by Pasha Malla
This was directed at Matt. Ash waited for the assessment.
‘We’re working on it,’ said Matt. ‘Piece by piece.’
‘Putting Humpty together again,’ sighed the Australian. ‘All right, I’ve done some checking and it looks like this sort of thing isn’t totally unheard of. Happens sometimes to travellers, no real reason for it. Mind just goes blank for a bit. Comes back eventually.’ He handed a stack of paper to Matt, who passed it to Ash. ‘Some info I found online.’
Ash scanned the pages. Half were about transient global amnesia; the rest, dissociative fugue. Did he trust this grizzled bushman with a diagnosis?
‘Not to worry, mate!’ Dave-o’s buoyant pitch made Ash feel not just absent, but mentally delayed. ‘You’ll be right soon enough!’
‘One sec?’ Matt said to Ash, and gestured to Dave-o to join him in the hall.
The door closed behind them. Murmuring followed, nothing Ash could make out. He flipped through the printouts, which included testimonials by survivors and clinical notes. The word fugue comes from the Latin word for ‘flight,’ explained one website. What was he fleeing?
The door reopened; Matt was now solo. ‘Dave-o’s going to try to get a doctor in later this evening. So if you want we can just hang in the room until then.’
‘Oh, no, come on,’ said Ash. ‘Aren’t you here to ski?’
‘Bro, no way. I want to help you remember who you are.’
‘I don’t think that’s how it works, like something will trigger me and everything will come pouring back in. Listen: No treatment is needed for transient global amnesia. It resolves on its own and has no confirmed after-effects. Basically I just have to wait it out. I bet by dinnertime I’ll be back to my old self.’ Ash laughed. ‘Whoever that might be.’
Matt brightened. ‘So it’d be good to do something. As opposed to sitting around.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, not to pressure you or anything, and if it doesn’t work out we can come right back, but muscle memory’s a different type of memory, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Me and Dave-o were talking. Maybe your body has memories stored that your brain doesn’t. And something physical could kickstart things again.’
‘Okay.’
‘All I’m saying, honestly?’ said Matt, kneeling beside Ash’s bed as if in prayer. ‘Is once we get out there I bet you’ll remember how to ski.”
—
IN THE HOTEL’S BAR & RESTAURANT Matt and Ash met the other members of their group, an alarmingly tattooed Norwegian couple, Jens and Tove, in identical floppy haircuts and turtlenecks and perfect, rigid posture. A handful of other guests, mostly Indians, were also having lunch, which arrived in the form of partitioned metal trays spotted with lumps of yellow and brown.
The skiers would begin with drinking.
Dave-o handed out five quart-sized Kingfishers. ‘I shouldn’t,’ said Matt, retreating, before accepting one as if defeated by protocol. A cheers to Ash’s memory went round the table, the bottles clinking with so much force that Ash’s frothed up over his hand.
‘So when do we hit the slopes?’ said Matt.
‘This guy!’ said Dave-o, clapping Matt on the shoulder. ‘Bloke after my own heart.’
Matt grinned: a compliment. Or at least a statement of solidarity.
‘After lunch we’ll do some runs up the gondola. Take the chopper up tomorrow to the peaks where the real curry powder’s at.’
Matt elbowed Ash. ‘See?’
Ash nodded, drank. The beer had a coppery taste, but the mechanics of drinking—lift, sip, lower, repeat—offered a comforting sense of ritual. So he drank some more.
‘We were up yesterday,’ said Jens. ‘Great conditions. Fat snow.’
‘Fat snow,’ said Tove.
‘These two’ve skied all over the world,’ said Dave-o. ‘Ask them if they’ve ever been anywhere so pristine.’
Jens and Tove sat in expressionless silence until Matt leaned in and shouted: ‘Have you ever been anywhere so pristine?’
‘No,’ said Tove.
‘No,’ confirmed Jens.
‘Sweet,’ said Matt.
Ash was half-done his beer. A giddy sensation twirled around his temples and his body felt like a fist unclenching. He chased this new lightness to the bottom of the bottle.
‘What’s amazing here is that they’ll take you anywhere you want,’ said Dave-o. ‘Nowhere’s out of bounds—short of maybe Siachen.’
‘What’s that?’ said Matt.
