The Godfather of Kathmandu (25 page)

This was not a line I’d heard before; I could not even imagine it coming from my mother, Nong, who could be pretty adventurous with the right customer, and I was thinking,
Wow, these Tibetans really are different
, while allowing her to play me like a pennywhistle.

Except that the music was somewhat more sophisticated. Fine-tuning was achieved by means of the long-finger technique heretofore described; once when I was
really
about to come, she leaned forward to whisper gently, “Imagine a wheel, a spinning wheel, a spinning wheel with tiny spadelike cutters …”

But the rest of the time she was astride me, arched back, head high, eyes closed, a clear light (almost visible) emanating from her forehead, which was free of all furrows; hanging from her neck—she must have put it on in the shower, for she had not worn it at supper—there was a silver medallion in the form of a
vajra
, the Himalayan symbol for the thunderbolt.

Her room was without electricity; her naked eternal motion I found best viewed in black silhouette against the left wall, thanks to moonlight entering through a window on the right, which also captured a piece of iron sticking out of one of the incomplete buildings, which now appeared to me like a piece of iron bamboo, thick as a fist, black as a stump, painted on a relative paleness.

Well, I’m prepared to swear on the whole of the Pali Canon that, with the help of Tara’s finger, I held out for a full forty minutes. After that I figured she’d had her fun and if she wanted any more she could pay me.

A full condom later, we were lying in each other’s arms. I allowed a couple of beats before the grumpy words fled my mouth: “You didn’t come.”

She stretched out a hand to cover one of mine; I was tempted to withdraw it, but I opted for good manners and let it lie there. “I haven’t come for a very long time, Detective. My partner went back to Tibet and the Chinese threw him in jail.”

I gulped. “I’m sorry. Really. Stupid of me.”

“He was not my lover. He was my partner.”

I took a deep breath. “What does that mean?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t guessed? Do you still think I’m a prostitute?”

I shook my head. “Oh, no. I’m starting to get the idea about Tibetans. Prostitution would be way too simple an explanation—and far too worldly.”

“But you really are a part-time pimp?”

I coughed. “You’re a yogin? You do Tantra?”

“Of course. Didn’t you like it?”

“It felt terrific, but it would have been nice if you’d remembered me from time to time.”

She smiled. “I think it is difficult for people with a Western background to understand how impersonal bliss really is.”

So to her I looked thoroughly Western? I mulled her revolutionary worldview for a moment, before descending to the mundane. “You
do
know Tietsin.”

She frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Blade wheels. They’re a dead giveaway.”

She rolled to one side; when she rolled back I could see she was laughing her head off. “What’s so funny? Don’t tell me, blade wheels are ten a penny in Lhasa?”

“Of course. Blade wheels are central to our culture, like traffic jams in Bangkok.” She thought this very witty and cackled for a while, making her breasts shiver.

“You win,” I said. “Your blade wheels hurt, but they don’t do as much
damage to the environment.” She nodded, as if to a backward child who was starting to get the idea.

Like an old-fashioned hostess of good breeding, she would not let me search for a cab on my own. When we found one, she insisted on sharing it with me, to make sure I got back safely to my guesthouse. Actually, she wanted to talk. I sensed a burden of responsibility toward me she needed to get off her chest.

“It’s all to do with Tibetan history. Buddhism came quite late to us, around about the eighth century, but didn’t really get going until eleven hundred. Tibetans then were wild people who lived in the most inhospitable region of the earth. Only the strongest, most virile men and the most resilient, fecund women survived. They were very physical people and very warlike. And eating meat was the only way to survive—it still is. So there was a lot of sexual energy to deal with. We weren’t going to go the Brahmin route and suppress it all by standing on our heads and living on weeds. Something had to be done to divert that energy into the higher chakras. So we developed Tantra, also known as Vajrayana Buddhism, also known as Apocalyptic Buddhism.”

