The Fourth Circle (21 page)

1. A GUEST IN THE TEMPLE

WE HAVE A visitor.

Though his arrival was unexpected, even by me, Sri did not seem surprised at all, or if he was surprised, it was pleasantly. Now my friend has male company, which obviously pleases him more than does mine, so he's happy while I feel neglected. Ah well, serves me right for being so gullible—like all women in fact.

As if men's feelings were made to last.

I know I should pay him back in kind. He richly deserves it, but I still manage to restrain myself, though I don't know why. The only thing he has earned from me is total contempt—or worse—especially after how he behaved regarding the baby.

He let me see it just that one time, and then only for a short while. I thought I would die of pain when he tore me away from the crib and started asking heartless questions about alleged hermetic viruses, wild programs, and similar absurdities, as if this were not a real baby, afflicted with Down's Syndrome though it may be. So what if it is? Sri least of anyone has the right to blame me for that. If he'd devoted more attention to me, if everything else hadn't been more important to him—his silly meditations in the first place—I would never have been forcibly inseminated by that stunted monkey.

I had a premonition from the very onset of pregnancy that this crossing with the primitive genes of the Little One would come to no good; I kept telling myself, in my rare moments of sobriety, that I ought to abort, but in the end that damn maternal instinct prevailed. That's the worst curse that God—never mind which one, all gods are males—uses to punish women. That's why I hate them all.

The baby seemed to be stretching its tiny hands toward me, but I know now it wasn't a deliberate act. It was an involuntary twitch. It doesn't recognize me as its mother, and that hurts more than Sri's indifference. I tried secretly to approach it several times, in defiance of Sri's cruel ban, but each time I suffered the same disappointment. Perhaps that's what Sri wanted to spare me when he forbade me to see the baby again after that first, traumatic time.

But, no, I'm deluding myself. He's nowhere near as thoughtful as that. To him
the baby is just a peculiar program malfunction that he would have destroyed long ago if he weren't so intrigued as to how it came about. Before our guest arrived, Sri had, to my horror, gone poking about the crib several times, totally unfeeling, not caring a whit for my desperate cries and pleas to leave the baby alone. Now, luckily, he has no more time: he is devoting himself entirely to his new friend, which does not surprise me in the least.

There was a moment when I had the impression that he planned to vivisect the baby—well, perhaps he wouldn't go quite that far. Sri certainly can be terribly cruel, but he isn't a monster, though a distraught mother may be forgiven for entertaining the thought. I was tempted to violate a pledge I had made to myself: that I would never again utter a word to the Little One.

The baby's life was more important than my vanity, and he was its father, after all, even if it was by violence, so it was up to him to do something about it.

What exactly, I didn't quite know, because Sri is much bigger and stronger. It crossed my mind that I should provoke him into the same state of hysteria he was in when the circle was removed from the screen, while we were making a picture language, because it seemed to me at the time that for a brief period his strength increased tenfold. However, I realized then that I hadn't seen him for quite a while, in fact not since the moment when Sri had allowed me, for the first and last time, to see the baby.

I recall his grinning foolishly then, but in the excitement of the moment I had no time to reflect, and afterwards the terrible discovery that the baby has Down's Syndrome absolutely shattered me, so that I lost sight of the Little One completely. I mean that literally: he was nowhere in my field of vision, not inside the temple nor in the wide area around it within farthest reaches of my electronic senses. If he'd hidden in some hole, or in the thickets or trees, he couldn't possibly have eluded me; at this moment I have in my field of vision exactly forty-three of his merry brethren who have no idea that I am spying on them, but none of them is the Little One.

So the gentleman has put his tail between his legs and slunk away, true to himself. And then they say—rely on men! That sort won't let you down only when they don't have the opportunity to do so. The Little One realized he didn't stand a chance in a clash with Sri, so he well and truly ran away to save his own skin. A fat lot he cares for his own child, retarded or not, let alone for me.

