The PuppetMaster (13 page)

Suddenly, Adam’s voice called out loudly, startling me. “Ao, Bacchi, ao. Come Children, come.” I turned as a swarm of riverbank urchins scurried across the steps. A dozen soiled hands of various dimension, stretched towards Adam. Skinny bodies, festering sores, and sunken eyes surrounded us. Half my feta sat in front of Adam neatly cubed on the section of the leaf that had wrapped it, a small folding knife next to it. The other half of my cheese was divided into two parts, fourths of my original kilo. He handed the green plate of cubes to the largest of the children with a stern directive to share it equally. Then, with a wave of his fingers he sent them scampering away. My mouth dropped, and as quickly as he had handed me the Fanta, pushed a remaining fourth in my direction. The final cube he divided for our group. With pleasant thank-yous, everyone popped their feta, correction, my feta, into their mouths.

Twenty-Two

We’re supposed to gain a lot from first impressions. That’s what they say anyway. That singular event below the temple at Manikarnika returns to me more often than I would have imagined. I sat looking at my remaining quarter kilo, totally baffled by Sharmalal, or Adam, or whatever he called himself. That first impression bounced around from quirky orator, to devious thief, to generous benefactor. He didn’t clarify it much when he hopped to his feet with a hasty good-bye and left the seven of us staring at each other. Other than The Sadhu Wannabees, I had absolutely no idea what the others were thinking or why they were even there. My English buddies were pretty easy to read.

Petey, in falso-soprano and exaggerated esses, broke the silence with, “Well, that was the cutest thing since Prince Andrew, wouldn’t you agree, Shawney. I can so picture those molecules hooking up like little drag queens to float down the river together.”

Shawn, holding out his hand in a cue that it was time to head back to the Hodge Podge for an afternoon nap, responded, “Cute as William and Andrew combined, Sweets. Come on, let’s go fire up a tube of Bombay Boogey with a pinch of dream maker in it.” With a toodle-oo and a finger wave they sashayed up the steps to indulge in their mix of hashish and opium. Five of us remained.

Marley and Frederick introduced themselves first. Pleasant couple, mid-thirties, from Toronto, having a wonderful time riding first class rail to all the holy sites listed in Frommer’s. She had carrot hair and a complexion too freckled to be out in the Uttar Pradesh sun. He looked like an insurance salesman with wire frame glasses. It was easy to see that they had money, nice cameras and safari hats with small air conditioners in them. Truly, little battery-operated coolers in the headbands that guaranteed you wouldn’t get heatstroke. Unless your batteries died. They inquired how long I’d been in Varanasi and whistled in low unison when I told them. I caught a new look of appraisal from Uliana and the same tough-ass look from Jitka

After a second round of questions I learned the blond women were from Tönder, Denmark, which I also learned was in the southern part of the country, just over the border from Germany. In brave or foolhardy fashion they had hitchhiked nineteen days to Turkey and then flown across the less tourist-friendly regions of Iraq and Iran. From Bombay they had set off on a tour of the North. That had been a month ago.

I assumed—which was not something I did with frequency—that they were on a spiritual quest more than the typical tourist trek. Uliana anyway. She bore that out when she replied in a silky Danish accent to a question from Frederick about sites they had seen in Agra. “Ya, we toured the Red Fort und the Taj Mahal, und then stayed for fifteen days in an ashram for the Hatha yoga. It was the best time we’ve had on our trip so far.” I saw Jitka scowl.

Marley’s face, even with her refrigerated hat, was flushing to beet. “Why did you leave?” She asked.

Uliana smiled and blushed. “The food was not very good for our stomachs.” Light gutturals swirled into her speech like honey.

Jitka, spoke for the first time, her voice sounding more like a German rock-crusher. “We had the runs the entire goddamned time, Uli, and the yoga master kept trying to get you into positions that I’ve never seen in any yoga book. He was a horny little veasel with b o and we were both happy as hens to get the hell out of there.” I decided right then that I liked Jitka.