The Australian explained the glacier’s prevalence in the conflict, the Line of Control and the current ceasefire, how invariably one side would launch shells over the border and start the whole business up again. He presented this information with a kind of beleaguered futility, as it if were a story he’d long ago tired of telling, one that sprawled with no end in sight. Or spiralled back on itself, again and again.
‘But the glacier,’ said Matt. ‘Can we ski it?’
‘For the right price?’ Dave-o dropped his voice as if revealing a secret. ‘I bet they’d let you waterski the Ganges.’
Ash finished his beer and eyed the others’ drinks covetously.
‘So how many people have died here?’ asked Tove.
‘Yes,’ said Jens, ‘how many?’
‘In the Troubles?’ Dave-o raked his fingers through his beard. ‘Couldn’t tell you. If you’re really interested I can hop online tonight and get all the answers you want.’
Online. The word had the cheery ring of a solution: surely Ash must have an email account. And archived in it would be everything he needed to know about himself. Eagerly he pulled out his phone. Dave-o intervened. ‘That won’t work here, mate.’
‘Too high up,’ said Matt.
‘No, no,’ said Dave-o. ‘The network’s closed. To get mobile service in Kashmir you got to do a whole application.’
‘No Wi-Fi even,’ said Tove.
‘No Wi-Fi,’ echoed Jens wistfully.
‘You have to use the hotel computer,’ said Dave-o, ‘And even then someone’ll sit with you to make sure you’re not ordering a drone strike on Srinagar. Though? You ask me? I think they’re just curious and bored. Anyway, I can set that up later if you want.’
Ash spun his empty bottle around a ring of condensation. ‘Sure.’
‘Some drink to remember,’ sang Matt, thumping Ash on the back. ‘Some drink to forget. Way to go, bro. Let’s get you another.’
‘It’s dance,’ said Ash.
‘What?’
‘ “Hotel California,” right? Is what you were singing?’
Matt looked baffled. Ash let it go. How could he explain what he knew?
Dave-o wagged Ash’s empty at the bar. The boy there sprung to attention, held up five fingers and yelled something back. The Australian responded in twangy Kashmiri.
‘Wow, you speak the language?’ said Matt.
‘Been here seven winters now. You pick up the essentials.’ Dave-o tilted his head, squinted. ‘I hope this doesn’t sound poofy, Matt, but I keep thinking I’ve seen you before. And not skiing. Maybe on the telly?’
Matt shrugged. ‘I’ve done some acting.’
‘A soap ad, was it?’
‘You got me.’ For Jens’ and Tove’s benefit, he explained the campaign.
‘God, those things used to make me cry like a girl. All those guys with their kids.’ Dave-o slapped his knee. ‘But where’s your boy now?’
‘My what?’
‘Your son. That little guy you were aeroplaning and pretending to shave. Cute little bastard. Back with his mum in Canada?’
‘No, no. That was just an actor. All the dads and kids—none of us were related.’
‘Whoa.’ Dave-o appeared to be revising his worldview. ‘So you don’t have kids at all?’
‘None’s I know of,’ said Matt. He seized Ash in a headlock. ‘Except this little guy!’
Ash went limp as his head was knuckled, then
kissed, then released as their lunches and a round of fresh Kingfishers arrived. While the others sopped up watery dhal with chapatis, Ash tipped back his beer, eyes watering as it glugged saltily down his throat.
—
THE CONTAINER, TUCKED AMID the socks and underwear at the bottom of his carry-on, was about the size of a child’s shoebox. The weight of it was surprising: heavy as iron. Ash struggled to think what such a thing might be—a gift? He shook and sniffed it. No clues.
‘Dave-o’s waiting,’ called Matt from the hallway. ‘Get the lead out!’
Ash left the box among his things, bundled up in the few warmer items of clothing he could find—wondering distantly why, if they’d planned a ski vacation, he hadn’t packed long johns or mitts—and chased Matt down the corridor.
They were to fetch the Norwegians on their way out, but at Matt’s knock Tove’s face appeared, looking grave. ‘We won’t be skiing. Jens is feeling…unwell.’
So it was just the two Canadians who met Dave-o at the rental shop, a shack crammed with ski equipment and staffed by a young Kashmiri in plastic sunglasses who Dave-o introduced as Karim. Ash bought cotton pyjamas to wear under his jeans and sweatshirt. But all the men’s outerwear was in large sizes.