I thought this was a way of explaining herself to me. But then she said, “I don’t know this Doctor Tietsin personally, but I’ve heard of him. He’s famous among some Tibetans, even revered. He helps a lot of people, especially newly arrived refugees. He gives them money. Some say he’s a kind of godfather with connections to the Nepal government. Some say he’s a throwback to our atavistic past. Some say he is the reincarnation of Milarepa.”

“Milarepa?” I remembered from the guidebook: the patron saint of Tibet.

“Yes. You see, like in every religion, there is the orthodox and the spiritual. Milarepa was a wild man, crazy, radical beyond belief. He started off as a black magician and slaughtered lots of people before he found the dharma. Maybe that’s why we love him so much.”

“Tietsin isn’t even a monk.”

“That’s his strength. He isn’t bound by anything. Some say he is beyond the path—that he is already free from suffering. He is just using that damaged body as a vehicle to help Tibet in its time of crisis.”

“And what do the others say?”

“That he’s quite mad and about seven hundred years behind the times.” She giggled. “He gave you a mantra, didn’t he?” I nod. “That’s what’s secret, not the blade wheel.”

She fell silent for a moment, just as we were turning in to the guesthouse. I said, “He gave me a mantra—what about it?”

“Oh, only that with him, you could be fully awakened in seven years—you won’t be interested in women at all.” She let a beat pass. “Or you could be the permanent inmate of a mental hospital. He doesn’t mess around. What you call psychosis, for him is a path to health. Or you could say that to him we’re all psychotic anyway, so there isn’t too much of a risk.”

When I was standing in the driveway, handing her money for the cab, she leaned out to say, “I don’t think it’s wise for us to meet again. I’ve opened your heart chakra too much, there’s a serious risk you’ll fall in love with me. Sexual slavery is the last thing I need. It creates such heavy karma. I’m sorry if I misled you. Goodbye.”

Well, how about that! I was doing a little jaw scratching when one of those niggardly, academic questions struck, as they do at times like these. I returned to the cab, which was in the process of turning around, and, feeling more like a traffic cop than a lover, knocked on her window and had her roll it down. “Just out of interest—why did you go with me tonight?”

She looked away and took a deep breath. “Male energy. The power that comes from all that boiling sperm. A girl has to have it from time to time, and there aren’t so many opportunities now that my partner’s in jail. You’ve restored balance and power, and I no longer feel I’m about to come down with the flu—and you were cute, too.”

That was it,
farang
. My one and only affair since I married Chanya, and the lady turned out to be a perfect yogin. I finished the joint about two hours ago, and I’ve been sitting among the billowing sheets of the deserted guesthouse all that time in a pleasantly ironic reverie. When I come out of it I realize what should have been obvious. There is no management, and the guesthouse is not open for business. The cleaning ladies are gone, and when I find a cop at the corner of the street he tells me the
Nixon was busted last week for drug trafficking and won’t be open again until the owners have paid off the cops. He gives the impression that this is a routine event. There is also the suggestion that large-scale drug-running operations need government approval if they are to survive up here for any length of time.

I’m supposed to check out the other hotel at the top of Thamel, where the English girl Mary Smith claims she first made contact with the Thai network run by none other than our very own Colonel Vikorn.

But I can’t summon any enthusiasm for another trek around Thamel and decide not to follow up on the other guesthouse that Mary Smith mentioned. I have come to the realization that most of my psychic energy today will be spent resisting the temptation to call Tara on her cell phone, or—worse—go visit her on set at Bakhtapur. Now, wouldn’t that be the last word in
adolescent needy?
What’s really annoying is the tone of genuine compassion when she said,
Sexual slavery is the last thing I need—in
a
motherly
tone. It was as if she’d dressed me badly for school and now I was going to be uncomfortable all day. I’m caught between indignant rage and erotic fascination. I have never known a woman like her. Of course, I want to see her again. Best would be for
her
to be in the needy mode, but that is too much to hope for in this Himalayan town where the attention is directed skyward. The easiest thing of all would be to go see Tietsin for some kind of confrontation: we really can’t have him going around busting our mules to General Zinna. But when I make another visit to Bodnath, and look around the teahouse where he holds his seminars, there is no sign of him. It’s starting to look as if I have a day to myself and, strange to relate, my superstitious Asian genes will not let me leave without another three and a half turns of the brass.

