The Guru and the Luger

“Where else but in our great, bountiful and very wise Pacific could one start a day charged with attempted murder, and end it dining with the chief justice?”

The guru was perfect. From the yellowed, straggly hair to the faded, grubby garment and the bare, bony feet, he was more than just your average guru. He had style. To make him more than perfect he was American, too. Not that you could tell by the speech, mind you, because he was, voluntarily, mute. Or dumb, depending upon your point of view.

His serene holiness had not spoken for some years, explained his concubine, also American, and all of 16 summers. Neither, apparently, had he washed or attended to the suppurating sores which decorated his skinny legs. He was about as repulsive as you could find.

His serene holiness had actually been a medical doctor in the United States, continued the concubine. A visit to the East (India, not New York), had convinced him that all things Western, speech and medicine included, were responsible for the mess the world was in. The very presence of this remarkable man on their Pacific island, she enthused, would free its noble savages from their centuries-old traditions and superstitions, causing them to cast out their idols, forsake their pagan ways and make their way to a state of perfection . . . presumably populated by scrofulous wretches such as H.S.H. And, by the way, inquired the concubine, was there anywhere, a dharmsala, say, where they could doss down while they were performing this service for mankind?

Our hero, ever one for a soft touch, and believing with no small degree of naivete that at the very least he might uncover some of the secrets of Eastern mysticism, offered a spare room in his house.

He was to regret it.

Trouble started a few days later when his housegirl, giggling, made it known to our hero that his guests had demonstrated before her their mastery of certain physical acts not confined to practitioners of the Eastern arts, but possibly refined by them. This performance had been staged upon the host’s dining room table.

Now our hero, never one to lack a sense of adventure, nevertheless considered this sort of behavior to be not entirely appropriate, and he determined to speak to the concubine expressing his view. Converse with the concubine was necessary, it seemed, because H.S.H not only did not speak, but did not hear heathens, either. Island procrastination intervened between thought and action and so our hero was even further mortified to discover that a second performance had taken place in his absence, this time before an invited audience of local villagers . mostly female. Clearly things were getting out of hand.

Our hero set his problem before his fellow members of the local club and, in the style of true consensus known as the Pacific Way, they generally and enthusiastically offered to go along and bash H.S.H. in the face. Commendably our hero demurred and determined to handle the matter in his own way . . . which is to say that he continued to seek inspiration from his beer glass and eventually went home hoping to sleep upon the problem. Alas, such solace was to elude him.

On his return to his house our hero found yet another performance in full swing. Braced by the alcohol he had consumed, and indignant at what he saw as a gross breach of good taste, our hero broke in upon the duo and ordered them out.

They immediately went into his bedroom and shut the door.

This final invasion of his home so enraged our hero that he rushed to a cupboard and extracted a long-forgotten, illegally-obtained Luger pistol and, brandishing it before him, crashed into the bedroom.

The muzzle of the weapon was jammed unceremoniously into the guru’s ear whereupon the guru lost concentration upon his devotions and took off at an astonishing speed, with his concubine close behind.

Alone at last, total possession of his home restored, our hero settled back for what he saw as a well-earned drink, in what he hoped would be a long spell of peace. But it was not to be. Minutes later the clatter of heavy feet announced the arrival of the local police, enthusiastically demanding to arrest the man who had evilly attempted to murder an American visitor. Clearly H.S.H. had regained the powers of speech as well as movement.

Our hero was deprived of his pistol and locked in a cell pending more formal charges designed to perpetuate the erstwhile serenity of the society, and avoid outbreaks of mayhem, attempted or actual.

But there is justice in the Pacific. Word soon got about that while a gun might have been brandished, and an American visitor might have been frightened out of his dhoti, it was only after extreme provocation.

H.S.H. and the concubine were summoned before the immigration people and told that their visas appeared to have suddenly expired and that if they wished to avoid further complications in their lives they should leave. The next available aircraft would not be too soon, and just in case they were not aware of the direction of the airport, well, two policemen were on hand to take them out . . . indeed they insisted upon doing so. It was all part of the island service.

Our hero was bailed, remanded and finally appeared before a judge who was told that the charge could not be pursued because, unfortunately, there was no prosecution witness and no other means of bringing the matter properly before the court. The chief justice had no option but to dismiss the case and then, discovering our hero had attended school with the C.J.’s son, he invited him to dinner.

Where else but in our great, bountiful and very wise Pacific could one start a day charged with attempted murder, and end it dining with the chief justice?