by J C Ryan
Then he asked Rex where he was going.
“To Kapul Mochan,” Rex replied.
The old man’s wrinkled face took on a concerned expression. “Have you killed a Brahmin?”
Rex raised his eyebrows. What an odd question.
Rex answered with a question of his own. “Is it only those who have killed Brahmins who want or need the power of the lake to wash away their sins?”
Gyan didn’t answer, but his face cleared. “You must know, then, that there is also an ancient site in this place. The ashram of Ved Vyasa. Did you not intend to visit it? The Mahabharta was written here.”
Rex did indeed know of the place where one of the epic tales of Indian history had originated. He’d meant to visit it on the way back from his pilgrimage to Kapul Mochan. He considered how to tell the old man this without offending him, but Gyan became animated. He’d had a thought.
“You must come home with me. I have photographs of my family, and they will want to see your remarkable dog!”
Rex took in the poor garments the man wore, and his heart sank. It would be rude to decline the invitation, but he didn’t want to go. Not specifically because Gyan was poor, but because he knew that guests in India were treated almost like visiting deities. The family would impoverish themselves further by providing a feast for him, and to make matters worse, he couldn’t do anything to repay them or alleviate their sacrifice. Offering them money would be considered an insult.
He said, “But my dog would not be welcome in your house, surely.”
The old man gulped. “My wife may not welcome him, but do not worry. I will tell her she must.”
Now Rex felt even more obligated. He’d offered the only excuse he could, and though he’d been uncomfortable, Gyan had swept it away. There was no choice but to accept.
“Thank you,” he said. “I will come, but Digger will stay outside.”
He knew he’d made the right decision when the old man sighed in relief. Rex had never been married, but he recognized the truth: men only thought they were kings in their own castles. Women made the rules, at least where the household was concerned.
Gyan brightened again. “You must come now! We can play a game of Chaturanga.”
Now Rex was happy he’d accepted. He knew of the ancient game some believed was the predecessor of the game of kings – chess. However, he’d never seen it played and didn’t know the rules. This visit would be an opportunity to indulge his love of history as much as the visits to the ancient sites would be.
“I’d be honored. But you must teach me,” he said.
CHAPTER TWO
IN AMERICA, IT had been almost a month since Bruce Carson, the former Director of the CIA, had disappeared under mysterious circumstances after retiring abruptly. The media, in yet another case of nine-day-wonder, had it that he’d absconded to Costa Rica after a scandal of some sort was discovered, but Costa Rica claimed he wasn’t there.
Mrs. Carson refused to speak to the reporters. She’d given the investigators plenty, though. Her husband had come home late one night and demanded she move with him to Costa Rica under assumed names. Naturally, she had refused. Her alternative was divorce, and she’d had enough. She knew he was cheating on her. Women know these things, she’d explained when pressed for details. She didn’t know who, or the details they wanted. She only knew it was time to cut ties.
Then the bastard had cleaned out their accounts and left her with nothing. She couldn’t even sell the house for the money, until the divorce was final. It was in his name, but she hoped the divorce decree would fix that.
Eventually, another hot news story took the place of the missing DCIA. America’s hyperactive news cycle had forgotten him, but the CIA hadn’t. It was imperative they catch up with him. He had knowledge of secrets that would be very dangerous in the wrong hands, including the number and positioning of every field operative the US had and considerable information about allied operations. The consequences of a defection to an enemy country were too drastic to talk of. He had to be found, and when he was, the order was to terminate with extreme prejudice. Every spook from every allied country was looking for him.
Unfortunately for him, it was assumed he’d gone to a country without an extradition treaty with the US.
John Brandt, CEO of the paramilitary organization, Crisis Response Consultancy or CRC, knew what had happened to Carson. He’d watched him board a plane for a flight to the Marshall Islands. He wouldn’t stay there, of course, but it did have the advantage of having no extradition treaty. Brandt had a team searching for where he’d gone, too.
