The Grand Tour: Four International Mysteries

by Michaela Thompson

  Marina rested her arms on her knees, bent, and buried her head in them. For a long time, she didn’t think at all.

  When she raised her head, she knew she was going back to India.

  16

  A flight attendant in a flowered sari held out a plastic tray, offering wrapped candies scattered around a bowl of anise seeds. Marina shook her head. The plane was full, and around her people were settling into their seats— black-haired women wearing sweaters over saris, post-hippie hippies with long hair and embroidered shirts, an old man in a white cotton coat and a Gandhi cap, Western tourists with cameras, Sikhs in turbans, their beards bound in nets. The fretting of babies counterpointed the pre-takeoff babble.

  She closed her eyes. She hadn’t realized it would be this bad. From the time of her decision until now, she had functioned with all the confidence that had deserted her in the previous days. She had been firm, implacable. Now chills racked her, and she pulled the thin airline blanket around her chin and tried to push herself deeper into her seat.

  She had been prepared for argument from Sandy, but he had seemed almost relieved to let her go. He had made the objection she expected— that it was a wild-goose chase— but without vigor. Of the letters and phone call he had said, “You know this is some nut who read about you in the papers over there and remembers you were involved in the Palika Road incident.”

  “Some nut who knows the games I used to play with my sister.”

  “Oh, come on. Maybe it’s somebody who knew your sister.”

  “Maybe it’s my sister.” When she said the words she was embarrassed, as if she’d involuntarily screamed an obscenity.

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t go too far with that one.” After a moment he punched a button on his intercom. “Hey, Don. Marina’s going to be taking some vacation time, effective immediately. She’ll come out and tell you so you can revise the schedule.” He looked at her. “OK?”

  “One more thing. Would you tell Eric Sondergard?”

  His expression altered slightly, and she wondered whether he and Sondergard had talked about her, maybe laughed about her. He nodded. “I’ll smooth it over. Say it’s a family emergency or something,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I won’t tell Bobo, though. That one’s your baby.”

  In fact, Bobo hadn’t seemed to care. She had found him in his solarium, smoking a cigar and clipping an article out of The Wall Street Journal. He looked healthier and more tuned in than she’d ever seen him, and she realized that the shock of the Loopy Doop collapse must be wearing off. His manner was brusque, with a touch of the antagonism that had puzzled her before.

  “Whatever’s right,” he said when she told him, turning his cigar between knobby fingers and thumb.

  “I’m sure the investigation will be in good hands.”

  “Yeah. Lots of fine people over at your place, I expect.”

  Feeling once again rebuffed and confused, she had said goodbye and left him in his cloud of smoke, reaching for the telephone.

  So here she was, shuffled out the door by her boss and her champion, having made a mess of and then deserted her big case, going back to a place she’d never wanted to see again to look for a dead woman.

  She opened her eyes. The announcement about fastening seat belts had started. As she pulled hers tighter, her toe touched her khaki-colored canvas shoulder bag, stowed under the seat in front of her. Without knowing quite why, she had outfitted herself with something almost like a Breakdown “doctor bag.” In its zippered compartments were a tape measure, dial calipers, screwdriver, fountain-pen sized flashlight, tweezers, Swiss Army knife, and the pocket-sized camera she liked. Putting the kit together had made her feel that what she was doing might be rational.

  Which it wasn’t, as every nerve in her body was telling her. The plane began to accelerate. She wished desperately, feverishly, with all her strength that she could get out, go back. Then she grasped the arms of her seat hard as the plane rose.

  17

  As the plane droned through the hours from San Francisco to New York, New York to London, Marina dozed and woke, gazed blearily at the screen where movies ran soundlessly, ate and drank at times that had no relationship to her body’s messages.

  She thought about Loopy Doop. Her mind, perversely, didn’t want to let it go. Steel gondolas and aluminum gondolas. Sixty-five Rockwell B and thirty-five Rockwell C. Gonzales Manufacturing and Singapore Metal Works. The little quad case, Tommy or Ronnie.

