Kalki, Part II

Synopsis: After Kalki, the self-proclaimed messiah, apparently has been murdered on television, he reappears according to plan. It turns out that an actor who resembles Kalki has been killed as part of an intricate plot hatched by the messiah's own cult. Kalki returns to carry out his mission—to end the world on April third.

But before Kalki's appearance as the destroyer Siva, Teddy Ottinger, who has been hired as a pilot and has been designated a Perfect Master, is dispatched to fly the Garuda, Kalki Enterprises' private jet, around the world and drop 70,000,000 lotuses along the way. She returns to New York the day before the scheduled end.

On April third, on a barge off Manhattan, Kalki appears, nude except for a tigerskin at the waist, his torso smeared with ashes, his neck painted blue. Miniature human skulls hang around his neck; three snakes writhe in his hair. As Siva-Kalki twists, turns, leaps and whirls, the age of Kali comes to an end.

Only the Five Perfect Masters—Teddy, Geraldine, Lakshmi, Dr. Giles Lowell and Kalki—survive. They take up residence at the Sherry-Netherland, midst the ruin and destruction of millions of dead.

A week later, Teddy is told that it was her flight that ended the world; the lotuses she scattered were impregnated with deadly bacteria.

Last July, the weather was uncommonly good in New York. By good I mean traditional. There were no freak storms. The climatic anomalies of the past decade seemed to have stopped. Has the ice age (or greenhouse age) gone into reverse now that man-made fumes have ceased to pollute the air? Too soon to answer. But skies are bright now, and the weather of the Northern Hemisphere appears to be changing for the better. For whose better? A question hard to answer. I am studying meteorology.

During June and July, I trained Geraldine and Giles in the mysteries of the DC-10. Although they were quick to learn, I was uneasy at the idea of flying around the world with two nonprofessional crewmen. But I had not taken into account that without air traffic, take-offs and landings are no problem. For obvious reasons, I take off and land only in the daytime. Most of the time, I fly manually. With a map on my knees.

One curious thing: Whenever I make an approach for a landing, I still switch on my radio and wait for instructions that do not come.

Kalki drove us to the airport. By now, we are used to the stalled cars and to the heaps of clothes containing what we have taken to referring to, neutrally, as "remains." By the third month, the remains were no longer corrupt and white bone was beginning to show. I can relate to bone better than to abandoned flesh. But one can get used to anything, even the horror of a profound night, silence.

In high spirits, Kalki raced through streets, zigzagged around stalled cars. Lakshmi was furious. But he was like a child with a toy.

To my surprise, we got to the airport without a single accident. I directed Kalki to the Swissair DC-10 I had been using.

Eerie sensation, always, to drive down the center of a runway, with planes to left and right, in various stages of loading and unloading. Several had crashed on landing or on take-off, their pilots terminated in mid-procedure.

Lakshmi kissed each of us goodbye. Kalki shook hands. "Contact us every day," he said. "Use the box." Lakshmi and I had put together a special communication device, part telephone (the international telephone cable was still operative) and part radio.

"Tomorrow we're moving to the St. Regis." Lakshmi was firm. She had never liked the Sherry-Netherland. Although Kalki had opposed the move, Lakshmi got her way.

"She wants to be closer to Elizabeth Arden's," Kalki grinned. "Not to mention Saks. Anyway, the telephone number's the same wherever we move to." Everyone thought this was funny. At least everyone laughed.

We boarded the plane. I took off. Kalki and Lakshmi waved to us. I know that both Kalki and Lakshmi had wanted to come with us. But could not. Should we all crash, the human race would be at an end. As it was, three fifths of the world's population was aboard the DC-10.

I was nervous, flying the Atlantic with an inexperienced crew. But luck was with us; weather was good. Visibility was excellent when we landed in Paris.

I am slow to react ... emotionally, that is. I had lived entirely on the surface since The End. Kept busy. Scarcely thought at all. Felt nothing. Nothing at all. Did not allow myself to feel. Did not take so much as a single stroll down memory lane. Could not bear what I was bound to find in that lane: white bone. Briefly, at the Sherry-Netherland, I had considered suicide. But what was the point to that? It is the nature of life to live. And I was alive. I had no problem coming to terms with my role in The End. Since I had not known what I was doing, I was not guilty of mass murder. As for Kalki and the others.... How does one judge the judge who is also the executioner?

In Paris, I started to react ... emotionally. To think. To feel. Even to remember. Almost immediately, I started to come unstuck.

But first I will describe, step by step, what we did.

Near the runway, I found a brand-new car. Empty, thank God. And locked. I got the door open. We have all become expert at picking locks. I lifted the hood. Crossed wires. Started the car. Let Giles take the wheel.

"I've been here before," he said. "A marvelous city! I know every inch."

A while later, we were in Versailles. Giles was full of apologies. I took over. Drove to the nearest bookstore; picked the lock (in Paris, The End had come at six in the evening); acquired a Guide Michelin and a map of Paris. For some reason, there had been fewer fires in Versailles and Paris than in New York.

I was glad to be busy. To be using my hands. To not think. But this mood did not last long. In fact, it ended as I was driving across the Pont Neuf and saw before me the vivid green gardens of the Tuileries in full summer leaf. I began to shake.

I stopped the car in front of the gilded statue of Joan at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli. As we got out of the car, I was overwhelmed by the perfume. Without the carbon monoxide of a million cars, the air of Paris was like that of a huge garden. We were all ravished. We breathed deeply. Then Giles started to sneeze. "Rose fever," he said, and kept on sneezing until we were again airborne. But not even Giles and his sneezing could spoil for me the beauty of a city that I had dreamed of since childhood.

I had postponed visiting Paris until I was in love. Unfortunately, love and Paris had never coincided. Now it was too late for Paris, if not love. I burst into ignominious tears. Of self-pity.

Geraldine was tender, loving. I think she wept, too. I know that we held each other for a long time.

"I propose we stay at the Ritz," Giles said. "It's just around the corner. And, of course, everyone stays there." This struck him as amusing. I was not so struck. "It's also close to all the shops, museums...."

Prattling, Giles led us into the Place Vendôme.

Prattling, Giles escorted us past the remains of the chasseur at the door to the Ritz, and into the lobby. I thought of Proust, of Albertine.

Prattling, Giles led us into the bar. "The most exclusive bar in Europe, girls!" He showed us where he had first seen Hemingway, Dietrich, the Windsors.

I did my best to blot out the past, and for a while my best was good enough. Giles made us martinis, while Geraldine found some stale potato chips and almonds in the pantry. I cleared a corner table. The bar had been crowded. It had been six o'clock: and tout Paris was having an aperitif. Then I remembered that cinq à sept was the time when Parisians made love and Americans got drunk. I checked passports, cards of identity; saw that I was right. Nearly all of the last customers in the Ritz bar at six o'clock on April third had been foreigners.

