Introductions went around.
“Not the Harry Honeycutt?” Charles said when they came to Harry.
“I’m afraid so,” Harry muttered, pleased.
“I read your column every week!” Charles said. “Well, I used to! What a column! Refreshing, informative. You spoke about everything I was interested in!
“Betty! Betty, don’t you remember the chap I used to read out loud to you, from the Times?”
Betty, too swollen with edema to be flustered, simply shook her head no.
He rubbed his huge hands together. “What a pleasure. What brings you all the way up here?”
Harry stood there letting everyone get a good look at him, all the while rattling the change in his pocket.
Wolfgang, miffed that he was no longer the cheese, informed everyone unnecessarily that a film was being made.
Charles had cradled in his voluminous sleeve an unfortunatelooking sort of Yorkshire terrier named Fancy. She was well groomed and wore a bright blue hand-carved Tibetan barrette, but she trembled almost constantly. I thought she looked like a rat. Charles caressed her simpering body continuously while tending to avoid physical contact with his wife. She, nervously hovering, watched the dog with greedy eyes. Park and Mr. Auto spoke only when spoken to. Charles, it seemed, had convinced them to shave their shoulder-length hairdos and follow him north to the Himalayas. Their names, Charles explained, were derived from the car they’d driven from Rome to Calangute and had eventually been forced to sell in order to support their holy man, him.
Wolfgang’s creative juices were wetted now. He was back in the mood to film and he went and readied his camera.
“When’s your baby due?” I asked Betty.
“Any day,” Charles answered for her.
“But where do you live?” the practical Blacky inquired.
“In a room behind the grain store, but it’s not very clean so the Tibetan Moon restaurant is letting us stay in a room upstairs,” Charles said.
“How nice for you.” Harry raised a disapproving eyebrow.
“Actually, it’s not nice at all. The wind pokes through the boards and there are rats.”
“How awful,” I said.
Charles said, “Betty used to be a stewardess. She’s tough, our Betty.” He smiled at her.
Isolde said, “Supposing something goes wrong with the birth. Don’t you think she ought to be in a hospital?”
“I happen to know nothing will go wrong.”
“Ah. Let us just suppose,” pressed Blacky, “that it did?”
“Then a doctor,” Charles lay out his upturned hand to demonstrate how simple it all was, “would appear.”
We all looked at one another.
“You’re very sure of yourself with someone else’s life,” Blacky ascertained.
“Her life is mine in privilege as well as responsibility,” Charles stated smugly.
Betty, nodding doubtfully, shifted her uncomfortable belly and lit a beedie.
“Uh!” I exclaimed in outrage.
“Make a nice piece of the film.” Wolfgang chewed his lip. “Baby born in Himalayas. When did you say she was due?”
“Any time now,” Isolde said.
“Om Mani Padme hum,” Mr. Auto addressed our table.
“Yes?” Vladimir looked up. But no, he didn’t want anything, he was simply announcing his chant. Park chimed in and the two of them kept time in a low-volume series of ‘mani’s, ‘om’s, and ‘padme’s. “Hummmmmmmmm,” they chimed together in an Everly Brothers and often practiced harmony.
“We are on the path of Sri Aurobindo … to find the truth,” stated Charles.
“If you don’t mind,” Harry blustered suddenly, “I’d like to enjoy my breakfast without hearing the words ‘truth,’ ‘path,’ or ‘find.’”
“You’re right, Harry,” I agreed with him. “That’s all anyone talks about around here.”
But the men’s muttering chants had hypnotized the room with a monotone that droned together with the shshsho of the waterfall. They sat curled in the lotus position on each end of their little bench. The cookstove glowed with a cozy orange warmth. Suddenly Charles hoisted his pointer finger into the air, saying, “Harry, I remember reading about a Christian tabernacle in your column. You remember the piece?”
“No, sorry,” Harry said and turned away.
“But of course you do, Harry,” I piped up, happy to be of service, “You were the one who told us about it. Remember? You were so interested to come across it. That’s why you wanted to come!” I was pleased with my perfect recall and thought he would be, too. But when I looked into his eyes I saw nothing but savage rebuke.
