Witches, Goddesses and Flames Underwater

[108 fountains]

Over the next few days, I'll begin the process of retiring from my job, relocating to a new town, buying a new house, and all the fun that comes with these activities. Once settled, I intend to make yet another revision to my unpublished novel and to revise several of my stories, using all the good comments I've received from Aunt Shecky, Calidore, DATo, MANICHAEAN, Hawkman, etc. As a result, I will likely be an infrequent visitor to these pages over the next several weeks. I thought I would leave as a parting gift the first four chapters of my novel. Any comments on them would be welcome as I know they need some work, especially the first two. So here they are, and I hope you'll enjoy them!

[108 fountains]

CHAPTER ONE: THE HOUSE OF KUMARI

Enclosed by high, three-story, red brick walls, the courtyard at the center of the House of Kumari lies half in shadow and half in light, half in fantasy and half in reality. The flagstones that form the floor feel the warmth of the sun only for a short while at noontide. During the rest of the day, the sun’s rays glance off the orange tiled roof, leaving the inside of the courtyard, like a village in a valley surrounded by tall mountains, in a peculiar silver blue morning and evening twilight. The flagstones emit moist, musty odors, thin clumps of green moss and green and white dappled lichens occupy obscure corners and recesses in the brick walls, and footsteps echo, as they do in damp, closed-in spaces.

Miles Walker entered the courtyard through a small, low entrance, and surveyed the fantastic, intricately carved, wooden window screens scattered at intervals on the second and third floors and the lavish, decorative lintels crowning each of the several entranceways. In the center of one of the window screens on the second floor, the head and body of a wooden peacock was surrounded by ornately carved wooden tail feathers. Over a small doorway leading to a dark, wooden staircase, he saw a many-armed bodhisattva wielding a curved sword, axe and dagger, flanked by dragons and half-human half-beast forms. The other window screens and door lintels, some larger, some smaller, bore the forms of elaborately carved griffins and dragons, peaceful Buddhist images, and animated Hindu figures, while others presented extravagant circular, rectangular and paisley designs.

Miles had resided and worked in Nepal for the past two years at a district hospital in the Terai – the narrow strip of low, flat, tropical, sea-level loam that creeps into Nepal from its border with India. From the dusty town where he lived, Miles could rarely see the mountains of the Himalayas, and when he did see them, they appeared as faint, indistinct indigo bumps on a hazy horizon. He relished the opportunities he had to visit Kathmandu, where the mountains were more manifestly visible, at least on clear days, and where he could come here, to the courtyard of the 18th century House of Raj Kumari, the living goddess of Kathmandu, to withdraw from the disquiet of life and the unappeased yearnings of his soul.

At the age of twenty-three, Miles had discovered that his heart was prone to passions – he wanted not only to live life to its fullest, but to understand it from its depths to its heights. He wanted to understand its mysteries, he wanted to comprehend the relationship between time and light and gravity and three-dimensional space, and he wanted to know the reasons for human existence. He had already tasted the tender agonies of falling in love for the first time, but he had not yet fully experienced love’s complete devastation. He was smart enough to know he had much more to discover, but he did not know just how much more he had yet to learn. He was only aware that he had embarked on a remarkable journey, that the past two years in Nepal had marked the beginning of his adult life, and that his visits to the courtyard of the House of Kumari had provided him, on each occasion, with a feeling of release, a kind of healing, and a sense of renewal from which he could move forward through the confusion and uncertainty.

On the southern edge of Durbar Square, the House of Kumari stands aloof, its nondescript exterior unnoticed and neglected by most tourists, who are more drawn to the maze of fantastic palaces, shrines, and temples in the main plaza of the Square. The tranquil, mossy courtyard at the heart of the structure offers a peaceful respite from the din and clatter among the pagodas and palaces of the main plaza. The House of Kumari is neither palace nor pagoda, neither shrine nor temple. It is simply a residential dwelling – but the personage who resides here is one of the most intriguing figures in Nepali culture and folklore. The charm of her legend, more than anything else, is what kept drawing Miles over and over again to this place and to her. Like so much in Nepal, she is real and tangible, and yet cloaked in illusion and enchantment, a product of fantasy and imagination, if not of magic itself – a fairy come to life.

Revered by Nepali Buddhists and Hindus alike, the living goddess Kumari is a young girl believed to house the spirit of Taleju Bhawani, the divine protectress of the Kathmandu Valley. Taleju herself was believed to be an avatar of the blood-thirsty Durga, the fearsome alter-ego of the gentle goddess Parbati. Durga, the 10-armed goddess of boundless energy, embodies the creative forces that keep the cosmos in motion, but when angered, she unleashes her energy in a blinding fury of death and destruction, like an avalanche thundering down a mountainside.

According to legend, one night while the Nepali King Jayaprakesh Malla was playing a dice game with Taleju in his chambers, he began to display romantic behavior. More alarmed than angered, Taleju admonished the king, telling him that he would never see her again, except in the form of a young virgin, and fled the palace. Over the next several weeks, the king conducted and exhaustive but unsuccessful search and finally despaired of ever finding her. One day, however, after the passing of many years, the king encountered a young girl named Kumari Devi, whom he believed to be possessed of Taleju’s spirit. To make atonement and to demonstrate his undying devotion, he installed her in a home near the royal palace in Durbar Square. To this day, nearly three centuries later, at the annual Indra-Jayathra Festival, the king of Nepal seeks the forgiveness and blessing of the Kumari in a public ceremony.

The spirit of Taleju remains in the body of the Kumari only until she sheds blood. For this reason, the Kumari’s feet are never allowed to touch the ground – to prevent her from cutting them on a sharp stone or jagged rock. Once the Kumari menstruates, Taleju’s spirit departs and seeks possession of another young girl.

The selection of a new Kumari is the work of four senior Buddhist and Hindu priests and the royal astrologer. They examine young girls for the 32 perfections, which include a neck like a conch shell, a body like a banyan tree, eyelashes like a cow, and hands that are both delicate and strong, expressive of both beauty and power.

