and showed the stallholder a Cantonment pog, which he accepted for novelty value. Again the hand on the arm restrained Kyle.

     "You have to drink it here, there's a deposit."

     So they leaned their backs against the tin bar and watched the city pass and drank their Limkas from the bottle which would have had Kyle's mom screaming germs bacteria viruses infections and felt like two very very proper gentlemen. During a moment's lull in the street racket, Kyle heard his palmer call. He hauled it out of his pants pocket, a little ashamed because everyone had a newer better brighter cleverer smaller one than him, and saw, as if she knew what dirty thing he had done, it was his mom calling. He stared at the number, the little smiley animation, listened to the jingly tune. Then he thumbed the off button and sent them all to darkness.

     "Come on." He banged his empty bottle down on the counter. "Let's see this river, then."

     In twenty steps, he was there, so suddenly, so huge and bright Kyle forgot to breathe. The narrow alley, the throng of people opened up into painful light, light in the polluted yellow sky light from the tiers of marble steps that descended to the river and light from the river itself, wider and more dazzling than he had ever imagined, white as a river of milk. And people: the world could not hold so many people, crowding down the steps to the river in their colored clothes and colored shoes, jammed together under the tilted wicker umbrellas to talk and deal and pray, people in the river itself, waist-deep in the water, holding up handfuls of the water, and the water glittering as it fell through their fingers, praying, washing—washing themselves, washing their clothes, washing their children and their sins. Then the boats: the big hydrofoil seeking its way to dock through the little darting rowboats, the pilgrim boats making the crossing from Ramnagar, rowers standing on their sterns pushing at their oars, the tourist boats with their canopies, the kids in inflated tractor tires paddling around scavenging for river-scraps, down to the bobbing saucers of butter-light woven from mango leaves that the people set adrift on the flow. Vision by vision the Ganga revealed itself to Kyle; next he became aware of the buildings: the guesthouses and hotels and havelis shouldering up to the steps, the ridiculous pink water towers, the many domes of the mosque and the golden spires of the temples, and a little temple down at the river leaning into the silt; the arcades and jetties and galleries and across the river, beyond the yellow sand and the black, ragged tents of the holy men, the chimneys and tanks and pipes of the chemical and oil plants, all flying the green, white, and orange wheel-banners of Bharat.

     "Oh," Kyle said. "Oh man." And: "Cool."

     Salim was already halfway down the steps.

     "Come on."

     "Is it all right? Am I allowed?"

     "Everyone is allowed. Come on, let's get a boat."

     A boat. People didn't do things like that, but here they were, settling onto the seat as the boatman pushed out, a kid not that much older than Kyle himself with teeth that would never be allowed inside Cantonment, yet Kyle felt jealous of him, with his boat and his river and the people all around and a life without laws or needs or duties. He sculled them through floating butter-candles—diyas, Salim explained to Kyle—past the ghat of the sad-dhus, all bare-ass naked and skinny as famine, and the ghat where people beat their clothes against rock washing-platforms, and the ghat where the pilgrims landed, pushing each other into the water in their eagerness to touch the holy ground of Varanasi, and the ghat of the buffaloes—
Where where?
Kyle asked and Salim pointed out their nostrils and black, back-curved horns just sticking up out of the water. Kyle trailed his hand in the water, and when he pulled it out it was covered in golden flower petals. He lay back on the seat and watched the marble steps flow past, and beyond them the crumbling, mold-stained waterfront buildings, and beyond them the tops of the highest towers of New Varanasi, and beyond them the yellow clouds, and he knew that even when he was a very old man, maybe forty or even more, he would always remember this day and the color of this light and the sound of the water against the hull.

     "You got to see this!" Salim shouted. The boat was heading in to shore now through the tourists and the souvenir-boats and a slick of floating flower garlands. Fires burned on the steps, the marble was blackened with trodden ashes, half-burned wood lapped at the water's edge. There were other things among the coals: burned bones. Men stood thigh-deep in the water, panning it with wide wicker baskets.

     "They're Doms, they run the burning ghats. They're actually untouchable but they're very rich and powerful because they're the only ones who can handle the funerals," said Salim. "They're sifting the ashes for gold."

     The burning ghats. The dead place. These fires, these piles of wood and ash, were dead people, Kyle thought. This water beneath the boat was full of dead people. A funeral procession descended the steps to the river. The bearers pushed the stretcher out into the water; a man with a red cord around his shoulder poured water over the white shroud. He was very thorough and methodical about it, he gave the dead body a good washing. The river-boy touched his oars, holding his boat in position. The bearers took the body up to a big bed of wood and set the whole thing on top. A very thin man in a white robe and with a head so freshly shaved it looked pale and sick piled wood on top of it.

     "That's the oldest son," Salim said. "It's his job. These are rich people. It's real expensive to get a proper pyre. Most people use the electric ovens. Of course, we get properly buried like you do."

     It was all very quick and casual. The man in white poured oil over the wood and the body, picked up a piece of lit wood, and almost carelessly touched it to the side. The flame guttered in the river wind, almost went out, then smoke rose up, and out of the smoke, flame. Kyle watched the fire rake hold. The people stood back; no one seemed very concerned, even when the pile of burning wood collapsed and a man's head and shoulders lolled out of the fire.

     
That is a burning man,
Kyle thought. He had to tell himself that. It was hard to believe, all of it was hard to believe; there was nothing that connected to any part of his world, his life. It was fascinating, it was like a wildlife show on the sat; he was close enough to smell the burning flesh but it was too strange, too alien. It did not touch him. He could not believe. Kyle thought,
This is the first time Salim has seen this, too.
But it was very very cool.

     A sudden crack, a pop a little louder than the gunfire Kyle heard in the streets every day, but not much.

