Depths

^ ^ ^ ^

Light exploded! The world spun. I struggled to grab the brass ring of consciousness, hovering just beyond reach. Eventually I caught it. I was still in my tent, but Gul called, not some prescient specter of Devara. Sun streamed from the tent opening over Gul’s crouching form. Wolfishly grinning—"are you fat enough yet for the kill…oh burra Sahib!"—he handed me the steaming tumbler which, as usual, burned my hands.

Damn! Was I dreaming about the storm, the climb, the avalanche? It was as if nothing had happened. Yet as I gazed past Gul and focused on what lay beyond, I saw the avalanche rubble—snow, rock, and ice. I knew it was no dream.

"Dadee, salaam, salaam, take chai? So sorry, kofi no find! I make paratha for you soon…how many you need?"

Suddenly I realized I was ravenous, and answered, "As many as you can make my son."

"No problem Dad. I not wanting make too much…waste atta not good. I find atta bag, all dal, and most other food, but we must go very far. And so sorry, peanuts ghee gone, honey gone, biscuit and chocolate all gone, also box with medicine. No problem! We having all important things, all a Kashmiri need for mountains. You now real Kashmiri Dad, live like Kashmiri. Eat only simple food, best for mountains. Insha’Allah everything thik, but getting late, almost eight, we go soon. I make you four paratha. You not need more Dad!"

The words came spilling out, the oily solicitousness, missing for some days, back in place. Obviously, Gul was in a good mood. The news for me wasn’t so joyful. Although all of the most necessary foodstuffs had been recovered, those goodies that made life worthwhile seemed to be lost. Particularly scary was the loss of my medicine chest containing, not only the iodine, Cipro, Valium, morphine, and other emergency supplies, but the vitamins…. How could I live without them?. Paranoia took hold as I pondered just why only those things, which I alone used, were lost. Then I got hold of my senses, realizing this was just the luck of the draw. If planned, it wasn’t by Gul, but by a much higher someone.

Sensing my worry, Gul tried to reassure me, "Oh, Dadee, things not bad! Bismillah! I find big sack with chaval. Rice Dad! With it is…you know Dad, shit. Roll down to stream, almost fall in. Some of chaval wet, I dry out when we get to other side. Most important, charas is thik Dad, very strong, I wrap very good. As long as still keep shit, you do business you come here for. Ji?"

The importance Gul placed on the charas surprised me. Not that it was unimportant. But that was my life, what is it to Gul? Certainly he had made his cut when we scored. Besides, if I lost that load, he might have the chance to score again and make his cut twice over.

Before I could work it out, Gul interrupted with further news. "Silver cases, no find Dad. Too deep, too much snow. Much looking, but no find. Lucky you carry most of picture making things. Others you not need. I watch. You never use. Other case, the one with flash lights, you open only once, in Manali. I think maybe Allah help us. Lighten load for pass. Finish things not needing."

Would Gul have been so sure, if he knew how important this case was to my plan? I still had charas, but no way to carry it.

It was almost as if Gul was following my thoughts. "Not to worry Dadee! Many Angrez come for business in Kashmir. Kashmiris have many tricks to hide smuggling things, sometimes in paper maché, sometimes in woodcarving. Kashmiris very smart in business. No problem! We taking much care in Srinagar."

Fuck! I was set back to the beginning, when I had to put the shit in the bottom of a suitcase. That might have flown twenty years ago. But not now, when the well-trained nose of Princess, Rex, or Fido—as in everything else, the Man had little imagination naming his dogs—lay waiting by the luggage carousel at LAX.

There was much to ponder. I struggled to put out of mind those pictures in the Osaka Airport, of the unlucky trafficker with drugs strapped to his waist. It was time to go. We had a window of clear weather. I wanted to get up and over before that window closed.

Activity helped clear my mind. I would worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. It was enough just getting through the day. I had to pack or, at least, make sure things were organized. Soon I would be back on track; my recent meeting with Mara more dream than real. Ahead, I might have to confront that dream again, for the moment there was only the pass.

But if the pass loomed large in my mind, the actual doing was otherwise. Compared to the climb the day before, the trip to the top was no sweat. This was often the case on these treks. Featured events like this pass weren’t the most difficult part. The real difficulties came in unplanned side excursions or in those moments of unanticipated exposure when natural forces came into play. If I had thought about it, I would have realized this would be the case on the Shingo. Although the pass was over three miles high, and the guidebook waxed heavily on its terrors, it was a veritable highway. True, if you got caught on the top in a storm and lost your way, you could easily die from exposure—many had.

Sitting astride a saddle of shale, a remnant of lateral moraine crowning the actual pass, I rested and lit-up. How quiet it was. Just the faint whistle of the wind and the whip of the prayer flags that festooned a mani cairn close by. So many pilgrims had made this crossing; the accumulation of stones offered proof. The scenery wasn’t as dramatic as on the ridge, not so awesome. Yet it held its own beauty, enhanced by the spirits of those many travelers who had passed in search of enlightenment. I tripped out on these ghosts, much in the same way as at Balkh, or even that most distant Whitehall. By knowing something of what had gone down, I believed I could sense—I could even see, if I was stoned enough—the spirits of the past. Sitting on the pass, I imagined ancient monks traveling from afar, perhaps as far as Imperial Cathay, pausing to make an offering to the Great Lord for safe crossing. I heard their chants, their drumbeats, their horns and cymbals, intertwined with the sound of the wind.

A high-pitched shriek of female laughter broke my reverie. I turned to the source, half expecting to see Mara. But it wasn’t her. Instead, immediately below, was a large party of tourists. They looked like a group of college students, boys and girls, and they were bubbling with excitement. Coming from Padam, they had "conquered" the pass. Now their journey was almost over, or at least downhill. They were having a small celebration. I tried not to dwell on their presence, fighting back the resentment at having to share this moment with them—fighting back the jealousy for the companionship they shared.

Looking south, I saw peaks that, only yesterday, defined the boundaries of my universe. They had held me in their grasp for only the barest moments. Yet within those moments was an endless expanse, a time unbounded by Time. Those peaks carved their faces into the panorama of my existence in the same sure way as a beloved—or a nemesis. They will live forever in my mind. But from my position astride the Shingo, familiar forms transformed, skewed by new perspective, into alien contours. Was this what had happened with people I had known? Had I known only a perspective, a tiny slice, imprisoned in the dictates of a certain space and time? Spaces and times that could now live only in memory, and even there, so volatile, subject to whatever wind blew upon them.

The valley from which we had ascended was still mostly white, although the growing presence of black rock signaled the snow was melting. To the north where we were heading, the scale was immense, the vista seemingly endless. The mountain fell gently in large, snow-covered slopes until melting into poly-chromed rock. At this point towers of eternal winter fell precipitously into a valley where summer lingered—if only for a few weeks more. Further in the distance, well into the rain shadow, stretched deeply scored highlands of varying shades of ocher, vermilion, purple, orange, coppery brown, and charcoal. Zanskar, according to my guidebook means, "copper mountains." This was a new land, distinct from the lush alpine of monsoon favored lands. This was the desert "moon land," rising in graduated steps to the Tibetan Plateau. The land was changing. And change felt good. Soon I would be free of the cold, the sun hot against my body. How I had been ready to bail such a short time before. If I had, I would have missed this moment.

In the distance, I could see a line of dots snaking their way upward through the snow. This was the northern side and the snow remained deep. As the caravan drew nearer, it was obvious from the lack of any brightly colored, high-tech gear that it belonged to locals. Whether they were monks, or farmers, made little difference. The thought excited me. Here were authentic natives engaged in activity that could have taken place a hundred, even a thousand years ago. It was a trip back into time, which I could grab hold of and take away in my little black box.

Where to get the shots? That was the question. It was a bit after midday. The sun was high and to the northwest. They would cross on a west-facing slope. The light would be harsh and the dazzle from the snow would only make matters worse. I was zoned from the thrill of making my first major hump of the trip. Zeroing in on the technical problem, I entered into that robotic state picked up in Nam. It helped to block out the craziness, enabling me to do something even crazier—record.

Light, angle, frame filled my mind as the local party approached. They were the prey, objects I would capture. They came closer. I started shooting, seeing the photograph, but not what was being photographed. Several rugged, Mongol-like faces—so similar to those Hazaras of Afghanistan—passed by, stolidly marching forward as if I didn’t exist, their calls of "Uuusht! Uuusht!" uninterrupted by my presence.

In the past few years, so many tourists had passed this way that we were no longer out of place. Tourists were part of the expected, and what tourist would be without one of those strange little boxes of varying size and shape we invariably carry? To the Zanskaris it seemed our greeting—raising the little black box to eye, followed by the clicking sound. What was wrong with us anyway that we couldn’t, from our hearts, make a simple, straightforward greeting? Instead we had a machine to do it. So much better the salutation: "May you never grow tired"; to which a civilized person must respond, "May you never be poor!" Yes, so much better than "THUUCK! THUUCK! THUUCK!"

I was unseen, an invisible man. How often I wished to be invisible, to see but remain unseen?

The ponies crunched through the crusted snow. I had made it! Now I was on the marches of the Tibetan Plateau where Lhasa and Kailas lay. Somewhere, not far from one of those holy places must be Shambhala. Yes, I knew it was so.

I smelled sheep. I heard a voice murmuring in my ear, its sickly sweet tone belied the intent of its words.

"We’re going to make you pay, Yanqui fucker, Gringo cocksucker! You pay big!" Where am I? WHAT IN THE FUCK IS HAPPENING! I felt the rage welling and, for that moment, I was no longer in the Himalaya, no longer confronted by hostile Zanskaris. Then with a sudden surge, anger fled before an onslaught of abject fear. What a rush! Physical fear was almost delicious after so many months away from Nam. Still, I almost peed my pants when I saw the shiny blade pressed against my balls. I was on the floor. I tried to edge backwards, away from that blade, but something strange cut into my back, blocking escape. With one hand I reached back and felt the cold, smooth, moist surface, fleshlike, but at the same time rock hard. Despite being scared shitless, I struggled to orient myself, seeking out clues to what was. This was the only way forward, the only way to survive. To my horror, I found I was pinned against the skinned carcass of some animal; then from its smell, I realized…sheep.

Moments before I had been on the Shingo-la. Now…? My mind’s eye searched beyond my captor’s shoulder, through the orange-yellow "V" of the backlighted opening. I saw thatched roofs and adobe walls of houses bordering a dowdy, treeless plaza. God! This must be a remote village. I saw men wearing strange, brightly colored blankets. They were…ponchos! Yes, it was all beginning to focus. Rather than on the edge of Tibet, I was somehow…half a world and lifetime away—in another high, barren land…the Andes. I pushed my mind hard to get back, to grasp the details…but how could this be? Why must I look to the past to locate my present? It was coming to me, spilling out after such long confinement…somewhere south of Cuzco, near the Bolivian border. In the distance I could see a tiny, shimmering sliver—Titicaca. Earlier we had laughed, "It was ‘tity’ for Peruanos, ‘caca’ for the Bolivianos (and ‘muerto’ for you, Gringo motherfucker)."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mei, her eyes wide with terror. She too had sipped the fiery aguardiente. Her face glowed from the liquor’s unaccustomed strength. God! She was beautiful, even in the grip of fear. Her hair was a long, waist long, ebony vine…but that had not been since…God!

Somehow I was back eighteen years or so in Ocongate, that miserable shit-hole up in the mountains. Food was so scarce that the pigs and dogs would knock you over going for your daily dump. We were on one of our film-fronted dope scams. Morgan was in country, but off trying to score—he was the supposed Spanish expert, as I the supposed Asian. This was my part, the film, and I was trying to be serious about it. Sure, it was a good cover, but remember, I hoped to escape the doper cycle, and move on to being a real filmmaker, "real" as in making my living at it.

