The PuppetMaster (9 page)

“Ah . . . Yes. Jatana. She is . . . how shall I say? The bearer of my Nom d’ Soir. I prefer her to Sukshmi when I venture out for the evening, not unlike the way you use the name Bhim, no?”

I shook my head in mild offense. “No, not at all like Bhim. That’s my Benarsi name, my Hindu name. It’s not a mask I take off at the end of an evening at Haroon’s.”

She smiled, clearly enjoying the opportunity to display a bit of repartee. “And with this name you have become a full Hindu?”

I hesitated. “No . . . not exactly. Besides, any conversion I might take isn’t dependent upon my name. I enjoy being sort of Hindu. At times.”

“But it is temporary, something you will conveniently jettison when you leave here? Will you not hang up your Hinduness and toss aside your name and customs like old shoes?”

Her questions had caught me off guard. One minute into my first date in four years and I was on the defensive. On my arrival in Varanasi, I had slipped easily, almost naturally, into Hindu customs, but they were peripheral, done in my Western manner and at my own pace. I was not a believer in any deity. That was certain. I was merely a student who dressed in Brahmin clothes and walked in temple gardens to write poetry. Undoubtedly I wasn’t religious, asking everyday how so much pain could be inflicted on someone whose only fault had been falling in love. I sure as hell didn’t believe in a Supreme Being or a minor deity that dealt those cards.

Jatana-Sukshmi’s eyes were daring me to enter into a discussion on faith. I dodged with, “Perhaps I won’t leave. Maybe I will just live in Varanasi forever and always be known as Bhim.”

She looked genuinely shocked. “You would do that? Never return to your homeland? Never take your true name again. What is that by the way, your real name?”

I felt my shield going up. “It is Martin Scott, Jatana-Sukshmi, but you shouldn’t call me that. I prefer Bhim.”

“Cool. Bhimaji it will be. But I for one would be very bored hanging in this stale, old city. Too few places to dance. Too many dead bodies, not enough live ones.”

I laughed for the first time. She was on the mark with that. Varanasi was known for many things. Night-clubbing wasn’t one of them.

“Mumbai has the tops, you know. The Blue Fox has a back-spinning DJ that cranks out the hippest cuts until three in the morning? Max styled. And on the weekends they have live bands. You should hear them. Maybe we can meet there some time.” I wasn’t keen on the path this conversation was taking. Religion, now dancing? Politics might be next. I wanted to talk about Sanskrit poets. How Kalidasa, described the morning sun splintering into gold and turquoise as it passed through the tails of peacocks. I wanted to tell her of snows glistening like pearls along the mountain paths, and the symphony of bees as they sipped the nectar of lotuses. She wanted to dance . . . to techno.

Maumed brought Sukshmi a cocktail concocted from no less than eight ingredients with the implausible name, Blue Mongoose. I sipped the smoothie and winced as the screech of the microphone jack pierced the air, and knew—with a clairvoyance Sahr would have been proud of—what was to follow. A simplistic, synthesized beat cranked through a bass that would knock a lighter man off his stool. I gripped the edge of the bar and waited uneasily through the two seconds it took for her say, “Come on, Bhimaji. Let’s show these flat-footed clowns how to really dance.” I was jerked from the relative comfort of my stool onto the parquet floor like a goat being lead to sacrifice.

Three agonizing songs later—if they can be referred to that way—and we were once again seated in front of Maumed. I was dripping with perspiration and shaking from some undetermined palsy. Our bartender set a fresh smoothie in front of me accompanied by a wink.

Sukshmi tapped the straw of her Blue Whatchamacallit, and said, “You dance well, Bhim. A bit stiff with your arms, but your feet really boogie.” I looked at those feet and then at the eyes behind the tinted glasses, searching for a shred of truth in what she was saying.

“Thank you, Sukshmi, but to be honest, I love my exercise, but really don’t dance much anymore, especially to . . . what did you say the name of this group is?”

“Randy Dogs.”

“Of course, Randy Dogs. I prefer the older tunes, a different genre.”

“Like hip-hop?”