     "That is the man's skull bursting," Salim said. "It's supposed to mean his spirit is free."

     Then a noise that had been in the back of Kyle's head moved to the front of his perception: engines, aircraft engines. Tilt-jet engines. Loud, louder than he had ever heard them before, even when he watched them lifting off from the field in Cantonment. The mourners were staring; the Doms turned from their ash-panning to stare too. The boat-boy stopped rowing; his eyes were round. Kyle turned in his seat and saw something wonderful and terrible and strange: a tilt-jet with Coalition markings, moving across the river towards him, yes,
him,
so low, so slow, it was as if it were tiptoeing over the water. For a moment he saw himself, toes scraping the stormy waters of Alterre. River-traffic fled from it; its down-turned engines sent flaws of white across the green water. The boat-boy scrabbled for his oars to get away but there was now a second roar from the ghats. Kyle turned back to see Coalition troopers in full combat armor and visors pouring down the marble steps, pushing mourners out of their way, scattering wood and bones and ash. Mourners and Doms shouted their outrage; fists were raised; the soldiers lifted their weapons in answer. The boat-boy looked around him in terror as the thunder of the jet engines grew louder and louder until Kyle felt it become part of him, and when he looked round he saw the big machine, morphing between city and river camouflage, turn, unfold landing gear, and settle into the water. The boat rocked violently. Kyle would have been over the side had Salim not hauled him back. Jet-wash blew human ash along the ghats. A single oar floated lost down the stream. The tilt-jet stood knee-deep in the shallow water. It unfolded its rear ramp. Helmets. Guns. Between them, a face Kyle recognized, his dad, shouting wordlessly through the engine roar. The soldiers on the shore were shouting, the people were shouting, everything was shout shout roar. Kyle's dad beckoned,
To me to me.
Shivering with fear, the boat-boy stood up, thrust his sole remaining oar into the water like a punt pole, and pushed towards the ramp. Gloved hands seized Kyle and dragged him out of the rocking boat up the ramp. Everyone was shouting, shouting. Now the soldiers on the shore were beckoning to the boat-boy and Salim,
This way this way, the thing is going to take off, get out of there.

     
His dad buckled Kyle into the seat as the engine roar peaked again. He felt the world turn, then the river was dropping away beneath him. The tilt-jet banked. Kyle looked out the window. There was the boat, being pulled in to shore by the soldiers, and Salim standing in the stern staring up at the aircraft, a hand raised: goodbye.

     Gitmo Part Three.

     Dad did the don't-you-know-the-danger-you-were-in/trouble-you-caused/expense-you-cost bit.

     "It was a full-scale security alert. Full-scale alert. We thought you'd been kidnapped. We honestly thought you'd been kidnapped. Everyone thought that, everyone was praying for you. You'll write them, of course. Proper apologies, handwritten. Why did you turn your palmer off? One call, one simple call, and it would have been all right, we wouldn't have minded. Lucky we can track them even when they're switched off. Salim's in big trouble too. You know, this is a major incident; it's in all the papers, and not just here in Cantonment. It's even made SKYIndia News. You've embarrassed us all, made us look very very stupid. Sledgehammer to crack a nut. Salim's father has had to resign. Yes, he's that ashamed."

     But Kyle knew his dad was burning with joy and relief to have him back.

     Mom was different. Mom was the torturer.

     "It's obvious we can't trust you; well, of course you're grounded, but really, I thought you knew what it was like here, I thought you understood that this is not like anywhere else, that if we can't trust each other, we can really put one another in danger. Well, I can't trust you here, and your dad, well, he'll have to give it up. We'll have to quit and go back home and the Lord knows, he won't get a job anything close to what we have here. We'll have to move to a smaller house in a less good area. I'll have to go out to work again. And you can forget about that Salim boy, yes, forget all about him. You won't be seeing him again."

     Kyle cried himself out that night in bed, cried himself into great shivering, shuddering sobs empty of everything except the end of the world. Way way late he heard the door open.

     "Kyle?" Mom's voice. He froze in his bed. "I'm sorry. I was upset. I said things I shouldn't have said. You did bad, but all the same, your dad and I think you should have this."

     A something was laid beside his cheek. When the door had closed, Kyle put on the light. The world could turn again. It would get better. He tore open the plastic bubble-case. Coiled inside, like a beckoning finger, like an Arabic letter, was a lighthoek. And in the morning, before school, before breakfast, before anything but the pilgrims going to the river, he went up onto the roof at Guy's Place, slipped the 'hoek behind his ear, pulled his palmer glove over his fingers, and went soaring up through the solar farm and the water tanks, the cranes and the construction helicopters and the clouds, up towards Salim's world.

The Dust Assassin

     When I was small a steel monkey would come into my room. My ayah put me to bed early, because a growing girl needed sleep, big sleep. I hated sleep. The world I heard beyond the carved stone jali screens of my verandah was too full of things for sleep. My ayah would set the wards, but the steel monkey was one of my own security robots and invisible to them. As I lay on my side in the warmth and perfume of dusk, I would see first its little head, then one hand, then two appear over the lip of my balcony, then all of it. It would crouch there for a whole minute, then slip down into the night shadows filling up my room. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark I would see it watching me, turning its head from one side to the other. It was a handsome thing: metal shell burnished as soft as skin (for in time it came close enough for me to slip a hand through my mosquito nets to stroke it) and adorned with the symbol of my family and make and serial number. It was not very intelligent, less smart than the real monkeys that squabbled and fought on the rooftops, but clever enough to climb and hunt the assassin  robots of the Azads along the ledges and turrets and carvings of the Jodhra Palace. And in the morning I would see them lining the ledges and rooftops with their solar cowls raised, and then they did not seem to me like monkeys at all, but cousins of the sculpted gods and demons among which they sheltered, giving salutation to the sun.