Above Rumjack, the nala narrows, then climbs in yet another vertical move. Boulders and scree litter the ground. After a weary hour picking our way through the rocks, we came upon some rock shelters locals use in times of emergencies. "Shelters" is a rather grand term, for these were nothing more than walls of rocks piled upon one another, anchored to some large overhanging boulder. I selected a ring that, with some minor reconstruction, had just enough space for my tent.
After arranging my gear, I went over to see how the boys were doing. They had built a crude kitchen tent by draping the ponies’ saddle blankets between two boulders. This offered some shelter from the wind, but in case of rain or snow there would be little protection. It was getting damn cold, and they bundled up in their warmest gear, homespun sweaters, socks, and hats. Vying for the faint warmth of the kero stove, they eagerly volunteered for the various small tasks required to prepare the meal.
Guilt, that oh, so Amrikan disease, came calling. While their spare bodies were exposed to the elements, there I was, sleek and secure in my down-filled Gore-Tex. I felt pampered, apart. There was a part of me that longed to shed my western luxuries, to really join these people, not only in fantasy, but also in the reality of life and the physical discomforts that entailed. Yet there was another part, whispering in my ear, telling me that I deserved my comforts. Somehow I was superior to these natives, these callow youths. Yes, I had earned my luxuries. Again, so Amrikan!
Although I was aware of the hardships, the boys, even Gul, seemed oblivious. They had felt this cold all their lives and, while it was no less cold for them than it was for me, it was expected. When they spoke, steam would accompany their words.
There was a new smell in the air, counter-pointing the more usual odors of the campsite: pony sweat, kero, tobacco, charas, and curry. Did the boys notice? Being no neophyte to these parts, I knew. It was the scent of impending snow.
While it didn’t snow that night, the threat was definitely in the air. I awoke to the news that the ponies had run off during the night. This would delay our departure for several hours until, finally, Ravi located them far down the nala. This wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Those poor boys! How they had to run up and down like sheep dogs, covering many times the ground. It was all I could do to keep going in one direction. The ponies weren’t fools. They had smelled snow. They were keen about such things and tried to go down. They were clearly unhappy as they were led back into camp, for the signs of snow were even greater.
As the day advanced, the clouds bowed to the power of the sun. Color infused both land and sky. After about two hours of trudging up through a monotony of boulders and scree, we came upon a large open bowl-shaped valley. Here many streams join the main river, a catchment for the glaciers and snowfields of surrounding peaks. Below, the magnitude of the mountains was felt but unseen. Now, as the valley opened, I could take in the magnificence of the Himalaya, the "abode of snow." My map showed that none of these peaks rise much above twenty thousand, a height that by Himalayan standards makes them minor league, not even deserving of names. Yet they were still magnificent with hanging glaciers, cornices, and crags. Any one would be a serious challenge to a climber.
We were now at the foot of the pass, in an area know to ferenghi as "High Camp," because it is the last practical halt until the other side. I could feel the altitude. We must have been over fourteen thousand; every breath was labored. I also noticed my hands and feet were beginning to swell. We paused at the head of the valley where the stream rose sharply, making one last giant step to the pass. Tourists of some unknown nationality already occupied the best site. Grimly I thought that they were possibly American, as they were using North Face domes. My suspicions were further supported as they were shooting the surrounding panorama with a large pro-looking video camera—and they weren’t Japanese. Once, I would have been doing the same thing, and I would have felt their equal—more accurately their rival. Now, I had only contempt for what I saw, fools enslaved by their technology. Yet how could I square my own addiction? Wasn’t I just a more impoverished version?
I knew I was a hypocrite. I envied their youth, enthusiasm, and yes, even their beautiful equipment. I wondered if they were even there at all or just part of my own Maya, an illusory reminder of how I had once been. There had been a time when money was no object, a time when only the best would do. I didn’t want to dwell on that past, instead thinking only of the dreadful consequences of their work—work to which I had eagerly applied myself a generation earlier.
"Just what this place needs is a video," I mumbled to, or more accurately through, Gul, "promoting its splendors, bringing more assholes, fucking it up more and more."
"As you say Dad."
I suppose I was justified. The changes I had observed overwhelmed me. The noticeable decline in Delhi, the increased deforestation, and subsequent erosion in the foothills, not to mention the size and number of tourist groups and the scars they left on the land. In the past, I had always remarked on the absence of litter. Oh, there were tourists, maybe even more careless than the tourists today. But they were limited in number, and the litter they did leave was immediately picked up by the locals; bottles, plastic bags, just scraps of paper were rare and of considerable utility. Now, the litter had outgrown the locals’ needs. I repeatedly saw reminders of the legions that passed along the trail: tin cans, candy wrappers, plastic bottles, film cartons, Kleenex, tampons, toilet tissue, and perhaps the most demonical of all, the plasticized cardboard containers of Frutti, a new soft drink—"certified 10% real fruit"—being sold to the tourist.
I viewed these "media-freaks," these reincarnations of an earlier self, with decidedly mixed emotions, which only reinforced their haunting quality. I was tempted to go down and talk to them—to see if they really existed. Just as I was about to do so, Gul approached about setting up camp. It was still early, barely noon. I knew if we pushed, we could be over the pass by nightfall. I was even toying with the idea of spending the night on the top. In the past, I had made some great photographs, spending the night in places normally avoided, passes and mountain tops—capturing the edge between darkness and light was one of my passions. At least these were great photographs in my head, for as in the case of the clouds of Manali, the incredible subtleties of shade and hue were beyond the film’s ability to capture. I discussed this idea with Gul, assuring him that he and the boys could go down and wait at a more hospitable place, but Gul was uneasy.
"Better make camp here Dad, the pony men not go tonight."
"I don’t know about that, my son. It looks like snow will come tonight. I feel it."
Pal jumped in to the conversation. "No Dadeeji, no barf. It late now, ponies need rest, grass other side very far. Ravi’s horse need new shoe. He need make before cross."
I bet them it would snow, but they were insistent about halting. I resigned myself to spend the night where we were. I had to admit it could have been worse. We were at the head of the valley rimmed by spectacular snow peaks, with an unobstructed three-sixty view of mountains. Before, I felt as if I stood before the mountains. Now, for the first time on this journey, I was in them. I could picture our tiny forms, perched on the southern flank of the Great Himalaya Range about to cross into inner Asia.
As the boys set up camp, I indulged in a joint. The beauty of the place was too much. The internalized artist soon felt the urge to respond. This I did in the only way I knew, pulling out a camera. Only a short time earlier I scoffed at the "neighbors" for similar urges. Now I realized we were both responding to the same inescapable call.
The sun was still shining, making the peaks dazzle against the thunder gray of building monsoon clouds. This was one of the rare instances when I used a telephoto. Normally I wanted to get in close and capture as much context as possible; approximate the human view; fill the frame with a multiplicity of images; provide viewers with a wide range of information, not dictating what they should take from the picture. Here the peaks were so intricate, so overwhelming in form. I wanted to take them apart, abstracting them into light and shade.
Directly to the south, one steep granite ridge bore a dazzling blue-white mantle of encrusted snow. The wind had cut a sharp, knife-edged contour curving in a great "S" where it clung to the spine of black rock. It brought back memories of photographs made in the Sahara, of dunes with razor edges and sensuous, wind-scoured curves. In these mountains, the snow was very much like that desert sand, dry, hard, and granular. Unlike the desert, spectacularly uplifted rock underlaid the snow, causing even greater instability. As I photographed, several small, yet impressive avalanches sent their booming reports echoing across the valley.
Ravi began the work of shoeing his remaining pony. Ah, a photo-op, I thought. This would provide a point of interest, some human scale to the landscapes—the all important people pictures. I had yet to relax to the point where I was comfortable sticking my lens in strange faces. That would come later. This was, however, one of my boys. It was a start, and there was no worry about raising his ire. That point had already been tested earlier, over a much larger issue, and wouldn’t reappear over such a small thing as image taking. To the contrary, my attention seemed to calm his earlier anger, for he assumed artful poses, holding them until he heard the "thuuck" of the shutter. It was a safe shoot and how dramatic, the native at his labor against this incredible backdrop.
I happily set to work, forgetting the sense of economy that had previously ruled. I knew, at most, only one picture would be outstanding, but the best way to grasp that one image was by making many. "Don’t edit with your camera," ran like a mantra through my subconscious. I was lost to the moment, "thuuck, thuuck, thuuck, thuuck." Then out of nowhere I heard another sound, similar "thuucks" but more rapid, each beat followed by the distinctive whir of a motorized film advance. I knew the sound of a Nikon motor drive well. In my flusher days, when the cost of film and equipment was no object, that sound would have come from my camera. I turned to see one of the neighboring "media tribe" moving in on my prey.
That was a bit much! You should have seen this dude, right out of a North Face catalog…a mannequin in the adventure sport boutique…the latest multi-colored gear, bright primary red, blue, green, yellow…a goddamned beret, with cameras so new they looked as if they had just come from the factory. He even had this padded case from which he kept schlepping lenses, filters, and God knows what else in and out of. Had to be New York or LA Just went into the store and told them "give me everything for an EXPEDITION to the HIMALAYAS." Man, they loaded him!
Later, I realized I had been time traveling, that at some past time this mannequin had been me. I was now only a saltier, well-worn version. My clothes and equipment similar but scarred by a generation of use.
Damn, my cameras, even my sleeping bag, were probably older than this dude. When it dawned on me, I really got a shock. But that came later. For the moment, I was just pissed this cherry had invaded my space. With all that was going on in this huge place, he had to bogart my photo-op. Was this what it was like for my ancestors? You know the old saw about seeing the smoke from a neighbor’s fire, knowing it was time to move on. There was something so wonderful about being alone with the wilderness….
I was getting hostile, but I was stoned, so that ruled out overt action. I mean, when you are stoned, it is hard to go over and kick the shit out of someone…even if it is just with words. Finally, I resorted to taking his picture, in the same way he was snapping my boys. He got the message, and without a word went off to his grand digs below.
To chill myself out, I went back to the peaks again. I had enough photographs, so I just gazed through the viewfinder, filling my mind with the wonder.
In a short time all thoughts of the neighbors vanished. God, how great to be alive! This was followed by the realization: how long it had been since I had felt this way? Yes, it was for such feeling that I had come here. Why I had saved and struggled through the bullshit in Japan, Delhi, all the way—one of those moments I will always remember. In the world below, I avoid emotions, viewing them as weakness. Only in these heights, can I let go…feel. This surrender isn’t to another, a human, who might manipulate me for selfish ends, but to an infinitely larger force, one with no interest in me, no purpose to exploit, yet who will still hold me. I felt gripped by ecstasy, libido and spirit becoming one. It was, after all, the first embrace after such a long parting—the embrace of Himalaya to her devotee. In this wild place I found the security of a lover’s arms. I was where I belonged and, for a brief moment, heard the silence of the journey’s end.
Of course, it wasn’t the end, and the silence was momentary. The sparkle suddenly fled the mountainside. A solid gray wall advanced from the south, overwhelming the patches of blue that, only minutes before, had given life to the sky, transmitting the sun’s warmth to the land. Sometime later, just as we finished making camp, the snow began to fall, the first flakes big and wet.
"Motherfucking BARF!" I said, glaring at Pal, "now we may be stuck here for God knows…."
Before long the flakes began to gain ground, the white mantle descending into the lowest visible reaches of the valley. A few local travelers passed by on their way down from the top. They were protected from the cold by outer clothes made from the local puttee, the homespun wool tweed in a bone-white, natural wool color. The wet snow clung to every surface, turning travelers into ghosts.
A lone rider on a white horse descended from the pass. He moved in and out of the drifting mist, the falling snow muffling all sound. I found myself wondering, was this really a man, or Mara in one of the infinite guises paying call? But the rider proved no phantom, for as he passed below the tent, he responded to the calls of Yosh and Pal. They went down and huddled with him for a time. His news wasn’t good. The pass, already deep in snow, was getting worse. All sign of the trail was gone. In many places everything was white—sky, ground. There was no horizon, no direction.
It was rapidly becoming the same way in the valley. The peaks disappeared from sight. I could see at most maybe twenty yards or so. The pony-walas looked worried. Just at this time a long pony train went by, making for the pass. From the brightly colored duffels it was clear it belonged to tourist. Again the boys ran to get some news, and this time I joined them. These folks had started late. They were a large party on a tight schedule, a schedule that didn’t include provision for a blizzard. Their program called for a crossing that day and that was what they would do. The tourists themselves were somewhere behind. They had been unable to keep up with the ponies, but the Indian guide, a tourist-wala from Delhi, thought that, if he sent the gear ahead, his unfortunate flock would have little choice but to follow.