I think I literally shrank in my seat. It wasn’t the kind of look that would allow you to say, “What’s wrong?” It held a warning, his look—a nasty warning, I remember thinking, that I’d better shut up, which I did. I said nothing more. Harry adored me. What had I said?
He stood up and did a delicate little tour of the room. He came back to where we were sitting and said, “I seem to be caught with my pants down.”
We all looked at him, puzzled. The others had even stopped their chanting and were all ears.
He swayed, hunched in a position that neither moved nor stood still. Finally, defeated, he pulled out a chair and sat back down. “I suppose you are all disappointed in me,” he murmured.
“Harry,” Reiner put down his spoon and wiped his chin, “we haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
He looked up, surprised. “What? Really? Oh, well, I might as well tell you, then. You’ll figure it out sooner or later.” He took a deep breath. His vest button popped at that moment but he went on. “When I organized this trip, I was feeling a bit low. You’ll remember I had a staggering crush on Isolde—” He looked at Isolde. “Yes, well, you all knew this. Even you, Vlady, admit it. The sad thing, for me, anyway, was that you didn’t even consider me a threat, did you?”
Poor Harry, I thought. We all looked accusingly at the bewildered Vladimir.
“But the point is,” he went on, “I wanted to get you all on this trip so that I might find some sort of treasure and come back home the hero. You know.” He cleared his throat. “They were making noises at the paper about letting me go … .”
“But, what’s he talking about?” Reiner asked Daisy. “It wasn’t his idea!”
“Oh, shut up,” Daisy said.
“And I thought, if I could stir up some publicity about something exotic and romantic … Well, so, I came up with that story. You see, all that about a Christian tabernacle being a gift from Tibetans to Papist Catholics sent to China as missionaries … it was just nonsense. I pretended I’d read it in an article when the truth is I wrote it in an article. I just made it up, actually. No one ever gives you anything real.”
“Oh, I see,” Charles interjected from the next table. “And my reading about it in your article and then saying so gummed up the works.”
“Exactly.” Harry sighed.
“Harry,” I touched him, “you don’t have to tell us this.”
“But I already have done,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Reiner said.
“I never would have pieced it together,” Blacky said.
The kettle screamed and we all jumped at once.
Tupelo stuck her head in the door. She motioned for me to come.
I put up my hand. “Come in,” I said. “Come sit down.”
“Come for a walk with me,” she said.
“Just a minute,” I told her, waiting to hear what else Harry was going to say.
“No, now,” she insisted.
“I can’t,” I mouthed across the room.
“Honestly, Harry,” Blacky admitted, “I never would have given it a second thought, either! It was all so long ago!”
Daisy said, “What do you mean, you carried the tabernacle here from Germany?”
Tupelo gave me one last look and then turned and went out the door.
> “Yes, yes.” Harry was by now totally irritated. He searched through his pockets and fingered the smooth felt of his lapel. “I thought I’d come across it very soon, really. I was going to pretend some refugee family sold it to me.”
After a long silence, Wolfgang said, “Actually, we might just want to leave it in. It makes a great story when you think of it.”
“You mean like a hoax?” Isolde said, her eyes shining.
Blacky kept shaking his head. “Well, I can’t get over it. You would have had me fooled.”
“I thought this trip was my idea.” Wolfgang held his chin. “It was my idea.” He paused, thinking. “Wasn’t it?”
“I let you think so.” Harry stood up and put some unnecessary rupees on the table. He hadn’t had a thing. “As I said, you would have figured it out eventually. Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. It was a stupid plan. Unorthodox, I’ll grant you. But beneath me.” He turned on his heel and walked out. “Don’t forget to lock up your peanut butter, Charles,” he remarked on his way.
“Poor chap,” Charles said.
Wolfgang turned his camera on Betty. “Mind if I shoot your picture, Schatzi?
“Good God!” Charles cried out. “We really must be off. It’s almost too late for our meditation class. Do you mind paying for our breakfast? We have no money, you know.”
Reiner said, “Surely you don’t live like that?”
