“That’s utter rubbish!” Báaba exploded.
“Quiet everybody, I’ve got it now!” Shaki said, holding up the flower.
“Well now, the three guys and the girl are Delhi bound. They’ve got quite a head start and we don’t know which route they took!”
“That’s right!” number One interrupted, maybe we should...”
“Shut up!” Number Two shouted at him, “Shaki has the flower now!”
“Thank you, Number Two!” said Shaki continuing, “it is my opinion that we should go to Delhi directly and wait for them there!”
Báaba snapped his fingers, mutely pointing at the Hibiscus flower. Shaki passed it over to him.
“Thank you!” Báaba grumbled, I’ve got people working for me in Delhi. As soon as our friends will get there, I’ll know about it. Let them go to Delhi in peace—right into our arms!”
Mutely Shaki asked for the flower again and went on: “My suggestion is, Báaba-ji, our two freelancers here and myself take a plane directly to Delhi, whereas Rajnesh, One and Two will follow by car. If all of us are flying, it’ll cost too much! Also, you might even catch them on the way.”
Instantly a mute tumult broke out amongst the three last mentioned, trying to grab the flower.
Shaki however tucked it in his pocket, grinning. “Since there is no voice of dissent, I consider this plan as accepted!”
“Excuse me, could you put me down now?” a voice came moaning from the ceiling.
“Shut up!” they all shouted at once.
4. Rajasthan / between Jodhpur and Bikaner
Running in third place as reasons for their infrequent halts were the obligatory petrol stops. In second place came the rehydration stops. Since they were driving in the midday heat, they could scarcely take on water as quickly as they were sweating it out.
Undoubtedly though, first place on the list of reasons for unavoidable stops went to the attacks of diarrhoea. With disturbing frequency Arthur held up their driving with a sudden stop, violently hitting the brakes, followed by a frenetic search for some bushes and a subsequent sojourn of at least a quarter of an hour therein.
Bear sometimes wished he had brought something to read…
“When you have to go, you have to go!” Arthur screamed against the driving wind.
“You always have to go! It’s like being at kinder garden with you! Your Minnie Mouse hairband really does suit you!” Bear yelled back, happy to have accomplished at least half an hour of driving at one stretch.
“I don’t always have to go, but I have to go now! And I mean now!” Arthur whined.
“But where, eh? There is nowhere around here!” With a sweeping gesture Bear indicated at the arid plains that they were traversing. He was right—there was nothing—not a shrub, not a bush, not even a tuft of grass behind which Arthur could have squatted. “Try to hold on for another fifteen minutes, ok?” he added, “there’s some sort of a village further down the road!”
Arthur fell silent for a moment. Of course Bear was right, there are moments one appreciates even rudimentary privacy.
Alas, the rumbling of his stomach meant that some action had to be taken very soon.
He suddenly spotted a narrow stony track, leading off from the main road, straight into the desert and disappearing over a hill. He slowed down.
“Wait! I’ll drive down there and finish my business behind the hill!” he called to the others and turned onto the dirt road.
The others slowed down letting their bikes coast to a halt by the roadside.
“Let’s make it snappy this time!” Bear called behind him, pulling out a ‘Gold Flake’ and lighting it.
His eyes followed Arthur who, followed by a long trail of smoke, eventually disappeared behind the hill.
It could be said in Arthur’s defence, that he had urgent business on his mind and therefore was perhaps not studying his surroundings as carefully as he most undoubtedly would have done under normal circumstances. Just at the crest of the hill he had overlooked a very obvious sign that read:
‘Absolutely no trespassers!’ Yes, I have a gun and I will use it. Go ahead and make my day!’
What he also completely missed, scanning the surroundings was a rope that had been strung directly across the track. With a violent jolt it swept him off the motorbike.
In a flash he was airborne and dropped down on his backside. The air was knocked out of out of him for a moment and he could see stars. Bewildered he tried to get up but the barrel of a shotgun was forcing him back into the dust.
“Ver you come from?” a harsh voice asked in English.
Arthur tried to make out who was talking to him but the person had pinned the barrels of the shotgun right between the eyes.
“I hav’ asked you somezink!” the voice repeated and a threatening click indicated the gun had just been cocked.
“I... I am from Germany!” Arthur answered hesitantly, “I am a tourist!”
“From Germany?” All of a sudden the voice sounded very friendly, almost delighted... and on top of that continued in fluent German.
“Vat a pleasure, me too, I am also vrom Germany, you know!”
However delighted the person seemed to be, the shotgun remained very much where it was.
“It has been quite a long time since I hev seen ze Fatherland. Too long in fact, anyway, it’s nice to meet a fellow countryman! You like India?”
Arthur, staring down the barrel as if hypnotised, had no idea what this man was up to, so he said. “Well, yes, India is very nice!”
“Excellent, I’m happy to hear zat!” Apparently the man with the gun considered it quite normal to hold a conversation while pointing shotgun.
At any rate he was chatting away quite merrily, talking about how much he missed his home country—most of all the food, the weather being so hot for the last three months, getting more unbearable as he got older, his recently acquired backache, for which massages and hot baths would have been the appropriate treatment.