As I thought of the French who had been making love when The End came, I started to go over the edge again. I was saved by gin, without ice. The electricity was forever off in the City of Light. Even so, I was grateful for the drink. Grateful even for Giles. He had no imagination. Geraldine did. She knew what I was going through. She kept giving me anxious glances.

"The past," said Giles, dropping the prattle, "is an illusion. A painted backdrop. Nothing more."

"These are not illusory things," I said, touching the Baccarat shaker on the table. The table. The glass.

Geraldine changed the subject. "Let's see if the water still works in the bathrooms. If it doesn't, I'm going to take a bath in the Seine."

Fortunately, there was enough water in the taps for a cold shower apiece. Afterward, we assembled candles to light our rooms. Each of us always carried a flashlight. The logistics of survival in a dead world are complex and, thank God, distracting.

Giles insisted that we go to Maxim's. As we crossed the Place de la Concorde, I realized that there is no city as beautiful as Paris, even in death.

It was sundown when we got to Maxim's. There was just enough natural light to illuminate the belle é'poque dining room. Although Giles wanted to make us dinner in the famous kitchen with whatever happened still to be at hand, Geraldine and I insisted on going somewhere else. The dusty glamor was like that of Tutankhamen's tomb.

In the Place de la Madeleine, we studied the Guide Michelin. The setting sun had turned all things to rose. La vie en rose, enfin. We picked a one-star restaurant on the Ile St.-Louis; it was famous for game and, as Giles reminded us, game keeps without refrigeration. The restaurant was small, charming. The tables had all been set for diners who had never dined. Dead flowers in vases were the (continued on page 140)Kalki(continued from page 134) only hint that something had happened.

Giles made us a splendid dinner of pheasant; of the contents of tins, glass jars. The three of us drank a half dozen bottles of Burgundy. Admired the view of Notre Dame in the moonlight. Watched the gray-silver river flow beneath us. During coffee, an empty barge glided by.

What did we talk about? I don't recall, which means that we kept the past at bay. Except for Jason McCloud. Somehow, his name was mentioned. Despite his triple agentry, he had served Kalki well. He had killed the actor at Madison Square Garden not for the Chiu Chow Society but for Kalki. And Giles had paid him off that last day aboard the Narayana. Why, I asked, had Kalki wanted people to think that he had been murdered?

"Because," Giles said lighting a long Cuban cigar (how long will they keep?), "if Kalki was not thought to be dead at that time, he was in danger of really being killed by the Chiu Chow. Also, Johnny White was closing in on him...."

"But more important," said Geraldine, aware that I was not taking any of this too well, "there had to be one final test. Those who thought that Kalki would not return were lost."

"Those who did were lost, too."

"No," said Geraldine. She sounded positive. I think she believed what she said. "They will return. In other forms...."

I let the matter rest. This was not my favorite topic. Giles intervened. "A moonlight drive," he proposed, "from one end of Paris to the other!"

We drove, drunkenly, through empty streets. The moon was waxing. The sky was clear and full of stars. The air—roses. The silence awful. In the moonlight, the dome of the Invalides looked like a skull with a hypodermic needle on its top.

At the hotel, Giles proposed that I join him for a nightcap. I am reasonably certain that he raped me in New Orleans. I am also reasonably certain that there will never be a conscious rematch. I said good night to him and downed a nightcap with Geraldine. By candlelight, we drank warm champagne.

I said how depressed I had been. Confessed to horror at what had happened. Geraldine was warm, helpful. She was also hard as nails.

"Look at it this way," she said when I had finally stopped. "They had a wonderful end. Quick, painless. And, best of all, there's nothing human left on earth to mourn them."

"Except us."

"We're not really human."

"I feel very human."

"No, you are a Perfect Master."

"I don't know what a Perfect Master is." I can be harsh, too. "I don't know who Kalki is. Beyond being a mass murderer——"

Geraldine was on her feet. Furious. "Don't say that! He is not, because ... he is. That's all. This was ordained from the beginning of time. He came to make an end. And he did."

"He made an end." I agreed.

"And a beginning."

I was by no means certain that Kalki had been ordained from the beginning to make either an end or a beginning, but I was positive that from the beginning of time, Geraldine and I were intended to be the perfect match. I was Lilith to her Eve. And we promptly made a corner of the Garden of Eden all our own. That night, we made love for the first time.

I was delighted to be alive. To be with Geraldine ... who had never had a love affair before. She had been too frightened to experiment with women, too inhibited to experiment with men. Or was it the other way around? Anyway, she had been waiting for me all her life. And I for her.

The next day, while Giles monitored radios. Geraldine and I went sight-seeing. At Sainte-Chapelle, the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows turned the interior to fire, thus matching our mood. We made love in a secret corner where Louis XI heard Mass.

Next stop: the cathedral of Notre Dame. In the silent gray nave, I asked her why I had been chosen for survival. When she began the usual song and dance about Perfect Masterhood, I brought her to a halt with: "That's not the reason."

Geraldine climbed onto the bishop's throne. "Kalki needed a pilot," she said.

We were making progress. "Yes. I figured that one out in Katmandu. But the world is—or was—full of pilots."

Geraldine looked at me for a long time. Studied my face as if it were a barometer ... falling? Then came the first question: "What is the one thing that you and I and Giles have in common?"

"We are Perfect Masters."

"What else?"

I thought hard, and thought of nothing. But should have guessed.

Geraldine spelled it out for me. "I cannot have children. Giles has had a vasectomy. You went, as we all know, beyond motherhood when your tubes were cauterized."

I cannot think why I was so slow to get the point, since, subliminally, I must have known it from the beginning.

Geraldine asked the second question: "What do Kalki and Lakshmi have in common?"

"They are able to have children." I thought of nothing.

"Just before we left, Giles examined Lakshmi. She's pregnant."

The enormity of what Kalki had done was more than matched by what he now intended to do. I completed the catechism. "He intends to be the father of the new human race."

"Yes." Geraldine looked happy. "And Lakshmi will be the mother. And we will be the teachers."

"But is it possible? Genetically? And...." I could not, entirely, take it in. I tried to remember biology courses in college. Mendel's law. More to the point, the law of averages. "What happens if the children are all girls? Or all boys? That's quite a risk."

"There's no risk. After all, I'm a pretty good geneticist."

Geraldine the geneticist and biologist. Lakshmi the physicist and mother. Giles the doctor of medicine. T.H.O., test pilot and engineer. Kalki, destroyer ... and now creator. We had, indeed, been chosen.

"You can predetermine the sex of the children?"

