Our eyes met, and we laughed, and she asked my name, but it was as if she already knew.
The next day we shared chili rellenos in a restaurant on Telegraph Avenue, and the second half of that day was spent in a library together. We were grad students after all. But it was like we were simply re-acquainting after a time apart. By the week’s end we were rolling naked in a bed too small, in an apartment with one closet. We kissed chow mien from each other’s lips, memorized lines from old movies, and body-surfed in cool waves. It became a single year of bliss.
For three hundred and seventy days Lilia and I were a union, studied together, and spoke the language of academicians and lovers. The future was ours, I ready to discover the roots of great poetry, she the roots of healing plants. Then the bubble, in a few short seconds, took it all. And those horrible seconds replayed far too often in my nightmares.
I spread Lilia’s ashes in our favorite swimming cove the day we were to be married, and in the months that followed, friends came to me the way the doctors had, comforting me with selected words, telling me to keep her face in my memory. They wrapped consoling arms about my shoulders and said in sad intonation, ‘celebrate your time together, Marty. Take the joy you shared and never forget how wonderful it was.’ Fuck them. Fuck them! They didn’t feel the blade that sliced into me when I saw the curve of her shoulders and hair. They didn’t feel the ripping of arteries when I gazed into the eyes that no longer looked back. No, I wouldn’t celebrate those memories. I couldn’t, because every time I did it felt like my flesh was on fire and my soul was being charred.
So, I took the union of a thousand lifetimes and hid it. I took her face, her smell, her touch, every piece of her, and set it in a box and cast it into the closet of my past life. And I left. Some might even say I fled.
I looked at the fan again and drew a breath. I was in back in Varanasi and Lilia’s face had receded once more. Sahr’s coffee was calling me to splash it with milk and sip it in my wobbly chair. Read the local news. Ease into the day. There were the cave photographs to be loaded into the computer, linguistic mysteries to be solved.
“Good morning, Sahr.” I entered the kitchen sheepishly, having been too exhausted the previous evening to eat much. I'd snacked only on a few fritters and gone straight to bed instead of sitting down to the meal she had prepared for me.
“Good morning, Master Bhimaji. How is the famous explorer of caves doing this fine day?” I glanced at her frown. Behind it was the faintest hint of a grin, and behind that the same worried look as the day before. The fear that my journey was going to cause some great physical harm to me, if not induce worldwide calamity, still hovered.
“I am doing quite well this morning, as you can see. I thought it might be good to eat a few of those delicious puris you prepared last night, and some pakoras too. No American toast for me today.” Good way to start the conversation.
“As you wish, Sahib. I will heat them for you. The puris will likely be flat and oily since they have gone uneaten for ten hours, but the pakoras will be nearly as good as they would have been last night.” I didn’t miss the ‘nearly’ part. I was receiving Sahr’s version of a slap on the wrist. I also noted her use of the title ‘Sahib,’ her verbal version of a frown.
I ladled out a healthy portion of compliments as I ate breakfast, and as Sahr was clearing the plate I had nearly licked clean, added one more, “You could have cooked for Radha and Krishna, Sahr. No one on the planet makes pakoras as good as yours. They are fit for the gods.”
“Bhimaji is either joking with me or he wants something.”
“No, it’s true, they are the best, but I actually do need something of you.”
“Ah, I knew it. I can read you better than my deva cards.”
“Not a doubt in my mind, but I do have a request, small but important.”
She waited, expecting me to add some task to her daily chores, which wouldn’t have irked her in the least. She looked a tad disappointed when I said, “It’s important that you tell no one that Devamukti and I traveled outside the city yesterday. No mention of caves, photographs, or a journey, nothing at all. Okay?”
In addition to all the other things Sahr did well, she understood when I was serious about a request, and unlike Lalji, I could depend upon her prudence. He was my weak link, and she--by the nature of her consultations--was quite discreet.
“As Bhimaji wishes,” She looked at me as if the specters of ill fortune were still floating around my head. “and I will not ask the reason for this secrecy, though I am certain that it has something to do with the danger that Durgabal and my cards predicted.”
