They did not meet the car at the residence, in the circular drive, but in a more circumspect way, at the Agni entrance, near the signs Right of Entry Prohibited Except by Registered Guests and No Trespassing and Authorized Vehicles Only. The white old-fashioned sedan was waiting, curtains on its windows, tassels dangling on the curtains. The Blundens got into the rear seat, Dr. Nagaraj got in the front with the driver (“This is Deepak”), and they left Agni for only the second time in more than three weeks, descending the hill.
Passing the lookout at the bend in the road where they had seen the monkeys, Beth said, “This man, the shatoosh seller, is he a friend?”
“I know him,” Dr. Nagaraj said in a tone that suggested: I am a doctor, how could a mere shatoosh seller be a friend?
Walking to the main gateway, Audie had said, “The doc gets a kickback. That’s how these things work. The driver will get something too. Everyone’s on commission here.”
The road had leveled off at an intersection, the wider road continuing to descend, the narrower one traversing the slope. The car turned into this narrower road, into the glaring afternoon sun, which dazzled them. They averted their eyes, and when they were in shadow again it was the shadow of a row of roadside huts and shops, where there were plodding cows and two boys kicking a dusty blue ball.
This was the talked-about town, the town they had smelled and heard, the town of the smoke. And now that they were in it they could identify the sounds—not just the laboring buses and trucks, but the wail of music, shrieking songs.
Dr. Nagaraj said nothing. The Blundens sat horrified, as they had been on the way from the airport, at the squalor, the crowds of people. They drew level with a bus stop where people had gathered near a rusty Tata bus that was shuddering and letting off passengers. Beyond it the road became a main street of one-story shops set shoulder to shoulder above storm drains.
“What’s that?” Beth asked.
Up ahead there was a pile of soot-blackened rubble inside the sort of walled courtyard she associated with holy places and private villas.
“Eshrine,” Dr. Nagaraj said.
“Are they tearing it down?”
“No. Building it up.”
Audie smiled at the confusion. It was impossible to tell whether the place was in the process of being destroyed or put up.
“Formerly it was mosque. Before mosque it was Hindu temple. Back to Hindu temple now.”
Smoke swirled behind the fortified gates.
“Who are those people?”
“Yatris. Pilgrims. Holy people. They are venerating the site. Also some people protecting the site.”
“Protecting it against who?”
“Goondas. Rascals, and Muslims. Badmashes, you know?”
Now they could see occupiers and protesters, both sides carrying signs, all of them shouting. Few noises in India were more frightening to the Blundens than these human voices, barking in anger.
“How can you tell they’re Muslims?”
“Beards are there.”
“Is this a problem?”
“It is situation,” Dr. Nagaraj said.
“What if it gets out of hand?”
“Not possible. Though this is a Muslim area, so to say, Muslim people are outnumbered in this town. This is historic town. This town is mentioned favorably in Atharva Veda. This is Hanuman town, where he seized mountain of medicinal herbals to heal the sickly Lakshman.”
As he lectured them, Beth saw that a detachment of uniformed policemen had lined up and were holding four-foot sticks against a crowd of men—the men shouting and shaking their fists at the men inside the enclosure, where a bonfire blazed, sending smoke into the air high above the town.
“I think I mentioned how I led my friend among the elephants,” Dr. Nagaraj said, hardly seeming to notice the people peering into the car, the motorcycles and handcarts vying for space in the road, their own furiously honking driver, whom Beth hated for drawing the attention of bystanders to their car.
“I seem to recall it,” Audie said, but he thought: Which version?
Beth was only half listening. She could feel the tension of the town in her body like a cramp; she could smell it and taste it. It was dreadful and disorderly, yet she was roused by its truth, as the revelation of something that had lain hidden from her but was hidden no longer—no one hiding, no one groveling, the sight of smoke and fire and open conflict. She was shocked and excited by it. It was India with the gilt scraped off, hungry India, the India of struggle, India at odds with itself. She had seen Indians at Agni, but they didn’t live there. This was where Indians lived, in the smoke and flames of Hanuman Nagar.
“I was devastated,” Dr. Nagaraj said. He was still talking about his friend, dead among the elephants. “I could not stop sobbing at his funeral.”
They had come to the shop. Beth could see the stack of sha-tooshes on the counter, the welcoming shopkeeper pushing people aside so that they could alight. They entered the shop and were shown to plastic chairs. The shopkeeper then pulled a wooden shutter, as though to conceal the transaction. With some ceremony he unfolded a shatoosh and presented it to Beth to admire. Before she could register her pleasure, he gave her another one.
“His grandmother took me aside. She said, ‘Do you know the story of Vishnu, who rode on the great bird Garuda to the House of the Gods?’”
“Feel. It is chiru,” the shatoosh seller was saying, unfolding one piece after another and draping some of them on the counter and thrusting others into Beth’s hands.
“As Vishnu and Garuda entered the House of the Gods they saw a small bird at the gateway. The Lord of Death also entered, and he smiled at the little bird. Garuda was so shocked at this he seized the little bird in his beak and took him fifty kilometers away, to save him from the Lord of Death. And by the way,” Dr. Nagaraj said, “these are first-quality shatoosh. Made from chin hairs of very rare Tibetan antelope. Woven in Kashmir. This man is Kashmiri himself.”
Audie said, “Is that the end of the story? The little bird was saved, right?”
In their experience Dr. Nagaraj never said yes or no. He considered Audie’s question and said, “When ultimately they left the House of the Gods, Vishnu said, ‘Where is the little bird?’”
Beth turned to him and saw that he had kicked off his sandals, that though he was still speaking, he was admiring the stacks of unfolded shatooshes. He had turned his back on the Blundens, yet speaking into the shadows of the shop, where a naked child was slapping the tiles with a plastic drinking cup, he sounded more composed and oracular.
“Before Garuda could reply, Lord of Death said, ‘I smiled to see little bird here, because he was supposed to be fifty kilometers away, to meet his death.’”
Hearing this, Beth was stricken, as if Dr. Nagaraj had pinched her, and without thinking she said, “We must be going.” She was overcome by the mustiness of the shop, the incense that seemed a mingling of perfume and cowshit, the imploring shatoosh seller—the illegality of what he was doing—and within earshot the yells of the men at the shrine, the smell of its smoky fires. She picked up two scarves and said, “I’ll take these two.”
“I told him you are not tourists, you are yatris yourselves, doing puja at Agni.”
“That’s us,” Audie said.
“I will deal with money. You know it is some thousands of dollars?” Dr. Nagaraj said. “You can pay me later. I will find you in the car.”
They made their way to the car through the crowd that had gathered at the shop to gape at them. Dr. Nagaraj got into the front seat, and they were soon driving back down the main street of the cracked and littered town. It was a whole town, spread as though broken and scattered on the side of Monkey Hill, out of sight of Agni. Dirty, busy, poorly lit shops selling shoes and saris, one shop with barred windows selling beer and whiskey, chaotic, so full of life it suggested death, too.