Uliana looked at me, and I saw something in her eyes I hadn’t noticed before—dispiritedness in the blue. “Achh…it wasn’t that bad, but maybe less pleasant than I describe.” She hesitated and asked me, “Und how is it you came by the name Bhim? It is one of Arjuna’s brothers from the Mahabharata is it not? The big, strong one?”

That was impressive; few Westerners knew the intricacies of India’s two massive epics, certainly not the details of the minor characters. The Mahabharata is the longest poem ever written, and nestled like a diamond in its center is the Bhagavad-Gita, The Song of God. Beautiful reading for any tourist, and required literature for any student of Hinduism, but few went beyond its boundaries to the surrounding story.

“You have a . . . good memory,” I stammered. “He is one of Arjuna’s brothers, a giant who does a lot of Paul Bunyan tricks, like tossing boulders and snapping trees.” Marley and Frederick nodded. Being Canadian I guess they knew who Paul Bunyan was. Uliana’s expression told me she didn’t, so I explained.

With a quick smile she asked, “So, you chose this giant’s name for yourself?”

I touched the name-string at my neck. “No, actually our friend, Adam who just shared three-fourths of my goat-cheese with the world, gave me the name three years ago. It sort of stuck. This is the first encounter I’ve had with him since.” They all stared at me again. The subject then shifted to how they had been drawn to where we stood. Adam, I learned, had been lecturing to no one, just sermonizing to the air about electrons and molecules. He had gone on and on while people passed by unheeding. That was understandable. He’d been orating in English, which narrowed the audience, and sermons along the Ghats were as common as funerals. Somehow though, what he was saying, or how he was saying it, had caught the attention of the members of our small group.

I listened taciturnly as they chatted about hotels. The Chapens, Marley and Frederick, were quartered in the Radisson and were mildly disappointed by the clicking of the air conditioner, but the mini-bar and continental breakfasts were decent. Jitka growled that The Riverview was a stinking sweat-box that pigs shouldn’t sleep in. I thought that an accurate assessment.

I stifled a sleepy yawn. Eight hours earlier I had tossed a lot of Frisbee, and in between had worked on a translation for a cure for some unknown disease. Not bad for a single day. I was now dreaming of tossing Lalji out of his hammock for an afternoon snooze.

The Chapens departed for the clicking coolness of their room, and then there were three of us. I watched nervously, as Uliana gave Jitka a pleasant go for a walk’ signal. Stretching her spine and patting her ribcage, Miss Congeniality snarled, “Right, Svester. I’ll go alone to our little sheisahole with the roaches in the faucets und bedbugs. Und I’ll wait for you, but not long. Lunch was supposed to be an hour ago, und I vill find a ham and a rye sandwich in this stinkhole if it kills me, und potato chips too.” Svester, Jitka was her sister. She tromped up the steps, and I was once more awkwardly facing a beautiful woman my own age.

Uliana Hadersen, meet the inhibited, bashful, and stammering Sanskrit hermit with two names. Please to meet you. I hoped she was capable of carrying on a conversation by herself, because I was having a hard time swallowing, much less vocalizing.

She asked if I wouldn’t mind sitting for a moment. That simple question was another crossroad, one I wasn’t sure I was ready to veer onto, even just to sit and chat idly by the river. But of course, I did.

She wore a simple, tan blouse and a long cotton skirt printed with sea horses and curled eel grass. This she raised tactfully to her knees as we sat down. No earrings, no necklaces, no make-up, and not a hint of a tattoo. Perhaps there is a small one, I thought, a rose, or a butterfly, in some hidden spot.

She glanced up the steps that Jitka had just ascended and offered, “My sister is really quite kind when you get to know her, but cautious of strangers. She watches out for both of us, but has a very kind heart.”

I took a deep breath, hoping to settle the pounding in my ears. “I can understand that, being protective of someone like you. Is she older?” Someone like you? God, did I really say that?

Uli let out a breezy laugh. “No, I am the older, but she thinks she is the tougher, so she believes it is her duty. I am called Uli, by the way.”

Yes, I supposed. It would be a good thing, protecting someone like you. I asked the only numb question I could think of. “So Uli, have you enjoyed India so far? I mean, other than the ashram and sour stomach.”

