Last India Overland (63 page)

Around noon we stopped in this one village everyone got off we walked around for a while lots of chickens in the street sun bright the air getting thinner.

Back on the van, a different one, more of the same, eventually full and Patrick pointed at that Bic rifle in my pocket and asked me if I’d be willing to sell it. I said no. Everyone seemed to run out of conversation shortly after that. Maybe they were all a litde bothered by that pen in my pocket. Charole asked me if I had a bullet in it. I said no, which was a lie.

Patrick tried to talk to some of the Sherpas to find out if any of them had led any expeditions up Mt. Everest but no one spoke English.

We got to Nagarkot just before sunset. Air so fresh it had darning needles in it. A kid was standing there when we got out of the van stretching our legs drinking in all those blue snow-capped mountains around us big mothers made the Rockies look like pikers in diapers. Kid said his name was Mr. Vanier. Asked us in pretty good English if we had lodging for the night. We said no. He led us to lodging. The Nagarkot Lodge. Showed us where the shack with the claw-foot tub was at, hot water, he said, and some other shacks, the one big shack with the six cots was the cheapest, we took that and then we went out to catch the sunset over the Everest range, all of us under this little outcrop of rock, mind-boggling sunset, mostly indigo and mauve with shreds of scanty pink lingerie slowly shifting shape into animals, the mountains slowly turning dark and sinister.

On the way back to the lodge a little girl on a hillside called to us one rupee, two rupee hello in a high chirping voice and we all laughed at the way it echoed, coming back at us, dying on the rupee. Outside the lodge Mr. Vanier came up to us with a huge stalk of something green in his hand, dirt hanging from the roots, want good ganja, he asked. He looked at me. I felt Kelly’s eyes on me. I said no thanks. Very good ganja, he said, looking at Patrick. Are you absolutely certain? said Patrick. Mr. Vanier his eyes big blue innocence a real charming little rascal said yes and Patrick said well, with that reassurance and that innocent face, how can I resist and he pulled out his wallet.

Inside we helped ourselves to some cool stew and then we sat around the fireplace, nice fire blazing, nice old rockers. I sat next to Charole. Blew my nose. Charole had lots of Kleenex. I’d picked up a cold from somewhere and she had too. Everyone had a cold, I think. She asked me why I made moves on everyone else, this in a whisper, but never made a move on her. I just looked at her, surprised. She said it hurt her feelings. I told her because she was out of my league. I’m minor league, she’s major league. She laughed at that, stared back at the fire. You’re really too hard on yourself, Mick, she said. That could be true. Kelly was talking to Tim and Teach about what is satya and what is dukha. Truth and pain, says Dave. Patrick was somewhere outside, smoking his ganja.

Then Kelly dropped the bombshell. She asked Tim and Teach if it would be okay if she went with them in the morning. Tim and Teach looked at each other. Teach said well of course, I told you we’d love to have you come along.

I was waiting for Teach to ask me and Charole if we’d like to come along too but she didn’t.

Kelly looked at Charole but before she had a chance to say anything, Charole said fine whatever you want to do and then she looked at me, said so what are your plans, Mick? I said well, Bangkok. Maybe spend a bit of time on an island called Ko Samui. Where’s Ko Samui? she said. I told her. Just off the coast of Thailand. Supposed to be paradise on earth. I said palm trees, white beaches, great food. She said sounds inviting would I mind some company there? Another bombshell. The fire was hissing spitting sparks dying. I didn’t look at Kelly. Shadows were dancing across Charole’s face, half light, half dark her one eye lost. Waiting for my answer. Split second there. No, that’d be fine, I said. Good, she said, looked back at the fire. Then Kelly stood up, her rocker rocking back and forth catching firelight. It’s getting late, she said. Yes, said Teach, we have an early morning. Her and Tim stood up too. Charole stayed sitting. So I stayed sitting. Felt it was the thing to do. They took off. Charole stared at the fire for a moment then she said, you know I’ve always kind of hoped I’d find a guy, a nice guy, a guy who could sing actually, a guy with a nice voice who wouldn’t mind meeting me once a year no fail until I died, no matter what. It’d be a promise. We’d go to wherever it was decided we had to go and we’d slowly get to know each other over the years. I said this would be a nifty place to meet him. She looked at me and smiled. It was the prettiest smile anyone’s ever tossed in my direction. If you could afford the airfare, she said.