Or perhaps he has a tacit agreement with Sri that the baby should not continue to live? If that's it, then his heartlessness surpasses even Srinavasa's—which would be a colossal achievement and something I'd have sworn, almost until yesterday, was impossible. But if life in a man's world has taught me anything, it
is that you must never set a limit to male deceitfulness, because as soon as you do, a man will overstep it. In any case, nothing will ever tempt me to even look at the Little One again, though this will be difficult because of my far-flung system of sensors. But I can at least pretend not to see him.

If they had somehow carried out their ghastly intent to murder the baby on the pretext that it had Down's Syndrome and that this would be best for everyone, it would have been not only vicious and inhumane but also deeply unjust as well.

The baby does in fact act like a retarded child, incapable of recognizing even its own mother, but it has on at least one occasion demonstrated an awareness of the outside world, a much more complete awareness, in fact, than any of the rest of us have. It was the first to sense the arrival of the guest.

Which of course I should have been. The whole purpose of my delicate net-work of sensors is to do just that: to register the approach of an intruder in good time and inform Sri. Admittedly, at the time the guest arrived I was not on speaking terms with Sri, but I could have warned him in countless other ways than by voice. I've never before had reason to do so, being able to deal with all uninvited guests myself. Those are likely to be, at the worst, large wild animals, and it's easy for me to scare them to the marrow of their bones with a properly modulated screech. For each species I use a special tone that drives them to flee headlong out of the temple zone.

If the newcomer were a man, I would first carry out detailed scans to see whether he was armed. Though there is little chance that armed bands would venture this deep into the jungle for plunder, which would certainly not be worth the trouble, it's prudent to take some protective measures, the more so because these come easily to me, as a matter of routine. I have adequate sonic—and other—devices to deter humans from the temple, but their efficacy had been tested only when the system was tried out in the laboratory, since we hadn't yet had a single guest here.

When one finally turned up, the warning system failed completely. If it hadn't been for the baby, I would have become aware of the guest only when he entered the temple, quietly and unchallenged. I have no explanation as to how it could have happened. I checked the entire system, carefully and repeatedly, but found no malfunctions. It was as though the newcomer just materialized out of nowhere into the clearing in front of the temple. The finely adjusted sensors, which normally detect the presence of the smallest animals and birds, remained totally mute.

The only hint that something unusual was in the offing was the sudden wriggling of the otherwise immobile baby, whose indifference to the outside
world is such that even Sri might envy it. Against the latter's explicit instructions, I approached the baby just as its large eyes opened wide, and for a moment I had the idiotic impression that I was looking at the spitting image of a tiny Sri. Its gaze roved over the edge of the crib, and then it started to make incomprehensible throaty sounds, the first I heard from it besides ordinary crying.

I just stared stupidly at it, not knowing what it was trying to tell me or what to do. The throaty tirade suddenly stopped, and the baby's face lit up with a smile of pure pleasure. I responded instinctively and beamed happily back at it: how could I not? This was, after all, the first two-way communication that my baby and I had ever had.

Unfortunately, the contact lasted only a short time; a moment or two later the smile disappeared from the baby's face, replaced by its usual expression of dull indifference to the outside world. Joy was still strong in me, however, and I addressed Sri in a happy voice, wishing to give him the glad tidings and completely forgetting in my excitement that our relations had cooled, but his usual insensitivity quickly brought me back to earth. His lordship was sitting, legs crossed under him, deep in meditation in a corner of the temple from where he rudely flapped a hand at me, signaling that he did not wish to be disturbed.

My throat constricted and in all likelihood I would have burst into tears, if I hadn't just then succeeded in reestablishing contact with the baby, this time in a completely new way. I distinctly felt its presence where I thought nobody would ever penetrate, at the very heart of my most private being: at the center of my mind, not at all like an intruder, but rather as an extension of my own personality.

There it created an easily recognizable picture from my everyday life—that of the clearing in front of the temple.

