The Five Fakirs of Faizabad (25 page)

“What are we going to do?” asked Philippa.

“Go after them, of course,” said Nimrod. “Go after them and get the carpet back. What do you think we’re going to do? The
Times
crossword?”

“You can see their tracks,” said Mr. Burton, pointing at the ground. “They should be easy to follow. They can’t have gone far in fifteen minutes.”

Nimrod let out a sigh. “Philippa, you’ll have to do it. Go after them. I can’t. I’d probably overreact. You do it.”

“Me?”

“That’s right. You. Look, if you knew how I was feeling, you wouldn’t argue.”

“But what shall I do when I catch up with them?” she asked.

“Do?” Nimrod laughed. “Do? Light my lamp, child, you’re a djinn. What do you think you should do with someone who’s stolen your flying carpet? Cook them a cake or scare the skin off their feet? You scare them, of course. That’s what you do. And if that doesn’t work, then you do whatever seems horribly and poetically appropriate in the circumstances.”

“Such as?”

Nimrod shook his head, which was a mistake as it was still aching terribly. “Ow,” he said, wincing with discomfort. “My head. Talk about Jack and Jill. I don’t know, Philippa. Why ask me? You’ve been doing this sort of thing for a while now. You’ve read the
Arabian Nights.
You know what we djinns are capable of. Sometimes we just have to be cruel, I think. Especially to thieves. So do what your mother does. Boil them in oil. Drown them. Tie them to a railway line.
Make them swallow rats. Set some wild animals on them. Better still, turn them into animals that other animals can eat, I suppose.
They’re thieves.
Just get that flying carpet back.”

Philippa gave her uncle a look. Usually, he wasn’t as intolerant as this and she wondered if the blow on his head had affected him in some way. She pulled a face and started to follow the trail of the Tatar bandits.

M
r. Bayuleev had lent Philippa one of his Bactrian camels so that she could go after the bandits in comfort. Unlike Dromedary camels, Bactrians have two humps, and as she climbed up onto the beast and settled herself between two enormous hairy pepper pots, she wondered which had come first in the evolutionary process: one hump or two.

The camel walked quickly along the trail left by the Tatar bandits. They were on foot and their boot prints were clearly visible even from the height of the camel’s back, so they weren’t difficult to follow and Philippa was able to spend some of the time thinking about what she was going to do when she caught up with the bandits, which she soon did. But before she had arrived at a satisfactory answer to the problem of how she was going to deal with them, almost inevitably it seemed to her, they refused to return Nimrod’s carpet.

There were three of them and they were easy to identify carrying Nimrod’s carpet on their broad shoulders like a long, saggy tree log. They wore sleeveless sheepskin jackets
and all of them looked like the actor Charles Bronson, with narrow eyes, drooping mustaches, and salient cheekbones. They also wore pistols thrust under their belts.

Seeing Philippa, they stopped for a moment and waited for her to say something.

“Aye?”
said one, which is Tatar for “yes.”

“Excuse me.” Philippa smiled. “That’s my uncle’s carpet,” she said, “and he wants it back.”

The Tatar leader smiled a big friendly smile.
“Zinhar öçen,”
he said. “Say please.”

“Zinhar öçen.”
Philippa shrugged. “Please.”

The bandits thought that was very funny. Then one of them waved at her.
“Saw buliğiz,”
he said. “Bye-bye.”

“No,” said Philippa, jumping down from the camel. “I can’t let you do that. Look, you can’t go around stealing things. It’s not right. If you don’t put that carpet down, I’m going to have to stop you. I’m asking you nicely, all right?”

“Yuq,”
said the leader and, since he shook his head as he said this, Philippa guessed, correctly, that
“yuq”
is the Tatar word for “no.”

“Yuck, indeed,” she said. “I really hate this. Why won’t people listen?” She stamped her foot and raised her voice. “You’re not listening to me.”

Blocking their way now, she said to the leader, “Look, I know you speak a bit of English.”

“I speak English,” said the leader.

“Good, because I want you to know that I’m not fooling around here.”

“I not fooling around, also,” said the bandit leader. “I warn you to go away. Or maybe I take your camel as well as your uncle’s carpet.”

“That would be an even bigger mistake than the one you made already,” said Philippa. “Please don’t make me use force. You’ve no idea what I’m capable of. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating me. Some other people did and now they’re budgies. Or at least they would be if some ferrets hadn’t eaten them. I don’t like using force. But if you give me no choice, then I will.”

“Force? What kind of force?” He grinned. “Maybe you gonna hit me with your glasses, huh? Or slap my face?”

“I can do much worse than that,” said Philippa. “But the thing is I don’t want to, you see?”