We had brought a large crew of técnicos up from Lima, maybe two dozen when you counted the groupies. They were mostly gringo-educated, upper class kids—who else could afford to be into film in Peru—who played at being Marxist. They were wannabes, sitting on the verandahs of their palatial Miraflores homes, or dancing on the disco floor of La Miel, pondering the intricacies of dialectical materialism. Of course there would always be a servant on hand to serve hors d’oeuvres, booze, drugs, and even more. Today, if still alive, they are probably industrialist or members of El Sendero Luminoso. Back then, they were still young and uncertain as to which way they would turn. Ché Guevara, another scion of the upper-middle class, was their ideal.

Unlike Ché, these guys had gotten too deep into the local product. We were all getting high! It wasn’t just a question of that, but it was one thing to get high for want and another for need. As a businessman, I had to control my intake. After all, I saw that as the difference between pro and mark. We had so much we could have easily drowned in it. Many did. Those Peruvians didn’t need to worry; they had enough money to play full-time artistas. Getting strung out was the price they paid for their art—whatever that was.

We had been together for some weeks, trying to put together a coherent film, without script or any strong direction. Well, we were naive. The Peruanos wanted this to be an experiment in collective creativity, meeting long into the night to discuss the class implications of tight versus wide-angle shots. I had taken a lot of shit just trying to hold everything together. By the time we got to Ocongate my patience was wearing thin. Dreams of a successful film were fading. The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that soon I would be out of it. Just a few more weeks for appearance sake, then I would be safely back in the States with enough coke to finance life and film projects for a couple of years…well at least a year. Anyway, it would be enough for that next real film project.

Yes, everything was going as it usually did. That was the problem with drugs. It was always there, lurking in the background, the bottom line. Rather than stick my neck out and go all the way with a film, I knew from past success I could count on the dope for my money.

We made a habit of having a social drink, or two or three, before dinner. Our usual cocktail was the pisco sour, that gringo-inspired Peruvian drink accompanied by ridiculously long lines of flake, drawn through straws made from one hundred dollar bills U.S. That night the pisco ran out, forcing us to switch to the local, and even more potent, aguardiente. We mixed aguardiente with Inca Cola, affectionately known as "llama piss," to hide the raw kerosene taste. Compared to the pisco, the mixture tasted lame. Nevertheless, we drank too much, and inner feelings began to spill out.

I am not an angel; I have already copped to that. I was there with mixed motives, not all for the film like the Peruvians. Even though their nose ran of flake or worse, they lived, breathed, and snorted film. Maybe, the Peruvians somehow got wind of our extra-curricular intentions? Maybe, it was just karma? Anyway, they weren’t about to let another batch of gringos rip-off their natives. Whether these were peons toiling in the fields of their ancestral finca, or peasant masses working to build a socialist state, it didn’t matter. The ruling class by some name would remain. Membership might change, but the class would remain. These artistas were descendants of conquistadors, some only a generation away, some five centuries. They had conquered this land; it was their turf. Its native people were theirs to exploit—whether in the name of capitalismo or communismo, it would be they who did it.

Well, that was my drift as we were ruminating in the cook tent—a bright yellow "made in China" tent, they had purloined from the Peruvian Red Cross. One minute we were sitting on our Inca Cola and Cuzquena cerveza crates, talking calmly, or as calmly as is possible when everyone’s nose is running with coke, when everyone’s eyes are afire from aguardiente.

One minute we were rapping. The next minute, one of the gofers, not too bright but lots of muscle, had me pinned up against a sheep’s carcass, hanging from the crossbeam. I will never smell sheep without feeling that knife tickling my balls. The Peruanos jefe, an Ivy alum named Carlos—his father owned, among other things, Inca Cola—called the faithful together to try me for my crimes against the people. They had set up the whole thing in one of their late-night "cell" meetings—Dear God, those people loved meetings.

I too had done my share of coke that day and fantasy took over. I guess I was expecting a firing squad, or at least a quick bullet in the back of the head. I will never forget the venom that filled their faces, particularly the jefe’s. He looked completely mad. His face, well fleshed despite his enormous consumption of flake, was on fire with anger. He brought his bushy Castro-like beard within an inch of my face. It was coated with half-dissolved flakes of cocaine mixed with mucous that dripped from his nose.

"Yanqui motherfucker! You come to loot our country, thinking we’re just stupid cholos! My ancestors were here, living like kings, when yours were plowing some shit hole in England. We’ve seen exploitation…we’ve profited from the misery of our campesinos. Now we’ve learned we were wrong. Now we’re here to protect the people from further exploitation. Protect them from scum like you!"

Having delivered this tirade, he paused and turned to the side. From where I was I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I didn’t have to. The deep sucking sound told me he was reloading his nostrils. When he turned, there was even more flake, more mucous, coating his beard.

"We are the Central Committee of Artist for the People’s Liberation. You’ve been accused of grave crimes against the People. You’ll be tried by the People…tried now!"

This was from the mouth of a Wharton grad whose education had been financed by the sale of Inca Cola. I was surprised, to say the least. It had to be a big joke. I kept expecting his facade to crack: first the smile followed by his big horselaugh. Could Carlos be serious? The night before, we had been comrades deep in our cups of Pisco Sour, deep in our lines of the purest flake. The man, who now held a knife to my balls, had given me a great abrazo when we said goodnight.

No abrazo now! They dragged me to a nearby hall, the headquarters of SINAMOS, a government organization supposedly carrying out socialist-inspired land reform. One of Carlos’ henchmen had rounded up the villagers and packed the hall with them. I looked across the dimly lit room trying to gauge the mood of the crowd, wondering if they would tear me apart. It was strange, all their faces were covered by those bright neon-colored wool stocking masks, the ones the tricksters wear in the fiestas. Maybe this was in anticipation of the fiesta Carlos had promised—with free chicha—to celebrate the inevitable guilty verdict. Yet it was unsettling not to know what lay beneath those masks, as if I could have read the villagers’ impassive faces anyway. Besides, I don’t think they fully understood what was going on. It wasn’t their business. But they were used to humoring officials. When I focused back on the "Committee," I was mildly surprised. They too had donned trickster masks, yet somehow in their radical terrorist attitude it made more sense. They had set up the cameras, my cameras and, under the glare of blinding halogen lights, they tried me.

Carlos was a good director, at least of low-budget melodramas such as this. The proceeding ground forward to its inevitable conclusion. Several of the masked Committee made long speeches of condemnation, charging me with every sin ever committed by the Yanqui—and this was a long list. They put Mei on the stand.

"Surely Señora, the Yanqui pigs have exploited the Chinese people just as the people of Peru. Certainly, we are all comrades suffering together the same yoke of imperialist oppression. Please Señora, tell us how this CIA running-dog has exploited you."

Mei wasn’t about to cop to anything. For days she had quietly—except, of course, when we were alone—fumed at how much these artistas were jerking us around and the mucho soles it was costing. Now, seeing me vilified, she lost it, launching into a bitter diatribe on the ungratefulness of Peruvians in general, and Carlos’s betrayal in particular, which she took personally. That was Mei’s style, bottle-up until she could no longer hold it, then explode, casting all caution aside.

It was futile. One of Carlos’s cholo henchmen reinterpreted her words, using their numbers, if not meaning, to further indict me. From the feigned anger in the crowd’s response, it was easy to see his spin was not friendly. Thankfully, their anger was only an act, for they loved my tormentors even less than gringos like me. Gringos were, after all, very rare and distant and had never done anything to them. Not unless you counted those crazy young men from the Cuerpo de la Paz who tried to keep the pigs from doing their sanitation duties. But these Spanish-speaking city folks from Cuzco and Lima, they weren’t so far away and always wanted something. True, they promised much, but in the end it was always the same. The campesinos knew the score. They knew who would be holding the reins of power long after I departed. If not Carlos, if not this "Committee," then some other Limaneanos, some other city devils, who used the ways of the gringos, even while cursing them.

In the end, my sentence was to give up half of the equipment and film stock to Carlos and his gang. The entire incident was just a little drama orchestrated to part me from the means of production.

"No hard feelings gringo," Carlos declared, that familiar cat-swallowed-the-bird smile returned to his face. "We leave you half the equipment and you will get the other half back when you send our processed film back to Lima. Just business! Eh? Like your Wall Street. Oh, one more thing gringo, we need a copy for the editing." His Wharton training was now coming to the fore. Hell, Carlos would have been more at home on Wall Street than I.

There was little choice. Loan them half the equipment—about hundred grand worth of cameras, lenses, lights, recorders, mixers, and mikes—and when they were through, I would take their footage back to the States, develop it at my expense, then return it together with a workprint to ransom the equipment. It might have been worse; they could have taken it all. Perhaps, Carlos was being wise not to push me too far. I was a gringo, and gringos had power. Maybe not in Ocongate, but back in Lima and, what was more important, in the world beyond. There was little point in messing-up future opportunities by getting his name on some American State Department watch list. Carlos enjoyed his visits to the States too much to chance that. No, there were limits to how far he would go. "Let the gringo carry out his business, that will keep him quiet. He’ll have as much to fear from the CIA as I." With relief, I realized that Carlos had left me with the means to carry on, and this was certainly better than a slit throat or a bullet in the back of the head.

All of this had taken place long ago, but it was familiar ground. Then something strange happened, as if I had been in a dream, knowing that it was lodged in memory, but then the dream opened up into a new, uncharted area, a place unvisited, where I could no longer anticipate what was to come. The appointed hour of the departure arrived. Like a movie inside my head, I could see Carlos and company loading into the small convoy of trucks. They were setting out for the jungle to document the exploitation of gold miners. Mei and I, along with a couple of loyal retainers, planned to return to Cuzco to regroup. The danger had passed. But then outside the expected script, Carlos was got out of a truck and approached with his ball-threatening henchman.

"On second thought let’s shoot this motherfucker and keep all the equipment." Damn! Carlos was jiving me again.

I was fully awake. Somehow, I was no longer in Ocongate, even though the smell of sheep lingered. I was back where I thought I had been, yet instead of contentedly photographing, I found myself prone in the snow, a crowd of angry Zanskaris surrounding me. They shouted in a language I didn’t understand, although it needed no translation to know their meaning. My first thought was that these folks sure didn’t like to be photographed. Yet that didn’t square with my experience. On earlier visits, I photographed Zanskaris without any complaints. To the contrary, I remembered that most were pleased with the attention. Maybe it was a case of overkill—too many tourists snapping too many cameras. Then in front of me were Pal and Yosh, pointing accusing fingers. I realized this wasn’t about photography.

My face burned from the blow. I heard Gul’s voice shouting, first in Urdu, then in English. They were holding me down, but I sensed their anger had peaked. Having subdued me, they might not strike again. Now that I seemed out of immediate danger, I grew more concerned with what was going on. One minute, I had been minding my own business, doing my own thing. The next, I was on my ass, looking up at all these hostile folks who materialized seemingly from nowhere.

In those few moments of unconsciousness, my mind traveled back in time, seeking clues from the past to explain my present. Again, I found myself facing angry locals. It was them versus me. I had something they wanted. There was Pal and there was Yosh. Yes, I had some business with them, but all those others? What grievance did they have? What had I done to them? Out of the din of incomprehensible voices, I heard Pal’s voice again, this time in English.

"You bad! You ponies steal!"

Then he retreated back into his native Zanskari.

They were still on me, roughly pinning me to the ground. Just then a small group of tourist trudged by. They looked at us unconcernedly, as if what was happening was just part of a show they had paid to see. Maybe there was one or two, whose interest piqued, paused to snap a picture or squeeze out a few seconds of video—"natives collaring aging freak wrongdoer." Then as if they had never been there, they vanished from my view. I was left at the mercy of my assailants. Gul was less indifferent. From my ground-level vantage, I recognized his badly worn white high-tops, fighting their way towards me. When he reached me, he roughly threw off the larger of my attackers, causing the rest to fall back. He started to speak in Urdu to the apparent leader of the group. Pal and Yosh edged to the rear of the crowd with growing looks of guilt.

