The PuppetMaster (18 page)

Five doms, the untouchables given the grisly task of lifting corpses to their place on the pyre, set themselves in a circle about the body. The corps was obese, another sign of affluence, and a sixth dom slide into position near the belly. I gasped--audibly enough that Uli halted mid-sentence to look at me. The untouchable squatting to lift the corpse was wearing light gray slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt. Adam! He was sliding his hands under the mid-section of the corpse.

I looked at Uliana. She followed my gaze up the pyre and looked puzzled. I knew she didn’t grasp the significance. Adam was a harijan, an untouchable. It was as unlikely as snow in the afternoon.

They heaved the body, as respectfully as its weight would allow, onto the wood. The priests ladled it with more oil, the kindling caught and flames swelled. I was grateful that we stood enough distance away to avoid the stench. I had smelled that foulness at a close distance once. It would linger indelibly. In the haze, Adam receded. A harijan? How could he be a achut, one that handled corpses? It was the lowest position, next to shit-sweeping, that a person could be assigned in life.

I turned back to Bijram, who had just predictably predicted rain in two days. In whispered Hindi, I asked, “Brother Bijram, do you know much of this Sharmalal, where he comes from? His education?”

He replied in equally quiet Hindi, “This Adam? Very little, that is a fact, Sri Bhimaji. I do know that he has no varna. He is a harijan, and I have heard that he is also a gifted nipuda. The rumors say that he was orphaned and taken in by an instructor at BHU, but schooled in the U.K. He used to speak at the railway station, but now he speaks here, and the priests pay him enough respect to keep the shala open during this hour of the day. Many young people listen, but they are the ones who do not care that he is a achut.”

“And you . . . why do you listen to him if he is untouchable?”

Bijram wagged his head like a hula doll in the rear of a Chevrolet. “Because. . . I like his words. My friends and I are engineers, alas, currently unemployed clerks of the government office, but we are learned in the sciences, and his words make sense. They come back to stay inside here. Always” He tapped the side of his head. His buddies wagged in unified agreement.

I looked at the spires of the Alamqir Mosque towering above. Bijram noticed where I was looking and whispered. “The Imam does not like the words of Adam, and it is said the Cabinet Minister also is very displeased.”

“Qereshy?”

“Yes.”

“Between us, Bijram. Qereshy is an asshole.” He grinned and everyone wagged their heads at that one.

With assurances that we would see each other again, the boys moved off to find other entertainment. The Australians departed, and Uli, Jitka and I were alone once more.

For three breaths we stood looking at each other, and then I reached into my pack. “Jitka, here are two gifts for you,” I stammered. “Small, but given as thanks for graciously allowing your sister to join me for dinner.” I fixed her with my best ‘truce be with us’ smile. Her scowl stayed, but when she opened the pink carton and saw the squares of pistachio, milk, sugar, and egg confections, it disintegrated. “I also know of a cafe, if you are interested, where you can find the best Chinese stir fry in Uttar Pradesh. Beef or chicken, and I thought perhaps, while Uliana and I discuss the poetry of the Ramayana, you might like to try it.” I hesitated for a minute as she eyed the candy, and then added, “I would have invited you also, but my housekeeper would object to my bringing two beautiful women to dine. She is traditional.”

I had taken her unawares, sideswiped her armor with sweet-talk and confections. With a smile that looked as it might crack both cheeks from the effort, she replied in brusque gutturals, “That is very thoughtful. I am . . . grateful for both.”

“Well, they’re the least I can offer. I know what it is like to be in a strange city on one’s own, but I can assure you that, other than a few neighborhoods, it is quite safe here, even at night.” Not that I believed anyone would assault her. The chain mail was too thick.

She grunted. “Thank you,” She hesitated, not feeling comfortable saying my name, I suppose. “Uli likes this place more than me. I don’t like the smell, but if they have beef stir fry . . that would be gut.”

