by Mike Bond
“I've just come from Katmandu. Had rather a tiff getting out.” Stowe turned from the skin to look up at Cohen. “The roads out of town are barricaded. The Gurkhas're hunting some American who killed four Sherpas.”
“What's that, some kind of sheep?”
“Can see you're one of the great unwashed.” Stowe tugged the skin away from the lemur's back, stood with the pink carcass at his feet. “I'm going part way to Delhi, if you'd like to ride on the back of Sue.”
“Sue?”
“Suzuki to you.” Stowe held the lemur skin, head still attached, away from his trousers. When they reached the motorcycle he stuffed it in a saddlebag.
“You going to ride with that pistol in your coat?” Cohen asked.
The pasty blue eyes wavered over Cohen's. His hair, Cohen noted, was pale and thinning above the forehead. It covered the ears. The face was cratered with old acne scars. “May see another specimen, don't you think?” Stowe climbed on the seat. “Here are your foot pegs.” He reached back, pinning Cohen's arms round his waist. “Safety first,” he shouted. “Just lean as I do, no more, no less.”
THE ENGINE ROAR and sensation of speed were overwhelming. The foothills slumped gently toward the Indian plain; bony dogs yapped in the ditches and empty-faced children ran toward them, hands outstretched. Gradually the hills receded and they reached the parched Terai, the fields and villages even poorer, children too apathetic to beg. “Where will you find monkeys here?” Cohen yelled.
“Can't hear. Wait till we stop.”
Stowe leaned into a turn, gearing down. Tall spiky grasses blocked the view. Water buffaloes had crossed, leaving slick piles of dung. The bike skewed, slammed over the dirt embankment and cartwheeled into a field.
Cohen stood rubbing his shoulder. The tan earth, prickled by yellow stubs, rotated at an angle as he tried, each time it passed, to catch a fleeting view of the motorcycle. He stumbled, sat, stood again.
The earth's rotation was subsiding. The motorcycle, front wheel gyrating, lay on its side. He tried to approach it.
Before him lay a patch of what looked like snow; he reached down for its coolness. It was slippery. Paper, glossy. Two others. He glanced at and dropped them, wandered toward the motorcycle. Stowe lay beneath it. One saddlebag was open, contents strewn. Stowe moved his head. “Crushing me, get it off.”
The wheel stopped. Cohen lifted the motorcycle and leaned over Stowe. “Can you move?”
“Don't know.” Stowe's face was scraped, dirty. He raised his head. Through his open jacket front Cohen saw the pistol.
Cohen looked for Alex.
“Think I'm all right,” Stowe said. “Bloody buffaloes!”
Alex is dead. But he was just here. Cohen glanced around. The photo. Alex's photo, lying on the ground. From the saddlebag.
Stowe sat up, readjusted his jacket. The photos lay behind him.
“Wait!” Cohen said.
“Huh?”
“You're bleeding. Back here.” He rubbed the back of Stowe's coat.
“Where?”
“Here.” He grabbed past Stowe's neck for the pistol strapped under his armpit. Stowe's fist smashed his face; he twisted and pinned it down. It jerked free and plunged into his crotch. With a hand and knee he pinned it again, then yelled with pain as teeth sank into his knee. He spun Stowe over, punched him twice in the temple, Stowe butting him in the crotch. Fighting back nausea he squeezed Stowe into a half nelson, twisted out the gun and leaped away. “Get up!”
Stowe stood, wiping his mouth. “This is truly excessive.”
Cohen backed past the motorcycle. From a photo on the ground a slightly younger Alex stared up at him, shorter-haired, without his Himalayan tan.
“Where'd you get the pictures?”
Stowe looked down, raised his eyes, smiled. “The Gurkhas, simple as that.”
“Gurkhas.”
“At the barricade. Said to look out for these Americans. Killed the Sherpas. And an American girl.”
“Turn over the other two.”
“This has gone too far, don't you…”
“Quick!”
Cohen saw himself in the photo as Stowe sprang. They tumbled backward; he tucked up his knees and rolled them over. The gun punched his palm, a shot loud like dynamite. Stowe arched. His legs straightened, heels gouging the earth. He raised one hand briefly.
Cohen's own face was mirrored in Stowe's chalky eye. Dark blood seeped from a pinhole under Stowe's chin. Cohen rubbed a toe over the eye. It did not blink. He gathered the photos: one each of himself, Alex, Paul, his own the same as his passport's.