Sure enough, about a half-hour later a rather bedraggled group, the Italians from below, emerged out of the mist. Looking as if on a death march, they continued upward. Several of the women were particularly unhappy. An older man plunked down on a rock, not ten yards from my tent, and sobbed into his mittens. Their leader, although elderly, was stamped by his burly physique and buoyant personality as a man at home in the mountains. He had already gone about a quarter-mile up trail but, alerted to the breakdown of one of his flock, returned to where the man was sobbing. The leader wasn’t pleased. He signaled his fury with wild gestures, made all the more intimidating by the sharp-pointed ski poles in his grasp. This was all he needed on top of the storm and general disaffection among his group. In a staccato of Italian he berated his weaker countryman. The latter was so shamed that his sobbing abruptly ceased. Surely with visions of Death awaiting him, he began his struggle upward. Looking this group over, I realized that most of them had no business there. They were fresh from the vias and palatazos of Rome, Milan, and Genoa. It would have been dicey enough just taking them on a bus trip between Srinagar and Leh.
Ever since the troubles in Kashmir, tour operators resorted to bringing the tenderfoots here. In Kashmir they would have sat in their houseboats, dickering with the hawkers, or taking shikara rides. Maybe, if they were really adventurous, they would have been sold a short pony trek in the high pastures around Kolahoi or Harmouk—a "turkey trot." But on the Kulu side, there wasn’t much for it except to sit in the hotel or trek, and the European tourist wanted more than another Alps; that they had in their backyards. They wanted the exotica of a Tibetan Buddhist culture. To get that they had elected to cross the Shingo-la.
How simple it would sound in the itinerary:
Day four: Climb briskly for several hours to the top of Shingo-la (17,000 + feet), a beautiful snow-capped pass. Take lunch amid splendid views of both Zanskar and Lahaul. Descend to first camp in Zanskar.
Somehow I doubted the Italians would be "taking lunch" on the top that day.
Shortly after their departure, another visitor appeared. This time it was someone with whom I could identify. A solitary backpacker approached out of the thick fog. Walking with the slow but steady steps of one used to these altitudes, he approached the cook "tent" where Gul huddled. For some strange reason I felt compelled to call out to this man, to offer him chai. I say strange because for the past week I had done my best to avoid all contact with fellow ferenghi-log. Back on the Rohtang, hadn’t I dispatched a similar traveler with a wave of my hand and a nod to Gul? Yet here on the trail it was somehow different. I admired this solitary wander, attempting the pass solo despite the growing storm. Was it that I wished the huevos to do the same, with just a pack on my back, no one to answer to, no one to manage, no one to cajole?
Chai was offered and accepted. We chatted briefly. I found out he was German, a schoolteacher in his mid-thirties. He had made the same journey a decade before. He was also dismayed at the proliferation and impact of tourists. Particularly irksome to him was the loss of camaraderie among travelers. This comment triggered the realization, followed by a flood of guilt, that he was the very same backpacking traveler dismissed on the Rohtang. He began to illustrate his point and, to my immense relief, didn’t recall (or at least pretended not to) our earlier meeting. Instead he related how a few miles below, he had stopped and asked one of the groups for some hot water. The sirdar treated him like a beggar, driving him off with a curse. I expressed sympathy, while at the same time reflecting on my own meanness on the Rohtang.
In past days of youth and innocence, I had always enjoyed meeting fellow travelers, exchanging tales, getting tips on new places to explore, flirting with women, getting high and exhibiting my philosophical prowess with the men. Now things had changed. On one hand, there were changes in the perceiver; I was older, perhaps embittered by life’s failures, seeking escape from myself. Seeing fellow foreigners only brought me back to what I had become, keeping me from what I wanted to be. Yet on the other hand, there were definite changes in the perceived as well. Most were no longer seekers, ready for whatever the road had to offer, not looking back or thinking of return. Now they seemed just looking for a little organized diversion, something to enliven their conversations and reputations when they did return to their "real" worlds. For those of my ilk, travel was the real life, a taste of the infinite and a break with that finite existence of job, family, school back in the States or some European city. In some ways we believed along with many Native Americans that the dream is reality
The thing was to stay in the infinite, in the dream, as long as possible. The lucky few never came back, floating in a constantly redefining space. They were able to last until the end of the journey, struggling not for control, but allowing the kaleidoscope of experience to wash over them, overwhelm them. Most, becoming exhausted from labors of an inherently eternal quest, would either return to a known existence, or construct a new one. Either way, it ended in the same cul de sac, a refuge of Maya from the terror of the unknown and seeming chaos of the infinite, that "black box" which Hindu philosophers call Satcitananda—being, truth, freedom.
Again there was a breakdown between the in and the out, between self and other. Was the German real, or a projection of me? In that fog-shrouded valley it was hard to tell reality from fantasy. The falling snow muffled all external sound, even that of the stream passing not more than a hundred yards below. The only sounds were those bio-mechanical thumps, wheezes, and gurgles emanating from my body. How could I know if this specter had any substance, even if I touched it. The German would have no impact on the course of my life and, other than a cup of hot chai, neither would I affect his. In a few minutes, he would continue on his way, ascending into the thickening gloom to find his fate. Would he make it across? Or growing tired would he stop to rest, leaving his frozen remains for some later traveler to find, possibly even me?
For an instant this spectral event gripped me. I saw myself coming over a rise and, there in the whiteness, seeing the anomaly of the German’s dark shape lying half-buried in the snow. I approached the body, the snow dry and dazzling, drifting like sand across the stiffened remains. I knew on first sight who it was, but something compelled me to turn the corpse over, to look at its face. Strange how there was such peace, such an absence of fear? No, I thought. The German courted Mara, just as I court her. This was our common bond; perhaps, the common thread between all who were compelled to return to the Himalaya—just like all "re-uppers" in Nam. Why else return to a land where death lay at each turn, under each step? Once you detached, which was the only way you could make it, how could you go back? What was back?
Was it the same for all who "survived?" I knew that Paul had traveled these mountains with such compulsion. He also courted Mara. Oh, he might not have thought of her as Mara, not even as her, not even as a thing. It is the nature of a shape-changer both to project and reflect. Maybe it was only as an end to something he had ceased to want to be. Once you get out on that ledge, apart enough, high enough, so that you can see both past and future, then there is no way back. Like Paul, for me Nam was only the beginning of an obsession, destined to be carried on over many years and in far-flung places. Outwardly we had survived Nam. Inside, we were as much in the thrall of Death as those whose bits and pieces came back in neoprene. Was it this way for all who glimpsed Death? For certain, Death was the real, everything else just an illusory preamble.
In my fantasy the German had come to journey’s end on his own terms; he had made his union with Mara. I envied him, but it was an envy tempered by knowledge that Mara, unlike a mortal lover…one who could be possessed…is a cosmic slut, a whore…and here I mean no disrespect to her…God knows, I like a good whore now and then. A whore because she has room for all comers and the charm to please them, each and everyone. There are no favorites, all the same in her eyes. Eventually it would be my turn, no doubt about it. But it is important to meet Mara free from Maya. If Maya remains then your business is unfinished, yet another cycle to strive for liberation.
The German, like the ghostly rider before him, was quite real. Soon the chai renewed his spirit, and he was eager to depart. I watched as he struggled through the deepening snow to the slush of the trail. Quickly the white-gray wall of snow and fog swallowed him. There was only silence…
…and the overwhelming emptiness. The chill ran deep as thick, wet snow breached the aging defenses of my Gore-Tex parka. Underneath, the down sweater was soaked, allowing the moisture to seep through the final layer of polypropylene. My gloves also became wet, then grew stiff, encased in a thin film of ice. This was dangerous. The parka was old, almost fifteen years. I had counted on being able to get one last trip out of it.
Back in Kobe, I hadn’t really thought too much about the extremes of the mountain climate. How could I? Oh, I had spent a much time in the mountains, and I knew snow in August was a distinct possibility at high altitude. But, it had been almost a dozen years. How easy to think that somehow I would escape, that the weather wouldn’t be so bad, that I could save my precious yen by getting one more trip out of the aging parka. Now reality arrived; the parka wasn’t doing its job. In this valley, wetness, coupled with cold, meant hypothermia and when prolonged, hypothermia meant death.
I retreated to the tent. Its confining walls provided focus, the material reality jarring me out of dream. Inside it was still very cold. I watched the moisture rise from my body, crystallizing on the ceiling in a thin sheet of ice. A better design would have vented the moisture, but then this tent wasn’t made for mountaineering. Carefully, with the movements of a contortionist, I removed my drenched outer clothing. The gloves were particularly difficult, for my hands had continued to swell. Edema, I recognized the first signs. In the hands and feet it was benign, nothing to worry about, inconvenient, but not life threatening—just as long as it stayed in my extremities and not in the lungs or brain. I began to have a terrible feeling that it all was beginning to unravel. I shook uncontrollably, chilled to my core.
The only thought on my mind was to get warm. Stripping naked, I bundled my wet gear into the far corner of the tent and crawled into the sleeping bag. The chill eased from my body as I snuggled into the soft down. "Better than a woman," I tried to con myself. How I love this old bag. It has been almost everywhere with me, a cocoon of security, an old friend—just as long as it stays dry.
The flood of warmth lulled me. I began to relax. I realized I needed to dial out for a time. Later, I would worry about the cold, the parka, and all those reality things. I wanted to retreat to that world inside. I missed Mei. She had always bailed me out in the past when I went too far. Unlike Tara, who split when I needed her, Mei stood firm time and time again. There had been so many times, times of cold just like this.
^ ^ ^
We were taking that "French leave"—as an American embassy official had chronicled our flight. A big INTERPOL/DEA sweep nailed my operation along with a bunch of other "hippie" small fry in Kabul. Mei flew in the aftermath, innocent of all that had gone down, expecting to launch her film career. Imagine NYC to Kabul direct! I can still see that high fashion model, long legs tightly swathed in her Peter Max jeans and knee-high Maud Frizon boots, voguing down the steps of the Arianna 727, the mouths of the Afghans dropping. What a reality shift! But in those days she was a trooper. It had been rough, in the middle of a particularly terrible Kabul winter. But then the climate wasn’t the major problem.
When Mei arrived, I was already in the deepest of the deep, and as this wasn’t Peru I don’t mean snow. A month before, there had been big INTERPOL/DEA sweep—some sort of token attempt to stop the hash at its source. That was after they discovered a load in the King’s plane on a trip to London. Of course he didn’t take the rap. Token or not, they busted one of my runners at the airport. Then the shit hit. The runner was a young American desperado, a Vietnam vet who had drifted into my orbit out of nowhere—he took the place of Morgan. The fool was high and the custom-walas noticed his erratic behavior. When they asked for his papers, he pulled out his wallet and—you won’t believe this—there, right next to his passport was a pungent leaf of the best hand-pressed Mazari. What can I say? My stash, the load he was carrying, was secreted away in the broken camera equipment that he was ostensibly returning to the States for repair. For a time, although the police held the equipment, the stash went undetected.
The whole scene was so weak. Even the DEA couldn’t believe the runner was a serious smuggler. Nevertheless, in the first rush of the bust he got scared and began talking. He tried to be clever; just give them enough to save his ass, but not cause any serious trouble. Despite his efforts, my name came up because he had been living in my house.
A month or so earlier, I had earned the U.S. Embassy’s ire when a young American overlander—unfortunately with an influential father, a judge or something like that back in the Heartland—had the temerity to croak in the Mind’s digs. I had been away at the time, but the Consul held me responsible. As my punishment, he told me to write a letter to the dude’s parents, explaining the death. I refused, and to make matters worse, quite arrogantly, which was very much in character for me at the time. Of course, this was most foolish for someone in my line.
I told him, in barely veiled terms, to fuck off. "Look man, I can’t be responsible for every junkie who wanders into my pad. I wasn’t there, man! What in the hell am I supposed to say! Why don’t you guys write letters to all the parents of the Nam babies you burn?"
That was the sort of self-righteous thing I would say in those days. After that, I was on the Embassy’s shit list. It was only a matter of time.
The time had come. Armed with the runner’s "confession," they decided to see if there was anything to it. The squeeze was on. For a while this meant taking up residence in the local cooler. I am talking about a dungeon, right out of the Count of Monte Cristo: dark and dank, inescapable cold. For a toilet there was only a bucket emptied on not too regular intervals. To eat and drink there was only stale nan and foul water. And for company there were man-eating—or at least nibbling—rats…and don’t forget the lice. Then, perhaps for recreation, there were the interrogations. Oh, they weren’t too extreme since the Embassy called the shots. But they did try to put the fear of Allah in me. There was no pretense at rehabilitation in the Afghan penal philosophy, only shakedown. After all, the more unpleasant the conditions, the sooner the baksheesh will be paid. Well, that was the way I looked at it. In reality, the conditions were probably not much better for the average Afghan on the street, except they could split if they wanted.
