The Mystic's Miracle

by Noah Alexander

  “I am famished, Helena,” Natasha broke in sensing Maya’s conundrum, “do you have anything for Nadia?”

  Helena’s wrinkled face beamed into a smile. “I didn’t know that she was coming or I would have made something special. The Black Bean pudding perhaps. But you’ll have to make do with the usual I am afraid.”

  “Don’t worry Helena,” Natasha said, “Nadia would be with us for a couple of days more, and you will have more opportunities to remind her what she is missing in the city.”

  Helena beamed again, happy that she would have more time to try and pry open Maya about her disappearance.

  “I am glad you invited her,” she said taking the two towards a small makeshift kitchen tent which stood behind the main tent and some yards from the cage of a sleeping lion, “Do you live in Cardim, Nadia dear? Is that the city that Natasha mentioned?”

  Maya nodded. “Yes, I work there.”

  “Good for you. You have become a city girl, a working city girl in fact, I never would have imagined that.”

  She opened a large pot resting on a makeshift stove made of bricks and poured a ladle each of meat stew in two bowls. She handed the bowls to the two along with half a loaf of bread each. They sat down on a long bench and Helena joined them.

  “It is good that a lot of the older people of the circus are out in the city pasting advertisements,” said Helena, “or having their afternoon nap after attending the funeral, or they would be buzzing about you like flies. Not how you would want to have lunch.”

  “Yes,” Natasha agreed, “though not many of the old-timers are left now. Most of them have departed one by one. Only Chang has remained, you would remember him, and Bon Bon of course and Maria, Miley and Ramdin. There is also Morty but he was only a kid when you left so you might not remember him.”

  “And Billy of course,” added Helena, “Your uncle, how could you forget him. Especially now. I have said it before, and I will say it again. He might have slacked a bit lately but he is the key to the circus now that your father is gone, you need all his help to run it properly.”

  Natasha didn’t seem to agree completely but she nodded nonetheless.

  A small stocky man, wearing khaki trousers covered in dirt, jogged to the kitchen.

  “A man wants to see you,” he said to Natasha, “He is dressed in a suit, looks like an important man,”

  Natasha kept her bowl down and excused herself. The man slyly picked up her unfinished bowl and rushed after her.

  “So, Nadia,” said Helena when the two were alone together, “Tell me, where do you work in the city? Is it a hotel? Or a laundering place perhaps? You could be a tailor as well, you know, or a maid in one of those big bungalows. In the city, there are all kinds of jobs.”

  “I work at Bombay Detective Agency,” said Maya.

  “Detective? Now don’t tell me you managed to get into the police?”

  “No! not the police. It is a private detective agency. People come to us with their problems and we help them.”

  “Ooh. That is a mighty interesting job you have,” Helena drifted closer to Maya, “Is that why you are here, then? Did Natasha invite you to investigate?” she whispered into her ears.

  Maya was confused.

  “Investigate what?” she asked.

  “Her father’s death of course. Surely you don’t agree that he killed himself. No one who knew Harold would say that.”

  TEN

  Suicide or Murder

  “Why do you say that?” Maya asked Helena, her interest suddenly piquing, “She had initially found it strange that Harold, of all people, would kill himself, but once she had heard about the financial difficulties that the circus was going through, she hadn’t thought much about it.

  “It’s not me who says that,” Helena said, “ask anyone who knew Harold half as well as you do, he would say the same. Harold was a man with a strong heart. He got this circus from his father when he was 18 and the circus was on the verge of collapse, his father's partner had duped him of all money. I was with him at that time and I saw how hard he fought to preserve his family heirloom. I was there when those wretched miners burned the circus down in 1851 saying that we had ripped them. One lion, one elephant, and scores of horses and bears and snakes were killed. But he did not give up. He pulled the circus up again and the next year he was back running a show in the same town. Harold had a fight in him. And you can say that he had grown old and all but he still had fight left in him, I can say that. People like him kill others not themselves.”

  Helena’s statements made sense.

  “Can you tell me what exactly had happened? I mean how did he kill himself?”

  Helena was apparently waiting for this moment, to be the one to tell the story of Harold's death to Maya. She looked around to make sure that no one was eavesdropping, then acquired the grim expression she sported whenever narrating a tale.

  “It was the strangest thing I had seen in my life," she said, "We all were sitting here in the kitchen having evening tea. Most of the artists in the circus have their tea together. So, there were about two dozen of us sipping tea, laughing, and discussing the upcoming show and the new acts that we had planned. Somewhere between all this, it must have been around 6, Harold emerged from his cabin which lies behind the main tent. While the rest of us live in dormitory tents, he and his brother Bill have their own private spaces. So, he comes laboring from his cabin towards the kitchen tent and glances over at the people sitting around having tea. No waving, no hello nothing, just a melancholy glance at the folks. It was a look I had never seen upon his face, mind you. I got up to pour him some tea but he did not come here at all and disappeared behind the kitchen. People got back to their normal chatter and no one noticed till Jack, the young helper boy, saw him on top of the wooden tower.”

