“Namasté.” I pressed my palms together in the traditional greeting and introduced myself. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, doctor. I’m impressed that you arranged this strike.”
“Thank you, yes. I’m sorry we meet under these circumstances, but welcome.” We shook hands. “And this gentleman, as you may know, is Mr. Kunda Mainali, editor of the Shaligram.”
“City desk only,” Mainali amended, laughing. I liked him on sight. “A pleasure to meet you. Are you from the States?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“I spent two years studying journalism in New York.”
“Columbia?”
“Hunter.” The reporter seemed apologetic, as if he had failed in his studies and landed Nepal as a hardship assignment.
About fifty yards away, Grace was photographing the soldiers. They struck macho poses, their rifles angled suggestively. Mainali glanced in her direction. “You are a friend of Grace?”
“We just met. How do you know her?”
“She and my wife are good friends. She’s quite a character.”
“Oh?” I didn’t know whether he meant Grace or his wife, but felt myself in danger of being sidetracked. “Well, I hope to see her again . . .” Grace looked back toward us and gave a little wave, its intended recipient unclear. Both Mainali and I lifted our hands tentatively.
“Dr. Mishra,” I asked, pulling out my notepad, “can you summarize the reasons for this unprecedented strike?”
“Well, you know, it has everything to do with Bhaktapur. Have you been there?”
“Yes. Many times.” Bhaktapur, one of three “sister cities” in the valley, was a rustic woodworking village just east of the capital. It was less developed than Kathmandu, but far more political.
“Two days ago, when Bhaktapur had their wildcat strike, the police tried to force the merchants to open their shops. When the merchants refused, and students began throwing the stones, the police fired on the crowd.
“So that is the background. Yesterday, as you know, the people demanded that the police return the bodies of the demonstrators who were shot.”
“I heard. Was that so they could be cremated within the appropriate time?”
The doctor shook his head. “Not only that. Aside from the religious concern, there was a humanitarian question to be addressed. I treated some of the victims, and I believe that the troops used dum-dums: lead bullets that flatten on impact, causing terrible wounds. Only a further examination of the corpses could prove or disprove such a charge. But the palace refused. And so we called this strike.”
“Were there any risks associated with today’s action?”
“There are always risks.” Mishra narrowed his eyes at the soldiers. They were tossing an orange among them, completely uninterested in the demonstration. “But for doctors, the risks are not so great. If they throw us in prison, then what? Already, there are not enough doctors.” He nodded toward the soldiers. “They will not willingly arrest us, not without orders. Because at some time, I think, they might get sick also! The greater risk, I think, is for this gentleman here, isn’t it?” He placed his palm on Kunda Mainali’s shoulder. “What do you say?”
“That is probably so.” Mainali, also a tall man, appeared to be in his mid-thirties. Like Mishra and most of the other demonstrators, he wore a black armband. The journalist had clear, gray eyes and a cold sore on his upper lip. When he smiled it caused him visible pain. “If I were to publish the story of this demonstration, they would throw me in prison. In that way, you see, the lack of press freedom is good value for the palace; it’s similar to banning the demonstration itself.” Mainali grinned, and grimaced. “Protest all you like, no one will know about it!”
“That’s not strictly true,” I said. “The International Herald Tribune is in Nepal; so are Time, and Newsweek, and Asia Week. I’m here. Then there’s the BBC, Voice of America, Reuters . . .”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Mainali nodded. “The educated minority will hear about the strike.” Mishra grunted in agreement, sensing what was to come. “But most of the people in this country don’t speak English. The Shaligram is published in Nepali, yes. But this is a story we dare not print. And even if we do print it, many people don’t even read Nepali! They speak Sherpa, Tamang, Limbu, Rai, Tharu, every dialect you can name. It’s easy to forget, but the people affected by these actions live not only in Kathmandu, but all over Nepal. As you can imagine, gaining any kind of consensus in this country will be extremely difficult.”