I shrugged, my mouth was feeling dry, there were butterflies doing kamikaze missions in my stomach. Yeah, that’d be a problem maybe I said.

Mick, she said, will you kiss me?

I swallowed hard. I’ve got this cold, I said. My nose was running just a bit.

That’s okay, she said, so do I, and she leaned towards me and she kissed me on the lips, just a quick peck. As though it was to seal some bargain.

She gave me a timid smile. Should we go to bed? she said.

Beautiful women have it tough, I guess. Everyone’s scared of them. I’ve noticed that. They don’t get nearly as many dates as you think they would, in high school, after high school. They have to be forward. This is what Nancy Pickles told me, who was almost beautiful and happy about it.

I said to Charole, okay, and we walked hand in hand down a narrow path beneath a sky where the stars were twice as big as I was used to. A few million engagement rings. Outside the hut Charole stopped and said she loved my voice, the way I sing, something I confess I’ve heard from other women, it’s why I bought Lucille, and she kissed me again, this time a serious kiss, a slippery little tongue moving in and out between my lips slowly her lips soft and moist, the best second kiss of my life and then she gave me a hug, a long hug. It was chilly. But she wouldn’t let go and then I heard her say, just a whisper, in my ear, “Do you think Frank’s still alive?”

She must’ve felt me freeze up or something or maybe my hesitation told her till she needed to know. She started to cry and all I could do was just hold her tighter than I had been. She cried for a long time.

Finally I said, “All I know is there ain’t such a thing as death and we’re all going to see him again some day.”

I hated the way that came out. But even this far down the road I still don’t know what else I could’ve said.

When she stopped crying and blew her nose she put her hand in mine and stared up at the stars. Anybody who spends any time at all with Kelly gets into that habit.

“I think you’re right,” she said. “There has to be something up there. It’s so beautiful.”

We just stared up at it for a while. I think all kinds of conversations were going on in our heads but somehow none of it came out.

Charole finally patted me on the shoulder and said, “You poor man, you’re freezing,” and she kissed me on the cheek and then on the lips and then she said, “Thanks for not bullshitting me.”

I said, “The simple truth is I just don’t know. This whole psychic business, sometimes it just runs on feelings. And feelings are hard to read at the best of times.”

She gave me a brave smile and said, “Everything runs on feelings, doesn’t it?”

“Either that or gasoline,” I said.

She gave me a brave tearful smile and then she opened up the door and we went inside.

Tim and Teach were in bed. Patrick snoring already. Kelly reading by candlelight, her Castaneda.

The two beds that were left weren’t next to each other. “The sky’s so beautiful,” Charole said to Kelly.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” said Kelly, putting a bookmark in

her book and leaning over, blowing out the candle.

“Goodnight,” said Charole. Not sure who to. Kelly said goodnight. I said goodnight.

Went over to my bed, shucked my moccasins, nothing else.

And in the darkness I thought I heard Jenkins’s voice saying goodnight as well. But I think it was maybe Teach.

from Kelly’s diary

Dec. 21

It’s the solstice. Venus is getting near my Pluto, I’m near the top of the world & I think I’m also near to a major decision. Last night I dreamed about walking the Firewalk but this time when I woke up there was such a feeling of exultation. Later. The rest of the day seemed surreal, crowded together on a two by four in a cramped van under a forest of armpits trying to keep bodies steady, all that BO mingled together with a stench of vomit. Good environment for Tim & Mary to tell me about cleansing the body & spirit with Tim throwing around jargon just to see if he can discombobulate Pat., who let out 1 or 2 soft snorts of derision throughout the ride, but refused to bite. The trip was through a limbo. When we got to Nagarkot it was a different world, a new world. My ears popped. Pat.’s eyes bulged. It was beautiful. You could feel the energy pulsating from the mountains. I felt light-headed, high, a natural high, & I felt like I recognized the place, like I’d been here before. Even the young & handsome—perhaps he’s 12—Mr. Vanier, amateur host, guide & dope dealer, looked somehow familiar. Tomorrow morning he will take us up to the lookout point & from there he will lead Tim & Mary, & me, to Yasodhara, where I’ll shed a skin & purify this polluted soul & body for 6 months, & from there, on to Sri Lanka. C isn’t pleased. But that’s too bad. It’s my life.*

Dave says deadline’s looming. It’s three in the morning. Give me one for my baby and one more for the road. Candle’s out I’ve got the lights on. Guy next door with cancer left yesterday no way he could get better, Soon said, he was goners so he was going to go to his sister’s wedding.

