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.99 cents today on Kindle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Got to exotic locales in this novel while stuck inside with the Kansas heat.
Call of the Swami by Barry Rosenberg is a new book published by Sharon Black in Smith Center, Kansas, under Strange Weird and Wonderful Publishing. This book contains erotica, so be forewarned about giving it to under 18, please. I realize we are in the Bible Belt, but that's how we all got here.
Sharon Black is a writer living in Smith Center, and who is writing the documentary about Home on the Range for Lone Chimney Films, due out in late 2014.
Here's the review from a Bram Stoker winner Steve Burt...
Mmmm... what a deliciously blend of mediumship, the mythical, and mystery!
Exquisitely written with some of the most compelling damned characters I've
followed in a long time. This is a talented writer who will have us panting for
the next novel before we finish this one.
Prologue Call of the Swami by Barry Rosenberg
The banks of the river Ganges teemed with pilgrims who’d come to wash their sins away. Many of those in the holy waters were wandering hermits with more hair on their heads than flesh on their bodies. Varanasi, where they congregated, was one of the oldest cities in the world. If they couldn’t wash away their sins, at the very least, they might acquire some new disciples.
Because of its cultural importance, in the year of 1910, the British Raj had decided to make Varanasi an independent state. A few months after independence, a middle-aged man set up his stall close to the river. Close enough to have customers but not so close that he’d have to smell the water. With the help of his elderly father, he carried ice to his stall and from there he sold cool lemonade to thirsty pilgrims. This man was not poor but he lived close enough to poverty to be driven. Nor was he rich but among the pilgrims he saw enough of wealth to be envious. Poverty and envy soured him. They filled his life and spilt over into the receptacle that was his four-year old son.
The boy had a narrow face with eyes that looked out at the world like caged but timid birds. They watched and evaluated. Who had too much? Who had too little? Who gave? Who took? Who had their back turned when he passed by so his nimble little fingers could get busy? He might not have amounted to much, just another mean-spirited shopkeeper, except for that one day, except for that one person. If he could be called a person.
The father was selling a drink when a hush fell over the chattering crowds. A crazy figure was tottering, perhaps dancing, towards the river. He cut through the throng, taking no notice of them. He didn’t have to. They simply parted before him and gaped. The man was tall and bony, wearing only a loincloth made of woven leaves and with grey ash covering most of his body. That was not unusual for a wandering saddhu or holy man. What was unusual, though, was the colour of his skin. Where it was not covered by ash, it was a radiant olive green. He emanated green.
With superstitious fear, the other bathers moved away from him. Muttering or reciting, the man immersed his body in the holy Ganges. A fish, curious about the green illumination, approached. Coming too close, it rolled over and died. The bathers moved further away. They had no idea what the green hue could mean. At that time, only a handful of German scientists might even have ventured a guess; radiation. They may have been right. They may have been wrong. The Green Man finished his ablutions and climbed back onto the path skirting the stall. When he had gone, a hubbub burst out.
The father said, “When I was young, a man just like him was here.”
The grandfather spat out betel nut juice. “He was not like him. That was him.”
“Him? Impossible.” The boy listened, greedy for words. “That would make him sixty or seventy. He looks younger than me.”
“He looks. He looks. When I was young, he also came here.”
“You?” The father’s hand trembled as he held out a glass. “You mean, he’s ninety or a hundred?”
The boy looked from one to the other. Every word was engraved into his mind. “I mean,” the grandfather said with slow deliberation, “that he is older than old. He lives on nettle leaves and meditation.” The grandfather scowled. “It is said that in his early days, he lived on Tantric energy.”
“Tantric.” The father spat onto the ground. “Some type of strange sex business.”
“Shush.”
The grandfather put his fingers to his lips and the boy immediately pretended to be playing in the mud. But each word was caught and labelled: to be investigated. He had no idea what Tantric meant and although three brothers lived with their wives in his parents’ house, the boy only had a vague impression of what sex was all about. Yet the awe and fear that the bathers showed towards the stranger impregnated him with the desire to know more. Why, he asked himself, be a peddler of lemonade when you could be older than old?
True to his promise, when the boy turned fourteen, he left his parent’s home. Wearing an orange robe and carrying a begging bowl, he made his way from village to village in the guise of a holy man, a Swami. At each stop, though, he always asked, “Have you see the Green Man?” Most had not. But some had and their reply always pointed him further north into the Himalayas. In his thin orange robe and carrying his begging bowl, the boy ascended into the icy wastes.
When he finally came down again, he carried with him the base of his evolving power. To build on it, he would have to take as needed. Outside of Jaipur, he found an ashram and settled in it, quickly draining the guru that had lived there. After twenty years, when people remarked on how young he still looked, he went again into the Himalayas. When he returned, he changed his name and travelled to a new place. In the new ashram, he sucked the current guru dry and used his husk to fertilise his garden.
And that became his pattern. Every twenty years in order to avoid detection, he climbed the Himalayas, renewed his energy, then chose a new name and moved to a new ashram. In every place, he taught a public teaching and he taught a secret teaching. The public teaching was of love and compassion. The secret teaching was of blood and seed, blood and seed. In every place, he issued a psychic call: come to me… come to me… come…
The summons wasn’t sent in words but was transmitted in intention. People who could hear, came. They came and gave him of their money. Sometimes, though, they gave him of their essence.
