Last India Overland

by Craig Grant

  Soon came in this morning, said we’re going to try something new. She meant drugs. She said I should be getting better but I’m not. Not bad drugs. Good drugs. Make the day seem brighter, the room seem smaller, Soon seem prettier. New drugs from Bangkok, she said. Her doctor friend brought them.

  Kabul. Next town. Left around noon because Pete didn’t want to face the sun through those cracks in the windshield. Dana got on after me, sat beside me, said Pete’s probably going to throw all of us into the same room again but we could maybe get a room to ourselves. If I was up for it, she said, and smiled. I said sure but I was broke and I’d have to wait until I got my traveller’s cheques replaced if that was okay with her before I could split the bill.

  Pete had told me there was an American Express office in Kabul.

  Dana told me not to worry about it.

  Kelly was sitting next to Patrick. Talking about his planets.

  She glanced at us once and then looked away and never looked back.

  I said to Dana, “But what if I happen to be a washout?”

  She just laughed. “You men worry too much,” she said.

  Dana told me all about insurance scams, how life insurance is one big scam, on the way to Kabul, which was a funky little town. City. My kind of city.

  When we got there, Pete drove down Chicken St. and he pointed out the best bets for restaurants. He said the cheeseburgers and milkshakes were pretty good in the Faiz Mohammed Hotel and that the Children of God would throw in a hymn with the ketchup if we were lucky. He said all the Led Zeppelin fans aboard would probably like the Sigis because they played Led Zep loud, day in, day out, but he gave his best thumbs up to the. Baggy Bella, an old palace out on the outskirts of town where the chef murdered a few tourists back in the late sixties. Pete joke. He also told us to buy raw material instead of the manufactured whatever because Afghanis weren’t that handy with sewing machines. He told us that we wouldn’t be going up to Bamiyan this trip, to see the Valley of the Buddha, even though it was on our agenda, because he heard there was a lot of fighting going on up there. Then he parked in front of the Park Hotel and went in and posted the room list and sure enough, it was all of us in one room, except for Pete and Rockstar, who had rooms to themselves.

  Dave says I forgot all about how Rockstar was almost killed by a guy at a loo-stop along the way to Kabul. Because he took a picture of his wife with his SX-70. I thought that was on the way to Peshawar, but anyway, yeah, Rockstar almost bit the green wiener, and he would’ve if he hadn’t given the guy the picture.

  The guy had stuck a pen, a Bic pen, under Rockstar’s throat. Which may have persuaded Rockstar to give it up. I thought Patrick said it was a knife, actually, but Rockstar told me later it was a Bic pen.

  Which didn’t really make sense to us, those of us who bothered to think about it, until we got to Dara.

  Dave says it was Suzie who gave Rockstar the bright idea to take the picture. That’s news. I was actually taking a dump out behind this caravanserai, as Pete called it, when all this went down. That kind of explains, though, what happened later in Lahore.

  But Kabul’s before Lahore.

  Dana asked at the desk to see if we could get a room together, she didn’t care what Kelly thought, all’s fair in love and war, I guess, and yeah, they had a room, so she said, “This one’s on me, Mick.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll get tomorrow night if I get my cheques back.”

  Charole wanted to know if a Frank Jenkins had checked in. The deLucas had, but not Jenkins.

  Somehow the news about Jenkins wasn’t a big surprise for me, but it put a worried look on Charole’s face, and Kelly’s, and Dana’s.

  Tim and Teach left a message saying they’d gone up to Bamiyan to see the giant Buddhas and they’d be back by the twenty-sixth. Which meant that they were already one day late, because this was Malaria Monday, the 27th, I remember it because I didn’t take any malaria tablets, I stopped, which is maybe why Soon says I’ve got a touch of malaria.

  We spent a couple days in Kabul waiting for them and Jenkins to show up. Pete used the time to get the windshield replaced, and he tried to find a radiator but didn’t, which meant that we had to go down into the Kabul Gorge with a radiator stuffed with pepper.

  As for me, I spent the time making whoopee with Dana. I’ve had worse times in my life. Despite a bad case of the first-night jitters.

