The PuppetMaster by Andrew L. MacNair Page B

the top. From the veranda one stepped into a large salon with comfortable, overstuffed furniture. To the side there was a bedroom complete with—praise the devas—a quiet, high-speed fan. In the back, there was a kitchen outfitted with a small oven, acres of counter space, and a large refrigerator--Sahr’s domain that I entered cautiously.
    In the rear were two cottages for her and Lalji, though he usually slept in the hammock in the front. This was to demonstrate his diligence as a night watchman. I'd snuck up on him a dozen times, shaken the hammock with enough force to tumble him to the ground, where he would snuffle, roll over and slip quickly back into his dreams. So much for security.
    My backpack bounced to the side as I raced down Shivanan Avenue to Sonapura and across the bridge above the Asi. Two reference books, a few leftover chapattis, and my HP laptop were wedged carefully inside. On the outside a cold Nalgene was nestled in the webbing, perspiring almost as much as I was. It was eight-fifty in the morning, and the thermometer had just topped forty degrees centigrade. Another cloudless scorcher was heating up.
    On the far side of the bridge a pregnant Brahma cow glanced up at the clang of Miss Ugly’s bell and shifted a lazily to the right. I breezed past her flank and swerved around two women with water pots balanced on their heads. Bicycle rickshaws, ox carts, pedi-cabs, and scurrying dogs flew behind me. I shifted into highest gear and elbowed my pack back into position.
    Devi’s erroneous Timex was ticking, and I was racing to beat it. Glancing at my own watch, I did some calculation. A six-minute margin. His compound was off Madanapura Road near the Raja Ghat. The first part of my route along the main avenues would be easy, but the moment I turned east into the gullies, the pedaling would be slower, if not down to walking entirely.
    Varanasi, Benares, the holiest of India’s cities. A thousand writers have struggled to lay descriptions of its antiquity upon their pages. Over the centuries a few have met with limited success. They have written, “It is a city so ancient that many believe it to be the oldest still in existence.” But what does that say? Only that it is old. Yes, it is old, and puzzling and dark, and the deeper one ventures into its labyrinthine paths, the darker it becomes. Its original name was Kashi, The City of Light, but that luminous title referred to its spiritual side--Buddha spoke in its gardens. It certainly didn’t refer to the dank gullies that twisted like a nest of snakes along its eastern half.
    The central avenues are wide enough for pedestrians and the mass of carts and vehicles, but as one enters the lanes to the east there is an immediate and sudden transformation. The walls close in, the paths narrow like a constricting vascular system, squeezing into tinier and tinier spaces, the air becomes pungent with dung, cooking spices, and raw human filth. Strains of Hindustani music blare from a dozen ill-tuned radios above walls that block the light of day. Voices drift from windows where no faces ever appear. People push past each other with downcast eyes and just when the shadows grow darkest and the walls pinch to nauseating tightness, it parts. And there, like an immense, brilliant vein, the Mother Ganges spreads across to a distant and sandy shore. She sweeps by slowly, while all that confined life in the lanes spills onto her banks with visible relief.
    Vaulted temples, marbled mosques, and wooden stalls have risen and crumbled on those banks from before recorded time. Layer upon layer, mortar, brick, and clay have risen and fallen to the foundations below. And no person walking there can take a step without feeling that.
    The river is the center of the city set incongruously to the side, a magnificent circus of ancient ritual. Loin-clothed disciples stand in murky water chanting, “Release us from the wheel of existence.” Sadhus meditate, naked to the mid-day