Once selected by the priests, the candidate must undergo a series of tests to determine her authenticity. The trials culminate during the Kalaratri – the Black Night of the Hindu festival of Desain. That night, the young girl must demonstrate her courage by spending the night in the darkened upper chamber of the Taleju temple in Durbar Square among the severed heads of 108 buffaloes and goats.

The Kumari leads a secluded, circumscribed life, emerging from her house only at the annual Indra-Jayathra Festival or at the coronation of a new Nepali king. Rarely, she will appear at the triple window of her third floor chambers visible from the central courtyard. At these times, visitors who catch even a glimpse of her are believed to be blessed with good fortune for the rest of their lives. The Kumari is said to be capricious and playful, manifesting the childlike exuberance of Taleju. Her attendants, the Kumarinis, must defer to her every whim.

Even though he knew she sometimes peered out from the latticed triple window on the third floor, Miles Walker had never seen Kumari, during his many visits. Now, on the eve of his departure from Nepal, he visited the House of Kumari one last time – and he had an idea. He brought with him a bag of M&M candies. He thought that if he presented the candies as a gift to Kumari, she might come and show herself at the window.

So Miles approached one of the Kumaranas, an elderly Nepali man who stood guard by the doorway to the staircase leading up to the inner chambers. Miles could speak Nepali at a basic, conversational level. He gave the Nepali man the candies and told him it was a gift for Kumari.

The old man had a brown, weather-beaten, wrinkled face and a scruffy, mottled black and gray beard. His clothes were ragged and patched, dark brown pants and a dark, faded plaid purple shirt. On his head he wore a topi – a peculiar sort of two-cornered Nepali hat – of bright orange, black, and white. The old man nodded and made a harsh but approving sound in his throat as he took the bag and listened to Miles. Showing no surprise or emotion of any sort, and without a word, he bent his head under the decorative lintel and disappeared into the dark passageway. Miles could hear his barefoot footfalls make a slight swishing sound on the wooden staircase, and then he heard several muffled voices coming from one of the interior rooms. The voices stopped and the passageway became silent. Miles waited a long time – a very long time – but saw and heard nothing. He was on the verge of giving up and quitting the courtyard when, finally, the old man emerged from the dark doorway. He squatted down on the raised stone threshold and neither spoke to nor looked at Miles.

Chagrined at this behavior, Miles approached him and asked, “Well? Did you give the candies to Kumari?”

The old man glanced at Miles with a blank expression on his wizened face and shook his head. Then he looked away and said nothing.

Miles was starting to get angry. He said again, “Bhannus – tell me something.”

After a few moments, the old man shifted in his squatting position and moved his shoulder as if he were trying to shrug away a bothersome fly. He glanced up at Miles again and finally answered, “Kumari eats only special food. She cannot eat American candy.”

Miles was so disappointed! How many times had he had visited that familiar, welcoming courtyard? How many times had he found respite among its musty bricks and mossy stones? And yet he had never caught a glimpse of the living goddess. Dejected, he walked toward the low stone entranceway to depart. But he stopped himself, turned around, and approached the old man once more. “Hey! What about the candy?” he asked.

The old man said nothing and continued to look away, but the hint of a smile escaped from behind his scruffy beard. A moment later, and the smile broke out into an open-mouthed, toothy grin. Miles even thought he heard a low chuckle emanate from deep within the faded plaid purple shirt.

“No candy. No Kumari. No luck at all,” Miles muttered and walked away.

[108 fountains]

CHAPTER TWO: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON

From an open window near the top of the pagoda-shaped roof of one of the temples constructed near the end of the 18th century in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, a carved wooden white-faced Hindu god Shiva and goddess Parbati look down on passers-by.

A large statue of Hanuman, the monkey god and lieutenant of the Hindu god Ram, who led an army to Lanka to rescue the goddess Sita, stands guard at the entrance to Hanuman Dhoka – the Gate of Hanuman. Inside the enclosed, central part of the square, stand the oldest and most important palaces and temples of Nepal’s Malla, Shah, and Rana dynasties. The statue of Hanuman is always kept blindfolded – to prevent him from seeing the erotic carvings that decorate the roof struts of a nearby pagoda.

Several of the temples and shrines of Durbar Square feature figures of Ganesh, the popular Hindu god with a human body and the head of an elephant. Ganesh was the son of Shiva and Parbati, but because Shiva had embarked on a journey that lasted many years, Ganesh had never met his father. On the day that Shiva returned, the young Ganesh was standing guard while Parbati was bathing. Not recognizing his father, Ganesh refused Shiva entrance. Furious and not realizing who the boy was, Shiva struck off his head with a single swipe of his sword. When Parbati saw what had happened, she fainted in a fit of grief. Understanding now what he had done, Shiva was aghast. He sent his soldiers to bring back the head of the first sleeping being they ran across. They found a sleeping elephant, severed its head, and brought it back. Using his supernatural powers, Shiva attached the elephant head to the body of the boy and brought him back to life.

Many of the smaller shrines in the Square contain brass statues of the Buddha, smiling serenely, with his hands and fingers held in symbolic gestures called mudras, often surrounded by bodhisattvas – beings who have achieved enlightenment, but who have chosen to delay their absorption into ultimate, transcendent existence in order to assist others along the path to enlightenment.

At all times of the day, Durbar Square is crowded with Nepali people lighting oil lamps, ringing bells, waving incense sticks, and prostrating and praying in front of the many brass and bronze statues of gods and goddesses at the various shrines and temples. A number of East Asian and Western tourists also can be seen at Durbar Square, taking photographs, buying souvenirs, and eagerly listening to the stories that English-speaking Nepali tour guides tell about the features of the Square – some true, some exaggerated, and some the product of pure imagination.

Miles Walker walked through the scent of sandalwood incense, and through the colorful crowds and the chatter, chanting, and chimes of Durbar Square. Twenty-five years had passed since he had attempted to present a gift of candy to the Kumari. In 25 years, much had changed in Miles’ life. He was no longer a naïve, skinny young man of 23 years existence. Miles Walker was now a calm, responsible, middle-aged man with a heavy middle-aged paunch. Married late in life, he now had two sons. They were too young to come to Nepal with him on this visit – August was just seven and Joseph was only five. Miles had told them the story about how he had tried to give a gift of candy to the Kumari 25 years ago. They made him promise to try to see her again and to take a photograph of her if she came to the window.

