The Battle of All Mothers

by Jack Nimersheim

_(First published in "Alternate Warriors" - Tor Books)_

They vaporized Kalighat in 1995. Few clues survive a nuclear holocaust. Based on radiation signatures and the size of the crater left smoldering in its wake, however, the experts surmised that this one must have been the result of a small, low-yield fission device. Probably hand-delivered. Possibly disguised as a suitcase or some equally familiar and innocuous object.

Whatever the cause, the effects were obvious. Twenty thousand people in the immediate vicinity of ground zero perished instantly. Fifty thousand others unfortunate enough to be caught on the perimeter of the blast, their bodies now ravaged by radiation poisoning, faced a slower and immeasurably more gruesome, but no less certain, death.

Like so much scientific jargon, low-yield is a relative concept.

The death and destruction may have been localized -- another relative term -- but the shock waves from that violent explosion reverberated around the globe.

Arani Bhakti studied Mother's loving gaze. It was kind and caring and filled with compassion, staring out at her from the locket she clutched in her hands. For more than a decade, that locket and the photograph it contained had accompanied Arani everywhere. How she worshipped those gentle eyes, that wizened yet wise countenance.

"Mother, forgive me," she whispered. With these words, Arani discarded her most precious possession. She watched sadly as it dropped to the sidewalk. Arani then turned and entered the narrow alleyway indicated on the crumpled piece of paper that had guided her to this blasphemous place.

The world mourned Mother's passing. Nations and governments tripped over one another to praise the frail nun from Albania who dedicated her life to caring for the sick and the needy. They lamented the fact that, despite her eighty-five years on this Earth, much of what Mother hoped to accomplish remained unfinished at the time of her untimely death.

Amidst the eulogies and epithets, a few, isolated voices sounded alarms. They attempted to point out the dangers inherent in the political instability triggered by Kalighat's annihilation. As it so often does, a self-absorbed humanity turned a deaf ear.

"I realize how frightening all of this must be, Ms. Bhakti. Unfortunately, the current political climate in our country forces us to take such extreme precautions. I'm sure you understand. Try not to be afraid, please. We'll reach our destination shortly."

Arani recognized "Dewey's" voice. She had nicknamed her mysterious companions Huey, Dewey and Louie. For reasons Arani could not fully understand, their disembodied voices recalled the three fictitious characters of her youth. How easy life was, back then. Every day she'd run home from school, arriving just in time to catch her favorite cartoon show on the Disney Channel. The only satellite dish in Arani's village was one of the more welcome benefits that accompanied her father's appointment as governor of the local province.

She had no idea where they were, where they were going, or how long it was taking to get there. Arani had lost all sense of time and direction shortly after being blindfolded and bundled into some type of vehicle -- she could not tell what -- back in Calcutta. Her enigmatic escorts were not rude or unkind, to be sure, but neither did they provide much in the way of information or companionship. The long intervals of silence between their infrequent and largely unsuccessful attempts to allay her fears were especially difficult to endure.

Arani drew some solace from the fact that this discomfort seemed minor, compared to the alternative. Her current isolation, after all, was temporary, prompted by a need for stealth and secrecy. The permanent ostracism Arani faced, had she elected not to pursue her present course, would have been intolerable.

As the dust settled -- both literally and figuratively -- on what had once been Kalighat, the world saw reason for hope. It watched with optimism as previously hostile factions throughout the Indian sub- continent united in shared sorrow over Mother's death. The elation did not last long.

Three months after the holocaust, Nanak Singh declared himself President of Trans-India. Like the legendary Phoenix, Singh emerged from the ashes of catastrophe to become the first leader of this newly formed nation-state. Once in power, the former general of the Indian army combined equal parts of Mephisto, Machiavelli and the Messiah to create one of the most repressive regimes in modern history.

The sudden, unanticipated stop nearly threw Arani out of her seat. Without a word being spoken she sensed, somehow, that they had reached their final destination. Nothing happened for several seconds. It was "Huey" who finally broke the silence.

"We've arrived, Ms. Bhakti. Watch your step, please. As you may recall, there's about a two-foot drop off the truck. We'll have to walk several hundred meters over some pretty rough terrain before your blindfold can be removed. Hold onto me and you should have no trouble."

A strong but gentle hand touched hers. The skin was soft and smooth, hardly a match for the image Arani had created of Huey in her mind's eye, based on the few times he'd spoken during the long ride.

A slight breeze greeted Arani as she felt herself being lifted down to the ground. The temperature was noticeably cooler than when they left Calcutta. As she walked, Arani no longer felt the warmth of sunlight on the exposed skin of her face and arms. Was it evening -- or even night -- already, she wondered. If so, the journey had lasted several hours at least, considerably longer than she had initially thought.