‘They’re used to outfitting Germans and Dutchmen, guys twice your size,’ said Dave-o. ‘Going to have to get you in a kids’ kit—or women’s.’
After some rummaging around, Karim presented a turquoise and pink snowsuit almost shyly, as if it were the pelt of some exotic beast he’d accidentally slaughtered.
‘Wow,’ said Matt. ‘Too bad we’re not going to a gay bar on the moon. Perfect outfit.’
Dave-o affected a lisp: ‘I just love the zigzag piping, sailor.’
Matt took out his phone to snap photos of Karim zipping Ash into his snowsuit. The jacket was ribbed and elaborately patterned; the pants flared into bellbottoms. Matt showed Ash the pictures: amid all that Technicolor, his face looked sketched in grey-scale.
‘He’s like a time-traveling aerobics teacher,’ said Dave-o.
‘Like a soccer mom on acid,’ said Matt, and between belly laughs he told Dave-o about a class ski trip when Ash had caught a pole in the rope tow and been dragged halfway up the hill before the patrol jimmied him free.
‘Crikey, mate,’ said Dave-o. ‘Not much of a rescue team in Gulmarg. Fall from the gondola and we may have to leave you up there until the spring melt.’
Next Matt chose him a pair of boots, sparkling and silver. ‘See if these fit, Cinderella.’
Karim knelt and eased Ash’s feet into them. Were his arches meant to feel so pinched? He couldn’t remember. ‘You from around here?’ Ash asked Karim.
Srinagar, he was told.
To the pair of children’s skis assigned to Ash, the two big men added accessories: faux-mink stole, lime green gloves, sequined toque. Then Dave-o led them outside and, lowering his goggles like an aviator, instructed the Canadians to ‘Nordic over to the lifts.’ Ash did not understand until Dave-o and Matt had cross-countried fifteen yards down the road. His first step was perilous: a boot unclipped and the ski torpedoed away. He pursued it sheepishly, horsemen watching from the pasture.
‘Faster on horse,’ one of them suggested, jingling the reins of a wasted grey nag.
Collecting his stray ski, Ash wondered if Matt was concealing the real reason for their trip—a Dhar family reunion, say, or, if he did indeed work in radio, an investigative piece about the conflict. Surely there were stories to tell. One of these pony-wallahs, for example, might once have been a champion rider, reduced by sectarian violence to shuttling tourists from one end of Gulmarg to the other.
Shouts came from down the road. Matt and Dave-o waved their poles in semaphore. ‘Move it or lose it!’ called Matt. ‘We’ll get you a horsey ride later!’
Ash caught up at the base of the mountain. The touts were closing in and Dave-o brushed away offers of guided hikes up Mount Apharwat. ‘I’m the guide here,’ he said through a fierce, bearded grin.
The building that dispensed and collected the gondola was under construction, with loose wires and pipes bursting from bare concrete walls. They were the only skiers in line; the few other people were sightseers who would ride the lift to the top and, without exiting, cycle back down.
‘Looks like two per car,’ Matt told Ash. ‘You okay to meet us up top?’
‘Some solo time’s likely just what you need to jog the old grey matter,’ added Dave-o, clapping Ash on the shoulder.
A cable car came wheeling around the track and Dave-o and Matt piled in. As it swept them up the mountain, an aide appeared to help Ash into the next car. The doors closed and out it swung into the icy afternoon light. Halfway up the mountainside, a cluster of huts swung into view amid the trees. Militant hideouts, maybe? Ash waited for some young mujahideen to come staggering out with a rocket launcher and blow the gondola to smithereens. But the little village was swallowed by fog.
With the view blanketed below, the only thing to look at was the car ahead. Ash could just make out the back of Matt’s bald head and Dave-o’s gingery locks through the glass. Their car rocked slightly—with laughter, he presumed, as they mocked him. ‘Could barely get his stubbies on,’ Dave-o would yuck, ‘can’t wait to see him ride the bumps.’ Matt would respond with a catalogue of Ash’s lifetime of incompetence: a tumble down a gulch, his torso impaled on a stalagmite. None of it even had to be true. Whatever Matt claimed of Ash was, for now, fact.
