by Ted Mark
The driver threw his companions a helpless look and then did the only thing he could do under the circumstances. He threw the car into gear, gunned the engine, and they sped away from the scene. Thanks to Singh we'd escaped from them.
But it didn't look like it was going to be quite that easy to get away from the cops. Mad as they were, it sure seemed we were destined to spend the night in the cooler. The remarkable Singh, however, again came up with a way out.
"You cannot arrest us," he told the cops haughtily.
"Oh, yeah? Why not?"
"Because we have diplomatic immunity," Singh announced, looking down his nose at them.
"Oh, no!" the cop who'd been burned moaned. "I might have known it!"
"Just a minute." The second cop was more suspicious. "That car didn't have DPL plates on it."
"Of course not. It was not our car. I told you that we just took a lift from them." Singh's tone said he didn't think the cop was very bright.
"Well, if you're diplomats, you must have some identification," the cop persisted. "Let's see it."
"Persecution!" Singh sang out. "You are persecuting the U.N. ambassador from Nepal!" He pointed at me, his finger quivering with outrage. "My country will lodge a formal protest!"
"All I did was ask for identification," the cop muttered, obviously somewhat intimidated by Singh's outburst.
"I have none," I said frostily, following Singh's lead. "There are no pockets in my clothing. But if you persist in detaining us, I insist on my right to make a telephone call."
"Who do you want to call?"
"The White House." I stared him down.
"What about him?" the first cop piped up, pointing at Singh. "He's wearing civilized clothes. He's got pockets. Where's his identification?"
"You are a witness that this creature implied that our native garb is uncivilized," I told Singh. "You will so testify at the international diplomatic hearing we shall demand." I turned back to the cops. "He needs no identification since he is with me, under my protection, and shares my immunity," I told them. "Now, are you going to stop badgering us immediately, or shall I have the Asian-African bloc lodge a formal protest with the Security Council?"
"I think we can count on the Communist bloc to support our resolution of denunciation," Singh added fuel to the fire.
"We'd better let them go," the first cop said. "Remember what happened to that guy who stopped a DPL for speeding? He's pounding a beat in Staten Island now."
"Yeah. And how about the guy who tried to take that knife away from that drunken ambassador? He got bused down to patrolman and sent up to Riverdale."
"I congratulate you on your wisdom," Singh told them.
He turned on his heel and started to march off. I followed him. But he stopped after a few steps, turned around, and strode back to the cops.
"What do you want now?" the one whose eyebrows had been burned off whined. "We said you could go."
"My lighter, please," Singh said politely, holding out his hand.
The cop took a deep breath, and I feared for his blood pressure. His face was a study in frustrated rage. But he handed Singh the lighter.
"Thank you." Singh rejoined me and we swaggered off together. "Where to, Mr. Victor?" he asked after a moment.
"I don't know about you, but I could use a drink," I told him.
"An admirable suggestion."
We found a little bar just off Lexington in the Sixties. It was jammed with people, their shadows dancing over the walls in the sputtering candlelight. I paused in the entrance, remembering my pocketless state and the lack of money which went along with it.
Singh sensed my embarrassment without my having to say anything. "My treat, Mr. Victor." He took me by the elbow gently and guided me into the place.
"A ghost!" some girl screamed, startled by my billowing white sheet.
"And he brought his Swami with him," a male voice observed a bit drunkenly, spotting Singh's turban.
"Spirits for the spirit," a second man told the bartender. "Haunting's thirsty work."
"That it is," I agreed, squeezing up to the bar with Singh. "Scotch on the rocks," I ordered. "Make it a double."
"The same," Singh told him.
"You fellows coming from a costume party?" the man at my elbow asked seriously.
"A seance," I assured him just as gravely.
"I am a medium," Singh added, getting into the act. "And this is a spirit I have just summoned from beyond."
"Yeah. Sure." The man edged away nervously.
"Hey, you guys, what's the latest word on the blackout?" the fellow on the other side of Singh asked. "What's going on out there?"
"It's very dark," Singh told him.