Mei found a lawyer, which in Kabul meant someone with the right connections and savvy to pay the baksheesh effectively. But I was too sick from my two weeks in the hellhole to continue the fight. I would have done anything to keep from going back
A week after I got bailed out, some bright dude decided to check the equipment confiscated from the runner. They found the stash, about ten kilos. That was when I got the warning, just like a western movie, the Sheriff telling me to get out of town.
For some reason, maybe to get rid of me, the local DEA operative, a real cartoon character named Stony Brook. He acted just like an character from Central Casting, rain coat, black gloves, and of course a perpetual expression on his face to match his name. Stony tipped me that the Afghans were coming.
"You’re in for it now my man," Brook said with that predatory glint in his eye. "Ya tried to fool em. Now its no longer about baksheesh, but that nang thing they’re always goin’ on about, ya know, honor?"
This last bit was said as if he thought honor might be an equally foreign word to me. He continued:
"This time, when they get their hands on you, it’s all about their bloody badal, ya know, revenge for trying to make fuckin’ fools of em. You my man are a big hassle. Uncle wants ya outta here, one way or another, if ya gets my drift."
I got it loud and clear. With little other recourse, Mei and I put our lives into the hands of a band of Pathan smugglers, relatives of my own supplier, a man named Akbar. He was from one of the most prominent families in Kandahar, who by definition had no love for the central government or any Kabuli.
They were Waziris, one of the most notorious of the many Pathan tribes. I had read enough to know that once Akbar granted the sanctuary of nanawati, we had nothing to fear. If they betrayed us for the price on my head, they would tarnish Akbar’s nang, causing him the most dreaded peghor or dishonor. If that happened, there was nothing for it accept tarboorwali, a permanent state of war that would exist between families until appropriate badal was extracted. With folks who claim that the value of a life, or at least an enemy’s life—and remember that the term for "enemy" is the same as "cousin"—is the cost of a bullet, badal is found only in the death of the offender or his kin. Of course, the avenging murder would require a further round of badal. This makes folks think real hard before breaking the Pushtunwali, the code by which all Pathans should live. They know not only they will pay, but also their family will pay, possibly for many generations.
In the middle of the darkest of nights, we made a move for the border. Waiting for a change in transport, we found ourselves in a ramshackled godown, a large tin roofed, adobe walled structure, where tons of melons destined for Pakistan were stored. They chuckled over the ingenuity of their plan. They put me, covered by a chador and sandwiched between the largest, most cutthroat fellows they could find, into a truck for a dash across the border wastes. What Paki customs-wala would have the courage to stop a tribal truck in tribal land? Even if by mishap some crazy had just been transferred and didn’t know the ropes, even a madman would balk at uncovering a supposed female family member of those giants. My huge accumulation of luggage, mostly film gear, was placed under the seats of an empty bus that would latter cross at the official checkpoint with Mei.
"Yes, Sar, police look in trucks for luggage, buses for people," Akbar reported with a knowing air.
Unwanted by the authorities, Mei would have no problem. Just another hippie tourist traveling to Quetta. It had gone down as planned, except for the several hours that Mei was forced to spend with a desperately lonely Paki customs officer. He had been sent to that desolate outpost as punishment for some small slight to a superior. He kept pressing Mei with cups of chai until she thought she would drown.
Even now as I lie here writing these words, I can still see that circle of those fierce men, drawn even fiercer by the chiaroscuro of smoke and fire; faces deeply etched by their rigorous lives, wildly bearded and dressed in robes of earthen hues. Their only constraint from robbery, gang rape, and murder of the ferenghi-log was that ancient, unwritten, tribal code of honor, that Pushtunwali. Certainly, I was in no condition to offer resistance. Weakened by the ordeal of the past month in Kabul, I collapsed, chills consuming my body.
Now in the shadow of the Shingo-la twenty years later, the same sense of unbearable cold brought all this back. It had been a long time since I thought of those times—thought on so many of the things that made Mei so much part of me—of who I was. Maybe if I had thought more often, I could have avoided Tara? Maybe, maybe…? Mei had been so magnificent then. Without fear, she had organized the men to build another fire, just for me, make chai, and then giving me our one remaining sleeping bag, the very one I now embrace. Suppressing her fear, she flirted with the customs-wala, not too much, just enough to get our saman through. Thinking back, I can’t imagine from where she had drawn such courage or, for that matter, where it had gone.
How nice it would be to have that old Mei at my side. I had made many mistakes in my life, but mostly they were ones I could live with, learning mistakes. This one with Mei, when in my mind I had tried to cut all ties, was one that had no upside. Sure, I needed my freedom—in the contemporary parlance "space." Sure, I needed to reassure myself that I wasn’t over the hill, but there must have been another way. When I stumbled into Tara, I tried to recapture the past. It was futile from the start. Tara wasn’t Mei, and I wasn’t what I had once been. I thought I had lost Mei when I went away to prison, not fully grasping that, in many ways, I had lost myself as well. She went on with her life, changing, transforming, and aging as was natural. But I thought I had been put on hold. Old cons said that prison time didn’t count. But then, what did they know? When I came out, I expected our relationship to be the same, Mei to be the same. But we had gotten out of sync. There was no way to go back to what had been. Perhaps what was worse, we couldn’t agree on a future to go to.
^ ^ ^
"Dad! Dad, you there!" Gul’s persistent voice clawed annoyingly at the sides of the tent.
"What is it my…son?"
The sound of the tent’s zipper ripped the silence; the chill air washed across my face bringing me back. What Gul now unloaded drove the chill even deeper, "Dad, Zanskaris go. Say ponies run away. Say if stay, die. Say ponies know best, big storm come, too much barf. We die if stay here. Ravi go too. He must find his pony. It too cold Dad, no kitchen tent, no warm bag, no warm clothes. What we do Dad? We need go down now!"
My first reaction was that ultimate disaster had struck. A wave of panic swept over me. Then, rather strangely, the panic subsided, replaced by such equanimity that even I was amazed. After all, I was warm and dry. I had plenty of food and, what seemed more important at the time, a big chunk of charas to keep the mental picture show rolling. It could snow for a week, and I would be all right—maybe? So what if the snow was building up on the slope above me? So what if our camp lay in its path? What better place to meet this Mara who increasingly occupied my mind.
All of this was fine for me, but I had a duty to Gul. As much as I had grown to dislike him, I didn’t want his death added to my already overloaded karma. From the warmth of my bag, I saw Gul crouched in the tent’s doorway. Poor Gul had only a sweater, a light parka, cotton pants, and those ancient high-tops, all of which were now soaked through and covered by clinging slush of melting snow. Gul, though trembling with cold, struggled to maintain his composure. Despite the years in Delhi, he was still a man of the Pir Panjal. He had shivered from the cold and wet many times before. Winters meant such discomfort, such danger, almost as long as he could remember. Yet underneath his bravado, I sensed that he was scared.
I was still too fresh from to long a stay in my own culture. With western values, I prized personal space and was very reluctant to share it. After all, the tent was intended for one and a small one at that. More than a lack of physical space, I had no psychological space to share.
How my mind has changed, if this is any measure. Now, even with Devara lodged in opposite corner, the space is more than ample. But at that moment I looked forward to facing the storm alone. There was no room in my heart to share it, especially with Gul.
"What to do? No tent for me, clothing very wet, no wood for fire, very, very cold. Soon dark come. What to do Sahib?"
The mockery in his voice was gone, a respectful "Sahib" suddenly replacing the irony-laden "Dad." Yes, he must be scared, I thought with pleasure.
"Sahib, please, we go down to warm, down to Barai. Much lower, no snow. We leave saman. It safe here, no one crazy to come here now. Get new ponies at village and when storm over we come again."
He had done it; he bested me. My defenses were breached and, despite my desire to be alone, pity engulfed me. I offered him a place in the tent.
The bastard refused. Talk about eating shit! He had no more desire to share the tent with me than I did with him. All this time I had felt guilty and for nothing. Instead of gratefully accepting my hospitality, he coldly argued someone had to go down to get new ponies. The discussion went on. I didn’t want to move. Gul was equally insistent about going down. Both of us had made up our minds, but were committed to the ritual of face-saving and responsibility shifting. If calamity befell the other, guilt would be expiated.
I wouldn’t have felt so kindly had known what lay behind Gul’s seemingly noble offer. While I had been drifting in and out of the past, the Italian party returned, its members making their way back down the mountain. Apparently, after getting close to the top, they had lost all direction. They decided to retrace their steps, not wishing to choose a path that might lead to a cul de sac, or worse, end in a crevice, a collapsing cornice, or an avalanche.
As cold as he was, the dominant thought in Gul’s mind was to catch up with those Italians, specifically two young women he had met all too briefly at the camp below—they would drive the chill from his flesh. He was still angry with me for not halting there, depriving him the opportunity to ply his charms.
Gul most likely thought I was one of those men who likes boys or, maybe, that I was just too ancient to get it up. He was sure the girls were up for it. Ever gracious, he was even willing to share.
"Y’Allah! All of these foreign women are the same…maybe because their men have no balls. That’s why they’re such shameless sluts, if ferenghi men are all like Dad. Slut or no, they have such pretty faces, and even bundled up, I know that under, their bodies will give much pleasure."
Yes, this would be his chance. Allah was truly kind. What better way to warm up than pressing the flesh between those two ample beauties. He was getting warmer just thinking about it and, to his great pride, he felt himself growing hard.
"Ha, these women will soon know what it is to be with a real man, a Kashmiri man. No matter how high, how cold, we Kashmiris stand ready to do our duty."
Gul left, leaving me alone in the shadow of the high pass. Was my premonition of death to be fulfilled? What had hovered so long in the distance was suddenly now so near. It was difficult to believe it was really happening. Would I wake from the dream, only to find myself back in the States lying next to Tara? Or was even that a dream and Tara turn into Mei? That had happened anyway, real or imagined. Tara was Mei, or at least the feelings I had for Mei. Dreams within dreams! Yes, the mind is part of the illusion—particularly in the Himalaya. Did I really have the power to dream life? Alone in this mist-shrouded world, with all points of reference lost, there was no line between real and imagined. For the moment mind was all.
As so often happens in such self-absorption, my mind’s eye soared from my body. I looked down upon myself, singularly colored and animate, in an otherwise monochrome and motionless world. I was filled with euphoria by the apparent romance of it all. My destiny was at hand. The great test from which I would emerge forever changed, regardless whether I lived or died.
I can only imagine what was going through Gul’s mind as he trudged through the deepening snow. Superseding even the problems of survival—finding ponies and getting back in time to save his meal ticket—his mind raced with more pleasurable thoughts of young Italian breast, Italian thighs, Italian pussy. Who was crazier? It was hard to say. Was it Gul, obsessed with what lay between his legs, with his desire for life? Or was it I, who would put all life aside to follow my abstract obsession with Mara?
Total solitude! No, solitude isn’t quite right. I didn’t feel alone, for I had the infinite reaches of the universe as my companion. Rather, I was free of the noise of my fellow beings, free of the reverberations of self-awareness that come from their presence. At last I could begin to hear the Anhad-Naad, the cosmic call. When Gul disappeared in the mist, he took with him the human mirror. It was now in the mountains, in the sky, that I would see myself, a self that had little in common with the Guy reflected in human eyes.
I had been aiming for this place for most of my life. Trying to become disconnected, trying to be free. Funny, I remember feeling the same way when busted. Lying in my slime-green cell, reminiscent of a public urinal, or, perhaps more accurately, an abattoir, I had reached a similar place. In that isolation, I believed my life was over. I had lost everything, every connection to the world outside; my reality limited to what was inside. It was a very small universe, but one entirely under my control. Oh, they controlled my body. No doubt about it! But to counter that, I detached my mind. A strange peace came over me; my struggle ceased.
It was something also experienced in Nam, if only in even more momentary flashes. Just for a few moments, when all hell broke loose and you knew your fate was no longer in your hands, when you could say, "What the fuck!" You could let go of life and all those things that made you want, like love for a woman, things that made you dependent on someone, something out there…everything that made you weak…made you chicken shit. For these brief moments, you could surrender to that unknowable, that thing that some call God…some call fate…and you as Guy, or whoever, would just dissolve. Of course, those moments were short lived and very soon, when the worst was passed, you realize, yes, I am going to make it. Then again the outside world would begin to fuck around. I had a glimpse, however, and in losing my freedom to act, in losing my very identity, I had glimpsed that infinite, usually obscured by Maya’s finite illusion—Devara’s Satcitananda. Ever since I have been searching. Sometimes I think I have found it, but it always seems to slip away.
