The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  How else could he change his shoes at will; or, in the dead of night, gain entry into a bedroom bolted from the inside? What explanation is there for popping up in different parts of the house without moving a step? How could he know the most recent details of people who had lost touch with him years before? Or, for that matter, how could he absorb information, “reading” by holding a closed book in his hands?

  When I turned to Gokul for answers to the constant stream of inexplicable behavior, he avoided eye contact. Gazing at the ball of dough he was kneading in the kitchen, he said with ominous and uncharacteristic fluency:

  “Do not ask these questions … dangerous questions make for dangerous answers.”

  My interest in sleight-of-hand was built upon a foundation of skepticism. But the longer I spent at Alipore, the more unnerved I became at the prospect of bona fide necromancy. For the first time in my life I found myself doubting the foundation of cynicism that had always been my bedrock. On the one occasion that I confronted the Master directly, he exclaimed I was imagining his feats to be occult.

  “True magic”, he contended, was nothing but successful illusion.

  But my thoughts had already begun to churn … Was there such a thing as legitimate witchcraft? If there was, could Feroze be a real sorcerer, capable of genuine magic? Whereas godmen claim their conjury is “real magic”, was Feroze maintaining the opposite – that his real magic was an illusion?

  As time passed, I found myself scrutinizing Feroze as closely as he was observing me. Like a pair of goldfish in bowls, placed opposite each other, we watched and watched … desperately hoping to catch the other out. I yearned to witness Feroze perform a feat of real magic. And he longed to discover gaps in my studies – which were to him a carte blanche to inflict chastisement.

  * * * *

  The low point of each day was the ritual of examination. With no advanced warning, I would be commanded to enter “examination stance”. The posture, which must have been borrowed from an elaborate Masonic ritual, was truly bizarre. Feroze insisted that the pose helped one concentrate. By this, I think he meant it helped him concentrate. I would position two chairs two feet apart in the center of the study. An indigo-colored velvet blindfold would be passed to me. Fastening it tightly about my eyes, as if readying myself for a firing squad, I would ascend. When in place, with my left foot on one chair, and my right on the other, the unrelenting inquisition would begin.

  The exam took the form of five random questions. Any mistakes and I was expected to endure a further five questions. Feroze delighted in the fact that I had never managed to answer all five correctly. The examinations provided him with hours of entertainment.

  A last-minute check that the blindfold was tight, and the test would begin:

  “Tell me, what’s Coulomb’s Law?”

  “It’s the fundamental law …” I would murmur uneasily.

  “Louder! Louder! I can’t hear you, boy!”

  “It’s the fundamental law which states that the electric force of attraction or repulsion between two point charges is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.”

  In any other examination one might have expected applause. But Feroze was not concerned with what I knew – he was searching for pockets of ignorance.

  “Next question … What is the Joosten Process?”

  “Um, er,” I would stutter. “But I studied that ages ago.”

  “Again: what is the Joosten Process?”

  “The Joosten Process is …” I would hold my head in my hands, taking care to keep balance astride the two chairs. “It’s the use of a chemical reaction between solutions of calcium chloride and sodium silicate to consolidate running soils or gravels when tunneling.”

  “Third question … on the Mahabharata …”

  An excruciating pain shot down my right side as I heard the title of the Indian epic. The tale, consisting of 220,000 lines, was a subject which obsessed the magician. Claiming to have committed most of the incredible narrative to memory, he said it was fine preparation for any student. Without doubt the greatest narrative poem ever recorded, it’s a feat to understand the convoluted plot of the Mahabharata, let alone to remember it.

  “To start with,” he crowed, “tell me what happened after Dhritirastra captured the Kuru throne?”

  “Well, as Dhritirastra was blind, his brother – Pandu – assumed the responsibility of governing. But a curse led his brother to relinquish his position. Dhritirastra took control again, as Pandu went off with his two wives to live a life as a hermit in the Himalayas. Now, Pandu’s five sons …”

  “Enough! Tell me who wrote the poem.”