  The only thing was, Dana had this thing about making love with her eyes open. She was into eye contact, face to face. And noises too. She kept having these multiple orgasms. All I had to do, she said, was just touch her breasts and she’d come.

  She had to be kidding. She had to be faking it.

  Though Dave says she wasn’t. Thanks to him, he says, I had just the right touch.

  I have to admit we did do a few freaky things, in our room at the Park Hotel. Dana had Japanese love beads and a French tickler which she’d managed to hide from customs agents. She had this thing about hot wax on her nipples and clit.

  But it was this thing about the noise that bothered me. I’ve never liked women who make too much noise. It always makes me think that they’re trying to win an Oscar.

  Or she was trying to broadcast to Kelly some message.

  Women can be cruel with each other, I’ve noticed that much in life.

  Anyway the third day we did manage to get out of the room and go for a walk along Chicken St., which has to be the funkiest street, next to maybe Freak St. in Kathmandu, that I walked down the whole trip. All kinds of weird things for sale. Like harem costumes and more of those rainbow socks and all kinds of strange fur things. Fur everywhere. And padlocks in the shape of elephants. This one guy asked us into his shop for some chai and we went in, he poured us some real tasty chai, the best on the trip, and showed us all his fur blankets. One was real nice. Lynx fur. I spent about half an hour trying to chisel him down on the price. Told him I was Jimmy Carter’s nephew and if he gave me a half-decent price I’d go home and tell Uncle Jimmy that the Russkies were trying to pull a fast one in Afghanistan and he’d send in the marines right quick.

  But the guy didn’t go for it.

  Dana said, “Well, I like it too. If I buy it for you, will you make love to me on it later?”

  I said sure, no problem.

  So she bought the lynx fur blanket.

  About five minutes later we ran into Kelly, all by herself, in this second-hand bookshop and that was a little uncomfortable. She’d found a book by a guy who wrote a book called Garp that Kelly had mentioned to me she liked somewhere along the road. Something about setting bears free. She said she’d looked for it in Billings and then New York and then London and here she finds it in Kabul of all places. She sounded a little tongue-tied as she rattled all this off and then scuttled away.

  “Her loss, my gain,” said Dana, taking my arm and whispering in my ear, nibble, nibble.

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  I felt a little weird about it though, and somehow me and Dana didn’t have a lot to say to each other over cheeseburgers and strawberry milkshakes at the Mercedes Restaurant. I mean I didn’t have a lot to say to her. She told me some strange story about this friend she had, a ballerina, who developed foot problems and became anorexic, almost died, because everyone wanted to see her bones, and finally she became a coke addict. She even signed a contract with some agent who agreed to supply her with coke before every show.

  When we got back to the hotel, Dana was all for trying out the lynx blanket. She took out some opium, put it in a pipe. She said sex is the only weapon we have against death and taxes, and Dave phones me up and says close your eyes and go alpha, beta, centauri, pegasus, please, and since I felt like sleeping anyhow I did what he said and my brain does a breast stroke into blue purple waters that feel like smoke, strange smoke, and then I hear buttons getting undone and I feel that lynx blanket being pulled slowly across my bare chest, down across my stomach. And then nothing.

  (postcard)24
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br />   Kabul, Nov. 29 Dear Dex,

  Did you have a good Thanksgiving? I hope so. Be thankful you’re home. I’m sending this as well as an aerogramme, in case 1 doesn’t get through. It’s been known to happen. We seem to have misplaced Frank along the way, likely in Iran. Could you call the state senate, see if they could maybe track him down? Our speculation is that he may have met a hot sheila in the Shiraz Mts. Love, K.

  PAKISTAN Kabul—Peshawar

  Day 48

  Departure: 7:30 a.m. (309 km, but a long day).

  Route: Butkhak—Kabul Gorge—Jalalabad—Tes Khana— Border—Khyber Pass—Peshawar.

  NB. Try to drive on the left-hand side of the road in Pak. Points: 1. Border closes at night so watch your watch.

