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.