The PuppetMaster (30 page)

Sahr kissed Uli’s cheek. “I am so sorry, Child. I should not have agreed to the Kaliduna’s demands. It was my mistake.”

I answered, “No, Sahr. It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have let any of it happen.”

Uli kissed Sahr’s cheek in return and said, “There was no mistake. The truth of the past came out.”

I was exhausted and famished and wished only for a quiet dinner with Uli. I went to hail an autorick to take Sahr home, and before I could lift my hand, a large, suspiciously familiar taxi rolled to the curb from the opposite direction. Vinduram Singh's green turban poked out the window. “I am at your service, Sahib. The day meter is still running for you, your memsahib, and of course for the regal lady with the sari the color of fresh cream.”

I looked at Sahr whose arched eyebrows said, ‘why not.’

Vinduram offered Sahr the front seat again but she plopped herself stubbornly in the back. With a reminder to me that her best almond kheer dessert was waiting in the refrigerator, she and Vinduram disappeared down the avenue.

“Do you know what is the Jyllands-Posten?” Uli asked me in a cheerless voice. We were sitting in the back of a small Bengali restaurant sharing a dish of Panaspatu Curry. I chose the cafe less for the menu than the tall booths that provided privacy. I needed to feel her body touching mine and hear what she needed to say.

It had taken an appetizer, a second glass of house wine, and some baked-cheese nan before she had the strength or courage to begin.

“No,” I answered, though it sounded vaguely familiar.

The sadness in her accent shook me. “It is a newspaper, Bhim, the biggest in Denmark. My father has worked for Jyllands-Posten for thirty years.” Her fingers slid nervously around her wineglass. “He is a, how do you call it? A caricaturist. A political cartoonist.” I must have looked confused, because she said, “Do you remember the events of last September?”

Remembering headlines wasn't my strong point. I had barricaded myself from world events, preferring my books and a bit of local news from the morning paper. September, I remember, hadn't been a kind month for many. Hurricane Katrina had torn a few million lives apart. On my side of the world, an outbreak of encephalitis had killed seven-hundred in one of the destitute sections of Varanasi. Islamic riots had swept through almost all the northern provinces in September, and Yakoob Qereshy, had offered fifty-one crore rupees, eleven million dollars, for the beheading of any cartoonists from . . . It slammed into me. The twelve faces of Muhammad—twelve cartoons that had sparked Muslim riots around the world. They had been published by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

“Your father? He works. . .?”

“for the paper.” She answered without looking up from her wine. “His drawing was one of the twelve.”

“Oh my God, Uli.” Now I understood the implications. “How are you. . . connected? Besides being his daughter?

“I helped him design it . . . No, that is not the best way to say it. He asked me for my ideas one morning und I was feeling humorous. We made silly jokes at breakfast and laughed. An idea of mine seemed especially funny to him; it became his drawing and Jylands accepted it. Does that make sense? Was it such a bad thing to do, Bhim?” Her eyes began to fill with tears.

“Yes, it makes sense, Uli, and no, it wasn't a bad thing.” I kissed a tear rolling down her cheek. “A daughter's laughter with her father is a good thing. Honestly, I think the reaction was just a lot of overly-sensitive types convincing themselves that they had to be offended.” I brushed away another tear.

“So now you know.” She said.

I smiled. “Right. Now I know, and it doesn't matter or keep me from wanting you a fraction less.” I kissed her knuckles and looked into the ocean-blue of her eyes. “But . . . it does frighten me. Why . . . how did you decide to come here, to this part of the world? I mean, I am really, really glad you did, but why here? It isn’t the safest place you could have chosen.”

Her eyes misted with more pain. “You, more than anyone else, may be able to understand. After the riots, I was so tormented and sad that I had caused hurt. I knew in my head I wasn’t to blame really, but my whole life I've seen myself as a good person and thought of myself as . . . kind. I liked reading about those who gave of themselves, Christ, and Buddha, and Gandhi. I tried to walk a good path. Coming here seemed like it might be a way to take away some of the pain, or guilt, whatever it was. I don’t know. At times I think I just needed to say I was sorry and maybe do something good. I knew I had to leave Tönder, because it felt like every person in the city was watching me.” Her sentences were flowing rapidly. She was correct. I understood how she felt about leaving.

