“No more money coming in, boys. What the fuck fever is this! Bone and blood, it’s sucking everything dry.”

“Just a few days more, Harbart-da, and you’ll be well again. And we’re always here for you anyway.”

“Harbart-da, we were wondering … first say you won’t get angry?”

Harbart knew what they were wondering. So he said, “Just open the trunk and take some. But don’t you dare give any to the lawyer’s son.”

“No, no, boss. We’ll just take twenty for us.”

“Twenty, twenty-five, take whatever you need. Oh, I feel so cold!”

“Wait, we’ll pull your sheet up for you.”

“And one of you will be here?”

“But of course, boss. Only one of us is going, getting, and coming back.”

“Going and coming. That’s better, yes. That’s good. Going and coming … going … and …”

Harbart fell asleep again.

Those who are masters of astrology, they contend that every man is born with a record of his responsibilities and duties in the new life and a detailed description of the consequences that await him due to his actions in the last. A list drawn up according to their past deeds and doings, a list drawn up by the hand of God or the fingers of Fate. And who may say what that list holds?

—Mysteries of the Afterlife

The sleeping Harbart is a sleeping beauty. Even when he sank into sleep waters, across those watery skies the sun still rose, the moon still shone. The stars opened wide their eyes and sent their light from a million light years away. Where even those who had no eyes felt its warmth upon them and shook with pleasure.

Just as man is one kind, with many subordinate kinds, so too are ghosts one kind, with many subordinate kinds. Moreover, it would be erroneous to assume that all ghost kinds are comparable by disposition or by comportment. Among them too is displayed a great specificity of difference and distinction. Among them too may be observed variations such as wise ghost and foolish ghost, tranquil ghost and turbulent ghost, as the masters and maestros of spirit knowledge know only too well.

—Op. cit.

The ship lights shine bright. The turned-away wooden elephant turns around and swings his trunk. The one-eyed mangy cat tries to come in but flees from a kick of the elephant’s foot. Gopal had a meeting with a mamdo ghost. Harbart licks clear the stick of colored glass candy. “ ‘Who are you?’ asked Gopal, shivering in his shoes. ‘A mamdo!’ came the instant reply.” The marble table, the marble chair, they swirl and twirl up in the air. The fairy like a butterfly flutters about the room of glass. Harbart kept starting awake. May Day, 1992. In Russia, Boris Yeltsin had organized a sensational soiree of ghosts. Lakhs of Communists were confronted with the spirit of Capitalism. Rasputin was coming back, disguised as Solzhenitsyn. Yugoslavia was crumbling. Croatian tennis player Goran Ivanišević was dreaming of a deadly serve that would wipe out Jim Courier and Andre Agassi. For the last time, the Commonwealth of Independent States (the Soviet Union) was preparing to go off for the games in Sweden. United Germany was confused about whom to include in its team—East? Or West? A man called Harshad Mehta was sitting in Bombay, waiting for a phone call from Delhi, waiting for permission to proceed with his plans. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania—all engulfed in hubbub, hullabaloo. Communism was close to collapse … It was at just such a time that, in Calcutta, Harbart heard the rallying cries of May Day 1992 and thought for a moment that riots had broken out or that the country was finally free or that the thirteen horsemen had come so easily and effortlessly …