The PuppetMaster (40 page)

We both knew the reasons we were there, had to be there. It wasn’t the clothes, or soft pillows, or scented linen. It was the need to slow it all down and shut it out for a while, to offer a sense of sanity midst the lunacy that swirled like gust about us. And that is why we didn’t rush to shed our clothes. We went slowly, deliberately. Buttons, straps, and clasps became ribboned bows of Christmas silk tugging us soothingly to mutual nakedness. We touched each others cheeks with patient fingers, letting our eyes and lips speak of love, nothing else.

Our kisses began tenderly, tentatively, and came to place where our only desire was to give totally of our selves, one to the other. And at the pinnacle of our passion, in the center of a powerful climax, Uli began sobbing. She turned her face into my neck and wept hard. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. We were escapees. Nothing else mattered. Just that moment in time, and just our union.

We slept dreamless and calm. I awoke first and gazed at her face until her eyes opened. Then I dialed room service--something I hadn’t done for a half a decade--and ordered fruit compotes, Gouda cheese, cashews, and lassis. Uli brushed her hair, which I believe was one of the most sensual things I had seen in my entire life. Then she brushed mine and fluffed our pillows so that we could lie on our sides like spoons.

As I settled my arm around her, she asked, “Do you know why I was crying?” It was a simple question but deep as a kettle lake.

“Maybe. I hope it was for good reasons and not . . .”

She ignored me. “At that second, with you inside me and me around you und all that shivering love, I felt more happy und. . . alive than I have ever been, und it just. . . made me cry.”

I kissed her shoulder and drew my finger along the underside of her breast. “I understand that. I feel it just when I look at you.”

She rolled over so our faces were close, her eyes studying mine, palm caressing my cheek. “You know, I like it that you weep sometimes. It is a good thing when we do, it makes us stronger.” She inhaled and exhaled--almost a sigh, but more like a release. “I came here looking for answers for a feeling I thought was guilt. I now know it wasn’t guilt; it was emptiness. What I did with my father wasn’t wrong, Bhim. You were right about that, but it left me empty. You took that place and filled it. Maybe that’s why I needed to cry, because you filled me.”

I licked her eyebrow. “We filled each other. Seven days ago I was on my way to the cave and still having nightmares. Then I meet you, and now all I feel is completeness.”

Our lunch arrived on a rolling cart and we ate in bed. The lassis were cold and frothy, and as we were nearing our last bites she kissed me and said, “Thank you for this.”

“The lunch?”

“No, for this.” Her hand swept about the room and settled on my chest. “Just to be alone for an hour, it makes it possible to do what is necessary.” I knew what she meant. It was possible to go on. “Do you want to talk about Mej?” she asked. “Or do you want to keep this time to ourselves?”

“Let’s talk about it tonight. Right now, this is ours.” She smiled and kissed me because I had answered how she wanted me to.

Leaving the Clarks Tower wasn’t exactly easy. The desire to cuddle naked was pronounced for both of us, but it was made palatable by how Uli looked in her new blouse and pants. Her smile was quicker and surer now and filled with love. Mine was, I’m certain, made of the same ingredients.

****

I drove around the outskirts of the southern part of the city. The streets were wider, with fewer people, and more conducive for maneuvering a Grand Cherokee. I parked in front of my villa, noticing immediately that the gate was unlocked and Lalji not to be seen. I was glad. It meant Sahr was home and Lalji was on the first real date of his life.

I set Adam’s manuscript on the desk and went to the kitchen.

Sahr had completed her morning readings, and she and Jitka were back to stirring up culinary magic. Jitka seemed comfortable, really having fun for the first time since she had left Tonder. It pleased Uli to see her laughing and not grumbling or cleaning or standing guard for both of them. She and Sahr were disappointed when I confessed that all we wanted was some of the baked nan. As we explained that we had already taken lunch in a hotel room, a rosy smile crossed Jitka’s face. She had seen Uli’s eyes.