The bandit leader sighed and it was clear he still didn’t believe Philippa could stop him, which was, she decided, hardly surprising since grown men have a bad habit of ignoring children, especially girls, and not taking them seriously. So she decided to make the carpet much heavier by the simple device of causing a length of solid cast iron weighing several hundred pounds to appear inside the rolled-up carpet. Which was the same moment she remembered that she’d forgotten to change the focus word back to something more easily usable.

“DIDDLEEYEJOEFROMMEJICOFELLOFFHISHORSEATARODEOHANDSUPSTICKEMUPDROPTHEMGUNSANDPICKEMUPDIDDLEEYEJOEFROMMEJICO!”

Immediately, the three bandits staggered and then collapsed
under the heavy weight; then the carpet rolled off their shoulders and onto the ground.

“I told you,” she said. “Now if you’ll just leave it there and walk away, nobody will get hurt. Or turned into an animal.”

The bandit leader stood up holding his shoulder painfully and said something that even in Tatar sounded unpleasant to Philippa’s ears. Then he reached for his pistol.

There was no time for her to think about anything except getting all of the focus word out of her mouth before the bandit could get his gun out of his belt; but even as he was thumbing back the hammer, Philippa still hadn’t finished uttering it. And he was actually pointing the pistol at her when the very last syllables crossed her lips.

There was a loud bang and a strong smell of sulfur, as is often the result following an angry or urgent demonstration of djinn power. The bandit leader disappeared, and another Bactrian camel was now standing in his place.

This prompted the second bandit to reach for his pistol, only he did it a little more quickly than his friend, which meant that he was able to get off a single shot that Philippa ducked, before she finally managed to utter all of her focus word again, and he, too, was turned into a burping, saliva-drooling Bactrian camel.

It wasn’t that she liked Bactrian camels so much as the fact that, what with all these guns being pointed at her, there was little time to think of anything else but guns and camels. And she might just as easily have turned the bandit into an old service revolver of the kind that the bandit had been
holding, except that she disliked camels just a little less than she disliked guns.

“At this rate, I’m going to end up with my own camel train,” said Philippa.

The third bandit was sufficiently alarmed by what had happened to his friends that he was not inclined to stay and offer Philippa any further resistance. He was quite convinced that Philippa was some kind of alien, or at the very least a Cossack devil of the kind his grandparents had told him about. He yelled with fright and quickly reached for his gun to throw it away.

The trouble was that Philippa was unable to read his mind and assumed that he, too, was intending to shoot her, and before the pistol could hit the ground, there was a third Bactrian camel standing beside the other two.

Philippa let out a weary sigh and felt sick. It wasn’t the fear of almost being shot that made her feel nauseous so much as the idea of turning a man into an animal. Having experienced being an animal herself, she knew this wasn’t so bad. All the same what she had done felt pretty drastic and, for a moment or two, she looked hard for a silver lining inside the cloud of what she had done.

“They may be camels but at least they’re still alive,” she told herself. “Unlike those two budgies back in Bumby. Although it wasn’t really my fault that they got eaten by those two ferrets. How was I to know that ferrets eat budgies?”

She found a length of rope on the back of Mr. Bayuleev’s camel and used it to tie the other three to the saddle.

“And I suppose I can always make a gift of these other camels to Mr. Bayuleev in return for him helping us. He looks pretty poor. I guess three camels would be very valuable to him.”

Then, using djinn power again, she made the length of cast iron inside the flying carpet disappear before lifting it up in the air and laying it across one of the bandit camels.

“And I suppose that those three wicked bandits can’t rob anyone else now. Or worse. I mean, it is possible that they might have shot me. Equally they could shoot someone else. So I guess that has to be a good thing, too.”

She mounted Mr. Bayuleev’s camel and started back to where she had left the others.

“All the same, I can’t helping thinking that it still doesn’t feel right to do that to someone,” she said. “It feels cruel and unusual. Like something prohibited in the Constitution. And that has to be bad.”

This feeling lasted as long as it took Philippa to arrive back at the collection of leather tents Mr. Bayuleev called home, because when she presented him with three extra camels he was so grateful he started to kiss her hand and to cry. And she began to feel that maybe something good had come out of what had happened after all.

Nimrod, however, was less impressed.

“I hope you terrified them properly first,” he said. “Before you turned them into camels.”

“Of course I did,” said Philippa, hoping to change the subject.

Nimrod looked disbelieving.

“They don’t look like they’ve been terrified very much.”

“Well, I did.”

“Go on then, what did you do?”

“I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s because you didn’t do it, did you?” argued Nimrod. “Which makes me wonder why you turned them into camels.”

