The Karma Booth

He swung the beam of light to a woman sprawled a few feet away. Her eyes were open as well. On the blurry halo edge of the light, he could see all of their eyes were open, each and every one of the victims lying dead on their backs or on their sides staring into nothing.

And each one had vividly blue eyes.

He knew next to nothing about genetics, but his instinct told him that was impossible, even as a hereditary trait in a relatively closed community. He read somewhere that doctors believed that light triggered the production of melanin in the irises of newborn babies—it was why baby eyes change color over time. Disease, injury—they could affect eye color, too. But this…

He had no idea what it meant, or if it meant anything at all.

Set after set of bright blue eyes, staring.

It magnified the rictus of horror on each face. The expressions looked almost canine, animalistic in their dread, and their decomposing skin was beginning to look waxy under the constant monsoon shower.

“Mr. Cale,” called the interpreter. It was a faintly disguised plea. In other words, let’s get the hell away from this place.

Only they couldn’t. They were going to meet those who did this.

Their hosts didn’t raise any weapons at the soldiers. One of them simply lifted a hand in the universal sign that meant: This is as far as you go. Then the man in the center turned a palm up, closing it with a flip-flip-flip for Tim to step forward. As the interpreter followed half a step behind, a flat baritone voice told the man in fluent English, “Your services won’t be needed.”

Tim was grateful to at least be out of the downpour. He was led into a sad-looking structure with stained plywood walls but with a tent roof, the light provided by a Coleman camping lamp. He was waved to a rough-hewn table. His chair was the most beautiful thing in the room, elaborately carved, as if by a traditional master craftsman.

Now he at last had a chance to study who was responsible for the crisis, but these people’s clothing and manners told him little. Men and women stood in religious robes like those worn by monks—except their color scheme was unusual, not like anything Tim had seen on monks in other countries. They weren’t saffron or gold; instead, a mauve and forest green shade that seemed to bleed into the backdrop of the squalid room. And over the robes, they wore traditional woolen vests and jackets and brightly colored scarves of the local people as protection from the weather. Yet somehow they acted as if they barely felt the rain or wind at all.

There were a few young ones, but the older ones stood out to him, their eyes like doll beads and their ruddy golden cheeks lined and cracked with thousands of minute folds and character lines. The man who had beckoned to him took the lead, sitting down in front of Tim, his forehead half in shade, half in light from the lamp. Tim found it difficult to detect an actual personality to the man’s face, it was so tortoise-like, ancient and mummified; yet the smile was guardedly polite and the eyes were alert.

Tim was vaguely perplexed over why the man still wore his set of woolen mittens indoors, his sleeves pulled tight to the wrists, as if he felt a chill specifically reserved for him. The gloved hands rested casually on the scratched, worn table.

“Mr. Cale.”

Curls of incense smoke floated between them from pink joss sticks planted in a wide pan to catch the ashes. The air was thick with the aroma of sandalwood.

“Listen,” Tim started. “I won’t pretend to understand the history of your conflict with these people, but if you’ll outline your grievances, maybe we can find some common ground. My goal here is to avoid any more bloodshed. Now if you’ll tell me who you—”

“That’s not important,” said a woman near the doorway.

“Especially when you don’t know who these people are,” said a boy on the other side, close to a corner. He couldn’t have been older than thirteen, his golden face round and smooth, almost androgynous.

All three fluent in English. With no accent.

“We will tell you who these people are,” said the tortoise-head ancient at the table. “We will tell why they have to die and why some have already died.”

“I came all this way to prevent death,” explained Tim.

“That is not your function here,” said the woman near the door.

Before Tim could ask the obvious follow-up, the man at the table was speaking, his voice vaguely hypnotic with its evenness, and Tim found himself struggling to see him through the veil of incense smoke.

“This village exterminates its girl children. In ages past, it left them to die of exposure in the surrounding hills or took them down to a river to drown them. They spared a few for dowry marriage and breeding and servants. But no love thrived here for daughters, Mr. Cale. When doctors could offer amniocentesis, the villagers used that to prevent girl children. Last year, they sold a group of girls—some as young as four—to a pedophile ring that offers its wares between Sonepur and Kathmandu. Their evils singe and putrefy the air. And there is not one blameless adult, not one that is not stained by this barbarism.”