I was tempted to sit down, there and then, and let the valley consume me, let the atoms of my body merge with those of the soil, the rock, the snow, the mist. I chuckled to myself at what Gul would think when he returned to find his employer frozen into inert statuary. Better yet, my mind expanding on the theme, would be the reaction of the tourists. It would give them something to talk about at home. They might even take a few snaps to liven up those slide shows: "…and here’s Hilda next to the frozen American we found on the Shingo-la." Too bad they would move my body, probably cart it all the way down to Delhi, then to the Embassy and all the red tape to ship it back to Mei. Poor Mei, she would be so pissed at this final imposition. It would be so much better if I could just stay in the valley.
The light grew dim. While the snow still fell in scattered fits, the clouds were beginning to break. Mist rose, revealing the bowl-shaped valley transformed by a fresh blanket of snow. Here and there a peak would break through, bathed in the alpenglow of a sun quickly sinking to the West. Again my inner peace proved as transitory as that sun. I felt empty and alone.
I was hungry, but there was no Gul to prepare dinner. I went over to the makeshift kitchen. The blanket covering had collapsed under the weight of the snow. Gul, at least, had covered up most of the burlap sacks with plastic sheeting, but it was nevertheless a mess. I found I was exhausted. I didn’t have the strength to put together a real meal. That was why I had brought Gul along. I knew this would happen—missing meals, growing a little weaker, missing more meals, growing even weaker.
Somehow, I got the stove going and filled the kettle with fresh snow. The hot, sweet milk chai tasted good, even if the lumps of powdered milk hadn’t all dissolved. The biscuits tasted even better, and there were plenty of those ever so sweet Amul chocolate bars. Not a good daily diet, but it would do until Gul returned, until life could get back to its normal rhythm. How peculiar, out for only a couple of days and already a semblance of routine had emerged. That was my nature. As strange as my life might seem within its bizarre frame, I too desperately needed some order. I made a mental note to show Gul more appreciation, for despite his annoying character, he did what he was hired to do.
My eyes swept the valley for signs of life; perhaps one of the pony-walas would return. Long gone was that feeling of euphoria that had overwhelmed me on Gul’s departure. How comforting it was to have another human near by. Even if we couldn’t talk, just the presence would be enough—enough to release that awful tension of feeling alone with…God? How strange it was; I struggled hard to come into that presence, yet in those rare times when the feeling came, it was too intense, too infinite. Anhad-Naad was truly the Sirens’ song. When distant it drew me on, yet when close, when it overwhelmed my senses, I knew to linger would invite madness. Ego, that finite being packaged as "Guy," struggled to return. By reasserting its individuality, its separation from the infinite, confirmed my pain.
I stood beside the frozen ruin of the kitchen tent. The snow had almost stopped. The valley freeing itself from the muffle of snow and fog returned to its own sounds. The wind’s sigh rose in pitch as it resumed its tedious work, prizing newly accumulated snow from the valley floor. The dull roar of the stream swelled as it emerged from the ice directly below the camp. Yet these were "white" noises, unmodulated, constant; after a few moments of adjustment they disappeared. It was so quiet, so white gray, that only the flap of my bright red tent opening assured me I hadn’t departed from the sensory world. Amidst the peaks to the east, stars began to appear, bright, clear. I felt as if I was out among them. Of course, I was and always had been, but so often the artifices of human endeavor obscured them, the finite masking the infinite. Oh, how I wished at that moment to permanently throw down that mask, the protective buffer that separated me from the truth. Even as I wished this, I knew the price of its removal. The mask was my existence: Homo sapien sapiens, male, Caucasian, American, Californian, desperado—Guy.
Despite my tendency to despair, there was enough self-love, perhaps nostalgia is a better word, to hold the package of Guy together. This made me reluctant to tear off the mask and face the infinite where individuality held little reality. It was one thing to drop the mask momentarily, like sometimes looking for just an instant into the full brightness of the sun. Yet who but a madman will look until their eyes melt. In my fantasy, I could court such acts of madness, but in the doing, the self-preserving force of sanity still ruled.
A long piercing howl shattered the stillness. Instantly, I recognized the sound, a wolf. "I’m not alone, after all," I thought aloud. Reflexively, I called back to the wolf using its Kashmiri name, "rama hun, rama hun." There was no fear of the wolf, for I knew that it would be infinitely more afraid. Then, as if in answer to both the wolf and my own call, I heard the distant, yet distinct, whinny of a pony.
Night descended on the eastern side of the valley, revealing the stars. To the west, where the sound emanated, the ridgeline still glowed in the ash rose backlight. I scanned this horizon and way up, it must have been several thousand feet above the camp, saw movement. Was it? Could it be the outline of a pony? I reached for the camera, still mounting a long lens from my earlier foray into peak detail. Using it as a telescope, I saw the dark form of a lone pony outlined against the dying light.
What I couldn’t see in the dimness was the heavy snow slab several hundred yards from where the pony grazed. This mass, made increasingly unstable by the fall of new snow, had collected on a rock buttress overhanging the camp. Yet even the closest inspection would have failed to reveal deep cracks in the slab caused by the buffeting of the rising wind.
Tomorrow, I thought, I’ll go on up there and get that pony…where there is one there may be others. Shit, I hope that wolf doesn’t have his buddies nearby. At least the ponies are smart enough to stick together in times of trouble, not like us humans who scatter to the winds at the first difficulty…at the first sign of snow. The wolf must be why they went up so high, wolves prefer to keep down along the valley floor. I involuntarily shivered, as this last thought echoed in my head. Damn, down here with me.
But there was something more troubling than any instinctive fear of rama hun. Despite my bravado, the bitterness I felt at the desertion began to spill out, particularly of Pal and Yosh. Yes, that would be the thing, just the ponies and me. How surprised those two little Zanskari fucks will be when I return the ponies to their village outside of Padam.
In this unfolding fantasy, I saw myself tracking down the two miscreants. Then I would take the ultimate revenge in the shame I would bring them by returning the neglected animals. The soft foreigner, the Angrez, achieving what they, the natives, had been unable to do. As for Ravi, that would be another matter. Too bad! He wasn’t to blame; it was those lousy boys who turned-tail first. That they were "my" boys made it even worse.
It was totally dark. There should have been an almost full moon, so I realized it must have clouded over. The clearing just before sunset was only a momentary reprieve, a false promise. The snow resumed. Through its wetness the cold seeped into the deepest recesses of my body. I shivered uncontrollably.
Snap out of it my man! I goaded myself into action: This is serious shit, no time for spacing out. I was far from out of it yet, moving on, revenge, satisfaction in doing what natives failed to do, were still remote fantasies. That night would be a struggle. I must win if I was to survive.
Back in my tent, I went through the contortions of a yogi removing another set of wet clothes. This time I took the whole mess of wet down, wool, nylon and pushed it out the tent opening into the sheltered vestibule of the overhanging fly. Somehow, I had to keep the tent’s interior dry. Particularly my bag must stay dry. As long as the down was dry, it would keep me warm; as long as I was warm, I would survive. How simple life had become. All I had to do was focus on one thing and one thing only. Dryness! I wiped my body as dry as possible with a damp towel, somehow found in the pitch black.
Every surface was clammy, cold, just like a grave. I needed warmth. Outside the snow was still falling, but unlike that afternoon the wind was rising with a particularly gut-wrenching moan, sweeping through the narrow defile, out into the valley. I kept repeating, mantra-like: "I’ve got to get dry and warm…dry and warm." I realized the temperature must have dropped, for now the snow blew against the sides of the tent like grains of sand. Earlier, when it was wet, it had made a softer "splosh," sticking rather than bouncing off. I could better understand why those Arctic Inuit supposedly had a number of words for snow. There were so many forms, each with a message of what was to come, foretelling life, foretelling death. I lit a candle. Its sputtering light revealed my breath congealing into ice on the ceiling.
Despite the initial dampness, the bag began its work on my naked body; the insulating down trapped warmth, generating more warmth. I knew that soon I would be warm and with the warmth would come dryness. In the company of these two friends I could survive; I would survive. The tent shook as the force of the wind rose to a higher pitch. I amended my thought. I could survive as long as the tent could survive. Whole, it was a life-sustaining bubble but, if it succumbed to the storm, it could equally be my shroud. This synthetic womb and I were now as one, our fate irrevocably intertwined. I could feel my sensory system extending, virtual synapses forming on this outer surface, so that I was aware of every gust as if it were on my skin.
I wanted to sleep, letting the horror wash over me unseen. I wanted to place myself into the hands of some mythic Fate, some higher force that could shoulder the responsibility for preserving or destroying. I wanted to let what would happen, happen. Yet sleep doesn’t easily come in high places, particularly if you can feel, however vicariously, the full brunt of the storm. I thought of the Valium in my pack. Two tablets and sleep would surely come. If I took the Valium and the worst happened, I wouldn’t be falling victim to fate, but to stupidity for being incapable of dealing with the random and most certainly impersonal force of nature. How could I have bought into my own romantic nonsense? How could I have had the conceit to think some unseen hand was guiding me to this rendezvous with the storm? No, these storms happen often, and those who come here should be prepared to meet them. If there was anything preordained, it was only because I had conjured it, and only because I had made it happen.
Instead of the Valium, I reached for my stash. There was a weird sensation. I had a hard time articulating my fingers. It was only with great difficulty I pried the cap to the film can open and grasped the ball of charas. When I moved the ball close to the flame, I saw why I had felt strange. My hands were swollen to the point they could no longer be recognized as mine. Normally well-defined, with bone, muscle, and vein, they were now ballooned and dimpled. With disgust I saw the hand of a "fatty"—the one thing my vanity most dreaded. I could see stretch marks radiating out from my thumb and forefinger.
Once I was over the initial shock, I realized it was only increased swelling from edema whose initial stages I had noted earlier in the day. In the confusion caused by the storm, I had forgotten all about it. But now that I saw my hand, I began to feel escalating anxiety. It was a deeper fear than the vague threat of the wolf, or even the immediate, raging storm. This was something I couldn’t fight. This was a threat from inside, a reaction to the hostile environment where I had no place. I remembered the Italians, I remembered that day of agony on Tirich Mir. I knew, if this got worse, if it progressed further into my lungs, or worse into my brain, my only choice would be to retreat or die. A retreat might save my life, but it would be no salvation. I couldn’t contemplate another defeat. No, not now, so soon on the heels of so many others.
"Not to worry old man," I said aloud, trying to quiet my own growing panic. "What’d the book said: ‘…some swelling of the extremities was normal.’" I unzipped the bag just enough to work one of my feet out into the light. A little swollen, but not like my hand. Thank God! What if my foot swelled to the point where I couldn’t put on my boots? What would I do then? Oh well, just as long as it stays in the extremities. But, man it looks bloody awful. Then, reflexively, I touched my cock. With some irony I observed this was one extremity that had escaped the swelling. If anything, it was the reverse. It lay limp and shriveled, and ever more so when contrasted with the bulbous lump that was now my hand.
^ ^ ^
Somehow, with the help of the charas, I got through the night. I even fell asleep for a time after the winds died, the storm having spent itself against the mountains. I awoke to intense warmth on my face, the August sun radiating through the thin tent walls. I felt as if I would suffocate. The ice, formed during the night, seeped from limp puddles on the tent floor, soaking my bag. Sleep-fogged, I struggled to get the double flies unzipped, and was rewarded for my efforts by a landscape transformed. When I arrived, the snow line had been much higher, leaving the nala’s floor a patchwork of barren black rock and luxuriant green-gold pasture. Now, this world was uniformly cloaked in a brilliant bluish-white, from the banks of the black stream that snaked below, to the top of peaks seriating the unblemished sky. Its cold-fire iridescence made it easy to imagine that some profligate God had spilled a crush of diamonds. I was brought back to reality when, as I emerged from the tent’s opening, the night’s accumulation of those imagined diamonds came falling on my head from the roof, filtering down my neck to still-warm flesh underneath.
That must be how bears feel when they come out from hibernation. It was the struggle into consciousness, not wanting to let go of the dream world, not wanting to leave the snuggling warmth, yet slowly facing the necessity to wake, to deal with the inner stirrings. Once I overcame the inertia, I was rewarded. Outside the tent the air was crisp, the contrast making the sun’s warmth delicious rather than stifling as it had inside. I luxuriated in it as if it were a tonic—the warmth of the sun, the freshness of the cool breeze, the incredible scene that was solely mine.
Yet as often is the case when I think I am alone, I wasn’t. In keeping with Professor Whistler’s dictum, my mind conveniently split, providing the dialectic so essential to being. I had became so adept at this technique that I could sometimes produce an entire symposium, each member with a differing point of view—each point of view supplying just that much more reference. Under the lingering fog of last night’s charas, I struggled to create just one opposition. One mind arrogantly congratulated myself. "The others ran away, to lesser lands. This magnificence is my reward, the reward for my courage." Then that other side spoke out: "Courage my ass, just too stoned to move. Didn’t want to carry my own load. As soon as the servants are gone, just shrivel up and surrender to so-called fate."
