The candy shop of souls lured him in first. His nose stung with the fog. He opened the door and went in, staring at the long glass case that was like an aquarium. Here he found the chocolate ingots, the pure mint-striped cylinders, the tarts studded with fruits and berries like a dozen orchards, the vanilla bread-loaves long and slender like suntanned eels, the banana-topped lime hexagons, the chocolate-windowed eclairs domed with cream like Russian Orthodox churches, the round strawberry tortes gilded with lemon-chocolate to make pedestals for the vanilla-chocolate butterflies that rested on each with breathless wings, the sponge-cakes each like an emperor's crown, the complex wicker-basket raspberry pies of woven crust, heaped with boulders of butter and confectioner's sugar, the tins of violet lozenges, the bones and girders made of licorice, the low white disks of sugar-pies topped with fan-swirls of almonds like playing cards, the peach cakes, pear cakes, the row of delectable phosphorescent green slugs, the flowerpot of coffee frosting from which a chocolate rose bloomed, the strawberries that peaked up from unknown tarts and tortes bride-bashful behind ruffled paper—
He sat at a little square marble table, and without a word the lady brought him a green slug, served on a white plate with white lace. He reached in his pocket and found a single coin of iron with a hole in the center. He gave her that. He sat looking past the glass case at the rows of fruit confections in matched white-lidded jars — not for him. With the silver fork he stabbed the slug and raised it into his mouth, where it overcame him between his teeth with a sweet ichor of orgasmic limes, and so he became a thief—
Two green-clad soldiers were striking a man in the face beneath one of the side-arches of the Taj Mahal. The man was not screaming. He was a thief. The soldiers had caught him, and were beating him. All around him, the Mughal tombs bulged with hard nipples on their marble breasts. — The Emperor, he had so many wives, he spend a month's salary on cosmetics! cried the guide. Blood flowered from the thief's nose.
This tower closed now, said the guide. The lovely boys and girls jump off, suicide. For love and love and love. Closed now for security reason. But
The thief fell down when they let go of him. The soldiers stamped on his stomach. Then they raised him again.
Now, sir, lady, come-come. Look! This marble one piece. No two piece. No join. Only cutting!
The thief looked at the guide with big eyes. The soldiers punched him. Then he was not looking at the guide anymore. Sir and lady went away, trying not to hear his groans as the soldiers began to beat him. Sir and lady wore the dead girls' mouths.
Yes, please! Hello! Sir and madam!
(Sir and lady were staring again. They could not help it. The soldiers were kicking out his teeth.)
Water rippled in long grooves of onyx, malachite, coral, but sir and lady did not see it. They did not know that they had once been dead girls. They knew that he knew them in his unspoken beseeching, but that merely echoed as clouds echoed between the lapis-flowered marble screens. Far beyond the screens lay dim white-gray corridors of peace. Darkness, incense and shadows crawled slowly on marble, searching for secret sweet-smelling vaults. These were the tombs of old scores, bad crimes rotting but not yet shriven down to bones.
The soldiers hustled the thief into darkness.
Outside it was a foggy morning. Skinny men rode bicycles, with dishtowels wrapped around their heads. Roadside people squatted by smudges to keep warm. On the dusty road that stank of exhaust, platoons of dirty white cattle were marched and goaded toward Agra. They had sharp backbones and floppy bellies. Sir and lady crossed that living river and stood beside a pole which had once been the tree of their death. In this sacred place they felt compassion for their murderer. If they had been able to remember, they would have forgiven him fully. As it was, their pity made his next incarnation easier.
Postcards, please? Small marble! Elephant two rupees!
Cowtails and buttocks were crowded together long narrow and wobbly like folded drapes. They swished and twitched as if they were alive and knew where they were going, but they didn't; they only followed where they were pulled, like the thief being led into the recesses of that gorgeous tomb.
