“Good God, Charlie, I don’t know. It all seems forbidding, like sci-fi. But there’s proof here it worked for Bruce, and if I don’t give it a try and these wild attacks go on and on and on and get me down, I may have some punishing regrets.” It had been weeks now since I’d seen her, but my thoughts still flashed to Emma. “And that’s been our battle cry, hasn’t it? No regrets!”
“You remember when we first came up with that? Back when we were just beginning to ski and those feisty hotshot teenagers challenged us to a race down the expert run…”
“And we beat them. Well, what would you do now?”
“I just couldn’t deal with all that spiritual stuff. I’m too flat-footed. Have you discussed this with your Dr. Brevoro?”
“No. I know what he’d say.”
“Don’t be so sure. Some doctors have mystic streaks in them.”
* * *
—
Dr. Brevoro took his time and went through all my Sophie stuff. “As a scientific, practical man who deals with medical problems, I have to say none of this seems possible. I accept that the state of a person’s mind can have an influence on his physical body, but as far as I can tell, all these mystical attempts with vapors and bloodletting and idols don’t seem to have the ability to achieve the desired effect.”
“But they did on Bruce Gleason, and it may have the same effect on me, right?”
“I would have had to examine Mr. Gleason to comment on that. Mr. Tremaine, I know how badly Bonnet is impinging on your life, how desperate you are to be cured, but in my opinion going through this strange, bewildering ritual in Nepal, investing so much of yourself, your time, your money, and not achieving a resolution may make your disposition more depressed.”
“Not my sunny disposition!” I laughed at that.
“I have one more thing for you to think about. In some patients Bonnet syndrome stops for a period of time, from weeks to years, and in some lucky ones, forever. No one can know what brings this about or when. Although you can’t count on it, neither should you give up hoping.”
* * *
—
That night, having a drink on my little New York balcony, I decided I had to make my mind up right then and there. I looked up to the heavens. A canopy of white bulbous clouds was overhead; three pigeons were strutting around, attracted by the seed I had scattered; Stravinsky was floating up from the balcony below. I felt at peace with the world when suddenly the pigeons erupted in squawking cries and turned into three black rats chasing each other. The frenzied alarm sounded by the disappeared pigeons and the syndrome substitution of the large, aggressive red-eyed rats running over my feet made my decision for me: I had to go to Nepal and take my chances or give up on any chance of peace or joy—or love—in my life again.
chapter fifteen
A driver with a Yak and Yeti placard with my name on it greeted me at the Kathmandu airport, and as Sophie Gleason had promised, yaks were not foraging in the lobby of the hotel. In fact, the hotel was luxurious, situated in a historic palace with a casino, landscaped gardens, tennis courts, antique fountains, a sauna, a business center, an outdoor swimming pool, and an impressive restaurant with an extensive Continental menu that served dishes that rivaled the five-star places of New York.
What Sophie had not described was the thick soup of carbon monoxide fog that had its poisonous arms wrapped around the city. Automobiles, trucks, buses, motorcycles packed the roads fender to fender. A suffocating heat added to the punishment. My morale suffered a wallop.
However, it recovered somewhat the next day when I took a taxi to Durbar Square, where Dr. Gopal’s place was located. I was stunned by the sight of the square itself, a panorama of dozens of beautifully carved towers and twenty or thirty fascinating temples, the towers and temples each devoted to a particular god. I asked the driver to slowly drive me around and he described in his Nepali-accented English their origins, the powers of the different idols, and how their sites of worship were all still actively attended. It was a cavalcade of Nepali devotion, and at that moment I had a glimpse of hope that some of the god powers that had sustained the worshippers at these beautiful temples for so many centuries could pass on their positive influence to eradicate Bonnet’s negative syndrome from my mind.
So it was with that more upbeat attitude that I rang the bell to Dr. Gopal’s. The entrance was guarded by a huge stone statue of a god whom my driver identified as one of the most powerful: Shiva, seated, as Sophie had told me, with his wife in his lap.
Dr. Gopal was a tall, handsome man with a nicely trimmed beard and a perfectly fitted three-piece suit obviously of London origin, as was his impeccable English. His immense studio was furnished with graphic devices and models used in his palm-reading profession. A giant hand with its hills, valleys, and creases demarcated with symbols covered an entire wall. There were several small idols in lighted alcoves.
“So, Mr. Tremaine,” he said as he poured two glasses of fruit juice from a crystal decanter, “you are here to follow in Mr. Gleason’s footsteps. By the way, how is he? Still free of the Bonnet syndrome?”
I told him about the lightning strike.
“Ah, pity. He had me perform an in-depth palm analysis just before he left and I found a very ominous breach in his life line that I warned him about. But he was free of the syndrome before the lightning?”
“So I was told by his wife.”
“Well, I hope you do as well with the Bonnet as he did. It all depends on whether you can truly involve yourself with the gods and spirits. Only then can they produce a force that may eliminate the onslaught that has taken hold of you.”
“Our doctors believe it comes from the brain.”
“But they have not found where in the brain, have they?”