“We are not in any danger, Sahr. It is just important no one hear that Master and I went to this place. You know how people talk about us ferenghis and what we do.”
She smiled for the first time that morning. “Yes, Bhimaji. Bahut, bahut gupchup in this city.”
“Well, let’s make sure there isn’t any gupchup about my journey.” I tried to look as authoritative as possible. “And if you will be so kind as to remind Lalji of this. A firm reminder?”
“It will be my pleasure. And what would the rajah of the house wish for dinner tonight? That is assuming he will be here for dinner.”
“I will definitely be here, Most Glorious One, and I will dine on your best selections. You prepare whatever delights come to mind and I will be here. How’s that for an answer?”
She grinned. “That is a good answer, Master Bhim.” She turned to the pantry, while I went to the salon to read the newspaper and load the photographs from the camera into the laptop.
The local news wasn’t good. Followers of Yakoob Qereshy had decided a protest march wasn’t a clear enough signal to send to the authorities for detaining Muslims. A police station in Jaunpur, between Lucknow and Varanasi, had been attacked and torched overnight. No one was injured, but the message of anger had been sent.
I looked out the window. Still no sign of rain.
Ten
There were two reasons I was certain no thief would attempt to steal the bicycle I left unlocked on the right side of my villa. It was so old and looked so unsafe as to be un-rideable even by Asian standards. It also had a frame with seat raised so high any thief would have toppled headlong into the first tree along the escape route. She was unsightly, shimmied unmercifully on hard right turns, and she was mine. I knew every nuance of her maneuverability, and after hours of careful consideration I’d dubbed her Ugly Bike. On better days, Miss Ugly. I loved every square centimeter of her disfigured surface. Five days a week I would swing a leg over the saddle and pump her mud-caked pedals like a log-roller to weave down Shivanan Avenue, scattering chickens, children, and dogs like a mad horseman. I was a seasoned cyclist in the streets of South Nagpur and even wily rickshaw drivers paid me homage. The image of colliding with such a large ferenghi on such an ugly bicycle put enough fear in their hearts, or sense in their heads, that they pulled prudently to the side whenever I hurtled towards them.
My home was on the southern edge of Varanasi, in a less populated neighborhood two hundred meters from The Ganges. The villa had been a fortuitous discovery a month after my arrival. All the others I had inspected were either in very crowded neighborhoods or so rundown and mildewed as to deter me from living in them. My house was spacious and clean, with a shaded courtyard, a wall with wrought iron fence and rusty blades jutting from the top. From the veranda one stepped into a large salon with comfortable, overstuffed furniture. To the side there was a bedroom complete with—praise the devas—a quiet, high-speed fan. In the back, there was a kitchen outfitted with a small oven, acres of counter space, and a large refrigerator--Sahr’s domain that I entered cautiously.
In the rear were two cottages for her and Lalji, though he usually slept in the hammock in the front. This was to demonstrate his diligence as a night watchman. I'd snuck up on him a dozen times, shaken the hammock with enough force to tumble him to the ground, where he would snuffle,
roll over and slip quickly back into his dreams. So much for security.
My backpack bounced to the side as I raced down Shivanan Avenue to Sonapura and across the bridge above the Asi. Two reference books, a few leftover chapattis, and my HP laptop were wedged carefully inside. On the outside a cold Nalgene was nestled in the webbing, perspiring almost as much as I was. It was eight-fifty in the morning, and the thermometer had just topped forty degrees centigrade. Another cloudless scorcher was heating up.
On the far side of the bridge a pregnant Brahma cow glanced up at the clang of Miss Ugly’s bell and shifted a lazily to the right. I breezed past her flank and swerved around two women with water pots balanced on their heads. Bicycle rickshaws, ox carts, pedi-cabs, and scurrying dogs flew behind me. I shifted into highest gear and elbowed my pack back into position.
Devi’s erroneous Timex was ticking, and I was racing to beat it. Glancing at my own watch, I did some calculation. A six-minute margin. His compound was off Madanapura Road near the Raja Ghat. The first part of my route along the main avenues would be easy, but the moment I turned east into the gullies, the pedaling would be slower, if not down to walking entirely.
