"They smell bad," Chiun told Remo.
Remo shrugged.
"Are these flower people?" asked Chiun.
Remo nodded.
"Why do they not smell like flowers?"
"Smelling good is part of the capitalist conspiracy," said Remo.
Chiun sniffed. "It doesn't matter. All whites smell funny anyway."
The blond man with the beard was now yanking Joleen to her feet. She struggled to stay in her kneeling position, her hands tightly clenching the wire that anchored the pole holding up the small hinged roof of the grape juice shed.
"I said, get the frig out of there," the youth said.
Remo moved toward Joleen, but a voice echoed through the yard.
"Cease!"
It came from the end of the yard. Faces turned toward the voice.
A man stood there. He had come from a door in the fence, between two booths. He wore a pink robe that came down to the top of silver-sandaled feet. Down his forehead was painted a silver stripe that matched Joleen's.
"Let her be," he intoned. "She is of the faith."
"She's got no goddam business hanging onto my roof wire," the blond youth said. He tugged again at Joleen's kneeling body.
The man in the robe clapped his hands together, twice, sharply.
The young women in the booths turned, as if on command, and began to advance slowly toward Joleen and the blond man. The youth kept tugging at Joleen, then looked up. He saw a dozen young women moving toward him, their faces expressionless, their feet, mostly sandal-clad, scuffing rhythmically in the gravel, like the sound of a railroad locomotive slowly pulling away from a station.
"Hey," he said. "Okay. Just kidding, you know. I just didn't want her to…"
They were on him then. Four women in front bore him to the ground with their weight. They sprawled their bodies upon him, pinning him, and then the others moved forward and began to strike at him, at his face and body, with hands and feet.
Joleen hung grimly to the steel wire, murmuring, "Blissful One, oh, most Blissful One."
The man at the end of the yard looked toward Remo and Chiun and smiled at them, a smile that showed neither warmth nor embarrassment, then clapped his hands twice again.
At the sharp sound, the dozen women who had fallen upon the blond man stopped, rose to their feet, and shuffled back toward their booths.
"You will be gone in an hour," the man intoned toward the youth who lay bruised and bloody on the gravel of the yard. "You are not worthy of lodging here."
The man lowered his voice and directed his words toward Joleen. "Come, child of Patna, bliss awaits you."
As if on command, Joleen rose and walked toward the end of the yard. Remo and Chiun followed.
"And have you business with us?" the man asked Remo.
"We brought her from India," Remo said. "From Patna." On a hunch, he flashed the gold shield he had picked up in Patna on the floor of Dor's Palace.
"Actually," Chiun said, "we were on our way to Sinanju, but we were stopped by a white man's promise."
"Oh, yes, Sinanju," the man said, a note of confusion in his voice. "Come in." He nodded knowingly to Remo.
He led them through the door in the fence and through a garden with large, smelly, tropical-appearing flowers, then into the back door of a building and into a large sunlit room that had been carved from four smaller rooms on the first floor of an old home that fronted on another street.
The room was immaculately clean. In it were nine young women, wearing long white gowns that flounced out around them as they sat on the floor, sewing.
They looked up at the four people entering the room.
"Children of bliss," the man in the pink robe said, clapping his hands to bring them to attention. "These voyagers are from Patna."
The young women, whose faces were white, whose hair was yellow and brown and black, rose to then: feet and suddenly were clustered around Joleen.
"Have you seen him?"
Joleen nodded.
"And shared in his perfection?"
Joleen nodded.
"Make her at home among you," the man said, and motioned Remo and Chiun to follow him toward a side room.
Behind them was the happy chatter of the young women.
"What of the Master?" one said.
"He is perfect," said Joleen.
Chiun paused and nodded.
"And what of his perfection?" another asked.
"He is of perfect perfection."
Chiun nodded again, more vigorously this time.
Joleen warmed to her work. "He is the wisdom of all wisdom, the Master, the goodness of all that is good."
Chiun agreed with that.
Remo leaned to him. "Chiun, they're talking about the maharaji."