"Yes. I can also reduce the dangers of inbreeding. We've worked it out very carefully. The first child will be a girl. She's insurance in case something, God forbid, should happen to Lakshmi, But if Lakshmi were to die, in fourteen years or so, Kalki would be able to reproduce with his own daughter. But that's only if worst comes to worst. If everything works out as planned, during the next twelve years, Kalki and Lakshmi will produce three boys and six girls. Those nine will then repopulate the world. I think it's awesome, Teddy."

•

Our last day in Paris was spent "shopping." as Geraldine called it, or "looting," as Giles put it. Illegality always excited Giles. But then, there is nothing illegal about taking what belongs to no one.

Geraldine and I made the rounds of the famous dressmakers. We collected for Lakshmi as well as for ourselves. I must admit, guiltily, that I enjoyed myself. I was in Paris. I was in love. I was also nearly killed when I dynamited the safe at Cartier's.

While Geraldine and I were shopping, Giles had got himself a truck and backed it up to the main door of the Louvre. (continued on page 224)Kalki(continued from page 140) With some help from us, he assembled a marvelous collection of paintings, including the Mona Lisa.

If it had not been for Geraldine, I would have killed myself last July in Paris. But then, if it had not been for Geraldine, I might never have waked up to what had happened.

We talked daily with Kalki and Lakshmi. They had moved to the St. Regis. They were debating whether or not to go south for the winter. Kalki wanted to settle in New Orleans, but Lakshmi was opposed. "We'll wait till you get back," she said, "and then we can take a vote on it. Anyway, I'm sure nobody wants to live through a winter in New York."

In all the five continents that we visited, there was no sign of human life.

As one city blurred into the next, I remember mostly airports. And stalled cars. And the cows in Calcutta. The cows had now taken over the city. They slept in the middle of the streets. Chewed grass in the downtown park. I thought it odd that they wanted to stay in the city when the whole countryside was theirs to roam around in. No doubt they, too, are victims of habit.

A tribe of bad-tempered monkeys had taken up residence in the Calcutta air terminal. They seemed not at all pleased to see us. Obviously, they had duly registered the fact that their old enemy and cousin Homo sapiens had mysteriously died out; and if they thought at all, they could not help but be pleased that (except for us) they were the sole quasi-reasoning primates in the world.

On impulse, I stole two baby monkeys. I must have been out of my mind. I hated motherhood. Now I am bringing up Jack and Jill (Geraldine named them).

In Hong Kong, we collected jade. There were squabbles, mostly with Giles. Who had seen what piece of Imperial jade first? He was unusually acquisitive. An anal personality, according to Geraldine. I could tell that she disliked him. Yet she never, directly, criticized him. When I told her that I thought that Giles had raped me in New Orleans, she was doubtful. "I don't think he would have had the time," she said. "After all, while you were unconscious, he had to examine you, to check whether you were sterile."

I was properly chilled. Had I proved to be fertile, I would not have been immunized. Rape seemed, suddenly, trivial.

In Hong Kong, we noticed what turned out to be a world phenomenon. After millennia of keeping a low profile, the rats had taken to the streets. They were bold. Dangerous, too. But Mother Nature can always be relied upon to strike a bloody balance. In a very short time, cats and dogs were joined by carnivorous birds and the rat population declined.

In Sydney, domestic animals roamed the streets. Chickens were everywhere. As a result, those predators that enjoyed chicken were also in evidence. Cattle grazed in front of the opera house. Geraldine filmed. Made notes. Giles collected and collected. I flew the plane.

The sky over Los Angeles was the color of a perfect aquamarine. No more smog. No more anything. I did not want to stay overnight. But Giles insisted. He also wanted to visit the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. For old time's sake.

Later, from the Bistro restaurant, we rang Kalki and Lakshmi in Washington, D.C. "We're in the White House," said Lakshmi; she sounded excited. "We're living here. It's wonderful."

"And convenient," said Kalki.

"And comfortable," said Lakshmi. "You'll love it."

"It's also got the best security," said Kalki. I was about to ask him what he meant by that when the connection broke.

The next morning, we drove to the airport; and noted yet another phenomenon. Hollywood had been taken over by exotic birds, to the delight of Giles. "There must have been a hurricane," he said. "There's no other explanation. They were blown free from.... Look! There's a Patagonian conure! That's very rare." Giles was at the wheel.

"Keep your eye on the road," said Geraldine, a nervous passenger at best, and driving is always hazardous now because the streets of the world resemble used-car lots, junk yards.

On the afternoon of July 30, we drove up to the main gate of the White House. Kalki and Lakshmi came toward us, hand in hand, like newlyweds. We were greeted as warmly as the day, which was sweltering. Washington is as humid a city as New Orleans.

"What are we going to do without air conditioning?" Giles hates the heat almost as much as I do.

"We have air conditioning," said Lakshmi. In a water-green sari, she resembled her Katmandu self.

But Kalki wore shorts and a polo shirt. "There's a backup generator in the White House," he said. "So we've got all the electricity we need. I also checked out——"

Kalki was interrupted by a loud roar from the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. We turned. At the edge of Lafayette Square, a pair of lions stared at us, curiously.

"From the zoo," said Kalki sourly. "Thanks to Lakshmi."

Our first night in the White House was ... what? Memorable. And comfortable. We had electric lights; also, fresh milk, butter, eggs, vegetables, fruit. "Everything we eat," said Kalki, "is grown right here on the White House grounds." Lakshmi had cooked us a fine dinner, which we ate in the state dining room.

The main course was fish, caught by Kalki in the nearby Potomac River.

"We have fish every day," said Lakshmi, "because Kalki can't bear to kill any of the animals, not even a chicken."

"Then I, my dear Kalki, will be not only your doctor and Perfect Master but White House butcher." As Giles is as good a butcher as he is a cook, we always eat well when he is in charge of the White House kitchen.

After dinner, Lakshmi led us into the Red Room. There we produced our presents. Lakshmi was delighted with her pearls. Kalki was pleased with an elaborate Chinese clock that Giles had found in Tokyo, at the emperor's palace. The clock not only told what time it was everywhere in the world but also recorded the positions of the moon and stars.

We drank too much champagne and made jokes about the last President's alleged austerity, dryness.

Giles looked at Lakshmi. "How is my patient?"

Lakshmi smiled. "Never better, or fatter. I crave seedless grapes. But there aren't any."

"When is the baby due?" I asked.

"In December," said Kalki. Solemnly, we drank to the new human race.

Kalki and Lakshmi then escorted us to the surprisingly small living quarters on the second floor, where Giles was assigned the Lincoln bedroom. I should note here that in Paris, Geraldine and I decided that we would be entirely open about our relationship. We were. And we are. The others have taken it well, I think. Certainly, Lakshmi seems to approve, while Kalki is benign. Giles? He is deep.

•

Although the White House remained our headquarters, we decided that it was much too small a place for five people and a pair of lively young monkeys.