After lunch the sisters sat in the parlor and chatted about Tonder. It was a peaceful hour, sibling memories of youth. They decided to take a rickshaw to the flat to pack their belongings. I knew they needed alone time with each other.

I took the opportunity to hear what Sahr had discovered about Mejanand Whiton.

We sat in our customary places in the kitchen—the same chairs where we had shared so much of our lives. She shook her head. “Honestly, Bhimaji, there is little that people know of him. Most say, just as you said, that he is an Indian from London. He owns some type of import export business and travels to Delhi a lot, always on the train, though he has a fine car.”

“Really, what kind?” That was a detail Mej had certainly not shared.

“A Mercedes. Black, fancy thing, and fairly new.”

I took this in, deciding that it didn’t sound particularly clandestine or heinous. “Did your good spies tell you where he lives?”

“Uhmm, a small cottage to the north in a nice part of the city. There is a garage, some rich neighbors nearby that he never speaks with. No gardeners, no cleaners, dhobi, or cook. That would be unusual except that he travels so much he isn’t home enough to need anyone.” She stopped.

“And nothing else? Does he have any unusual habits, go anywhere in the city regularly.”

“Oh yes.” I waited. “He goes on foot to South Nagpur every few days to play with the flying discs with Bhimaji. Everyone knows that.” Of course they did.

“And this information is from reliable gossips and customers?”

She grinned. “More or less, oh, he also goes to visit a man on Lahurabir Road sometimes, very rarely.”

“What man?” My curiosity was rekindled.

“No one knows who he is, but they say he is in some kind of dairy business.”

“Dairy. What kind?” I felt my neck hairs rising again.

Sahr shook her head. “They don’t know, but from the way the man dresses, they think he may be a merchant of goat products.”

I thought carefully about my final question. “Sahr, has anyone ever seen these two standing together?”

Her head tilted thoughtfully. “That I do not know, Bhimaji.”

****

I was asking a lot of questions none of the answers were coming, so I retreated to my best brooding spot--the wobbly chair in front of my desk. A glass of cold lager usually helped with puzzle-solving. I leaned back, drifted into the aroma of sandalwood drifting out from the mats over the window, and flowed into a string of what-ifs. What if Mej and the goat merchant were the same person, and both happened to be Sutradharak? What if--as the cobra’s voice had inferred—he was involved somehow with the mining operation? Smuggling processed uranium? So why was he setting off explosions from Delhi to Varanasi? For what purpose? I paraphrased what Haroon had said as we sat at his bar. India and Pakistan were starving for fuel. ‘A few acts of terrorism, people get angry, so we practice troop maneuvers and launch rockets in Kashmir. The ante goes up, more follows and we get new missile guidance systems and fuel from France or Washington, all an intricate, dangerous game.’ Haroon just hadn’t considered that some of those materials might come from the black market.

Had the terrorism been created--as Haroon had speculated--for ulterior reasons, something totally unrelated to what the agencies and media were saying? If the two countries were at each other’s throats, the need for processed and raw materials would rise, and the demand for black market goods would rise.

As I drained the last of my lager, an uncanny ‘what if’ struck me. Every available agency was being used to search for Islamic fundamentalists or ultra-nationalists--house-to-house searches, warrants, detainment, and interrogation. Radicals groups were under scrutiny and being infiltrated at every opportunity. And none of it producing results. Yet seventeen miles away, in the bleakness of the plains, an ordinary mine was mining ordinary bauxite. Or so it seemed. What if, I asked myself, the bombings had been a ruse, a well designed, perfectly executed, and frighteningly deadly diversion?

Possibly. Perhaps. Maybe.

I pondered my limited options. If the mine was extracting uraninite and processing it, whom could I alert? More importantly, how was I going to keep us from getting sucked into a vortex of exposure? Figuring that out was at the top of my to do list, because fingering a mafia capo or other such nasty guys assured you of a one thing, a quick death. I needed a plan. I just couldn’t do it by myself the moment.