After a long discussion, Gul turned to me. A look of utmost disgust crossed his face. "Pal and Yosh bad, very bad! This man," Gul pointed at the ring leader "is Pal’s cousin. He big sheep wala below. Pal say to him that Sahib steal his ponies, try to kill him. Pal think ponies lost. He think Sahib go away, never come to this side, never get across pass. He blame Sahib so family not angry at him for lost ponies."

I looked at my attacker, Pal’s cousin. He worked with sheep all right; he smelled just like one. That must be what triggered my dream of Ocongate.

In the mountains storms always threaten. No matter how fine the weather, any moment dark clouds may sweep up from behind a ridge. All hell breaks loose, rain, hail, thunder and lightning. Then as quickly as it comes, it leaves. So too was the anger of these Zanskaris. Seeing I was now helpless, they turned to find some resolution to the problem. What did Sahib have to say? Would I admit wrongdoing and submit to punishment? Their eyes clouded, not with revenge, but greed. They smelled profit.

The vigorous manner of Gul’s defense surprised me. Later, in reflection, I realized this wasn’t about me, but the ancient rivalry between neighbors. Kashmiris looked upon Zanskaris as unclean kafirs, barbarians beyond the pale. It was up to Gul to teach these "dogs" a good lesson. Also, I was Gul’s sheep. It would be he, and only he, who would do the fleecing.

Speaking first in English for my benefit and then Urdu, Gul related a fairly accurate version of what had taken place. "Sahib, not steal ponies. These two much coward. They run away when storm come, even though they take Sahib’s money, eat his salt, even though they give word to Sahib. Sahib risk life, climb high on terrible mountain to bring ponies down. One pony fall and make avalanche. We almost killed. Camp buried, equipment costing many, many rupees lost, food lost. Who will pay for Sahib’s loss? These ponies now belong to Sahib. He save from the death that these two cowards leave them."

Gul was putting it on a bit thick, and Pal and Yosh, though guilty as charged, were beginning to smart under so stinging a rebuke. Such excess was closing the door to any possible settlement. After hearing what Gul had to say, the Zanskaris started to look at each other nervously, particularly at Pal and Yosh. The man holding me let go. I got back on my feet, wet and muddy, but with no cuts or broken bones. I knew some accommodation must be made. All of us had to leave with some face, otherwise the police must intervene. The theft of a pony wasn’t a light charge, nor was abandonment of one whose load you had contracted to carry, particularly in such extreme circumstances.

Maybe it was the charas, maybe the shock of being assaulted by a stranger, but I needed peace. Until the storm, both Zanskaris had acted well. They were so young that it was hard to blame them for their desertion. I grabbed Gul and with him went over to Pal. I could only hope he would understand.

"Look Pal," I said, "this whole thing’s a big mistake. I can’t help what happened to the Gray, that’s her karma. It was an accident. I don’t think you ran away. No, for sure you just went to look for the ponies—just the wrong way. You did what you thought you had to, but because it was the wrong choice you must suffer the loss."

With a sweeping gesture all could see, I scooped up the yearling’s lead and handed it to Pal.

"Now at least you still have your youngest pony, soon she’ll be fully trained, with much life and profit ahead. If you finish the trip and carry the load, you can make enough to buy another pony."

That last part I tried to give sotto voce, hoping he would understand I was giving him an out. Pal was a quick study. Relief flashed across his face. The Sahib had given him face. Later he was to repay this favor, but on the pass he still had to make it look good for his fellows. I played along, knowing that we must convince them it was all a big misunderstanding, that there was no fault on either side. Finally we gave each other a big hug; even the normally reticent Yosh shook my hand with a show of affection. Gul observed all this peacemaking with a look of utter disgust. He wanted to teach these kafirs a lesson by taking them to the police in Padam. Gul knew the officer in charge—how well I was to soon find out—a good Muslim Kashmiri. He would know how to deal with faithless dogs such as Pal and Yosh.

Everyone but Gul was relieved this storm of emotion had past. He would have loved to get rid of the Zanskaris, putting me totally under his control. If the police were needed, that would be even better. It would mean hurrying on to Padam. Once in Padam, he could take the official aside and tell him what was up. That would result in an even quicker journey back to Srinagar.

The rest of that day was spent in the descent to Lakong. It seems a bit strange now, but at the time I was rather insistent where we camped. I don’t know why, because those places were just names on a map—totally abstract. Besides, all Gul had to do was tell me that this was Lakong, or whatever, and I would have been happy. Although I had long ago put aside my watch, there was still much of me that was linear. I still clung to my map and that orange line against which each day I measured our "progress." I had read the contours of the map. I could tell that this place called Lakong had a commanding view of the valley. As usual, imagined photographs filled my head. The only problem was that Lakong was also Pal’s cousin’s camp. Even though things had smoothed between us, I had come to know how Gul was with kafirs. He saw himself infinitely superior. He couldn’t wait for them to screw up so that he could sit in judgment. If we camped anywhere near those Zanskaris, there would be trouble.

How fine it was to be moving again. I trailed behind, having had enough human intercourse for one day. Now more than ever I wanted to break free. Hadn’t it been enough to rid myself of family, lovers, friends, culture, civilization, all those human things that reflected self? As long as there was one other human about, the reflection would remain. If I could no longer see myself, perhaps, I would cease to be.

I paused often, wanting to absorb every contour, every color, and every texture in the panorama before me. Unlike the Rohtang, where a monochromatic, storm-beset Himalaya dominated the view, now I saw that vast maze of polychrome, sun-drenched canyons, stretching far to the North and East. The eternal snow of the Great Himalayan Range lay behind. Ahead there was snow too, but on peaks far removed from the canyon trail I was to follow. I could see that much of the way would be hot, dry, and dusty, at least until I could again face the Himalaya, waiting out of sight, many days to the north. I had just come into the mountains, now it seemed as if I was leaving. Languidly strolling along, I kept looking back up the nala, back into the land of the snows. How I like being high.

Then, as so often happens in the Himalaya, I rounded a corner and was blown away. Before me, at the head of the valley, was one of the most beautiful cirque glaciers I had ever seen. It wasn’t the large, serpentine ice dragon you might find further north, just a little one, curled in its lair. From where I stood, its tumbling seracs reminded me so much of those spindrift crests, spilling from some great wave onto that beach half a world away. Only now time had slowed, congealing the spindrift into ice, and the wave into blackest rock. Destroyer and Creator were at work.

Moments before, I had been thinking only of progress, of moving down the valley, of being able to extend the orange line deeper into unknown areas on my map. How I relished drawing that line after a hard day on the trail. I still carried the saman of linearity. Get to the Shingo! To Padam! To Kashmir! Follow the line! The road! The track! I thought in this way I could escape those last trappings of my past, Gul, the baggage, the ponies, and their walas.

But these were only the material trappings, for there was all that other saman as well. At the time, I failed to understand that, in the very plan of escape, I was clinging to what I had been, clinging to a way of understanding, sequence, progress, that had percolated down from the ancients, Mesopotamian, Phoenician, Greek. It is rooted in the very language that shapes my world. Yet as powerful as this logic, this system of organizing the world, the random call of that glacier was greater. To go there was irrational; it was out of the way and, as with all glaciers, fraught with danger. Yet in this very irrationality lay the attraction. Here before me was an immediate escape, however temporary, from the master plan. I made up my mind I would climb the glacier on the following day. It would be a respite from living for what would be. Tomorrow, I would live for what was, even if it was tomorrow.

When I made camp several hours later, all my fears about trouble vanished. Gul was in the thick of it, entertaining the Zanskaris with wild tales from exotic lands, Delhi and Srinagar, lands which for them were as much of myth as Shambhala was for me.

"Good idea I cook for Zanskaris? We make peace on full bellies." Gul gave me a conspiratorial wink, but at the time I ignored its warning. And it didn’t even seem odd that Gul served the Zanskaris from a separate pot, knowing the men were of different religions. It was a good night, one of peace, except of course for the poor sheep to whose flesh we owed much of that peace.

Early the next morning I awoke to distant sounds of men in agony. The Zanskari camp was about two hundred yards down stream. As I looked out of my tent, I could see several figures, either squatting or on all fours, close by their tents. This was strange. These folks, who would remain in one camp for months at a time, knew not to foul their own nest. In my travels, I had found the desire for cleanliness is universal, its degree subject only to the environment. Naturally in lands of running hot and cold water, flush toilets, "pillow soft" paper, and even the occasional bidet, cleanliness is taken a bit farther than by people equipped only with small and, hopefully, smooth stones.

Both Pal and Yosh, who had spent the night with their cousins, lay gasping on the ground next to pools of their own vomit. Seeing their distress and knowing Gul’s vindictiveness, it was clear that this was the classic khansama’s revenge. The three of us, Gul, Ravi, and I, who didn’t eat from the Zanskari pot were untouched. All the Zanskaris were in dire pain. The only exception was one young boy who had missed the meal because he was tending the flock.

"See, Dad, Zanskaris very haram. Not know how to be clean, how to eat clean things. Even if food clean, they so dirty. No matter, I make clean food. They put in dirty pots. Better keeping away from these people, not eating their food. Only Kashmiri food good, halal. Gul knowing best about these things."

Luckily for the Zanskaris, Gul hadn’t done serious harm. Zanskaris have incredibly strong constitutions. Once the foulness passed through their bodies, they quickly recovered. In an hour or two the Zanskaris were back to normal. Luckily for Gul, they were unable, or unwilling, to confront him.

Crisis adverted; I could now go for my little dragon. Camp was about three miles from the glacier’s snout. It was a slow slog over increasingly dense mounds of rubble, standing as memorials to key points in the glacier’s retreat. But there was another side to this land. Amidst the desolation of mountains torn asunder were moments of the most tranquil beauty, islands of lush vegetation in a granite and shale sea.

My progress continually slowed. I wanted to record the great peaks, the sweeping vistas, but also the life that dwelled within. I labored long over a colony of wildflowers. Many species were unique mutations found only in these tiny island worlds. Migratory life sealed in cul de sacs, changing over time to survive. They were natural bonsai gardens pruned by the harshness of the environment, perfectly formed, and yet sized in keeping with the limited resources. Among the treasures were swatches of garnet, gold, lavender and ivory. A flower like a miniature gladiola, a few inches or so in height, caught my eye. The bulbs of these plants lay dormant for most of the year, sleeping under the thick blanket of snow. Then for a few golden weeks they would spring to life. This was too heavy. I had to stop my recording; I had to think about what was before me.

I took a joint from its special preserve, my vest’s upper left-hand pocket, and lit up. I needed additional power to block out the external buzzing confusion, the power to focus. After I recovered from the first dizzying rush, I must have used almost an entire role on that poor plant. I got in close with the 24-mm, distorting the proportions so that the plant looked like a towering yucca against distant mountains which, because of the wide-angle, remained sharply in focus. A nearby Himalayan Blue Poppy received almost the same treatment, for it too was a rare find.

The dragon had prepared her defenses well. The way grew even more difficult. The only place I could find passage was beside the chu where I was forced to hop from boulder to boulder in the midst of the swirling torrent. Along the banks was almost no vegetation. Again I was in a world solely of mineral, granite gray and carbon black, covered by the cobalt blue of the sky. Occasionally, I met a side stream, brightly tinted green, orange, or purplish brown by metallic deposits through which it flowed. On entering the chu this unique brilliance survived even less time than the flowers, bright plumes quickly lost to the milky gray churn.

How far could I go? What appeared from the distance a cute little cirque glacier soon became ominous. A dragon, despite its size, was still a dragon. I approached the snout, that terminus where waters laid down generations before were now released. Drop by drop the melt forms a vast network of rivulets. These converge into larger streams, becoming first the Kargya, next the Tsarap, then the Zanskar, finally merging with the Indus near Alchi, 50 miles northwest of Leh for the awesome journey to the great ocean.

