One More Time (7 page)

‘All I wanted was a donation, but now everything is no good!’ He crouched down beside Akio and spoke directly to him, occasionally looking in my direction. ‘We are poor people here in Nepal. I am family man. I love my wife and my children. Do you think that I do this for fun? No! I would rather be with them, not here with you.’ His voice was emotional. ‘But this is a war.
You think it is not your problem, but when you come to a country that is at war, then it is your problem. All I wanted is donation and now instead I have to do something about this.’

Silence followed.

‘What will you do?’ Akio spoke then, out of sheer nerves, the colour slowly returning to his face.

Raja rose to his feet and began to walk towards the door. ‘What will you do?’ shouted Akio again. ‘Tell me.’

Raja opened the door, the cool night air once again stampeding into the room, catching hold of everybody, adding to the strain.

‘Tomorrow morning, you—’ he pointed at Akio, and then pointed at me ‘—and you—we will be waiting for you both.’

‘Us
both?’
I shouted. ‘What the hell did I do? I gave you my money.’ But Raja was gone, and though I shouted after him from the door, he did not return. I went back into the room vexed, my mind in turmoil.

‘You’re a prick, Akio.’

Akio climbed to his feet and then sat down. Mani was attending the distressed family, who were feverishly hugging the hurt child. I marched up and down the room.

Dear Holy God, please protect
—What was Akio thinking?
Dear Holy God, please pro
—I saved the prick’s life, what was he thinking?—
Dear Holy
—

I couldn’t get my mind around what had just taken place.

‘Thank-o you, thank-o you for saving me.’ Akio nearly whispered the words, as if he was ashamed of what had happened. He kept his head low.

‘What are we going to
do?’
I said desperately. ‘What’s going to happen tomorrow?’

I put my hand to my forehead and found that my head was bleeding from the fall. Mani entered the room. He said nothing but the expression on his face was enough.

‘Mani, what will we do?’ I had to ask him, even if he had no ideas, just to feel that we weren’t on our own.

Mani thought for a short while and eventually replied, ‘We better sleep, leave very early tomorrow.’

‘How early?’ I enquired.

‘Maybe five, maybe more early but I think we must sleep soon.’ My mind began to relax. I hadn’t completed the prayer but it wasn’t nagging at me as much.

‘Is the little girl okay?’

‘She is good, not so bad.’ Mani began to laugh sympathetically while over-exaggeratedly flexing his arm muscles. ‘She is strong, very brave girl.’

I wiped away a streak of blood that had dripped down my neck. ‘Okay, I’m off to bed.’

I passed by Akio but refused to look at him.

The last I remember of the hours of murmuring that night was lying deathly still, fingers flexed tightly in upright positions, my feet and toes stretched as far upwards as they possibly could. It was supremely uncomfortable but it was the only remedy for my distressed mind.

‘Wake up, wake up.’ Mani’s words penetrated my sleep with urgency. Like a person brought back to life, I awoke in a panic. Mani was actually in my room!

He retreated from my bedside. ‘I am sorry, but we must go soon! You sleep deep, I cannot wake you for a long time.’

The previous night’s events flooded back into my mind.

‘Okay, I’m awake.’ I threw a leg out from the bed and onto the cold wooden floor.

‘Good, we leave as soon as possible.’ Mani turned and scurried out of the room.

I hauled the rest of my body from beneath the sheets. Because of the bitter cold, I was dressed and ready to leave within minutes, and soon entered the
living area of the teahouse, where Mani was waiting. He was so anxious to leave he already had my backpack on.

‘Is Akio ready?’ I asked, anxious to leave too.

‘Akio not want to come with us!’ Mani replied curtly.

‘He what?’ I was taken aback. ‘Is he not awake?’

‘He awake, but he say he want breakfast before he leave.’

I was instantly furious. Had Akio forgotten the mess he’d managed to get us all embroiled in?

‘I’ll sort him out!’

I stormed to Akio’s room. He was sitting up reading the trek map with a pocket torch that he held in one hand. He looked as though he’d been awake for some time.

‘Come on, get up and let’s get going!’ I tugged at his blankets. But Akio held them tight, intent on staying in bed.

‘Why aren’t you coming?’ I asked in frustration.

‘I not-o frightened of Maoist. They all mouth.’ Akio gestured flapping lips with his right hand. ‘I wait for breakfast and then I leave. I leave when I am ready!’

I could hardly comprehend his smugness. He had nearly been throttled last night! Didn’t he believe they
were serious? Perhaps he thought his rights as a customer would be compromised if he didn’t get the breakfast he was owed. This was madness. Now I wanted to be as far away from him as possible.

Nevertheless, I pleaded with him. ‘Akio, I honestly think that you should come with us now. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.’

Akio regarded me for a moment and then grinned slyly. ‘Ah, you very frightened of Maoist and I think this might be problem for you, because maybe you not so good-o in your head.’

What?

He went on. ‘I see you many times, you sick-o with your head.’

‘Hey, Akio, you know what, you can go get stuffed for all I care.’ And I left the room before he could reply.

Sick-o in the head. Who does he think he is? Who the hell does that smug imbecile think he is to talk to me like that?

