The PuppetMaster (28 page)

It took a long time for her to calm, which puzzled me. The scene had startled us, but it had been relatively small, and we had been enough distance from it.

I caressed her cheek again, feeling the mannish pride of protection. I liked it almost as much as being a guide and a lover. Then I hailed a taxi.

Jitka greeted us with a sour look until she saw Uli's expression and the cornucopia of food in our sacks. Uli went to shower while I made a salad and heated up some nan and barley soup. Jitka stowed the groceries and set the table, being pleasant enough toward me, though not too talkative. I sensed she was happy for her sister’s blossoming relationship with me, and I considered asking a question or two about Uli, but then decided against it. Those were discoveries I wanted to make on my own.

I gave her a condensed, less dramatic, version of the afternoon’s events.

Uli appeared from the shower toweling her hair. She had wrapped herself in a man’s loongi that just covered her breasts and fell in diaphanous folds to a delicious place along her thighs. Suddenly, I wanted to be closer than that silk, and must have sighed audibly, because she came and kissed me.

“Und I suppose I will again be sleeping here tonight alone?” Jitka tried to look disgruntled, but her expression gave way to an impish smile.

“Svester, Bhim und I have a date tonight, und time only enough for an appetizer. We will eat later und we don't know if we will come back or stay at Bhim's.”

“You said so already, Uli. So what is this big appointment?”

“It seems my guide is taking me to the red light district tonight. We are going to the whore's town. Quite exciting, ya?”

Jitka didn't look particularly thrilled that I was taking her sister to the prostitute's neighborhood.

I tried to explain it without painting too unsavory a picture. “We are going to see. . .a fortune-teller tonight. She just happens to live in that part of town.”

“A fortune-teller? You two want to know your future when you don't even know where you want to sleep? Maybe she can tell you. Ach. Go. I am happy for you und will be fine. Now let's eat.”

I gulped my soup and took a piece nan to the shower with me. Uli came in to help me towel off. “I wanted to see you wearing just the opal,” she cooed, “something for me to think about during our date.” The loongi slipped to the floor. “Und something for you to think about, too.” We laced fingers, eyes lingering for a moment on what we would share later that evening.

When we slid apart, she stood in front of me unabashed. I reached for her hand again. “You are so beautiful, Uliana, like Radha or Parvati. I never. . .”

“Shhh, don't say anything. Just promise to hold me like you did this afternoon and write poetry about us.” She kissed me again. “Just that.”

“I promise. Lovers will read about us a thousand years from now.” I took a deep breath. “We need to go.”

Forty-Five

A taxi large enough for the three of us to sit comfortably was on the list of requisites, one with a driver that could get swiftly through evening traffic. We got lucky. As soon as Uli and I stepped onto Asi Road, a gregarious, green-turbaned Sikh hailed us from the window of his cab. “Hallo, Sahib, Memsahib. I am most reverently at your service. Where may I take you this glorious evening? Vinduram Singh I am called, Vin by my good customers.” This was all announced in English, through the window before the car had pulled to the curb.

“Namaskar, Brother Vin,” I said cheerily. “You may take us down Shivanan Avenue to South Nagpur, There we will pick up one more. Then you may take us to Shivdaspur as quickly as your fine car can get us there.”

“All this is I can do with pleasure, Sahib. And I will not venture to ask why you wish to go to such a section of the city at this time of the day.” His eyes met mine in the mirror.

“That is good, Vin. Because I would not venture to tell you.”

Vin was good to his word. He moved us quickly down the avenue, detoured around two blocks of thickening traffic, and brought us to my gate punctually. As I entered, Lalji approached. His normally infectious grin was missing, replaced by a melancholy I'd rarely seen before.

“Lalji? Is everything all right?”

“Saab. . .I. . .” Words caught in his throat. “It is . . . so horrible about the widow. She was so pretty, and should not have died. She . . . She just needed someone good.”

Suddenly I understood, and it astounded me. Lalji had had feelings for Soma, and in all our time together, I had failed to notice. He’d not spoken a single word to her, and it had me wondering if was from shyness or the fact that she was a widow.