  Think about something else, for God’s sake. A picture of Patrick came into her mind. She had not let Patrick know she was going to India. What would he have said? She knew, suddenly and forcibly, that he would have told her to go. He would have said she needed to go. Marina blinked, and remembered Patrick and his new love, Nancy. She saw Patrick caressing Nancy, his hands light and tender and warm, his breath blowing the hair next to Nancy’s ear as he whispered to her. Marina didn’t know what color Nancy’s hair was. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep again.

  When the plane took off from London for Bombay, she was fully awake, with a film of sweat on her body that came not from heat but from fear. She remembered the other time she’d made this trip. Then, she had been rigid with determination, coming to get her sister and take her home. She had seen Nagarajan in person by that time, and knew what she was up against.

  ***

  Catherine had been simmering with excitement for weeks before Nagarajan’s visit to San Francisco. She began wearing a sari. She stood on street corners, the bright silk streaming in the wind, handing out leaflets announcing his appearance.

  “Aren’t you cold?” Marina asked one morning as Catherine was leaving the house with her stack of flyers. Catherine, who by that time seemed to regard anything Marina said as a criticism, didn’t reply. Marina stretched out her hand. “Can I see one of those?” Catherine handed one over and left. In the brief moment when the flyer changed hands, Marina saw goose pimples on Catherine’s arm.

  She studied the leaflet. There was a picture on it, a black-and-white version of the one in Catherine’s room, and the words, “SRI NAGARAJAN WILL VISIT US! The master of the wisdom of the cobra shares his knowledge at Bay Area appearances.” There was a list of dates and times. Marina decided to go see him.

  On the evening she chose, she waited outside the auditorium, hoping to slip in without Catherine’s noticing her. As she paced nervously, a voice spoke from the shadows at the side of the building. “You wonder whether to see me, is it?” the voice said. The voice had a musical lilt and the suggestion of a British accent. “Is it?” the voice persisted, and when she realized it was addressing her, she saw him.

  He stood half-hidden in a dim angle of the building. He was alone, and his face seemed to float disembodied between the dark robe he was wearing and his mass of black hair. He laughed, and she saw his eyes glimmer as they caught the light when he tilted his head. “Come here,” he said.

  As she approached, he placed his palms together and bent his head over them. “Namaste, I greet you,” he said. She could not guess his age. In the indirect light his face looked completely unlined. The one thing that was different from the retouched photograph was a mottled, puckered scar, a bit larger than a quarter, on his neck near his collarbone.

  “Before I speak, I always stand out on my own to watch,” he said. “I see the people who rush in, eager for what I may offer. Their faces cast a pale light— the light of need. Other faces cast other lights. Often I see the wavering light of fear. On yours”— he peered at her—”on yours, I think I see the harsh light of doubt.” His smile broadened. “Am I correct?”

  “You’re correct.”

  He clapped his hands, seeming delighted. “You see, I read these faces very well. I must read them to see what they are bringing me. Then I will know what to return to them.”

  Marina tried to marshal her thoughts. Could she ask him about Catherine, get him to loosen his hold? “My sister—” she began.

/>   He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “People bring me what they are looking for, and what they find in me is what they have brought. That is a paradox, do you think? But true all the same.”

  “Why do people— my sister— give themselves up—”

  “It is what I have said. They come to fill their lack with me. They find in me what they already have, yet it seems to come from me.” He laughed again. “It amuses me very much.”

  “For them it’s serious.”

  “To be serious is their need. Am I myself serious? That is another question.”

  “You mean this is all a sham? A trick?”

  He shook his head vigorously. A faint, pleasant, spicy smell wafted to her. “Dear lady, you have not understood. I am Nagarajan, the king of the cobras, the dweller in the deep well, the keeper of the great treasure.”