If Mani had heard what passed between Akio and me he said nothing. He picked up my pack and headed for the door, knowing I was following now and Akio was no longer a concern for either of us.

The freezing morning air hit us with the same implacable force as Akio’s attitude. Each breath we took was dragged in, then left our mouths as a puff of fog under the still moonlit early-morning sky. The houses we passed seemed lost under the darkness, and peaceful, but the village of Ghorepani, still harboured a threat, which wouldn’t pass until this place was no longer in sight. We didn’t speak to one another. We stayed focused on the path before us. Akio’s last words replayed in my head over and over again. Who was he to judge me? At least I had never put our lives in danger. Yet his accusations stung. I was angry—and embarrassed.

Then the image of the Nepalese child being pushed to the ground came to me—she had suffered because she had tried to come to Akio’s aid. Why didn’t that appear to bother him?

I couldn’t make sense of what Akio had done and I couldn’t clear it from my mind either. Perhaps he didn’t have any money. If that was the case, I could have helped him out. A whisper kept surfacing in my mind—the Maoists would catch up with Akio and put a bullet through his thick skull. What a disaster!

Again I was lured into frustrating prayers: if something happened to Akio then maybe my thinking ill of him would be to blame.

Dear Holy God, please keep Akio safe and okay and alive and well and in good health
…

The words churned over in my mind with no sense of completion, refused like an incorrect pin number punched into an ATM. My prayers were becoming increasingly difficult to recite.

Sunrise began to decorate the sky and Ghorepani was already far behind. We had been walking for over an hour, but I had been too preoccupied with my mental rituals to notice time or distance. No matter what route the words ran though the canals of my head they never seemed right—yet if I didn’t complete the prayer properly, Akio would most certainly die! At last I shut my eyes. I had no choice. Too many surrounding objects were distracting me. Anything aiming down represented badness. Simple things such as a bird coming down to land meant I had to start the prayer again. Maybe its descent represented hell and damnation—that my prayer was plunging to depths not rising to heaven. Whatever. Eyes shut, fingers and toes flexed into the upward position, I began this new prayer one more time.

Dear Holy God, please keep Akio safe and okay and alive and well and in good health
…

The concentration involved was immense, but this time it worked, the words flowed out without a problem. Success!

I opened my eyes with renewed enthusiasm, hoping that Mani hadn’t seen. He hadn’t, but I hadn’t observed him either—

‘Oh, shit, Mani?’ I shouted as I ran towards him. Up ahead he’d curled over on bent knees. His face was screwed up in agony, his hands were pressing tightly to his stomach.

‘Here, take that off your shoulders,’ I cried, undoing the fasteners and releasing my pack from his tiny frame.

‘No problem,’ he moaned. ‘Only little pain.’

I threw the backpack to one side and tried to see what was wrong with him. Perhaps he’d fallen while I’d had my eyes shut. But on closer inspection, he looked as though he’d suffered some kind of attack.

‘Where’s the pain?’

Mani pointed to his stomach.

‘Your stomach. What’s wrong, what are you feeling, do you want to head back?’

‘It’s nothing. I have pain with my stomach, it’s no problem.’ He started to crawl to his feet but I stopped him. He clearly wasn’t ready to stand.

‘Don’t get up. Sit down here for a while, catch your breath!’ I helped him over to a large boulder, somewhere he could sit safe from leeches. His face had become sickly pale and he was out of breath.

‘Okay, now breathe slowly.’ He looked past me, still in the grip of pain, but did as I suggested. ‘Alright, now tell me, what exactly are you feeling?’

Mani thought for a second. With each breath the colour was returning to his face, surprisingly fast. ‘I think it is not so bad now. My stomach I think sometimes not so happy with me.’ I smiled at this and couldn’t help but think about all the
dal bhat
he consumed.

‘Are you certain? You looked like you were in a lot of pain?’

He frowned. ‘Sometimes it come painful, but not for such long time.’ He looked away from me, his eyes distant and forlorn. ‘I think it okay now!’

One minute Mani was doubled up with pain and then the next, as though nothing had ever happened, he was ready to set off again. I insisted he stay sitting for a while, to make certain he was better. I hadn’t noticed him suffering any stomach pains until now, although I recalled when Akio tumbled over the path edge, Mani had seemed not quite himself.

A breeze descended on us as we sat in silence beneath the canopy of green. Mani continued to breathe cautiously while I stared blankly in the direction from which we had come and shivered. I was surprised to see how high we’d already climbed.

‘I sometimes worry.’ Mani’s voice broke the silence.

‘What about?’ I replied.

‘I think maybe I am unlucky,’ he continued. That word again. ‘When I am younger I have parents and sister. And sister, she has children too, I am uncle as well.’ His voice wavered. ‘Now all I have is sister’s children, all the rest dead, they are all deaded.’

I was shocked. This had come out of nowhere. I remained silent to see if he had anything more to say, and when he hadn’t I responded inadequately, ‘That’s terrible, all of them?’

‘All of them!’ The breeze seemed all that bit chillier as Mani spoke. ‘First my parents, then my sister and then her husband. Now Mani give money for children so they not deaded too!’