Giles moved across Pennsylvania Avenue to Blair House, a building used by official guests to the United States in the old days. "The old days" is the way we describe life before The End.

Geraldine and I also moved across Pennsylvania Avenue, to the Hay-Adams Hotel. We have a fine view of Lafayette Square, which is full of wildlife. I have taken up bird watching.

In August, Geraldine set up a laboratory on the third floor of the hotel. We looted the city for special equipment and she was able to find pretty much what she needed. Every day, all day, she works with eggs, chicken embryos.... I assume that she is making genetic alterations.

My own days are busy. Mornings I go to the White House. I help Kalki and Giles with the livestock. There are two young milk cows (older cows are all dead: no one to milk them). Giles has built a chicken coop in the rose garden. A herd of sheep is beginning to make some progress with the shaggy White House lawn. I weed vegetables. Tried but failed to learn how to milk a cow.

Lakshmi makes bread for all of us. The flour is getting moldy. Giles thinks that the wheat in Virginia should be ready in a few weeks. But none of us knows how to harvest it. I have been studying books on agriculture. Lakshmi says that close to Silver Spring, Maryland, there is an old-fashioned mill, run by water from a stream. She thinks that the mill must still be functioning. If so, we can have water-ground meal. There is a lot of work to do, just to keep going, day by day. All, day by day.

I get back to the Hay-Adams in time for lunch with Geraldine. I prepare the food. She cooks. Evenings, we usually dine at the White House. Giles takes chefdom seriously. We talk a lot about food. There is not much else, after all.

•

Last summer, during the daytime, we wore bathing suits. I felt odd, maintaining aircraft in a bikini. But the heat was crushing. At night, we dressed up.

Geraldine and Lakshmi went into a friendly competition. Each night, they revealed new evening dresses, not to mention tiaras, necklaces, earrings, bracelets. Beneath the crystal chandeliers in the East Room, the girls shone. I was demure. I usually wore black or white. Only on rare occasions did I wear the star rubies.

Late in August, at the end of dinner, just before we went down to the projection room to see a film, Lakshmi suddenly said, "You know, I'm a native of Washington and I've never been to Mount Vernon. Who wants to go?" Since none of us had ever visited Mount Vernon, Kalki proposed an outing.

On a hot, windless morning, we left from a dock near the White House. I was at the wheel. Having no map, I headed upriver toward the Great Falls instead of down-river to Mount Vernon. But it made no difference. All that mattered was the normality of a day's outing.

In nothing but a pair of frayed trunks, Kalki looked uncommonly boyish; blondness smeared with oil. Geraldine wore a floppy straw hat and a muumuu. Deathly afraid of skin cancer, she hurries to Giles every time she thinks that a freckle has gone awry.

Lakshmi lay on an air-filled mattress in (continued on page 230)Kalki(continued from page 226) the stern. "So peaceful," she murmured. Then she crossed her arms over the belly that now contains the future of the human race and slept a deep sleep, for two.

Kalki joined me at the wheel. He is a nature lover. He has also taken up bird watching, and we compare notes at the end of each week ... each week! We still govern our days by clocks and calendars, just as if there were still such a thing as historic time. In a voice too low for the others to hear, he asked, "Do you find it lonely?" Considering the source, the question was startling.

I answered honestly. "Yes."

"So do I." Again considering the source (Vishnu the creator in terminal tandem with Siva the destroyer), I was taken aback quite a distance.

I looked at Kalki. He was staring at a high green-covered cliff that rose perpendicular from the muddy water. When he spoke, the voice was sad. No, pensive. "I'm human, too," he said. "That's the hard part. I sometimes think that this body of mine is a sort of anchor." He looked at the river, found a simile. "Dragging in mud. I miss all sorts of people. And I ought not to. The best will go on into the next cycle. So why be sorry? Particularly when I am the creator. The one who preserves. Yet there are times when I feel"—again his eyes strayed to the soft swirling of the river—"drifting."

I steered the boat beneath a bridge. As I did, Giles looked up from the backgammon board. "My dear Teddy, we are now passing beneath historic Chain Bridge. That means you are going in exactly the wrong direction. Mount Vernon is down-river."

Lakshmi opened her eyes. "It's my fault," she apologized. "I'm the Washingtonian. I should have told you." With that, she went back to sleep. I turned the boat about. The heat was oppressive. Even on the river, there was no breeze. I noted that the barometer was falling. We were due for a storm. From the southwest.

Giles and Geraldine continued their game. Kalki drank Coors and looked at the scenery, and seemed at peace.

Just off the Virginia shore, a large rock broke the muddy water like a miniature Italy. On the rock's smooth surface lay, intertwined and intermingled, two skeletons. Male and female? Male and male? Female and female? There were no identifying clothes. They had been nude. Had they been making love, I wondered, when life ended?

Tired and sweaty, we docked at Mount Vernon. Except for Lakshmi, we all dove into the warm water. Swam among weeds. Walked on the slithery mud bottom. Made nervous jokes about poisonous snakes. Copperheads frequent the Potomac River. But we saw none that day.

Like tourists, we toured the mansion. We stared at the old furniture and paintings, at the glass cases that contained swords, gloves, stockings, hats, shirts. Relics of George and Martha Washington. Unlike tourists, we opened some of the cases. Touched the old cloth. But then we put everything back except for Washington's three-cornered hat, which Kalki wore for the rest of the day.

Lakshmi and Geraldine arranged the picnic on the steps of the mansion while Kalki stretched out on the lawn, Washington's hat pulled down over his eyes.

In front of the iron-grille door to Washington's tomb, I sat on a bench. Giles started to sit next to me. Deliberately, I imagined a wall between us. A high stone wall. Yes, Giles sensed the wall. But then, I am a good mason. Something in me loves a wall.

With a sigh, Giles sat cross-legged on the ground. "Do you think that we are," he said, suddenly, "too few in number?"

"Isn't it a bit late to worry about that?" I am quick to suspect a plot. I am paranoid. But sly. First Kalki had asked me if I were lonely. Now Giles wanted to know much the same thing. I was certain that I was being tested. If so, a wrong score on the test....

I answered carefully. "I thought that all of you had figured that one out. You are now in possession of two breeders, as well as three sterile preservers of the scientific culture. Then there will be nine children...."

"I wasn't referring to the next cycle. We have nothing to worry about in that department. Lakshmi and Kalki are genetic treasure houses. And complement each other perfectly. I am sure that if Mendel were here, he would applaud. No, I only meant too few for company. At the moment."

"Why should you care what I think? So far, no one has ever asked my opinion about anything. This is your show, not mine. Of course"—I was reasonably honest—"my opinion could never have really mattered, since I never thought that any of this would happen."