There was not enough time to be frightened by this strange experience because just then another, more acute fear came over me. The clearing was not empty as by all accounts it should have been: a tall, strongly-built stranger in a long orange robe just like Sri's was in the act of crossing it.

At first I panicked, confronted by a swarm of questions to which I had no answers, but then my protective instinct went into overdrive. Ridding my mind entirely of the baby's presence—or maybe it withdrew by itself, I don't know—I turned all my electronic senses on the intruder who was now advancing toward the entrance to the temple. What my sensors informed me brought me no comfort; quite the contrary.

Not only did all the data provided by the scans add up to a picture that certainly did not fit the usual measurements of a human being, but I suffered a major shock when I saw the visitor's face. Naturally, I recognized him at once: how
could I ever forget?

All fingers and thumbs, I almost started to shout a warning to Sri, but stopped myself at the last moment. What could I have told him? That the obstetrician from my dreams—the man whose crumbling statue takes up half the inside of the temple—was on his way here? Impossible! Sri thinks, in any case, that I'm not entirely sane—and who knows, after all that's happened to me, his opinion may not be entirely unfounded. If I told him anything of the kind, he'd certainly switch me off forever. On the other hand, if I didn't speak up, if I let Buddha walk quietly into the temple and take him by surprise, then I'd really be for it.

The situation seemed hopeless, and every further step taken by the orange-robed figure increased my fluster and panic. Then Providence came to the rescue, with an amazing outcome that left me utterly confused.

Sri did not need any warning—or had the baby intervened in his mind too? In any case, he stood quite calmly at the temple door, as if he had been expecting this visitor, and gave him one of his friendliest smiles, something I had long been sure I would never again see on his face. I can hardly remember the last time that he bestowed this rare honor on me. But who am I, after all, to warrant anything of the kind?

Without exchanging a word, they went over to the corner of the temple where Sri had until just now been sitting cross-legged in meditation. Now both assumed the same position and remained silent, their heads bowed. The recent experience with the baby led me to think for a moment that their silence might be only apparent, but try as I might, I could not discern any trace of mental communication between them, while the baby again retreated into its Down's Syndrome torpor and so was of no use at all. I was alone.

The perplexity that had filled me till then began to give way to another feeling: anger. If the baby's reticence was understandable, the attitude of the two men was lacking in the rudiments of common courtesy. Neither perceived the need to explain anything to me, which good manners toward a lady, to say the least, would demand, if nothing else. But who can expect gentlemanly behavior in the middle of a jungle? Let's not delude ourselves.

Totally inconsiderate, they sat like that for hours, without saying a word, and I finally understood why most women despise chess. Nothing makes you feel so neglected and rejected as two males selfishly engrossed in a game of chess in your presence. (As if they had the foggiest notion of the game in the first place.) All right, Sri, you asked for it. If you don't feel the need to say something to me, I won't say anything to you, although I would have a thing or two to tell you if I chose. I might, for instance, report to you that your tubby new friend did not
arrive at the temple alone. Oh no. He has a surprise for you under that garish robe. Two surprises, in fact. I wonder how well the sturdy indifference you're so proud of will stand up to a reunion with that pair of four-legged little horrors you once parted from with such difficulty....

2. INTO THE KINGDOM OF THE UNDERWORLD

MY TINY HANDS reached forth for my mother's—but this fluttering movement, inspired by the purest of desires, was not destined to achieve its noble end.

For the shaking of another, huger hand, roughly seizing my old shoulders, tore me away from the blissful dream, just as I came within reach of a balm with the power to heal all the suffering of my weary soul and body ravaged by the passing years. Flushed with wrath at the violent disruption of my dream, the sweetest I had ever dreamed, quite blind with fury, I angrily opened my eyes to look upon the villain who so arrogantly dared to tear me away from my mother's dear embrace, elusive though it might be, for some trifling and meaningless need of his own.