“No, that’s why I am here. Not to face an incurable future.”
“And we will do all we can to liberate you. Now, I will be in charge of your overall participation, all payments will be made to me, and I’ll take care of everyone involved. But your primary contact has to be a jhankri and I have enlisted for you one of the most successful, Hari Karki, to work on your behalf.”
“What does he do?”
“A jhankri deals with all the negative spirits that can torment people, unless they are placated. Like spirits of dead ancestors often attack descendants unless dissuaded by a jhankri, who is the only one who is able to establish contact with the spirit world, by going into a special trance. Nepali people believe in ghosts and witches whose spirits can cast spells, and the jhankri intercedes with them, arranging gifts like food, flowers, money, and such. Although known rather belittlingly as ‘medicine men’ and ‘faith healers,’ they are actually special people chosen at an early age for their ability to mediate between ordinary people and the spirit world, making their contact while in a special trance. The emergence of these people is rare and they are highly esteemed. Karki will be here shortly and you will see for yourself.”
“Does that mean I have to make myself believe in ghosts and witches?”
“Not exactly. Karki will try to contact the evil spirits of your syndrome, if there are any. In his trance, the jhankri is able to deal with sickness, diagnostically and sometimes actually treating the illness and curing it. Think of him as a psychotherapist. His most powerful weapon, however, is his ability to align the evil spirits in his trance and arrange a solution to the spell they have cast, often offering his special gifts to the gods.”
“But I have no gods…”
“You will. You have to open yourself up to all Karki prescribes if you are to be granted access to whatever spirits he finds who are torturing you.”
The doorbell sounded. The thrum of drums filled the room. Dr. Gopal buzzed the door open. “That will be Karki,” he said.
And in Karki came, an imposing man outfitted in his jhankri trappings. He was playing a double-hea
ded decorated drum that was suspended around his neck. He wore a white pleated skirt and necklaces of rudraksha and various other seeds, mounted bells crisscrossed across his chest, and a headdress of braided multicolored cloth pieces. He was smiling and performing a little winding, hopping dance as he made his way to us.
“Hello, mister, how do you do,” he said to me in accented English. He gave a quick bow of his head and grasped my hand in a solid two-pump shake. “I am honored,” he said, “that we are to have a together.”
Dr. Gopal poured Karki a glass of the fruit juice as he sat down beside me, pushing his drums out of the way. “Do you have open mind about need for special god for you and spirit that go here and there?”
“I’d believe in anything that would get rid of the syndrome that haunts me.”
“Fine, good, very okay,” Karki said.
He removed one of the straps from over his head and presented me with a sturdy traveling pouch. From it he withdrew a glaring statue, over a foot tall and obviously weighty. He held it out to me.
“So you will have the god Bhairav to take care of you when I chant. He is fierce, very fierce, with fangs and terrible eyes, but good for you since he is very very destroyer of evil. His seeing-everywhere eyes are all over—sides of buses, auto bumpers, carriages, golf carts, all over. You keep him in your room and give him nice things. We will take him with us to the evening prayers of the monks so he sees you do the monks’ chants and maybe he sees you put your body in monks’ holy stream. In the Yak and Yeti, every time you pass the Ganesh idol in the lobby you should put some coins in his basket. But you got to give much more gifts to a vicious god like Bhairav, who is not satisfied with flowers and milk but demands blood and alcohol.”
I held him awkwardly. “I feed him my blood?”
“No, not yours,” Dr. Gopal said. “But you will be part of a blood ceremony, the blood coming from one of these.”
He handed me a list:
One. Water buffalo 750 dollars.
Two. Black goat 450 dollars.
Three. Sheep 300 dollars.
Four. Duck 200 dollars.
Five. Rooster 100 dollars.
“As you can see, the water buffalo is the most expensive and may even cost more than that, but his blood is powerful and most effective with a powerful idol like Bhairav. It is against the law to use a female.”
“Is the buffalo killed in the ceremony?” I asked.
“Yes. There will be a ceremony, and special butchers who are in charge of the event.”
“And I will be there?”
“Oh, yes, you and Bhairav will be part of it, along with monks and priests…”
“And especially me,” Karki interjected. “I will try to make contact with Bhairav hoping that the buffalo’s blood has happied him.”
“Immediately after the blood ceremony, the butcher and his helpers will cut up the buffalo. The head is the butcher’s fee, the carcass is yours.”
“I’d like Karki to have it.”
“Oh, thank you very kindly. The meat will be very special for my family.”
“And perhaps you’d like to have the horns,” Dr. Gopal said to me.
“No, I want to give them to you.”
He accepted them enthusiastically.
“Well then, okay, all right,” Karki said, “I will take you to the monks today and you will be with them for evening prayers. But not to dine. Monks eat not too tasty. You better off fancy stuff at Yak and Yeti.”