"Well, it did. And here we are." Giles arranged four thin hairy limbs into a yoga position. In tennis shorts and T-shirt, he looked particularly unattractive. Like smudged plastic, his bald head shone. "Because Kalki is Vishnu. He has to be," Giles added.

The addition surprised me. "Do you doubt him?"

"Doubt is human, my dear Teddy. And. Perfect Master that I am, I am entirely human."

"Well...." I was sharp ... too sharp? "He may not be Vishnu, but he certainly turned in a very good performance as Siva, the destroyer."

Giles gave me an odd look. I had the impression that he wanted to tell me something but did not dare. "Yes, he is Siva, who is Vishnu, who is Brahma, who is Kalki."

Giles reached into the pocket of his tennis shorts and removed a gold cylinder and spoon. Thoughtfully, he transferred white powdery cocaine from container to spoon. Then he sniffed. "Would you like some?"

"No, thanks."

"You are an old bluenose, Teddy!"

"The old bluenose, Giles, will be yours, not mine."

Giles's laugh was louder than my little joke warranted. He gets high easily. Turns manic. Talks too last. And too much. But seated in front of Washington's tomb, nose dripping and eyes gleaming, Giles was unexpectedly quiet. Thoughtfully, he stared up at me.

Pregnant was the silence that, presently, gave birth to an idea. Nothing brilliant. Just an insight. Something I should have guessed when he made his comments about how few we were. "Of course, we are unbalanced," I said, looking down at him, compassionately. He began, involuntarily, to wriggle. "I mean," I spelled it out, "five is an odd number."

"A holy number." Giles avoided my compassionate look.

"Holy or not, you're odd man out, Giles. Kalki has Lakshmi. I have Geraldine. Why didn't you immunize poor Estelle? After sterilizing her first, of course." I have discovered, late in life, that sadism had unsuspected pleasures. For a moment, I munched on that forbidden fruit. Giles's wriggle changed, dramatically, to an agonized squirm. Yes, I was on target.

"That is my role," Giles said, avoiding my eyes. He took another snort of cocaine. "I enjoy being alone."

I had tortured him enough. I let fall the forbidden fruit and changed the subject. I pointed to the snifter of cocaine. "What," I asked, "was the real point to the drugs?"

"Point?" A pair of Dr. Ashoky eyes stared up at me, slightly crossed.

"I never could figure out why it was necessary for Kalki to be involved in a drug ring."

"The money, dear Teddy."

"Of course. But I mean from a religious point of view. I mean, is there any connection between drugs and the end of the age of Kali?"

"None at all. As a matter of fact, we always disapproved not only of drug addiction but also of alcohol and nicotine. Our ashrams were genuinely ascetic."

"But you smoke, drink, sniff...."

"I was a flawed vessel of grace, dear Teddy. Yet I hate the sinner even as I hate the sin."

"Lunch!" called Lakshmi.

We rose. Giles put his arm through mine, as though he were very old. He even gave an Ashoky totter or two.

Dishes had been neatly arranged on the bottom step of the veranda. Kalki leaned against a column and ate fried chicken, Washington's hat resting on his ears. Either Washington's head had been a good deal larger than Kalki's or the general had worn a wig under the hat. Lakshmi filled Martha Washington's crystal glasses with beer. Geraldine served potato salad on paper plates.

"Let us drink to the golden age!" said Giles. And so we did. He was now manic. "And to the rebirth of all those who believed in Kalki and who now reside in all their teeming millions and, yes, putative billions in ova here!" Giles placed his hand on Lakshmi's swollen stomach.

The picnic was pleasant. The mugginess was not. I don't like Washington in summer. Or, to be frank, at any time. But it was Lakshmi's home, and Kalki wanted to indulge her. Particularly now. The thought that the entire future of the human race was growing inside her awed us all. It was as if lour billion people had been compressed into a single ovary, like one of those collapsed suns that becomes a black hole opening onto a whole new cosmos. A golden age? Well, we shall not live to see much more than the beginning. According to Lakshmi, the first child will be called Eve.

"That's a strange name," I said, "for a child of Vishnu."

"I am ecumenical," said Kalki, mildly.

I helped Lakshmi and Geraldine put away the picnic things. Odd, come to think of it, how we tidied up. In a few years, Mount Vernon will be a ruin and it will have made no difference whether or not we had cleaned up the remains of fried chicken and potato salad, the paper plates and beer cans.

A hot rain was falling by the time we got back to the boat.

The trip was rough. The wind made high waves. The rain soaked us. Although Geraldine and Giles were seasick, Lakshmi was reasonably comfortable in the cabin while Kalki very much enjoyed the storm. He stood beside me at the wheel and let the rain lash his face.

As I was preparing to dock, Kalki said, "I want you to write down everything that you can remember from the first day you ever heard of me. And I mean everything. Even when you doubted me, which I don't mind. Just write it all down. I don't care how it's written, Teddy. What matters is your personal record. What you felt. What you feel."

We were now roaring at each other over the wind. I shouted, "Why?"

"For the future. For my descendants."

"Giles can do a better job...."

"No. You must do it."

I had no idea why Kalki was so insistent. I still have no idea. But I agreed. Why not? "It's a bit like writing the New Testament." I made a joke that Kalki took with perfect seriousness.

"But you're a lot better off than the writers of the New Testament. You were there at the end, which they were not. And now you are here, as a witness, at the beginning." On that resonant note, a gust of wind blew General Washington's hat off Kalki's head. The hat vanished in the river's high waves.

All in all, I have enjoyed ... well, no, not enjoyed; I have found interesting this work of recollection. Cathartic, even. Certainly, it has given shape to my days.

Each morning, I come here to the Cabinet Room. I work for several hours. Midway through, I offered to show Kalki the text, but he refused to look at it. "Not until you're finished."

Jack and Jill have had a baby. Jill is a lot older than we thought; and pregnant when I found her in India. Jill's first child is a girl, a good omen. We refer to her as The Child.

I have turned over the lobby and downstairs bar of the Hay-Adams to the monkeys. They could not be happier, swinging from lamps, making messes, chattering to one another—to us, too. They very much want to talk or at least communicate with us.

It is October third. Giles has invited all of us to Blair House. He is giving his first dinner party. Yesterday, he passed out engraved invitations. Black tie. Black tie! R.S.V.P.

•

Giles was got up as Dr. Ashok, "For old times' sake, my dear Teddy."

I was mildly disturbed by the white wig, the brown face, the aura of curry. It was as if instead of five survivors there were now six. I said as much. Giles giggled, in the breathy Indian fashion.

Geraldine was direct, as always. "Giles likes being Dr. Ashok because of the wig. He hates being bald. Don't you, Giles? And there isn't enough hair at the back of your neck for transplants."

Giles pretended to be amused. But then, it always amuses him to pretend. After all, he is two people. At least. And I must admit that one of those multiple selves is a good interior decorator. Certainly, Blair House has been beautifully done over.