“What’s wrong with camels?”

“Nothing,” said Nimrod. “That’s my point, really. I mean, given that these were three desperate thieves with guns, and given that you couldn’t bring yourself to terrify them a bit first, couldn’t you have turned them into something a bit more horrible than camels?”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Tortoises. Fish. Better still, gerbils. That way something would be bound to eat them before very long. Especially around here. Snow leopard. Eagle. Lynx. A gerbil’s a nice snack when you’re a lynx or an eagle. And serve them right, too. In my opinion, all thieves should squeak a bit for their crimes. Especially when they go around pointing guns at people. That’s only justice. Don’t you agree, Moo?”

“I’ve never liked gerbils,” said Moo. “Or anything that squeaks. But I happen to believe in the rule of law. There can be no real justice without a trial.”

“Well said, lady,” said Silvio.

“If I hadn’t seen your X-ray,” said Philippa, “I’d swear there was something very wrong with you, Uncle Nimrod.”

“I agree,” said Mr. Burton. “You’re behaving in a most peculiar way.”

“I feel fine,” insisted Nimrod.

“Anyway, I thought three camels would make a nice gift for Mr. Bayuleev.”

“That’s fair enough, I suppose.”

Nimrod chuckled as Mr. Bayuleev proceeded to kiss Philippa’s hand once again.

“Bless him, look. He thinks you’re an angel. A real one, probably. Tell you what. I’ve had a great idea. Three camels, right? Why don’t you hang a bit of tinsel on them and maybe he’ll think it’s Christmas?”

Nimrod laughed out loud at his own rather tasteless joke, which left Philippa staring up at the sky and hoping that before very long another large bird might fall and hit her uncle on the head. Either that or she was going to have to get used to liking Nimrod a lot less than before.

“Come on,” said Nimrod. “Let’s roll out that carpet and get out of here before he starts worshipping you and this gets really embarrassing.”

Philippa shot her uncle a withering look. “Yes, well, I certainly know what that feels like,” she said.

I
t was midnight, for they were to leave before it was light, and the moon made everything in the Kailash crater a strange and unearthly shade of blue.

At the Mopu Lamasery, the Nazis made their preparations to return home to Germany from Tibet with a cheerfulness that John found easier to understand than to share. They rolled up their flags, packed away their pictures and statues, and sang jolly German songs about how they loved to go wandering in the mountains (especially when they were in countries that belonged to other people), a man called Horst Wessel, and how someone’s rotten bones were trembling. Several of them grinned happily at John and clapped him on the shoulder. A few even thanked him for “agreeing” to accompany them to Berlin.

“You’ve no idea what this means to us,” said one. “To go home. To see our families again after all this time. Seventy weeks in Tibet. It felt more like seventy years, I can tell you.”

John didn’t have the heart to tell the Nazi that something had happened to time while he and his comrades had been staying in the Kailash crater; that seventy weeks had been at least seventy years, and that very likely all of their families were dead — either from old age or as a result of the Second World War, which none of them seemed to know about. So he kept his mouth shut and bided his time.

Meanwhile, Hynkell kept his word and released Rakshasas, who sprang upon John in a frenzy of affection, licking his face and playfully biting his hand. John took hold of the thick collar of fur around the wolf’s neck and spoke quietly into his ear, explaining what had happened.

“They know that I’m a djinn,” he said. “Well, of course they suspected something of the kind when they saw us arrive here on a flying carpet. Seventy odd years ago, Himmler sent them here to find out the secret of eternal life and a load of stuff about Tibetan paranormal powers, but the monks at Shamba-la have always refused to let them in the door. I guess they must have showed up after you were last here, huh? Otherwise you’d have mentioned it, right?”

Rakshasas barked once.

“Anyway, they think I’m the next best thing to Tibetan paranormal powers. So they’re planning to take me back to Berlin instead of some monk from Shamba-la. And yes, I’ve agreed to go with them.”

Gradually, the wolf settled down until he was just standing there looking at him, with an expression of disappointment and reproach in his blue eyes — as if to say, “You made a deal with some Nazis?”

“What could I do?” John said to Rakshasas. “Since I’ve been in the Kailash crater, I’ve had no djinn power. None at all. It’s completely deserted me. I couldn’t have resisted them even if I had wanted to. And I had to give my word to go back to Berlin with them or they’d have tortured you. Roasted you alive, they said, and made me watch.”

Rakshasas stared at him some more and then shook his head, and John didn’t need to put his spirit inside the wolf to know what he was thinking.

“That might not seem important to you,” said John. “But I certainly couldn’t have endured it.”