He wished he’d never given the man the option of leaving. His anger at the duplicity that got his best agent, Rex Dalton, reportedly killed in an ambush in Afghanistan had overridden his judgement. He’d stopped himself from killing the man with his own hands after discovering Carson was a pusillanimous sex addict, and a kinky one at that. The assumption was that Carson would be the cause of his own downfall because of it, but Brandt didn’t want to get his own hands dirty. He should have thought about Carson’s other secrets – those that now threatened national security.
Brandt had learned from Carson that there were others in the chain of betrayal who needed sorting. He set a team in motion to find Carson and then put it out of his mind. He had other fish to fry. The next link in the chain was the only one Carson knew, a Senator who was so ancient that Brandt could hardly believe what Carson had told him about the man’s weakness.
He couldn’t think of anything quite so obscene as the elderly man with little boys, but that’s what Carson had claimed. Brandt’s team of Old Timers – retired operatives he’d known when he was in the CIA himself – confirmed the information. Brandt was about to move on the Senator when he suffered a massive stroke. Evidently the strain of Carson’s sudden resignation and disappearance and the possibility of his own vices coming to light soon if they had not been already exposed was too much for him.
Before Brandt could get to him to wring the name of the person above him in the chain out of him, he’d reportedly suffered two more strokes and died.
Brandt was disappointed. The link to the next person in the chain was gone, and he’d lost his chance to burn the chain all the way to the drug lord in Afghanistan who’d arranged for Brandt’s agent’s and his team mates’ purported deaths.
Brandt always thought of it in those terms, because he had a sneaking suspicion that Rex wasn’t dead. That he hadn’t reported in meant that he knew he’d been set up. It was natural for Rex to assume he couldn’t trust CRC until he knew who’d done it, but it stung.
Helpless to finish what he’d started with Carson’s ouster, Brandt decided to take a long shot. Finding Rex was not going to be easy. He’d been the best agent Brandt had ever trained. He knew all the tricks and was used to working alone. It would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. But Brandt had to try. As he often told his recruits, the surest way to fail was to not even try.
CHAPTER THREE
GYAN EXCUSED HIMSELF, saying he must warn his wife to prepare a feast for their important guest. Rex responded with a nod of his head, his hands pressed palm to palm, and said, “namaste”. The old man reciprocated, and then broke out in the toothless smile Rex had learned to interpret amidst all those wrinkles. Digger woofed softly, and Rex turned to look at him. When he turned back, Gyan had vanished.
“Folklore, my ass,” Rex muttered. He looked at Digger. “What shall we do now, boy? We have some time to kill.”
Digger apparently had no opinion, mainly because he was busy finishing Rex’s lunch, which he’d absentmindedly set down when he started talking to Gyan.
Sighing, Rex peeled his orange and ate it. Gyan had given him directions to his home and told him to come at eight. Rex knew good manners dictated he be at least an hour late. So, dinner would be served around nine that night, he reckoned. By the time it was finished and he and Gyan had played their game of Chaturanga, it would be too late to go on
to his next destination afterward.
Since arriving in India a few weeks ago, Rex had to remind himself every day about his new chosen lifestyle, no deadlines to meet, no place he had to be, and all the time in the world to get there.
He decided to check into a local hotel, switch his plans to visit Kapal Mochan to tomorrow, and visit the ashram of the famous Indian historian Ved Vyasa rishi before his dinner date.
He also needed to shop for a gift for Gyan’s wife.
He found the archaeological site near where the paleochannel river left the Himalayas and entered the plains. Excavation of the paleochannel was just beginning, but there were several sites where ancient sculptures and monuments had been unearthed. Rex spent several hours wandering in the forest, along the dry riverbed, and in admiration of the various ninth-century Hindu ruins and the Buddhist monastery Adi Badri, dated from the tenth to twelfth century.
