The Brahman, overseer of the temple, met Sunil on the big flight of steps as he left.
“Namaste, my dear fellow. How is it going?” he demanded politely. Actually, this Sunil was only a tuc-tuc driver and from a different caste much, much lower then his, but today he was feeling magnanimous and anyway, what the heck...
“Very well, thank you. I just made puja for Ganesha. He made me very big luck today!”
“Well, well, and what luck might that have been?”
“A really very stupid foreigner chose my tuc-tuc. He paid me fifteen times more then the usual price!”
The face of the Brahman clouded over. “Sunil, have you been cheating this foreigner?”
Embarrassed, Sunil lowered his eyes. “Well, sir, I was, you see, he didn’t know the way and I... well, I did make some circles with him. Everybody does it...”
“And you are thanking Ganesha for this shameless deception?” The Brahmans voice was filled with indignation. “This money does not belong to you! You have earned it in a dishonest way! If you keep it, great misfortunes will befall you and your family. You know what you have to do, don’t you?”
The Brahman looked at him wrathfully. Sunil feared he would fall into disgrace by every God he knew. “Yes sir, I will give it back to him, surely!” he exclaimed running away, his lunghi flapping behind him.
“Wait!” the Brahman shouted after him. “What I meant was, you should donate it to the temple!” But it was too late. Sunil had jumped into his tuc-tuc and had driven off.
“Rats!” the Brahman cursed and went to the cinema.
7. Himalayas / Spring 1944
For two nights Hermann and his men had been sitting around the evening campfire listening to the ‘scoutmaster’. For a change they were now lying in shrubbery listening to the darkness. On Hermann’s orders they had blackened their faces and attached leaves and branches to their uniforms. This costume would have looked quite ridiculous during daytime but was utterly superfluous on such a pitch-dark night as this. Even if one of the British soldiers had stepped on one of them, he couldn’t have seen a thing.
“For the last time, I strongly protest!” hissed the zoologist from between the thin branches dangling from his head. “We are scientists, not soldiers!”
“Protest duly noticed, Doctor” Hermann replied smugly, “but we are at war and for this mission I need every man available.”
He turned his head and listened into the darkness again. There seemed to be no Brits around.
“Listen up everyone!” He switched on his torch and began to draw a little map into the mud. “The Tommies are here in the valley. Our allies, the Japanese, are hunkered down along the hillside. Seems to be a strategically favourable position, but the only access to the valley is being held by British, providing them with a supply route. Everything the Japanese shell during daytime can be easily repaired by the British during the night. But, with strategically positioned explosive charges, we could unleash a mudslide, burying the road and with it the only supply route they have. Without supplies they won’t last more than three days and the invasion of the Japanese into India can proceed. Said road, by the way, is only ninety feet away from our current position. Any questions?”
“Yes, I have,” the botanist whispered. “That’s a fine specimen of Himalayan cedar you have there on your helmet... can I have it when we’re done here?”
Hermann gave him a baleful stare. “Questions about the mission?”
Sauermann raised his hand bashfully. He had been extremely quiet since the incident up on the mountain. “Our task is what, exactly?”
“Ah, good question! Everyone will carry an explosive that will be hooked up to the main fuse. I will show you on the map where exactly you will put them and then you’ll regroup back here.”
“And what if they catch us?” asked one of the race researchers.
“In that case, we are neutral Swiss. It’s death proof!”
The plan actually looked as though it would work. One after the other the men vanished into the darkness, each holding a small package under his arm. Hermann, as commander of the mission, had of course to stay behind in the bushes. From this central position he was able to conduct the whole operation. Breathing shallowly he listened into the night but heard nothing except the disappearing footsteps of his comrades. He looked at his watch. They should be back in 10 minutes.
Thirty minutes later Hermann’s confidence had vanished. He was still squatting alone in the shrubbery. Where the hell was everyone? Over and over again he strained his ear into the darkness, hearing nothing but the faint sounds of a motorbike in the far distance. No shots had been fired, and he’d heard no alarming screams—it seemed that the British had not noticed them. So what was going on down there?
Carefully he crawled out of the bushes towards the small mountain pass. In the distance he saw the lights of the British encampment in the narrow valley gorge and further away, more guessing then actually seeing, he could make out the campfires of the Japanese, clinging to the surrounding slopes. No sign of his men. Ducking down he followed the road towards the British camp. He crossed an old stone bridge spanning a mountain creek and stopped. This was where they should have attached the payload. But there was nothing. He couldn’t see anything and he couldn’t hear—he stopped short. For a moment he thought he had heard something, but then the rushing of the creek had drowned it. Wait! There it was again! It sounded like... a chuckle. It was a chuckle! Specifically, the inane giggle of his adjutant Sauermann. Nervously, Hermann checked all directions. Where was it coming from? And what was that strange aromatic smell in the air? It seemed to be coming from under the bridge. Hermann crept off the road and climbed down the embankment towards the river. The giggling became louder. There they were!
His whole crew was sitting around in a merry circle, smoking. And by the looks of things, they were having a ball. Hermann indignantly gasped for air.