The rims of his eyes filled and he blinked back tears and croaked, “I am sorry, Saab. I do not know what has happened to me.” A fleck of grin returned and his shoulders drooped just enough for me to notice. “Perhaps I am coming down with illness and need a day of rest to regain my strength.”

Sahr entered just then from the side of the villa and Lalji’s shoulders straightened like one of the Queen’s Guard. She eyed him skeptically.

Her sari was a shade of pale ivory, the shawl drawn over freshly washed hair. There wasn’t a single piece of jewelry, make-up, or tilaka powder. I noticed she was breathing in a deep, even rhythm, which I assumed was part of a calming routine. Whether it was for meeting with the nabi or for simply entering into Shivdaspur, I didn’t know.

She set her hands on her hips and spoke quickly to Lalji. “You will lock these doors, leave the kitchen and salon lights on, lock the gate and sit on that middle step until our return.” A small, but menacing finger wagged at him. “And you will not, under any circumstances roll your scrawny legs into that hammock.” Her finger swiveled toward the hanging bed. “Lalji?”

His head wagged in perfect time with her finger. “No sleeping, Maam. Only my best duties as night watchman.”

“That is the answer I wish to hear, and I don’t need to remind what will happen should you forget.”

The bandaged pinky that desperately needed re-dressing, flew instinctively to the side of his head. “No, Maam. I know what would happen.”

Vin opened the door in a chivalrous motion, asking if Sahr wished to sit in the front. “I have a fine working radio for the music,” he added as an incentive. With an stern nod she settled herself onto the vinyl.

I slid in next to Uli with the ridiculous feeling that I was going on a double date. I lay my head back onto her shoulder and drifted into the scent of her patchouli and perfume.

Vin chattered like a mynah, green turban bobbing with every word. Sahr stared silently through the windshield. “You know, I grew up in this city,” he chirped. “Born here, raised here, apprenticed in the fine art of taxiing here, but it has changed so. Look at these streets, so crowded they are now. How can a driver be expected to make six trips a day in a car like this, much less the twenty he needs to feed a family. Not that I have a family. I am unmarried, you know. And you bahina, you are Benarsi?” The turban rotated jovially towards Sahr. I couldn't see her birthmark from the back seat, but I knew it had scrunched into a warning scowl. Without answering, she turned and continued staring out the windshield.

After a few more unsuccessful attempts to engage her in some form, any form, of conversation, Vin caught my gaze in the mirror. “Yes, Sahib. Most definitely this city is changing. Why just this afternoon I am taking a rather obese fellow, who tipped quite miserably I might add, to the Chowk Market and a riot springs up in right front of my bumper. Folliticians and holy men it was. Imagine, holy men in a holy city, rioting.”

I felt Uli tense.

“We saw them also,” I replied evenly. “What was it about? It looked like Hindu and Muslim sects together.”

“Oh yes, Sahib. Even Christians. All different groups, it was. But it was the hooligans in the mix who got everyone riled up over some chap talking on the Ghats. Foolishness.”

Uli leaned forward. “What man talking on the Ghats.”

Vin glanced to see if Sahr was paying heed to his ability to be so well informed. “Some man has been making lectures, you know, and the priests organized a walk in support of traditional Hindu beliefs, or some such nonsense. Then the cabinet minister Qereshy called for his Muslims to object to something. Trouble-makers joined in and riots start. Those young fools are always the first to pick up a rock when the police arrive.”

We had missed Adam's sermon that afternoon, but I had to assume it was as inflammatory as the previous day. It worried me. Small riots had a way of magnifying. “Do you know what this man talked about?” I asked.

The turban wagged assertively. “My customers tell me he is selling a new religion.” Our eyes connected again in the mirror. “But perhaps new religion is not a bad thing. The old-timers would disagree, but not me.”

Uli replied, “We know this man, und he is not talking about religion. It is about making our world better. That can't be wrong.” I could tell she was irritated, or maybe frustrated. I was just concerned.