Dr. Ashok, as Giles wanted to be addressed, mixed the driest of dry martinis. We drank, heavily. Unfortunately, my head is the weakest of the five ... six? Geraldine's is the strongest. That night, Dr. Ashok proved to be so much the perfect host that we could not help but be somewhat less than perfect guests.

I thought that Geraldine looked dazzling tonight. She wore a stunning gown by Balenciaga, taken from a display of 20th Century high-fashion masterpieces at the Smithsonian. This particular gown had been made in the Thirties for a celebrated beauty named Mrs. Harrison Williams. Although Mrs. Williams had been somewhat taller than Geraldine, each had the same narrow waist. I know. I fitted the dress for Geraldine. Also, in honor of our first dinner at Blair House, Geraldine wore the empress Josephine's emerald necklace, as well as a small diamond tiara that had belonged to Marie Antoinette. The effect—dazzling.

I wore another masterpiece from the Smithsonian collection. A classic design in red damask, cut by the genius Charles James. Although I have never cared very much for clothes, I will say that tonight I did not look, exactly, my worst.

"There are times, Giles——" Geraldine began. But our host interrupted her.

"Dr. Ashok!"

"Dr. Ashok. That I wonder who you really are. I mean, deep down inside. Is Dr. Lowell impersonating Dr. Ashok or does Dr. Ashok impersonate Dr. Lowell?"

"A true mystery, dearest Geraldine! Personally, I suspect that each is really the other and neither one is me."

Geraldine was amused. I was not.

"Hello," said Kalki. He and Lakshmi were standing in the doorway.

Giles leaped to his feet and pranamed. Geraldine and I both got to our feet. We always do when Kalki and Lakshmi enter a room. I don't know why. Alter all, we know them so well. See them in bathing suits. Working in the garden. Sweating in the sun. Covered with poison-ivy blisters. Nevertheless, there is a real sense of—I won't say divinity, because that word means nothing to me—but of magic about them. And, of course, they are physically beautiful. Tonight Lakshmi wore the ropes of pearls that I had brought her from Paris; a royal-purple creation from Dior disguised her pregnancy. Kalki looked very young in a black-velvet suit.

Giles—not Dr. Ashok—had prepared the dinner. We gorged on a dozen courses served off solid-gold plates that Giles had found in London, created for Louis XV. We do live nicely.

Conversation was general. The state of physics, genetics, medicine, engineering as of April third this year.

Kalki hoped that each of us would go in for original research, the way that Geraldine has been doing in her laboratory. "Because," said Kalki, "the most important thing that you are going to have to do is teach the first generation how to be teachers, too."

"Aren't they lucky!" Lakshmi was flushed in the candlelight. "A brand-new race. With nothing in them of the old except the best."

"Well," said Geraldine, always to the sometimes disagreeable point. "They won't be all that new. And they certainly won't be the best. You and Kalki are nothing more than two pools of absolutely run-of-the-mill genes. Your children will be nice-looking. They'll be healthy. But the odds are against their being geniuses, no matter how hard I work."

"But I am also Vishnu," Kalki said, grinning boyishly, eyes shining. "Surely, that fact alters the genetic pool."

"I agree. You are Vishnu. But you have taken up residence in the body of J. J. Kelly and your children will be his children. They will be Alpha. Otherwise, they won't be so very different from the dearly departed four billion." Geraldine was hard. She had had too much wine.

Giles quickly changed the subject. "We must work out a new calendar. What, for instance, shall we call the period before April third? And the period alter?"

During the chateaubriand, we decided to divide human history into two parts: Before Kalki and After Kalki. Not exactly original. But no one could think of anything better.

Giles then proposed that the months should be renamed for us. Lakshmi was delighted. She wants June to be called Lakshmi. Geraldine has taken September, which is what I wanted. I settled, gracefully, for October. January will be called Lowell. The other eight months will be named after the first eight children, starting with Eve.

We took coffee in the drawing room. The fireplace had begun, slightly, to smoke. I promised Giles that I'd clean out the flue. For a doctor, he is surprisingly clumsy with his hands.

Giles produced 100-year-old brandy and Cuban cigars. Geraldine smoked a cigar. I drank brandy from a huge Baccarat snifter.

"Mission accomplished!" Giles's favorite phrase had been appropriated by Dr. Ashok.

"Only part one," said Kalki. "Part two is the launching of the golden age."

"The children, ' murmured Lakshmi.

"Of course! Of course! I was hasty! Oh, how I envy you!" Giles stared at Kalki with somewhat wild, bloodshot eyes.

Geraldine and I exchanged a quick glance. We still wonder just how Giles will eventually adjust to being odd man out. So far, he has shown no overt signs of distress or anxiety. No, that is not quite true. Last summer, when the subject of wife swapping came up, Giles had spoken powerfully in favor of that sort of sexual pavan. But Kalki had swiftly vetoed the notion on the ground that since only he and Lakshmi can reproduce, there is no reason for the rest of us to go through what he called "the motions," to which Giles had made the point that since there was no biological reason for such couplings, then, by the very same logic, there was absolutely no reason for us not to go through the traditional motions. Why, he asked, couldn't the one sterile male couple go through the motions with either or both of the two sterile women, or even with the one fertile female?

Kalki had not been moved by Giles's arguments. Geraldine thought that Giles was in love with Lakshmi. "Not with you?" I had asked.

"Not in a million years," she had replied.

"Or with me," I added. Well out of it.

Tonight I thought that Kalki handled Giles with unusual tact. "Your role is just as important," he said.

"No, no! How can it be? I'm a mere doctor, and the human race can certainly survive without doctors. In fact, the race might even thrive without us. But there cannot, literally, be a human race without you and Lakshmi. Oh, Lakshmi! Oh, beautiful one! Oh, ocean-born...." Suddenly, Giles sounded like Dr. Ashok in the lobby of Calcutta's Oberoi Grand, one world ago.

"Giles!" I could see that after Lakshmi's first delighted response to flattery, she was annoyed. Alarmed? "We don't want to hear all of my one thousand titles." She made light of an occasion gone heavy.

Giles poured himself more brandy and Kalki rolled a joint.

Geraldine changed the subject. She reverted to biology. "I wish," she said, "that we had a biological backup for Kalki. Or even an alternative."

Giles spilled most of his brandy as hand with glass missed mouth. Lakshmi blushed. Kalki's face looked to be uninhabited as Geraldine proceeded to drop her bricks. Later, she told me that she could not let this opportunity to speak her mind pass. As if she ever did. Or does. I love her candor.