“But you knew how dangerous it could be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I was naïve, but once we were out of Tönder, I actually felt safer. Just another nomad with an over-stuffed backpack and a protective sister. No one knew me or what I had done. Not until tonight.”

That thought disturbed me greatly. Someone did know.

I knew then the cause of her sadness and what I had seen in her eyes at times, why the riots that afternoon had terrified her so. I knew the reason for the sporadic despondency, and I was going to try to make it right. “No one will know of it, Uli. I'll be here to make sure of that, and every day will get better.”

She smiled for the first time since we had left the flat. “When you say things like that, Lover, I understand the reason I am here. I was supposed to find you, und finding you must be right, because it feels so damned good. What did you say this dish is called?”

“Panaspatu Curry, and it does feel good, Uli.”

Remembering Sahr's almond kheer at home, we declined dessert and only took demitasses of thick coffee after the meal. That was when we spoke of the details of the nabi's vision.

“That creature, whatever it was, felt so real, Bhim. Gott, it terrified me, like it was grabbing me inside.”

“I felt that way too. Up to now I've been more a skeptic than believer in Sahr’s spirit world. Maybe I believed a little bit of it. I mean, being around her, I’ve sort of had to. But tonight was . . . real. When we were coming out of Shivdaspur in the rain I toyed with the idea that it had been hypnotism, but I know it wasn’t.”

She took a sip of coffee. “Can you remember it all?”

“Most of it, if I think hard enough. It got crazy confusing at the end, and I don't understand that part about Soma being killed by the PuppetMaster. That doesn’t make any sense. I've spent two days pinning this on Madru Ralki or one of his hoodlums. Now I'm being told it's a phantom they write about in the media.”

She stared into the swirling coffee between her fingers. “What did she . . . it was a she, wasn't it? What did she mean when she talked about a bird of prey?”

I tried to recall the exact words. “Let's see. First, a bhujanga is a cobra, and I heard a woman's voice too, so I would say that it was a female cobra talking to us . . . as weird as that sounds.” Uli nodded. “And I'm pretty certain she was talking about an owl.”

She straightened. “An owl? Why an owl?”

“Two reasons. The bhujanga said the bird hunted at night and was the 'thick-witted servant of chaos.”

“I thought owls were supposed to be wise.”

“Not here. In most of the myths they're portrayed more like jack-asses. A little on the stupid side, if you know what I mean. I don't think this Sutradharak is stupid, though, just sadistic.”

She nodded. “And the cave-in?”

“That was another big surprise. If I heard it correctly, it was unintentional, started somewhere deeper down. How did she describe it? Like a . . .”

Uli finished the quote, “like the plucked string, the vibrations could not be controlled. That sounds like an accident, but she said the PuppetMaster guided it.”

I agreed, but it didn’t make it any clearer.

Both of us sensed it was time to put it to rest, to stop thinking of riots and Shivdaspur and petulant transvestites with beedies. Still, she asked the final question, “So, Lover, did you think they are somehow connected? Soma's death, the PuppetMaster, and the cave-in?”

“Before tonight, Madru Ralki was sitting in the middle of it in my mind. Now I have to think differently. I would have scoffed at this darshan business, the voice of the cobra, but the damn thing knew details that only you or I could know. . .”

She daintily licked the last drop of her coffee and looked at me sadly. “I was going to tell you, you know, tonight actually.”

“About your father?”

“Um hmm. And my part in it, because there couldn't be such a big piece unknown between us. You told me who Martin was; I wanted you to know who Uliana is.”

I took her hand and nibbled on a finger. “I already know who Uliana is. And both Martin and Bhim want her.”

