“Would you still like to go? We need military expertise.”
“Military…? On Ponape? The local government…!”
“Oh, no! Not what you think. Ponape is part of the United Republics of the South Pacific, a loose federation. Its president is a friend of ours. No, we want you for something different. We’ve been sending youth cadres out to Club Lingahnie on vacations, seminars, and study trips, all funded by respectable foundations in America and Europe. These young people come from our private schools, university fellowships, summer camps, labor organizations favorable to us… a great many sources.”
“I don’t understand. How do I fit in?”
“Not for indoctrination, certainly!” Mulder smiled ruefully. “Others are taking care of that: discussion groups in world history, economics, anthropology, sociology, and other subjects. There isn’t a word about our… ah… origins. What we promote is the Party of Humankind.”
“Yes, but….”
“Patience. Some of our students require military training, weapons discipline, field tactics: things in which you have experience and excel. This won’t be for every student, of course… just for those who are training for… ah… a more active role in the movement. We’ve taught these skills for years in the United States, but surveillance and restrictions keep making it harder there.” Mulder noted Lessing’s reluctance and added, “There’ll be only about four or five hundred trainees a year You won’t be working alone, naturally, but supervising teams of instructors. In addition, we’d like you to take on the job of manager at Club Lingahnie… Bauer’s boss. You’ll have a staff, facilities—”
“Wait a minute. You want me as a sort of glorified drill sergeant? A gym teacher? A scoutmaster? And a hotel manager to boot?”
Mulder looked pained. “You do put the worst possible light on things, Alan. The job I’m offering you is a big step up from beegeeing an old codger like myself out here in India. It pays well, too: eighty thousand U.S. dollars a year. Even with inflation, that’s not poverty level. And your living costs will be covered “
“Heat, light, a furnished, thatched hut,” Wrench chimed in, “with hot and cold running dancing girls “
“And a post for Miss Husaini,” Mulder finished with the air of a man who lays four aces down on top of an opponent’s four kings, “if she wants to go along.”
The offer was indeed tempting. Working with Bauer would be difficult but not impossible, and the remoteness of the Caroline Islands gave it all a romantic, tropical aura, like a setting from some old movie.
“Oh, and… uh ” Mulder tapped the desk blotter to regain his attention. “One last piece of pleasant news. Mrs. Delacroix, the lady you escorted to South Africa… you remember her?”
“Of course.”
“She’s arriving in Lucknow tomorrow to settle some business. She’ll have a couple of her people with her, and I’d like you and Wrench to show them around, please.”
With a sinking feeling Lessing realized who one of those people was sure to be. Anneliese Meisinger was one person he did not want to see, not now, when he and Jameela were so close to putting their lives together!
He would have made some excuse, but Mulder had already lumbered up to his feet. “Think over our offer, Alan. Club Lingahnie. Ponape.”
The next morning dawned crisp and cool. India’s brilliant hues were as sharp as a Mughal painting, and the metalled, two-lane road up from Kanpur to Lucknow was not crowded. Wrench drove Mulder’s big limousine, a Japanese Tora Ultra that had cost a fortune in bribes to get into the country. He appeared to enjoy dodging bullocks, water buffalo, great, creaking carts full of who knew what, automobiles and trucks, villagers in dhotis, and innumerable serious-looking men on bicycles and motorbikes. The drive to Lucknow’s airport was uneventful. Wrench remained outside with the car to fight off the hotel-touts, guides, souvenir-sellers, taxi-walas, and seekers of “personalized foreign aid,” while Lessing struggled into the breathlessly hot airport building and out onto the tarmac to seek his charges.
He saw Mrs. Delacroix’s silvery coiffure disembarking first, then the bright gold of Liese’s long, loose hair. She seemed to float down the aircraft landing stairway, a very private person, aloof and self-contained. She would always look this way, whether she were hosting a society ball in New York or standing naked and shamed in a Cairo brothel. Liese had class — in the truest sense.
Half an hour went by before the passengers were able to reclaim their baggage and the Tourist Registration Officer had peered at passports and documents. This was a new wrinkle in a land where bureaucracy was a six-thousand-year-old art form. Prime Minister Ramanujan’s ultra-conservative Hindu government yearned to rid India of every non-Hindu, and Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, Jains, and even the tiny Buddhist minority were all non gratae. Creating minor problems for foreign residents and tourists was part of the program.
Suddenly Liese was there, twenty feet in front of him, one hand frantically waving, the other full ofluggage. Mrs. Delacroix and two other European faces were visible behind her. An Indian airport can be a daunting experience, and Lessing pushed in to the rescue, two porters trailing in his wake. After some further genial struggle, Liese was beside him, clutching his arm, neither sure how to greet the other.
“Alan!” Mrs. Delacroix cried. “Alan Lessing! Good…”
“…To see you,” he completed. They both laughed. “La! Such a foule!” She looked around. “Meet two frienas: Jennifer Caw and Hans Borchardt.”
Lessing recalled the woman at once. Jennifer Sims Caw was the American with the loud, bullying voice at the conference in Guatemala City. Up close, she possessed a certain overdone beauty: in her mid thirties, big-boned, with large breasts, good legs, dark-aubum hair, and a vivid, reddish complexion. He didn’t know her companion: a pale, very blonde, sensitive-looking, late-thirtyish man, whose old-fashioned, hornrimmed glasses gave him a bookish look. Lessing would bet that Mr. Borchardt had a copy of the tourist guide to Lucknow in his bulging jacket pocket.
Lessing wanted to get Liese alone and prime her for the inevitable meeting with Jameela, but Mrs. Delacroix showed no signs of fatigue. She still wanted to see Lucknow, even after “doing” Delhi the previous day. As Mulder had warned, she was retired but still active, a key figure in a dozen Euro-African corporations and causes. She must have been a holy terror in her youth!
Wrench donned a gentle half-smile of martyrdom and started Mulder’s fancy car.
“What would you like?” Lessing inquired. “The markets in Ameenabad? The jewellers, perfumers, and sari shops in \hechauk? The palaces and mosques of the nawabs of Awadh? The Residency, where the British held out during the Mutiny of 1857?”
Borchardt glanced over at Liese, beside him in the back seat “The monuments, please. Isn’t there a handsome mosque built in the late eighteenth century by Nawab Asafu-d-daulah?” Lessing’s assessment of Borchardt as a pedant was confirmed. The man sounded British but with a hint of central Europe. Knowing Mulder’s friends, he was probably a German or an Afrikaner.
Two could play at scholarship. Lessing said, “Yes, and beside it is the Bara Imambara, where the Shi’a hold their majalis, huge meetings commemorating the death of Imam Husain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. In the upper stories of the Imambara there’s a labyrinth, the Bhul-bhuliyan. It’s a maze of tunnels, balconies, stairways, and passages. Some’ll tell you the old nawab used to play hide-and-seek with his harem girls up there, but others say that honeycombing the top stories takes the weight off the supporting arches of the lower floor. The guides’ll bet you money you can’t find your way out by yourself.”