"Speaking as a geneticist, I'm not entirely satisfied with the present arrangement." Geraldine got to her feet. I could almost imagine a blackboard behind her. She must have been the first biologist ever to lecture in a Balenciaga gown. "I believe that you've all read my paper on inbreeding." Geraldine had given each of us a typescript soon after we were settled in Washington. "If you have, then you know the degree to which a given DNA situation can be manipulated. In general, the odds favor a Kalki-Lakshmi conjunction. Even if they did not, I am able to adjust the odds. To load the dice. To bend the helices. Nevertheless, ideally, there should be at least one other male who could be added, if necessary, to the equation." For ten minutes, Geraldine lectured us, blissfully unaware that her audience had turned to stone.

"Your advice comes too late," said Giles. And he was now definitely Giles. He had sobered up. He took off his Dr. Ashok wig.

When Kalki spoke, he was icy. "Had I intended for there to be another fertile man at the end of the age of Kali, I would have brought him through the plague, as I have brought the four of you."

"Of course. Of course." Giles was oddly humble, placating.

Geraldine chose to ignore Kalki's plain fury. "You missed my point. You don't actually need a man," she said. "There are other ways of impregnating Lakshmi."

"What other ways?" Lakshmi looked slightly shell-shocked.

"Sperm banks," said Geraldine. "There are two right here in Washington. We can take our pick of donors. We can match Lakshmi with any number of desirable combinations. And I highly recommend that at least one of those combinations should be Chinese. It would be a biological tragedy if the Chinese genetic pool was lost forever."

Suddenly, Kalki whooped with laughter. The rest of us laughed, too. Obediently. Then Kalki said, "Geraldine, you are right off the wall! You're a great scientist, no contest. And I'm sure you're right. And if there had been any way to preserve the Chinese wading pool, I'd have done it. All the other ethnic pools, too. I would have assembled a genetic Noah's ark. But you know as well as I do that that was not meant to be. At the end, there could only be five. And of the five, only the creator can be the procreator."

"The sperm banks...." Geraldine was getting annoyed. If red hair could truly bristle, hers would have been crackling with electricity.

"Have gone broke!" Kalki grinned at her.

"What do you mean, broke?" I asked.

"Bank holiday. Moratorium. No more deposits. No more withdrawals. Figure it out. To live, sperm must be kept at a certain temperature. When the electricity went off, that was the end for all those billions of spermatozoa."

"I hadn't thought of that," said Geraldine.

"The human race's only future," said Kalki, "is here!" Slowly, he closed one hand over his crotch. We were all startled. And appalled. Not so much by the gesture as by its demonstrable truth.

•

Ottinger 3, 3 A.K.

It has been exactly two years since I last looked at this record. Kalki wants me to write a postscript. I can't think why.

Two days after the dinner party at Blair House, Lakshmi miscarried. The baby—a girl, as predicted—was born dead, and deformed.

Lakshmi went into a deep depression. Kalki was grim. Giles was soothing; he assured us that nothing serious had gone wrong. He was absolutely certain that the next baby would be healthy. He gave his reasons. But then, unknown to Giles, Geraldine did blood studies of both Kalki and Lakshmi.

On a cold, rainy morning, Geraldine came into the living room at the Hay-Adams. She was still wearing her laboratory smock. When she is nervous, she develops a slight tic in her left cheek. The tic was in evidence that morning.

"Lakshmi is Rh negative," said Geraldine. "Kalki is Rh positive." She sat in the chair opposite my desk.

I knew exactly what she meant. Every mother knows about those incompatibilities of blood that can exist between male and female. In great detail, Geraldine spelled it out for me while rain fell in sheets, made opaque the windows, darkened the room.

Before Kalki, 13 percent of all American couplings occurred between Rh-negative women and Rh-positive men. The first pregnancy resulting from such a union had a good chance of being normal, but subsequent pregnancies were likely to be abnormal—until the recent development of a prophylactic serum called RhoGAM. If an Rh-negative woman is treated with RhoGAM immediately after the birth of her first child, her next baby will be normal. If she is untreated, subsequent babies can suffer fetal hydrops, stillbirth, kernicterus.

Geraldine was precise, angry, guilty because, "I should have known their blood chemistry...."

"Why?" I tried to comfort her. "After all, you're not their doctor. Giles is."

"Yes," said Geraldine. "Giles is their doctor."

When I saw what was in her mind, I joined her in a state of shock.

From far away, I would hear my own voice saying what I hoped was true. "He must not have known."

"He knew."

"Are you sure? I mean, isn't it possible that he made a perfectly honest mistake?" I chattered, hoping that the truth was not true and that the crime could be expunged with words.

"Giles has known from the beginning that they were vulnerable. So——" Geraldine stopped.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why?" she repeated. Then she telephoned Kalki.

When Geraldine and I entered the Oval Office, Giles was already there. Lakshmi was not. She had taken to her bed. Would not speak to anyone. Had to be forcibly fed.

Kalki sat at the President's desk. For the first time since The End, he wore the saffron robe. Through the window back of his chair, I could see the chickens in the overgrown rose garden. They clucked contentedly as they pecked for food.

Giles sprang to his feet, face vivid with energy, intelligence. "Geraldine! Teddy!" He tried to kiss Geraldine. She pushed him away.

Then Geraldine sat in a chair opposite Kalki's desk; opened her handbag; produced a sheaf of papers. "Now," she said, "this is the problem——"

Giles interrupted her. He was entirely manic. "There is no problem! How could there be? I have personally studied every blood-chemistry report ever done on Kalki and Lakshmi——"

"Shut up, Giles." Kalki's voice was without emphasis.

As Geraldine gave her analysis, Giles paced the room, wanting to interrupt but not daring to. Medical words like erythroblastosis were used. But despite the elaborate terminology, the meaning was altogether too clear. As was the solution, which Geraldine proposed.

"You and Lakshmi," she said, "can have children only if, within seventy-two hours of delivery, Lakshmi is desensitized with a gamma globulin that contains a high titer of anti-Rh antibody. This will render the killer antigen in the blood ineffective and make it possible for her to bear normal children."

Kalki got the essential point. There was still time. "Where can we find this gamma globulin?"

"I suppose we can find it at any hospital," said Giles. "But I don't agree with Geraldine. After all, this is my field——"

"We'll discuss that later," said Kalki.

The RhoGAM was found, but it was too late. Lakshmi was permanently sensitized. Any child she might conceive by Kalki would be born dead or, technically speaking, not really born at all.

Kalki broke the news to Lakshmi. I don't know what he told her. She has never mentioned the subject to either Geraldine or me.

For a week, Kalki and Lakshmi went into seclusion. I rang Kalki once. I offered to do my usual chores in the garden. Kalki said that he would rather not see anyone. According to Geraldine, Lakshmi was still in a state of deep depression. She was not the only one.

Eight days after the scene in the Oval Office, Kalki suddenly appeared in the lobby.

"We've missed you," I said.