The action of so much water, together with the grinding power of the huge ice mass, mills the rock into a fine silt-sand. The ice-melt streams continually cut new courses, braiding themselves across an almost level outwash plain as the strength of the flow rises and falls in response to the temperature. The result is a moat of icy water and quicksand before battlements of black, rock-studded ice. Though small and obviously in retreat, this glacier was still well defended. I must be careful.

There was exposure here, and each step upward offered only more exposure: rotten ice, a slide of loose scree, or just clumsy footing and a fall into the freezing waters. Above it would be worse. There, above the firn line, countless snow-covered crevasses waited. Once in their icy embrace, I would lie entombed until that day when it would be my turn to reach the snout. This world was so unstable that even the illusion of stability necessary for human sanity dissolved. I felt like a cat set down in a strange, open field—no place to run to, no place to hide. I don’t mean that the dangers were so great; with care and luck I would be okay. But the possibilities were so numerous they crowded my mind. It was the same as on the snow bridge, a primordial response to instability. My system was straining under the ever-present need to remain alert. Yet I felt so alive. Had my normally chaotic life so desensitized me that only on the brink could I feel alive?

I looked around and guessed that the lateral moraine, skirting the north side, was my best path to the glacier. It was tough going. The stones were unstable, at least on the surface. I feared that the whole thing would come tumbling down…on top of me.

To distract myself, I started looking for weird stones, particularly quartz crystal that is often found in the wake of the glaciers. Yes, if I found a crystal I would send it to Mei. Funny, I didn’t think of giving it to her. I had this feeling I would never see her again. She now belonged to a lost life, a life framed in the past with no present or future. If I did find one, I must write a note asking that it be sent to her. Yes, send the crystal, not my body. The Jains, one of the many offshoots of Hinduism, envision the spirit as a crystal, the purer the spirit the less color. I must try to cleanse my spirit in the time remaining; I must try to become that quartz, as colorless, as perfect, as the one in my mind.

With this preoccupation, I suppressed fear and fatigue, soon finding myself on the ridge of the moraine. From there it was easier going, perhaps because the view was so spectacular. I stopped by a large boulder, maybe twenty feet high with an equal breadth. Weighing untold tons, it was ridiculously balanced on a small pile of rocks, looking just like a giant toadstool. Around glaciers there are always such erratics, large boulders torn from the bedrock that escape the milling process. They were everywhere in these mountains, sometimes the size of a house or barn.

As below with the flowers, I had the urge to really get disconnected. You might think I was well on my way, but the power of the charas had lessened, even though I consumed more. It was as if I had finally arrived at that place where I needed to lose it, lose all control. Only in that way could I see if there was some plan for me, or if it was my fate to end here, just fodder for this ice dragon. Smoking a "J" just wouldn’t get it. Besides, I had already used up my ration for the day. I did have a small ball of charas down in the corner of my pant’s pocket. I had felt it, with pleasant surprise, earlier when digging out my lighter. As soon as my fingers touched the smooth ball, I began to think about eating it. That was a first for this trip. Up to now I had been content with smoking, but it was no longer getting me over the threshold. Eating charas was a whole different trip, almost like LSD. It took longer to get into your blood stream, yet once there, you would stay high for hours.

From the vantage under the rocky toadstool I began to take pictures—was there some invisible, hookah smoking caterpillar up on top deciding the meaning of my words? In my viewfinder, I saw an entire outwash plain, littered with the remains of ancient terminal moraines. At the turn in the bend, the nala leading to the Shingo-la angled sharply upward. Once that point must have been the confluence of two glaciers. Looking out from my vantage, I could grasp geologic time, seeing past and future in one. All of this had once been a massive uplift: the sea bed rising when continents collided, then sliced through by rivers, then enlarged by glaciers. Together, glacier and river worked to form that ideal slope for the water’s trek to the sea. Tectonic plates rise and fall, glaciers wax and wane, temporary obstacles might appear, lakes and falls, but inexorably the water works, until at some point it achieves perfect flow. Water always seeks its own level—and seeks it most efficiently.

If I ever had doubts as to our planet being a living thing, all I had to do was come to these mountains where undistracted by human intrusion I could see the earth at work. In escaping the constraints of what is called time, those minutiae of tiny brains: millenniums, centuries, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, milli-second, nano-seconds, I escape that path of endless reduction, blinding me to all but my self, my needs. It is a path inevitably leading to fragmentation, atomization, and ultimately to another cycle of self.

Yet even here, I was locked in that need to reduce—that craving to find my own relevance. I took a picture of myself, camera propped on a rock, 24-mm lens to capture the entire scene, even though I knew it would make my nose bigger. Only in my mind can I guess what I looked like, for the image sits in its undeveloped roll, deep in my rucksack. I hope this picture, along with the crystals I have since found, will somehow make their way back to Mei. What a sight I will be! Will she turn from this image, her rage at my betrayal still all-consuming? Or will she see me as I once was, alone in my mountains, holding her in my heart? How this expanse before me colors even my puny understanding of time. It makes things that have lasted important…no matter how imperfectly.

Here I am Mei, sitting on the ridgeline, above hangs the glacier’s icefall, behind are those dancing diamond-dusted peaks. Somewhere Mei, on the other side of that wall, is the Baralacha-la. There, I could join the main road and a lorry back to Darcha, Manali, Delhi, a lorry ride back to you. But even if I made it, would you want me? It has been days since I have seen my reflection in a good mirror, but the distorted reflection in my Ray-Bans gives some idea. My hair is now quite long; beard bleached by the sun—or is it just graying—more every day as it makes its way toward my chest. My hands, although less swollen after coming down from the heights of Shingo, are now cracked to the flesh so they bleed. My face is burned, accentuating deeply etched lines around my eyes; nose, as usual, cracked and peeling. Should I just go up and over, my darling, give it the old try? If I would have luck, and you would have me, I might be back with you in a fortnight’s time.

What if you are no longer "my darling," the image I have of you from a distant past? Would your voice be cold and quizzical? "What is it you want Guy?" When you know very well what I want. What if you, the last human to whom—even if it is only in my mind—I cling, turn away? What if I come to know, as opposed to suspect, that I am beyond all redemption, that I am alone? I can stand the lack of human company here in these mountains; I welcome it. Back there in that sea of humanity, to be immersed, yet not a part, to see people chatting, planning, doing, loving, and to have no one, is worse than death. No, better to remain here or go north, away from the Baralacha-la and that lorry back to a place existing only in my mind.

I was retreating inside. I must get out. Again I started to photograph. I decided to make an entire 360° panorama. "Thuuck!" Against the Himalayan wall to the south rise ice-capped peaks of black rock, sparkling with the fall of water, the issue of glaciers precariously hanging from near vertical faces. Pause! Eye caught by detail; change lens to telephoto. "Thuuck!" Almost perpendicular to my glacier, high between two peaks, is a rocky cliff. This is the remains of an old terminal moraine, behind which another glacier now hides. That the glacier is still alive I was certain, for a large waterfall cuts through the cliff, joining the main chu below the outwash.

Change back! Don’t forget what you are doing! The panorama! Moving the lens, more and more of my own glacier filled the frame. "Thuuck!"…Move a small increment…"Thuuck!"…another small increment. If I ever get back, I will blow up these shots and piece them together. Then I will remember, not only the place, but also what it did to me. My camera swung from the relative serenity of the valley below to the more rugged forms above. So did my thoughts. Is this what human attachment is all about? Is this why I cling to my memory of Mei? Is it to find connection with my species and through the species with life? I had long suspected that my relation with Tara had been a frantic effort to renew a life beginning to wane. Now that hope for renewal was gone, I just wanted to cling to life, regardless of its lost vigor. The menacing forms of dark, contorted rocks, and jumbled ice, filling my viewfinder, also held the hint of another presence. I began to see faces of death, so familiar in Buddhist art, so often accompanying representations of Mara. There in a rock I saw those empty eye sockets, or in a chunk of ice, the upturned chasms of what had once been a nose. Why did I cling to life even though I knew it was but a passage over the bridge to…beyond?

Mara was close by; I could feel the presence. It drew me up the icefall, toward the same ridge that, earlier, I had seen as a way back to Mei. I was approaching an edge, that indefinable blur between the draw of life and the draw of death. Life, the known, still pulled stronger than death, the unknown. For much of my life, I had pondered death. The more I thought, the closer, the more familiar, death became. It was like the approach to a peak you want to climb. At first glance it promises so much terror. Then gradually, as you study its surface, as you discover possible weakness in its defenses—how hard to escape the metaphor of conflict—it becomes less horrible. Ideally, the climber should know the mountain so intimately, go on to the mountain so free of fear, that the act of climbing, rather than conquest, becomes one of devotion and surrender. You become one with the mountain, moving with rather than against. This too was the way to meet Mara.

If I look back, I see that was the way I had loved Mei, Tara, and, I guess although it was long ago, others before them. They were my real grips on life; the times when I really touched what it was, what maybe I wanted to think it was. "Go man go, but slowly," was another one of those famous BRO signs. Think of Mara as a woman, think of "her" as you think of those you have always seen life through. After all, it could as well have been with men, but everything I had been taught was against that idea…even though it leads—doesn’t it?—to the same place. No, in Mara’s case it wasn’t important to pinpoint the gender, for this was about journey’s end, the final affair. There could be no issue from such a union, no profit. Instead, it is all consuming fire.

I had been meditating for some time. It always happened when I sat down for a break. Thin air, strong charas, the cumulative fatigue from walking six to eight hours a day, not to mention the immense scale of the world before me, drove me into myself. Got to get up and start looking again. I moved out onto the surface of the glacier. It was no big thing, like a tongue about a quarter of a mile long, protruding down the valley below an impressive icefall. I couldn’t help but irreverently think of that poster of the Rolling Stones. This was the dying part of the glacier, losing each year more of it mass than it accumulated. It was well worn and its ancient ice so dense it appeared black. I was directly below the steep fall. Thousands of rivulets, born from the melt of the jumbled ice above, scored the gently sloping, rock-encrusted surface.

I brought my camera low onto the ice. Formations of miniature nieve penitentes stood like a crystalline crowd of tourists, mesmerized by the magnificence of the valley below. I wanted to capture this feeling, to show both the "tourists" and the scene they were enjoying. This was a job for the 15-mm. Getting in close to a foot-high tower, I could keep it in focus and yet, because the lens’s depth of field was so great, still keep all its companions and even distant mountains in focus too. It was quite an effort to mount the bulbous 15-mm lens, as my hands were still swollen and brain paranoid from the charas. I kept seeing the lens slip out of my hand and roll off into the chu. Eventually it all came together. I was down, first on my knees, then flat on my stomach. Oblivious to the wet and cold that seeped into my clothing, I was lost in a crystal world. The bright sun reverberated through the towers. They were in a magnificent communion, speaking not through sound, but color. I longed to join this chromatic chorus, to get in on their wavelength. "WAVELENGTH" Wow! I hadn’t used that term for years. But then I hadn’t been this turned on, this tuned in, for such a long time? At first, since I was so out of practice, all I could do was dumbly record.

It was only after I had been lying there for some time that I began to sync in. Actually, I could only understand one message; it was blunt and simple, "CHARHAI JAO," which I knew meant "UP, GO UP!" Over and over I decoded a repeated pattern in the colored light, "UP, GO UP!" I hesitated, thinking if I stayed longer, I could understand more. Yet I couldn’t ignore such a clear command. Someone, something, was signaling.

To go up wasn’t an easy task. Even getting up off the surface of the glacier took some effort. Down on that convex surface, I was a giant in a miniature world. I could see all the edges, all around the curvature of my earth. Everything else was off planet, in space. If I stood up, I might slip or be blown off. Instinctively, I wished to cling to my earth’s surface.

I had been prone for a long time, and the shadows were long. In the waning sunlight the temperature dropped quickly. So dry was the air, so dependent on the direct rays of the sun for warmth that any shaded area was measurably colder. This was the case under my body. Sheltered from the sun, the water began to freeze. I found that bits of my clothing were frozen to the glacier. It was incorporating me.