Up he went, the lift grinding and twanging as it pulleyed him skyward. Then things levelled out and the fog scattered; a treeless plateau emerged. And here was the terminus, a squat building on stilts that absorbed the gondolas in darkness. In went Matt and Dave-o; Ash’s car slowed with a groan as it reached the platform. The cables clacked. The doors heaved open. Ash readied himself to debark, sure he’d find himself alone, with Matt and Dave-o (what a name, like a Dave-flavoured breakfast cereal) off on some gnarly mogul run over the backside of the mountain.
What he discovered instead was Matt leaning on his poles and the Australian nowhere in sight.
Ash skied up. ‘Where’s Dave…o?’
‘Got a call on his walkie-talkie, that Norwegian guy’s really sick. Looks like they’re going to have to chopper him to Srinagar.’
‘So he went back down?’
‘Yup, took off like a bat out of hell. Left me this though.’ Matt handed Ash a flask. Indian rum, musky as cheap cologne. Still, the trickle of booze down his throat was welcome. He took another sip before Matt snatched it away.
‘Easy now, that’s not ours!’ He pocketed the flask. ‘Gotta love Australians, huh?’
‘Love?’
‘Yeah! They’re so much like us.’
‘Us?’
‘Canadians.’
‘We’re like Dave-o?’
‘Sure. Australians, Canadians—we’re practically brothers.’
‘You two do seem very brotherly.’
Matt eyed him quizzically. ‘You jealous?’
‘Of Dave-o? I may not remember much about myself, but I can guarantee that nothing about that person would ever make me jealous.’
Matt laughed. ‘There you are. That’s the old Ash.’
Encouraged, Ash peered down the slope. ‘Like riding a bike, you said?’
‘Gosh, bro. I hope so. Do you remember how to do this?’
‘I guess we’ll find out.’
‘Just go slow, be careful. And I’ll be right beside you, the whole way down.’
Ash pushed off tentatively. Remarkably his body took over: Matt was right, it knew what to do. He turned his edges and slid off sideways, feeling ridiculous in his garish outfit—yet almost happy. This felt familiar. He smiled a little.
‘There you go!’ cried Matt, waving his poles in triumph. ‘Looking good.’
Ash made slow, looping tracks from one side of the hill to the other. After a few traverses he eased up on his angles, let himself gather a little speed. Matt followed
, weaving expertly and patiently around him. The whoosh and whisper of their skis turned hypnotic as they descended in tandem, trees looming darkly on the periphery.
Skiing felt good. Life had become halting and tentative: a stab toward himself, a retraction. Swishing along so fluidly, the air brushing icily past, lulled him—the momentum, but also the control, even as the fog thickened and Matt became a hazy silhouette bumping in and out of view. ‘You okay?’ he’d call and Ash would reply, ‘Yup! Fine!’ Though each time these check-ins seemed more distant.
A misty wall rose up ahead. Ash slowed as he neared, searching for some way around. But the fog bled from one side of the hill to the other. So he entered with caution. It submerged him completely. Wary that a turn left or right might plunge him into the woods, Ash angled his skis inward. Down he snowplowed in what he hoped was a straight line. Everything everywhere was white.
And here came fear, the glinting edge of it.
Matt whooshed past a few feet away like something out of an energy drink commercial. ‘Wild!’ he hollered. ‘Frigging total whiteout! See you at the bottom!’
And vanished.
Ash slowed, knees trembling. He could barely make out the tips of his skis. The air was milky and motionless. He felt like a specimen floating through some miasmic jelly, and wary, too, that at any moment something huge and horrible might rise up in his path. Or, worse, that he’d ski cartoonishly off the edge of a precipice: the suspension, the dawning horror, the screaming, flailing descent. Then the fantasy dissolved, replaced by that now-familiar, blank static.
For a moment he felt lighter, airy. He was aware only of his body: a cold breeze sparkling on his cheeks, the pillowy terrain jiggling his knees, his hands clutching poles. Poles, why poles? He dropped them; they disappeared behind him. And why this knock-kneed crouch? He moved his skis parallel. And picked up speed.
The wind came more stiffly now, articulating his body within its currents. And the more rapidly he went the stronger and surer it came. For a moment the emptiness in his mind didn’t matter: he was just a form moving through space, hurtling down and faster down, icy air tearing up inside his woolly hat and whistling in his ears.