“So your solution to the stain is ethnic cleansing?” demanded Tim quietly. He was incredulous. “Damn it, it’s clear you’re educated people! And you must know these things happen in the rest of India, in other parts of the world. Why are you talking about wiping out an entire village? And who are you people?” He calmed down, realizing it must be only a threat. He was here, and if he was here, that meant nothing was decided. “What do you want? What are your terms?”

“There are no terms,” said the woman at the door.

“We’ve explained our reasons,” said the boy in the corner.

“At certain times, there can arise a collective evil,” said the man at the table. “The rot grows and eats, feeding like mold off the soul of a land. It is not a question, Mr. Cale, of what needs to be done. The course of action will take place.”

He didn’t understand. They were talking. He could hear them talking, yes, but competing for his attention was the sound of the pattering rain beyond the door of the room, and the incense was making him feel lightheaded. He heard distant screams coming from a street away. The woman didn’t turn to look. The boy didn’t react at all. One of the soldiers of his army escort stormed into the room, but the people in robes stopped him with a glance. The soldier looked to Tim, making a silent appeal.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Tim pleaded. “This isn’t necessary. You can’t slaughter a whole village! There must be someone! At least one innocent here! And even if they’re all complicit, these people must have children who have done nothing—”

He sifted his mind desperately for arguments; tried to summon a bulwark of compassionate rationality to prevent this. Come on, he ordered himself, come on. A handful of men with rifles could prevent nothing here if they started their promised massacre—it was up to him. But the situation was unraveling. He couldn’t accept that it was deteriorating so quickly, his role reduced to that of an audience member for this grotesque play.

“The children have been removed,” said the old man at the table. “They will be cared for at other villages.”

“Wait—wait! Why am I here then? Why was there any need for me to come? I don’t understand. If you didn’t want mediation—”

“You are here because you are still untainted,” said the woman.

“We had to go miles to find one who was,” said the boy.

“Untainted?” snapped Tim. “Do you actually think I could agree with your type of morality? That I’m going to watch you carry out mass murder?”

The eyes of the old man blinked, disappearing briefly into the fleshy pouches of aged skin. The thin mouth pursed its lips, and he said patiently, “That is not what we mean by untainted.”

“The word ‘receptive,’” said the boy, “might be more applicable. We assumed you would be receptive to us.”

Tim knew he wasn’t getting anywhere, and it crossed his mind that perhaps he had blundered into a trap. Maybe they always intended to assassinate an American official as their main goal. His panic rose like acid-burning vomit in his throat, and a gloved hand reached across the table and took his wrist. It took his arm gently, with no threat in the motion at all. But it happened so fast.

“You’ll leave here safe and sound in a few minutes,” said the old man.

“Do you remember your Greek mythology, Mr. Cale?” asked the woman near the doorway. She tugged on the winding folds of her wrap.

“Argus Panoptes,” said the old man. He let go of Tim’s wrist and began pulling off the mitten of his right hand.

“He’s a giant,” said the boy with a triumphant smile of white teeth, sounding for the first time like a child. He tugged off his knit woolen cap with the strings, and a few strands of his black mop were pulled up for an instant. Just like any boy.

“Servant of the goddess Hera,” said the woman. The English and Greek words sounded strange from that wise Asian face. Then her scarf was removed, her neck bare—

“Panoptes, meaning in Greek, ‘all seeing.’”

The old man’s glove was off, and he cast aside his woolen jacket as the classical reference finally clicked in Tim’s mind—

He pushed back his chair and jumped up. The wooden legs scraped the floor, and the chair timbered back with a crash.

Yes, Hera’s giant, his body covered with eyes.

And in front of him the old man stayed calmly in his seat, the dark forest green and mauve garment folds running like a toga over one shoulder, but the shoulder itself, his chest, his arms covered in eyes. There were eyes on the body of the woman. Eyes were blinking from the flat, adolescent chest of the boy. The effect was like seeing skin marked with a pattern of yellowish whiteheads, of boils, but each pupil had a lid and an eyelash, some of them blinking out of sequence with others.

The Indian soldier near the entrance backed away from the woman, one foot out the door.