Sauermann spotted him and immediately came over, arms outstretched. “Unterscharfuehrer!” he hollered at him happily, “There you are, we missed you!”
Hermann instantly jumped at him, pulling him back under the bridge. “Are you out of your mind? Be quiet for Godś sake! What the devil has happened here?”
The rest of the group seemed equally delighted by Hermann’s appearance. They started to sing very loudly, swaying to and fro: “We’re never going to leave..., our chief, our chief, our chief!” The zoologist waved at him, laughing happily, before returning his attention to some plain pebbles, that he declared to be most wonderful things nature had ever created. The botanist thought himself to be a bush near the mountain creek, which, given the camouflage still dangling about him, was quite believable. However his constant tweeting and chirping as he tried to imitate a pair of nesting wrens living on top of him, was rather unnerving. The two race researchers were huddling against the rock wall in a fond embrace, giving Hermann furtive looks and whispering seemingly hilariously funny things to each other before breaking up in hysterical laughter.
Hermann could hardly believe what he was seeing. “Have you all gone completely mad?” he whispered, as subdued, as his indignation would allow. “You had specific orders! What you are doing is... sabotage!”
“Sabotage? That’s funny, I thought that’s exactly what we’re here for!” Sauermann sniggered and everybody had a laughing fit.
“SILENCE DAMMIT!!!” Hermann yelled at them, way too loud. “Whatever got into you?”
“It... it was... the pipe!” one of the race researchers remarked.
“What pipe?”
The race researchers giggled and shrugged.
“WHAT PIPE, DO YOU HEAR ME!!!?” Hermann grabbed him by the collar. The race researcher gave him a glassy look. “The pipe from that man... the golden man. Nice man, the golden man...”
“What kind of...?” But Hermann
did not have to finish his sentence, as a strange golden glow illuminated the pilings of the bridge.
8. Bombay / Gate of India / Present
Gerd lay on his hotel bed and stared at the slowly rotating ceiling fan. At the airport he had been picked up by limousine and brought straight to the famous Taj Mahal hotel near the Gateway of India. His objection—that he was only going to spend a couple of hours in Bombay and a hotel would be utterly superfluous—had been ignored. Obviously the Indians had other plans. But what plans? In his room he found a brief note telling him that he was going to be picked up at 9:00 pm. Now he was sitting there trying to kill three hours.
Bored, he flipped through the TV channels. Conveniently with Indian TV, all the offered programs were interchangeable. You had a choice zapping between ten different oeuvres of Bollywood’s mass production and you didn’t even have to try to follow a different story line: Beautiful girl gets married—zapp!—to a mean, old but very rich rascal—both are singing a song—zapp!—it’s starting to rain, the girl gets soaking wet (her sari clinging nicely to her body, the maximum in eroticism Indian film makers are allowed by the strict code of morals)—zapp!—she is spotted by the beautiful young hero, generally portrayed by an overweight sleaze ball sporting a moustache (heaven knows where they get their ideal of male beauty from)—zapp!—the smarmy hero sings a song since he has just fallen in love—zapp!—girl falls in love with the hero, falls into a river, gets soaking wet—zapp!—sings a song—her parents are against their love—zapp!—the hero and the beautiful girl do a dance routine singing a song, eventually someone dumps a bucket of water over her head by mistake and she gets soaking wet—the mean, old rich rascal asserts his rights—zapp!—the parents try to force her into marriage—zapp!—the daughter legs it and falls into the mud, completely wet she sings a song—zapp!—the rich rascal catches up with her and drags her to the wedding—zapp!—the oily hero comes along on his motorbike and rescues her, the parents find the oily hero to be not so objectionable after all and the rascal has a stroke, with his dying breath he sings a song—zapp!—singing a song, the hero and the girl ride into the sunset on their motorbike. It starts to rain and they get soaking wet. The end. Technicolor.
Gerd sighed and turned the TV off. He fetched his mobile from his jacket pocket and dialled Beate’s number. After some static crackle he heard the ringing tone.
“Beate Lauterbach” his wife chirped.
“It’s me.”
“Oh, you...” The tone of her voice cooled down noticeably. “What do you want?”
“Just wanted to tell you I’m still in Bombay. Looks like I have to stay another night.”
“So? Just don’t forget about the furniture. With Pietra Dura.”
Gerd suddenly felt very lonely. There he was, thousands of miles away from home, alone in a hotel room, and that was all his wife had to say to him? There had been a time when calls like this were filled with kisses passed through telephone lines, lover’s vows made to each other, the promise to hurry back home as soon as possible, take care and let’s visit each other in our dreams. But now her voice sounded as detached and cold as if she was talking to her paediatrician—no, Gerd thought, to her paediatrician she’d probably be a lot nicer.
“Miss me?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Look, I’m on my way to that little boutique I found near the centre. I am busy you know.”
“Doesn’t matter. Well, I’m flying back tomorrow.”
“See you then.” And Beate hung up.
A little after ten he received a call from reception telling him that he was expected down in the lobby. Gerd grabbed his documents, his notebook, and mobile phone and left his hotel room. The same driver who had picked him up from the airport was waiting for him downstairs.