“Excuse me!” Arthur proffered at one point, just has the man had gotten himself all worked up over his story of the diverse ailments which afflicted him, “would you mind awfully if I got up now?”
“Oh, of course not, zer I go blabbering avay, forgetting all about ze time, haha!” the man answered. The weapon stayed put, however.
“The gun, you have to take the gun out of my face!”
“Vai of course, vat vas I zinking? Maybe I’ve been in India too long!”
The shotgun was removed from Arthur’s face so that he could finally see the person to whom the voice belonged. It was to a very old, white haired man. He offered a helping hand to Arthur, who took it and allowed him to be pulled up. For his age the man clearly still possessed great strength.
“I am Arthur!” Arthur introduced himself, dusting himself off and adjusting his hairband.
“Nice to meet you!” said the old man, “you may call me Hermann!”
“Tell me, would you happen know, where I might find a toilet around here?”
The other three left at the roadside were quite astonished when they saw Arthur returning on the dirt track, accompanied by a camouflaged jeep. Throwing up a lot of dust they pulled up next to them.
“May I introduce you” Arthur said, without any preliminaries, “this is Sherie, Bear and Gerd... and this is Hermann!”
“Splendid, splendid!” Hermann, who had jumped out of the car, was shaking the men’s hands.
“Friends vrom the distant Fatherland. How vonderful!”
Sherie proffered her hand as well. “Not quite!” she said, radiating that charm she kept in store for elderly gents whose financial status she was not sure of yet. “I’m from Bombay!”
Hermann however, ignoring her extended hand, kept on chatting with the men. �
��And a lovely darkie girl you have brought along as well. Vonderful. May I ask you to be my guests tonight? Zer is plenty of room—I live in a palace!”
“Wow!” Arthur was visibly impressed
“Please, just follow me, it is not far!” Hermann jumped into the military jeep and drove off.
Sherie plucked at Bear’s sleeve. “What do you think, would it do any good to kick that old bugger in the balls, given his age...”
Gerd smiled and kicked the bike into action. “Better behave, little darkie girl. After all he lives in a palace!”
“But...!”
“A paa—lace!”
It was indeed not far away. They followed the dirt road around the bend and reached a red and white striped barrier. Out of the little hut, standing next to it, shot a little Indian in a brown uniform, immediately saluted with an outstretched arm and then proceeded to raise the bar. Following a long driveway they eventually came to an impressive building. It was an old Maharajah’s Palace with countless turrets and other architectural embellishments. Another Indian guard in brown uniform opened a white gate allowing the small convoy to enter the inner courtyard.
Arthur immediately inquired about the local ‘facilities’ and hurriedly disappeared.
“I’ll be damned!” Gerd said astonished, “just take a look at that!”
He was pointing at the many flags, hanging from the upper rafters of the inner court. Without exception they all featured one symbol—the Swastika!
Bear assured Gerd. “That’s not a Swastika. The one you mean is the other way round, the mirror image, so to speak. This is an ancient Hindu symbol for good fortune. The Nazis merely misused it and turned it around. Thus the Indians say it turned into bad luck! Many Germans seeing this for the first time would think...”
Sherie tapped Bear on the shoulder. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but those are turned around!”
Bear first stared at Sherie, than at the flags and was, for a moment, speechless.
“Holy shit, this... these are actually Swastikas. I mean not the Hindu ones, but, er ...!” he stuttered flabbergasted.
“... ze proud flag of the Third Reich, ze best system that ever ran a country!” Hermann declared proudly. “And now, please do come into my abode!”
With a friendly gesture he put his arms around Bear and Gerd, and propelled them into the inner palace. Sherie followed behind even though she had a wretched feeling in her stomach.
It seemed that they were marched down interminably long hallways, each decorated with gruesome paintings, depicting either roaring stags against the background of an alpine lake or heroic, half naked blonde supermen throwing themselves protectively over widows and orphans, with a distant look in their eyes. Hermann seemed to have noticed his guest’s quizzical looks.
“Yes, I do some painting myself, although I don’t possess the same talent!”
“The same talent as who?” Gerd asked, trying to keep up with the old man’s pace.
“The same talent as HIM!” Herman answered in an eerily detached tone.
“Him—who?”
Hermann looked at Gerd as if he had never heard such an idiotic question. “Vell, ze Fuehrer of course, who else?”
There was an uncomfortable lull in their conversation until they had reached the castle’s banquet hall.
Stemming from the times of the Maharajas thousands of tiny little mirrors had been mounted on the arched ceiling and these reflected the light that came streaming through the narrow windows. The walls had once been elaborately hand painted. Hunting scenes depicting the Maharaja, various religious symbols and epic pictures describing tales of both love and war decorated the room. But all the enchantment of the Thousand and One Nights, all the splendour and the stunning interplay of light and colours could not divert the eye from the monstrous oil paintings that blighted each of the four walls. All of them depicted just one theme: Hermann’s ‘Fuehrer’ and painted in, accompanying him every time, was a somewhat diminutive figure that bore a distinct resemblance to Hermann.