By the time Digger began to let Rex know of his displeasure at being kept on a short leash and not allowed to enter the buildings, Rex was ready for a snack and a short rest. They returned to the village and found an outdoor coffee shop that had Indian pastries. Rex might have shared with Digger, but he was still miffed about being robbed of his lunch, so he avoided eye contact with the dog, who was probably giving him big, sad, puppy eyes.
He asked the server where he could get an appropriate hostess gift, and was directed to a sweets shop, where he bought a carefully-considered box of candies. Not too big, as it would emphasize the difference in his economic status, and not too small, but like some girl with golden hair in a fairy tale he vaguely remembered from his childhood, he found one that was just right.
As the hour approached, Rex found he was excited about the Chaturanga game. He knew that the game was thought to be the predecessor of chess and was thought to have originated in India in the 6th century AD. Chaturanga meant the ‘four divisions’ referring to the infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry of the ancient Indian military forces, which had over centuries evolved into pawn, knight, bishop and rook of the modern chess game. He hadn’t played chess since before his family was killed in the Spanish railway bombing. His younger brother had regularly beat him. Rex would have given just about anything to have just one more match with his brother to see if he could have won since all his military training.
The object of Chaturanga, he assumed, was to capture the other player’s king, like chess.
He hadn’t been formally invited to dinner since the last time he’d been on vacation at an island resort in the Caribbean after a mission. That invitation was from a beautiful Russian girl and that was now more than a year past. Rex had a few moments of angst while he waited to be politely late — a strange concept for him. Promptness was not only a virtue in military and American etiquette – it was required. In fact, during his basic training in the Marines they were taught to set their watches seven minutes ahead and forget that they’d done it, so they could never be late for anything. To relieve the stress, he paced the room, repeating to himself the truth that being prompt in India would mean the opposite.
Digger, comfortably ensconced in the exact middle of the bed, watched him, tracking with his entire head, like someone watching a tennis match, having no idea why his two-legged friend was stressed.
At last, it was time to go. Digger submitted to the leash again in his role as Rex’s support dog for the eyes of the hotel staff. As soon as they reached the van, Rex unhooked the leash and let Digger bound into the back seat. He got in on the driver’s side to find Digger had taken up a station on the front seat again.
“All right, but just this time,” he said. “When we’re traveling at speed, you’re safer in the back.”
Digger, turning his head to look out the window and pointedly ignoring him, told Rex he was losing this battle as well. “In that case, I’ll have to find a safety harness for you, as soon as we’re back in a city of any size.”
Digger woofed. Whether that was in agreement or disagreement Rex didn’t know. He was only going to find out when he put the harness on him.
Rex followed Gyan’s directions, leaving the city on a dirt track that led past tilled fields, crops he couldn’t identify in the dark, and hedgerows of taller trees. Eventually, he came to the outskirts of a nearby village where the houses were jammed together on small lots. Gyan’s was in the center of a street on the outskirts of the village. It was a low rectangle, with a shallow peaked roof of curved terra cotta tiles.
A wooden door of rough-hewn planks in the exact center of the wall facing the street and one window, shuttered, were the only features in the mud-plastered wall. However, the roof overhung the house all along the front, supported by crooked wooden posts set in a knee-high wall and forming a veranda of sorts.
Rex commanded Digger to stay and knocked on the door with his left hand. He held the box of candies in his right. Gyan answered the door and loudly welcomed Rex, making a fuss that was almost embarrassing. Rex thrust the box into his hands.
“For your wife.”
“Akshara will be delighted,” Gyan said. “Come, come. You are welcome in our home.” Rex glanced back at Digger, who had settled into his waiting pose, on his belly, front paws crossed, chin resting on his paws. He was on his best behavior. Rex was grateful.