* * *
—
I returned to the hotel, now for the first time fully aware of what I had gotten myself into. I found a table in one of the smaller gardens and ordered a glass of Sancerre from the wine list. As the red-jacketed waiter poured the Sancerre, I had a momentary feeling that I was a captive caught in the midst of a syndrome attack fraught with the blood of a water buffalo, a powerful idol that had to be fed blood and alcohol, chanting monks, spirits, and trances. I took a gulp of my Sancerre, put my head back, and looking at the streaky blue Kathmandu sky, I realized that this was not a hallucination but the real thing and either I could go on with this experience I’d brought upon myself or pack my bags, return to the States, and surrender to whatever the Bonnet syndrome had in store for me. I knew well that it was a grim future.
To be honest with myself, I had lived a life of compromise. A prime example: my relationship with Violet and her inexcusable father. I had paid a dear price for my ambivalence—the disastrous loss of my right eye. Would giving up on this attempt be another of my regrets? If I didn’t see it through, I would always wonder. But then, could I really blend myself into the program lined up for me? Bruce Gleason had done just that, hadn’t he? I had to admit I was somewhat intrigued by what I’d have to endure. My practical self knew it was an insane undertaking, but what was the alternative?
The red-jacketed waiter handed me a luncheon menu. Here was another choice: either order lunch and some more wine, or go to the concierge desk and book a return flight to New York.
“Would you like to order, sir,” the waiter inquired, “or would you like a bit more time?”
I gave him a serious look, inhaled a long breath, and ordered the lamb and another glass of Sancerre.
chapter sixteen
Karki came to fetch me at the hotel in the morning.
“You have fed them?” he asked, gesturing to Bhairav’s traveling pouch, which I had slung ungracefully over one shoulder.
“Just a touch of wine on my fingertip on his feet. But I don’t have any blood…”
“Is okay. Not to worry. There is one drop of blood in each these little wrappers. Many people need blood for idols. Now we go to the monks. They know you come. I have talk to top monk. He talk English for you but not so good as me.”
Carrying Bhairav in his traveling pouch, I followed Karki to the monks’ retreat, which was in a verdant section of Kathmandu. Here the air was clean, and flowering bushes; tall, leafy trees; and a well-tended prolific vegetable garden surrounded the monks’ edifice, a simple carved temple with a pair of life-size statues at the door. A thin stream of clear water ran along the rear of the temple.
The monks were doing yoga when we arrived. The head monk disengaged himself and came to meet us. Karki introduced me: “This is supreme monk, Aga Kashyap.”
“Most honored,” Kashyap said as he bowed his shaved head. “We are most honored to receive you.”
“I am very indebted,” I replied.
“We help you to prepare yourself for when Karki seeks your negative spirits. So we welcome you to our yoga, to our meditation, our chant of om. So you know what om is we have this in English. Please to read, then you join us when yoga done. Maybe you take off shoes, sit on bench, put feet in stream. Meditate till we start om.”
He handed me a paper with a description of om in English.
I removed my shoes, sat down on the stone bench, and gingerly put my feet into the stream. I closed my eyes and meditated. I had belonged to a yoga group when I was in college, and we did a bit of chanting and meditating back then, but this was different, more profound.
The monks rose in unison, chanting a very resonating om. I walked across the stream and joined them with my eyes closed, head laid back, feeling a communion with the clustered oms, deep and varying in intensity.
Before leaving, Aga Kashyap invited Karki and me for tea. He also invited me to come for the next two days of om and meditation, with the third day scheduled for Karki’s ceremony. He said a group of monks would be there as well as some priests, and they would “pray that Karki will make contact with what he seeks” for me.
That evening I had dinner at the Y and Y, and the syndrome let me know it was still on the scene by sprinkling miniature clusters of its signature pine needles on my dishes.
The next two days passed quickly. Lois sent several importa
nt publishing queries I had to attend to, I kept my rendezvous with the monks, I fed money to the Ganesh in the lobby, I visited a few of the more spectacular temples with Karki as my guide, and I fed Bhairav his ration of wine and blood and talked to him, urging him to help Karki; as long as I had put myself in this position, I thought, I may as well go all the way.
* * *
—
Dr. Gopal phoned me and said that Karki’s trance had been arranged for four o’clock that afternoon and I should come to his place a half hour before and he would accompany me there. “Do not forget to bring Bhairav.”
I took a taxi to beautiful Durbar Square with Bhairav in tow and got off at Dr. Gopal’s decorated door. All day following his call, I had been building a growing apprehension about the impending event. My mind was a jumble. I had been in Durbar Square many times over the past days, visiting the temples and towers, and I had seen many events honoring idols—marriages, birthday celebrations, and the like—and I was now much more familiar with Nepali customs.
“May I look at your hand before we leave?” Dr. Gopal asked.
“Of course.”
He pressed my right hand against an inking pad that made all the hills and valleys of my hand stand out in bold relief. Using several instruments, powerful magnifiers, and electrodes that tickled my palm, he studied the area intently, wrote symbols and numbers on a sheet filled with strange diagrams and hieroglyphs. He placed all his papers in a file that he put in a desk drawer.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“This is just raw data. Now I must evaluate everything. Shall we go?”
Kissing the Wind Page 8