"Youre telling me? Hey, you know where I was when this thing started?"
"No, but you're going to tell us, aren't you?"
"Sure. I was in the john at Penn Station along with about a hundred other guys. It was rush hour, you know, with a whole slew of guys lined up waiting for the guys at the urinals to finish. Well, when the lights went out, it really startled some guys. I mean, they just turned around without thinking. First thing you know, I'm caught in a regular crossfire. Well, you can imagine -"
"Yes," Singh sniffed. "But I don't have to imagine. There is a decided aroma bearing out your story."
"That's too bad," another man chimed in. "But it isn't as bad as what happened to me. I was in a poker game up in the office. There's a wowser of a pot and I'm sitting there with four aces when the lights go out. By the time we get the matches out, somebody's walked off with the kitty. How do you like that? Best hand I've had in ten years and I don't even collect on it!"
"You think that's tough," a girl piped up. "I live in an elevator building, you know? Also, I work nights -"
"Doing what?" a male voice asked insinuatingly.
"Never mind that," she continued. "So anyway, I always get up around four o'clock in the afternoon and have breakfast. Well, today I get up and I'm out of coffee. I don't bother to get dressed, just throw on a coat and go down to the grocery. Only while I'm there, the power goes out and I can't get back up in the elevator. And here I am trapped with nothing on but this fur coat and what I sleep in."
"What do you sleep in?" The male voice was getting more interested.
"My skin," she admitted demurely.
"Can I buy you a drink?" he asked.
"Sure. Only don't come too close. You smell awful funny."
"That's Penn Station toilet water," he told her accurately. "It's the latest thing in men's colognes."
"Well, I don't think it's going to catch on," she said positively. "I'd hate to tell you what it smells like to me!"
"Those people are leaving that table." Singh grabbed my arm and pointed. "Let's get out of this crush."
"Okay."
We made our way to the table. We passed a line-up of people waiting to use the wall telephone. The guy holding the receiver to his ear at the moment seemed to be having a rough time. Even in the faint candlelight I could see that he was sweating.
"But I tell you, I'm trapped. It's a city-wide black out!" he was screaming into the mouthpiece over the din of the crowd. "No, of course I'm not with another woman!" he said indignantly, squeezing the breast of the girl hanging onto him. "No, I'm not in 'some bar' either! I'm in the waiting room at Grand Central!… For Pete's sake, it's a citywide emergency! How can you be so suspicious at a time like this?… Okay, so I work for Con Ed. So what?… So you wouldn't put it past me to what?… Now, Martha, that's ridiculous… I tell you, I had nothing to do with it!… All right, dammit, you're right! I would do anything to get away from you for a night!… Okay… Okay now, stop crying… But I swear to you, Martha, I did not pull any switches just so I could have a night out… Besides, how could I, Martha? I'm only a meter-reader, remember?… I know you don't trust me, but…"
We passed out of earshot. The two men were just getting up from the postage- stamp table as we reached it, and we grabbed it fast. It w
as almost pitch dark in this part of the lounge. And it was so crowded I was practically in the laps of the couple at the table directly behind me. Some are born eavesdroppers, some become eavesdroppers, and some have eavesdropping thrust upon them. Right then, I fell in the last category.
"God bless this blackout," the woman was saying. "Ten years of marriage, and you've never behaved as romantically with me as you're behaving tonight."
"Yes," the man replied. "And you've never aroused me so. I don't know what it is, but your body feels warmer and softer than it ever has before."
"Oh, darling, don't," she tittered encouragingly, belying her words.
"Nobody can see." His hand slid down from her breast and dropped under the table where it squeezed a leg.
Unfortunately, it was my leg. "Watch your aim, Mac," I protested.
"Oh, sorry. It's just that the Mrs. is almost never sexy like this. I guess I got carried away." He removed his hand. "She's like a firecracker," he confided. "My wife! I wouldn't have believed she still had it in her!"
"Oh, darling!" Another trill-like giggle followed by the sound of kissing.