“Certainly.” He rose to his full six foot five. “I am a teacher and a beggar. Man must first give up all possessions to be free himself.”
“But, but …” Blacky sputtered. “How would you have paid had we not passed along?”
“Ah, but you did.” Charles handed Betty the pineapple jam to take with and plunked the little dog into the pouch around his neck. Betty, Park, and Mr. Auto all rose together at the signal. Betty looked haggard. I didn’t think she’d been raised to be a beggar’s wife.
“Blacky is a doctor,” I whispered firmly but softly, so only she should hear. Her eyebrows went up in surprise and relief.
Daisy leaned over and tapped her shoulder. “Want to stay and sit for a while, dear?”
Betty, shocked by the very idea, lugged herself into step without answering.
“Betty must have her exercise,” Charles announced to the room. “I see to it she covers four to five miles a day. It wouldn’t do if my son were born unhealthy!”
I saw Betty’s eyes glint in Charles’s direction.
“This is what I mean about male chauvinist pigs!” Isolde complained loudly enough to be heard.
“Most people would be subtle enough not to get involved,” Daisy reprimanded her.
“That’s good, coming from you,” Isolde shot back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Daisy placed her fists on her hips.
Isolde spread her chapadee lushly first with peanut butter, then apricot jam. “I don’t know what I mean. I just think a girl who used to fly around as a stewardess deserves better than a life as someone’s servant.”
“He didn’t like her being photographed,” Wolfgang said. “Did you notice? The minute I aimed my camera at her he stood to leave.”
“Maybe she’s a wanted criminal. What do you think?” Vladimir suggested.
“More likely he didn’t want the spotlight on anyone but him,” Isolde shrewdly observed.
“What about the tabernacle thing?” Wolfgang plunged on, thinking aloud. “Should we put it in the film or what?”
“Well, we can’t very well if we’re calling it a documentary!” Daisy threw back her head in righteous indignation.
“Nonsense.” Wolfgang defended his point. “Documentaries the world over are constructed. One has to give them form. Doesn’t make them less real.”
“Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” I said doubtfully.
He gave me a scathing look. “It is, after all, my film.”
“Yes, but we’re all in on it,” Blacky said.
“Everything’s how you look at it.” Wolfgang shrugged.
“We’re not turning the whole thing into a farce.” Blacky gave a dark laugh. “What would be the point of that?”
“But people do like a bit of adventure,” Vladimir argued.
Wolfgang shook himself like a wet dog. “My point is, there’s no mystery. I mean, a reason to get to the end. The audience will lose interest.”
I found myself becoming agitated. “Don’t you see, if you do that you’ll be eradicating the very purpose of our coming here. I mean, everything this place stands for is the opposite of what you just suggested! This whole wonderful journey to this place is enough on its own.”
“You are sweet, Claire.” Wolfgang petted the top of my head, making the word “sweet” sound like something stupid and naive. I was furious. It was all right for them to be righteous!
Chartreuse sat glowering in the corner. I started to go over to him but then I thought why, after all, must I always feel I had to look after his emotional state? I didn’t want to sit there and listen to him complain about the lack of drugs. I was actually glad there were none around. But he stood up and threw down his velvet scarf in an angry gesture. “Not one of you is worried about Harry,” he fired. “Don’t you understand? He could do himself harm over something like this!”
Isolde stood up and shook her finger at him, like you would to a child. “Stop being so melodramatic! Anyway,” she turned to us, “I don’t think so. Harry’s always looking for ways to get attention.”
“I wouldn’t say that at all,” I disagreed. “In fact, I’d say the opposite.”
Reiner, his eyes round with wonder, said, “So what do you mean, he carried his make-believe tabernacle here from Munich?”
At last I got it. Those old but glimmering gems in the van. Those were his, not Chartreuse’s! He’d carried them in panels. “That’s exactly what he did!” I confirmed. “Oh, Chartreuse,” I confessed, moving toward him, “I’m an absolute nincompoop! I thought the gems I saw in the van were yours. I thought you’d stolen them in Istanbul.”