This time Mani didn’t try to mask his sadness with laughter. ‘I think maybe I am unlucky!’ His eyes welled up slightly as he rose to his feet. ‘I think maybe I am very unlucky.’

There was nothing that I could say, it was too tragic a story that he had confided in me.

Mani seemed intent on starting off again; perhaps it was a useful distraction for him. Still, I was concerned.

‘Are you sure you’re ready to continue, Mani?’ I watched him reaching for the backpack.

‘No problem,’ he patted his stomach optimistically, ‘I think maybe just need
dal bhat!’

He set off again and I followed closely behind.

Above the claustrophobic confines of the forest we came to a grassy clearing. ‘We are up very high now,’ explained Mani as he directed me to look over my shoulder. I turned around.

‘My God, that is beautiful!’ I scrambled for my camera. ‘Do you see how amazing that looks?’

It was more than just open space; it was the scene of a lifetime. In every direction, the wonder and beauty of Nepal lay exposed, on show. I aimed my lens and snapped repeatedly. I couldn’t control myself, it was like standing in a castle overlooking the world. Below was an artist’s dream, each forest, each terraced patch of farmland, each snowcapped mountainside adding its own distinct hue. The wispy grey arms of a gentle mist only accentuated the beauty they tried to conceal.
Greatest of all were the towering protectors whose haunting forms tore patches from the blue morning sky: the Annapurna Mountains. As though they’d been watching us all along, they filled the sky behind with their enormous snow-capped presence, so massive yet still so far away.

Mani began to name the various peaks that were in view, leaving until last the Annapurna South peak whose base camp we were aiming to reach. For the minutes that we stood there taking everything in, I felt the most uplifted I’d been since as far back as I could remember.

I thought of home and the past. Just images. My mother’s eyes first, honest and kind, ever hopeful; often she would look at me with those eyes as though she knew every thought that entered my head, and she’d make me feel safe.

I saw Dad’s hands, coarse from a life on construction sites around the world, strong enough to keep on going, never to quit. Finally my brothers and sister, and the sounds of their youthful voices came to my ear, now long changed since the days when we played together, in the age before worries and disappointment. I pictured Sam, youngest of us all, and felt sad, knowing I hadn’t spent enough time with
him. He was a great brother, a gentle and unassuming guy now, who generally kept to himself. Even as kids he’d spent more time alone than he had with the rest of us.

I’ll make a point of getting closer to him when I get home, I thought. Whenever I get home!

‘You see,’ said Mani, pointing down into the distance, ‘there is Ghorepani!’

At least 400 metres below sat a tiny village.

‘Why have all the houses got blue roofs?’ At last I asked!

‘They blue so that when we trek, we can see how far left to travel. You see, everything here is green, like trees, like forest. But nothing blue, easy for the eyes to see.’ I should have figured that one out long ago! But Mani looked pleased to be sharing this with me.

‘Easy here in Nepal!’ he continued. ‘We simple people!’

I smiled in agreement.

‘Okay, we must continue, long way before first teahouse.’ Mani turned to begin walking—but stopped, clutching once again at his stomach and letting out a low moan. Again I went to him. ‘Okay?’

He threw a sharp, martyrish glance my way. ‘No problem, just small pain, no problem.’

‘Ghorepani is just down there. We can head back now and be there in no time.’

‘No problem with me. I not want to go Ghorepani.’

‘Well, let me carry the backpack then!’ But this was utterly insulting to him.

‘I am guide-porter. This is my job. I carry bag, you not to worry, I have no problem.’ He spoke with disdain and I saw that I should back down. ‘Okay. We go. Nearly two hours until first teahouse!’ Mani gave an apologetic smile then, and set off again.

In the monotony of step after step after step, I cleared my mind of worry about stomach pain or Maoists, distracted by the veins that protruded from Mani’s legs.

‘You must not forget to give a small donation!’

I was in Varanasi, India, on the rooftop of the Golden Temple, surrounded by a labyrinth of dreary laneways interweaving weathered buildings, bleak and dark from lack of sunlight, stale from overcrowding. Below, on the ghat beside the Ganges, was a smouldering body. From the balcony edge I could see a large family grieving profusely as the body, draped in cloth but with the face visible, burnt upon a bed of chopped wood. It was an awful sight, too upsetting to
watch. Those eyes that would never open, that face still fresh. It was a woman who looked little older than my mother.

I turned away from the sight.

‘Donation for what?’ I replied. The person who had spoken to me was a short Indian man, well dressed and confident in his manner.

‘You see,’ he gestured across the rooftop, ‘this is a hospice! You know, place for the dying!’

People of all ages lay everywhere on the rooftop, sickly and awaiting death, their families close at hand, giving as much in the time that they had left to give. So much sorrow. So many people, and not one of them had caught my attention on the way in.

Someone grabbed hold of my hand. Startled, I spun around and looked into the smiling face of a young girl, her eyes sunken, face pale. Her body was thinner than I could ever have imagined. Repulsed, I tugged my hand away from her grip and hurried as fast as I could from the rooftop, stopping only to drop whatever coins I had in my pocket at the feet of an unknown form.