Chapter 1
After the hideous mess that had been WW2, a flood of people wanted nothing more than to leave the chaos that was Europe. For many refugees there was no choice and for years they languished in camps, waiting to be transferred to America or to Australia. One young couple eventually reached the front of the queue. The name on their identity cards was Zedryskvana.
“What sort of name is that?” a lanky Australian asked, not even trying to pronounce it.
“It is Polish.” In his thick accent, the translator replied for the couple.
The official checked his list. Polish was good. Though that usually meant apple cheeks and a blonde pigtail. This couple was black-haired and olive-skinned. They looked Romany or Jewish.
“You have a trade?” That was the most important thing.
The man looked helplessly at the translator and they spoke in: German? Polish? Who knew? “Builder.” The translator nodded firmly.
“Builder. That’s good,” the Aussie said. “We need builders.”
The translator nodded again. He knew what was wanted. There was an exchange of glances. The woman was pretty. The man was dashing. Give them a chance.
The Australian flashed his stamp. “If I were you, I’d change my name to Zed.”
Zed? Why not? A new life, why not a new name? It was not as if they had a long attachment to Zedryskvana.
Put on a boat to Australia, their first stop was Perth. This was not for them. They went on to Sydney. From there, they travelled by train to Wollongong. Burly Australians, loud but kind, shepherded them into their quarters in the migrant huts. For three months, they were subjected to intensive English lessons. In the mix of migrants, though, it was just one more language among the many. The Zeds came out speaking English with a liberal sprinkling of Greek and Italian.
Since he had claimed to be a builder, Izcar Zed was put on a building site. The Aussie blokes soon found out that he knew little about building and teased him with, fetch me a left-hand screwdriver or bring me an anti-clockwise spanner. But he learnt quickly and though it was hard work, Izcar occasionally found the energy to draw portraits of the other workers. The brawny carpenters and concreters liked these sensitive renderings and were more than happy to swap the drawings for sandwiches or for bottles of beer.
Zena was placed in a Greek café to work as a waitress. During the slow times, she did card readings. Since that brought in more customers, her boss was more than happy to let Zena use a corner for free.
Between them, the Zeds earned enough money to move from renting a house to buying their own little cottage. Not long after they moved in, they were overjoyed to find that Zena was pregnant. Six months later, Zena’s Greek boss gave her both a leaving present and some advice.
“You haves a nice little house, no? Put out your sign, Madame Zena: card reader. Put it out, peoples will come.”
“You t’ink?”
“I am sure.” Her boss nodded.
Zena, however, wasn’t too sure. She’d have to see for herself. Spreading the cards, she let her intuition drift into their future. There was much joy. But also there was a sadness, a deep deep sadness, about the coming child.
At the due date, Zena gave birth to a girl, Irena. But, as one of the dark readings had foretold, something went wrong. Unable to have another child, the young couple doted on their firstborn.
Her arrival also motivated Izcar to review his life. “I went to Art School.” He opened his hands. “Now my fingers are thick like old ropes.”
“But you can still draw and paint,” Zena protested.
“A minute here, a minute there.”
Zena rocked Irena. “What would you like to do?”
Izcar massaged his hands to keep them flexible. “I can always get building work here. Or Sydney. I can go to Sydney if necessary.”
Zena frowned. “You want to go to Sydney?”
“No, no. I mean there will always be work.”
There was silence. Then Zena said. “So?”
“We have money, yes?”
“We earn. We save.”
Izcar walked to the window. The small garden sloped downwards into other workmen’s cottages. In the distance was the brilliant blue of the Pacific Ocean. He switched to their mother tongue. “I thought I would stop work for a year and go to the market.”
Zena was still puzzled. “The fruit and vegetable market? What would you do there?”
“Portraits. There are few artists here. I thought maybe portraits or caricatures.”
“In Wollongong? In Bulli? Australians are good people but they are not art lovers.”
“It doesn’t have to be art.”
“Wait. Wait.” Zena put out a hand. “Let me think. Let me count.” Handing Irena to Izcar, she took out their money books and poured over them, her smooth olive brow crinkling. Finally, she looked up. She spoke in English. “Six months, we can go easily. If you make money, longer. But this is what I say. Go to the market, do portraits. Also, clean out the shed. Make it into a studio. There is the sea. There are boats. There are horses. People, even Australians, will buy paintings of ships and horses. Sell your paintings at the market.”
“I can do it? I can?”
Izcar hugged Zena. He whirled her around with such delight that he lifted her feet off the ground and into the air. The next day, apologetically, he gave notice to the builders.
“Just when you’ve learnt to saw in a straight line, too,” the foreman said. He put out a hand. “Yer always welcome back, mate. We’ve always got the work.”
Yet it turned out that Izcar had a gift similar to Zena’s. Maybe they truly were Romany, the descendants of wandering tribes from India. Maybe they were Jewish, descendants from another wandering tribe. But in both of them, their blood held a gift. Zena could read the cards. Izcar could paint what he read in people. His portraits sold and his paintings sold. His shed grew larger. They never made a fortune but their income was steady and they were happy. Sometimes they went to reunions with other migrants and they were reminded of how terrible their fate could have been. They thanked the god and all the gods of Australia.
They even felt sufficiently at home to encourage Irena in her unusual development. A development that made her susceptible to the Swami’s siren call.