Then Rakshasas put his nose into the air and emitted a long howl, which of course made John think of Groanin and what was happening in Yellowstone Park.

“Yes, I know. I’m thinking about poor Groanin, too. But he’s a shrewd one, the Nazi commander. He made me make a wish, see? They made me wish that something would happen to Mom and Dad if I broke my word to them. And I know better than to wish things lightly, especially when it involves the lives of others. You know how that stuff works. So I
had
to choose.”

John punched his hand as he tried to explain himself to the wolf.

“I had to choose Groanin or my own mother and father. So I had to choose my parents. That’s what anyone would do, isn’t it?”

Rakshasas stepped forward and licked away the tear that was rolling down John’s face. Then he nipped him on the hand again as if to say, “Pull yourself together.”

John pulled himself together and watched helplessly as the flying carpet was rolled up and tied on top of a climbing pack, and although he had his doubts that the carpet would fly at all within the confines of the crater, he still felt compelled to mention it to Hynkell. Even to tease him with it a little.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Don’t you want me to fly some of you out of here? It’d be a lot easier than walking, I’d have thought. And certainly a lot quicker.”

Hynkell, who was tying a rope around his middle for the descent, shook his head. “I can’t ask some of my men to wait behind,” he said. “Either we all go back together or not at all. Besides, I’m not quite ready to put myself completely in your control, John.”

“I already gave you my word,” said John.

“It’ll be a different story in Berlin, but up here it’s best that I don’t put too much temptation in your way. So I think we will climb down, yes?”

John shrugged. “It’s your call,” he said. “But it looked like a very difficult climb when I flew in here. I’d have said it couldn’t have been done on foot. It’s a sheer wall at the foot of that fissure. You must all be excellent mountaineers. I certainly hope so since I’m putting myself in your control.”

“We’re the best in Germany,” said Hynkell. “Which is to say, the best in the world. That’s why we were sent here in the first place.”

“I don’t mind telling you,” said John. “I’m not much of a climber. And nor is Rakshasas.”

Hynkell smiled thinly. “Then we shall teach you.” The Nazi approached John and tied a rope around his middle.

“Is that in case I escape?”

“No, it is in case you fall.”

When all the Nazis were assembled and ready to leave the crater, Hynkell made a speech about the journey that lay ahead of them and passed around a bottle of schnapps. After that, they sang the German national anthem. And just before dawn, they set off.

For about an hour they walked along a knife-edge traverse until they came to the entrance to the fissure and Hynkell led the way in, but not a man followed him without halting breathlessly for a moment, and glancing back at the crater where they had lived for such an unfeasible length of time. Yet there were no expressions of regret at leaving behind their secret Himalayan sanctuary. For all of the Germans, this was not a departure but an escape and, in spite of his dislike of their leader, Hynkell, John couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of concern and foreboding for what lay ahead of them. How soon would they discover the truth about what had happened to them? When they reached Lhasa and saw the first television? And how would they react to the discovery that even the youngest of them was at least ninety years old? Would they take it out on John and Rakshasas?

The passage through the fissure was anything but easy going. The floor was nonexistent and most of the time they had to traverse the passage in an acute angle between the two walls. Sometimes the gap between the two walls was very
narrow, which meant that the larger climbing packs had to be removed and in some cases abandoned because they were too bulky to be squeezed through. Only Rakshasas, being the smallest of all the travelers, moved through the fissure without any real difficulty.

After several hours in the fissure, they stopped for food and some of the kinder, friendlier Germans fetched Mr. Rakshasas some food, and John learned that not all of the men were fanatics like Hynkell. Some were just ordinary men who had found themselves drafted into the German army and, because they were skilled mountaineers, detailed to join the SS and, in particular, Hynkell’s expedition to Tibet.

“Don’t worry,” one of them told John. “We’ll look after you and your furry friend here. Back in Germany, I have a dog that looks a lot like him. My brother has been looking after him while I’ve been away.” The German smiled. “He’ll go crazy when he sees me again.”

“After all this time, do you think he’ll recognize you?” John asked carefully.

“Of course,” said the German. “He’s my dog. Not my brother’s. German shepherds are one-man dogs. For life. Once they’re yours, they’re yours forever.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” said John.

“My name is Fritz,” said the man, holding out his hand.

John nodded and took it. “John,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. I think.”

“Have you been to Berlin before?” asked Fritz.

“Yes, once,” said John. “I went to the Pergamon Museum. It was very interesting. The Blue Gates of Babylon.”

“Your German is very good,” said Fritz.