The gum and the ribs woke me that morning we saw dawn over Everest. When I opened my eyes first thing I saw was Kelly by candlelight, writing. I reached into my pant pockets for those pills of Charole’s, only two Tylenol left. Knocked them back. Kelly glanced at me then looked back at the page she was writing. Look said you’re ancient history who are you anyway? That hurt.

It was still dark when Mr. Vanier came knocking. He had a thermos of coffee for us and we sipped it as we stood out by the road waiting. Chilly as a Davie St. hooker’s heart, and then we saw it, far below us in the dark, a pair of headlights doing a slow crawl up the snake-spine road. Took half an hour for it to get to us and by that time the sky to the east was just beginning to turn grey. Inside the van a young Nepalese behind the wheel, an old Sherpa farmer in back. A couple of tourists, New Yorkers, they said, came running, cameras flapping, at the last minute. They said New Yorkers in a way that made me think they expected us to get down on our knees, scrape and bow. Picked up a couple more farmers on the way up to the summit. Picked them up and let them off.

The sky was turning rabbit-nose pink when we got out of the van at the summit. Patrick snapped the cap off his Canon. Below, valleys full of marshmallow clouds and as the sun peeked over the range to the east of us, those clouds began to rise towards us as though they were on puppet strings and as they rose they changed colours, it was like I was on some great microdot. That’s what high altitude can do to you. There were Peckinpah pinks and mellow Jello yellows and cherry meringue violets and scavenger lavenders, and as for the sun, it looked like the perfect balloon as it paused for just a second on what might have been Mt. Everest though Tim deLuca said it wasn’t, Mt. Everest was the peak that seemed shorter than the rest, two peaks to the left of the sun. Patrick said was it Jimmy Connors who said, in ’74, that there’s no view quite like the view from the top? Well, if he did say it, Connors had it down. Big old orb, big old eye in the sky, and those mountains. Nothing quite like it. Best sunrise I’ve ever seen. Makes me wish I’d live to see tomorrow’s sunrise, just to see what it’s like. But then the spectacle was over. The sun drifted further up into the sky, you could see it moving almost, and the clouds just kind of burned away and then Kelly was talking to Charole. She’d been writing something in her diary and she handed that to Charole. Gave her a hug. She came and gave me a hug too, though her eyes seemed far away. Her glasses had misted up some. Take care of yourself, she said. I told her I would. And that was it. She went and gave Patrick a hug, an even shorter hug than the one she gave me. Tim and Teach gave Charole a hug and Teach said why don’t you come with us, which was just a tad late, I thought, and Charole said well, I might pay you a visit if I can if I decide I’m not ready to go home but I think I’m tired of travelling. Teach said she could understand that. Then she came over to me. You be good to yourself, Michael, she said as she shook my hand. I told her I’d try. Then Tim shook my hand. Eyes as inscrutable as ever. May the Force be with you, he said, kind of smiled. I laughed. Thanks, Ben Kenobi, I said. And then Mr. Vanier was saying goodbye, goodbye, waving at us, his subde hint and Tim and Teach hoisted up their backpacks and Kelly didn’t even look back with a little wave or anything, not to me, she did to Charole. Patrick took a couple pictures of them as they filed down the hill towards a valley full of evergreens, none of them chopped down. I felt a real hollow in my heart as I watched Kelly walk down into that valley. It took all the kick out of that sunrise. But I got some more Tylenol off Charole and about halfway back to Kathmandu, in a van full of Sherpa teenagers, I said to myself, well, it wasn’t meant to be. C’est la vie.

(an aerogramme)

Dec. 22 Nagarkot

Dear Dex,

What’s Nagarkot you say? Well, not much. Just a tourist 423