It was 10 a.m. Wednesday in Kathmandu, which made it 8:15 p.m. Tuesday in San Francisco. The foreign desk would be open until 1 a.m., which gave me four hours to file. I asked a few more questions of Dr. Mishra and walked toward the army truck. The day was warming up. Grace had taken her vest off, and was surrounded by a band of soldiers. They had worked out a pretty good system: One or two would talk to her, diverting her attention, while the others looked down her blouse.
When she saw me coming she pulled a folded slip of paper out of her pocket. “Here’s my number,” she said, stuffing it into my shirt pocket. “Thought I’d save you the trouble of asking.”
“That’s very considerate. Are you free for dinner, or has one of these guys already invited you over to the mess hall?”
“Very funny. Actually, they’re great. This sergeant’s sister-in-law was in my class at the English Language Institute, two years ago. Small world, I guess.”
“That’s nothing. Dr. Mishra’s uncle’s best friend once sold a Tibetan carpet to a woman who babysat for my second cousin’s Spanish teacher.”
“Smartass,” Grace said. “Call me after four.”
4
Lotus Land
AT THE CORE of my being was a delusional notion, firmly rooted, that half the people in San Francisco spent the better part of each day waiting, in unbearable suspense, for the next news flash about the political situation in Kathmandu. But who in the Bay Area gave a damn about Nepal, except the Nepali community itself (150 people, maybe), the employees of the half-dozen local trekking companies (a similar number), and the people who’d actually been here?
But it had a grip on me. Since 1979, with each subsequent visit to Nepal I found myself more thoroughly ensnared by its culture and religious traditions. The palettes of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy had mingled here for fifteen centuries, interwoven but distinct, like colors on marbled paper.
Geographically, the story of the Kathmandu Valley began shortly after the dawn of human history. In those days, the area was a vast inland lake—“seven calling distances across,” the ancient texts say—inhabited by a race of sophisticated snake gods, called nagas. One day a saint named Bipaswi, one of the first in a long line of human buddhas, climbed to the summit of Nagarjun, a fin-shaped hill on the valley’s northwest rim. Bipaswi plucked a seed from within his robe and tossed it into Nag Hrad: “the tank of the serpents.” Soon a miraculous lotus, with emerald petals and diamond pistils, blossomed on the lake’s surface. The flower emanated a fierce radiance that hummed like a hive and illuminated the mountain flanks a hundred miles north. As the luminance had no earthly source, it was called swayambhu: the self-existent.
Centuries passed, and pilgrims from all over Asia traveled to the lake to pay homage to this amazing lotus and meditate within its novalike nimbus. One of these was a saint named Manjushri: the bodhisattva of pure wisdom. After surveying the scene, Manjushri decided to finish Bipaswi’s work. He trekked around the ridges bordering the lake, raised his scimitar, and with a mighty blow cut a gorge in the southern hills. As the waters drained away, the circular valley gleamed like an emerald carpet: a mandala of otherworldly beauty, suspended between the plains of India and the peaks of Tibet.
And so it remained, more or less, until the first Toyota taxis arrived. These were joined by diesel buses, and two-stroke Tempos spewing toxic fumes. Cement factories rose among the valley’s southern rice paddies, upwind of the city, churning out enough particulate matter to cover the tree
s with a fine patina of lethal white dust. Caustic chemicals from Tibetan carpet factories flowed into the Bagmati and Vishnumati, until the rivers became so polluted that children playing on their banks suffered chemical burns. Cheap concrete apartment buildings replaced carved wooden homes, and the gaps between these earthquake deathtraps were filled with billboards hawking whiskey and cigarettes. Meanwhile, the population exploded. In the decade since my first visit, Kathmandu had tripled in size.
Yet the magic of the place survived. It was choked and abused, but not even the ragged breath of industry could wilt it completely. There were always hidden realms, new discoveries to be made. The nearby foothills were still lush with pines and rhododendrons, while the sacred temple retreats of Boudha and Pashupati remained oases of calm.
And so I continued to visit Nepal, year after year. Arriving with my cameras and trusty Smith Corona, I installed myself in a spare, sunny sublet in the Naxal district. The venerable old neighborhood was five minutes from the shops on Durbar Marg, and a two-minute walk from Nag Pokhari: one of the mysterious “Snake Lakes” scattered through the Kathmandu Valley.