Adam’s binder sat like the boulder of Sisyphus on the desk. From curiosity I untied the string and turned to the final sheet. Seven-hundred and eighty-two pages, single spaced, ten point Palatino. A tome. Back to the first page, I read two quotes below the title. The first one I recognized from one of Adam’s lectures.

Ideas of great merit, pure thoughts and plans,

Move effortlessly about the world.

They hasten without swords or armies to enforce them.

They spread with the grace and simplicity of the power of truth.

The second quote was more ominous.

Since the world points up beauty as such

There is evilness too.

If goodness is taken as goodness,

Wickedness enters as well.

The Way of Life by Lao Tzu

Sixty-Five

Adam had entitled his opus, not surprisingly, The Simple Plan. I smiled, thinking he could have titled it A Thousand Incredible but Plausible Resolutions for Damned-Near Everything. It began simply. “Change is constant, essential, and elemental to humankind.” And from that short declaration, his statements expanded into a full blueprint for world change. The language was clean and concise, which as a wordsmith I appreciated greatly. It branched into divisions and subdivisions outlining hundreds of advancements similar to the ones he had described at the river. I skimmed the titles: Resolutions for Open-Ocean Aquaculture, Distillation and Water-Reclamation, Reforestation for Climate Change Reversal, Coral Reef Rehabilitation. It went on, and at the core, inside each idea, metaphors for the great energy were woven like fine thread. Nothing was undertaken without embracing the three tenets, compassion, common sense, and pure science. I spent twenty minutes reading excerpts here and there and came to the conclusion that it was a work of genius. Should that have surprised me? A world-changing, magnum opus of hope, just like Adam himself. Yet, there was something else concealed, unmentioned, but palpable. There was the distinct impression that battles were looming. I inhaled deeply. I was supposed to write a forward for this?

****

For obvious reasons, I wasn’t particularly keen on venturing to the cave after dark, and for a moment considered asking Sahr to fetch Megadhuta for a quick check on my short-term future. Cave and nighttime were words I did not like to combine, but Uli had been resolute--it was the only way we could determine the truth. Besides, she said, we actually weren’t going inside anything. Camera images weren’t enough, she said. I thought they were more than adequate and attempted to make my point. The argument was lost before it began, so I spent nervous time checking bulbs and batteries in the flashlight.

Around four in the afternoon, I heard an off-key voice drifting up the street. “Lage Raho Munna Bhai.” I recognized the newest movie theme that had been blasting from radios most of the summer. From my chair I saw the front gate swing open and Lalji—looking almost dapper in new loongi and fresh shirt--come skipping into the courtyard. I assumed from all this that his date with Ramuna the Tailor’s Daughter had gone well. Indeed, as soon as he saw my face in the window, he started telling me all about it--the movie, the lunch menu, the waiter’s haughty attitude, and all the details of his conversation with Ramuna. The flowers had been a grand success, and Lalji seemed happier than I had ever seen him. He was so affected by the events of the afternoon that he didn’t even notice the Grand Cherokee parked in front.

Minutes later, Uli and Jitka sashayed arm-in-arm through the gate, laughing and toting sacks of gifts for the family in Tonder. I marveled at Uli and pictured her face as she had slept in my arms that afternoon. She looked at me and knew precisely what I was thinking.

As we re-packed fabrics and brassware and sandalwood figurines, she handed me a flat bundle wrapped in thin paper. Folded neatly inside was a black kurta with gold embroidery stitched into the neck and cuffs. “It’s beautiful,” I cooed. “You get too many gifts for me, you know.”

“No, I don’t, und I didn’t know the correct color for a Hindu cremation. The tailor didn’t speak much English either, so I guessed. And you’re worth every thread, thank you very much.”

“The traditional color is actually white, but no matter. Soma would have loved it. I’m amazed the tailor could finish it so quickly.”

“His English was good enough to understand a hundred extra rupees if he finished it in two hours.”

I was going to ask how she got the size matched so well, but then remembered she had been wearing one of mine all morning.