In the interim, Miles had returned to Nepal just once, ten years after his first sojourn there. At that time, he had taken a trek up into the mountains and tried to climb up to a glacier on Mount Dhaulagiri. He came close, but was unable to make it all the way to the glacier. Now, fifteen years after that attempt, Miles was back. At age forty-eight, with graying hair and sixty extra pounds in his mid-section that just would not dissipate despite thousands of sit-ups over the years, he hoped to test the Mount Dhaulagiri glacier once more.

Before he departed Kathmandu for the mountains, however, on this, his first afternoon in Kathmandu in fifteen years, Miles walked from his guesthouse in Thamel to Durbar Square under a warm, sunny sky past the pagodas and palaces, past the blindfolded Hannuman, and past the white-faced Shiva and Parbati, still gazing down at passers-by on the flagstones below, and proceeded directly to the House of Kumari. He stepped up over the raised stone threshold and at the same time ducked his head under the low stone entrance archway, emerging from the commotion and noise of the bright sunlit exterior into the dim, subdued courtyard of the House of Kumari.

In all those years past, nothing had changed in Kumari’s courtyard. Footfalls still swished quietly. The grand, fantastic, carved, latticed, wooden window screens and door lintels still greeted visitors as they advanced through the entranceway. A suggestion of moss, mold, and mildew still scented the air.

Miles allowed the inevitable flood of memories and emotions to flow through him. Here, alone inside this timeless abode, the years and all the changes they carried rushed over him like an avalanche. Miles keenly felt how quickly it all had passed. He had never been more aware of his own mortality. How fast the past 25 years had passed, and how fast the next 25 years would race by!

And yet here, in this shaded courtyard, the familiar smells and unchanged surroundings somehow sustained and solaced him. The events of his life, the youthful hopes and dreams, the fears and the disappointments, the joys and the wonders, the accomplishments and the failures, and the wisdom and the serenity gleaned from his experiences had come together to form this life, this self, this being who was both changed and changeless. In many ways, Miles was not recognizable as the young man who stood in this courtyard with a bag of M&Ms 25 years ago, but in many ways, he was in fact exactly the same person. The passions of youth still existed within him, though tempered by the experience of passing through the short interval of life. For Miles, time did not progress in a linear fashion; it moved in sweeping, circular motions that sometimes overlapped. When he looked in the mirror, he saw the thinning hair on the top of his head, the graying temples, the crinkling skin, and the crow’s feet around his eyes, but he did not feel any different inside than he did twenty-five years ago. He was still enamored of life. He still mused on the nature of time and space, fascinated with cosmology and quantum physics. And he still struggled to understand the purpose of human existence, why we persevere through laughter and tears, hopes and heartache, love and loss. He had not made much progress in his quest for understanding in the past 25 years, and yet, back here in the courtyard of the House of Kumari, Miles found this thought to be as comforting as it was absurd.

Miles laughed out loud at himself for bringing his camera into the courtyard. He knew now just as he knew 25 years ago that taking photographs of Kumari, except during her annual public appearance, is prohibited. And he knew that his chances of seeing her appear at the window were so small as to be non-existent. Still, he lingered about, inspecting the wooden latticework just as he had 25 years ago, and glancing up occasionally toward the red-canopied, third-floor triple window just in case Kumari should appear. But of course she did not.

Miles took a look around the courtyard and drank in its charms. It was empty, no other tourists, no Kumarinis, no old men guarding the staircase. If anything, it was even more hushed than he remembered. The soft glow that pervaded the quadrangle seemed to emanate from within rather than to result from any celestial luminescence. Miles felt refreshed and rejuvenated. He smiled to himself at the thought that he didn’t really expect to be able to make it to the Dhaulagiri glacier – he had been a much younger man in good physical condition when he had first tried and failed fifteen years ago – those extra sixty pounds, not to mention his lackluster physical fitness routine, would certainly slow him down now. As he recalled the steep, upward trails, Miles’ age crept up on him, and his knees began to ache in dread anticipation. Well, well, he reasoned, even if he failed to reach the glacier, he would come back with great stories with which he could regale his children. Nepal, Miles knew, was a magical place, always full of adventure. It had beckoned to him over the years, and he always knew he would return. He was surprised only that he had waited so long. He took another look around the courtyard, imbibing its magic and absorbing its atmosphere. And now, with the smell of incense pervading the air, vermilion and ochre powder smeared in respectful veneration on the foreheads of the Buddhist and Hindu figures displayed at the open outdoor shrines, with Hannuman, Shiva and Parbati, and the living goddess Kumari emplaced where they always must be, Miles Walker felt he had come home at last to begin the adventure he was always meant to have.

[108 fountains]

CHAPTER THREE: BUS RIDE TO POKHARA


Pokhara lies in Western Nepal, just south of the mighty Annapurna Mountain Range. The bus ride to Pokhara from Kathmandu is a bone-crushing, torturous journey on a road that winds around mountain trails and hairpin turns with no road guardrails at all to protect overloaded, top-heavy busses from crashing down into thousand-foot ravines.

The bus in which Miles Walker sat was designed to carry forty people, but oblivious to the dangers, about one hundred people pushed and crowded onto it, many of them carrying large, heavy burlap sacks of rice and other provisions to bring home with them from Kathmandu. Two goats and several chickens, pulled and carried by their human counterparts, reluctantly boarded the bus as well, articulating their displeasure by loud bleating and clucking noises.

