Finally he stood in the street and shouted. "All I want is a place to sleep! And a bite to eat! What you would give a dog!"
But no one even told him to shut up.
Chapekar went to the train station and tried to buy a ticket out, using some of the money the Chinese had given him to help him make his way home. But no one would sell him a ticket. Whatever window he went to was closed in his face, and the line moved over to the next one, making no room for him.
At noon the next day, exhausted, hungry, thirsty, he made his way back to the Muslim military compound and, after being fed and clothed and given a place to bathe and sleep by his enemies, he was flown out of India, then out of Muslim territory. He ended up in the Netherlands, where public charity would support him until he found employment.
The second visitor followed no known road to come to the hut. Virlomi merely opened her eyes in the middle of the night, and despite the complete darkness, she could see Sayagi sitting on the mat near the door.
"You're dead," she said to him.
"I'm still awaiting rebirth," he said.
"You should have lived," Virlomi told him. "I admired you greatly. You would have been such a husband for me and such a father for India."
"India is already alive. She does not need you to give birth to her," said Sayagi.
"India does not know she's alive, Sayagi. To wake someone from a coma is to bring them to life as surely as a mother brings forth life when she bears a baby."
"Always have an answer, don't you? And the way you talk now— like a god. How did it happen, Virlomi? Was it when Petra chose you to confide in?"
"It was when I decided to take action."
"Your action succeeded," said Sayagi. "Mine failed."
"You should not have spoken to Achilles. You should simply have killed him."
"He said he had the building wired with explosives."
"And you believed him?"
"There were other lives besides mine. You escaped in order to save the lives of the Battle Schoolers. Should I then have thrown their lives away?"
"You misunderstand me, Sayagi. All I say now is, either you act or you don't act. Either you do the thing that makes a difference, or you do nothing at all. You chose a middle way, and when it comes to war, the middle way is death."
"Now you tell me."
"Sayagi, why have you come to me?"
"I haven't. I'm only a dream. You're awake enough to realize that. You're making up both sides of this conversation."
"Then why am I making you up? What do I need to learn from you?"
"My fate," said Sayagi. "So far all your gambits have worked, but that's because you have always played against fools. Now Alai is in control of one enemy, Han Tzu another, and Peter Wiggin is the most dangerous and subtle of all. Against these adversaries, you will not win so easily. Death lies down this road, Virlomi."
"I'm not afraid to die. I've faced death many times, and when the gods decide it's time for me to—"
"See, Virlomi? You've already forgotten that you don't believe in the gods."
"But I do, Sayagi. How else can I explain my string of impossible victories?"
"Superb training in Battle School. Your innate brilliance. Brave and wise Indians who awaited only a decisive leader to show them how to act like people worthy of their own civilization. And very, very stupid enemies."
"And couldn't it be the gods who arranged for me to have these things?"
"It was an unbroken network of causality leading back to the first human who wasn't a chimp. And farther back, to the coalescing of the planets around the sun. If you wish to call that God, go ahead."
"The cause of everything," said Virlomi. "The purpose of everything. And if there are no gods, then my own purposes will have to do."
"Making you the only god that actually exists."
"If I can call you back from the dead by the power of my mind alone, I'd say I'm pretty powerful."
Sayagi laughed. "Oh, Virlomi, if only we had lived! Such lovers we could have been! Such children we could have had!"
"You may have died, but I didn't."
"Didn't you? The real Virlomi died the day you escaped from Hyderabad, and this impostor has been playing the part ever since."
"No," said Virlomi. "The real Virlomi died the day she heard you had been killed."
"Now you say it. When I was alive, not one little kiss, nothing. I think you didn't even fall in love with me until I was safely dead."
"Go away," she said. "It's time for me to sleep."
"No," he said. "Wake up, light your lamp, and write down this vision. Even if it is only a manifestation of your unconscious, it's a fascinating one, and it's worth pondering over. Especially the part about love and marriage. You have some cockeyed plan to marry dynastically. But I tell you the only way you'll be happy is to marry a man who loves you, not one who covets India."
"I knew that," said Virlomi. "I just didn't think it mattered whether I was happy."
That's when Sayagi left her tent. She wrote and wrote and wrote. But when she woke in the morning, she found that she had written nothing. The writing was also part of the dream.
It didn't matter. She remembered. Even if he denied that he was really the spirit of her dead friend and mocked her for believing in the gods, she did believe, and knew that he was a spirit in transit, and that the gods had sent him to her to teach her.
The third visitor did not have to have help from the aides. He came walking in from empty fields, and he already wore the garb of a peasant. However, he was not dressed as an Indian peasant. He wore the clothing of a Chinese rice-paddy worker.
He placed himself at the very end of the line and bowed himself to the dust. He did not move forward when the line moved forward. Every Indian he allowed to pass in front of him. And when dusk came and Virlomi wept and said good-bye to all, he did not go.
The aides did not come to him. Instead, Virlomi emerged from the hut and walked to him in the darkness, carrying a lamp.
"Get up," she said to him. "You're a fool to come here unescorted."
He stood up. "So I was recognized?"
"Could you have possibly looked more Chinese?"
"Rumors are flying?"
"But we're keeping them off the nets. For now. By morning, there's no controlling it."
"I came to ask you to marry me," said Han.
"I'm older than you," said Virlomi. "And you're the emperor of China."
"I thought that was one of my best features," said Han.
"Your country conquered mine."
"But I didn't. I gave the captives back and as soon as you say the word, I'll come here in state and get down on my knees in front of you—again—and apologize to you on behalf of the Chinese people. Marry me."
"What in the world do relations between our nations have to do with sharing a bed with a boy that I didn't have all that high an opinion of in Battle School?"
"Virlomi," said Han, "we can destroy each other as rivals. Or we can unite and together we'll have more than half the population of the world."
"How could it work? The Indian people will never follow you. The Chinese people will never follow me."
"It worked for Ferdinand and Isabella."
"Only because they were fighting the Moors. And Isabella and her people had to fight to keep Ferdinand from trampling on her rights as Queen of Castile."
"So we'll do even better," said Han. "Everything you've done has been flawless."