Varanasi, Benares, the holiest of India’s cities. A thousand writers have struggled to lay descriptions of its antiquity upon their pages. Over the centuries a few have met with limited success. They have written, “It is a city so ancient that many believe it to be the oldest still in existence.” But what does that say? Only that it is old. Yes, it is old, and puzzling and dark, and the deeper one ventures into its labyrinthine paths, the darker it becomes. Its original name was Kashi, The City of Light, but that luminous title referred to its spiritual side--Buddha spoke in its gardens. It certainly didn’t refer to the dank gullies that twisted like a nest of snakes along its eastern half.
The central avenues are wide enough for pedestrians and the mass of carts and vehicles, but as one enters the lanes to the east there is an immediate and sudden transformation. The walls close in, the paths narrow like a constricting vascular system, squeezing into tinier and tinier spaces, the air becomes pungent with dung, cooking spices, and raw human filth. Strains of Hindustani music blare from a dozen ill-tuned radios above walls that block the light of day. Voices drift from windows where no faces ever appear. People push past each other with downcast eyes and just when the shadows grow darkest and the walls pinch to nauseating tightness, it parts. And there, like an immense, brilliant vein, the Mother Ganges spreads across to a distant and sandy shore. She sweeps by slowly, while all that confined life in the lanes spills onto her banks with visible relief.
Vaulted temples, marbled mosques, and wooden stalls have risen and crumbled on those banks from before recorded time. Layer upon layer, mortar, brick, and clay have risen and fallen to the foundations below. And no person walking there can take a step without feeling that.
The river is the center of the city set incongruously to the side, a magnificent circus of ancient ritual. Loin-clothed disciples stand in murky water chanting, “Release us from the wheel of existence.” Sadhus meditate, naked to the mid-day sun. Beggars hobble with out-stretched palms. Snakes-charmers play reedy melodies. Women slap-wash cloth and men pray while the buildings rise and fall again. All of India comes to the river, as they have for six thousand years. It is a city teeming with life. And it is a city of death. People come to there to die.
I cranked Ugly Bike’s wheel sharply to the right and snapped on the brakes. A bull, large enough to regard with some caution, was meandering—bulls meander in Varanasi—up the gully. I swore out loud, knowing this podgy obstruction was going to likely delay my arrival at Devi’s. Jumping off, I wedged myself into a rank niche in the wall and expelled the air from my lungs. The bull clopped past with a bovine grunt, lifted its tail, defecated, and then wandered casually up the walkway.
I stepped cautiously down the slimy lane to Master’s house. His, like mine, had a rear courtyard bordered by a tall, glass-encrusted wall and a thick-planked gate in the center. From the lane it was impossible to peer into the rear yard. For three years I had parked Ugly Bike just inside the gate and entered through the kitchen for afternoon lessons. An hour and a half each weekday, Master and I would sip tea, eat pakoras, and discuss conjugations, compounds, and poetic significance. I would sit cross-legged on a thin mat while he reclined in a cushioned rocker. Mirabai, his wife of fifty-six years would bustle in to serve or remove cups in decorous silence. On rare occasions I’d encounter their daughter, Sukshmi, as she moved quietly about the house. Usually she would draw her sari demurely across her face while I stammered a shy namaste. During recent months, I hadn’t seen her at all as she’d been at the university in Mumbai, but gupchup had it she was now back home between semesters
And it was Sukshmi that I ran into, literally, as I burst through the kitchen door in my attempt to be seated punctually in the parlor. I sent Ugly Bike careening rider-less across the courtyard to fall where she would, ascended the steps in a single leap, and then caught my toe inelegantly on the threshold. I stumbled directly into Sukshmi’s backside, which at that moment was pushed out like an offering from the fruit vendor as she searched for some object in a lower cabinet.
“Oh shit.” Second mistake, I never swore in Masterji’s presence, much less in the presence of his beautiful daughter. “I…I…I’m sorry. I didn’t. . .” My tongue locked like a rusted gear. Three golf balls materialized in my mouth. Then I heard the most delightful sound of the week, her laugh. It gave me just enough courage to find my voice again.