So I’m halfway through the first round, spinning the wheels like there
is no tomorrow—there never is—following behind a couple of nattering Tibetan nuns who are creeping steadily up on some inexpert Scandinavian backpackers who keep stopping to make sure they didn’t miss a wheel, when my legs start to feel heavy. It is an extraordinary moment; the strength suddenly leaves my body, and I feel about a hundred years old. Most scary is the way my mental environment starts to change. The white stupa is getting blacker, people disappear. In a moment of extreme physical weakness I lean against the stupa, and my cell phone rings. I had forgotten to turn it off.

“Get the hell out of there, right now.”

“What?”

“You’re way too weak for this. The stupa is draining you. If you don’t believe me, take one good look at it.”

I do so and have the impression, suddenly, of being able to look into its interior—the small dingy river, the ghouls taking charge of souls, the pyramid of enlightenment with those of blackest karma at the bottom and the translucent at the top—and I realize how profoundly I am being sucked in.

“There’s no point going to the Far Shore if you’re never going to come back—what’s the use of that? Come away from the stupa.”

I have to physically push myself away from the wall of the stupa, and I stagger somewhat until I’m a good ten feet away, when my strength starts to return. I’m still holding the phone to my ear. “Where are you?”

“Look up; I’m standing on top of the stupa.”

I look up. There is no one on top of the stupa; its slope toward the top is too steep, and there is no place to stand. It would be quite outlandish to see anyone up there. “No you’re not, you’re just doing my head in.”

He adds a note of extreme exasperation when he says, “You’re about to be sucked into death without a protest, but you can’t see beyond the conventional. Look again.”

I make a face at the phone, look up again. Now I see there are white stairs which lead up the breast-shaped mound. And there he is, right on the top, waving his stump just for me. Then, also just for me, he turns, lowers his pants, and moons me. To my own astonishment I find this hilarious and burst out laughing. My laughter is quickly followed by tears.

“You’re hysterical,” Tietsin says, “which is the worst state of mind. Better to be depressed, or even grimly suicidal. I can work with those states. Hysterical is no good. Calm down. Go and have a beer.”

“Will you tell me where you are?” I’m suddenly irritated. He is not really on top of the stupa; I just sneaked another look, and there was nobody there. It’s some kind of telepathy he’s using.

“Never mind where I am—you’d be too shocked to know. Suppose I tell you I’m in bed with Tara—how about that?”

I gasp as if I’ve been kicked in the gut. “So she does work for you?”

A tut-tut. “She does no such thing. I’ve never heard of her before. She called me because she is a responsible yogin who got worried about you after you told her you were one of mine. She’s afraid you’re way too open at the moment and that little bout with her last night could kill you. You’re already badly weakened. You need to know, female yogins have something extra we don’t have, and they’re not responsible for the effects they have on us. You just don’t understand the forces you’re working with. You don’t have the protection of ordinary people—you lost that when we initiated you—and you’re not strong enough to live the dharma all on your own.”

“I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“Now you’re lying. You don’t want to understand because the implications are too great for your fragile worldview. You thought you would take a little sex vacation yesterday, crawl into the first womb that came your way, get all gooey and lovey, just like a wandering ghost in search of a body,
any
body, to escape the spiritual anguish—and start the whole psychotic process of birth and death all over again. Stop kidding yourself. You’ve left a big piece of yourself between her legs. If she wanted, she could crush you like a bug. Instead she comes to me, worried about you. If I were you, I would make amends to her.”

“But I didn’t do anything. She used me.”

“Up to you. Etiquette can be important, though. The guardians like good manners. And what the hell are you doing in Kathmandu anyway? Do you realize how unprofessional this is, for you and me to be in the same town when the deal is being processed?
We’re delivering next week.”

“Well, maybe your behavior is less than professional, too,” I mutter. “The main reason I’m here is I want to know who your informants are, the ones who tell you who is carrying for who in Thailand. Zinna and Vikorn are quite upset.”