“No, like classic rock.” I saw the disappointment behind the lenses. She had enough manners not to say “Ick.” I continued. “I used to dance a lot. Really. The Eagles, The Band, Allman Brothers, those sorts of groups, the ones that harmonized and had really good guitar players. Too few of them these days.”

“You are far too young for those groups. They are prehistoric. So, why did you stop? You should still dance, Bhimaji. It cleanses the soul better than baths in that filthy river.” Her chin jutted in the general direction of the Ganges a few hundred meters to the east.

With a sigh I answered, “I just stopped, that’s all. It was like a lot of things I decided not to do anymore.”

“Like using the name Martin? And what other things did you decide to stop?” It was one of those probing questions I usually avoided in some clever way, fearing a discussion of my past, but there had been a subtle shift in her voice, a tone of tenderness. As I spun on my stool to face her, I saw that she had removed her glasses and was peering at me with an expression of curious concern. Her eyes were incredible, and for a fraction of a second I wondered if Master had broken our agreement and told his defiant daughter about my past.

I took a long pull on my smoothie, set it down, and nodded. “Okay, Sukshmi, here is the deal. I will tell you why I stopped dancing, why I stopped wearing cool, Western clothes everyone in this club seems to want so much. I will tell you why I came to Varanasi to study and sit by myself all day with a pile of dusty books. Okay? The short, not-very-pretty version of my past. Then I will dance with you to one more song and we will choose other topics to talk about. Does that sound fair?”

She smiled. “That is a plumb fair deal, Bhim.” I winced at that one.

“Oh yes, One more thing. I get to choose the song, otherwise no deal.”

We carried our drinks to one of the back rooms, as far from the pounding speakers as possible, and in a high-backed booth I told her. I didn’t offer up all the details. That would have been too hard, but at some point I described how Lilia laughed when we swam in our favorite cove and how she made the best chili rellenos north of Tijuana. I talked about her death.

Sukshmi didn’t utter a word. She nodded here and there, but didn’t ask a single question or offer up comment. She watched my eyes and I watched hers. The earlier games of witty responses and clever retorts were gone, and when I finished, she reached across and very simply, very gently, laced her fingers in mine. It was a warm current of friendship, and that undemanding, uncomplicated gesture was the first physical contact I’d had with a woman in four years. Then she asked me the only question I didn’t feel any reluctance to answer. “How do you make chili rellenos?”

Sukshmi excused herself to go to the restroom, and I went to discuss a selection with the DJ. I had a hunch he might have what I wanted. The tune was old, but it had been part of a soundtrack in a recent movie, and if it was on a soundtrack, it could be found in Haroon’s.

Sukshmi returned, dabbing a tissue at the corners of her eyes. I realized that, as much as she had veered outside her family’s sphere in recent days, she still retained one of their best habits. Like her father, just below the surface was a deep well of compassion.

She slid in next to me and with a frown, whispered, “He wants to arrange my marriage, you know.”

I wasn’t totally certain what she meant but had a pretty good idea. “Who?”

She flicked her fingernail against the empty glass. “Father, of course. He wants me to marry a young, well-to-do Brahmin from Delhi. Some perfectly boring clerk who works in a perfectly boring bank, has perfectly boring parents, and probably hasn't danced once in his entire boring life. While I've been away at university, Father has been writing the boy’s parents, whom he already seems to know quite well. It is a horrible abuse of old tradition and the modern postal system if anyone asks me, but no one does. No one asks me anything at all. They just all agree that it will be a right fine union. Like prized cattle—a most desirable match. Everyone agrees except the bride-to-be.” She looked at me and blinked back tears, and for the first time I saw the real Sukshmi— beautiful, intelligent, and petrified of a cage she was being goaded into. She had wanted to tell me earlier but had run headlong into the tale of Martin and his flight to India.

I took her hand, and this time I lead us to the parquet floor.

The song started slowly and stayed that way all the way through. It had all the classical features: a ripping, bluesy guitar, Joe Cocker’s unmistakable voice, and the soul-baring lyrics of Eric Burdon. We danced slowly, hand in hand, not too close. I mouthed the lyrics “Baby do you understand me now? . . . I’m just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.”

With that, my first date in a very long time was brought to an end.