"Well today will be different," the other head replied. "Today go up and get to the ponies. Then I’ll see whether I can survive on my own." I scanned the upper reaches of the slope that rose several thousand feet above the tent, trying to assess exactly where it was I had seen the pony the night before. As my eyes swept the hillside, they came to rest on that large white mass blanketing the buttress. I couldn’t help but notice that it lay in a direct line, many hundred yards above the tent…and above was the pony, no…now two…three ponies. They had made it through the storm. But I could readily see, if they came downhill much further, they wouldn’t last the day.
I wasn’t about to leave this to fate. I had planned the night before to go and bring the ponies down. Of course, I was stoned and in my comfortable bag. From such a place it is easy to conjure up all sorts of brave deeds. This new awareness, however, put any thoughts of waffling quickly aside. I could see what would happen to the ponies if I failed to act. Before setting out I packed all the saman. If I could get the ponies down before noon, there still would be time to get over the pass and down to the warmer Zanskar side. I didn’t relish any more nights in this exposed place. More snow might come at any time. Across the pass, I would be in rain shadow. I would wait there for Gul…if Gul came. That would be up to the Gods, God or whatever; in this part of the world with so many choices, you had to leave all your options open.
Insha’Allah, Gul my son, I thought as I finished packing, carefully stuffing my clothes, sleeping bag, and tent into the red duffel. In this bag, with the exception of what I wore, were the material fruits of my entire life. Later, upon reflection, it might have seemed foolish to leave my sole possessions in plain view, yet thoughts of thievery didn’t enter my mind. It was as if I was the only human, that this nala was my own private world. Besides, anyone passing would have had trouble enough with their own load and no interest in assuming mine.
The slope was steep; the fresh fall of snow made the going slow. With each step, I would sink knee-deep through the thin crust. Just prodding my own bulk upward would have been difficult enough. Yet despite my somewhat desperate straights, the panorama, which I imagined lay waiting from the crest, was too magnificent not to photograph. I could never forgive myself if I went up without the means to record. So there I was, laboriously climbing, burdened by cameras, lenses, and assorted paraphernalia.
I sucked in the thinning air, high to the point of being giddy from the lack of oxygen. Looking down the slope exaggerated its steepness. I swayed, the cameras swinging wildly, banging against one another—yet another brassy scar. I was too exhausted to care.
Above, I could make out the silhouette of one of the ponies. It was Ravi’s black. It had to be Ravi’s because I could hear the bell he wore. It made a dull, hollow: "thunk, thunk." Further along, I could see another…Pal’s gray mare. As I moved up slowly, the ponies edged away. I hadn’t thought about catching them, imagining that they would be glad to see me, their savior. No such luck! In their reality I was just another man-creature who wanted to enslave them, make them carry heavy loads over ridiculous terrain. They wanted no part of me.
I found myself several hundred feet below the ridgeline, on a steep slope of deep, unstable snow at an altitude approaching 18,000 feet. To my immediate right lay the buttress and, on top of it, an immense cornice of snow. Now that I was slightly above, I could see deep cracks at the base where the cornice met the hillside. I knew it was only a matter of time before the heat of the sun would split the slab; gravity would take charge, sending tons of snow hurtling toward my camp. Worse yet, in my last move toward her, the Gray had bolted dangerously close to the slab. I would have left her alone, but the other two ponies clustered around. If I was going to retrieve them, I would have to go in that direction. Not knowing quite what to do, I took refuge in my picture taking. The ponies could wait. There was, after all, no sense in chasing them out onto the buttress. Maybe, just maybe, if I quieted myself and sat down on the clump of rock, so inviting just ahead…? I could take a break, have some chocolate, take in the scene and make photographs. Maybe then everything would sort itself out? Insha’Allah!
The late morning sky was clear, but I knew it wouldn’t last. As the sun warmed snow-covered peaks, moisture would be drawn upward and new clouds formed. Of greater importance was that to the south, the direction from which the monsoon blew, the sky was clear, promising no more snow at least for that day.
I was high enough to look down on the world, as might those great soaring birds—of my dream. The main nala stretched before me, the dazzling sheen of fresh snow in the intense August sun, gradually giving way to underlying rock. Great glaciers snaked down from jagged peaks, forming numerous tributary nalas. With the snow it was easy to recast that time when the entire nala was one long river of ice, a frozen river descending all the way to Darcha and beyond—only the Gods and geologist knew just how far. Although the glaciers and their nurturing peaks were several miles across the nala, the air was so pure, so crystalline. I imagined I could reach out and touch them.
They were certainly close enough so that the 180-mm was sufficient to get details of the features. As I trained this lens on the more prominent peaks, I found myself tracing imaginary routes. This was the almost involuntarily reflex of one who loved to climb, one who would always look up, always look beyond. There must have been at least half dozen challenging peaks, all nameless on my map and most likely never climbed. Foreigners would hardly come all this way to climb such nonentities. The locals would have no reason to climb them.
Up on the mountain there was no worry over names, status, fame, all these abstractions belonging to the alien world below. This was a land where only the immediate, the tangible, held any importance: the next hand-hold, belay; working up the nerve to cross the ice-bound chute that suddenly appears in the way; or getting over that crevice looming before you. Essentially, it was testing yourself repeatedly, pushing through a chain of fearful moments, moments when your body froze and your mind fought with ever-dwindling energy to overcome the new horror before you. I realized as I looked through the viewfinder that these peaks offered many of the same problems found on Tirich, Nanda Devi, or K2. The scale might be less, but it only took one misstep, one faulty placement of a piton, and the result would be the same.
When planning back in Kobe, I had no real aspirations for any technical climbing. Despite some mention of an "assault" on Nun, tossed out in a vain attempt to impress Elizabeth, I doubted if I could ever get up to giving it another try. Climbing was suicidal enough for a younger man. At my age it was almost outright surrender. There were too many opportunities just to let go—too few reasons not to.
Yet now I was here, close enough to feel, taste, smell the challenge, the old bug began to gnaw on me. Just getting to where I rested was no mean feat. After several hours of steep climbing, I still felt strong. If I climbed just a bit further upward and then along the ridge, I would be within a stone’s throw of crests equal to those that towered so impressively across the valley. Just keep going up, one goal at a time: first the ridge, then that knob, then…. All I had to do was do it. Forget the consequences. This was my chance. What better way to go!
Instead, I reached in my pocket. Swollen fingers—God, they were getting bigger all the time—fumbled, but finally worked a rather crumpled pre-rolled joint from the depths. Awkwardly, I smoothed it out, debating for a minute whether this was the time and place, but then, as I knew I would, giving in. Again, my swollen hands made it difficult to light, but after several tries, the strong mixture of charas and Goldflake filled my lungs. A wave of dizziness hit me—more from the tobacco, I liked to think, than from the charas. I gulped the thin air. Then slowly my system adjusted. I emerged from the disequilibrium to that place where mind floated free.
I was on top of the world. There was so much below, so much to see. The thought of going even higher became nonsensical. That is what charas did for me, letting me pause from that mad yearning to rush ever forward, pause to enjoy where I was, what I had, and what I had accomplished. No wonder Society frowned on the "herb." In a world predicated on moving upward and onward, of bigger and better, greater and grander, it would be economically unsound for people to be content with what they had. How could you sell travel, if people could travel in their heads? How could you extort excessive labor, if people had no desire for more than they already had? I chuckled to myself. Here was the answer to over-consumption, get everyone stoned. But then I was an old hand. I knew how and when to get high and when to back off.
The reality of the other wasn’t long avoided, even here in my lofty aerie. At first it was only a distant thin line, undulating like a black snake up the white expanse of the basin. The charas stimulated my appetite. I nibbled on remnants of chocolate and biscuit, watching as the snake moved parallel to my perch. As the distance diminished, the gestalt dissolved and the individual components of the "snake" became more apparent. It was the Italian party that had gone back down the night before. One of the dots broke out of line and approached my camp. I focused on the dot. Gul! Although initially the features were indistinct, I could tell from the wolfish gait, then from the hat I had loaned him. Yes, it was Gul.
"What the hell!" I whined to the wind. "Damn him to hell! I told him to go down and get fresh ponies, now he’s back, obviously he didn’t go down."
Then it dawned on me: if I was going to get out of this mess, I must do it. This jarring thought brought me out of the altitude-charas-incredible scenery-exhaustion induced euphoria.
"Guy, Guy," I mumbled chidingly. "Remember what you’re doing here in the first place. The ponies dummy!"
I looked north, where the ponies had last been. They were still there grazing, or at least attempting to graze, through the fresh cover of snow. The Gray had moved almost to the edge of the slab. She kept looking in my direction, or at least it seemed to me she was. Yes, I had to get the ponies down.
They were about 300 yards from me. But the ground in between was steep and, with its fresh snow cover, posed high avalanche risk. It would be better to continue upward to the ridge, follow the spine to a point just above the ponies, then descend. If I could catch the Black, then the others might follow, Insha’Allah. Whatever I did, I must get the Gray away from that cornice.
I started upward. In the stillness, my own sounds dominant. Everything was magnified: the crunch of footsteps as they broke through the thin crust; the heartbeats magnified by charas-induced paranoia. God what if the old pump gives out on me now? I was swept by reflexive fear, quickly replaced by bravado. Hey, this is a bitching day to die, a fucking outstanding spot. As my labored breathing echoed in my head, euphoria welled. I started to think about Mara. If this enigma existed, surely it would be near. I imagined I was looking Mara squarely in the eye, without fear, without doubt, I was ready. Only for what was the question. How would this Mara be?
Almost as quickly as the question was posed, it was answered. Mara hovered before me, bearing the very countenance I had seen in the Darcha tangkha. Perhaps, because my mind was stressed, I resorted, not to my imagination, but memory. That image had seemed improbably cartoonish in the security of Darcha. Now, exposed on this wild, near vertical slope, it was serious, and very, very fearful.
Was it because I believed Mara to be of my mind, part of me, not some other, that caused such fear? Hadn’t I traveled far enough to accept other than my own reality? The assumptions of my past, what was possible and impossible, still ruled. Yet change was taking place, for even though most of Mara remained imprisoned in mnemonic plane, there was a part that transcended, taking on life. The eyes! Yes, I will always remember their look; they held sort of an encouraging glimmer, reassuring. I was suddenly aware that there was no need for fear.
Once past the initial shock, there was certain allure in this bizarre apparition. Again it was the eyes, or more accurately the eye, for it was the extra orb that mesmerized me. Time stood still. I had the leisure to ponder what it would be like to have a third eye. I mean how that would effect vision…weird. For a moment I was looking, looking into a world through this strange vision. Life was beginning to reorder, but it was so new, so bizarre, it overloaded my mind.
This thought drew me out of body, out of the labor of the climb. I moved upward with a mechanical precision, slow, methodical steps, right, breathe, left, breathe, plant the ax, breathe, right, breathe, left, breathe…. The apparition drew me on, up, just when I thought I had no more strength, no more heart.
A danger signal went off. Get back! You’re out too far!
Just as I was reaching out, just as Mara was about to move from fantasy to being, my mind responded to the warning call. I now looked out onto the world through my own two eyes. I was on top of a knife-like arête, a rocky spine free of snow. I saw what lay in that very next step, the step into Mara’s waiting embrace. There was no more up, only below, and to the West, the direction I now headed, was a drop of several thousand feet into white mist. I staggered, trying to halt the momentum that would carry me into the abyss.
In the slowed, staccato motion of my struggle, I thought I heard a voice calling, "Don’t fight Guy, let go, just one more step, just one more." There it was, what I had come for, what I had imagined. It would have been so easy, so clean. But for some reason I couldn’t willingly take that step. I regained balance. Mara disappeared.
As I picked my way among the sharp-edged shale, it struck me that I was now really on the razor’s edge. What so often before I had applied metaphorically was now a reality. But now wasn’t the time for "woolgathering." There had been far too much of that in my life, enough for several lifetimes. Life was here and now, measured by the next several hundred yards where to either side the ridge fell away in steep couloirs. I thanked my luck I didn’t have to descend the western side, for it fell almost vertically to what appeared forever. The wind was rising.
Panicking, I grabbed wildly at an outcrop of rock, certain that I was about to be blown off the mountain. I felt the exhaustion squeezing the last energy from my body. But the gap was closing. Soon I would reach the next pinnacle. From there I could descend to the small plateau on the top of the buttress and the grazing ponies. The Black’s bell was now distinct; its artless thunk joined with the crunch, thump, sigh, that emanated from my movements. I knew, somehow, I had to reach within and find strength.