Escape from this initial stage in the dragon’s digestion was only a minor inconvenience. The icefall was the challenge. It towered several hundred yards above me, a giant flight of topsy-turvy steps. It was made even more malign by the many yawning crevices and seracs whose icy horns protruded every which way. What lay above and beyond the edge of this fall was a mystery. From below, I could see only the tips of distant peaks. My map back in the camp would have been little help, the scale too large for such close quarters. Even maps of the smallest scale, would have failed to place those most critical features: snow bridges, moats, crevices, and bergschrunds. But then they could never be accurately mapped, because they forever changed.

I almost ignored the command, arguing that I had come up here on a lark, just a little restful climb to get away from all the boys and the hassles of the camp. God! I kept reducing it, yet it still remained a hassle. The icefall seemed insurmountable. Besides, it must be late, my shadow so long against an ever-deepening gold crystal. I took what I planned to be a final shot, a long shot of the upper edge of the fall, the 180-mm trying to compose a particularly bizarre clump of seracs with peaks behind—an abstract number.

There was more than inanimate ice and rock in my lens. There was a living form. Oh, I had seen this creature before, but mostly in my dreams. It was a rare sight, a lone ibex, large backward-curving horns attesting to its masculinity. For a brief moment his eyes met mine in the finder, then they rolled back into his head. I heard a plaintiff moan and the image disappeared. Moments later he was back. Again the intense stare followed by the roll of the eyes and the moan. The ibex vanished.

There could be no question. This creature, my goat-totem, called. It was one thing to disobey an ice crystal, another your totem. If the ibex came to me, there must be a purpose. This creature is part of my personal magic. He bears those primordial attributes to which I aspire, unlocking me from the prison of human ego, carrying me over the walls of disbelief. I entered a state where my puny experience no longer ruled the possible—my read on reality began to crack. Expectation and assumption were lost.

Had Mara next appeared, the dark, skull-crowned head peering down at me with three eyes, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I rather suspected I might meet Mara that day, maybe somewhere on the plateau that surely lay above the fall. Yes, that was it! The ibex was Mara’s messenger. I was certain. It had the highest logic. My brain raced. No real ibex would be found in such desolation. There could be no other answer. Mara was waiting above for me. Those crystal channels were only a hint of Mara’s desire. When hint wasn’t enough, when I began to waver, a stronger voice spoke, the ibex. Mara was obviously going to some trouble, and if I didn’t heed this command, the Shape-changer would be really pissed.

Dusk was fast approaching. Already in the western sky a sickle moon lay close to the horizon. Though only a crescent, it shone with brightness equal to the fullest moon in a lowland sky. Before me, my eyes saw pattern in random chiaroscuro. It was a path up the icefall.

"Come up, Guy!" the path seemed to say. "Here to there, there to here, see…step after step, all in place. Here to there, there to here. Piece of cake!"

Even the way was shown. There was no mistake. This was Mara.

I started climbing again, gingerly testing my footing as I went up among the seracs. What was I doing? Darkness was almost upon the valley. Soon its only illumination would be from the moon and stars, already spilling across the eastern horizon. It was so clear; I felt so at one with those stars, that shining crescent. But the warmth of the day rapidly yielded to the frost of the night. I was out of my mind.

Something drew me on. Whether the charas or some greater force, I was out there, totally consumed with the one who was above…who, I believed, must be above. Those first successful steps gave me the confidence to go on. The top seemed so near. Ahead was a large crevice. No problem! A convenient snow bridge arched across. I could almost see beyond the edge, over to the plateau. Then, caught in the starlight, I saw a face. Was it Mara? Yes, it must be; its tertiary eye sparkled even in the dim starlight. I forced myself not to recoil from such a grotesque anomaly. The depth of the shadows made it difficult to see clearly. I took several more steps until I was almost level with the creature. I could see the details. The eye beamed forth not from the fiery, skull-bedecked forehead of my expectation, but from the delicate, opalescent brow of a…woman. I looked again at the eye…at the eyes. They were those all too familiar almond shapes. Asian! Even in this extreme I couldn’t escape my own predilections.

A crimson gown loosely covered her body. The cloth opened. My eyes saw breasts, cream ivory swells, capped by delicate, saffron-tinted nipples. Later I realized, I should have had more respect, but I couldn’t resist looking further, past the slight rise of her belly, into a darkness whose mystery could only promise indescribable delight. I was transfixed in a state that knew neither space nor time. The world around me dissolved. There was only this radiant creature and me, sole occupants of that universe. My outer mind, still a creature of the physical world, could only wonder why this delicate lady didn’t feel the cold. I wanted to rush forward and press my own warmth into those perfect orbs of flesh. I wanted to bring the warmth which flooded me into her and, for eternity, become one with her.

Again I was alone, no Mara, no ibex, no woman with dark, Chinese eyes. Something else was wrong, my body aching gently but persistently. I was lying on my shoulders and upper back with my legs bent over, sort of a yoga "plow" position, only devoid of any form or grace. Despite the darkness and general disorientation, I knew this wasn’t as it was supposed to be. The last thing I remembered was stepping out, reaching for the woman with Chinese eyes. I was so close; I could smell her sandalwood scent. Confusion! Time froze. Only after what seemed an excruciating forever did it begin to regain speed.

I tried to put it together. The woman must have been only in my mind. But the snow bridge, the footstep, the unseen fissure just below the surface of recent snow, had been all too real. I’d fallen into a crevice. How deep I couldn’t say, for my contorted lower body blocked my view upward. I reasoned I must be near the bottom, my shoulders and back wedged against both walls. I could feel the walls sloping inward below. Gradually, I oriented myself, but only as a guess, based on extremely limited information. It would have to do for the moment. I pictured myself wedged laterally across the narrowing "V" of the crevice. What if I could somehow lift myself and twist my body perpendicularly? Then I would be lengthwise to the crevice and able to stretch out. I was about to make the effort when another thought came. What if I am wedged in a narrow place high up in a very deep crevice? Crevices could be several hundred feet deep. If I freed myself here, it might be only to tumble down into unknown depths. This thought sent chills through an already deeply chilled body. Yes, I might be very near the top. Crevices are very irregular, opening and closing, then opening again. If I could just hold the plow, wait for the light, I could better gauge my predicament. Besides, the boys would come looking for me in the morning, if for no other reason than to recover my valuable gear. The sale of my cameras would more than make up for the loss of their ponies.

That was my plan, but like all plans subject to modification. The cold was working on my straining muscles, particularly those of my lower back and stomach. I was a runner, trekker. I prided myself on my condition, but now I was using muscles I had forgotten existed. For a while the after effects of the charas dulled the pain. Yet ever so slowly, my body’s pleas for relief invaded consciousness. It started with just a whisper, progressing to a gentle nag, which grew more strident as the minutes went by. I tried to think of something else. I went through all those usual places of refuge, past moments with Mei, Tara. I thought about how each of them might take the news of my death, then how others I had known might also react. That was most depressing. I knew for most it would be but an item of momentary interest: "Well he got what he was looking for," or "How nice for him he got to go in that place he loved so much." It would be no more than a blip of curiosity, at the most tinged with melancholy for the passing of Life. That had been the case when I heard about Paul. We had been so close at one time. Then we drifted so far away that his death, his non-existence, held no reality. He had ceased to exist in my world long before, as I in his. Where did all those feelings go?

My death would trouble Mei. I still existed in her world, even though she might have wished otherwise. How could it not? We had parted too recently. Much between us was still unresolved. The years of living, loving, hurting, stretched out so far, it seemed as if there had never been life without her. Did we even know who we were apart, not as one—no matter how fucked up that one had been? Would she be relieved? Would she be sad? Perhaps she would feel a little of both. She would curse me, feeling I was duty bound to end together what we had begun.

For Tara it would be different. She had already cut me loose, purposively, willfully. I was for her only a malleable memory, no longer anything to do with me, but with her state of mind. I was nothing more than an icon for a dim past, perhaps the good outweighing the bad—at least as the years went by and life took its toll. That remembered person might live on till she died, but the present me was long gone. No, I wouldn’t be missed.

The pain was more persistent this time; no more gentle ache, this was a burning agony. I tried to focus, not on the past, not on what I was leaving behind, but on the future, a non-existence, devoid of all pain. It surely must be near.

Mara, Mara, are you out there? Are you the woman with Chinese eyes, dark eyes filled with tears?

The pain was unbearable. To make matters worse, I felt the walls closing in, pressing my body even further into impossible contortion. Soon, I would hear my spinal cord snap. With luck the nerves would snap too. But what if they didn’t? What if I just lay there continually compressing, able to feel the destruction, synapse by synapse, neuron by neuron? I had asked for death many times. I had courted Mara, but not in this way—not so slowly, so deliberately, with so much pain. What were my crimes to deserve such fate?

I lost all scale of time. It smeared like in a Dali painting. Was a minute a minute, or a second or hour? I had no idea. Time blew into spindrift soon to be lost on the beach of eternity. My senses ruled. All I knew was that it was dark; it was cold, yet my body burned with fire. At that moment I thought, better fall to a quick death

I went for it. Using all reserves of energy, I flexed my back, hoping that there was enough strength left to dislodge myself. By some miracle, that strength was still there. I arched upward. With a desperate scramble of hands and feet I turned to the length of the crevice. Slipping roughly downward, I struck a solid surface.

I remember waking and thinking, how much I wanted my kofi. Even though it was so fucking cold, it took a few moments to realize I wasn’t in my down. The soft, blue-gray light helped to prolong the in-tent illusion. I cried out to Gul, not for help, but for that kofi I…"No, not want Gul, need!" In my mind a seed of dissonance took root. Perhaps it was the fruit of some sensory clue. The mental process had begun, an investigation underway. My fantasy gave way to the flood of new information. This was digested and to my horror…. No! It can’t be…more information…Oh, yes it can! I was suddenly, but firmly, where I was. Almost lost to life, I clawed my way back. That was the first step.

The voice grew louder. For a seeming eternity, the loudest sounds I had heard were those of my heart and lungs, together with the background of muffled cracks and crunches as the sun-warmed ice began to stir. I thought of the Pit and the Pendulum, remembered from childhood campfires. Well, I was in the pit all right, and the walls might be closing in. At least, thank God, there was no pendulum. Maybe that would come later. At each crack of ice, I expected to feel the walls closing in. How would it feel, those icy walls squeezing me to death? I hoped exposure would get me first. It was supposed to be a gentle death, just the sleep of freezing….

Now, there was this new sound. What had once so irritated, now seemed the sweetest song. It reached out, reconnecting my mind to another layer of reality, lying beyond my immediate, ice-bound world.

"That’s right," I muttered to myself. "There’s something else beyond these blue-gray walls. Yes, it must be Gul!" Then I heard a second voice. "It’s Pal!"

Another world begins to unfold—that world beyond these walls, beyond that curtain of sensory overload, a world that was before, my mind telling me, it can be again.

"GUL! PAL!" I shouted out. They must be nearby, very nearby the sound of their voices. Yet would they be able to see me? Their world, my old world, suddenly dimmed. That part of mind devoted to conjuring and predicting took over, projecting the worst possibilities. What if they passed by? What if their presence only prolonged my agony with one final glimpse of life, one final hope? I fought to escape this numbing prophecy. I needed action; I needed to move, to remake the connection. Struggling against a slide into entropy, I resumed shouting. Our voices brought us together.

As it turned out I was only about fifteen feet down. The crevice was old, more diagonal than vertical. All it needed was a rope and someone on the other end. Yet without these escape was impossible. Despite the ease of the rescue, my condition was such that they had to carry me back to camp. I was quite numb, the collective effect of the fall, the cold, and the various contortions my body had endured.