  “No one knows for sure,” I replied, “but legend has it that the complete tale was dictated by Vyasa to Ganesha, the elephant god. Supposedly, Ganesha agreed only to undertake the job on the grounds that Vyasa didn’t stop for even a single break. The pace was furious, with Ganesha struggling to keep up. At one point he broke off a tusk to use as a pen after his stylus seized up.”

  “All right!” barked Feroze. “Enough of that. Tell me, what is occipitalla?”

  The sudden switch from Hindu mythology to cranial osteology was not an easy change to make.

  “It’s the set of cartilage bones forming the posterior part of the brain casing in the vertebrate skull.”

  “Last question … a bonus one. Tell me, what is …” The Master would rub his fingertips together as if counting a bundle of banknotes. “What’s the chemical formula for monosodium glutamate?”

  “Impossible!” I would exclaim. “No one could remember that formula.”

  Feroze would smile wryly.

  “You know the rule,” he would say. “Tell it to me loud and clear!”

  Like a law of physics, I would run it off: “Any error on the part of the student, however insignificant, permits the tutor to extend his examination with a further five questions.”

  “Quite so!” the Master would shout. “Now, give me a minute while I think of some more.”

  Feroze’s strict emphasis on subjects entirely unrelated to conjury became a bone of contention between us. The courtyard exercises, even the obscure mathematical formulas, may have had some bearing on the core subject. But surely, I pondered, before turning over to sleep, surely there was no need to study areas as esoteric as barbed-wire collecting and bagpipe infections.

  Since I had come in from the cold of the cemetery, sleep had begun to elude me. Each night it seemed to take longer to drift off. My thoughts bounded from one recently studied subject to the next, as I struggled to get comfortable on the floor. First, it was the theory of quantum mechanics. Next, Russian espionage terms; followed by Indian cookery. After that came the ubiquitous heroes of the Mahabharata. As if highlighted by eerie cosmic search-lights, the stage of my subconscious mind ran wild. Krishna slipped a secret KGB code to a quantum physicist, while cooking up a dish of murgh mussallam.

  As I thrashed about to rid myself of the vision, there came a scratch at the door. I sat bolt upright. The scraping came again. High-pitched and unwelcome, like a baby’s scream at dawn, it was repeated for a third time. As usual, the door was bolted from inside. There was no way he could get in. But as usual, he was already inside the bedroom. Sensing my insomnia, Feroze had arrived to offer his most effective soporific: an impromptu examination.

  * * * *

  Obsessive-compulsives often suffer from deeply entrenched fears. If you’re obsessive, there’s nothing quite so satisfying as being obsessive about a phobia. For years I’ve been keeping notes on phobics and obsessives. My note-taking is, in itself, bordering on the obsessive. Casting an eye through my notebooks, the correlation between obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobias becomes obvious. I’ve noticed that, the more extreme the obsessive, the more ludicrous the phobia. A friend of mine, who’s extremely obsessive, has pognophobia, a fear of facial hair. Show her a man with a mustache and she flips out.

/>   With the Master’s disorder so pronounced, I felt certain that in the darkest reaches of his mind there was a choice, ripe phobia waiting to be exploited. It was just a matter of isolating this Achilles’ heel.

  Nothing is so enjoyable as poking about someone else’s belongings. Abandoned by the magician, who had gone to meet his old friend Rublu, I laid down the treatise on phonetics, slipped into the study, and pressed the door firmly shut. Then, closing the blinds, I got down to business. Just a little poke about, a riffle through Feroze’s stuff … in search of his Achilles’ heel.

  Although confined, the room was a cloister dedicated to illusion and the unusual. For the Master, the magical arts could only be conquered by his true infatuation – polymathic study. His office was testament to this curious fixation. Its walls were lined with lacquered oak bookcases, their numbered volumes arranged by subject. The shelves pointed to a man with a staggering range of interests. The titles included gems like: Selected Cuisine of Papua New Guinea; Advanced Volcanology; Cannibalism: A Question of Morality; and Elementary Techniques of Cosmetic Surgery.