  2. Bribes can speed things up at the border, but play it by ear. Seven passenger lists go to the police. Moneychangers at the border are BLOODY EVERYWHERE! $1 = 10 rupees. They also sell ballpoint .22s. Tell troupe to leave well enough alone.

  3. Kabul Gorge and Khyber Pass are both, of course, gorgeous, but are steep and can be windy. One-way traffic in some places. Helps to have a good night’s sleep the night before.

  4. Jalalabad is a city of large gardens and tree-lined avenues. You won’t have time to stop and visit, like the Buddha did, according to some.

  5. The Khyber Pass is one of the most scenic stretches of treacherous road in the world. “Khyber” means fort, and there’s a lot of them on that steep and long winding excuse for a road. Back in 1973, a tour bus went too far out on the edge. Try not to repeat that tragedy. The Pass, known as “the Corridor of Invasions,” was the main trade route, in the past, between Central Asia and South Asia. Lots of caravans, as well as the armies of Alexander, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Baber, Nadir Shah and other fun folk have passed through its rocky defiles. The Khyber Rifles now make their home there and they like to take pot-shots at tour buses if it’s a slow Friday afternoon. These guys have a strict code of honour. No deliberate murder goes unavenged, but the problem is sorted out by the families involved. Women are treated with a lot more respect here than they are in the rest of Pakistan.

  6. Peshawar was formerly the capital of the North-West Frontier Province, constituted by one Lord Curzon back in 1901. Occupied by Moslems since 1000 A.D., it was taken over by Sikhs in 1833, who destroyed most of the old buildings. The British took control in 1849 and stayed in control until

  Peshawar became part of modern Pakistan. It is reputed that a cask containing the ashes of Buddha was discovered here in 1909. The town is surrounded by a high wall with twenty gates, and it’s known for its bazaars full of fierce-looking tribesmen, most of them armed, and all of them shopping for apples, apricots, peaches and pears.

  Mick

  I’m eating long black licorice that looks like worms and I look out the window, see this sign, can’t quite read it, too much of it, and then Pete gears down looks back at us and tells us all to hold on tight and he puts the bus into second and we head down this road about as narrow as a fat snake. A road that has more hairpin curves than a pin-up calendar. All I can see when I look out the window is something that might be a valley floor, too far away to tell. Then something blows and the bus goes careening down that mountain trail. Pete slams into the side of the cliff which slows down our momentum and he tries yanking on the emergency brake but it must be gone and so we bounce off the cliff walls at all the hairpin turns until finally we sail off the side and land in a lake at the bottom and the water starts pouring in and all of a sudden the bus is full of witches, some wearing black hats, some wearing white hats, and there’s Iranians coming through the windows and they’ve all got Khyber knives in their mouths and then Dana shakes me awake, except, I’m still watching, I’m back in that room, watching her on TV. Reception real clear. I get to watch Dave shtup Dana. Standing up, with Dana’s legs locked around his hips. You’re really into sex, aren’t you, Dave? Dave says there’s nothing quite like it if done properly. He says it pales in comparison to mudsliding in the slipstream but it does come in a very definite second if all the chakras are open and both people are clean. Clean? I said. Clean smelling, he says. But the open chakras, more important. A lot of people know how, he says, thanks to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who’s nailed it down, and is a sex fiend at heart, just ask the Beatles. They went to visit him back in the sixties and left when they found out he was a sex fiend. But what’s wrong with being a sex fiend, says Dave, if you’ve got it under control? And then Soon came in, it was time for my sponge bath and I hung up on Dave, I didn’t want him chattering at me during the best part of my day. Except Soon’s been looking sad lately. Because my roomie died and the cremation’s tomorrow. I told her all about the old man and how I went a little crazy after he was killed. Think I should get back to November 30. Dave and Dana. Patrick pounding on the door, saying bus leaves in five minutes. I blink my eyes and Dana’s face is right in front of me, eyes closed, face flushed, moaning, and then I feel an orgasmic wave wash up from my toes that swamps me. Dave showing me what it’s like when you’ve got the chakras open. Real nice of him.

