“You seem to know a bit about it,” Borchardt admitted grudgingly. Let him think Lessing was a scholar, too; actually, Jameela had told him all the tourist talcs during their Sunday outings together.
“There’s also supposed to be an identical maze underneath the Bhul-bhuliyan, but it’s bricked up.” Lessing was beginning to enjoy playing the local dragoman. “The story is that a company of British soldiers chased some of the mutineers down into it, and none of ’em ever came out.”
Borchardt cocked his head suspiciously, and Wrench grinned with beatific innocence.
Lessing said, “Nearby is the Baoli Well. The last nawab threw his gems and treasures into it and then lowered a big iron plate down on top to keep the English from getting them. Lucknow’s a fascinating place. During Muharram the Shi’i faithful walk on beds of hot coals in the courtyard of the Bara Imambara.”
“A true test of faith!” Wrench said, joining in the spirit of the thing. “You should see the Shi’i Tazia processions then, too; some of the men flog themselves with whips and chains until they lose consciousness!”
“Ugh! Why?” Jennifer Caw questioned abruptly from the rear jump-seat. “What’s Muharram?”
“Muharram’s the first month of the Islamic lunar year,” Lessing answered. Jameela had once spent a long, lazy evening explaining her people’s religion. “It was during this month that Husain, the younger of the Prophet Muhammad’s two grandsons, and his family were massacred at a place called Karbala in Iraq. After the Prophet’s death there was a power struggle in the new Islamic state. His son-in-law, Ali, founded a party, the Shi’a, which believed in a divinely inspired, hereditary caliphate… with Ali or some other blood-relative of the Prophet as imam, or leader. The rest of the community, the Sunnis, claimed that the Prophet had said that his successor ought to be elected. Both groups thought God was on their side. They fought, and Imam Husain was slain.”
“They’ve been at it ever since,” Wrench flung in. “Every year there are Sunni-Shi’a riots… shops and houses burned, sometimes people hurt. Not as bad as Protestants and Catholics in Europe, but still pretty rough.”
“Martyrdom and mourning,” Borchardt announced portentously, “the two most salient features of Shi’i Islam.”
“Not exactly,” Lessing contradicted. “It’s complicated. But the Sunni-Shi’a controversy did help keep Islam from overrunning Europe during the Middle Ages.” He chuckled. “Otherwise you and I would be wearing turbans, Mr. Borchardt.”
“The Muslims would have had to face the Germanic peoples,” the other shot back.
“The Arabs beat the pants off the Germanic Visigoths in Spain… and the Byzantines and their Germanic Vandal subjects in North Africa,” Wrench pointed out. He winked at Lessing in the front seat beside him and hissed, “Classic Comics World History Issue Number Seven!”
Borchardt retired into miffed silence in the back seat. Jennifer Caw, too, sat quietly, a glassy expression on her face; India sometimes did that to first-timers. Liese and Mrs. Delacroix seemed to enjoy themselves; they chatted, ate the luncheon Mulder had sent along, and drank copiously of the thermos jug of ice water. Lessing himself had seen to its boiling that morning, as well as the water for the ice. He had endured too many go-rounds with the diarrhea foreigners called “Delhi Belly,” “the Rajah’s Revenge,” or “the Lucknow Two-Step” to take chances with important guests!
The Bhul-bhuliyan was entertaining; the great mosque graceful and mysterious, something out of the Thousand and One Nights; the Residency wistful and solitary under its veils of greenery. There were still other sights, but Lessing insisted on calling a halt. The November sun had been merciful, but it was deceptive, and Mrs. Delacroix was fragile.
“We’ll go back through Ameenabad… the middle-class bazaar… to Hazrat Ganj, where the nicer shops are. If you can stand the crowds and the sights and smells of the bazaar, you get your Good Tourist Medal.”
Wrench jockeyed the big limousine through narrow streets into the chaotic traffic of the central section of the city. “I hate driving through the bazaar,” he grumbled. “You owe me one, baby!”
“Collect from Mulder.” Lessing straightened up. “What’s this?”
Ameenabad Park was a dusty, grassless, open square surrounded by the shops and tenements of Lucknow’s middle-class districts. Today it was awash from one side to the other with a sea of saffron. People in garments dyed an orangy-yellow swarmed in front of the car, Hindi banners and signs tossing above their heads. From the opposite end of the square they heard the echoing bellow of a loudspeaker turned up to near-incomprehensibility.
“A goddamned parade… a political meeting!” Wrench swore. “Looks like the B.S.S.!” He slammed the car into reverse.
“What? Who are they?” Borchardt asked.
“I don’t know what the initials stand for. But they’re Hindu rightists,” Lessing told him. “Far right, the ones who want all foreigners out of India. Bharat… that’s India… for the Bharatis. We’re unbelievers to them. They call us unclean, cow-eaters, outcasts.”
“Hey, Lessing!” Wrench snapped. “See if you can persuade the nice folks behind us to let me back the hell up.”
Lessing poked his head out and used his best Hindi: “Rasta dijiye, Janab! Mehrbanikar-kehatjaiye!”
A youth who looked seventeen came up to peer into the car. His yellow dhoti was clean, and his wire-rimmed glasses offered hope of an educated person, one who could be reasoned with. Then Lessing saw the three whitish, horizontal stripes daubed across his forehead, the mark of a devotee of Lord Siva. His head was shaved except for a little pigtail left at the back. Here was a zealot.
“From where are you coming?” the young man demanded.
“We’re tourists,” Lessing said, not untruthfully. “This lady is French. The dust is too much for her. Could you help us get out of your way, please?”
Others came up to stare and confer, and more arrived by the moment as the street behind the limousine filled up. It would take a major miracle to back the car out now. In India a foreigner could sneeze and look around to find a mob gathered to watch him wipe his nose. Wrench muttered between his teeth: “Curiosity, thy name is unemployed Indian!”
“You do not belong here! ” the bespectacled youth accused. “You go to your own country, away from India! This is not your place!”
“Yes, yes,” Lessing agreed. He smiled as winningly as he knew how. He had to keep things friendly. “We are visitors. We want to get out of your way. Please help us.”
The boy scratched at his stubbled skull. Then he made motions to clear the street.
“God damn,” Wrench whispered admiringly. “You got natural charm, guy!”
He spoke too soon. One of the other youths dashed around from the rear of the limousine shouting. Lessing guessed at once what was wrong: this was an Indoco company car, and government regulations required foreign-owned business vehicles to letter their firm’s name on the license plate above the numerals. American companies — American anything — were anathema to the Hindu far right at present, just as they were to the far left Moreover, Indoco made fertilizers and pesticides: wicked poisons to corrupt the soil of sacred Bharat!
The second youth began a harangue; the Siva-worshipper replied, and others joined in. Some raised sticks and lathis: heavy, metal-tipped staves. A stone spanged off the limousine’s roof. There went Mulder’s paint job.
Lessing turned to Wrench. “Get ready to run for it!” He pointed. “Move forward, get momentum, and ignore anything but a solid wall. Blow your horn like crazy!” To the rest he said, “Lock your doors and windows. This car is bulletproof, and it’s heavy. It’ll be hard for them to break in or roll us over. If worse comes to worst, there’s a compartment right behind you, Miss Caw; in it you’ll find a Riga-71 automatic rifle, a stitch gun, tear-gas grenades, and a couple of pistols.”