"We've missed you, too. We want you to come to dinner tonight." Kalki cleared apple cores off the last undestroyed sofa. I apologized for the mess.

Kalki sat down. He was unshaven, pale. "Giles knew about us all along." Kalki spoke as if this were news.

"So we guessed. But why didn't he warn you?"

"Because he didn't want to." Kalki stared off into space. Then he spoke with slow precision. "Yesterday I went to see him at Blair House. He told me everything. He told me that he had always known our problem. He told me that he had expected Lakshmi to become sensitized. He told me that he had never had a vasectomy. He told me that he loved Lakshmi. He told me that if the human race was to continue, it was now necessary for her to have his child."

I saw what was coming with all the clarity of a pilot about to crash-land a plane. "And when she does, he, not you, will be the father of the new human race."

"Yes," said Kalki.

"What did you do?"

"I killed him."

I have brought this record up to date only to please Kalki. I can't think why he wants it. There will be no one to read it in the future.

There is not much talk at dinner. Lakshmi has become almost totally withdrawn since the miscarriage. Kalki is silent for days at a time. Of us all, Geraldine alone continues to be her old self.

Our days are haphazard. I have no idea what Lakshmi does in the White House. I know that she has not left the grounds for a year now. Occasionally, Geraldine visits her. When I ask how things are, Geraldine just shakes her head.

Kalki spends a good deal of time fishing. He also sees to the henhouse, the livestock, the vegetable garden. I do the weeding. It is astonishing how fast everything grows. Lafayette Square is now a jungle, and grass is splitting the pavement of Pennsylvania Avenue. The wolves are still with us, but the tropical beasts either died during the first winter or all went South. The stillness is more noticeable than ever.

We are, according to Kalki, in the twilight period that precedes each new age of creation. I do not know about the new age. But I can testify to the twilight. We are all getting dim. To ourselves as well as to one another. Since we seldom speak of the old days and since we cannot speak of the future, as there are no children for us to teach, we have only the present and there is not much in our present worth discussing. We sit at the dinner table, saying next to nothing.

This morning, Kalki came into the Cabinet Room just as I wrote the above lines. He asked me to leave this record on the table. "The new people will want to know what it was like."

"What new people?"

Kalki combed his wiry blond beard with dirty fingers. "There will be others," he said. "After the twilight."

"Do you really think that there are other survivors in the world?" Although we occasionally discuss the possibility, each of us knows that except for us, the human species has vanished from the earth.

"I want you to write," said Kalki, pointing at this record, "that I have known from the beginning that we five would not be able to reproduce." I was careful not to show surprise. Or disbelief. "Write that I have been testing each of the Perfect Masters. And each of you has lived up to expectations, including Giles. I told you that Giles was the necessary enemy."

I asked the hard question: "If you knew what Giles intended to do, why didn't you stop him?"

" 'All things conspire to make my happiness complete.' " Kalki quoted the last line of the tale of Rama. "I am what I am. There is no questioning."

"There is no logic, either." I was bold. I have nothing to lose.

"Creation is without logic. Destruction is without logic. I am without logic. Because I am not human." Kalki spoke in a low voice. He did not look at me. He might have been saying a prayer. Perhaps he was. "But that does not mean that there is no design in my universe. When the twilight goes, I shall begin a new cycle."

"How? Lakshmi cannot have your children. Yet you thought she could. You were mistaken."

"No." Kalki was bleak. "I have always known that it could not be. But I was impatient. I wanted to eliminate the time of twilight. I wanted to go straight to the golden age. I wanted it to begin—now—with our children. But Vishnu's plan cannot be altered."

"You are Vishnu."

"I am his avatar. But I wear human flesh. I am limited by every sort of human weakness. As Giles tried to outwit me, I tried to outwit my own design. He failed. I failed. Now I am again linked with the single godhead whose human presence in history I was, am and will be."

"What next?"

"Complete the record as of today. Leave it here. On this table. They will find it useful." Since Kalki did not choose to tell me who "they" are, I did not ask.

Who is Kalki? I no longer know. Before The End, I thought he was a brilliant actor. After The End, I thought he might be some sort of god or primal spirit made flesh. Since the death of Lakshmi's baby, I have no perception of him. I also have no interest in him.

What more? Geraldine and I are healthy. We talk every now and then of taking a trip. But like those Chekhov ladies in the play, we only talk. We never leave home. Anyway, I would be afraid to fly now. No jet has been properly maintained for over a year.

The best parts of my long days are when I take Jack and Jill and their children on walks. Although they enjoy climbing trees and behaving as monkeys are supposed to behave, they are always eager to get back to the Hay-Adams.

Only this afternoon, I took them down to the banks of the Potomac River, where I sat on a log beneath a weeping-willow tree, with Eve on my lap. We watched the others, as they climbed trees, played tag, chattered constantly in their own language. At times, I understand what they are "saying." I am planning to learn sign language. Apparently, monkeys can be taught to communicate in the same way that human deaf-mutes once did, with hand gestures.

This afternoon, sitting on that log beside the river, with Eve snuggled in my lap, I was surprisingly happy. Small things give great pleasure now. Let me list today's delights. Apple-scented air. Bright-red birds on the wing. Silver fish that briefly arc above the surface of a river that glitters in the sun like a silver fish's scales. The cold, clear, clean water of the river that makes no sound as it slides past me to the sea. The Child.

•

Winter, 43 A.K.

I am the last as I was the first. Lakshmi dropped her human body 21 years ago. Since the death of Teddy Ottinger 16 years ago, Geraldine and I have been happy together. This, too, was intended from the beginning.

Late last night, Geraldine died. To the extent that I am human, I am sad that she is gone. Yet there was no real point for her to remain another day in the human state. Our work is complete. Presently, I shall join them all in Vaikuntha.

An entire new race of Brahmans is now on the threshold of a most holy epoch. As I sit in this cold and derelict mansion, I can hear the singing and the praying and the sheer joyfulness of earth's new heirs, my loyal allies in the war with Ravana, the descendants of Jack and Jill to whom I now bequeath the golden age. For am I not the highest of the high? The lord of songs, the lord of sacrifices?

I am breath. I am spirit. I am the supreme lord. I alone was before all things, and I exist and I shall be. No other transcends me. I am eternal and not eternal, discernible and undiscernible. I am Brahma and I am not Brahma. I am without beginning, middle or end. At the time of the end, I annihilate all worlds.

I am Siva.

First Look at a new novel

Copyright © 1978 by Gore Vidal

"I was in Paris. I was in love. I was also nearly killed when I dynamited the safe at Cartier's."

"Driving is always hazardous now because the streets of the world resemble used-car lots, junk yards."

"On the rock's smooth surface lay, intertwined and intermingled, two skeletons. Male and female?"

This is the conclusion of "Kalki."