I turned my attention to Singh. His features were hard to make out. I more or less guessed that he was smiling at the incident. But I was wrong. His tone was serious when he spoke. And his mind was on something else. "Mr. Victor," he said, "we must talk. It is urgent."
"Shoot," I told him.
"Mr. Victor, I know who you are, and -" His voice fell away because at that very moment the lights suddenly came back on.
I blinked in the unexpected glare and managed to focus my eyes. The first thing I saw was the bartender with his hand in the till. He was stuffing bills into his pocket. Now he turned brick red and hurriedly closed the cash register.
There was turmoil at the table behind me. "You're not my husband!" the woman was screaming as she pulled down her skirt.
"And you're not my wife!" the man shouted back as he hurriedly removed his hand from inside her blouse.
"I should have known!" the woman sighed, lowering her voice.
"It was too good to be true," the man agreed. "Still, why don't we -?"
"George!" The voice roared out from across the barroom. "There you are! And you told me you were just going to the bathroom!" The lady who'd shouted charged across the room.
"Hi, honey." A man popped up alongside the woman seated at the table behind me. "Having fun?"
"Yes. I've been having fun. Come on." She stood up. "Let's go home now."
"Okay. I'm dead tired myself. All I want to do is get to sleep."
"That," the woman sighed one last sigh, "figures!"
Behind her George was still trying to explain things to his irate wife. My attention was distracted from them by a sudden shout from a man standing against a side wall. He'd been standing there a long time, it seemed obvious, embracing a lady who'd seemed more than willing to be embraced. With the lights out, they'd been attempting the vertical fulfillment of a horizontal desire. They'd almost succeeded when the lights went back on. Nor did that stop them, since they both had their eyes squeezed shut. But now he'd just opened his eyes, and as he focused on the woman, his shock sounded out over the general furor. "My lord!" he screamed. "It's mother!"
"Well," she replied, "I brought you up to stay out of bars."
"If you want to talk," I told Singh during the wave of laughter which swept over the place after her remark, "we'd better get out of here."
"My hotel isn't far," Singh suggested.
"Okay. Let's go."
My sheet and smudged face drew some stares as we walked throught the lobby of Singh's hotel. But most people jus shrugged off the sight. It wasn't the night to question the most bizarre of sights. Anything could happen – and it had. So why puzzle over a man with a dirty face wearing a bedsheet?
"What did you mean back in the bar when you said you knew who I was?" I asked Singh cautiously when we were alone in his hotel suite.
"Just that. I know who you are and what your mission is. Also, I have a similar mission. I believe we may be able to help each other."
"You mean in furthering the work of S.M.U.T.?"
"Come, Mr. Victor, there is no further need of us playing cat-and-mouse with each other. We are on the same side. You have infiltrated S.M.U.T. in the interests of your government. And I have done the same in the interests of my religion."
"What makes you think I'm a spy?"
"I don't think it. I know it. I have received instructions to cooperate with you fully."
"Instructions from whom? The Indian government?"
"I am not an Indian, Mr. Victor. I am from Nepal."
I remembered then that he'd told the cops I was the ambassador from Nepal. But why had he pretended to be an Indian? And what was his purpose in passing himself off to S.M.U.T. as a fellow member from New Delhi? How much could I trust him? And just what was his angle?
When I put these questions to him, he seemed frank enough in answering them. And there was a certain logical pattern to the answers. Logical, even though his story was pretty outlandish in spots.
According to Singh, S.M.U.T. was engaged in a complex operation involving both Nepal and India. What this operation boiled down to was well-organized thievery on a large scale. The object of this thievery was the priceless erotic temple art of Nepal. Having explained this much, Singh digressed to fill me in on the history and value of this art.
First this involved explaining to me the development and ramifications of religion in Nepal. In ancient times the tribes of Nepal followed pagan gods similar to those worshipped by peoples the world over. These ancient Nepalese were of Mongol origins and were known as Bhotias. Their gods were based on primitive concepts of sun and moon, climate and weather conditions, beasts – both real and imaginary – and cloud structures. It was this last which deviated most greatly from the primitive god concepts held by other peoples.
