Casual Shorts: John Keefauver, Kali

Keefauver, John. "Kali." The Fifth Pan Book of Horror Stories, edited by Herbert van Thal. London: Pan Books, 1964.

______. Oriental Tales of Terror, edited by J. J. Strating. London: Fontana, 1971.

______. Research Into Marginal Living: The Selected Stories of John D. Keefauver, edited by Scott Nicolay. Lethe Press, 2021.

Rating:     7/10

This review of "Kali" appears as part of my serial review of John Keefauver's first collection, Research Into Marginal Living.

An American high school teacher visiting Calcutta (now Kolkata), is sidetracked in front of the tourist office by a beautiful local woman. Our narrator is aware that this beautiful Indian woman is obviously not an official tour guide, but quickly he falls for her and allows her to lead him like sheep to see the sites of the city. The woman in turn is obsessed with the goddess Kali, and has taken on the goddess's name. Her personalized tour leads our narrator to a statue of the many-armed Kali, and, as promised, to witness the sacrificing of a lamb. This last experience traumatizes the American, and he returns home quite disturbed.

On the surface, "Kali" is a fairly standard story, one that was likely aimed directly at the Pan Book of Horror Stories series, as it features so many of the series elements. As he did with his homages "The Daring Old Maid on the Flying Trapeze" and "Oh Well What the Hell," Keefauver proves himself to be a master emulator, delivering a story perfectly geared for its intended target. The story contains several standard tropes, and it is evident Keefauver is aware of these tropes as he toys with them. There is a beautiful, foreign woman who everyone appears to fear but with whom the protagonist becomes obsessed. We are to expect that this woman is involved in black magic, or some form of mystical art, but it turns out she is simply mad, leading her to seduce gullible American tourists to feed her fantasy of being Kali.

Below the surface, however, there is an intriguing study of the dark obsessiveness of the narrator, rather than the straightforward, campy obsessiveness of the exotic woman. Early in the narrative, the teacher mentions he is curious about goat sacrifices, and while in Calcutta hopes to see one. Meeting the unregistered tour guide only serves to elevate this desire that he has long been harbouring. We can speculate that it is not the woman to whom he feels drawn, but rather toward the hopes of witnessing the sacrifice. And as expected in such a story, the protagonist gets more than what he hoped. But what is different here is that the narrator is not a victim and the woman not an actual witchy predator, as these women at the time were often presented. The woman is not at fault in driving him to his bloody, obsessive behaviour once he is again on American soil. The seed was already in him, as made clear in the beginning, and the woman is merely a trigger. Had it not been she, he would have been led by someone else to a sacrifice that would in turn have led him to committing his bloody acts. The woman certainly noticed the depraved desire in this man, and latched onto it, but not in the hopes of corrupting him, but simply in order to share her own depraved desires with an equal. Sure she drugs him, but he is an east target, allowing himself to be drugged, and once the deed is done, she simply allows him to leave, meaning no harm. It can also be argued that some other life event could have woken his killing nature, and he was actively in search to allow the nature to be released. Hence a vacation by himself in Calcutta, not the safest of cities for an outsider.

In brief, the woman is not the horrible seducer we expect in these tales, but the narrator is a man seeking to release his dark self. Likening him to the goat, as he is easily led by others, his unrelenting desire to sacrifice goats at the end of this experience can be likened to a sacrificing of his self, an act of self-hatred and not merely a bloodlust.

While "Kali" has some interesting points, and clearly offers food for thought, it is not among Keefauver's strongest stories. It is, however, well written, as his descriptions of the guide, the delivery of the narrator's voice, and the overall pacing of the story, are all quite strong. His stories aimed at the Pan series, emulating the Pan style, show his strengths at adhering to convention, and also at generating suspense and guiding his readers as well as Kali guides her tourists. They do not compare to the stories that would later become his own unique staple, but for what are, these stories are elevated by Keefauver's skill.