From the top of the pinnacle I could see the route to the ponies. It was a steep, yet relatively easy stretch down to the place where they grazed. Here the slope was fully exposed, the snow cover rapidly melting under the brilliant late morning sun, baring rock in many places. It would be a simple scramble down to the level of the ponies. The real problem lay immediately below them, for I could also see how perilously close the Gray was to the buttress. Out on the buttress, the snow had piled up in a heavy overhang. The melt from above sent a rush of water downward undercutting the slab, threatening its precarious hold on the rock. Loose shingles, fractured from the bedrock covered the way down. One slip, one small rock smashing down on another, might set off a chain reaction, sending the entire slab hurtling down the steep cliff to the camp below, the camp from where I could now see Gul frantically waving.
For a moment I was mesmerized by the power of life and death. Just toss a small stone down in the right place and bye-bye Gul, my son. Then what? Sure, Gul was a pain in the ass, but I would lose more than pain. All my kit, everything left in life, was down there. The charas! The batteries! Funny how I had blocked it all out of mind. That was whatever future I had. But all that seemed so far away, not as measured by time, but by things still to be done to get to a place where future mattered.
"Thunk! Thunk!" The dull, hollow sound of the tin bell forced my mind back to the immediate problem. I traced what seemed the most likely path down to the lead pony. The Gray, sensing my presence, gradually retreated onto the buttress. She was definitely traumatized. There was no way she would willingly surrender to her taskmaster.
Going down was kinder on my lungs; my breath came easier. The legs were another story. Although my mind was determined, my legs had somehow lost connection. The noise of fatigue distorted the signal between brain and limb, and the legs would only partially respond to the brain’s command. Slow down, it signaled, but gravity was at work.
I stumbled, then began to free-fall down the slope. Instinctively, I groped for my cameras, trying to shield them from the blows. I cursed myself for that last joint. It left my head reeling and disconnected from the reality my body must still bear. It was one thing to be out of body, yet it didn’t mitigate the damage. A broken leg was still broken, no matter where your mind. Eventually, no matter how far my mind soared, it must return to my body…its pain. I had a fleeting vision of Mara, claws outstretched in a welcoming embrace, ready to receive both the Gray and me, forever into a tomb of eternal snow.
The Gray gave out a sound that bordered on a shriek. My tumultuous fall prevented me from seeing what happened next, but I could hear it all. There was a great rumbling noise, then another short scream from what must have been the Gray, answered by nervous whinnies from her mates. A cracking noise, more rumbling, more cracking. The whole buttress exploded! It seemed as if the entire world had turned upside down.
A fine powder of snow infused the air. I breathed in and almost choked. It was as if I was going to drown in snow. I fought for air; I fought to break my fall as my camera gear swung wildly around me, flailing wildly at both the passing boulders and my body.
I was completely out of control, and for a frozen moment Mara returned. It was an entirely different Mara than on the ridge. In fact it wasn’t an "it" at all but, though still unfocused, distinctly "she." How strange it was that certain things would embed themselves in mind. But when the world has no up or down, when all senses are flooded by the most catastrophic noise, then rationality and logic take flight. The mind must rely on more primordial understandings.
How curious was this Mara? From afar, from that point where it was still a creature of mortal imagination, it appeared horrifying, hideous, the three-eyed monster of innumerable tangkhas. Yet when this shape-changer was physically near, when every atom of my being could sense Mara’s presence, I saw not that monstrous "it," but a most comely "she." Perhaps this transformation was because my fate was no longer in my hands. Above, on the ridge, it had been my decision whether to take that final step into the nothingness. Now I was completely within the grasp of an external force, a force hurtling me down the mountainside. I was able to look not on, but within, from the perspective of that third eye, and for the first time truly knew Mara. Rather, than beast, I saw the emanation of clarity, a glimpse through the veil of illusion to another side. Yes, this was the unknown lover for which I had prayed to those Gods in distant Kobe. It wasn’t Elizabeth they had given, but one of their own. Through the snow, I reached out to see the face of God-sent love.
The shock and dislocation of the fall eased; my mind returned to the physical reality of the mountainside. In what seemed an interminable time, yet must have been over in a brief moment, mind rejoined body. As communication was reestablished, I found myself in a crumpled heap against an outcrop of rock, cameras tangled about me. I could feel a lens that had been in my vest pocket, knifing into the small of my back. With the well-honed instincts of the combat photographer, my first concern was for my equipment.
Those worries quickly fled as new sensations cried for my attention. The dust-fine snow still filled the air; the roaring slowly subsided into a faint echo, reverberating in the peaks far to the East. Gingerly my brain began to send out signals through my nervous system. God, I’m in for it, I thought. I’m not going to get away easily in this one. Something is going to be broken for sure.
Electrical charges surged through synapses. Surprisingly, the return signals told me that, although badly shaken, my extremities were in working order. I was able to straightened out my legs, my arms, even wiggle my swollen fingers. All was well.
More important at that moment were my sensory organs. My hearing was fine, maybe too acute for the sound of heavy breathing almost overwhelmed me. This sound was accompanied by a "thunk, thunk" that in my confusion I first took to be my beating heart. My eyes fogged over, my first thought it was the fog of snow. Then I realized I had lost my goggles. Squinting, I was able to focus through the blinding glare and saw the "thunk, thunk" didn’t come from my heart, but from a source directly above me. It was the Black’s bell. He stood straddling me, frozen to the spot. As my field of vision deepened, I saw the pony’s eyes bulging in terror. And with the deepening field, came an understanding of why the pony stood so still, why terror gripped him.
The place where I now found myself was at the very edge of the buttress. The snow-slabbed cornice that threatened the camp—the one I feared the Gray would stumble into, the one that had so recently rested on this outcrop of rock—was gone. Now, only the swirling updraft of fine powdered snow showed it had ever existed.
Enough of my wits remained to realize this was the time to grab the pony. Although I had no real idea of the extent of what had happened, I would still need the pony. It was to get the ponies that I had come to this precipice.
Around the pony’s neck was a short length of rope. Its end dangled right above me. All I have to do is slowly reach up and grab it.
I felt movement in my arm, but wondered if I could actually control it. For a moment or two I fought a mental battle. I was afraid a false move would spook the Black, possibly causing him to pitch over the side of the buttress into what I didn’t know. But I had to go for it.
"Slowly, slowly," I cooed to the Black. "Good pony, just be still a moment more, and Guy will get you out of here. Just be cool, there, there"
I felt the strangely foreign feel of those clumsy, inflated fingers as they grasped the rough cord. Could that really be my hand. The pony gave a slight reflexive lurch of resistance; then, as if remembering the fix he was in, resigned himself to human control. Using the cord, I worked my body into an upright position and looked over the edge of the buttress.
The sight was awesome. I knew the camp was directly below, but at first I couldn’t see it for the snow cloud filling the air. Then slowly, as the snow began to settle, I began to orient myself through landmarks on the valley floor. Where the camp had been when I came up that morning was now one huge race of churned snow and rock. The snow carried all the way past the camp and into the river another hundred yards below. I could see the wreckage of gear caught in the rocks downstream. Then I remembered. The last thing I saw before falling was Gul striding up to the camp.
Without quite realizing how, I found myself plunging through the deep snow. With every step I sank to my thighs. I clutched the pony’s lead. Miraculously, the traumatized pony was able to follow. Not wanting to be left behind, the yearling had little choice but to trail after him. Occasionally, either the pony or I would stumble, but soon we reached the lower stretch of the hillside, almost to the basin itself, where the slope wasn’t so steep and the snow soft and clinging.
Gradually, I was coming back. Control of my being passed from that most venerable guardian rooted in what the Hindus call sat, the one existence, the will to survive, lurking in the depths of all living things. A bit at a time, Guy the rational, romantic reemerged. This was the atomized creature of asat, rooted in illusion of the plural existence, of free will, a world of Maya.
"DADEE! DADEE SAHIB!"
I heard the cry and instantly recognized it could come from no other than Gul. For a moment, I was unsure whether to thank the Gods or curse them. Gul was such a hassle.
Luckily for Gul, the avalanche started at such a height, he had time to get to the edge of the fall zone. Just before, Gul had been following my progress towards the ponies. At first he thought, what fun to watch this Angrez make a fool of himself.
"Insha’Allah, in a lakh of years that fucker will never catch the pony," might have run his thought. "Soon he’ll be down here whining for me to get them."
As Gul watched my struggle, he suddenly had a premonition of what was about to happen. As a child of the mountains, he knew almost instinctively how to read the sights and sounds heralding trouble. As I approached the ponies, he saw that the Gray was edging away, heading right for the overhanging cornice. He realized if she toppled the cornice, it would come down and with it the whole mountainside, "Y’ALLAH! RIGHT DOWN ON TOP OF ME!" All smugness vanished. He heard the telltale sounds: first the slight cracking noise, followed by a low rumbling. By the time the big reverberating booms began, he was moving away, moving fast. It was fortunate the avalanche track was well defined, so well defined that Gul felt rather foolish for allowing the camp to be pitched in its path. "But that’s where Dadee-fucker wanted it, so who could to argue with that crazy son of a sow. All he seems to care about is the view. Well, I wonder how he likes it now?"
As Gul scampered out of the way, he had visions of me sitting above, clicking away as he scurried for safety. "Insha’Allah, I will live to see those pictures," thought Gul as the crystalline cloud enveloped him.
It was sometime later, what seemed to Gul an eternity, when he managed to dig himself out. He was fortunate he had a head start. As he climbed onto the newly formed surface and looked back at where the camp had been, he saw only the jumble of snow and ice. His first thought was what had happened to me. Although he had no love, I wasn’t only his current meal ticket, but his future freedom from Inspector Singh.
"Hadn’t that fucker promised to let me off the hook if I could deliver this Angrez. What if my ticket to freedom is now dead? Is it the same?"
Gul didn’t think so. Singh, and those he worked for, wanted live ones to show the American DEA they were doing their job. It didn’t hurt that they were American, as long as they were little fish like me—those DEA were from another world; they would feel no kinship. Besides, busting an American would prove to the DEA that it was their people who were the problem. Yes, that was the only way they could get their foolish government to release the promised funds—body count. But dead bodies from the mountains were no good. They needed to be alive and reeking of smuggled charas.
As unsettling as this possibility might be, an even worse prospect struck Gul. "What if Dadee is dead, but buried under the tons of snow? Singh won’t believe me. He’ll think for sure I cut a deal with Dadee." It was at this point Gul started to call out—hesitantly at first, for he was afraid of bringing down another avalanche from above. He knew it might take some time, and though his call grew louder and more assured, he husbanded his energy, sending out measured signals like a foghorn.
"Dadee, Dadee Sahib!"
A series of weakening echoes answered his call:
"Dadee, Dadee Sahib!"
"Dadee, Dadee Sahib!"
"Dadee, Dadee Sahib!"
Eventually his strength faltered. Too much charas, too much sherab, he had no more breath with which to call. The noises of the valley returned: the wind, the stream, and the sound of his breathing, his heart, and that of the blood as it passed by his brain. He fought back the urge to retreat down the mountain, all the way to the warmth and comfort of the Darcha dhabas. What he wouldn’t give for a hot cup of chai, not to mention a deep draw on a bottle of Black Dog.
He still had plenty of the rupees I had given him for expenses. Singh couldn’t blame him for what was surely an act of God. Even in these troubled times, soon another fly would enter his web. The main thing was to survive.
"God, I’m cold. Lying in all that snow put the cold deep into my bones. If only I had some of those fancy feather-filled clothes to protect me like Dadee. That damned ferenghi looks like a pillow when he’s all dressed up. Yes," he chuckled to himself, "a soft warm pillow."
The thought struck him that maybe he should keep looking. If I was dead, he could take the clothes. No one would fault him; after all, I would be dead, and he needed to survive.
"But could I wear a dead man’s clothes?"
He wondered if that wasn’t haram. Although not particularly religious, Gul was ultimately a believer. When he died he didn’t want to risk that there might be a God to whom he must account. Jhana, the hell he had learned of as a boy from the village mullah, was a nasty place. No, Behesht, the other place where virtuous believers went, that was more his style. He shivered at the thought of the houri, those two promised women—maybe even better than he had imagined the Italians would be—they would be his reward. The thought of spending eternity under the tender ministrations of two such beauties had led him on occasion to ponder joining the mujahedin. Admittedly, this occurred only when he was stoned and for the briefest of time. But that was foolishness. This was different; he wanted those nice down clothes, but he didn’t want to spend an eternity in Jhana to pay for them. It was in times like this he wished he had listened more closely to the mullah.
Again he called out: "Dadee, Dadee Sahib!"