  She pointed to a tower towards the east of the kitchen tent, at the edge of the ground just overlooking the forest.

  “It is an old watch-tower,” Helena said, “This ground was earlier a prison camp and this tower was one of the structures that was not pulled apart when the prison was demolished. We had decided to use it as a prop for one of the newer acts and so when we found Harold there, initially we thought that he had clambered up the tower to inspect if it would serve our purpose. Seeing him up there, Ramires, who was the one supposed to use the tower for his monocycle act asked him – ‘What do you reckon sir. I think it would suit us quite well, we can tie a rope from the top of the railing to a peg in the ground and I can ride my cycle on it.’ But Harold didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at Ramires. In fact, he merely stared towards the forest, then, all of a sudden clambered above the low railing and just like that, jumped down. He landed straight on the boundary wall, on his head. It was the strangest thing that I ever saw.”

  “But that seems like he did kill himself,” Maya said, “And the whole circus saw it.”

  Helena sighed as if Maya was ignoring something blatantly clear.

  “He did jump,” she said, “but why?”

  “Because the circus was not doing well,” ventured Maya.

  “Don’t tell me that. He has been bankrupt four times during his lifetime, he wouldn’t kill himself for lack of money. Something else forced him to jump and nobody knows what that was.”

  “You are saying that he killed himself but the reason was not money?”

  “Yes”

  “But why do you want to know the reason?”

  “Because we need to know. We worked for him.”

  It seemed like Helena wanted help to get some material to gossip about, and Maya wasn’t sure how much help she was willing to be. For one, she definitely did not want to go digging into her past. She was in the circus due to Natasha’s persistence and she wanted to spend three days here in peace and leave for Cardim on Monday. That was the plan and she intended to stick with it.”

  Maya found Helena looking at her expectantly.

  “Wouldn’t you want to see the tower more closely,” s
he said, “you know, start investigating at the scene of the crime. Just like the detectives do it in the books.”

  Before Maya could say anything Helena had pulled her up from the bench and dragged her to the wooden tower.

  “That’s where he fell,” she said pointing to a brown spot on the white-washed boundary wall. The ground below the wall was covered in lime,

  “It was all flooded with blood,” Helena explained, “so the men poured some lime all over it. You don’t want people who come here to watch happy clowns find out what a terrible thing had happened on the ground that they were standing on.”

  “What time did you say he jumped?” Maya asked.

  “At around 6 in the evening.”

  “And do you know what he was doing just before, or who he was with?”

  “Harold had lunch in the kitchen in the afternoon with some others. Then he oversaw the main tent being put up for about two hours probably, then he went to his cabin. To rest, I think. Next that I saw him he was walking to the tower to jump to his death.”

  “So we have around 3 hours before his death that we need to know more about.” Maya felt like getting her case notebook and making notes, but was reminded that her paraphernalia was in her bag which now lay in the kitchen tent.

  “What about when he was in the kitchen? Did he behave differently, unusually?”

  “No. He was cheerful enough, slightly irritable, probably because of all the stress of putting up a show but not what I would call out of the ordinary.”

  Maya went closer to inspect the tower. A door barred the entrance to the tower but it wasn’t locked. An open lock hung on the handle.

  “At least after what has happened we should keep this tower locked,” said Maya.

  “Well dear, it used to be locked earlier. The only key to the tower was with Harold and we couldn’t find it upon his body. So it remained open.”

  “Only he had the key?”

  “Yes, only he had the key to the tower.”

  “Did you check the tower and the ground on either side of the wall for it?”

  “Yes, the men did. He kept the key in a hoop with the keys to all the circus cages and the caravans and we couldn’t find the whole hoop. It gave us a scare that we’d need to replace all those locks but fortunately Billy had one hoop as well. But he didn’t have the key to the tower. There was just one of that, and it was with Harold.”

  “That is strange.”

  Maya looked at the top of the tower and then at the boundary wall.

  “He jumped down and fell on the wall, then toppled towards the circus side of the wall.”

  “Yes”

  “All right. Wait here.”

  Maya rushed inside the tower, her mind suddenly flushed with excitement. Though initially hesitant to drag herself into Helena's speculative theory, she seemed to have developed an appetite for the curious mystery of her uncle's death. If nothing else, she could use it as a way to keep herself engaged during her stay in the circus. It was certainly better than being a part of conversations with other circus folks, which inevitably turned towards the topic of her escape from the circus.

  The spiral staircase which led to the top of the tower was wrapped in utter darkness and Maya had to feel her way up the railing. When she reached the top she was already out of her breath. A door led to the circular balcony from where Harold had led himself down. She stood there and examined the wooden floorboards as well as the railing, then walked around to the exact spot from where Harold had jumped, it was on the opposite side to where the door led out into the balcony. Satisfied that she had not missed anything on the tower, Maya led herself down, then passed Helena and stood at the spot where he had fallen. She looked around the spot for a bit then put her hand on the boundary wall and heaved herself upon it and to the other side into the forest.

  “Where are you going,” Helena called from behind her, “I have heard there are leopards in there.”