This phase was followed by the Gutpa dynasty which ascribed divine powers to its founder, Ne-Muni, for whom Nepal is named, and to his descendants. After the collapse of the Gutpa dynasty, Buddhism took root in Nepal. However, rather than sweeping away the older god concepts, it merged with them. The result was that Buddhism in Nepal became a far different sort of religion than Buddhism in most other parts of the world.
Then, in 1768, the Brahmans and Rajputs were driven out of India by the Muslims. These two groups, known today as Gurkhas, pushed into Nepal and eventually conquered it. The Gurkhas were Hindus, and it wasn't long before their religion was assimilated into the Buddhist-dominated, but much combined, religion of Nepal.
It should be pointed out, Singh insisted, that the Buddhists, Hindus, and other religions neither strove to overcome one another nor held themselves aloof in an attempt to maintain their purity. On the contrary, they merged to form a combined religion to which all Nepalese subscribe today. Singh would have liked to go into the nature and beauty of that combined religion at length, but he restrained himself because it was not the religion itself, but the art which had grown out of it with which we were concerned.
From the early pagan days, Nepalese worship involved all sorts of idols. As the more sophisticated religions absorbed the older ones, the religious sculpture became more elaborate, and more precious materials were used. By the time the Gurkhas and their religion had become assimilated, religious art and architecture had become something of a national pastime and the creating of it was a highly developed national skill.
Today there are 2,733 shrines in the valley of Nepal. Each one of these contains artworks of inestimable value. These sculptures and temple decorations and rugs and tapestries have a worth apart from the gold and silver, rubies and pearls and diamonds, precious silks and fine-spun velvets of which they are made. They represent a craftsmanship which outshines that of the Florentines. And they accurately reflect the collection of beliefs which make up the religion of Nepal.
It is this accuracy which sometimes shocks the Western visitor. From the time of
its ancient origins, eroticism had played a large part in Nepalese religion. Their concepts of ancient gods ascribed great phallic powers to them. The Gutpas were "elephant men" – which is to say that they were god-men with large trunks between their legs. Buddhism in Nepal – as in China, Japan and India – contributed an exaggerated concept of the size of genitalia, both male and female, to the temple art of Nepal. And to these erotic god powers and outsize organs the Hindus contributed the sophistication of the Kama Sutra, their religion's ritual of love. The result is a variety of eroticism in the religious art of Nepal which is unmatched anywhere else in the world.
From my researches with O.R.G.Y., I already knew some of what Singh was telling me. I knew, for instance, that in the Buddhist temple art of Japan and China, the size of the sex organs is enlarged out of all proportion to the figures shown. Biological studies among the peoples of these countries, on the other hand, point up the fact that the actual size of Chinese and Japanese sex organs – both male and female – tends to be noticeably smaller than the world average. Psychologists have hypothesized that the actual smallness may be the subconscious reason for the artistic enlargement and exaggeration.
However, the Nepalese, with their strong Mongol bloodline, are not only more impressively endowed phallically than the Chinese and Japanese, but are also much larger in that area, on the average, than the Caucasian peoples of Europe and America. Yet the erotic temple art of Nepal succumbed to the Buddhist influence and stresses unrealistic size just as if the Nepalese were suffering from the inferiority complex of the other "pure" Buddhists.
Liberal sociologists will throw up their hands in horror at the idea of caterogizing an ethnic group in terms of the size of its sex organs. They would prefer to think it a canard that the native African, for instance, has, on the average, a larger penis than the European. Admittedly, there has not been enough investigation in this area. But what investigation there has been points to the truth of a difference in sizes of sex organs among the various ethnic groups.
Nor is the point being belabored in an effort to provide aid and comfort to racists. There is nothing to indicate that any one group is any "sexier" or more "animalistic" than another. Degrees of sexuality seem much the same the world over. And, genetically speaking, miscegenation tends to combine the strong points of the various peoples, rather than their weaknesses.