Miles sat next to the window in a narrow, uncushioned wooden seat meant for two people. Next to him sat an older Nepali lady, who was quite obese. The seat would have been too small to comfortably accommodate Miles’ 260-pound frame and the obese woman as it was, but accompanying the woman was her son, a small boy of five or six years who squeezed, fidgeted, pinched, pushed, and frequently expressed his discomfort in howls of displeasure at the top of his lungs. Sometimes the little boy wormed and squirmed his way in between his mother and Miles, sometimes he rolled violently on his mother’s lap, kicking his feet in the air within millimeters of Miles’ nose, and sometimes he stood up in the tiny space on the floor between his mother and Miles, trampling on Miles’ toes with such force that Miles couldn’t help but wonder if it was truly accidental. Miles tried to ignore him, but the boy was relentless. Nothing amused that boy more than making faces at Miles and pulling the hair on Miles’ arms when his mother wasn’t looking. The boy was curious about Miles and asked his mother several questions about him, such as “Why are his eyes blue?” “Where does he come from?” “Why doesn’t he smile?” “Why does he keep looking out the window?” “Is he going to sit there like that the whole way?” and “Why does he look so unhappy?”

Miles and his fellow passengers departed Kathmandu early in the morning, before the sun’s rays had gained the strength to penetrate the haze of dawn in the Kathmandu Valley – a brown haze that hung in the sky formed by the collective smoke of thousands of wood-burning cooking fires as families prepared their breakfasts throughout the city.

The bus passengers rode over the Raj Path or King’s Road as they departed Kathmandu. The road took them over huge hills that would be called mountains anywhere else in the world and through gorgeous, subtropical Himalayan valleys luxuriant with exotic ferns and sprinkled with rhododendron and wild cherry trees. Occasionally, a banyan tree could be seen spreading its branches over a wide circumference, its aerial roots hanging, suspending themselves like long, slender fingers, stretching to reach the ground. In the lower reaches, hundred foot mimosas bloomed with bright red, orange, and yellow blossoms under the bright blue sky like flames under water. Because the road was so narrow and the drop so steep – far more than a thousand feet in some places, the bus proceeded slowly and the passengers felt every bone-jarring jolt as the wheels bumped up over fallen stones and slipped heavily into deep ruts in the road left over from the rainy season. Some of the jolts smashed so hard that Miles bounced off his wooden seat and hit his head against the roof.

After a while, the hills became mere hillocks, and the winding road flattened out, allowing the bus to pick up speed. Around noon, the passengers stopped at a muddy little village of flat, black, wooden dwellings called Moogling. The bus pulled up in front of a large, termite-ridden, wooden building with a sign out front that said “Lunch” in English and that, in fact, offered that commodity to English-speaking and non-English-speaking travelers alike.

Miles sat the end of a long wooden bench at the side of a long wooden table crowded with several Nepali men and partook of the same fare that they ate - spicy lentil soup called daal poured over white rice, steamed cauliflower, and achaar - a tangy red sauce-like dish made of stewed tomatoes. Waiters brought the food out on tin trays that had small compartments molded into them for placing the various dishes. Like his fellow travelers, Miles ate with his hands, shunning the utensils offered to foreigners. He cupped the rice and vegetables onto his fingers and pushed them into his mouth with his thumb.

Although Miles had learned to eat with his hands this way when he had lived in Nepal previously, he had never quite mastered the technique. Now, after years of non-practice, he performed like a novice and made a total mess at Moogling. He dropped rice and dripped daal onto the table and onto the floor, onto his lap, and down his shirt. It seemed he was able to get the food just about everywhere except into his mouth. The cauliflower was much easier to pick up with his fingers, so Miles concentrated his efforts in that direction. The Nepali men who sat next to and across from him watched, smiled, and grunted sideways at each other. Miles’ attempts at eating in the native style entertained them greatly. Not realizing that Miles could understand the Nepali language, one of the men, a stout, dark-skinned middle-aged man with the thinnest of mustaches just peeping over his upper lip, turned to his companion and said, “He must be American. An Australian would have given up by now.”

“He could be British,” rejoined his comrade.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

The portly man looked at Miles, who was examining his sticky fingers, caked with rice and other morsels, and his shirt, splattered with small splotches of yellow daal, pretending not to listen. “No,” he said, “A Brit would have maintained some dignity.”

After he finished lunch, Miles washed his hands at one of several spigots set up in the back of the room that drained into a concrete conduit that flowed into a small metal culvert that disgorged its contents directly into the back yard of the building where chickens, goats, dogs, and small pigs vied with each other for the spoils. Miles whiled away the remainder of the lunch break browsing through a dusty shop next door that sold exquisite, small bowls and jars made of polished wood.

The roar of the bus’s diesel engine signaled that lunch was over. The passengers all piled back inside. Miles was pushed and shoved, but eventually made it back into his seat at the window near the rear of the bus. The obese woman and her son, who were already seated very comfortably, made room – grudgingly, it seemed to Miles – for him to squeeze through. The engine roared and strained, and with much exertion and, it seemed, much reluctance, the bus lurched out of the muddy parking space and onto the road.

Soon they were climbing and winding around another series of gigantic hills. The road had deteriorated, and the bus driver successfully negotiated his way into every bone-jarring pothole the thoroughfare had to offer. After about twenty minutes of unexpected horizontal and vertical staggering movements and occasional twisting dives, Miles noticed the woman two seats in front of him suddenly open her window. A moment later, she vomited out the window. Miles instinctively jerked his head back from his own opened window. During the next twenty minutes or so, about a quarter of the people on the bus vomited their lunch out the windows. “This is rather unpleasant,” Miles said aloud.

Miles kept his window closed. Then, something – a sound – perhaps it was the seat croaking or perhaps it was a human groan – made him turn slowly and look doubtfully at the fat woman who sat next to him. She was quite pale and held her fingers over her lips. Miles became nervous and his hands turned clammy. When she saw Miles staring at her, the woman smiled weakly at him – but by no means reassuringly.

The boy continued to squirm and otherwise increase Miles’ level of discomfort. He pulled the hair on Miles’ arm and made a series of comical faces at him. In retaliation, Miles screwed up his eyes and stuck his tongue out at the boy. When he did so, he was mortified to see a man of about his own age in clean white shirt and trousers with a gray vest – traditional Nepali business clothes – standing in the aisle next to the boy’s mother watching him and shaking his head in disgust. He leaned over and said crossly to Miles in English, “Why don’t you leave that poor little boy alone?” Then, addressing himself to the mother, he said in Nepali, “Be careful, ma’am. I’ve heard stories about these foreigners. They can give the ‘evil eye.’”