“That’s it! Now you call me a thief!” Chartreuse fumbled with his jacket and snatched his scarf. “I’m getting out of here!”
Blacky sipped his chi and grinned mischievously. “That’s the best job a girl can have, really, stewardess. I mean, if you’re a fellow. Four days home and then four days off to who knows where. Gives a fellow a break. Plus, you get flying benefits if you marry her. Almost makes up for the loss of freedom.”
“Ha ha ha,” said I. I didn’t mind. I was a sophisticated traveler. And after all, he was only kidding. I hoped. I was sorry to have thought Chartreuse a thief. I mean, even if he was. We were all stuck with one another. And there were worse things than theft. It didn’t help to go accusing people, though. For all I knew he’d turned over a new leaf. Anyway, I was sort of glad to see things settling down into the everyday backbiting lifestyle of moviemaking in the free world. It was a little bit too much bliss for my money, the way things had been; all that mushy good nature and angelic good works. It just wasn’t us. There’s nothing more vicious than one outdoing the other to see who’s nicer.
Wolfgang filmed the group clandestinely from the window. Out the hobnail vestibule they went, then down the road past the prayer wheel, single file: first Charles with Fancy yapping at his heels, Betty, then Mr. Auto, then Park, a family of ducks and one to come.
chapter eighteen
We finished our breakfasts and meandered out into the sunlight. I looked for Tupelo but she’d gone off. Everyone smoked beedies in McLeod Ganj because you were so cut off you couldn’t get anything else but Wills’s Flake, sort of an Indian Marlboro, but those scraped your throat, they were even worse. The weather was crisp but because the sun shone we lingered, reveling in its warmth. Isolde even took off her blouse, the way she always did the minute the sun shone, which by the way every German does, but Vladimir made her put it back on because it was too cool for that. He really was very gentle and concerned with her lately.
Wolfgang sat chewing the inside of his mouth, never happy unless he was filming something. He cleaned his expensive lenses with a cotton rag. I felt sorry because he really had been good to me and I supposed I’d been ungrateful—pursuing the Goody Two-shoes route. “What’s the matter, Wolfgang?” I asked him.
“Oh, I don’t know. The people here are so tepid. Nothing ever happens. I’m just wanting some action, something like the lepers. You know.”
I was glad to see Harry come trotting back with his travel Scrabble board. He came right over to me and sat beside me on the railing. “I’m such a fool,” he said. “Shall we start fresh?”
I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. That’s what I loved about Harry. Of course I would forgive him. Why wouldn’t I? There was nothing to forgive. We set up the board and had a game in the bright sunshine. I was glad Tupelo wasn’t there because even though English wasn’t her first language, she always beat me. Blacky was in the water closet and would be for quite a while longer. He had a touch of the runs. Everyone went through it. Tupelo came trudging back up the stone path. She still had my blue dress, I noticed irritably. Tupelo? I did a double take. She’d chopped off all her hair! It was waiflike and it stuck out in thick little blond tufts.
I stood up and knocked over the Scrabble board.
“Christ!” Harry said, going down on all fours.
Blacky—forever washing his hands—came out of the water closet at last and onto the porch, his hands dripping water. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Delighted, just what the doctor ordered, Wolfgang stood up and aimed his camera. “Ja, spitze! But why didn’t you let me film you doing it?”
She came purposefully up to me. “Trade,” she said, handing me some tissue paper wrapped around something. She was out of breath now and leaned, exhausted, on a chair. The paper was wrinkled, recycled purple Indian gift paper. When I took it in my hand I thought it was something alive wrapped up, like an animal. For a moment I thought she’d handed me a ferret in a package. I wouldn’t have put it past her. “For the dress.” She grinned, twirling in a circle. I opened it cautiously. It was her thick, rich honey hair braided into a rope and folded over. I drew back. The hair, bound carefully into its braid, was beautiful. It was rich and still so very full of life. But somehow it felt malevolent because even though that rash and dramatic act was so obviously against herself, I couldn’t help feeling it was some sort of reprimand against me, for not paying attention at the moment she’d demanded it.
Pack Up the Moon Page 26