  Dana shudders one last time and wipes a hand across her brow, sweat dripping, languid look like Lauren Bacall in her eyes. You’re something else, she says.

  I am, aren’t I? I said and then I dropped her on the bed, I didn’t like Dave playing games with my head like that.

  I washed and brushed my teeth. Didn’t shave, by this time I had a pretty good beard, maybe should’ve mentioned that. I didn’t do a lot of shaving in Mashhad, Herat, Kandahar and Kabul.

  On the bus I sat next to Kelly. She was surprised.

  “Why are you sitting next to me?” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should’ve asked, may I?”

  She shrugged and said sure. Asked why not Dana?

  I told her I had enough of Dana for one trip.

  “Trouble in paradise?” she said.

  I said it wasn’t like that. I just needed to get some bed rest.

  She said it sounded like noisy bed rest.

  I didn’t know what to say to that for a moment or two.

  Finally I said, “Malaria nightmares.”

  “Sounded more like malaria wet dreams,” she said.

  When Dana got on the bus, she looked surprised to see where I was sitting. Too bad.

  You can’t please all the people all the time, even when you’ve got a sex fiend like Dave in your head.

  One of the reasons I sat next to Kelly was because of that dream. It felt like one of those psychic dreams Dave sends me every once in a while to keep me entertained.

  The Kabul Gorge wasn’t too far from Kabul. A deep mother. Pete took it real slow. Hairpin curves. Nose of the bus peeking out over infinity. I had to close my eyes, couldn’t handle it, told Kelly to tell me when we got to the bottom. She let me hold her hand all the way down. When we got there, after what seemed hours, she said, safe and sound. I opened my eyes. Nice autumn colours at the bottom of the gorge. And then we started going back up. I closed my eyes again. My hand in Kelly’s sweating, slippery, embarrassing. Kelly amused but sympathetic.

  When we finally get out of the gorge, Kelly says, out of the blue, “New moon’s in two hours.”

  I looked at her. Those brown pools of hers called eyes. Always hiding thoughts. That’s the thing about people that blows me away, they’re always thinking. Where’s Kelly right now, and what’s she thinking?

  I said, “New moon on Hallowe’en, plus four weeks, that’d make it three days ago, wouldn’t it?”

  “Some moons are slower than others,” she said. “Depends on how far away it is from earth and what the season is.”

  I said, oh.

  “Just thought you’d like to know,” she said.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said.

  We had about a two-hour wait at the border. Pete gave us his usual history and language spiel, and how this guy named Bhutto got usurped and thrown in jail by a guy named Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq in an American-backed coup.<
br />
  Dave says I should mention here that Zia is going to hang Bhutto in a couple years time but Zia’s going to kick the bucket and Bhutto’s daughter is going to take power, first woman ruler of a Moslem country, and Pakistan is going to go through some wild changes, come the nineties.

  Next stop a loo-stop on the brink of the Khyber Pass. Near a sign. That had lots of words on it in English. It warns people not to go down into the pass at night if they care about their lives at all or words to that effect.

  I get real nervous, just thinking about it. So I go and take a leak.

  On the way back to the bus, Dana stops me, wants to know what’s going on.

  I said, “Me and Kelly are friends, I’m not going to give that up. Did I say I would?”

  She gives me a cold look, then says, “I guess that means I

  can keep ray friends too.”

  I say sure, and walk away.

  I get on the bus, sit next to Kelly, grab her hand, and then Pete heads it down into the pass, Patrick going nuts with his camera. The radiator full of pepper holds out and we have lunch at the bottom of the Khyber Pass and then it’s up the other side and then back down again into a few more gorges, all of them deeper than the love in King Kong’s heart. But I have my eyes closed most of the time so I can’t tell you how pretty all these gorges are and we actually make it to Peshawar in one piece.

  I don’t like to think about that day much.

  We get into Peshawar just in time for din-din. When we pull up in front of the Park Hotel and all get off, the first thing we see is this cat that’d been run over by something but it wasn’t dead yet. One of its eyes is hanging out but the other one still has life in it. It kind of freaks Kelly out. Freaks all the girls out, actually.