Bear and Gerd froze. Bear was the first to recover. He made a show of looking at his non-existing watch and gave a whistle.
“Phew! Look how late it is! How time flies, we had best be on our way! It’s such a shame really, I’m sure we’ll see you around!” He took Sherie and Gerd by their arms and began to slowly pull them backwards.
But Hermann blocked their way.
“Absolutely not, you are my dinner guests tonight!” he barked and then with a wink he added, “ve hef pork roast wiz dumplings, just like at home!”
“That sounds fine, we couldn’t say no to that!”
All three turned around and saw Arthur strolling towards them down the length of the hall. “I can’t somehow stomach the Indian cuisine. Nice castle, Hermann, I almost got lost!”
Gerd tried to save the situation by saying “We really would like to stay, but we have to... ah... you know what.”
Arthur had no idea what he was talking about. “Nonsense, we’ve got plenty of time and... ouch!—Why are you kicking me?”
“But we have this, ehm, this... important appointment! Ehm---” Sherie looked hopefully at Bear.
“Yes, right, the appointment, in Jaipur, with, ehm...” Bear stuttered.
“With the, you know, the ambassador of, ehm...” Gerd tried.
“...Unicef. The poor children are all waiting!” Sherie completed the alibi.
Arthur looked at her, as if she had a screw loose.
Hermann’s arms sank in disappointment. “That’s too bad, I even got German beer!”
Bear’s eyes opened wide, “On the other hand” he suddenly relented “it’s not sooo urgent, is it?”
“What!?” Sherie and Gerd looked at him in exasperation. Only Arthur and Hermann seemed very pleased.
“Splendid!” Hermann said and clapped his hands in anticipation, “now, I vill show you a room ver you can freshen up. Dinner will be served in one hour!”
Arthur grinned contently. “Roast pork with dumplings, I’m in heaven. Tell me, Hermann the guy in the pictures seems somehow familiar. A relative of yours?”
As soon as the door of their room had closed behind them, they all started talking at once. To summarise the discussion; everyone was telling everyone else that they must be completely mad and asking what on earth they were doing here in the first place—and so on. Gerd and Sherie found themselves agreeing that Arthur’s IQ must be below room temperature and that Bear was a homicidal maniac. While Bear defended himself by saying, it had been years since he had had a German beer, and for that he was even willing to listen to the crazed ramblings of a scatter-brained Nazi, who apparently belonged to the—‘completely gaga, but for the most part harmless’—category.
“For the most part?!” Gerd exclaimed, “Did you see all those people running around? All in smart brown uniforms! This guy got himself a nice little private army. Have you looked down into the courtyard and into the barracks? I spotted a machine gun poking out from under a cover. I bet you there’s an armoured car or something underneath that!”
“Yes, but pork roast... with dumplings!” Arthur added as a consideration.
“And German beer!” complemented Bear.
“Could you for once think with your heads and not with your stomachs?” Sherie fumed, “We should try to get out of here as fast as possible!”
Gerd looked out of the window into the courtyard, where some uniformed men where lazing around in the sun. “What I would like to know is what this is all about? Why is he dressing up Indians as Nazis? And why do they stand for it?”
“If the price is right!” Bear concluded sitting down on top of the huge four-poster bed, occupying all of one side of the room.
Sherie shook her head. “Some people really will do anything for money...!”
“Look who’s talking...!” countered Arthur grinning.
“Oh, just shut up will you, after all it’s your fault that we’re stuck here!” Sherie retorted.
“Anybody got an idea what to do next?”
Gerd shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing!”
“What do you mean, nothing?” Sherie looked at him aghast.
“I mean, we can’t get past his guards anyway. So it’s best that we just go along with it, ignore the bullshit, have a nice dinner and after that we try to slip away as neatly as possible!”
Bear and Arthur concurred with his opinion.
“Okay!” Sherie said, “but I cannot guarantee that I won’t throw up on my plate, if that old fart starts to drivel on again!”
Actually the food left nothing to be desired: the pork roast was perfectly prepared, juicy inside and with a crisp crackling on the outside, the fluffy dumplings were tasty, made from fresh potatoes and for dessert they had almond pudding with clotted cream. Everything was washed down with the ice-cold German lager as promised. Although the cuisine was heavenly, physically and intellectually the meal was hell, for Hermann’s ramblings were more then a reasonably sound mind could painlessly suffer.
“Vell?” their host boomed merrily. “Quite a change from that Indian fodder, vat? Somezink real!”
“You old... ouch!” Sherie, who was inwardly fuming received a kicked from Bear under the table.
“And how long have you been in India, actually?” Gerd inquired promptly, before Sherie could open her mouth again.
“Since 1944, quite some time ago, eh?” Herman answered proudly.
“And you never wanted to go back?”
Hermann stood up. “I shall go back, when HE calls me!” His gaze wandered over to the oversized oil painting where it became fixed in admiration.
The others looked at each other quizzically. Finally Bear got up the courage and came out with what all of them had been thinking. “Ehem, sorry, but... ‘HE’ has been rather dead for over 60 years now!”
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