We snaked our way through a maze of narrow cobblestoned lanes until Vin found a space wide enough to open the passenger doors fully. Faster than I imagined possible, he had Sahr's open and a hand extended to help her out. To my surprise, she took it. As I was settling the fare, she asked rather icily, “Mr. Vinduram Singh, It is said that a proper Sikh does not imbibe alcohol or swear. Is that true for you?”

Vin glanced at me for help. My look told him to tread carefully. “Ah . . .well, I have been known to sip a glass of wine on the rare occasion, Maam. But that was in my ill-spent youth. Now, I am much too busy for such frivolity. Clean as Himalayan snows I am now.” He tapped his chest to illustrate that purity.

“Then a bright light will shine upon your future, Mr. Singh.” And with a perceptible sparkle in her smile, she turned towards the darkness of Shivdaspur. Uli and I followed as the last of the sun's rays disappeared behind a layer of clouds on the horizon We were right on time.

Forty-Six

The dominant first impression was the color of lips. Red. Entering from the side street, we were immediately struck by the vibrancy and variation of red. Fire engine, cherry, flame, and grenadine, all moistened with hungry tongues. Then you saw the eyes, vacant like street dogs, and you looked quickly down to the cobbled stone and gray puddles before your feet.

I took Uli’s hand.

At first it was just women. Along the outer lanes the jaded veterans casually sized up our disparate trio. Some stood with hands set casually on hips, others sat sullenly under bare bulbs in the doorways of musty two-story hovels. Their cheeks were dusted with bright circles of rouge--orange or crimson. I had to assume we didn’t present ourselves as customers, but from habit they called quietly, seductively to us, and it didn't seem to matter that Uli and Sahr were women. One lifted her chola to expose wilted breasts, another the hem of her sari. Every debauchment was offered, prices were cheap.

Then you noticed the smell. Rancid garbage and excrement assailed the nostrils.

Pimps, soiled and grimy, approached with whispers and dodging looks. Sahr backed them away with a cold stare.

We moved deeper into the jumble of tin-roofed shacks.

A ghostly melody from a sitar drifted from a radio or music player in one of the larger buildings, and below the resonation of strings I could make out animal gruntings and the rhythmic slapping of skin upon skin. Uliana's fingers laced into mine. I could hear her breathing, shallow but distinct.

As we stepped around an oil splattered puddle, I thought, What in God's name am doing bringing her here? Do I truly think some old hag is going to look at my palm and tell me what happened to Soma? It isn't going to happen, Bhim. You're fooling yourself. I sighed and kept walking forward.

We passed into the heart of the quarter and an eerie variation began to grow like mold. Girls of indeterminable age sat on low stools with legs splayed, drugged and shivering with dread. Boys, arrayed in garish skirts and faces painted in clown-like colors, mumbled fees and services. Drugged voices. I wrapped my arm about Uliana, thankful that she couldn’t understand the language. “Mein Gott, Bhim,” was all she said.

And everywhere, if you dared to look, you saw emptiness in the windows of their souls. The eyes, even in the young, were vacuous and hungry.

As we walked, Sahr was the only one that looked directly at the prostitutes. She had removed the shawl from her head—it's white radiating against the gloom of the doorways—and kept repeating an odd Hindustani mantra. “The light in your heart is the love of God. The light in your heart is the love of God.”

Then she abruptly halted at a dingy wall with a small door set crookedly on the right side. She spoke in rapid dialect to a haughty-looking woman smoking a beedee against the wall. “Is this the place of Kaliduna, the nabi of Shivdas?”

The woman took a long pull on her cigarette and flicked it onto the stones at our feet. I saw her triceps flex and knew instantly she wasn't a woman. She was male. “What do you want of the nabi bitch, old woman? She doesn't sell spells to cow dung like you.”

Sahr, with surprising speed, landed an open palm squarely on the transvestite's ear. I had seen her clip Lalji before, but nothing like this. Clearly she had anticipated the response. I also knew from my years of sparring that she had likely just perforated the man's eardrum. He howled and fell to the ground to pull painfully at his lobe.