This time there was a response. There would be no need to puzzle over the question of wearing the clothes of the dead; I was alive and returning his call from somewhere above. Following the sound of my voice, Gul soon spotted me. Though the snow-clouded air, his sharp, tout’s eyes picked out my lurching progress down the mountain. He must have been surprised to see I had brought down the remaining ponies. I waved, signaling I wanted him to come up and help.
"Bismillah," Gul invoked the blessing of Allah as he started upward. Then thinking better of it, "I’ll wait here till he gets down, might as well save my energy."
Now he knew I was alive, he needed time to make his next move. There were still many problems. A big one was the charas. It had been out of sight and mind for more than a week. There had been so much to deal with once we were underway, there was little time to think about it, there was also no need. All Gul had to do was get my saman and me to Kashmir and off on a plane. The rest would take care of itself. One call to Singh in Delhi and then that big international INTERPOL/DEA machine would lock on target. Eventually, at their discretion, I would face the consequences.
Gul imagined that it was like being a drin. "What was it Dadee called these creatures in his ugly Angrezi tongue, "mar mot"…something like that? These small, reddish-gold animals inhabited in the high valleys under the glaciers, living in tunnel colonies, making piercing screeches in times of danger. Drin could go about their lives as they pleased, except when they caught the eye of some hunter, hawk, eagle, wolf, leopard, or man. Then it would be only a matter of time until the drin were caught.
"Men like Dadee could carry on their trade, make a dozen runs without a hitch. But sooner or later, they will come under the eye of their own hunter, a Singh, or some other agent of the powers their actions challenge. Then, though they run, twist, or hide, it will be only a matter of time, for their kismat is inescapably cast. The hunter won’t relent until the hunted is caught. Nothing personal, it’s just the way of the world, a living to be made, the strong preying on the weak. How could this foolish Angrez think to make it on his own? No, one needs powerful friends to survive. Singh has power, or at least he serves those who have power. As long as I am connected, do my bit, then this power will be mine too."
When I came level with the floor of the basin, the adrenaline which had carried me through the morning, suddenly hit empty. It was all I could do to reach the place where Gul squatted. I was so drained, I didn’t even notice Gul’s reluctance to help with the ponies. All I wanted was to crawl into my tent, into the warmth of my bag, and sleep. But there was no tent, no bag, nothing for that matter. As tired as I was, my mind still worked.
"Motherfuck!" I said to no one in particular, except perhaps to some God somewhere who had brought me this misfortune. I would have liked to think it was undeserved, but down deep I knew it was. I was sure the journey was now over, despite all that planning and preparation. I caught a brief glimpse of myself straining on Rokko. The Japanese tourist who laughed from their chandelier-bedecked coaches had been right. What a fool I had been to try to turn back the clock, to get back to a time that had never been. Now everything was gone or, at least, buried under unknown tons of snow. How could I go forward without food, shelter, and—with an especially sickening realization—money? I had a few rupees, but the bulk of my currency, both local and dollars had been "safely stashed away." Up in the mountains there was nothing to buy, so no reason to carry your nest egg, at least I had thought so until then.
I stood there in quiet shock. I remember thinking, God, why couldn’t I have gone over the edge with the Gray. It wouldn’t have hurt much—too quick, the shock would have stunned me, even if I continued to live a bit. Now what am I going to do?
^ ^ ^
In the past, I could have somehow gotten to civilization and then called Mei. She would have solved my problem; like that the time in Pakistan when Morgan, quite literally, had screwed up. Why I had been such a fool to let him carry the stash, I will never know. Damn him! Damn me! I knew his proclivity. I had seen it up close and personal, the week before when I walked into his ménage à trois. That was a big reason why he liked Pakistan; they reminded him of the Mexican boys and his youthful forays across the border. Besides they were so submissive, so compliant for the right price—which in Pakistan was so little. All he wanted was get his cock up some brown asshole—that "bit o the brown." So hot to trot, he kept those two boys in his room for over a week. Oh, he fucked them all right, but then they fucked him.
Maybe it was still the shock at work but somehow the image of Morgan’s once handsome, ever so Aryan face, ravaged by all sorts of vice imaginable, came into my mind. Well old boy! I haven’t thought about you for sometime. Those boys made him pay the price, almost five grand—two-fifty per asshole. Too bad it was before AIDS. Now that would have been fitting! It was one of the troubles with the business; I couldn’t be too picky about crimies. A rare bird it was who had personal integrity yet, at the same time, a willingness to break the law. It wouldn’t have been so bad, if it was Morgan’s money, hell I have paid for a bit of ass in my time, albeit the female flavor. The money wasn’t Morgan’s, it was for our score, fronted by investors who, in turn, held Mei as collateral.
That time seemed so long ago, so desperate. The three of us, Mei, Morgan, and I had moved to Tucson where Morgan grew up—in the loosest sense of that term. He had many contacts and said the pickings would be easy. Tucson was still relatively small, and those in the "scene" were willing to pay premium prices.
"Desperadoes waiting for a train."
To nowhere, I now realized, although at the time we thought we were going somewhere, our minds filled with things, places, and people that we would like to have or be.
Morgan fucked up, fucked up big time! Then I had to call Mei and ask for another five grand. I have always wondered how she persuaded those peckerwood dealers to come up with the extra loot. They were just some redneck longhairs, "dudes," more into speed than hash, but anything for a buck. These boys mostly worked construction and had pooled enough for us to trip in the style we were accustomed. They were an unknown quantity, a new breed coming into the business that, at least in my experience, middle class college-types dominated, even if we were the dregs of the class. Morgan, a prime example of such dregs, had—I was later to learn—quite literally penetrated this more rough and ready world in his hunts for sexual partners—the rougher and tougher his conquest, the greater the thrill. I hadn’t yet totally escaped the illusions of class superiority to which I had been raised, which was quite ironic, for I was certainly by then a member of the very underclass I was taught to scorn. Though I had no qualms about taking money from these people, I tried, as best I could in that narrow circle, to have as little contact as possible. This was Morgan’s world and his responsibility. I was the importer, Morgan the distributor. There was plenty of potential profit there. It would have been difficult for those boys, used to paying fifteen hundred a pound, to believe we had copped at ten bucks per kilo. It was sweet. They put up five grand; I was planning to score five hundred kilos for five thousand and pay them in weight, ten pounds that is. I thought of it as a nice paid vacation.
Had I know those investors better, I would never have taken their money. Certainly, I wouldn’t have left Mei behind. But that was Morgan department. I still trusted him, perhaps because I thought there was no other choice. These lads were fresh from Nam, and all that violence lay just below the surface. They were making money, giving them the feel of power, not real power, but the power to buy things like bikes and pick-up trucks, to score women, to be the big man on the block. Greed quickly turned these bumpkins into budding gangsters, for they were prepared to do what it took to hold on to what they had won. Power went to their heads and things became personal. The paranoia, always the outlaw’s companion, haunted them. They weren’t use to it, and that tended to get them crazy.
Mei now had to report to these wannabe gangsters: "There’s a problem. If you don’t want to lose your investment, then you’ll have to front another five grand."
They weren’t so philosophical. Five thousand in those days was significant bread. They had made plans, dreamed dreams, and were prepared to see them through despite the costs. Mei put her life on the line. They taunted her with what would happen if I didn’t return with the goods. Young and beautiful, it wasn’t hard to believe they would have gotten almost as much pleasure out of her as they would from the dope. After all, she was Asian, and those lads had a lot of hostility yet to work out. Later she told me that they had started off politely enough. Maybe, they couldn’t quite believe there was a snafu. Maybe, they thought, we went to some sort of doper mall to score? When they could no longer hide in denial, things began to get ugly. All that pent-up rage came bubbling out. There had been a meeting between Mei and two representatives of the "investors"; they had names like Bo and Chuck or some such good old boy monikers. Little Mei faced two blond, beefy, long hairs, muscles bulging from a mixture of steroids, speed, and construction.
"If we give you this second five, its on you personal," said Bo still trying to keep it polite.
"No problem," replied Mei. "Guy’s always good for his word."
Then the other, less friendly desperado broke in, this time no holds barred. We don’t give a rat’s ass about your old man. It’s your ass that’s on the line. Got my drift…bitch." He was getting nasty, and it excited him.
"Hey, you don’t have to talk that way. This is business. You’ll get your stuff…like Guy promised."
The two were now drawing closer. There was an increasing tension, sexual, but sexual as in aggression, not love. By some prearranged plan—television was, after all, a great part of their experience—they drew on some cop show, giving her the good guy/bad guy routine,
"Hey Bo, she just doesn’t get it does she," complained Chuck, the bad guy. "Fuckin gooks can’t understand plain American."
Bo still held himself in, trying to maintain the good guy role. "Back off Chuck! Look Mei, the deal’s…if your old man don’t come through, you owe. One way or other, you make good."
Chuck got this strange, faraway look on his face, like he was seeing something that was getting him real excited. There was no holding him back.
"Yeah, yo bet your sweet ass, yo’ll have to work it off. There’s only one way a slope bitch can, and I don’t mean doin’ laundry. Yo’re going to work it off…a slant cunt like you…fuckin and suckin ain’t much like work…yo better believe yo’re goin’ to sweat every last dime! Yo ever here bout round the world? Sure yo did, that’s one of yo slope’s favorite tricks…just like the hoes in Cholon. Well, yo’re going to be a fucking satellite, I mean, like yo’re going to spin aroun’ goddamn world." Here he grabbed his crotch and pointed with an obscene grin. "Here’s that world bitch, yo goin’ to know it real well, this and the whole line that’s behind it. After that there won’t be much left of yo sweet ass, not after all the boys get through workin’ it. There will be only one place for yo!"
"Shut up Chuck! No need to be rude!" Bo’s eyes suddenly steeled. "But you know Mei, he’s right. This is on you. I can’t hold the boys back if your old man doesn’t come through. You’ll get another goddamned five, but there’s gotta be payback…guaranteed…like Chuck says…by your…ass, if nothing else. Maybe you think we’re just a bunch of rednecks. Maybe you think you can come here and rip us off. But out here we’ve our own protection." He pointed through the picture window to the wasteland that stretched to the horizon. "Miles and miles of it!"
It was easy to disappear in the desert. Many a dealer gone wrong ended there. Alone, far from friends and family, weeks might pass before anyone missed her. She was frightened as hell, but she toughed it out. She could have split back to her own world, yet all she thought of was that I was in trouble and she had to get me out.
She was right! We were in a shit load of trouble. My Pathan supplier, Akbar, was the same Kandahar hotel owner who had smuggled us out of Afghanistan several years before. I’d already sent him a coded order. He and his one-eyed bodyguard, Iqbal, were somewhere on route. I could have made the trip myself except I was definitely non grata in Afghanistan. I wasn’t about to risk falling into the hands of the authorities. My escape had been a personal affront—Afghans have a tendency to take things personally and they have exceptionally long memories, a fact to which both the British and Russians can attest. I knew that if they ever got their hands on me, I could kiss my ass good-bye.
Akbar, our friendship aside, wouldn’t have been pleased to make that dangerous trip only to have me say "so sorry, my partner got ripped off by two boys he was fucking." I could imagine Iqbal’s grinning face as he drew his dagger across my throat. "Nothing personal, but business is business." Well, that is probably an exaggeration, but it would have been awkward.
Not that they would have any qualms about Morgan’s sexual proclivities that would have been seen as quite normal. But to be ripped off by mere boys and Baluch boys at that. After all, they had to bring the weight from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a rugged journey of over five hundred miles. Smuggling it across the Afghan–Pakistani border was a piece of cake—tribal land where a Pathan could freely pass. The trip by train from Quetta was another story. There, they were in the domain of the police who would have loved nothing better than to catch this affluent Afghan khan with his highly incriminating stash. Though a man of substance in his own world, he was a chicken waiting to be plucked by the Punjabi overlords of the Pakistani CID. This, I suppose, was poetic justice since the Punjabis had suffered no small injury from Akbar’s warrior forebears. The ransom they would have claimed was only a small payback compared to the ravages of Akbar’s people on the Punjabis. In the East, collective memory is long, sustained generation after generation in the tribalized consciousness of its people.
The money arrived just about the same time as the Pathans, so all was saved. We scored and got the load back to Tucson. I paid off the boys, and Mei was spared the ravages of their revenge. That had been in the beginning of my life with Mei. My trust in her grew as the years went by, and she continued to come through, no matter what. At least until the thing with Tara. I knew I could still trust Mei, even though she no longer trusted me. I just couldn’t bring myself to ask of her what I had failed to do—come through in the clutch.
^ ^ ^
Our eyes met. Gul wanted to look away, suddenly overcome by a mixture of anger and guilt. His anger was reaching a fever pitch, long fueled by hurts, real and imagined, at the hands of ferenghis like me.