“Thanks.” John thought it best not to mention that the only reason he spoke fluent German was because he’d wished it with djinn power. That was the only reason he’d done a lot of things. And he wondered how much Fritz knew about who and what he was. Kind or not, John certainly didn’t want to get into a conversation with the German that ended with being asked for three wishes.

“How is it,” asked Fritz, “that you are able to fly a magic carpet?”

John shrugged. “Practice,” he said.

Fritz smiled at John’s joke but there was no time for him to reply as one of Hynkell’s staff sergeants blew a whistle, which was the sign for everyone to get moving again.

The second stage of the journey through the fissure in Mount Kailash was even harder than the first, and while John found the going difficult he did not find it as difficult as most of the Germans, who seemed surprisingly unfit. By the time they reached the other side of the mountain, the Germans were all puffing like steam trains and many of them were exhausted. And it was with a sense of relief that John heard Hynkell give the order that they would make camp in the fissure that night and begin the descent of the rock face first thing in the morning.

As soon as the order was given, Fritz collapsed against the rock wall and might have lain down except that there was
no room to lie down, and almost everyone except John spent the next few hours asleep on their feet like a collection of statues. Even the man carrying John’s flying carpet was asleep, and John might actually have stolen it back but for the fact that he had given his word to Hynkell.

To take his mind off such considerations, John went to the edge of the fissure, stared down the rock face, and shuddered at the very thought of trying to climb down the mountain. The descent looked impossible and the real wonder was how these men had ever made the ascent. If he’d felt sufficient heat in his bones, he might even have contemplated helping out the Germans with better rope and some more up-to-date climbing equipment like a few dozen belay and rappel devices, quickdraws, carabiners, and climbing boots. But it was a bitterly cold night, and John felt as helpless as a kitten stuck up a tree.

“Thinking of escape?” said a voice.

John looked around and saw Hynkell was immediately behind him. He looked very tired. There were deep lines in his face, and John wondered if he or any of his men would be up to the physically demanding feat that lay ahead of them.

“No,” said the boy djinn. “I told you I gave my word. Maybe you Nazis are in the habit of breaking a promise, but I’m not.”

Hynkell nodded. “Good,” he said. Then, producing a Luger pistol, he added, “Just remember. I’ll be bringing up the rear tomorrow. So if you do break your word, I shan’t hesitate to use this. On you, or your furry friend.”

John looked over the edge once more. “Anyway, right
now I’m more worried about breaking my neck than breaking my word. If you ask me, none of your men are up to this climb. They’re already exhausted. What are they going to be like when they’re on that wall?”

“Don’t worry about my men,” said Hynkell. “They’ll be all right. They made it all the way up here. They’ll certainly make it back again.”

“I hope so,” said John. “For my sake.”

As soon as it was light, the best of Hynkell’s climbers moved out onto a narrow ledge, roped in threes, and began to traverse along the sheer face of Mount Kailash; this first climber was roped to a second man who followed, and a third, and so on until it was John’s turn. Tied onto his back was Rakshasas, for John trusted no one else to carry his old friend. If they fell they would fall together. But before John stepped out onto the ledge, Fritz tapped him on the arm and handed him a pocketknife.

“Just in case,” he murmured.

For a moment John wondered what he meant and realizing this, Fritz explained:

“Just in case you need to cut the rope,” he said.

“Cut the rope?” John looked horrified at the very idea. “Why would I want to do that?”

“You might have to, lad.” said Fritz. “To save yourself. And there would be no shame in that. My own son would be about your age. I hope that another man, in similar circumstances — if such a thing were possible — would do the same for him.”

“Thanks,” said John. “But I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Naturally.” Fritz grinned. “It’s just a precaution, that’s all.”

Ignoring the sharp wind that whipped his face with reproach for having dared to set foot on the holy mountain — John had hardly forgotten what Rakshasas had said about the blasphemy of climbing Mount Kailash — he edged his way onto the traverse and began to inch his way along the wall. And, one by one, Fritz and the others followed until they were all on the wall, like a daisy chain.

For about half an hour, the movement of the climbers along the traverse was steady, but gradually it slowed and eventually came to a halt. At first, John thought it might have something to do with the wind, which was quickly building up to a gale, and he braced himself for an order from the front to go back to the fissure. He felt that would only have been sensible; perhaps they might attempt a descent later, when the wind had dropped. But when no such order came, John became impatient.

“What’s happening?” he asked the man in front to whom he was roped, whose name was Kurt.

Kurt turned to tell John that he didn’t know, and John hardly recognized him. At first, the boy supposed that it was the cold that had turned the man’s hair white; but he realized the cold could hardly have affected his voice, which was now weak and halting, or his back, which was now bent. There could be no doubt about it, thought John: Kurt was aging in front of his very eyes.