I was relieved to know I would survive. But why that was so is hard to explain. Back in the crevice, the final scenario played in my imagination like a fantasy film. Mara’s arm supernaturally extended beyond its feasible constraints, offering escape. I began to reach out, expecting to see Chinese eyes peering down over the edge above me. Instead, it was the Mara of my tangkha, crimson-fleshed, skull-bedecked, hideous. Initially I thought it was a mask. Yes, that was the logical explanation. The woman with Chinese eyes had just put on a mask. I forced myself to stare up into those three orbs. They were not plaster or paper, but living tissue. Then, as I looked deeper, past my initial recoil, I saw the same compassion I had perceived in those Chinese eyes, for within they were the same.

Gul’s leering face just a few inches away brought the present crashing back. To his credit, he tended my needs, holding a hot cup of chai up to my parched lips. I suddenly realized how thirsty I was. When did I last drink? Yes, up under the icefall, I had scooped some water from a trickle of melt, maybe half an hour before falling into the crevice. After that there had been nothing for God knows how many hours, maybe even days. I lost all orientation. There was just cold and damp—now the face of Gul, now the hot chai. It stung my lips, and I could feel them recoil, as if they were some disconnected other.

"Salt chai, Dadee!" Gul was most solicitous, but he came across as an unctuous Lothario. "You very sick, Dad, too much cold, no food too long, no drink too long. You color very blue. I see before. When child…my Father…bear tear him bad…one arm gone, but I go back get other village men to get him…bring him back before he die. We have no doctor, no Angrez medicines. My father much like you, very cold, very still. Color like you, blue, like that kafir devil-god, the one they call Shiva. Mullah come…say we must keep warm…give salt tea. Say Allah do rest. Your medicine…so sorry lost. I can only make you warm, give you salt chai. Insha’Allah you getting better!"

Thinking back on the scene I could swear there were malicious twinkles in his eyes. Perhaps the events that followed color my memory.

If it wasn’t bad enough for Gul to compare my situation to that of his long dead father, there was even worse news.

"Don’t move Dad, something wrong with shoulder. It look kherab."

I was emerging from shock, and it was almost as if his words triggered awareness of that shoulder, my left one. No sooner was the word "shoulder" out of his mouth, than I felt a dull throbbing pain—it was where I had landed when I flipped over in the crevice. As I tried to extricate myself from the bag, the dull throb turned into a fiery lance. After recovering from the initial shock, I gingerly touched the injured shoulder. Gul was right; my shoulder was "very kherab." The bones weren’t where they were supposed to be. I never had so much as a broken finger, and now, here in this desolate spot…. It began to dawn on me I had a dislocated shoulder. Then I thought back to what he had said about being blue. That could mean only one thing, hypothermia. Again, I lost consciousness.

All of this must have been very perplexing for Gul. Was he tempted just to let me slip away? After all, I still had a lot of valuable belongings, all sorts of things he could sell in Delhi for many, many rupees. Yet, there had be questions. I had registered with the police before leaving Manali, telling them when I expected to arrive in Padam, and who was accompanying me. My disappearance would be a question the local police must eventually answer. Then, of course, there would be others interested, those of whom at the time I had no knowledge, such as Singh. He wouldn’t be too pleased if Gul let me slip away—even if it was to death I escaped. After much thought, Gul realized it was in his interest to save me. Of course, it was still a case of Insha’Allah. He talked the matter over with the boys.

"Dadee very sick, too long in cold, shoulder maybe come apart, the bones separate from fall. Kherab! Kherab! Cold we treat. Yes, we make him very warm. Maybe we roast him a little like a sheep at Id."

Here he chuckled, but Pal and Yosh, now very contrite and filled with renewed loyalty, bristled at this ill-timed humor. Gul’s eyes mocked their anger. He thought to himself, "How can these fools feel any honor in serving the Angrez? It is the same as serving a sheep or a chicken. Allah brings here for our purpose, for our livelihood, for our use." Then brushing past their hostile looks, "We can do nothing about the shoulder. Now he is far away. He feels no pain. The cold makes him sleep. When warmer, he comes back to life. He feels much pain. Big problem to move him. Pal this your land. You know any doctor close by?"

"No doctor until Padam, Gul Sahib. Pal was smart enough to know he had a new boss. "But in Kargya is lama. He know how to heal. Not modern way like Padam doctor, but old way, way of ancestors who came from Tibet even before Lord Buddha. Very strong his medicine. Very holy man, the Taras answer his call."

Despite his disgust with these Kafirs and their idols, Gul wasn’t about to quibble over old or new medicine. Doing nothing would be the worst course. For that he could be blamed. At least if he got the lama, he could say he tried his best. "How far is village Pal?"

"Kargya, not far, downhill, I walk fast, maybe three, four hour."

"Chalo, chalo! Say to lama, very important Angrez Sahib…very rich…make big donation to gomba. Tell shoulder maybe broken, maybe just out of place, we not know. He come, try best to fix. We pay…Sahib pay that is."

Pal nodded assent, keeping inside his contempt for this Kashmiri money-grubber. Didn’t he know a lama was a man of God? He uses gift of healing not for profit, but as service to Lord Buddha. It was senseless, however, to try to teach these avaricious Muslims; they would never understand.

"Yes, Gul Sahib, I tell lama," and he was off down the valley.

Unfortunately, Gul’s prediction came true. As my temperature rose consciousness returned, and so did the pain. What began as a distant throb, soon became deep, searing pain. Even Gul’s bhang did little except lower my own natural defenses to the hordes of paranoiac fears waiting their chance. It seemed like an eternity, but just as the light was growing dim, I heard Pal’s voice from what sounded like a great distance.

"Jule! Jule!"

Then I heard answering voices, footsteps, muffled greetings, the sound of my tent fly opening and then…?

That was all until I awoke. I was lying on a blanket outside near a fire. I remember wondering, how could they have found wood, for no tree grew in this land. Then from the sweet grassy smell, I realized the fuel must be animal dung, maybe yak. Although I was stripped to the waist, the fire kept me warm. My injured shoulder was smeared with a greasy substance that had the same smell about it as the fire. Again, there was a face hovering over me. Only this time, Gods be praised, it wasn’t Gul. Instead, it was the most benevolent countenance I can ever recall—Devara excepted, for he too has a similar inner glow of grace. It was the lama from Kargya, Geser lozang, the man who was to be my savior. His well fleshed, sun-seared, Mongol-moon face peeked out from under the maroon sahru, the conical hat with long earflaps worn by the monks in this district. He would have looked more comical elf than holy healer, except for the intense love that radiated from every well-weathered line and pore. Enveloping me, his chanted mantra tugged at my consciousness.

At first, the sheer physical power of the voice was overwhelming—in tone that is, rather than any meaning of the words. The deep bass modulations formed an aural cloud, floating me above the sea of pain raging below. Geser kept on with this sonorous chant, the gravely base somehow so soothing, so familiar. Yes familiar, for it reminded me of the Presidio foghorn that had lulled me to sleep so many fear-filled nights when still a smuggler. In those days there were always so many fears. They hung like great weights over my head, threatening to drop and crush a world I had so precariously constructed. Central to that world was Mei. Losing her was the worst of all my fears, for I loved her far more than myself. How I welcomed that low rumbling sound. For sailors it warned that fog was entering the Bay. But for me, it was the signal of relief. I cloaked myself in those thick resonant folds, hiding from fears of bust, rip-off, or that most feared loss of her. Now, in this similar sound I could hide—not from fear, but from pain

How long it took I have no idea. I had lost any sense of time long before. Gradually, I began to hear intelligible sound within the stream of mantra:

"OOMTAARAANEEETAARAAYAAOOMOOCAANEEEMOOCAAYAAO
OMOOKSAANEEEMOOKAAYAAJIIVAAMVAARAADEESVAAHAA!"

Slowly this stream became clearer until I could hear distinct syllables: "OM TARANEE TARAYA! OM MOCANEE MOCAYA! OM MOKSANEE MOKSAYA! JIVAM VARADE SVAHHA!" Over and over, Geser chanted without pause, his eyes boring into mine. He was searching for something that wasn’t yet there. After another of those intervals unbounded by time, I no longer heard just a string of unknown sounds. Meaning snapped into focus, just as when you rack the focus on a very long lens, from meaningless blur to sharply defined plane. Somehow, I understood what those sounds meant: "Save me, savioress! Liberate me, liberated one! Free me, freed one! You give the highest gift of life!"

On reflection, I realize it wasn’t the meaning itself—for the words were quite simple and certainly inspired no intellectual breakthrough—although the mention of "savioress" piqued my curiosity. But this mantra wasn’t addressed to the inquiring mind. Instead, the entire healing ritual was designed to raise the patient to the lama’s plane of consciousness. Understanding served only to signal the moment of synergy had arrived.

The next day we traveled to the lama’s gomba up a small side nala just below Kargya. The village itself was little more than a few houses, although from the row of chortens guarding the approach I might have expected something grander. The dwellings housed both humans and their animals. Each was a fortress, not as protection from their fellows, as in Afghanistan or the North West Frontier, but from the weather. In late August, it was cool except for the middle of the day. I could only imagine what the winter would bring.

I asked the lama about this. He pointed to the block-like adobe houses. "Don’t they tell the story?"

The mud brick and flat roofs reminded that I was now in the Himalaya’s rain shadow. On the other, monsoon-visited side, where snow and rain were frequent, houses are made of stone and timbers with steep-pitched roofs. Here, thick, window-poor walls told of icy winds that sweep through the valley.

"I guess it gets pretty cold around here."

The lama chuckled and took me inside his own quarters. "See, inside is one central room surrounded by outer ones. In deepest winter we live in this one room, sometimes for a moon or more. If it’s not too cold, we keep animals in outside rooms. When it gets very cold, we bring them inside with us. Lord Buddha teaches that all life is of value, not just for us, but for God."

Despite the obvious preparation against winter’s cruelty, nowhere could I see firewood. This was for the simple reason that there are no trees, native or transplanted, in these parts. On the South and West slopes of the Himalaya you see immense piles of firewood in outlying villages. Without such resources, Zanskari hamlets must rely on a twiggy brush, for which they must often travel many miles to gather. The rooftops showed the villagers diligence, immense piles covering the conveniently flat roofs. Together with animal dung, these twigs were the only fuel for fire during the long winters—the difference between life and death. The wealthier villagers could pack in kero, but that was expensive. Smoke and its related illnesses were always a problem. Remember that there were few windows, none on the inside rooms, and chimneys were rudimentary holes in the roof. Most of the dwellings’ interiors were black from the soot.

Geser prepared some chai. Being a monk of some substance he had a kero stove. We sat in that central room by the hearth and talked over the salt, yak-buttered infusion of chai mixed with tsampa.

"Where are you going, No?" First it had been "Dad" and now, although Geser might not have been much older—this harsh world could age so quickly—it was to be "brother" and "younger brother" at that. Unlike the irritation I felt at "Dad," "No" didn’t bother me. What worried me was the question itself. While it was quite innocuous from the mouth of a lay person, from a priest it had a deeper significance. It was a question that troubled me before and still troubles me. I gave him my ready answer. "Kashmir!"

"To Kashmir? What an odd destination! Do you not know of the troubles in Kashmir?" He paused, laughed at his own thought, then catching the question in my eye.

"You know No?" He laughed again perhaps seeing that the play of the two languages could produce some interesting puzzles, sort of a Zanskari "Who’s on first!" Tibetan poets were famous for this sort of word play. "The dragon is returning to Kashmir. The Saint who first brought Buddhism to that land predicted it long ago. Do you know the story?"

I didn’t, but before I could say so he launched into the tale. Geser was an avid storyteller, and I a captive audience.

"Let me tell you. At that time, some say half a century after the departure of Lord Buddha, Kashmir was ruled by a dragon who, along with his tribe, lived in a great lake entirely covering the land. The Saint went to the dragon and performed a great feat, the exact nature has been lost in time. So impressed was the dragon that he offered to grant the Saint’s deepest wish.