The woman drew her son closer and, regarding Miles with a withering glare of disdain, said, “Don’t look at the bad man, my dear boy.”

The travelers arrived at the bus station in Pokhara at about six o’clock in the evening. With dusk fast approaching. Miles took a taxi out of the main part of town and into the tourist area near the lake. Pokhara seemed smaller than he remembered from fifteen years before, and it was more congested with mini-hotels and guesthouses and many more back-packing tourists. Miles’ taxi came up the road on Pokhara’s western edge, the road that skirted Phewa Tal, Nepal’s largest lake – a shimmering blue opal fed by the sparkling streams of the surrounding hills. Miles remembered walking along the same road years ago and being afforded pleasant views of the lake; now he could no longer see the lake from the road – it was hidden behind the many restaurants and shop fronts that now lined the road on the lake side. In this part of town, it seemed that the foreign tourists outnumbered the Nepali people. They all had that common backpacker appearance – suntanned, sandal-wearing, silver jeweled, slow paced, and slack.

Miles checked in to the Monal Hotel, a pleasant two-story guesthouse with basic rooms opening out onto a courtyard on the first floor. The second floor was occupied by Zorba’s, an open-air restaurant decorated with potted ferns and flowers. The white tiled floor imparted a clean feeling to Miles’ room, which otherwise would have been dark, since the walls were of a dark colored wood, and the ceiling was very high. The wooden door also was very high, at least ten or twelve feet tall. Over the door a small window was partially open, its glass and wooden pane slanting inward. Miles noticed a small, handwritten sign over the window above the door. The upper part of the sign read “Do NOT,” but the partially opened windowpane blocked his view of the lower portion of the sign, so he took off his shoes and stood on the bed to see what the bottom of the sign said. He read out loud to himself, “Do NOT stand on the bed or the fan will cut off your head!”

Miles quickly got down from the bed and turned off the ceiling fan.

After unpacking various items from his backpack, washing his face, and performing other sundry toiletries, Miles walked out into the crisp evening air of Pokhara. Not particularly hungry, he stopped at a glass-encased pushcart to purchase two samosas – deep-fried Indian pastries filled with a spicy mixture of potatoes and peas.

Miles stood in the street, the fresh nighttime air illuminated by streetlamps and the phosphorescent glow of shop lights. The weather was pleasant; the light sweater he wore kept him warm enough in the evening breeze. Other tourists in pairs or in groups of three or four wandered in and out of the shops, sometimes buying, but more often just gawking at the trinkets for sale – shiny brass and bronze figurines, colorful batik fabrics, paisley-patterned embroidered shirts and shawls, all sorts of trekking gear, woolen hats and gloves, vegetable-dyed Tibetan carpets, red and black blankets from Mustang, intricate thangka paintings, polished coral and turquoise set in silver, odd assortments of electronic items, wooden bowls, stone boxes, and wicker baskets of various shapes and sizes.

A group of four young Nepali men stood in the street near to Miles. Miles guessed from their appearance to be in their early to mid-twenties. He listened to their conversation, and surprised himself by how much understanding of the Nepali language he had retained through all the past years of non-use.

“Every country and every people have habits that people from other countries find disgusting,” said the tallest of the youths. Then he cleared his throat and spat, carefully rubbing the spittle into the pavement with the bottom of his sandal.

“That might be true,” returned one of his three companions, a short, stocky lad who, even under layers of several shirts and sweaters and a jacket, or perhaps because of the several layers of clothing, presented a strong, developed physique. “But dog meat! Dog meat! How could anyone eat the meat from one of those filthy, sickening creatures?”

“But that does explain one thing,” said the third member of the group, the thinnest and spindliest-looking of them all. He wore blue jeans, a dark olive-green aviator jacket with U.S. Air Force insignia on the shoulders, and the hint of a roguish smile on his lips.

“What’s that, Deepak?” returned the tall youth with a wink at the others.

“Well,” said Deepak. “That explains why whenever I hear a group of those Koreans talking among themselves, it sounds like dogs barking!”

“Deepak, are you ever serious?” queried the tall youth through his chuckles.

“Only when I have to be,” replied Deepak with a straight face. “At sad events – like at funeral pyres and at weddings.”

“Why at weddings?” asked the fourth member of the group, who wore a red stocking cap, but otherwise was dull in appearance, and who had remained silent until now. “Weddings are happy occasions.”

Deepak turned toward him, shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders. “For everyone except the bridegroom,” he said in a voice full of commiseration. “And the father of the bride. One has lost his freedom, and the other his fortune.”

“Very true, very true,” said the fourth member of the group in a sorrowful tone of voice.

“But to get back to the main subject,” said the tall young man, “have any of you ever eaten beef?”

“Oh! God, no!” exclaimed the stocky, well-built lad of many shirts and sweaters. “Just the thought of it makes me want to vomit!”

Deepak replied slowly, “Well, I thought I would never tell anyone, but I did try it – just one time.”

“Deepak!” cried the stocky lad covering his mouth. “Tell me it’s not true! Tell me you are just making it up!”

“It is true, alright,” replied Deepak. “I am ashamed to admit it, but it is true.”

“Oh, God!” cried the stocky lad, biting the knuckle of his thumb in horror.

“Not only did I eat beef,” said Deepak with an impish smile refusing to be hidden and refuting his claim to shame, “but it was a special cut, a choice piece. It was…” he paused to take a breath in order to lay even more emphasis on the words, “…bull testicles!”

“Aaarrghhh!” cried the other three young men in unison. The tallest one spat twice to rid his mouth of the imaginary taste. The stocky lad jumped high into the air and covered his ears with his hands. The fourth member of the group just shook his head and repeated, “Ram, Ram, Sita Ram! Ram Ram, Sita, Ram!”

When they had recovered, the tallest of the group, who seemed to be accustomed to his role as Deepak’s straight man, said, “Okay, Deepak. How did it taste?”

“Well, the taste was okay,” replied Deepak, “but that damned bull dragged me halfway across town!”

Even Miles had to laugh out loud at that.