I saw Sukshmi safely to an autorick and we promised to do it again sometime soon. She squeezed my hand and waved as the cab trundled across the cracked roadway. I took a deep breath. The air had cooled. A half moon and a glistening web of stars sparkled down. It was a perfect night for a poet’s walk along the river back to the villa. I crossed the street towards the Ghats.

Behind me a light leapt along the pavement from Haroon’s front door. The two blond women I had seen earlier stepped across the threshold burdened like pack mules. The taller one that had been watching me converse with Haroon and Sukshmi halted, the other continued on. For a moment I thought the tall one was going to ask for directions, or worse, cross the street and initiate a conversation, but she merely placed her palms together, bowed, and whispered in a distinctly accented voice, “Namaste, Good Friend. Namaste.” Northern European. She smiled, spun on a heel, and with all that weight on her back, trotted with seeming ease to catch up to her companion.

Fourteen

My stroll back to the villa took me along the banks above the river. The Ganges, north of Varanasi, veers westward in a huge curve, like an enormous well-shaped breast. Seen from the air, that is precisely how it appears, but from the lowly bank of the river it takes on the more modest shape of a bay. The Ghats themselves are marvels of masonry, over-sized steps that descend steeply to the river’s edge. With no rhyme or reason they are fractioned by turreted temples and jutting blocks of stone and soaring walls. Faded yellow script names each Ghat in English and Hindi, though there is no other discernible difference. Well before dawn it springs to life with humanity. Boats stack against each other like logs in the river, and by daybreak it is a raucous amphitheater of fakirs, musicians, hawkers, and every purveyor of service from dentistry to phrenology. Holy men, holier women, poets, and orators sing to a thousand gods, and everyone has a talent.

Nighttime, however, was the time I walked the river. At that hour I could hear the current and actually feel whichever of Sahr's spirits pervaded the water, and when the moon was up it was the most quixotic venue a lover of poetry could imagine. That was the time I drafted my own verse and let Lilia's spirit separate molecule by ethereal molecule from my own.

From Haroon’s door I skipped down an inky, but familiar, gully and emerged at Scindia Ghat. I always enjoyed that starting point because it never failed to bring a smile. A temple dedicated to Shiva sat skewed at the river's edge, submerged like a warthog in the mud. Over centuries it had sunk into the sludge from its own weight, and that irony--an over-weighted shrine sinking into the muck--struck me as rather funny.

I turned southwest along the bank feeling strangely content. A woman, a beautiful one at that, had conversed with me. I had danced and spoken without coloring more than six shades. For the first time, other than Soma and my housekeeper, I had spoken to a woman about Lilia. In addition, I was now The Keeper of Notes and Photographs and ready--no, chomping at the bit--to solve the linguistic puzzles of the cave. It was a fine evening.

After a short distance I descended to the water, purposefully avoiding the next Ghat, Manikarnika. I steered around it because it was a place of death, constant death--the ancient venue of cremations. A flame burned there continually since Varanasi’s birth, and that, as has been noted, is a long time indeed. The air was thick and perpetually orange with the flames of oil, and timber, and human flesh. The stench and weeping of mourners reminded me that the reaper really didn’t give a shit how much you loved. It destroyed you and whatever you cherished, whenever it pleased. That evening I wasn’t going anywhere near Manikarnika.

I picked up my pace and set a healthy kilometer between the pyres and myself. Gradually I began humming and swinging my arms in childlike motions. Rhythm, syncopation, Kalidasa’s opening verses to The Birth of Kumar came to me. Uttarasyam dishi devatatma . . . to the north, the great god of the mountains . . . I skipped across the Washing Ghats, and listened the echoing drumbeats of cloth slapping against rock, all faded with the light, but I heard it still. Suddenly, a tingling apprehension gripped me and my tempo was shattered. Someone was watching me. Glancing over my shoulder, at the top of the moonlit embankment, I saw a glowing ember. A shadowed face with a burning cigarette was turned in my direction—no features, no mouth, just an unrecognizable oval and a speck of orange—but I knew with certainty that those eyes were following me. With a shiver I turned and trotted the last few kilometers home.