"I wish to spend my remaining days contemplating my existence in a lotus posture in this beautiful Vale. But because there is so much water there is no room for me."

The dragon was surprised by simple request and agreed. "I will gladly grant you enough land for your meditations."

Now the Saint was very clever. As the dragon began to draw off water to make room for the Saint, the holy one grew until, for him to fit, the entire lake had to be drawn off. The Saint then became ruler, since there was no more lake for the dragon or his tribe. The Saint being a compassionate man agreed to give back some of the land to form smaller lakes for the dragon family. The dragon was overjoyed and begged the Saint to remain in Kashmir forever. However, it was near the time for the Saint to ascend to Buddhahood. So instead, he installed his followers, who then built more than five hundred monasteries. Kashmir became a great center of Buddhism."

"Yes I know, I’ve seen many of the temples, but now they’re all in ruins. Many of the statues of Lord Buddha and the bodhisattvas have been defaced," I said trying to insert my own thought into what was rapidly becoming a lecture.

"Ah! That is of little importance. They are, after all, only wood, stone, and metals. Lord Buddha lives in our hearts. There he cannot be disfigured, as long as our hearts are pure. However, that is another matter."

Yes, I thought, but how many have such pure hearts? I feared for Lord Buddha’s continued existence.

"Before leaving this Earth, the Saint said that Kashmir would remain as a land of humanity until the last Buddhist left; then it would be inundated and returned to the rule of the dragon tribe. Even in the time when the Hindu kings came back to rule, even under the Mogul, the Pathan, the Sikh, and then the Hindu again, some Buddhists remained. Now, however, the terrible wind of holy war blows from the West. These Mussalmen will not allow any others to live in the land. They say they want all for their Allah…for Islam. They think their own tradition the only one. They think, for some unknowable reason, that the face of God has been revealed to them and to them alone. Some Mussalmen believe all this to be true. I think, however, their leaders use this belief only to take the land. In the land lies power, and they want it for themselves. They say it is for the people, for Islam, for Allah, but they do not fool me. It is for their advantage, political, material advantage, that they struggle. Again, as always, it is the people who must pay. Leaders are always very greedy, maybe not for money, but for power. They’re very crazy, very dangerous."

He was right there. No one could be more dangerous than fanatics doing "the will of God." What couldn’t be justified? I had seen plenty of this in my travels…Hell, even more in my own country. How else could we have done, and continue to do, what we did to the people of Vietnam, El Salvador, or any one of a dozen places that our leaders wished to control—only we called our God, "Democracy," while for others it is "Communism."

"The dragon becomes restless because he knows his time is near. Not only Hindus, but also all Buddhist have been driven from the Vale. It will become as prophesied, the land will again be covered by the water, and the dragon tribe will rule. Is it wise, No, to be planning to visit such a place? Each one of us has our destiny, our dharma, but it is of our own making; we have a choice. Kashmir is reverting to the realm of the dragons, it is not the place for men such as you or me."

This was a lot to think about. I had tossed that image of a past Kashmir out in front of me to guide me forward. I had never questioned the wisdom of such a choice. Now I was beginning to question. I searched the ceiling, trying to escape Geser’s inquisitive eyes. He knew very well that he had gotten my wheels turning. It was so convenient to know where you are going, so disturbing when you don’t. I fixed on a large patch of sooted ceiling; the flickering light of the medicine-bottle kero lamp—the lama was affluent—animated a dance of sculpted carbon forms.

Again I was in that comforting refuge of the past. Smoke not only filled the room, but the lungs and eyes of all within. There was no outlet for the smoke to escape. The dwelling’s owners feared what might come through these openings, even more than the evils such openings would dispel—chronic eye and lung disease. They had good reason to fear; they were Kalash, kafir, infidels, unbelievers, peoples beyond the pale, surrounded by Islam.

Talk about living on the edge, about surviving against all odds; these folks had been marginal for the last thousand years. As my guidebook would have it, remnants of a culture once found throughout the highland regions of Eastern Afghanistan, Northern Pakistan, and North Western India—ancient Dardistan. The Kalash represent the closest approximation of what life was before the Islamic incursions, before the waves of invading Arabs, Turks, Persians, Mongols, and Punjabis. The guide unblushingly repeated the tale that they are the descendants of Alexander’s armies, perhaps because a few have very fair skin, reddish-blond hair, and gray-blue eyes. From my childhood reading I remembered that they also figure in more modern myth, the people visited in Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King. Like our own indigenous populations, their once large numbers have been decimated through genocide, disease, and assimilation. The remaining several thousand now live in three very high and very remote valleys on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, an area known as Kafiristan.

I first contacted them back in…maybe ’73…the dates sort of run together now. Yes, it must have been ’73. It was my last "R and R safari." Soon after that I left Nam, for good. When I found them, they were just beginning to be exploited by the Pakies as a tourist attraction. I was in Peshawar, waiting for my connect. I had time to kill, and the resident government tourist-wala was overjoyed to have an actual customer—a cash carrying one that is. Most of the western travelers going through were strung-out freaks making the dash through the land of Cain to the Nirvana they thought they would find in India. I was more enthusiastic. Having grown accustomed to a world steeped in conflict and macho, the N.W.F.P. was just my thing. Besides, while living in Kabul, I had heard all about Chitral and the charms of the Kalash women. Of course they hadn’t mention the laalies.

The tourist officer made the arrangements. Before I knew it, I was on a flight to Chitral, fighting back fear as the straining Fokker barely cleared the Lawri Top. My nerves were hardly calmed when my seatmate, looking for all the world as if he should be astride a camel rather than in a plane, pointed to the rugged ridge looming ahead.

"That, Sar, where old Mehtar (Ruler of Chitral) die when plane not making top. Insha’Allah, not to worry Sar, very old plane the Mehtar’s being, only single motor, not two like this Pakistani one. Thanks to God, we have new, more strong machine. We make over top. Insha’Allah!"

And with Allah’s (or someone’s) help we made it. Soon I was a bouncing over the rough tracks, which passed for a road, squeezed into the back of an ancient jeep with a dozen or so passengers. That had been an exceedingly dangerous ride with hairpin turns so sharp that the driver had to halt, back up, then go forward, often several times, to negotiate the bend. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except those turns climbed cliffs dropping thousands of feet. Occasionally, one of my fellow travelers would point out the carcass of another jeep, sometimes in the river, sometimes snagged on an outcrop. "There Sar, fifteen mens die. There Sar, ten mens die." I welcomed the end of the track at a village called Guru in the Brir Nala, at the time the only Kalash village accessible by jeep. I have heard that now jeep roads penetrate all the valleys. I can only imagine what has become to a way of life so tenuous even then.

The news spread quickly, "Big-time tourist-Sahib come, many rupees making. Get dancers, big baksheesh."

Finally all was ready. In deference to my western sensibilities, I was seated on a rickety lawn chair. At my side was an equally rickety table, holding a formal, albeit heavily mended, china tea service—my cup had brass staples holding the many cracks together. In that land, they could put Humpty Dumpty together. Other than my cautious sipping, the only sound was the river’s, its uniform roar punctuated by the occasional discordant cry of the great ravens raiding the nearby cornfields. Then, imperceptibly rising over the river, came a drum’s hypnotic beat. A flute wailed, then the sound of shuffling feet filled the air. I could hear the excited chatter of women, many women.

Suddenly from behind a log house came snaking lines of Kalash maids in their loose sangach or cheo, a coal-black, homespun robe. I use the term "women" loosely, for they were of all ages from prepubescent girls to ancient crones. Intricate patterns of black dots decorated their faces, and their hair, braided in five pigtails, flew out from under curious hooded headpieces when they danced. This was the kopsei, the cobra-hood headpiece whose echoes I would later see in the Zanskari and Ladhaki women’s perag. While the perag was richly decorated in Tibetan turquoise and Indian coral, the kopsei made do with Chinese coins, cowry shells, mother of pearl buttons, and plastic beads bought from itinerant Muslim traders. Kalash women, in contrast to their Muslim sisters—in many cases they were quite literally sisters—were quite bold. They danced right up and greeted me as was befitting a patron. "Esphad!" the lead shouted, then the entire company echoed her greeting

My Kohw driver turned to me, "See Sahib, Kalash womens landi khar, in Angrezi you say…?" Here he made a provocative wiggle of his hips that could mean only one thing.

"Sexy," I supplied the requested word.

Somehow this rag-tag assortment didn’t meet my definition of sexy. But maybe I hadn’t been there long enough. Maybe, my driver had been in the boonies too long? Or maybe, it was that in Pakistan, an extremely conservative Muslim society, a woman dancing in public was proscribed? However, what was unholy for Muslim women—whose proper place was proverbially the "house or grave"—was winked at in the case of these Kafirs. For although Kalash morals were no less than any others, they had quite a reputation among Muslim men. It was rather amusing to hear the tales.

These tales were so powerful that my aging Pashtu servant in Kabul knew them. Many of these centered on itinerant Muslim traders who were said to exchange beads or buttons for sexual favors—so that the kopsei was the material record of a woman’s prowess. Then there was the "Bullmen" story. Rumor had it that every spring, according to Kalash custom, the most endowed young male would impregnate all the young women who had reached puberty in the past year. In this way the strongest genes would be propagated, or so went the story. Such tales excited the imagination of sexually starved Muslim men. Many dreamed of someday traveling to Chitral to see these exotic creatures perform. Talk about furthest pastures.

In reality, they had been rather young, rather old, and not terribly clean, even though in all their finery. What turned me on was not their sexual charms, but the haunting quality of their music—voice, flute, and drum. I had along my Frezzi, the camcorder of its day, and with it recorded the dance.

Sure I was high, but the song, more of a repetitive chant that wavered up and down, bore a hole through me. It transported me, bringing to a door in my subconscious, which though unopened, offered a tantalizing hint of something beyond. Did I hear strains of some timeless, spaceless air to which my ancestors danced? I was overwhelmed by a gut feeling that here was my own history. Not that my roots lay in Chitral, or that my ancestors were Kalash, but that beside some Nordic fjord they had lived much the same. It was such a simple way of life, so rational a response to their world. I didn’t see the Kalash as I had seen other "primitives," the Jivaro in the Amazon, or the Tuareg out on the Sahara. Those I felt were the "native" the "other," but with these Kalash, so "scruffy" by western standards, it seemed like coming home. Beneath the dirt, I saw familiar faces, in the language I heard familiar tones. It was a fantasy not beyond reach.

Somewhat later, I came to understand why they seemed so familiar. I had thought in terms of tribe because that was how I thought back then. I had been taught tribes and, even worse, "levels." I had yet to escape that teaching. Now, I realize, it was something more. My affinity wasn’t rooted in some joined past, but in the present. We were similar because we both fought to be ourselves, fought to keep some greater other from defining us. What these Kalash do collectively, I do alone. For them other is Islam, Pakistan, modernity. For me it is everything beyond my own mind. If I had any doubt about their desire to remain a people, I had only to listen to one song—a song whose meaning I never learned. Yet it wasn’t its meaning that spoke to me, but the manner in which it was sung. An elder, who had committed the entire work to memory, introduced the first word or two of each new stanza; thus reminded, the junior members picked up the refrain. In this way each generation passed down ancestral songs to another—keys to the collective memory of a culture without literature. It was through song and story the Kalash passed on their traditions. All it would take was a break in this fragile oral chain, and the Kalash would be no more.

Everything was so damn slow! It had struck me on that first visit, and later in reviewing my film, how slowly the Kalash moved. If you saw the film without being there, you would swear it was slo-mo. Of course, living at more than eight thousand feet can calm folks down. After seeing the footage just once, I knew I would go back. I had to see what these Kalash were all about. Why were they so obstinately holding on to this ancient way of life, a way that made it so difficult when they moved out in the surrounding culture? What secrets did it hold? Oh! I guess to be totally honest, the local charas I smoked down in the Chitral bazaar was some of the best. This, coupled with the excellent price that the chaikanna-wala offered, had much to do with my decision.