PARAKEETS SWARMED OVER the front lawn of my small compound. Laxmi, dressed in a purple sari with little gold dingbats, was hanging the laundry. My didi had washed the sneakers I’d left, accidentally, next to the laundry basket. They lay on the grass, tongues protruding, preternaturally white.
I loved the word didi; the literal meaning was “sister,” but it was also applied, universally, to women who served as housekeepers and cooks. During my early visits, I had viewed the arrangement cynically. I soon understood that these domestics earned about as much as high school teachers—and that working in a Western-style home, for people who made reasonable demands and had no caste-consciousness, was a cherished job. It worked for me, too. In Kathmandu, where washing machines were unheard of and finding an edible chicken might consume an entire afternoon, the relationship was an enormous asset.
“Laxmi, no lunch for me today . . .”
The Shresthas’ eager Doberman began to bark from the roof, followed by an angry shout from inside the upper flat. Captain Shrestha himself, I guessed. The dog probably wouldn’t listen to anybody else.
“Yes . . . all right . . . dinner?” She had the quietest voice, no more than a whispered squeak.
“Dinner,” I repeated. “Yes. Can you make your lasagna? It’s delicious.”
This was a kindness. Compared to my previous housekeeper, who had mastered dozens of Western dishes, Laxmi was a disaster. Her quiche was soupy, her eggs oily, her brownies gritty with granulated sugar. A drumstick of her fried chicken, dropped from a height, would bounce like a rubber ball. The first time she cooked lasagna, working by sight from an English-language cookbook, she neglected to add cheese, vegetables, or tomato sauce. I was served a brick of baked pasta, doused with a film of catsup. At that point I’d paid Laxmi two weeks’ advance wages and sent her off to apprentice with my friend Radha: a competent cook who’d agreed to teach my didi the basics. During that week Laxmi absorbed the concept of lasagna and came to grips with a dozen other simple, essential dishes. Though her chicken remained elastic, I began to suspect that this was less a function of Laxmi’s cooking than a genetic adaptation of the local fowl, which had developed the ability to be struck repeatedly by taxis and bicycles without suffering visible harm.
My housekeeper smiled shyly in response to my praise, revealing a heartbreaking overbite.
I tapped my shirt pocket, making sure I’d remembered the floppy disk: eight hundred words on the doctors’ strike. The time difference between Kathmandu and San Francisco would serve me well. If I filed my story by noon, it would arrive in time for the Wednesday edition.
My fixation on Nepal’s fate struck me as a brittle obsession. As far as I was concerned, this oppressed little monarchy was my personal Soweto, my own private Bucharest. But what if nothing happened? Critical mass is impossible to predict when you’re dealing with unknown combustibles. What if the royal family, with the army’s help, crushed the democracy movement? Who would really care? Development dollars might slow down, but not for long. Funds would continue to flow in, funneled into the pockets of panchayat ministers. Heroin would continue to flood Kathmandu, enriching an unnameable few. The best and the brightest would wrangle visas and leave for Europe, Australia, America. While other South Asian nations advanced into the twenty-first century, Nepal would remain a medieval fiefdom, steered by an antique monarchy.
How much more abuse was required before the Nepalis shook off the yoke of subservience?
For the moment, that question was irrelevant. My only concern was filing my story. That meant going downtown to the single computer store, printing a hard copy from my diskette, and riding to the Blue Star Hotel to fax it off. But that final step was risky. Many of the major hotels were refusing to send out antigovernment dispatches. My best bet would be to drop by Coal and Clarice’s place. My friends had a printer as well as a fax, and could be relied upon for a celebratory drink.
That was it, then. I’d have a small morning: hang out with Coal, fax my story, and drop by American Express to pick up my mail. From there, I could walk to the Nanglo Café.