From my pack I retrieved a writing pad and for the next two minutes drew the most detailed map possible, one that would bring her safely to Johnny Chang’s House of Mandarin Cuisine. It would also take her through the sweets vendor lanes, which might change her mind about the smells. It usually did.

With the handshake of a blacksmith as a gesture of a newly formed armistice, and a kiss on the cheek for her sister, Jitka departed.

“That was very kind of you, Bhim. Und wise. You won over my sister with gifts that she wouldn’t refuse.” Uliana smiled playfully and sat on one of the cracked blocks that bordered the staircase. Her hair was braided with teal ribbons in tight pig-tails that, with her Nordic features, gave her a Swiss Miss look. Heidi of India. Her skirt was a blue-green with a silk border that resembled a sari. Her blouse was a loose kurta of the same shade as the ribbons. Simple, beautiful, and with just enough Indian style that she wouldn’t draw undue attention.

I tried with questionable success to breathe deeply enough to slow the racing of my pulse. “Well, I did feel badly about not inviting her, and also to give her a better path. If she follows my directions, she will walk past some of the better smells in the city. You just have to know where to find them.”

She looked at me with cobalt eyes and pigtails and asked, “Will you take me there as well?”

I gave a short bow. “This very evening Uliana Hadersen. I will pick you up at five-thirty, if that’s acceptable, and show you some of the sights before dinner.”

Her smile came easily, relaxed but with the earlier sadness I couldn’t fathom. “I look forward to it. It will be like Rama showing Sita the countryside from their flying chariot.”

I was stunned again. “My God, you know that part of the epic?”

“Of course, they were some of the most beautiful lines I’d ever read. I even memorized a few of them”

With a new rhythm in my heart, I took hold of Ugly’s handlebars and told Uli that I would see her at the Riverview at five-thirty sharp.

Nodding at the bright spokes, she laughed. “And does your shiny chariot have a name?”

Without thinking I answered, “Surya.”

“Surya, I like that name,” she replied. “The sun god.”

Thirty-One

Sutradharak desired to create the greatest amount of carnage possible with the smallest team and the least amount of plastique possible, and he felt certain he had designed an event to do just that. The scale of devastation it would create would be greater than anything he had previously unleashed. Fear would spread like cholera. The intelligence agencies would scour the cities in a dozen new places, all of them wrong. And that was precisely his intention, or rather the intention of his employers.

His employers also wanted an event that would trigger a reaction that went beyond the standard political response and intensified investigations. They wanted something that would raise the threat of war regionally, something that would really get sabers rattling.

Sutradharak believed he had designed an event that would do that as well.

The media continued to speculate he was a Pakistani extremist. Appropriately so, as his targets had been primarily Hindus traveling along the rail lines. Computer theorists did the same. He smiled to himself, because they were all so mistaken. His motivations weren't religious. They weren't even nationalistic or patriotic. He really didn’t give a flying fuck which of the two countries occupied that frozen piece of shit between them. ‘The bosses’, as he referred to them, wanted Delhi and Islamabad to square off and march down paths of folly to the brink of armed conflict. Escalation on a massive scale. But diversion, at this point, was their topmost priority.

Sutradharak only wanted to bring about and watch the death. And, in an almost childish way, he delighted in the explosions that made it all happen. It was like a grand fireworks show that he held a front seat ticket to view.

So, he had his plan now, and a date. What he didn’t have was the location.

Studying a topographical map for the seventh time that morning, he twirled the ring on his left hand. The entire map south of the Himalayas was spread out in front of him. Geophysical played a big part this time. After a few minutes, with a rare smile, he deftly stabbed the tip of his knife to a place just above the name of a city. Exactly, he mused. A perfect location. Now the only the schedule needs to be set.

Thirty-Two

I had a great deal to ponder, puzzles my cloistered, scholarly existence hadn’t really prepared me to do. Five days earlier my priorities had been fairly simple, finish the Bhavabuti play, make sure Sahr and Lalji had provisions for the villa, and get to Devi’s before his Timex snitched on me. Now I owned a different set of priorities.