  The space between the bookshelves was a mosaic of medals, framed diplomas, photographs and awards. At the center of the arrangement, in a deep glass frame, was a golden twelve-pointed star, mounted on pink silk – a breast badge of the Sudanese Order of Distinction. Beside that, in another display frame, was hung an enameled neck badge, suspended on tricolor silk – the Order of the Niger, Third Class. Under it, between a Fijian military medal and the Gallantry Cross of Malawi, shone a silver and gold medallion, The Star of the Solomon Islands. Below the medals was a simple framed letter of thanks from Juan Perón of Argentina. Beside it hung a diploma from the Ecole Le Cordon Bleu de Paris. Lower down, below a pair of inscribed ceremonial jambiyas, curved Arabian daggers, was a studio photograph of an elderly black man with a trumpet at his lips. The picture was inscribed with the words “To my dear friend Feroze, all the best, Louis.”

  A glass-fronted cabinet, tucked away behind the chesterfield sofa, provided yet more clues to the Master’s varied past. More than a dozen assorted silver trophies recorded his excellence in sports as eclectic as archery, rowing and epee. Beside the cabinet, a mahogany Prescot long case clock recorded Feroze’s obsession with time.

  The drawers of the walnut writing bureau contained correspondence with well known writers, politicians and scientists. I scanned several of the letters. Most seemed to be thanking the Master for his judicious advice.

  My being taken on as a student of such an unlikely man was astounding. Feroze was renowned as a magician, but his skills extended far beyond the realm of illusion. He was a polymath of prodigious scope. His skills, it seemed, were unlimited. Cordon Bleu chef, expert cartographer, linguist and scientist; authority on encryption and theoretical physics; arbiter on the stage of international relations; accomplished musician; connoisseur of ballet, opera and cinema; aficionado of philately – this was a man of unrestrained capacity. He was many things to many people. To me he was a slave-driver thirsting for blood. But, I counseled myself to remember, beyond that, he was my teacher.

  Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order.

  After an hour of rummaging around, I gave up. Not a hint of a phobia anywhere. Then I had an idea. If Feroze had an Achilles’ heel, there was one man who would be sure to know it – Gokul.

  I hurried out to the kitchen. The frail manservant was chopping up vegetables.

  “Gokul, I’ve been playing a hilarious game!”

  The servant looked up and grinned.

  “What game?”

  “Well, you have to reveal what makes you more frightened than anything else. For example, I detest cockroaches … can’t stand them for a second.”

  “Oh, and I hate a snake,” beamed Gokul, surrendering his own phobia.

  “What about the Master?” I laughed. “What is it that he can’t stand?”

  Stabbing the chopping knife into the board, Gokul stared at me coldly, his features locked in a fearful expression.

  “There is something the Master not liking,” he said.

  I leant forward, pretending to smile.

  “Tell me what it is and we can carry on with the game!”

  The sides of the servant’s mouth turned downwards.

  “Can’t tell you.”

  “C'mon, it’s only a game.”

  After ten minutes of cajoling, Gokul agreed to divulge what he knew. He made clear he was only doing so in the spirit of sportsmanship. Bowing close to me, he whispered:

  “Rubber bands. The Master hates rubber bands very very very much.”

  Anyone who had not spent years jotting down people’s obsessions and phobias might have been surprised by Gokul’s information. However, I had heard of the rubber band phobia before. A friend once told me of how, as a child, she was introduced to the late financier Sir James Goldsmith. All was going well. Then, lapsing from her best behavior, my friend flicked an elastic band across the room. It landed at Sir James’ feet. The billionaire, so the story goes, became deeply disturbed.

  Thanking Gokul for playing the game so well, I hurried back to the study. I searched the shelves, the desk, its drawers, the table-tops and windowsill. Not a single rubber band to be found. My face distorting maliciously, I returned to the sitting-room and to my studies. Nothing to fear now … I had Feroze by his Achilles’ heel.