“I didn’t see you. Really, I’m so sorry.”
She turned, and with a self-assured smile, studied the crimson in my cheeks. “Your apology is accepted, Vidyarthi, unnecessary, but accepted.” I was looking into the most stunning eyes in the city, curved pools of black and emerald, and right then they were filled to the lids with amusement.
Devi’s raspy voice called from the salon, “You are late, Bhim. Forty-three seconds so.”
I was ready to offer my second apology of the morning when Sukshmi called out, “Oh no Papa, he has been standing on the porch telling me what a wonderful teacher you have been to him.”
This was answered with a skeptical snort. “Yes? And how long has he been in the house?” I pictured him consulting his watch, calculating.
“I have detained him for four minutes at least, asking him how he can do so much Sanskrit with you and still have time to write to his own father.” Then she looked at me with eyelashes any western woman would kill for, or at least pay large sums of money to acquire. And winked.
“So, is Bhim going to join us today, or is he going to chat with my defiant daughter all morning?” I knew then that some thorny issue had come between them just before my arrival.
Leaving Sukshmi smiling in the kitchen, I stepped into the salon.
Eleven
“I’m ready to work until my fingers fall off or my eyes give out, Masterji.”
“Good, because that is precisely how much we are going to do, young man. You remember C.G., yes?”
I folded my hands together, bent and touched the tiles somewhere within an acceptable distance of C.G.’s toes. Full contact wasn’t necessary according to custom and definitely out of the question as far as I was concerned. Those were the ugliest appendages east of Delhi. It was, however, the customary gesture of respect for the old professor and Master’s closest friend since childhood. He was also Devi’s perpetual verbal sparring partner. To put it mildly, the boys liked to bicker.
I straightened up, bowed to the bald, brilliant little man and said, “It is a pleasure to see you again, Professor. I pray you have been well.” Rumor had it that a weak heart and kidney stones were paining him considerably.
“Ah, Bhim, my young friend, thank you for asking. What I lack in health these days, I have in happiness. Maladies are close acquaintances of a man of my years, but with my weekly plunges in the river, I am ready to leave the great wheel whenever it is
ready to release me. Devi tells me the two of you had a good visit to our secret place yesterday. Please, sit, sit. Tell us your thoughts and show us the photographs you took.” He patted a large rocker next to him. That was a surprise. The mat on the floor was my customary spot. With a small flush of pride, I assumed it was because I was now the technical expert--having the laptop and photographs in my possession. I’d been promoted.
Plugging the computer in, I pressed the start button and the drive began to boot. Master made no effort to hide his contempt for our use of a contraption newer than the plow. I realized that viewing the screen was going to present a small challenge. Being backlit, it needed to be seen at close proximity and at the proper angle. With Devi and C.G. sitting to the sides it wouldn’t work. I hopped up, and without asking, retrieved the ornate tea table and set the computer on it.
“Punditjis,” I said. “I think you will be able to see more clearly if you move behind me.”
In a clear attempt to discredit the evil gadgetry, Masterji snorted as he raised himself. “This machine will not let us see from the side?”
“Of course not, Devi,” C.G. scolded. “You would understand that if you ever graced us with your presence at the university. I use a Sharp active matrix projector and my Acer 3000 for all my lectures now. Students receive their assignments and grades by email. This is the twenty-first century we live in.” I nearly bent again to touch C.G.’s toes again. Score one for the professor.
Devi, not to be bested, fired off his own shot. “That may be, Mr. C.G. Chandragupta, but I wager as soon as we start reading the script we will need an old fashioned pencil and note pad.”
The boys were getting crotchety, so I plugged a one gigabyte flash drive into the USB slot, my personal filing system—neat folders on a memory stick—and clicked open to the first thumbnail. “This,” I announced, “is from the wall on the right as you enter.” Both men moved to stand behind me. That was unusual. Teachers don’t stand while vidyarthis sit.
The PuppetMaster Page 5