Only two sets of footsteps broke the silence. Arani wondered where Dewey and Louie had disappeared to. Did they stay behind in the truck? (Thanks to Huey's warning, at least Arani knew what kind of vehicle had transported her here.) The ground beneath her feet felt like fine gravel. Every once in a while, Huey alerted her to a large rock or some other obstacle barring their path. Each time he'd guide her around it, taking special care so she would not lose her footing. After walking for several minutes, they stopped.

"I must leave now. There's a building just ahead of you. Someone will be with you momentarily. Remain here and, please, Ms. Bhakti, try to relax. There's nothing to be afraid of, I assure you."

Try to relax? This was easier said than done. Anxiety had been Arani's constant companion for the better part of a month, ever since that afternoon the doctor recommended by a friend outlined the options available to her, given her current condition. This same friend later gave Arani the hastily scrawled map that ultimately led her here -- wherever "here" might be.

"You may uncover your eyes now, my child." The words startled Arani. After listening to Huey's footsteps recede, she had sensed no one else's approach. Nevertheless, she felt reassured by this feeble voice. It was filled with kindness. It also sounded strangely familiar.

Reaching behind her head, Arani untied the blindfold and removed it. As she surmised, night had fallen. Her eyes, unused for so long, had difficulty focusing. The darkness only made matters worse. Arani did not need to see clearly, however, to recognize the delicate figure standing before her.

"Mother!" Arani cried, sinking to her knees in both shock and supplication.

She was young again. Young and innocent, running through the warmth of a tropical afternoon. Her home lay just around the next bend. As one with the wind, she flew down the narrow dirt road and up the porch steps, bursting through the front door.

"Father! I'm home!" Her voice echoed much more loudly than it should have. "Father?"

Arani did not remember the house being this large, this empty. Nor could she recall it ever being so dark. It sounded and felt as if she were in a huge cavern. The only light Arani saw was a flickering glow coming from the far end of the hall.

Of course, Arani realized. That would be the television in the parlor. Anticipating her arrival, her father or one of the servants must have already focused the monstrous dish in their back yard on a tiny satellite circling the Earth, approximately 36,000 kilometers overhead. (How did she know this? Surely, a child of seven growing up during the mid-1980s in a small village in Central India would not understand the concept of a geosynchronous orbit.) The theme music filtering down the hallway reassured her. Slowly, she moved toward the familiar sound.

Everything was wrong. The room was empty, except for the television set and a single, straight-backed chair. Where were the tall, oaken bookshelves that contained her father's precious collection of law and history books? Where was the wicker furniture he'd had shipped from the apartment in Jubbulpore, shortly after settling into his new position? The wall that normally held several framed pictures -- including Arani's favorite, a shot of the entire family taken on holiday in Sri Lanka, shortly before her mother's death -- was bare.

Oh, well, thought Arani, with the acceptance and adaptability of youth, at least she could still watch her favorite TV show.

Here, also, however, nothing was as it should be. The adolescent characters she loved so much were now full-grown -- towering over even their rich uncle. Masks covered their faces, each one matching the color of the cap and shirt that provided the only clue to its wearer's identity. And they pursued their adventures, not with the misspent energy and misguided exuberance of youth, as she remembered, but with an undeniable streak of ruthlessness.

At one point, Arani felt compelled to turn away from the screen, as her childhood icons played a particularly cruel and deadly practical joke on a playmate. Try as she might, however, she could not avert her eyes from the gruesome scenes playing out before her. Macabre turned to madness when the trio of transformed ducklings stepped out of the picture tube and advanced toward her, a strange mixture of lust and rage in their eyes -- just like the three soldiers, that night in her village.

The Arani in the chair was an adult, now. She was trying to flee. To get up. To run. To hide. Escape, however, proved impossible. She could not move. She was helpless. Again, just like that terrible night. Her attempts to scream also failed. A deathly silence permeated the room.

One of her cartoon captors -- Arani could not identify him, his cap and mask having faded to a dull and dingy gray -- reached out to touch her. His fingers, protruding forth from a grotesque combination of human hand and avian wing, brushed against her...

Arani awoke with a start. Her mouth was dry, her body drenched in sweat. She was only dimly aware of the hand gently touching her shoulder.

"Do not be frightened. It was only a dream -- though not a very pleasant one, I would imagine, judging from the way you were thrashing about."

Few would characterize the face gazing down at Arani as being beautiful. Mother had weathered too many summers in the hot, tropical sun to sustain this ephemeral quality. It was, however, beatific. The pictures Arani had seen of Mother throughout her life, including the one she'd carried so long in that now discarded locket, only portrayed Mother's image. They failed to capture her essence.

