Warren Murphy: Holy Terror

"It's a code, Reverend. She's in trouble. I'm not sure what kind of trouble, but she's in trouble. She thinks you're the only man who can save her. I don't know why. Maybe it's because those Indias are colored folk too. She's a good girl, Reverend. I know she's not your flock, but… but…" Elton Snowy turned away. "Please don't visit the sins of the father on the daughter."

"Why don't you go to one of these Divine Bliss Missions and ask about her yourself?"

"I did. I hired people. I hired lots of people. Two went to India. They never came back. They joined that little… that little Blissful Master."

"I see," said Reverend Powell. "Well, I remember the day Joleen was born. I was having a cup of coffee at the time."

"I'm not asking for myself. And if anything should happen, your family will be well provided for. You have my word on that."

"A passable nice offer, Mr. Snowy. But I know my family will be taken care of. Because if I go to find Joleen, you're going to deposit $50,000 in my lawyer's escrow account."

"I'll give it to you now, Reverend. Cash. I can get you that in cash."

"I don't want your money. I want security for my family if I should not be here to provide for them."

"Perhaps insurance. I could arrange a hundred thousand dollar policy, Reverend, and…"

"My lawyer's escrow account. If I should die, my family will be provided for. I'd rather not have to repeat myself, if you please, Mr. Snowy."

"Certainly. Certainly. You're a real Christian."

So now he was looking for Mr. Snowy's Joleen, and if it were a good deed, then certainly he should be able to trust in the Lord. If he had faith, both he and Mr. Snowy's daughter would be back in Jason by month's end. He would return Mr. Snowy's money, and perhaps it would give that acquisitive man a chance for the glory of charity. The church sure could use a fine new air conditioning system.

If he had faith. But it was so hard to have faith in the face of death.

The cow looked around condescendingly, then plodded off along the dusty road, following the cart, which, if the cow had been hamburger the day before, would not now be full on its way to the body dumps.

"To Patna. On to Patna," said Reverend Titus Powell of Jason's Mt. Hope Baptist Church.

"I thought you might go back, you know," said the driver in a clipped British accent. "Most do when they see the carts."

"I thought about it."

"I hope you won't think less of India because of it. Really, almost all of them are untouchables and make no real contribution to the true grandeur that is India, don't you think?"

"I see men who died for want of food."

"Patna is a strange place for an African American," said the driver. "Are you going to see a holy man?"

"Perhaps."

"Patna is the home of holy men, ha-ha-ha," said the driver. "They know the government won't touch them there because of the prophecy. They're as important as the sacred cow there."

"What prophecy?" asked Reverend Mr. Powell.

"Oh, it's an old one. We have more prophecies than there is mud in the Ganges. This one, however, is believed by more than would care to admit, ha-ha-ha."

"You were talking about the prophecy."

"Ah, yes. Of course. Indeed. If a holy man, a true holy man, is harmed in Patna, then there will be the rumbling of the ground, and thunder from the east. Even the British believed it. In their reign there was an earthquake in Patna, and they looked high and low for a holy man. But all the wealthy, powerful holy men were well and in fine spirits. Then they found that the lowliest fakir, who lived at the foot of the mountains, had been robbed of one meal. His last meal. And soon after, the Japanese invaded. Then, again, a holy man had been doused in sweet oils and set aflame because the concubine of a maharajah had said he had a beautiful spirit. And the Mongols invaded after that. Ever since, every enterprising holy order has had at least one home in Patna. The government respects them, yes, indeed."

"Do you know anything about the Divine Bliss Mission, Incorporated?"

"Oh, one of those American ones. Yes, very successful."

"Have you heard of the Blissful Master?"

"Blissful Master?"

Reverend Powell pulled Joleen's letter from his jacket. "His Indian name is Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor."

"The Dor lad, of course. Of course. If you can read and write English well, there is always work with him. And if you can…" The driver did not finish, and no matter how Powell pressed him, he would not answer what other sort of person could always find employment with the Dor lad.

Patna, like the rest of the famine areas of India, cleared away its dead in carts. An impatient Rolls-Royce dashed by them, and Powell's driver commented that it was a government minister on his way to Calcutta for an important conference on imperialist American atrocities, such as its failure to refinance a liberation library in Berkeley, California.

"It will be a good speech," said the driver. "I read where he is going to label the library closing for what it is—a genocidal racist repressive atrocity." The 1947 Packard took a little bump, and Reverend Powell's heart sank. The driver had not missed the little brown-skinned baby. Perhaps the child was better off.

"Well, here you are," said the driver, pulling up to a heavy wooden gate reinforced with large steel bolts, rising almost two stories into the air and flanked by white cement walls. It looked like a prison.

"Is this the Divine Bliss Mission? It looks like a fortress."

"To the Western mind, that which it does not understand is foreboding," said the driver. "It sees its own evil behind every obscurity. We do not have men with spears like your Pope."

Reverend Powell tried to explain that he was a Baptist, and therefore the Pope was not his spiritual leader, and anyway the Swiss Guards in the Vatican were only ornamental attractions with no intention of using any weapon. The driver seemed to understand all this until he was tipped, and, then, with a cheerio and a tally ho, he was off with a cry that the Papacy was a tool of the Central Intelligence Agency and all that rot.

Reverend Powell cried out after him that he wanted the driver to wait for the return trip, but he thought he heard only laughter from the coughing, sputtering 1947 Packard.

When Powell turned back to the door of the mission, he saw it had been opened. A pink-robed Indian priest, standing in the doorway, smiled. He had a silver streak painted down his forehead.

"Welcome, Reverend Powell. We have been expecting you, lo these many days."

Reverend Powell entered. He could not see people closing the high heavy wood and metal door, yet it moved slowly shut with a moan of its mass.

A splendid pink palace rose from the center of the courtyard, the Vindhya range looming snow-capped behind it in the distance. Shimmering reflections of colored glass played upon the pink, and at the center point of the palace, a crowning dome of golden brilliance forced the reverend to turn away his eyes.

"Uncle Titus, Uncle Titus. You're here. Wowee." It was a young woman's voice. It sounded like Joleen, but it came from a running maiden with very dark eyes and the cloppy run of sandaled feet. Her face was wrapped in pink linen, and a silver streak bisected her forehead. As she drew near, she said, "I guess I shouldn't say wowee anymore."

"Joleen. Is that you?"

"You didn't recognize me, I've changed so much, right?"

"Your eyes."

"Oh, the bliss perception." She took the strong, tired hands of Reverend Powell, maneuvered the worn wicker suitcase out of his grip, and with a short clap got the robed priest to run to them and pick up the valise.

"It looks like some sort of charcoal makeup over the eyelids," said Reverend Powell. He felt her nails play on his palm and instinctively withdrew his hand. She laughed.