It’s amazing, but the topic of ruling the Great Synagogue was also touched during our discussions with the Russians. And let it not surprise you, but the same Reville’s phrase stimulated it. As they explained me, the matter concerns a tandem principle of activity, which Ancient Egyptian hierophants successfully relied on. Later my friend from Russia sent me a detailed note on this theme and if you wish, I’ll make a copy for you.
Yes, Mr. Salem. I would like to better examine this method. As I understand, my grandfather used it in his practice. So I will be quite grateful to you if I get its detailed description.
A south night fell on Cairo. Lamps fired in the garden and along the Nile’s banks. Salem went to see his guest off and promised to send the note and translations of “Gavriliada” and “House in Colomna” with Mahmud at the next day.
Holmes sat at his notebook computer about an hour making the necessary notes about the meeting with Salem. Only after it he phone to London.
Good evening, Harvey. I call, as I’ve promised.
How did you spend the evening, Holmes? I hope that “belly dance” improved your mood. They say that Egyptian women bring round even the staunchest bachelors, like you, Holmes. Well, are you going to Bombay?
Yes, I’m going, Harvey, – Holmes passed off the cutting remark about belly dances. Moreover he really watched it sailing down river Nile on a special boat during his previous visit to Cairo. – But with a clause. I am to go to Puttaparthi.
All right, Mr. Holmes. But where is it? I haven’t heard of such Indian town.
It’s slightly to the south of Bombay, about an hour if going by air. There is the residence of Sai Baba. I will need a firm representative’s help. But after it, Harvey, I want no Colombo or Singapore.
I promise you, Holmes, the back flight from Bombay to London is guaranteed. If it wasn’t a secret, answer, isn’t this Sai Baba a rival firm?
Be quite, Harvey. He is the god in India and I want to see myself how was the world created.
I always liked your of humour. The firm’s representative Prakash Kumar will meet you at Bombay. All necessary information about our Indian affiliate you can get at our Egyptian office. Let Kumar know the day and number of your flight. If you need he will go with you to Putah…
Puttaparthi, Harvey.
Let it be Puttaparthi. Send my greeting to Sai Baba. See you in London. Good night.
October 8 – 12. India. Bombay-Puttaparthi
On Sunday Holmes got all the necessary information of Sai Baba’s ashram (the Indian god’s residence was called so) and ordered tickets to Bombay and Puttaparthi. Early in the Monday’s morning Mahmud drove him to the airport of Cairo and four hours later Holmes was at Bombay. A lean young Indian dressed in European style met him and immediately drove to the “Sheraton” hotel. It was a first Holmes visit to India and Prakash showed him the sights of the sea gates to India.
In Bombay there also is an ashram of Sai Baba, Mr. Holmes, – he said friendly smiling.
Does Sai Baba visit it?
No, he spent almost all his time in Puttaparthi. Pilgrims all over the world go there; and everyone want to see Sai Baba, to be received by him and talk to him.
And you, Prakash, did you see him?
No, Mr. Holmes. I even haven’t been in Puttaparthi.
Well, we’ll fly together this Wednesday, and may be he will receive you.
It’s very difficult, Mr. Holmes. People spent much time waiting but far from everybody get a happiness to talk with him. He himself decides whom to talk with.
Bombay wasn’t like Cairo. Holmes felt it even in the international airport: something was wrong. This “something” couldn’t be seen or touched, but he felt it somehow specially, may be with the sixth feeling. Was it the India’s smell or peculiar October’s heat? Yes, of course it was another – unusual – heat. It was stuffy heat, enveloping all the body with sticky sweat, when even after five minutes under the Sun one’s brains began to melt and he desired to return under cool air provided by car-conditioner. And the Sun was quite different there: it wasn’t bright and hard as in Spain or Egypt, but looked like a washed white disk on faded blue heat haze above. How could these figures on the emerald-green grass of a stadium accustom to this heat? No, the matter didn’t concern the Sun or heat: there were something another. May be these people sitting along runoff ditches near strange constructions made of cardboard and rags?
How many are they, I wonder? – Holmes even didn’t note that asked it aloud.
Whom? Little people? – Prakash tried to make the question clearer. – So they are called here.
In Bombay? –Holmes asked again.
No, in India.
And why are they called so?
Because they don’t exist. It is as though they exist, but from the higher casts’ point of view they are not. It always has been so. They don’t have homes, work or papers. They are counted only in mass in births-and-deaths statistics.
But how much of them are in India?
About thirty percents. Taking into account that India’s population is over a billion, they are more than thirty millions.
It’s the whole Europe! And does nobody struggle for their rights, even they themselves?
They don’t know another life. They are born here, live their time, leave posterity and go to another world. Sometimes, when it’s needed to build something at the place where they lives, a column of trucks come, load them with all their property and take them to another place.
And aren’t they indignant, don’t they protest, don’t they try to change somehow their status?
??? – Prakash looked at Holmes as if he was a child, asking silly questions without an answer. – Please, Mr. Holmes, don’t try to give them something or buy. You will change nothing, but you can get problems.
Well, Prakash, I’ve understood. I’ve been warned of this already in Cairo.
“No, – Holmes was reflecting. – It wasn’t a poverty, which he met in every country. It was something different he didn’t know a word for. And this “something” demanded it’d definition. Holmes accustomed to analyse all that attracted his attention at first time met something new phenomenon. Following the distinction algorithm on the level of “this – not this” he recalled possible analogues, using which he could classify that new that he became a witness of. He remembered Verov’s reasoning that a concept is an image and a word. The word could appear as the familiar image’s consequence. But an adequate image didn’t appear and the occurring words, concerning what he had heard and seen, were empty and dead.
We are at the place, Mr. Holmes, – Prakash interrupted his thoughts about “little people”. – Make yourself comfortable and after two hours I’ll be ready to drive you to local “Ernst & Young” affiliate.
The “Sheraton” hotel in Bombay was quite similar to the hotels of that company in other countries. Situated all over the worlds they were a peculiar symbol of stability and wealth of the West. Services provided by the hotel’s administration also were standard. But in India and so in Bombay there was a problem with water. Europeans were strictly prohibited to use tap water; only water from special packages even for teeth cleaning. Holmes knew it, and remembered the English colonial government who had lived there two centuries before. How did they solve such problems? After all there were no conditioners and water purifier.
The business for which Holmes had come to Bombay was not too easy. The Indian juridical norms only in appearance were similar to the British one. But they let to interpret the certain regulations of bankruptcy in many ways, so they turned a free migration of capital into the one-way flow. The Indian legislature as it was included the deep hidden inner algorithm, surely defending the country’s credit-financial system from foreign intervention. On the second day in Bombay Holmes understood, that he was able to solve only the particular conflict between his firm’s management and the Indian administration. After his departure the global strategy of the Indian government would remain unchanged, and in some time “Ernst & Young’s” activity in this country anyway would become problematic.