"Mother! You're alive! Or have I perished, only to be reunited with you in the afterlife?"

"Rest assured, my child, that you are still among the living, as am I."

"Where are we? Where have you been? How did you escape the destruction of Kalighat? Who...oh...I have so many questions, I don't know where to begin."

"And they all shall be answered, in due course. Do not trouble yourself with these matters just now, however.

"I apologize for interrupting your rest. Sleep should be calming, curative -- an opportunity for the mind to commune directly with the spirit. Upon observing your agitation, I felt it best to awaken you. It did not seem charitable to permit turmoil to intrude upon your all too brief respite from harsh reality. Your soul faces enough challenges in the days ahead."

"Then, you know?"

"Your presence here provides all the information I need."

"Oh, Mother, can you ever forgive me?"

"It is not _my_ forgiveness that should concern you. But let us not talk of these matters, just yet. There will be ample opportunity later for such discussions.

"There's a shower just across the hall. Feel free to use it. When you've finished, I'll accompany you to the cafeteria. You must be famished, following yesterday's journey. The morning meal has just begun. Let us take care of your immediate needs. Then, you and I will speak of other matters."

Arani was convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the Lord held Mother in special favor. How else to interpret the fact that, only hours before disaster struck Kalighat, she was called away to welcome an unexpected member into her flock? One premature birth could not offset so many deaths, but it did prevent Mother from being counted among the casualties.

"And no one knew of your good fortune?"

"Sadly, no. Everyone who might have been aware of my being absent from Kalighat that night perished in the explosion, along with the others. All the dead, God rest their souls." Mother bowed her head as she touched the fingers of her right hand to forehead, breast and both shoulders. "Only the people in the village where I had gone to witness the baby's birth knew of my survival."

"Why didn't you try to contact anyone, to let them know you were still alive?"

"It was not that easy, my child. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the bomb disrupted communications in an area several hundred square kilometers surrounding Kalighat. Telephones were useless, as was the radio in my truck."

"But surely you could have found some way to get a message out?"

"Oh, I did. A young man offered to deliver word of my fate to an army outpost located a short distance from the village. He must have succeeded. For not long after he departed, the soldiers arrived.

"Watching them approach, we assumed they were coming to provide assistance. We believed so right up until the moment they opened fire on the small group of children who ran out to greet them." Once again, Mother bowed her head and crossed herself. This time, when she looked back up, a single tear trickled down her cheek. It followed the deep lines in her aged face like a stream flowing through an ancient creek bed.

"Over three hundred men, women and children were massacred that night, including the infant I'd delivered just a few hours earlier. Only a handful of villagers escaped the slaughter. It was they who spirited me away to safety. I've been in hiding ever since."

"Then why stay here? There must be some way you can flee Trans-India. Once you reach the sanctuary of a neighboring country, you could safely reveal yourself to the rest of the world."

"You still have much to learn about us. And you shall. Before this process begins, however, you have concerns of a more personal nature to contend with."

It was the first time during the entire conversation that Mother mentioned her condition. Arani suddenly realized how little she'd thought about it herself, since their brief conversation before breakfast. Now that the topic had resurfaced, there was one question she felt compelled to ask.

"How is it that I ended up here? You must know what I was looking for, when I sought out your people in Calcutta."

"Of course I do. We make our services available to anyone we believe can benefit from them. To all others we remain quite hidden, I assure you. You would not have found us, had we not wished to be detected."

"But why, Mother? My decision makes a mockery of our faith."

"Do you want to see a true mockery, my child? Come with me." Mother stood up from behind her desk and walked out of the small room in which they had been talking. As they moved down the hall, Arani could not help but notice the uncertainty in her gait. Not that this surprised her. Mother's physical condition had started to deteriorate almost a decade earlier, long before recent events undoubtedly exacerbated the situation.

Word of the heart attack in 1989 reached Arani's isolated village even before it appeared on CNN. To Arani's recollection, this was the only time she had been allowed to invite friends into the house to watch the satellite broadcasts. For almost a week, that September, she and several of her classmates crowded around the television set after school, waiting for the latest news from Calcutta. Arani did not even mind that this meant missing her favorite afternoon shows. Cheers filled the parlor when it was announced that the operation to implant a pacemaker had been successful.

Arani remembered how pale and vulnerable Mother looked, the day they wheeled her out of the hospital door and into the bright glare of the television lights. She recalled how weak Mother's voice sounded, as she offered polite responses to even the most inane questions from the gathered reporters. The woman now opening a door for Arani resembled that emaciated figure just recovering from major surgery.