The impish smile rose back up through the sadness. “Und which one of those cute lilliputs wishes to carry me back to his villa and make love to me until the sun rises?”

The taxi ride back was all that I could wish for--cozy, safe, and with a driver completely unconcerned with his two amorous passengers in the back. Darkened temples and clapboard hovels in silence as Uli and I touched and kissed with renewed tenderness. A new understanding of who we were had been formed, and without a word spoken, we reassured each other that we were still right there in each other's lives.

Lalji hadn't moved. He was sitting on the same bottom step repeating to himself that he really was a diligent night watchman. He ushered us through the gate solemnly and added another surprise to the evening.

Sahr hadn't returned.

“No Saab, Maam has not returned to our house. I have been waiting this whole time for my supper, and you see, I have not moved from my post. Do you wish for me to go look for her? Just say the word and I will have fifteen strong men searching house by house.”

I knew Lalji's friends. The only one that I might use that adjective for was the one that had cracked his pinky. “No, I think she is fine. She may even be out enjoying herself for once. If she doesn’t return by midnight, we'll call on your search party. Go get your supper, and I'll lock up the front. Sahr can come through the back with her own key.”

As he shuffled towards the path along the side of the house, I suddenly felt rather sorry for my watchman. He really did need someone in his life.

Uli and I ate the almond kheer and sipped cups of green tea. She had recovered well enough from the evening's ordeals to sit on my lap and smear the almond paste and cream onto my lip and nibble her way downward. Just about the time I was ready to recite my finest romantic doggerel and dance us off to bed, she surprised me with an unexpected question. “So, My Sukkerlips, you told me about the cave und the cures with the plants und little points.” She nibbled an earlobe. “But you never told me what it is for.”

Shivering in my groin, I slipped my hands up the back of her blouse to cup her shoulder blades. “That's because we still don't know what it is.”

She painted the end of my nose with the last of the kheer and licked it off. “Und why not? Three brilliant pundits like yourselves. Tell me the clues. I'll figure it out.”

“Is it the almond kheer that is making you so feisty?”

“It's making me more than that.”

“Alright, let me think. This is from memory, so give me a dew seconds.” I'd recited the lines in Sanskrit enough to have them committed. It just needed our team's best translation.

‘When the man’s self thins the like reeds in a summer sun;

And his waters pour out like a swollen stream,

And none replenished will slake his thirst;

When his water is sweet as the juice of the cane,

And yields a fragrance as sweet.

Then the man’s self lightens and pales like the moon,

And in the dawn the self thereupon dies.’

She asked me to repeat it, and then asked, “This word ‘self’, what does it mean exactly? Is it his soul?”

“We aren't entirely sure. The original text used the word ‘atman,’ which can have a few different meanings, but it usually translates as soul or spirit. Why?”

“Could it mean his physical body?”

I frowned. “I suppose so. It’s a stretch from the usual meaning.”

“Und when it talks about water, could that mean his urine?”

“Another small stretch. We were thinking more along the lines of perspiration, like a fever, but we’ve encountered stranger metaphors. What's your idea?”

“Well, I think about it this way. His body gets thin und his urine comes out smelling sweet. He gets thirstier, paler und thinner, und then dies. My grandfather had that. It’s diabetes. Ketosis makes the urine smell like syrup while the body gets eaten away.”

If she hadn't been perched on my lap I would have leapt around the counters and swung from the light fixture. “Damn, damn, damn!”

“You're repeating yourself, Lover.”

“My God, that's it. It’s got to be, and I’ll bet Kangri knew it, too. He just wanted me to discover it for myself. Damn. Can you imagine if we've really found something authentic. I need to call Masterji and C.G. And Kangri. This is incredible. You're incredible.”

“Yes. I am.” She wrapped her arms around my neck. “Happy to be of assistance, My Handsome Guide, but it's too late to make calls. I have a better idea. Carry me to your room, lay me down beneath the fan, und show me how much you really appreciate me.”