“It was 4 a.m. I was in Morocco. I’d been asleep just half-an-hour when the phone rang off its hook. Aside from Gaetano and Justine (my secretary), the gumshoes were the only ones who could reach me. They had explicit instructions to phone immediately if in receipt of important news — damn the torpedoes and perish the time zone. A man called Quasimodo was on the other end. Funnily, he was the only one whose skill I had doubted. I was this close to firing him.
“‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I believe I found him.’
“I saw stars. I asked him to go on, slowly.
“‘A village 400 kilometers from Delhi. He’s tall, white. 82 years old. He lives in a cave.’
“‘A cave?’
“‘I spoke to the elder — the village chief. A very friendly fellow. He said “the Hermit” showed up about 10 years ago. That’s what he calls him, “the Hermit.” Or “Guruji” or jnani…’
“‘And?’
“‘I hiked up to the cave. Very nice set-up! I had both sets of pictures with me — from the ashram in the ’70s, and the ones generated from the forensic model. He didn’t seem to look like either but I’m not very good at that, you know. I’m face-blind.’
“‘Now you tell me. You took a photo?’
“‘No, and I’m sorry about it. He wasn’t too keen on having his picture taken.’
“‘Jesus! Well, if he didn’t look—and you say he showed up ten years ago, but he’s been gone for twenty… What makes you think—’
“‘I didn’t want to tip him — I said I was looking for a shrine. I thought he’d be standoffish but the old guy had a sense of humor. He said he didn’t know of any shrines in that area, which just went to show that all roads don’t lead to Mecca.’”
After too many hours and too few stops, we reached the foot of the village fingered by the hunchback with a hunch. A pair of armed men stood waiting beside a train of burros. Apparently, it was the end of the line for anything with an engine. As we mounted our steeds, one of the guards suggested he accompany us on the trail or at least partly up the hill, but was politely refused.
It felt good to have an ass massage after such a long ride. A thousand trivial things flitted through my logy, travel-loopy head. I wondered if my gargoyles missed me, and even wondered what happened to Quasimodo. Fat and sassy no doubt, shacked up somewhere on Easy Street with his seven figures (though I doubt he’d collected just yet)… We loped along uphill — six sherpas in front, four in back — and not a one spoke the King’s (or the Queenie’s) English. Kura rode ahead in a trance of monomania, eyes fixated on the dubious prize before him. I became rather fixated myself, abruptly seized by the hair-raising fear that a massive coronary would topple him from his burro before we reached the finish line. (Why couldn’t we have brought the elusive doctor along?) I think what spurred that particular fantasy was a general agita about the man, a turmoil, a nervosity. Anyone would have been excited about the prospect of reuniting with a person who had played such an important role in one’s life, that was understood, but I think Kura was fundamentally vexed, and not in a good way. One thing I noticed was that his reminiscences toggled back and forth between the warm, intimate “my guru” and the cooler, detached “the American,” the latter even further removed by an ironic inflection of quote marks, as if borrowing not just my but the Great Guru’s widow’s description. What I mean to say is, his conflicted feelings were so obvious. I believe that the closer we got—he got — to that damnable cave, the more unresolved and bewildered he became.
I had no idea how much time had passed. We dipped then rose up the side of yet another barren ravine, crossing a cool meadow the size of a soccer field before beginning the perilous ascent of Hillock Number 17 (or so it seemed). There was no comfort to be drawn from the dearth of hints that any of these traversals were bringing us closer to our destination — then suddenly, we were there.
The sherpas helped us dismount. A few ran off, returning a few minutes later with a smartly dressed, silver-haired chap in tow. The village elder wore a silvery Groucho moustache above a crazy rack of ultra-whitened teeth.
“Mr. Bela Moncrieff!” he shouted. The elusive Quasimodo had no doubt provided the gentleman with one of Kura’s aliases. At least he hadn’t called him Lucky Pierre. “Please! Come.”
We were led to a modest home, where a lovely middle-aged woman with a bindi and a delicate ring through her nostril greeted us with a tray bearing cups of tea. She was the elder’s wife. A handful of sweet morsels had been laid out as well and I wolfed two down without ceremony — I was famished. When offered, Kura waved them away.
Our host spoke perfect English. After a few rounds of social niceties, he got down to brass tacks.
“Ah… the Hermit!” he said with a grin. “You are his friend?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Kura, solemnly. “But before we go any further, I need your assurance.”
“I am at your service, Sir Moncrieff, sir!”
“My man told you not to speak with anyone in the village about my pending arrival. Can you assure me that yo—”
“Quasimodo! Hell of a guy! Gave me a Macintosh computer! And Frito-Lays! And Sir Alfred Dunhill cigarettes!”
“You were warned, weren’t you? Not to let the man in the cave know he might be having visitors? Did he tell you that?”
“It’s true! But I can assure it is was a warning most easily ignored.”
The remark got Kura’s attention. “I don’t follow you.”
“If for a single moment I believed there was one nefarious thing behind the whole gambit that might possibly result in harm to the Hermit, I would not have hesitated to warn him, i.e., sound the alarum throughout the entire village. He is after all an irreproachable member of our community — the Hermit has quite a special status, to say the least! The village feeds and clothes him, and thanks God for the privilege. I shall reserve to make further explanations regarding my meaning at a different time, for I know you are in a very big rush. As said: I would certainly not have hung fire to tip off the jnani of any goings-on should I have suspected something shady. In fact, it would have been my distinct pleasure and honor! But when Quasimodo — one hell of a guy, I assure! — informed me the Hermit was your guru, whom you wished to make reunion after so many years and planned to come such a great distance to worship… my heart became full and it was a facile thing for me to then agree. So may I say: I rejoice with you, and for you!”