“Ah, I would love to continue our cross-cultural discussion,” said Deepak to his three companions, “but here comes the boss-man. He and his wife go back to Kathmandu tomorrow. I promised them I would take them to an authentic Nepali home for a dinner of chang and momos.”

“So where are you taking him?” asked the tall youth.

“To my mother’s house,” yelled Deepak as he hurried away.

“Was it a good job?” called the stocky lad.

“Two hundred rupee tip!” called back Deepak with a wide grin. Then he joined a tall, heavy, German-looking tourist wearing a spotless sky-blue jump suit and with one strand of his long blonde hair tied in a red braid hanging down over his left ear from under a bright blue and white woolen cap. Miles heard Deepak say in English as they walked off in the opposite direction, “Boss-man, did I ever tell you about the time I tried to eat beef?”

Miles returned to the Monal Hotel, undressed, showered, and slept well under clean white sheets. The early March night was cool, but not as cold as Miles had expected. Even though Pokhara is near some of the highest Himalayan peaks, the town itself lies in a deep valley. Its elevation is near sea level, and its vegetation is tropical. While Miles slept, frogs croaked, areca fronds swayed, and jasmine scented the night.

[108 fountains]

CHAPTER THREE: HIRE A GUIDE


In the morning, Miles awoke to the sound of roosters crowing, dogs barking, and sparrows twittering. After a quick shave, shower and breakfast, he was anxious to begin his trek. As the chimes in the tiny clock behind the reception desk at the Monal Hotel sounded seven o’clock in the morning, Miles informed the clerk behind the desk that he was checking out and would return in seven or eight days following his trek. “But aren’t you going to hire a guide?” asked the clerk.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Miles replied. “I made the same trek fifteen years ago – I even have the same map I used at that time. And I can speak the language. I’ll just go on my own.”

“Well, that is up to you, of course,” said the clerk somewhat dubiously, handing Miles the bill for the single night.

As Miles retrieved his wallet and examined the bill, the clerk, a tall, thin young man with a slight hunch but a not unhandsome face, gave him a sidelong glance. Then, noticing the young bellhop lounging at the side of the desk, he called to him in a very audible whisper, “Hey Vikram, this man is going on a trek… ALONE. It seems he doesn’t realize the… DANGER.” And though he spoke in Nepali, he used the English words for “Alone” and “Danger.”

The bellhop appeared puzzled at first, but when the clerk motioned with his head towards Miles, a flash of realization appeared in his eyes, and he inquired incredulously, “Is it true? This man is going on a trek… ALONE? Doesn’t he realize the… DANGER?” – using the same two words in English.

“That’s right,” said the clerk who frowned as Miles continued to count out his rupees, oblivious to the conversation. “He doesn’t know the… DANGER. He said he doesn’t want to… HIRE A GUIDE.”

“What’s that you said,” asked Miles looking up innocently.

“Oh!” said the clerk. “I’m sorry. I was just apprising my colleague here of your intention of trekking by yourself without a guide. He reminded me of the dangers of trekking alone, but I told him that the decision is entirely up to the customer. I don’t mean to alarm you, but you did say you plan to do the trek alone, with no one to accompany or protect you – isn’t that right?”

“Well, um… yes,” replied Miles. “That was my plan. But what is this about danger?”

“Well, sir,” said the clerk. “Only because you asked me, and only because I feel it is my duty…” Here he paused significantly, looked to the left and then to the right and lowered his voice, “Things have changed in Nepal from fifteen years ago.”

“What do you mean?” asked Miles.

“The Maoists,” said the clerk, almost in a whisper and holding a finger knowingly to the side of his nose. “The Maoists.”

“The Maoists?” Miles asked.

“Yes. You don’t know about them?”

“Well, I know they waged a successful war some years ago, and finally took over the government after winning elections. So I don’t understand. I thought peace had returned to Nepal. But you talk about the Maoists as if they are still causing problems.”

“I see you have done some research. Very good. Very well. It is good that you are knowledgeable. Everything you said is true. But,” returned the clerk with a significant shake of his head, “perhaps you have not heard about the Red Maoists.”

“The Red Maoists!” cried Miles in surprise and chagrin.

The clerk nodded his head vigorously. “The Red Maoists. No need to apologize for not knowing about them. Not many outsiders have heard of them. The new government, the Maoist government, I mean the Communist government, does not allow the newspapers to write about the Red Maoists. They are an embarrassment to the new government, the Maoist government, I mean the Communist government.”

“I am surprised to hear about this,” said Miles. “Tell me more about the Red Maoists. How are they related to the Maoists?”

“Well,” said the clerk, warming up to the subject, “Not long after the Maoists took power, they discovered they actually had to run the government and manage the bureaucracy. But they were revolutionists, not politicians – fighters, not managers. Their main leaders have tried to adapt and have become… have become… well, let’s just say they have become more pragmatic. But there were Maoists who could never adapt. They returned to the countryside, accused the leaders of selling out to the politicians, and resumed their revolutionary activities. They are the Red Maoists. Fighting is the only thing they know how to do.”

“This is all fascinating,” said Miles, “but are they really dangerous? Are they actually fighting against their former allies?”

“The new government – the Maoist government, I mean the Communist government – at first tried to ignore them. Then the Red Maoists set off a few small bombs and wounded several people. The government – the Maoist government, I mean the Communist government – is trying to negotiate with them. They don’t want to fight them. In fact, they are trying to keep the entire business covered up. After all, many of them fought together in years past. But in recent months, and especially in the past few weeks, I have heard that the Red Maoists are becoming stronger and bolder. And if the stories I have heard are true, the Red Maoists are more cruel, more evil, and more terrifying than the original Maoists ever were.”

“That is bad,” said Miles. “In fact, that is hard to believe since I heard so many stories about the horrible things the original Maoists did during the years that they were fighting.”

