The PuppetMaster (19 page)

Lilia had once told me that one of the fastest growing fields of pharmacology was ethno-botany, the study of regional medicines and remedies. Pharma companies were spending large sums of money to research indigenous cures in remote areas of the world. Plants and their recipes were being studied from the Kalahari to the Andes. Maybe this was the same type of thing, just ancient and long forgotten.

I finished scanning our notes and looked at the list of plants again. The nonsense adjectives that C.G. had sworn were junk jumped out at me. Unlike the professor, I wasn’t totally convinced of that. Otherwise, why had the original writers gone to the effort to record them? It seemed like too much work for something useless.

During my academic time, I'd read and translated a lot of metric language, miles of it. Sanskrit, like Elizabethan, was based on syllables. The patterns had devilish, if not ingenious, designs--long and short vowels in exact mathematical sequences. Truth be known, Shakespeare’s own conventions rose in roundabout fashion from earlier Sanskrit roots.

The list stared at me. I jotted the nine adjectives onto a fresh sheet, and next to them, the nouns they were modifying--the plants and herbs. Something was wrong--a hard and fast rule was being broken. Nouns and adjectives have to agree. It is a chief grammatical rule--number, gender, and person must match. The endings for the adjectives and nouns were supposed to be the same They weren’t. Quickly, I divided them into syllables, marking the long and short vowels. And then, like Archimedes stepping ever so gingerly into his steaming bath and seeing the water rise, I knew the answer. At least I was fairly certain I did. It would need to be verified, but I knew why those strange little adjectives had been used.

They were ratios.

Sahr hustled in to see what was wrong with her Bhimaji, why he was hooting like a drunken hyena at his desk, and finding that he was just fine, returned to the succulent aromas of her kitchen.

Thirty-Three

Being a tour guide in Varanasi is not simple. There are too many sights to choose from, rituals to demystify, and too many sensual assaults to filter. Like setting onto a jungle trail, or an Internet search, without a clear sense of direction one becomes rapidly lost. A calculated plan is essential. I, however, being a veteran of the lonelier paths of the city, had that sense of direction. I knew the precise moment the sun’s rays kissed the Durga Temple and bathed her in bashful scarlet, or the best spot to hear the supplications of the holy men at the river. I knew the secret corners of the temple gardens and the purple shadows of the gullies. Guiding was an art form, and though I had never shown anyone else my paths, I was well prepared to reveal the finer distinctions of my Varanasi.

I picked up Uliana from the Riverview three minutes ahead of schedule, in an autorick that was cleaner and quieter than most. She was standing patiently in the doorway as a hundred Benarsis a minute filed past. A few slowed to stare, because she stood like a princess outside the quarters of the raja’s palace. Her hair was covered by a long silk purple scarf draped in front and behind to her waist. Below that, a pale-green kurta, sheer enough to reveal just a bit more than was acceptable by local standards, hung in diaphanous folds. She had burnt orange pajama pants tapered to the ankles in the Punjabi women’s style Thin-strapped sandals with tiny green sequins graced her feet, and on her arm twenty silver bangles jingled like light rain as I helped her into the backseat.

The language of dating was obscured under a lot of layers for me. It had been a long time since I had spoken carefully selected words to a woman. I had done it for myself in scraps of poetry, translated plays and regaled in the results. But openly to a woman? I was frightfully out of practice and agonizingly nervous. It turned out not to matter.

After mutual complements on each other’s appearance—I in my handsomest royal-blue, embroidered kurta—we settled into the relative comfort of the autorick. My driver waited as I turned to Uli. “I thought, if you would like I mean, that we could see a few of the sights you don’t usually see in Varanasi.” Then I added, “We only have forty minutes, and my cook will get grumpy if we aren’t at her table on time.”

She loosened the knotted scarf, and with a modest smile, slipped it from her head. Her hair glistened like water and smelled of peach and lavender. “You are the guide, Bhimaji of Varanasi. Lead on.” With instructions not to go too quickly, I told my driver in Hindi where we were going.