  “You just said—”

  “I said perhaps I am not serious. But I am Nagarajan.” He cocked his head to one side. “It puzzles you? You will come, you will understand.” He put his palms together and bowed again, then turned and walked swiftly away from her and disappeared through a door in the side of the building.

  What had she expected? Marina wondered as she watched him go. A fanatic, harsh and humorless. Not that trace of mockery, that undeniable attractiveness.

  She stood in the back of the auditorium. It was not full. The Bay Area had had quite a dose of the wisdom of the East already, and Nagarajan was an unknown newcomer. In front of the curtain, softly lit, was a low divan-like structure furnished with pillows, a gold-painted cobra umbrella fanning out above it. In front of the divan was a microphone. Indian music, complex and sinuous, played softly.

  An American wearing white trousers and a knee-length shirt with loose sleeves came out and began to lead the crowd in a singsong chant: Guru Nagarajan, Parama Sukhadam. Guru Nagarajan, Chrana Shranam.

  The crowd had begun tremulously, but the sound grew in volume and confidence as more voices joined in. Marina could still reproduce the chant in her head without even stopping to think about it. Guru Nagarajan, Eternal giver of happiness. Guru Nagarajan, We take refuge at his feet. The auditorium resounded, vibrated. At the height of it, the light that had been trained on the divan went out and, when it came back up, brighter and whiter than it had been, Nagarajan was seated underneath the cobra umbrella. There was a collective catching of breath, and Marina felt her own throat open and close. Then the audience broke into wave after wave of applause.

  Marina remembered little of what Nagarajan had said that evening. The message was not in the words, but in the modulations, the gestures, the projection of wisdom accompanied by an undercurrent suggesting strange and infinite possibilities.

  “You tell me the world is full of pain,” Nagarajan said, “and I tell you pain is a veil. Suffering is a veil. We must pierce it, we must pass through it, we must leave it. We feel that we carry burdens, without knowing that our burdens are ourselves. What we carry is not separate from us, but we are our own burdens. We must leave ourselves behind.” Although he did not use his smooth, distinct voice theatrically, it seemed to tremble with harnessed power. Marina kept reminding herself that what he was saying was standard mystical fare, yet she felt intently focused on every word.

  When he finished, the applause was frenzied. Marina was exhausted. A white-haired woman near her was weeping silently. Nagarajan continued to sit beneath the cobra umbrella, and the crowd moved down the aisles toward him.

  From her place in the back she could see Catherine, in her sari, hovering near him with a little knot of other Westerners in Indian clothing. She was too far away for Marina to see her face clearly, but Marina could guess that it was alive with joy. She turned and left the auditorium.

  Marina was not surprised when, a few days later, Catherine told her she wanted to return to India with Nagarajan.

  “Absolutely not. Not until you finish school.”

  Catherine twisted an end of her sari around her finger. “You don’t understand.”

  “I do. I went to one of his talks.”

  Catherine’s eyes widened. “You did? Then you can see—”

  “I can see that he’s extremely good at manipulating crowds. I can’t see that you should go to India with him.”

  “He’s starting an ashram near Bombay. I’d be in at the beginning.”

  “What’s he using to finance this ashram? Don’t tell me. Contributions from his disciples.”

  “What if he is?”

  “We have enough money for you to finish college. We can’t use it to finance somebody’s ashram.”

  “I don’t care about college.”

  “Catherine, no is no.”

  So, as Marina supposed she had known she would, Catherine took the money and left anyway. And Marina, full of rage at being deserted and fear of Nagarajan and his power, went after her.

  Then, she had been full of conviction. Now, she was convinced of nothing. The request to buckle seat belts came over the loudspeaker. She brought the back of her seat upright and prepared for landing.