“Oh, there is no doubt that the Red Maoists are worse,” said the clerk making a clicking sound with his tongue and teeth for emphasis. Then, he turned to a wiry old man who had been standing so inconspicuously at the end of the counter near the wall that Miles had not even noticed him there before. The old man had ropy sinews rather than muscles covering the bones of his arms and legs, and his chocolate colored skin had shriveled till it was stretched tightly over the sinews and bone. He stood with both hands in the front pockets of a long sort of black vest that he wore over a loose white shirt, a common form of dress for men in Nepal. “Old Shankar,” the clerk called, “You know about the Maoists and the Red Maoists, too. Come here and talk to us and tell us about them.”

Old Shankar, who up to this point had not been engaged in the conversation and appeared to be in some sort of reverie, suddenly opened his eyes wide and said, “Ma? Me?” as if he was one of several other men in the room named Old Shankar who might also have been the target of the clerk’s enquiry. “The Maoists? The Red Maoists? Shhhh! It is best not to talk about them here where anyone can listen.” Old Shankar surveyed the small hotel reception area. Except for Miles, the bellhop, the receptionist, and himself, the room was totally empty. Old Shankar’s gray eyes narrowed, and he spread his shoulders in a wide shrug, without taking his hands from his pockets. The other three people instinctively drew nearer.

“Old Shankar can tell you about the Maoists,” stated the receptionist in a hushed voice, but a voice containing a tone of satisfaction, if not of triumph, nevertheless, as he gently pushed Miles toward the sinewy old man.

“Yes, Old Shankar can tell you about the Maoists – and about the Red Maoists, too,” repeated the bellhop who also pushed Miles toward the old man.

Curious to hear about the Maoists – and the Red Maoists – and intrigued by the air of mystery Old Shankar projected, Miles did not resist the gentle but firm press of the hotel employees. All four of them stood, huddled close together, in the corner of the room, so close that Miles could smell the stale breath of Old Shankar contrast with the oversweet cologne splashed on the hotel desk clerk’s rosy cheeks.

Old Shankar looked Miles full in the face, glanced down his body to his feet, and then returned to look him directly in the eyes. At first, Miles thought Old Shankar was chewing a wad of tobacco, but he was near enough now to see that Old Shankar was in the habit of chewing on his own tongue, a grayish, ugly, warty tongue, foamy with saliva from the incessant chewing. “So you want to know about the Maoists,” he said addressing Miles in a proud, gruff, grizzled voice and ignoring the receptionist and bellhop who crowded just inches away. “Do you speak Nepali?” he asked.

“Some,” Miles answered, refusing to be intimidated by Old Shankar’s enegmatic manner and foamy, gray, tongue. “But not so much. Years ago, I could speak it pretty well, but that was a long time ago.”

“Then I will speak in English,” said Old Shankar. “I was a Gurkha for many years, and served with some respectable Englishmen. You might not believe it now, but I was once a Company Sergeant Major in the British Army. I gave orders to Nepalis and Englishmen alike. Yes, for many years… I… I served with dignity… I…”

Old Shankar’s gray eyes clouded over, but only for a moment. The mists cleared, he gazed about the empty room once more, looked again at Miles now with a resoluteness of purpose, and dropped his raspy voice to just above a whisper. “I will speak in English,” he repeated. “The Maoists were cruel. They were very cruel. They terrorized the villages. But the people despised the politicians and the tax collectors more than they were afraid of the Maoists. And when the Maoists raided the police stations, many people secretly sympathized with them. And when they began to hold their own against the army in large-scale battles, the Maoists felt their advantage. They knew that in the long run, they could not win their war on any battlefield, but they began to win the battle for the support of the people.”

“Yes, yes, Shankar,” said the clerk in a tone of impatience. “This foreigner knows all about the history. And he knows that the Maoists finally came to power in the elections. But he needs to know about the Red Maoists – and the dangers that lurk out there on the mountain trails.”

Miles broke in. “No, that’s alright. I want to hear more. I’m curious. How did the Maoists get such support? How did they ever win the respect and love of the people?”

Old Shankar chuckled in response to the puzzled look on Miles’ face. “Ha, ha! No, they never tried to win the respect or love of the people. No, that is not what I mean. They wanted only to be feared. Fear was the source of their strength. They assassinated teachers and village elders. They kidnapped children and turned them into child-soldiers. They beheaded informers and cut the hands off anyone they suspected of working against them. The people never loved them, but they shared with the Maoists a loathing for the politicians, the police, the tax collectors, and the bureaucrats sent out from Kathmandu. They had that in common with the Maoists. Many people were pleased that someone had the courage to stand up to the police, and no one shed a tear for the tax collectors. So perhaps yes… perhaps the people somehow came to respect the Maoists – but they never loved them – no – never! The people were afraid of them, terrified of them. And they still are.”

“Tell him about the Red Maoists, Shankar-ji,” urged the hotel desk clerk. “Tell him how dangerous they are.”

“The Red Maoists!” Shankar cried, although still in a subdued voice. “They are worse than the Maoists ever were! More cruel! More inhuman! More evil!”

Shankar paused here, and a bitter, caustic expression cut through his features like blade. He seemed to actually wince in pain.

He slowly came to himself again. He looked around the room once more, chewed on his ugly, gray tongue, and shrugged his shoulders in an attempt to steady himself.

“Shankar-ji,” said the clerk with a more sincere tone than he had voiced so far, “Tell him how dangerous it is to go trekking alone. Tell him how unsafe it is.”

Old Shankar cleared his throat and continued, “Yes, it is true. The Red Maoists are becoming more and more active around Pokhara and the middle hills. Some schools have closed because the teachers are too afraid to enter the classrooms. And, yes, they have stopped Western trekkers and demanded money from them. About a month ago, the Red Maoists kidnapped a lone trekker up near Dhaulagiri. They let him go after three days, but only after he paid them a “tax.” He was lucky. So far, they haven’t hurt any foreigners, but they have killed many Nepali people. They killed a village chief in Gandruk just last week. After they killed him, they cut off his head and hands and stuck them on posts erected in the center of town to frighten the villagers. They are vicious. They are cruel. If you are going on a trek around here, be aware of the danger. Be careful! Beware!”

“So are you saying I should not trek in this area?” Miles asked.

Old Shankar rasped, “I say only to be aware of the danger. Be careful! Beware!”

“Since I speak the language and am familiar with the area, I was thinking of trekking alone…” Miles began to explain, not yet prepared to give up on the idea.