The fog had burned off, but the air was so dusty that riding my bicycle would invite respiratory failure. As our front gate slammed, the Shresthas’ Doberman went off like an air raid siren, crouched at the roof’s edge. I barked back—a move calculated to drive the dog insane—and was joined by a pack of kids playing on the roof of the car park. Amid this chaos I departed, trotting a hundred yards to the neighborhood taxi stand.
There were no cabs. I sat on a low brick wall beneath a sacred ficus tree, watching a nearby tailor at work on a treadle sewing machine. A few yards away, protected by a low, green fence, was my favorite shrine: the brick-lined pool of Nag Pokhari.
The story of these dark, mysterious pools fascinated me. For centuries, the people of Nepal had worshipped nagas: snakelike demigods whose kingdom fills a warren of subterranean caverns and canals. Eons ago, when Manjushri drained the valley, the naga kings moved their palaces into these aquifers. From their hidden kingdom they continue to protect Nepal’s rivers and households, regulate the monsoon rains, and guard the Earth’s store of gems, minerals, and underground treasures. Their presence is ubiquitous, and pains are taken to appease them. Though benevolent by nature, these creatures can also be wrathful, sinking their fangs into those who trespass upon their territory.
There was a splash from the lake, and I craned my neck. But whether the noise had come from something jumping out or falling in, I could not tell.
5
Mail Call
“NEAT, OLD FELLOW, or on the rocks?”
“Rocks, please. You boil and filter your ice cube water, right?”
“Can’t be bothered.” Coal held a tumbler at eye level and poured out three fingers of Bushmills for himself. “With the water shortage and all, we generally use old bathwater. But neither of us have been taking baths recently, as I’m sure you can tell. So Clarice just pees into the tray. A few drops of bleach get the color out. It’s quite amazing. You’d never know.” He cracked the freezer door, extracted an ice tray, and smacked it on the countertop.
Nepal’s political troubles called for whiskey, a neocolonial tradition that we never challenged. When the natives get restless, expatriates drink, and in this timeless spell of prerevolutionary calm we did so with conviction.
Coal and Clarice weren’t my only friends in the kingdom, but they were the friends I saw the most. Originally from England, they’d begun their peregrinations in Nairobi—a dry and difficult city where they had founded a secretarial school. The foreign community in Nairobi was relatively small, and before long it became claustrophobic. Coal’s accountant took a vacation in Nepal; he and his wife returned with Marco Polo-like tales of exotic temples, stupendous vistas, and plentiful hashish. Coal and Clarice visited the following autumn, planning to spend a few days in Kathmandu and take a sh
ort trek in the Annapurnas. Two months later they returned to Africa, closed the school, and changed continents.
Coal’s dream, when we’d met four years ago, was to be a novelist. He’d been plodding through the first draft of a spy thriller. Attempts to support himself by freelancing for magazines quickly created a cash flow problem. After succeeding so well in Africa, the situation was humiliating. He abandoned the novel, deciding that he was a better businessman than a writer. He began designing clothes—skirts, dresses, and coats—and proclaiming his plan to launch an export business. People rolled their eyes, but Coal was a man of considerable talents. His designs were innovative and flattering, his models were sexy, and every rupee he made was rolled back into hiring the best tailors in town. Friends back in England agreed to represent his line. He stuck with it. Within two years the business was a success, with thousands of garments flying off to London, Barcelona, Sydney, Berlin, and Dublin. Coal became rich. It suited him.
Clarice lacked Coal’s ambition, but found her own niche within the expat community. She opened a yoga studio, luring travelers with flyers posted outside the Lonely Planet-endorsed hotels. It was a modest business. The classes, though cheap by Western standards, seemed expensive in Nepal. Some mornings, only two people showed up. Clarice didn’t care; she was doing what she loved. She was in her early forties, lithe and beautiful, one of the most poised women I’d ever met. The fact was, I had a mad crush on her. Two or three times I’d dropped by the Tangal cottage, and found her alone. The encounters had turned me into a babbling adolescent.
But today Clarice was at a baby shower. I sat down at the kitchen table while Coal emptied a bag of potato chips into a wooden bowl. Saraswati, their didi of four years, had prepared a curry. It simmered on the propane stove.
Snake Lake Page 4
