“Freedom is good, yes?” He spoke loudly, in heavily-accented English. “Tell your friend Vash that, eh?” He thumbed his collar towards me. “See what his peace love shit has gotten us.” He raised his voice as Chandre and I walked further up the hill. “Tell him to bring the Bridge here, yes? Tell him we need some of her justice in India!”
The others laughed. One woman made a violent hand-gesture in my direction, then slapped the man next to her on the back of his head for staring at my body through the dark pants and scarves I wore.
The man sitting next to the couple laughed harder, spilling his beer.
A few seers in our contingent walked over to them, speaking that pidgin seer tongue and offering them cigarettes and vodka. I knew it was partly to distract them from me, but I couldn’t stop myself looking back over my shoulder at those seers sitting there, on the dilapidated stoop. I got a sudden flash of Revik lounging on those steps, a younger Revik maybe, with a rounder face and eyes that hadn’t yet developed the same faraway look.
Chandre clicked at me to stop me staring.
“Vash feeds them,” she said. “He does what he can.”
I nodded, glancing back a last time as I trudged up the hill.
She added, “Fighting the humans overtly would only worsen their situation. It would bring death and pain to all of us, Bridge.”
“Sure,” I said, not wanting to argue.
“You don’t know anything,” she snapped. “You are a child...raised by worms! What could you know of this? You have not seen war yet.”
I didn’t bother to answer.
When we reached the top of the rise, I stopped before a storefront with cracked windows and wooden steps with peeling, sky-blue paint. I stared through the dusty glass, knowing only that I felt compelled to stop there, not really thinking about why yet.
Moving to stand beside me, Chandre folded her arms, giving me a grudging nod.
“Good,” she said. “Your tracking has finally improved.”
My eyes fixed on a picture of a guru-type old man in sand-colored robes with hands at prayer position at his chest. A handwritten sign said in English, “Hot Meals 20 Rupee! Free meditation and yoga!” Under the sign stood a three-foot Ganesha statue with a garland of pink and white flowers. More petals stuck to statues of Indian gods, only a handful of which I recognized or could name. Wooden prayer beads draped the back wall of the display case beside a painting of a blue and gold sun intersected by a white sword.
I saw a Buddha sitting towards the back, too, and smiled.
Part of it belonged to the mish-mash that is India, I knew, but the absurdity of mixing a godless religion with a multi-theistic one struck me as a uniquely seer mistake.
It occurred to me to wonder if seers believed in gods, or a God.
Revik had said “gods” or “d’ gaos” like someone might say “shit,” which didn’t tell me much about his actual beliefs.
My eyes went back to the picture of the man in the sand-colored robes. His dark eyes shone from an aged but somehow unlined face.
“Vash,” I muttered. “Jesus.”
“Not quite.” Chandre’s quip had an edge. “Do not let his face to the humans deceive you. The rent must be paid. Even in Seertown.”
She yanked open the wooden screen door.
Without answering, I followed her into a larger and cleaner foyer than I’d expected.
Tiled in black stone, the room stretched deeper out over the side of the mountain than I’d expected, as well. Wooden baseboards and paneling accented the white walls with deep-toned hardwood, water damaged in parts but gleaming from recent polish. An old-fashioned fan stuttered in a window next to a mural of the Tibetan Potala in Lhasa, done in painstaking detail and with another of those gold and blue suns shining over the plateau. A green copper lamp hung from the ceiling before a wide staircase.
Directly inside the door stood a low desk, crafted of the same heavy, dark wood as the baseboards. A bowl of river stones and a candle were its only ornaments.
Behind it, a young Caucasian man with a shaved head and orange robes sat in a folding chair. The way his eyes lit up in wide-eyed eagerness told me he was probably human.
“Can I help you, sisters?” He looked at me first. Spotting Chandre then, he did a double-take, and grinned. “Sister Chandre! India has missed you, my friend!”
I raised an eyebrow in Chandre’s direction, fighting a smile.
Ignoring me, she bowed to the human, her hands at prayer position.
“Hello, James, and peace. We have an audience with the Teacher.”
James beamed. “Lucky you! Shall I call ahead?”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said. “But thank you.”