Living as a foreigner in a holy city could be like being in an enormous paint ball game or a carnival ride. Surprises of ever sort popped up just when you were feeling complacent. I needed answers. Haroon might have some, so I pedaled from the river up to his club.

I rolled my newly christened bicycle through the door. The sign said business was closed for two more hours, but he was there and called my name as soon as Ugly was across the threshold.

“Bhim. You have come to finally plan our vacation. For that you I will fix you the best smoothie on the menu. On the house.”

“Sorry, Maumed. No planning quite yet, I have other concerns to discuss. Important ones.”

He frowned, but then patted the bar. “Okay. Sit, my friend. The smoothie will still be free. What are we talking of today? No, don’t tell me. You need advice on how to handle all the new women in your life, and I am the man to give it.”

I purposefully chose a seat at one end of the bar, wanting to be out of earshot of the bartenders stocking at the other. “Not that either. I need to get information about a mining company, what they are doing, and whether they are operating legally. My guess is they are not. I also need find a way to get some information about a crooked policeman.”

He ordered one of his barmen to fetch two smoothies and some nuts, and then took the seat next to me. “An illegal mining operation you say? Something close by?” I nodded. “Mmm . . . That requires the use of two things, a new law enacted last year, and a healthy dose of caution.”

“I’m fairly practiced at being cautious, Maumed, but I know next to nothing about law, especially here. What are you referring to?”

The blender leapt to life and he waited until it stopped. “Last year our less than expeditious congress created something called the Right to Information Act. It took them over four decades to get it enacted, but now citizens can demand information about what companies are doing in their neighborhoods. Very slowly it is being used to check activities that used to go unmonitored.”

“Four decades? That is moving slowly.”

“It started after the Union Carbide gas leak that killed three-thousand people in Bhopal in 1984.”

“And it is just now becoming law?”

He nodded.

“So, why do you say a lot of caution is needed?”

Our smoothies and peanuts arrived, and Maumed waited until the bartender left. “Some investigators have dug too deeply and demanded to know about too many high–level operations. They paid the ultimate price to obtain it.”

“Murdered?”

“Quite. It’s the first time these businesses have been subjected to any scrutiny, and many aren’t keen on the idea. A lot of them are run by powerful people with political connections who don’t want the little people meddling. Bhopal was a very ugly example.”

“Ummm . . . you make it sound as if it isn’t the wisest thing to cite this law. Can I assume a ferenghi with a temporary visa probably wouldn’t be able to?”

He took a long sip of his smoothie and smiled. “Good assumption, my friend, though a well-connected dance club owner might.”

I wrote down two names on a napkin. I slid the paper across the bar. As I did so, I realized I was probably creating a debt that meant I would be going to Sandals after all.

Lalji had left the gate unlocked and the courtyard unguarded again, but with Surya in my possession there was little a thief would covet in the courtyard, unless ripe mangoes were on his list.

I chained Surya to the tree with a new lock the size of a grapefruit and called out to Sahr as I entered the salon. Her hello was followed by a directive to keep my fat ferenghi nose out of her kitchen. She was up to culinary secretiveness. Fine, I said. I have things to work on. Don’t worry about me.

I checked my phone messages. One. Mej would be returning from Delhi on the late train and would see me at my gate in the morning. He also had a surprise gift for me, he said. Wonderful. Surprises from Mej could range from practical office equipment to blow-up dolls named Cindy with life-like openings.

I opened C.G.’s Acer and slid the jump drive into the USB slot. As I clicked through the photographs, I wondered, could this really be more than just medical folklore? An actual cure for something? The pundits believed it was. What if the authors had discovered some workable combination of plants and pressure points? Not likely, I decided, but it wasn't totally out of the question. They had obviously deemed it important enough to carve into very hard rock and decorate it with some nice stain.