“I am telling you that would be foolhardy,” returned Old Shankar in his most forceful tone yet. “The Maoists were cruel, but the Red Maoists are more cruel.”

Miles only looked at him with a look that indicated he was still not convinced.

Old Shankar looked Miles steadily in the eye and slowly withdrew his left hand from the front pocket of his vest to reveal only a stub where the hand should have been. “I was a Gurkha,” said Old Shankar. He raised his head in pride, but his voice quivered. Because of that, I was a target of the Maoists.” He held the stub at the end of his arm close in front of Miles’ face. Miles couldn’t bear to look. He averted his eyes.

“Yes, the Maoists did this to me,” cried Shankar in a voice choking with emotion. “They were cruel. But they were not devils. They cut off my left hand. But I could still write, I could still eat, I could still grasp a tea-cup, I could still salute the Nepali and the British flags.”

Old Shankar then slowly withdrew his right arm from his right-hand vest pocket. “But the Red Maoists did this to me,” he said, holding up his other stub. “They… they… they did this to me!”

Miles recoiled at the sight of the handless victim. He recoiled from Shankar’s horrible bulging gray eyes as he held up his two stubs. He recoiled from the thought of the cruelty, and the evil, and the suffering plainly visible here in front of him. Miles had often told his friends that he did not believe in evil. He believed evil was only a misunderstood state of mind, a misinterpretation of weakness or ignorance, erroneous behavior that could be explained away with the proper logic and understanding. And yet here was the corporeal manifestation of evil’s handiwork in front of his very eyes.

No one said a word. The receptionist lost the smirk that habitually played on his features. The bellhop looked meekly at the floor. Miles’ gaze slowly shifted from Old Shankar’s face to the stumps where his hands should have been, but he was unable to utter a sound in sympathy or commiseration. Old Shankar himself stiffly placed his stubs back in his vest pockets. He did not walk away, but somehow seemed to disintegrate and blow away like smoke, leaving his three interlocutors in the hotel lobby shuffling their feet uncomfortably.

The bellhop faded away in the same manner as Old Shankar. Somehow the clerk slid away to his customary place behind the reception counter. Miles found himself seated on the single wooden chair placed at a small wooden table near the front door.

Some minutes elapsed as Miles ruminated over the entire affair. He would not cancel his trek – that much was for certain. He hadn’t come all the way to Nepal and to Pokhara only to turn back even if there was real danger to be faced. “Then maybe I had better hire a guide,” Miles said half to himself and half out loud. He turned to the receptionist and asked, “Can you recommend one?”

The hotel receptionist smiled broadly and replied in a light, chirpy voice. “Of course! Of course we can recommend a guide.” Then, turning to the bellhop, who also smiled broadly, the hotel clerk placed two coins into his hands. “Shankar-ji laai,” he mouthed to the bellhop who scurried out the door.

“Now, my friend,” chirped the hotel receptionist as Miles rose from the chair and stepped once again toward the desk. “It appears you are in need of a guide after all. I know the perfect guide for you. He is a cousin of mine. His name is Deepak. I will call him for you.… DEEPAK!”

Deepak emerged from an adjoining room. Yes, it was the same Deepak whom Miles had seen on the street talking with his friends the night before. Deepak apparently recognized Miles, too, for he smiled with a slight blush of embarrassment. Deepak was a young man of about twenty years – probably born a few years after Miles had first lived in Nepal. Miles noticed that he was quite skinny, almost frail, and seemed much more shy and deferential now in his company than he had been the previous evening with his friends and with the European trekker. Miles wondered how much protection this slight figure would provide in any encounter with the Red Maoists, but he reasoned two people would be safer than one, and besides, if the bull testicle story was any indication, Deepak might prove to be an amusing companion.

“Well, Deepak,” said Miles. “My destination is the glacier on Mount Dhaulagiri. Have you been that way before?”

“Dhaulagiri!” Deepak blurted out with some surprise. “Nobody goes there! The Annapurna Base Camp, yes. Jomsom, yes. But the glacier on Dhaulagiri? I do not know anyone who has been there. Why have you chosen that place?”

Miles said, “It is a place I have been drawn to for a long time. Will you go with me?”

“It will be my pleasure,” Deepak replied with a low bow that might have been mocking if not for the pleasant smile that accompanied it. “You are the boss-man, and I will take my directions from you. Besides, I need the employment. If I stay in Pokhara, I will become bored and dull. Worse than that, I will become poor. May I ask, boss-man, how much will you pay me?”

Miles and Deepak quickly agreed on terms – the equivalent of five U.S. dollars per day in Nepali rupees. Miles didn’t quite know what to make of Deepak. Both bashful and brash, comical and charming, he was different from anyone Miles had ever met before.

“How soon can you be ready?” Miles asked.

“Fifteen minutes,” replied Deepak. “Fifteen minutes will give me time to pack a bag and kiss my dear, old mother good-bye.”

“Fifteen minutes, then,” said Miles. Fifteen minutes, he thought to himself, and I’ve been preparing for this trek for fifteen years.

Miles walked out of the hotel and into the bright morning sun to wait for Deepak. A crispness in the air indicated that the hour was still early. Just across the way was an old-fashioned teashop with a thatch roof and thick, dark, wooden tables and wobbly benches, on a lot that had not yet been developed into a souvenir shop or snack-stall for Western tourists. On one of the wooden benches perched Old Shankar, with a steaming tin cup of milk-tea on the table in front of him. The owner of the shop had placed a plastic straw in Shankar’s cup to enable him to drink without using his hands. Traces of drying tears were visible on Old Shankar’s cheeks, but he sat with his head held high and erect, a habit from his days as a Gurkha Sergeant Major in the British Army. He chewed on his tongue and then took a sip of the hot tea. Miles stretched and yawned and walked back into the hotel not noticing Old Shankar in the morning shadows. But Old Shankar watched Miles with narrowed gray eyes. “The Maoists,” he whispered to himself in English. “Yes, you have a guide, but you had better be aware of the danger. The Red Maoists! By God, you had better be careful! You had better beware!”