what it so desires." Singh made short, delicate movements, his fingers jutting
in the air. Clay opened his mouth, but said nothing.
Patil took them around a team of bullocks towing a wooden wagon and put in.
The pain is intense. Apparently there is no good treatment. Women--forgive
this indelicacy--must be opened to get at the offending tiny fish before it
swells and blocks the passage completely, having gorged itself insensate. Some
men have an even worse choice. Their bladders are already engorged, having
typically not been much emptied by the time the candiru enters. They must
decide whether to attempt the slow procedure of poisoning the small thing and
waiting for it to shrivel and withdraw its spines.
However, their bladders might burst before that, flooding their abdomens with
urine and of course killing them. If there is not sufficient time . . ."
"Yes?" Clay asked tensely.
"Then the penis must be chopped off," Singh said, "with the candiru inside."
Through a long silence Clay rode, swaying as the car wove through limitless
flat spaces of parched fields and ruined brick walls and slumped whitewashed
huts. Finally he said hoarsely, "I... don't blame you for resenting the ...
well, the people who brought all this on you. The devotees-"
"They believe this apocalyptic evil comes from the philosophy which gave us
modern science."
"Well, look, whoever brought over those fish--"
Singh's eyes widened with surprise. A startled grin lit his face like a
sunrise. "Oh no, Professor Clay! We do not blame the errors, or else we would
have to blame equally the successes!"
To Clay's consternation, Patil nodded sagely.
He decided to say nothing more. Washington had warned him to stay out of
political discussions, and though he was not sure if this was such, or if the
lighthearted way Singh and Patil had related their story told their true
attitude, it seemed best to just shut up. Again Clay had the odd sensation
that here the cool certainties of Western biology had become diffused,
blunted, crisp distinctions rendered into something beyond the constraints of
the world outside, all blurred by the swarming, dissolving currents of India.
The tingray sky loomed over a plain of ripe rot. The urgency of decay here was
far more powerful than the abstractions that so often filled his head, the
digitized iconography of sputtering, splitting protons.
The Kolar gold fields were a long, dusty drive from Bangalore. The sway of the
van made Clay sleepy in the back, jet lag pulling him down into fitful,
shallow dreams of muted voices, shadowy faces, and obscure purpose. He awoke
frequently amid the dry smells, lurched up to see dry farmland stretching to
the horizon, and collapsed again to bury his face in the pillow he had made by
wadding up a shirt.
They passed through innumerable villages that, after the first few, all seemed
alike with their scrawny children, ramshackle sheds, tin roofs, and general
air of sleepy dilapidation. Once, in a narrow town, they stopped as rickshaws
and carts backed up. An emaciated cow with pink paper tassels on its horns
stood square in the middle of the road, trembling. Shouts and honks failed to
move it, but no one ahead made the slightest effort to prod it aside. Clay got
out of the van to stretch his legs, ignoring Patil's warning to stay hidden,
and watched. A crowd collected, shouting and chanting at the cow but not
touching it. The cow shook its head, peering at the road as if searching for
grass, and urinated powerfully. A woman in a red sari rushed into the road,
knelt, and thrust her hand into the full stream. She made a formal motion with
her other hand and splashed some urine on her forehead and cheeks. Three other
women had already lined up behind her, and each did the same. Disturbed, the
cow waggled its head and shakily walked away. Traffic started up, and Clay
climbed back into the van. As they ground out of the dusty town, Singh
explained that holy bovine urine was widely held to have positive health