  India

  18

  Marina descended the steps of the airplane into the heat of the Bombay night. She waited on the tarmac with the other passengers for the bus to the terminal, wondering how she could ever have forgotten what the air was like: the omnipresent faint smell of spices, smoke from outdoor cooking fires, the suggestion of salt water. Her jacket, which had been inadequate against San Francisco’s foggy chill, was too heavy now. She took it off and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. The dingy hall where she had her passport stamped, cleared customs, and changed money was filled with chatter and confusion. She moved from place to place in a daze of weariness, shoving forward whatever document was required. Finally, her suitcase reclaimed, she straggled with her fellow passengers through glass doors into a maelstrom of dark, eager, searching faces and outstretched hands. “Baksheesh, madam. No mama, no papa, no money.” “Postcard, madam? Look. Very beautiful.” “Madam, you have hotel? You want good hotel? I take you, madam?”

  She had made no arrangements, but had never doubted where she would stay. “Yes, yes, I have a hotel.” She gave her suitcase to one of the several porters vying for her attention. “Taxi.”

  He moved off at a jog trot, and Marina hurried after him to a line of taxis, yellow with black tops, and smaller, open-sided minicabs with fringed roofs. She paid the porter, and when the turbaned, beak-nosed driver turned to her she said, “Hotel Rama.”

  Obviously, she must stay at the Rama, the hotel where Catherine had stayed, the hotel the phone call came from. The cab careened through the night, passing minicabs, people on bicycles, decorated trucks, bullock carts. As they neared the city, the roadside was built up with lean-tos of canvas or woven screens housing families of squatters. Shadowy figures crouched near small fires.

  Soon, the sea smell was stronger, mixed with a hint of sewage. Huge billboards advertising films loomed over the streets. They passed Haji Ali’s mosque, which in the dark seemed to float on the ocean like a minareted boat. When the car stopped at a traffic light a leprous child pressed his face to Marina’s window, holding up stump-fingered hands: “No mama, no papa—” The driver spoke sharply, and the child drifted back into the night as the light changed.

  Now they were passing Chowpatty Beach, its orange-gold sand and the trees growing out of it luridly illuminated by electric bulbs strung overhead, its bhel puri stalls as busy as if it were noon. When they reached Marine Drive, with its curving line of posh hotels, towers of glass overlooking the seawall, the driver turned inland into a warren of streets and she lost all clue to where she was.

  They wound slowly down a narrow, badly illuminated street. In open-fronted shops men smoked cigarettes and talked. Next to a food stand with sweetmeats piled in conical mounds a vendor squatted on the sidewalk with his tray of beedis, loose cigarettes. The driver stopped in front of a building with latticed porches on the upper floors. An electric bulb illuminated a signboard
on which was painted “Hotel Rama.” Beneath the sign, the front door stood open. Along with the faint light that shone from it came the piercing voice of a woman singing what might have been a highly charged lament. Marina paid the driver and carried her suitcase inside.

  The sound was even louder in the lobby, which was furnished only with a worn-looking blue sofa and a straight-backed chair sprung in the seat. A poster advertising Elephanta Island and its cave temple curled from the wall. A brown plastic radio, the source of the singing, sat on the check-in desk. Behind the desk leaned a sleepy-looking young man wearing a short-sleeved polyester shirt printed with a colorful design. Marina immediately noticed the antiquated-looking telephone switchboard. That was where the call had come from.

  She approached the desk. “I’d like a room.”

  The man yawned and turned the radio down a fraction. “You have reservation?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He leafed slowly through the yellowing pages of the registration book. “You wish to stay how long?”

  “I’m not sure. Several days, probably.”

  He sucked his breath in through his teeth, still turning pages. Marina leaned wearily against the desk. She had no doubt there was a room, and also no doubt that he must finish his routine before he gave it to her. “Let me see, let me see.” He ran a finger down a page. “Yes. Number eleven is free.”

  She signed the register, the wail of the radio cutting into her brain. She thought vaguely that she might start her inquiries now, but dismissed the idea. The desk clerk hit a bell, and a bent old man emerged from somewhere and picked up her suitcase. She followed him up a flight of creaking stairs and down a gloomy hall that smelled of dust with a strong overlay of insecticide. The sound of the radio had receded only slightly by the time they reached the door marked eleven.