“Oh, I like steak. It’s just that beef is supposed to be bad for your karma.”

As she spoke her hand crept across the table and found his. Her touch was electrifying—a shock literally ran up his arm. Jack swallowed and tried to keep the conversation going. No point in letting her see how she was getting to him.

“Karma. There’s a word you hear an awful lot. What’s it mean, really? It’s like fate, isn’t it?”

Kolabati’s eyebrows drew together. “Not exactly. It’s not easy to explain. It starts with the idea of the transmigration of the soul—what we call the atman—and how it undergoes many successive incarnations or lives.”

“Reincarnation.” Jack had heard of that—Bridey Murphy and all.

Kolabati turned his hand over and began lightly running her fingernails over his palm. Gooseflesh sprang up all over his body.

“Right,” she said. “Karma is the burden of good or evil your atman carries with it from one life to the next. It’s not fate, because you are free to determine how much good or evil you do in each of your lives, but then again, the weight of good or evil in your karma determines the kind of life you will be born into—high born or low born.”

“And that goes on forever?” He wished what she was doing to his hand would go on forever.

“No. Your atman can be liberated from the karmic wheel by achieving a state of perfection in life. This is moksha. It frees the atman from further incarnations. It is the ultimate goal of every atman. “

“And eating beef would hold you back from moksha?” It sounded silly.

Kolabati seemed to read his mind again. “Not so odd, really. Jews and Moslems have a similar sanction against pork. For us, beef pollutes the karma.”

“’Pollutes.’ “

“That’s the word.”

“Do you worry that much about your karma?”

“Not as much as I should. Certainly not as much as Kusum does.” Her eyes clouded. “He’s become obsessed with his karma… his karma and Kali.”

That struck a dissonant chord in Jack. “Kali? Wasn’t she worshipped by a bunch of stranglers?” Again, his source was Gunga Din.

Kolabati’s eyes cleared and flashed as she dug her fingernails into his palm, turning pleasure to pain. “That wasn’t Kali but a diminished avatar of her called Bhavani who was worshipped by Thugges—low-caste criminals! Kali is the Supreme Goddess!”

“Woops! Sorry.”

She smiled. “Where do you live?”

“Not far.”

“Take me there.”

Jack hesitated, knowing it was his firm personal rule to never let people know where he lived unless he had known them for a good long while. But she was stroking his palm again.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

6

For certain is death for the born

And certain is birth for the dead;

Therefore over the inevitable

Thou shouldst not grieve.

Kusum lifted his head from his study of the Bhagavad Gita. There it was again. That sound from below. It came to him over the dull roar of the city beyond the dock, the city that never slept, over the nocturnal harbor sounds, and the creaks and rattles of the ship as the tide caressed its iron hull and stretched the ropes and cables that moored it. Kusum closed the Gita and went to his cabin door. It was too soon. The Mother could not have caught the Scent yet.