It was the first time she had been outside the windowless building since her arrival the previous night. The sudden brightness temporarily blinded her. It must have been nearing or just after noon. The sun was almost directly overhead. A muggy wind blew in from Arani's left. In the absence of shadows, there was no way to determine the direction from which it originated.

Mother waited a moment for Arani's eyes to adjust to the light before she spoke. "You asked earlier why I do not flee Trans-India. There is the answer to that question."

As Arani's vision cleared, she found herself gazing at the crater that had once been Kalighat. Obviously, the tedious trip that consumed so much of the previous day had been a ruse, a ride considerably longer than the actual journey it represented.

"Oh, my God....um...pardon me, Mother. I did not mean to take His name in vain."

"No need to apologize, Arani. I admit to having a similar reaction, upon returning here for the first time."

The two women stood on the brink of nothingness. No other word seemed sweeping enough to describe the barren landscape spread out before them. The circle of destruction -- nearly a half-kilometer in diameter, Arani recalled from news accounts at the time -- reminded her of a photograph she had once seen of the American volcano, Mount St. Helens, taken shortly after it erupted. But on a much larger scale. A thick layer of fine, gray, dust blanketed the area. Except for an occasional bird gliding over the desolation, the crater appeared devoid of any signs of life.

"Do you see that dust?" Mother asked. Arani nodded in mute response. "It is partly composed of the remains of those caught in the blast. `Remember, man, that thou art dust,' the Bible says, `And unto dust thou shalt return.' This place stands in stark witness to those sacred words.

"I do not want to mislead you, Arani. Death and Kalighat were hardly strangers to one another. In truth, far fewer people perished in the explosion than had died previously on this same site, since we first opened our doors to the forgotten citizens of Calcutta many years earlier. Unlike the 20,000 souls lost in that one, terrible instant, however, the faithful to whom we extended our care were permitted to die with dignity. By contrast, the people destroyed the night Kalighat disappeared were nothing more than victims, their lives forfeit as fodder in a struggle they neither initiated nor understood."

"Were you ever able to find out who did this, Mother?"

Mother solemnly surveyed the bleak panorama before her. Several seconds of silence separated Arani's question from the older woman's response.

"Tell me, Arani, do you truly believe that one person could have caused all of this?"

"It's possible, Mother. I remember the scientists saying at the time that Kalighat was probably destroyed by a single nuclear bomb, one that would have easily fit into something as small as a suitcase. Those people were experts I have no reason to doubt their opinion."

"That's true, my child. Nor do we suffer a dearth of suspects. The most obvious, of course, is Singh. It was he, after all, who benefited most directly from what happened here. Many, however, question his ability to conceive and carry out such an elaborate scheme. They seek their scapegoats elsewhere, often in the strangest places. One person whose opinion I normally value went so far as to imply that our Holy Father in Rome may have been involved.

"In the end, such speculation accomplishes little. Identifying the individual responsible for the destruction that occurred here would permit retaliation, to be sure. This, however, is nothing more than a fancy word for revenge. And vengeance resolves nothing. Nor is it ours to dispense."

"In truth, it does not matter who delivered death to Kalighat that fateful night. He or she was but the agent of a more insidious evil. The true villain here is a humanity that values life far less than its own selfish desires and ambitions. That is the enemy we must confront, the adversary we must vanquish, if we ever hope to emerge victorious in a war as old as time itself.

"You asked earlier how you ended up here. You're here because you've met this enemy. It's with you now, whispering in your ear, tempting you to join its cause. You're here because I wanted you to see the potential consequences of your decision. I thought you should view, first hand, the enemy's handiwork. Finally, you're here because I wanted you to realize that this is a battle you need not fight alone.

"Before us lay the ruins of the old Kalighat. Behind us, adjacent to this destruction, I've already started rebuilding the dream, laying the foundation of a second Kalighat. The people you met at breakfast, and thousands more like them throughout Trans-India, are but the beginning. Others will surely follow.

"You can, also, my child. Join us, if you wish. There is no reason to fight this battle alone.

"I'll leave you to ponder your decision. Before I go, however, I have something that I believe belongs to you." Mother reached into the folds of her habit, withdrew a small envelope, and handed to the younger woman. "I took the liberty of having this retrieved and brought here. I trust you won't mind. I've always found the uncertainty of the future is easier to accept, if we carry the lessons of the past close to our hearts."

Reaching into the envelope, Arani gently pulled out the locket and clutched it to her breast. As she looked up at Mother, tears filled her eyes. It was the first time Arani had cried in many months.

The long and lonely nightmare was over. The healing had begun.

-----

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