We slid into the afternoon tide of bicycles and carts.

“You speak this language quite fluently. It is Hindi, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “It’s a local vernacular called Bhojpuri, a little different from what you hear in the movies, but similar enough.” Seeing that she was interested, I continued. “There’re a lot of dialects here, two hundred and twenty-five if you believe a census from the 1930s. A farmer speaks differently from a shop owner in New Delhi. Enough changes in pronunciation and spelling to call them dialects. It makes it hard to get people to concur on things, but nearly everyone understands Carte Bole, standard Hindi, so the country can still function.”

“Und you enjoy this learning, ya? Like other languages?”

“I do. I’m a long way from total fluency.” I laughed shyly. “When I was younger my father said I spoke a completely different language because I surfed.”

“Und surfers in your town speak another language?” Her mouth pursed in a curious smile, and I realized how at ease I felt in the backseat of an autorick with Uliana Hadersen of Tönder, Denmark.

“It’s like a totally one-to-one dialogue with a righteous set of tubes. Radical, like ripping the lip off a folding section, grabbing a rail, and getting a mountain of air.” I grinned and added, “Babe.”

She patted the back of my hand. “I understood more of the Bhojpuri.”

“That’s understandable.”

Uli had a most endearing feature in her own speech that my ear caught at our first meeting. When she was excited, she would inhale with a tiny gasp that a phonetician might call a guttural implosion. That sounded too much like a digestive problem, so I re-named it Uli’s Delightful Squeak.

Our driver deposited us outside the Gyanvapi Mosque and closed down his motor to wait. As I helped her out, I explained that it was also called The Great Mosque of Arungzeb, constructed atop an enormous Hindu temple. As a characteristically feisty Moghul Emperor, he had felt obliged to knock it to the ground in the mid-sixteen hundreds. Now it was the place where Imam Nomani led prayer five times a day and bristled as the police rounded up his followers for questioning.

“If you look carefully, you can see where his architects copied from the original.” I pointed to the columns and the odd mixture of materials and styles. “Arungzeb had a heart like a glacier. Skewered his brothers and imprisoned his father in a cell at the top of the Red Fort in Agra. Not a particularly sweet guy.”

She nodded. “I remember that from our visit there. His father watched the reflection of the Taj Mahal in a piece of glass from his prison. I didn’t like the story. Too much sword fighting and beheading.”

I glanced up. The sun was almost into position. “Come quickly.” I jogged across the avenue opposite the mosque and felt Uli’s arm slid inside mine.

“Are you going to make me run much on our tour, Bhim?” A gentle squeeze on my forearm.

“Uh . . . just this once.” We halted near a curved coconut palm. “Now, stand right here,” I turned her shoulders gently, “and look through the minaret.”

The spire is its finest feature. Dominant, it shoots seventy-one meters skyward like an alabaster needle, and at that moment, the sun’s rays were slipping through its eye--the window of the minaret--to bathe us in a warm afternoon light. Uli drew in a quick breath, and I knew she had seen it. “Mein Gott, It looks like a candle, all orange und yellow with the dust.”

“Right. You have to squint to see it, but it sort of looks like a huge popsickle stick.”

She glanced at me and then back at the minaret. “What is a popsickle?” After I explained, we both laughed at how delicious they sounded in the late afternoon warmth.

She turned from staring at the mosque to look at me. “How did you discover this?”

I shrugged. “Walking home from the University one afternoon, I saw the shadow and the light going the room at the top. I moved to where it came down and did it the next day at a better time. It was a week’s puzzle figuring out where to be and at what time, because each day it changed.”

We walked to the rickshaw and this time she didn’t slip her arm inside my elbow, her hand found mine--innocently, without much intention or suggestion.

Our driver was growing accustomed to my directions and seemed to be enjoying the routine and easy money. I told him our next stop and we chugged through the crowds to the Mata Bharat Temple. He parked on one of the shaded side streets, and Uli and I walked through the gates. Couples and people in prayer moved along the lane. I un-strapped my sandals, and she did the same. As I took hers, I said, “This is one of my favorite places this time of the day.”