  * * * *

  The pressures resulting from the Master’s reign spiraled out of control. A mysterious and virulent rash developed on my left shoulder. Within three days it had spread down to my elbow. When I exhibited it to the teacher, he explained it was dhobi’s itch – an unpleasant eruption of the skin, more commonly found on the inner thighs. In exceptional conditions it had been known to travel. Feroze instructed me to wash the area morning and night in potassium permanganate solution. A few days later it disappeared.

  When I was cured, the Master made an announcement. It was almost time to move on to the next stage – to the actual study of illusion. The proclamation seemed long overdue.

  “When will we be starting the new phase?”

  “When you have passed the final exam!”

  Although held in the customary “examination stance”, the final test would take a new form. Instead of fielding a series of specific questions, I would speak on a single subject of my own choice. If my deliberation was unsatisfactory, I would have to retake the complete segment of study. By “unsatisfactory”, the Master meant a single slip or inaccuracy. The test was scheduled for five minutes past five the next morning.

  The thought of reliving the rigors of the previous three weeks was enough to turn anyone’s blood cold. Before retiring to bed that night, I mugged up the most esoteric topic I could think of. Feroze craved the extraordinary … I would give him the cutting-edge in outlandishness. My head was heavy on the pillow that night; my eyes bloodshot and circled by brick-red rings. The next morning would prove my worth.

  The aggravated levels of stress revealed themselves before the night was through. Gokul found me crouching beneath the courtyard’s mango tree just after two a.m. Inspired by a mysterious dream, I had sleepwalked out of the mansion and into the yard. The tree had been calling to me. It told me to climb up into its branches, saying it would hide me from the tyrannical Master. It had once been a pupil, too, but having failed the final exam, the sorcerer had transformed him into a mango tree. “There’s one hope of escaping and dissolving the spell,” the tree called out in my dream. “Find a rubber band!”

  Taking the fingers of my hand in his as softly as one would a butterfly; Gokul led me back to bed.

  Three hours later, I was blindfolded and straddling a pair of cabriole chairs in Feroze’s study.

  “Had a nice somnambulation?” he asked, rolling the syllables like marbles around his mouth.

  “It’s the pressure,” I gasped. “It was beginning to get to me.”

  “Are you ready for y
our little test?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your chosen subject?”

  “I’ve selected the strange case of the Man in the Iron Mask.”

  Feroze raised his left eyebrow.

  “Dumas?”

  “No, the other one.”

  “What other one?”

  “Harry Bensley … the lesser-known Man in the Iron Mask.”

  “All right!” blustered Feroze, placing his pocket-watch on the desk. “You have four minutes to speak about your Man in the Iron Mask, starting … now!”

  “In 1907,” I said, loosening the velvet blindfold, “Lord Lonsdale and John Pierpont Morgan were relaxing after a heavy lunch at their club. The two millionaires discussed matters of national importance before turning their attentions to more trivial concerns – namely, whether a man could walk around the world without showing his face. American financier J.P. Morgan felt sure it was impossible. His associate, sporting peer Lord Lonsdale, was certain it could be done. Without further ado, each placed a bet of $100,000 backing their claim. Now the millionaires needed someone foolish enough to undertake the assignment. Fortunately for them, a young man named Harry Bensley was also present in the smoking-room.

  “A playboy by profession, and aged thirty-one, Bensley jumped at the chance. Investments in Russia provided him with a substantial income, permitting him to enjoy a life of leisure. Tired of the tedium of the club, he volunteered his services.

  “Lonsdale and Morgan drew up an agenda of strict rules: Bensley would wear an iron mask at all times. He would push a pram on his journey around the world, and would set off with only one pound in his pocket. No luggage was permitted, except for a single change of underwear. Bensley would have to pass through a specified number of towns in Britain, then at least 125 cities in eighteen or more countries. Other stipulations were that he was required to find a wife on his journey, who would agree to marry him without seeing his face. The trip would be financed by Bensley himself, by selling postcards from the pram. An escort was employed by the two millionaires to ensure that the strict rules were not infringed.