I went back, yes, to score, but also to film. The footage I made earlier whetted my appetite to make an ethnographic film. I rolled that word "ethnographic" on my tongue. It sounded impressive, even if I didn’t really know much about ethnography at the time. But I had money and equipment. I hoped that the rest would fall into place. It was the autumn of ’75. The helicopter crash, the year before, finally got my attention. I had lost my appetite for Indochina. Not to mention, as of April, Saigon was now Ho Chi Minh City. I was under serious pressure to find new work. Somehow pictures of war and gore were no longer in vogue. The American public had their fill.

Kalashgram, at that time, was the most traditional hamlet in the three valleys, that is, where Islam had made the fewest inroads. Yet even there, a mosque and school were under construction. I believed it was only a matter of time before Islam became the life way, not by the sword as in the past, but by hard logic. Life would be better if you joined the dominant culture. The Paki Government made a big fuss over "preserving" their minority cultures. These were after all valuable tourist assets. But the geographic reality of Kalashgram was a fitting metaphor for the future of its culture. For the young men there was little opportunity and even less land. What other choice would they have, but to migrate "down" to work in the cities? Once there in isolation, how could they maintain the Kalash ways?

Still at the time of which I write, the Kalash retained much of those old ways, at least enough to fool an outsider like me. The geography was a big reason for their "preservation." Few of their Muslim neighbors coveted such a remote and harsh land. It was too high to grow much except a few scraggly ears of corn, although pumpkins flourished. Equally important, the nala backed on impassable mountain wall, the track to Kalashgram led nowhere. That was, of course, before the troubles in Afghanistan. Ten years later, Paul reported in a rare, rambling letter that Afghan Muslim refugees had flooded all Kafiristan, even Kalashgram, putting an unbearable strain on the remaining Kalash and any attempt by the Government to "preserve" their culture.

Rumbur nala ran in a northwest-southeast direction. By late fall the sun shone only a few hours when it passed over the canyon’s narrow opening to the sky. It was cold in Kalashgram except for those few hours of sun. We soon shifted from our tent to the common room of our gracious host, the "Mayor." There was plenty of time to kill. Actual filming was infrequent because there was only a very short time during the day when it was light enough to film. I was using a low speed, fine grain, color film—ECO at 16 ASA—that I, quite naively, hoped eventually to blow-up to a 35 mm for theatrical release. Also, we were many days from any electrical power so we had to use our store of 12-volt battery belts most judiciously.

This meant spending a whole lot of time indoors around smoky, soft wood fires, filling our lungs both with wood smoke and charas. The Kalash had neither those Chinese kerosene lamps nor the pump-up stoves, common throughout Muslim Chitral. Such modernity was beyond the reach of all but the most affluent Kalash, and these, being quite orthodox, would shun them as untraditional. All light was from deodar torch, and all cooking on a simple open hearth with deodar, pine, or cedar wood, very soft, very combustible, very smoky. As I said, traditional houses had no windows or chimneys. Not because there was any longer a danger from their Muslim neighbors. From this they are relatively safe; it was in the new, government-built mosque, school, and health clinic that they now faced Islam’s major threat. No, it was for the simple reason that Kalash homes didn’t have windows or chimneys, plain and simple. That was what made them Kalash. If they modernized, despite all the efficacy of a smoke-free life, they would be Muslim houses and their inhabitants less Kalash for it.

Smoke filled the temple room. I was choking; my eyes so filled with tears that I had given up trying to focus. On went the 5.9-mm Angenieux. Its almost unlimited depth of field took care of focusing worries, but not my breathing. I wanted to leave, yet to do so before the grand finale of the wedding would have been very rude. Besides, this wedding would be the high point of my film and the sacrifice, the climax of the wedding.

I had paid for the damn goat in any case. That was the fine when Mei climbed on the roof to get a better view of the dance. Seems it was big-time taboo for women to be on roofs—"mens only Sahib." It caused a big brouhaha. A lot of the graybeards got together and, after much heated discussion, demanded payment of a goat. "Needs blood price to make roof clean Sahib." I should have been happy it wasn’t Mei’s blood they were demanding, but at the time I was pissed—just a set up so they would have a free sacrifice for the wedding. What the fuck! I was going to get the footage, make my million on the film, (or at least many thousand on the dope) so I shouldn’t mind the hundred rupees cost. I just hated to be an easy mark.

Finally the moment came. Before the altar of the Goddess Jestak, an on-jesta-mosh, a virgin boy of fifteen or sixteen—the future "Bullman" if rumors were correct—who acts as an acolyte for the utah or shaman, decapitated a goat and sprinkled the blood on the bride and groom. Then with a flourish, he tossed the head onto a blazing fire of holly branches.

When the goat blood hit the flames, it made a vile stink and even more smoke, if that was possible. That was it for me. Apparently many of the other guests thought the same thing and, almost as one, exited to the porch. This was a crude affair, a few rough-hewn boards resting on log beams that extended from the dwelling. A notched log ladder some fifteen feet high was the only means of coming and going. Paranoia runs deep in Kalashgram.

I was out at one end of the porch, standing on a board where it straddled the supporting log beam. Without warning the support log at the other end of my board gave way. Affas, a Kohw, or Muslim Chitrali, who was acting as my personal guide cum servant, went slowly sailing through the air. Why was it always in slo-mo? He should have fallen much faster, for he was carrying four Colortran batteries—the same ones destined to make so much money and then, later, so much time. Those suckers weighed about twenty pounds apiece. Not that I had much time to contemplate their weight. I was poised at the other end of the board, trying to balance on an extremely uneven teeter-totter. After more fantastically stretched milliseconds, I too tumbled toward the distant rocky hillside. With the same reflexes that had saved both my ass and equipment in the copter crash, I cradled the camera, hitting the ground where it would do the least damage. I was young and still flexible; the camera was hard and also survived. Moments after the fall, Affas ran up, cutting a narrow swath with the tightly snooted movie light in the otherwise pitch-dark melee.

"Filim lamp thik Sar, filim lamp okay!"

The fall had its cost. The light revealed this as it played erratically over the traumatized guest. I remember the air was full of cries and groans. Occasionally, the hot quartz glare caught a face contorted by fear, pain, or both. It was almost as if Affas was expecting me to resume shooting. Yes, that was it, he was lighting the scene. Reflexively, I was about to respond, but there was another crash. More bodies and debris hurtled down. The remaining party having heard the commotion came out to see. In the darkness they suffered our fate. Something hard and heavy hit me. I must have lost it.

I emerged from the lama’s house into near deja vu. A party of women passed in front of me. Much like the women of the Kalash, they wore the black, homespun robe; on their heads was the familiar shape of the cobra-hooded headdress. This Zanskari perag was more lavish with its turquoise and coral. This made sense, for these Zanskari were wealthier than the Kalash; their valley was broad; their pastures rich for the great black yaks the village depends on for survival. Unlike the Kalash their way of life is relatively secure. They are the dominant culture, protected from encroachment by a harsh and remote land. But then so it had been with the Kalash once upon a time.

The women were out in force to greet their returning men. They had been away for some days in the high pastures. Because of the lack of trees, we could see them from a great distance, slowly making their way down the valley. The giant yaks were kicking up a small cloud of dust, the universal call of "Uuusht! Uuusht!" mixed with the thunder of hoofs. The women giggled among themselves, and the bolder ones called out to their men.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the course of my journey was about to change. I had begun with much saman, and I still had plenty of it—even after the loss to the avalanche, even having after coming so close to loosing it all…even me…in the crevice. It was with no little irony that, in attempting to unload, my burden only increased. For I had come to believe in Mara, that this Shapechanger drew me inexorably onward, that our destinies were linked. In Mara, I saw annihilation, the way to escape.

But escape from what? Certainly it wasn’t that moment. In the present I was supremely happy. The tragedy was that I didn’t confine myself to the present, Kargya, Geser, ladies who flashed shy, friendly smiles, great black yaks. I was looking forever backward—some might even crudely put "up my ass." I just couldn’t let go. But could I carry the burden much longer? It was time I was free. Geser looked at me, at the possessions, and the people who accompanied me. Not that he saw Pal and Yosh as any problem, they were compatriots, good boys, who showed their respect and did his bidding. But Gul and Ravi were beyond the pale, hopeless as converts, unacceptable as equals. I think that Geser, having saved me, if not from death at least great pain, decided he must try to save my soul.

For the first time since leaving Delhi, Gul wasn’t my principal companion. Geser took me completely under his care, cooking my food, seeing that my clothes were washed, and messaging my miraculously recovering shoulder. We even played chess. It had been years since I played my last game. He put me to shame. The most important thing was that he spoke much better English than Gul and, for the first time in weeks, I was able to have a conversation about something else than the necessities of life. Gradually, he began to draw me out. I told him about my "flirtation" with Mara, and that I knew, at least intellectually, this life was but the web of Maya. I was quite proud of my insights and eager to show I had solved the puzzle. I had gotten the proverbial "it."

I was cruising, and I hadn’t had a joint all day. Not the day before either, nothing since I had fallen into the crevice. It wasn’t that I had turned over the proverbial leaf or anything. Rather, Gul was making himself scarce, and he had the stash. Besides, I was afraid smoking would offend my host. In my newly found state of sobriety, I thought I was being so profound, but that profundity was met by gently laughing eyes—eyes that said, been there, seen it, now how about another way?

Damn! There goes the bell again. Just when I am ready to move on, leave that baggage of the past behind, there it is again waiting. Whoever had envisioned the past as behind was certainly wrong. It was everywhere front, back, even to the side. Well I said I might come back to this.

Yes, I knew Mehrauli well. It was where Mei and I found refuge after our flight from Afghanistan. There in the vihara, a Buddhist teaching monastery, the Head Monk married us. This wizened, ex-pat Vietnamese, who styled himself as the Hinayana Pope, had been a big political honcho in the Fifties back in Hue. He became too outspoken for the then ruling Diem family, audaciously pointing out their corruption. Diem gave him the choice of prison or exiled priesthood, so he took the vows and went off to India to study. Things became worse in Vietnam, and he never went back. Instead, he received the position as head of the vihara and, because of its proximity to the capital, gained some international renown.

I told Geser about this experience—although not about the money part—and it turned out he knew this monk well, having spent time in the vihara. He was studying the Hinayana traditions, thought to be closer to the original teaching of Buddha than his own Mahayana beliefs.

"If you know Mehrauli, then you must know of the Iron Pillar?"

I did, and I knew his meaning. The Pillar was an ancient technological marvel, over twenty feet tall and weighing several tons. No one has ever been able to figure out how it was made, or why it never rusted, even though it is estimated to be over two thousand years old.

"Imagine, No, the knowledge of the culture that produced this column. However, I learned much from the course…if only how correct were my own traditions…how once your philosophers thought of light as particles. Then later, someone came along and said, ‘That is not right, it is made of waves.’ Only recently have your scholars considered they might be both particle and wave. That life exists, not as one or the other, but of all that flows from our consciousness. You think because you have discovered that life is an illusion, a veil, yet have not seen beyond the veil, you can now go through it. What if the veil is part of the illusion, part of Maya? Where is the end to this thought? You must let go of your mind; you must accept the power of God, the power that is God’s alone to lift the veil. All of life, my life, your life, should be spent in preparation for that which lies beyond. But what is the point of this preparation, if you do not make the journey. Why bother, if you only jump to one side before the journey is complete. If you lose your nerve, if you jump, it is as if you had never started out. You must go through it all over again. Again and again you must go on, until you find the heart to complete the journey."

Geser paused, looking deep into my eyes, measuring the impact his words were making. Perhaps, he saw the hurt that lay within, hurt that my heart was in question. But then I too had come to question my heart. I have been many things, but I always prided myself on having the heart, having the courage to throw away my own interests and do what was right.