  But Maya was too engrossed in her work. She studied the grassed patch of ground touching the wall, then slowly made her way farther into the forest. A couple of minute’s excursion led her to a steep cliff. She looked around and her eyes went to a large tree. The ground at the feet of the tree seemed a bit trampled. Maya walked over to the tree and looked around, and it didn’t take her long to see the glint of metal in a bush nearby. She reached across to produce a hoop of keys. The object of her research in her hands now, Maya wove her way back to the wall and to the ground on the other side. She found Helena still waiting animatedly for her.

  “There might be some truth to what you said about Uncle Harold’s death,” Maya said to her.

  “I told you," Helena said proudly, "it wasn't money, something else pushed him to his death.”

  “No, not something," said Maya, "Someone pushed him to his death.”

  ELEVEN

  The Blessed Banana

  Ernst picked himself up from the pavement and dusted his frame. His face felt hot in the glare of the numerous eyes which had witnessed his humiliation at the hands of Manu the watchman and now rested on him in anticipation of his next move.

  The High Guard tried hard not to imagine his mother scoffing at him, ‘Assaulted by a watchman? What sort of a policeman are you.’

  Ernst kept his eyes on the ground and walked slowly down the road and away from the line of men and women looking at him. He needed a better plan to find his father. The task was not at all as simple as he had expected, and this was not taking into account actually convincing his father to listen to him and come out of the building. But he could not back out now. He wasn't going to let a bully keep him out of a building in which his father was camped.

  He decided to find some other way inside the building. Ernst could try and join the line of the regular devotees to gain entry but he suspected that the guards, who had now seen his face, would not allow him inside. And the line of the homeless men down the road was so long that he might have to wait till tomorrow to gain an entry. He couldn't afford that. He had taken a single day leave and his director Horace Ibrahim was very strict when it came to overstaying leaves. Just a few weeks ago, he had ordered a Second Lieutenant to make and serve tea to the whole constabulary for a week for overstaying his honeymoon in the tea plantations of Darjeeling. He might ask Ernst to preach in the constabulary after office if he overstayed in the ashram. Anyway, Ernst needed to find a way inside. He wandered aimlessly on the road for some time contemplating a solution. When the guards at the gate, bored, had stopped paying attention to him, he quickly went up to a hawker selling hats. He bought a black bowler hat from him and also exchanged his Tweed coat for the hawker’s grey cotton coat, which, though old, was still in a reasonably good condition. Putting the hat so that it covered half his face, Ernst walked over to join the paid line of devotees. His rudimentary masquerade proved successful enough as the guards did not bat an eye as he paid the 5 Cowrie fee and walked into the ashram.

  They didn't notice but Ernst scoffed at them under his hat.

  A red dirt track ran from the gate to the main door of the ashram building weaving through a carefully maintained front lawn which was littered with marigold and chrysanthemum flowers. In the midst of the flowers stood a marble fountain, sparkling in the bright October sun. An army of native gardeners was busy pruning the lawns, while other burly men, similar to those at the gate prowled around like policemen. Ernst didn’t have time to admire the surroundings fully before he was shepherded inside the building by the crowd behind him. He could feel the excitement in the devotees, it throbbed and pulsated around them, clearly perceptible. He felt like he was in the midst of a brigade of starved prisoners all waiting restlessly for a Christmas feast. Some people rubbed their hands excitedly, others moved their heads in circles and a few talked, blabbered, to no one in particular. This crowd wasn’t at all the sort of people that his father enjoyed the company of. Friedrich Wilhelm had not chosen an ideal place to escape from his wife.

  Ernst entered the building
and found himself in a large hall with a sparkling marble floor and the walls adorned with colorful murals depicting prowling lions, prancing horses as well as dueling kings and Gods. The hall had been divided in half by an iron fence. The part where Ernst stood had chairs arranged in neat rows while the other half had a mat spread on the floor. Even as he looked on, the chairless portion was filling in rapidly with the tramps and homeless men that he had seen trying to gain entry through the gate down the road. He could not imagine how the long queue of men that he had seen outside would be able to fit themselves in that space. But Ernst pulled his mind away from the thought and tried to focus on the task at hand.

  He could not see his father in the hall. Friedrich Wilhelm must be in the inner chambers of the ashram, but the door which led inside the building was bolted and manned by two khaki wearing men. Ernst did not have the heart to confront the guards of this place after what had happened at the gate and decided to wait. Perhaps the whole group would move inside in some time.

  He was wrong. Soon, the excited devotees who had made their way inside with Ernst began to occupy the seats arranged in the hall. They joined their hands respectfully and looked with anticipation towards a small platform in front which had a large gilded throne upon it. Ernst took a seat as well and waited restlessly in the soothing music of a Veena, which had filled the hall. He had to wait for more than 20 minutes, by which time the din in the hall had risen to such a level that he had to shut his ears with his hands to keep them from hurting. The other part of the hall was now bustling with people, some of who, beggars apparently, poked their hand through the iron fence trying to seek alms from the richer men on Ernst’s side.