The interior of the little house was immaculate but cramped. Apparently, there were two rooms, the room Rex entered as he stepped through the door, and a separate kitchen, from which delectable aromas emanated. Gyan led him to a cushion placed on the floor beside a low table. Across the room, Rex could see a bed. On the walls were dozens of pictures, of family Rex supposed, along with a colorful calendar and images of several Hindu gods: Vishnu, the Preserver, Brahma, The Creator, and Saraswati, the Goddess of Learning prominent among others Rex didn’t recognize.
A television older than Rex himself was perched precariously on a shelf at the foot of the bed. Incongruously, a large refrigerator occupied a place of honor beside an opening that Rex assumed was the doorway to the kitchen. In place of a door, it had a beautiful hanging of intricately-woven cotton.
As he sat down, cross-legged, on the cushion Gyan indicated, a tiny, withered old woman stepped through the doorway, brushing the hanging aside with an elbow. With both hands, she carried a bowl of enormous proportions and set it on the table. She nodded at Rex very briefly, and then scurried back through the hanging.
Rex took her to be Gyan’s wife, though Gyan didn’t introduce her. Female members of the household wouldn’t usually be introduced, Rex knew, and would not join the men for dinner when a guest was present. He felt a little uncomfortable to be served by her, though, found some comfort in the knowledge she was not a servant but his hostess and that this is how they did it in India.
His impression, though fleeting, was that she had been lovely as a young woman. Though age had shrunk her, she was still at least as tall as her husband. Her hair was a rich shade of grey, almost blue in the dim light. She had smiled shyly at him as she put down the bowl, and it seemed she’d taken better care of her teeth, or perhaps she had better genes. In either case, she still had some. Her skin was lighter than Gyan’s. Whether that meant she’d married down, perhaps for love, or Gyan’s skin had suffered the ravages of the sun as a farmer, Rex couldn’t say. In any case, he’d have bet that Gyan had been favored by his deity in his marriage.
Gyan sat and dipped two fingers into the bowl, bringing up a chunk of some kind of meat. He popped it into his mouth, evidently judged it worthy, and dipped his head in Rex’s direction.
“Please, eat.”
Rex was momentarily nonplussed. There were no plates, no tableware. Suddenly he grasped the practical nature of the left-hand and right-hand protocol. Tentatively, he dipped the fingers of his right hand into the bowl like Gyan had, brought up a chunk of the meat, which he discovered was not meat at all. Eggplant, he guessed. He’d never liked eggplant, but the flavor that burst on his taste buds was so delicious that it instantly became his favorite
.
For another hour, Mrs. Gyan brought out dish after dish, each more delicious than the last. Rex began to eat sparingly of each, not knowing when it would end. By the fourth or fifth, he was seriously worried that he’d be unable to eat it all, and that it would insult his host if he couldn’t. He began to wonder if he should have looked up Indian food etiquette by the time the seventh dish came out. In Mumbai on his mission there and in New Delhi, customs in the restaurants were closer to Western norms.
Finally, Gyan burped loudly, an indication he was finished eating. Rex suppressed a sigh of relief as his hostess brought two bowls of scented water and placed one in front of her guest, then her husband. Rex watched as Gyan cleaned his eating hand with it and did the same. He’d been eating at the same pace as Gyan, watching carefully for cues to how he should be behaving. He didn’t remember another meal so satisfying and delicious, and he said so.
Gyan’s black eyes twinkled as he claimed his wife was the best cook in all of India. A clanking from the kitchen led Rex to believe that she had heard and was pleased.
Gyan wasted no time in bringing out his Chaturanga board, an eight-by-eight wooden board that was marked off in squares but not colored. He explained how each of the pieces moved as he arranged them on the board.
The king, or raja, moved like the chess king, one space either diagonally or orthogonal to any space not attacked by an enemy piece. The object, as Rex had assumed, was to checkmate the raja. Rather than a queen, the piece that began next to the raja was called a mantri, or minister. Unlike a queen, it moved like a chess bishop, diagonally, but only one space at a time. The piece shaped like the head of an elephant was called hasti or gaja. It moved diagonally, two spaces at a time, leaping over the intervening space.