"Now this crazy Angrez has almost killed me." Only a thin shield of guilt kept him from letting go, venting his rage on this icon of all that was unjust.
"That fucker Khomeni was right about one thing, these kafirs are the ‘Great Sheytan’."
"Yes," he thought, "this particular Sheytan should be destroyed." But in his heart, he suspected he too was of Sheytan, and that, if he died at the Angrez hand, it would be an act of justice, recompense for his own deceit.
"What will this Angrez do? His situation is desperate. Will he strike out? Insha’Allah, I can take him. After all, he could be my father. But this Dadee is still fit and bigger than me. Better to placate the son of a bitch. Insha’Allah, I will get my revenge. Just bide my time and like murgh tandoori, better when cool."
"Dad, shabash, shabash, you catch ponies," Gul hoped that this would break the ice.
"Ah Gul you’re back. I almost got you didn’t I. Maybe I will have better luck next time, tik old man?"
Gul glared back, resentment flooding his eyes. I tend towards irony in times of stress, a subtlety that often doesn’t translate. The thin wall of guilt controlling Gul’s anger snapped. This coincided with an almost equal flood of resentment in my own mind. Simultaneously, waves of hate swept over us, sending us crashing into one another.
"Don’t look at me that way you son of a bitch."
"Why not Sahib Kiss My Ass, you more man than me?"
Blame it on the altitude, on the shock from our near meeting with death, on the seeming hopelessness situation we now found ourselves. Gul’s right hand went out and grabbed me by the down padding of my parka. I could read the blatant message in his eyes: "I’ll pluck you just like the chicken you are. I know you ferenghis, I saw what kind of man you are last night."
But whatever Gul thought of foreigners, he was soon to find that it is dangerous to stereotype. I wasn’t about to be intimidated. As tired and drained of energy as I was, Gul’s assault renewed my adrenaline. Almost reflexively, I raised the ice ax. With a deft upward motion, I smashed it with all my remaining strength into the offending arm. Gul howled with pain and swung with his own right fist, landing a blow on my chin. Luckily for me, my beard and thick wool balaclava buffered the blow, but my body was cold and stiff and it stung. I struck back, dropping the ax and catching Gul full in the face with my fist. My hand, blown up like a boxing glove from the edema, encased in a thick mitten, could do only limited damage. The cameras were swinging wildly, hampering my effectiveness as I attempted to press home the attack. It was almost as if I had two opponents, Gul and the cameras, both punishing my body. Then, after a brief exchange of blows, each one scoring with decreasing effect, we collapsed breathlessly on the snow.
The storm of hate, so quickly upon us, vanished. We were both hurting but, fortunately, only a little. Gul had a bloodied nose. I had a sprained left hand. We both lacked the strength to do any real damage. The clothing we wore to ward off the cold protected us from each other.
I recovered my senses first. I was overwhelmed by what had just taken place, for I had worked hard to make myself a man of peace. Sure, I had quite a temper. In my youth it had been a real problem. Yet over the years, I mellowed, and it had been a long time, longer than I could remember, since I was in a fighting rage like this. Even in Nam, I had remained the passive observer—at least as much as it was possible to be passive and remain alive.
"Hey man want a joint?"
From Gul came a groan I interpreted as affirmative. From my vest I pulled a crumpled joint, the last of several I had rolled before setting out that morning. After reshaping the limp number, I lit up and took a deep drag. I hoped the high would push away the ache that flooded my body.
"Here you go my son," I tried to make my voice as solicitous as possible. This wasn’t hard as the first wave of charas immediately washed away the hostility. "You okay Gul?"
"Insha’Allah, I am still alive Dadee Sahib," Gul emphasized the last words to convey his own lingering irritation, but he too must have felt the anger seeping away as the smoke filled his lungs.
"Looks like we wiped out down here. I got the ponies or at least two of them…the gray must be a goner, but now we don’t have much to carry."
"No Dad, not much. I dig where camp was. Snow very deep. Insha’Allah, we find saman."
Gul had no intention of doing any real digging, but he had learned long ago to how to keep Sahibs happy—just tell them what they want to hear.
"I guess they will be enough to get us back to Darcha. Were you able to get more ponies? Did you see those fuckers?" I was thinking of those faithless Zanskaris.
"Trail kherab Dad, much rain, big landslide, I not go down."
There was a puzzled look on his face. He was trying to figure out whether he should tell me how he had spent the night. Later I would get pieces of the story, but right then he didn’t think it wise.
Anyway, it hadn’t turn out anything like he had imagined. Instead of the embrace of those two Italian beauties alone, he had a dozen tourists, young and old. Most of their worldly possessions had gone ahead and were, by that time, somewhere over the pass. Their only shelter was a large, floorless dining tent and the odd bits of food they carried as snacks. Of course, they were lucky to have that; as Gul well knew, it was enough to insure their survival. However, the tourists were less optimistic. All night they huddled together for warmth convinced they wouldn’t see the morning. The men wept as much as the women. What a scene! Gul pretended sympathy and struck a heroic pose as their protector and comforter—he might have a chance later with the beauties.
Denied the opportunity to satiate his lust, he tried to partially placate it with some opportune groping. "Come closer, we keep warm." As he let his hand play across a firm breast or a lush thigh, he could feel flesh responding, breath growing heavy. His being transformed into an organ of stimulus and response. He knew what they wanted. Even in the darkened tent, even with the heavy pall of fear so dominant in the others, he could feel the girls’ desire, smell it. Or at least he thought he could.
"Foreign women were so easy, so shameless. They probably would give him what I want right here in front of their comrades.
"Just a little movement of my wrist, down with the zipper of the jeans, ease them and whatever lies beneath them—if there is anything at all, so shameless are these ferenghi—then on my lap, spreading out those soft, plump cheeks. They want me…wet and inviting…yes they drip with desire. How easy it would be to drive my manhood into such desire…yes, first one and then the other. I’m a Kashmiri, at my peak…one, two, the whole tent. I could do them all and more than once too."
This momentary flight of bravado came to an abrupt halt; the increasing wails, and not from desire, brought him crashing back to reality. He was in a crowded tent filled with terrified people in the grip of a high Himalayan storm. He knew that his fantasies would lead nowhere, at least for that night. Besides, the actual doing of such a private act in public was too much. He was tired anyway and needed rest.
Lust, set aside, was replaced by feelings of resentment. Inside, he despised these weak, city-bred foreigners. He knew that back in civilization, on the streets of Delhi, they would dismiss him with a wave. Now they were caught without the protection their money bought, true characters were revealed.
"Oh, it is to be expected from the women—even though a good village woman wouldn’t behave in such a cowardly way—but, the men?"
"Trail kherab! Very bad Dad! Fall into the river. It much time taking coolies make new trail."
Even though I knew it was a stupid question, I had to ask: "How long is ‘much time’ Gul?"
"Maybe several days, maybe several weeks, only Allah knows. Men come from Darcha find trail broken. They tell local road superintendent and then coming coolies. Now too late in season! Insha’Allah, wait until next summer. Road closes soon anyhow. Maybe they say now close."
"Now we’re really between the fucking cliff and the tiger," I replied. "We can’t go back. If we go forward, how long before we’ll find food or shelter?"
I tried to think back to the stages listed in the guide. Maybe it was two days to the first village where we might buy some food. But the onset of winter was near. People living in these remote hamlets, where food was scarce, would be reluctant to part with any, even for the most exorbitant price, especially if they heard that the way to Darcha was now blocked. What could they do with rupees when the bazaar was so far away, when the snow was too deep for even the yaks, and the temperature sank to polar levels?
"What the fuck, we don’t have a choice anyway," I continued, half to Gul, half to myself. "The only course is to move out, hightail it over the pass, and get down into the Zanskar valley where it’ll be warm and dry."
Now that I had taken my fate firmly in hand, I felt invigorated; another layer of polluting civilization stripped away; another layer of Maya revealed. Like it or not, I was getting down, down to the bare necessities of existence. In this way I could really feel the land, learn the life, be—or at least in the warmth of the midday sun it seemed this way. The warmth wouldn’t last. We still had to go up the nala, higher to the top of the pass where snow and ice was eternal, where the wind blew hard and cold. I could only hope—yes, Insha’Allah—that we had at least the essentials. I was prepared to charge off up the nala, ready to trust Fate, Allah, Buddha, Shiva, or any other Celestial who might come to my aid. Gul wasn’t as willing to write-off so much wealth without poking around in the snow a bit or, at least, organizing me to do it. There was too much there that would be useful. First in his mind was finding that big burlap rice bag with its charas stash.
I walked down toward the stream. As I scanned the rubble of the avalanche, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the sight of something red barely peeking out from beneath the snow. Immediately, I recognized the large red duffel, holding my clothes, sleeping bag, tent, and the most essential cash reserves. I pointed excitedly at the spot of red. Reprieve! I wasn’t totally finished. With the clothes and cash we could go on. After all, hadn’t I met travelers without tent or sleeping bag? Many of the locals traveled this route, and they had only the clothes on their backs.
Just about the same time, Gul started wildly waving. At first he also seemed to be celebrating the discovery of the duffel, for there was no other apparent reason for such bizarre behavior. Then I heard a faint "Namaste."
"Hey Gul who’s that?" I trusted Gul’s keener senses, if he reported them accurately, which of course wasn’t a given.
"I think Ravi. Small like Ravi, and…ji…Ravi! I see hat he wears, the one I give." Ravi was wearing a red and white "Steinlager" hat that Gul had bequeathed him.
"Damnit!" I muttered to myself. "It’s Ravi back for his pony. Soon we’ll be back to where we were before the storm—all that shit, all these assholes."
I was just beginning to get behind that feeling of liberation and now…. "Oh well, it’s not yet time. I still have that business to finish in Kashmir. Anyway, we can use the extra hands to dig for the saman."
Hours later, with Ravi’s help and Gul’s encouragement, not only the red bag, but numerous other bits and pieces, including the sack with the rice, were salvaged. There was enough to load up both ponies and then some. The old frame pack I had brought for just such an emergency could handle the extra load. By this time, the sun had already set behind the same ridgeline I had scaled earlier in the day. Even though there would be several hours of twilight, no one was eager to set off for the pass.
For once I was thankful for their "unhurried" approach to travel. The climb, not to mention the scuffle with Gul, had further eroded my already reduced energy. The joint I shared with Gul, followed by the discovery of the saman, gave me a shot of adrenaline that, real or imagined, pushed back my fatigue, but only for a short time. The rescued equipment was neatly stored. An overly solicitous Ravi prepared my tent. I was apparently back in good graces for having saved his remaining pony. All I had to do was to crawl in my bag and bring closure to what had been an eventful day. Outside, I heard the comfortable sound of the rattling of Gul’s cooking gear, the stove being pumped, then its hiss as it began its work. As he cooked, Gul gently berated Ravi, trying to get him to do work that should have been his own. Despite all that happened, we had survived. True, I had lost much, but life could go on without it. Later, I might have cause for regret, but for the moment I would enjoy. Life was returning to normal, the routine of the trail returning. Tomorrow we would be underway and, Insha’Allah, we would make camp under the clear Zanskari sky.
That night, exhausted as I was, I slept fitfully. My overtaxed muscles made deep sleep difficult and, more than once, I awoke from fitful dreams. Though many of those dreams were lost on waking, I did remember a face that seemed to be with me throughout the night.
It’s the face of another, yet at the same time, a face from which I see the world and, in turn, myself. I think I’m waking, only to find that it’s as if I’m not waking at all. I’m still inside the tent, but not alone. Across from me is a gaunt, dark bearded sadhu. I know him to be a sadhu by his dress and ascetic demeanor. At first I think it must be Rajendra, but with some surprise I find myself calling out to this specter an unknown name, "Devara." Who is he? Where is he? But these questions remain unanswered.
I struggle to gain some sense of reality, to put, as it were, my feet on firm ground. As I stare, I want to make out the face of Rajendra, I want to will it. But as I look into the dark face, under the white ash painted lines, my desire loses all importance. Deep sockets, mask specter’s eyes, casting them into dark caves, caves with no bottom or end. These subterranean passages draw forth my energy, as if the force behind them knows just how to play on my spirit. On entering, I look even deeper into the dim, cobwebbed distance, into the future. I’m back in the web-world again. I’d thought it was past, that it was below, but I’ve been cheated. My soul remains caught in a spidery maze, endlessly twisting and turning to escape. As I break free from one passage, it’s only to stumble into another, with more webs waiting to ensnare. Somewhere out there, unseen, but intuitively known, is that spider spinning, eternally spinning the confining strands. Escape is hopeless; this I know. Yet all the same, I struggle forward, compelled by some inherent need to regain the light I believe I‘d known—believe lies…just beyond.