They drove through the Bombay night, dimly lit by weak streetlights. The traffic was still crazy and their progress was slow. Although the hot and humid air outside was still suffocating, the temperature inside the car was arctic. Gerd, who had been sweating profusely in his suit just moments before, pulled his collar up and shivered. Tapping the driver on the shoulder he said, “It’s freezing in here.”
The driver nodded proudly. “Yes sir, air condition, very good! Newest model! I can make it more cold!” He started fiddling with some knobs and the fan blew a Siberian gust in Gerd’s direction.
“Please, can you turn off the air conditioning?”
A look of consternation crept over the driver’s face. “Turn it off, Sir?”
“Yes, turn it off and open the window.”
Consternation gave way to sheer horror. “Open the window? But Sir, air condition cooling nicely, you like, you’ll see. Latest model!”
Gerd blew into his freezing cold hands. “I don’t care, turn it off!”
The driver, now close to tears, turned off the air conditioning and the windows opened with a quiet hum.
Gerd took a deep breath of the hot and stinking evening air, as pleasant to him as a sea breeze. He felt better already.
The car had left the old colonial part of the city and was now turning into Marina Drive.
“Tell me, where exactly are we going?”
“Báaba-ji wants to see you”, said the driver. “We are going to one of his beer bars.”
These two bits of information did not help Gerd understand anything. He knew that Báaba was Indian for grandfather, but whose grandfather? And what kind of beer bar? His reaction was an accordingly taciturn, “Huh?”
“We’ll get there soon, you will see!” The driver turned around—a life threatening exercise since he was still going at top speed. “Tell me, Sir, is it true in Europe you can have sex with all the women all the time?”
Gerd could not suppress a smile. “Well, I’d settle for having sex with just one of them once in a while...”
The driver, ignoring the answer, continued to dream aloud about the golden west. “If I ever get to Europe I will sleep with a big blonde. No, with two big blondes. Is it true in Europe everybody is having group sex all the time?”
“Well, um, not to my knowledge, no...”
“I will go to London and sleep with many women” the driver promised. Gerd hoped fervently that with those kind of thoughts swimming through his head, he would still be able to concentrate on the road. But the driver glanced at him again in the rear view mirror.
“You want a woman? Later I can drive you to a place with very beautiful women. Very clean!”
“No thank you” Gerd declined, pretending to concentrate on the orange-yellow street lamps gliding past.
“Not expensive. Beautiful women. Very many. Big breasts. Very cheap. Or, if you prefer, small breasts. I will drive you there!”
Gerd tried to remain polite. “Really, it will not be necessary, thank you.”
“Maybe you like girls? Very young girls? I know where.”
“For goodness sake, no!”
The driver fell silent. Gerd, relieved he had got the message, returned his gaze to night-time Bombay.
“You like boys, right?”
“NO! Good God!” Gerd was running out of patience.
“Nothing to be ashamed of Sir, I can get you boys...”
“NO BOYS!!!” Gerd bawled at him. “No boys, no girls, no prostitutes, no animals! Just drive me to my meeting, dammit!”
The driver fell silent once more.
Outside on the streets, countless people were lying on the pavement sleeping. Others had built shelters made from cardboard boxes and plastic sheets. Each time the car had to stop, beggars tapped at the window, their big hollow eyes staring, their hands moving from stomach to mouth. Gerd looked right through them, something he had assiduously learned to do during his last visit to India.
He opened up his notebook. Time to feed the old thing with the data from his memory stick.
The driver was watching him in the rear-view mirror.
“That is one very old lap top, Sir!”
Gerd had to smile again. In a country where for the most part people could barely afford the loincloth around their waist, anyone who made the least bit of money wanted to elevate themselves from the masses. Naturally, status symbols played an important role in this, which led to a fervent passion, bordering on fanaticism, for the latest technological gadgets. If a mobile phone weighed more than a bar of chocolate it was given a deprecatory look and a scornful murmur of “Rather heavy...” No one could believe how a ‘rich’ foreigner could use anything technical that was more than six months old.
Gerd justified himself half-heartedly. “I do own another laptop, but it’s broken. Anyway, this thing here is only three years old and it works just fine.”
The driver was watching the road again. This European obviously had no class at all. A three-year-old laptop—and the guy was not even ashamed of it! When he got to Europe he would show the women how much class an Indian fellow had. And they were all going to want to have group sex with him! The thought made him a touch nervous. Maybe later, when he had gotten rid of this weird European, he would invest this month’s paycheque in the house with the many beautiful women himself.
The car came to a halt in a seedy part of town far from the centre, which in comparison looked neat and placid. The excruciating smell from a dead cow, lying in the middle of the street like a traffic island, came wafting in through the open window, while countless cars, hawkers with hand carts and pedestrians wandered by. The driver politely opened the car door for Gerd and escorted him through the mass of people. They passed the dead cow, then other scraggy shapes noisily spitting red betel juice onto to pavement.
“Please, go inside,” said the driver pointing at a nondescript entrance to a nondescript house.
Gerd began to feel uncomfortable. This smelled of mafia, mugging, kidnapping, and cement shoes.
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