“Und why is that?” She looked at the flowered plants and I knew she assumed it was because of the landscaping.

“Two minutes and you will understand.”

I lead us to a quiet grove where we wouldn’t be disturbed by the passing curious. We sat off the path on a patch of thick, well-watered lawn. “Okay,” I said. “Close your eyes and listen. Breathe slowly and just listen to it.”

She looked at me questioningly, but with trust, and without a word closed her eyes. After a time I saw her chest begin to rise in slow repetitions. Then I whispered, “Now, listen just to the cows.”

I’d done this often, so I didn’t need to close my eyes and let the sound wash over me as I had before. I just watched Uli’s contented smile grow. It came from those deep places found only when the mind releases and the breath takes over. She was hearing it.

I'd chanced upon it my first year in the city, in the same garden, on a different patch of lawn—but that didn’t matter. It happened as I was drifting in a bit of poetic ardor, one of those moments when the brain ceases to crackle. The lowing of all the cows in the city at the hour when they sought stalls and warm hands to relieve them of milk. I had dubbed it simply ‘the enormous moo,' and in moments like this, it could absorb all the other sounds of the city, the motors and horns and rhythmic chants of the sadhus. It could draw the rhythms into it like a great river until it dominated every space inside the mind. And if you waited long enough, and listened carefully enough, it vibrated all the neutrons and electrons of your corporal being. Or so I am told.

Unfortunately, we had a schedule to follow; otherwise I think Uli might have listened for a longer time. I didn’t care to face Sahr’s cold stares if we were a microsecond tardy. I looked at the sun again. Right on time.

Uli didn’t say anything as she slipped sequined sandals back over her hand painted toenails. I don’t suppose they’re ever machine painted, but they were damn pretty to me.

“Next stop, Durga Temple,” I announced as we settled into the backseat. She didn’t respond immediately, just laced her fingers inside mine. Electricity, more reliable than current that flowed in the cables of South Nagpur, surged through my hand.

“Bhim?”

“Hmm?”

“That sound . . . I don’t think I can describe it. It’s not something you put into words very well is it?”

“No, you’re right about that, it isn’t. I knew that the first time I heard it, because I had a hard time describing it in any language.”

She looked at me and squeezed my fingers. “Then I definitely heard it.” She fixed me with a sly expression. “So who else have you taken to see this popsicle halo and hear this song?”

“You heard a song?”

“Well . . . maybe a humming.”

I looked ahead to make certain our driver was on course and replied, “No one.”

“No one? Seriously? You have shared these beautiful things with no one? You are fibbink with me?” A quick grin.

It was an admission of my lonely existence when I replied, “Not a single person but you, Uliana.” She looked at me curiously.

Our driver dropped us at the foot of the lane and repeated my instructions to pick us up on the other side. I reached for Uli's hand, an easier motion now, and whispered, “You will have to close your eyes again and trust me.”

“Easy on both accounts.”

I lead her slowly and evenly up the crowded street, guiding her with gentles tugs, while clearing pedestrians from our path. Less mobile objects I veered around. With a squeeze of her hand I whispered, “This time just use your nose, and if someone bumps into you, it’s okay. I’m right here.” The lane was famous-- stalls of flowers and sweets lined both sides, nothing else, no foods to confuse the airs, no spices, or soaps, or perfumes, just confections and flowers, lots of them. It was even better than the one I had sent Jitka to on her way to Johnny Chang’s.

At one point, two children approached, palms outstretched for alms. My expression and rebuke in Hindi sent them scattering. I told them I was leading a blind holy woman and to leave us alone.

I glanced back to see if Uli was okay. She was walking tall, neck raised; nostrils flaring like a colt’s. At some point, near the end of our stroll, I heard what was clearly a groan of pleasure that set my spine tingling.