“Oh yes, very much. Especially the people; they always want to help.” She smiled and added, “Everyone offers food and asks us to come to their homes for meals. Though I expect they don’t have so much for themselves. The train from Delhi was long, but the rice fields and ox and women planting barefoot--it made me feel like I was . . . really seeing it for the first time. Does that sound silly?”

“No, not at all. The villages are the soul of the country. Very little changes in them, and when you see them up close, you are seeing the real India. Trains are a great way to take it in.”

She gazed absently at the river and continued. “Ya, but I think I wish for a . . .”

I finished her thought. “a deeper experience?” I had seen it in her eyes earlier. I’d also heard it from a hundred ferenghis who had come the city searching for personal epiphanies. Eventually they moved on.

“Yes. Something like that. How did you know?”

I looked to the river also. “A lot of people come here for those kinds of reasons. India draws them, Varanasi holds them. For a short while anyway. Hindus believe it is because their souls lived here in previous lives.”

“Is that what you believe? Is that why you came here?” It was asked with such innocence that my usual defenses remained lowered.

“I’m . . . not sure what I believe anymore. I came here to study poetry, and it may sound exaggerated when I say it, but it makes me shiver from its beauty. I think it’s why I’m here, really, to work in the verse. Well, mostly in a way.” I was struggling, trying to verbalize one half of why I was here. Then our eyes met and I saw that she was listening, so I kept on. “It’s a blend of sounds and mathematics. A concerto, like the best Elizabethan sonnets set in this incredible song that resonates the strings of the heart like sitars.” I had rambled a bit and blushed from of it.

“That doesn’t sound exaggerated. It sounds beautiful.”

“It is.” Curious, I asked, “So, Uli . . . how do you know the names of characters in the Mahabharata?”

“Ach, I read it last year. I wanted to learn about the country und thought it was a good place to start.”

“The whole thing!” I was stunned. A few thousand pages of couplets could send anyone scurrying for a cheap suspense novel.

“Ya, a condensed one, but I read it and The Ramayana before I left Tonder. It was good practice for my English, and the stories were amazing, plots inside plots. Great love stories, too.”

Incredible. A woman who read the epics, the Great Poetry? “You enjoyed the tale of Rama and Sita?”

“Yes of course, very much. Who could not? Rama searching the entire earth for his wife. Such pain and devotion, nothing could stop him. He went to war to bring her into his arms. That is love. And Hanuman, he is my favorite ever. How could a woman not love someone with a heart of gold and the face of a monkey.” I smiled and shooed away two curious boys who had come to stare at us.

For a few minutes we said nothing, just watched the throngs of people drifting along the banks. There was, I supposed, an unspoken understanding that we would ask each other’s deeper stories later.

A hundred meters south, a pair of men began arguing heatedly, their voices lost in the din of the ghats. A Hindu and a Muslim. The Hindu was in simple garb, but I noticed the Muslim wore the Nehru-style jacket of the followers of Yakoob Qereshy—ridiculous attire in this heat. A small crowd gathered around them, and then—I didn’t see from whom, a fist flew. Pushing, shoving ensued, and with difficulty the crowd pulled the two apart. It was a forewarning that I didn’t pay enough attention to.

Uliana cringed visibly.

In the vacuum that followed, the sounds of the city settled around us. Horns and bells echoed through the gullies above. A high-octave flute warbled a movie theme from a radio somewhere, and from the mosque to the north the muezzin rose above the din. Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar. Allah is most great. Come to prayer.

Curious again about the disparate nature of the gathering around Adam, I asked, “Uli, how did you end up here today? It was . . . an unusual group.”

Her eyes scrunched into a charming frown. “A bit strange, ya? Jitka und I were on a walking tour of the temples. I had a map of the best ones to visit, and I saw those two monks, or sadhus, or whatever they call themselves with all those beads und hair.”

“Petey and Shawn, the English guys?”

“Yes, those two. Und they were swaying und spinning like Dervishes, so I look und there is this young man giving a sermon that no one is listening to. It was so odd that we decided to see what it was about. We came und listened, und even Jitka admitted that his speech was fascinating. You walk along this river und you don’t hear too many lectures on chemistry.”