A water buffalo bellowed. It was a rango, a bull, standing in the field perhaps fifty yards away. He raised the motorcycle. The headlight was cracked, the right handlebar and brake lever bent. The key was on. He turned it, swearing as the bike bucked forward. He shifted to neutral and tried again. It revved at once. He accelerated a hundred yards down the road: the gears were fine.
He rode back and turned it off. Again he bent over Stowe, chased a fly from one nostril. Perhaps he did get the photos from the Gurkhas. Now I've killed him. I'm turning to dirt. Scum. Avoiding the warm blood, he reached inside the jacket pockets, found a wallet and a passport.
The face in the Australian passport was the same, but the name was Derek Willard, place of birth, Canberra. The wallet contained several hundred dollars, assorted rupees, two English driver's licenses in different names, and two scraps of paper. On one was scribbled, “An Ethnology of the Primate World,” on the other, “Bess, her place, 8 p.m., Claret.”
Cohen glanced at the person for whom such words had had meaning. The face was marbled slightly; dust filmed the eyes. Ants were running along the widening pool of blood that carried crumbs of earth and grass at its edges.
The rango had disappeared. There was not a shrub or boulder behind which it could have hidden. “I'm going crazy,” he shrieked. “Help me, please.” He stared open-mouthed and silent at the empty land.
The rango was back. It stood as before, watching him sideways, chewing steadily. He stepped around Stowe and limped toward it. It swung away, tail high, and sank into the earth. He followed it to the edge of a sinkhole. Water lingered in half-crusted hoofprints at the bottom. The rango glared up at him, huffing, its concave flanks white-sored. He returned to Stowe's body and dragged it into the sinkhole, wiped off the gun and put it in Stowe's hand, scuffed out the slender trail of blood, and mounted the motorcycle.
In the coolness of speed Paul faced him. “Everybody lose eventually. Everybody die.” Paul spun a football small in his shoe-polish palm. “But we don't want to fear it. We don't want to think we're going to lose.”
Water glinted beyond the road's descending arc. Before the bridge was parked a truck. Gurkhas in olive uniforms spanned the road.
7
A GURKHA RAN FORWARD pointing his rifle. Cohen drifted the Suzuki sideways to a stop, gritted his teeth as his bad leg took up the load. “You go too fast,” the Gurkha said in clipped English.
“I was surprised to see you. Nearly an accident.”
“You must slow for the border. Ahead, India. Documents, blease.”
Cohen offered one of the Australian's driving licenses.
“Your bermit?”
“Pardon?”
“Your bermit!” The Gurkha jerked his chin at the motorcycle.
“I bought it in Katmandu. The guy didn't give me a permit.”
“It is unlawful in Nebal without bermit.”
Cohen glanced across the river. “Raxaul isn't far.”
The Gurkha stepped in front of him. “In India bermits also are necessary.”
“I'll get one in Calcutta, then.”
The Gurkha crossed to the truck and spoke into the radio. Cohen edged closer trying to hear. Two other Gurkhas swung their Enfields to move him back. Wide terraces paralleled the river. No cover there, slow running on furrowed soil.
The Gurkha stepped down from the running board. “No bermit is neces
sary for you to leave Nebal.”
Cohen smiled. The Gurkha also smiled. “However, to enter India one must have bermit. As would one entering Nebal.”
“Like I said, I'll get it in Calcutta.”
“You must get it in Katmandu.”
Cohen's eyes wandered to the muddy river and its corroded, sagging bridge. Beyond the bridge the empty road wobbled in the heat.
The radio squawked. “A moment,” said the Gurkha. Cohen nodded, extended his hand. Surprised, the Gurkha shook it and turned to lean into the truck. Cohen remounted the motorcycle, switched on the key and coasted down the slope past the Gurkha's back. He slipped into second and released the clutch. The engine caught; another Gurkha raised his Enfield and stepped to the middle of the bridge. Cohen accelerated, straight-armed him flat in the face, gripped the weaving, screaming motorcycle as it pounded faster and faster over the riveted plates of the bridge toward the U-shaped chunk of sky beyond, his back arching in terror against the bullets singing past; he zipped past the astonished guard at the Indian checkpoint and into the flat arid countryside.
The speedometer jiggled and the broken headlight rattled as the motorcycle pounded wide-open over potholes and ruts. Telegraph poles zipped past; he eyed the wires as if trying to outrun the words flitting along them. He skirted the first disheveled village, then abandoned such stratagems and tore through the rest, scattering chickens, dogs, laundry, and children, leaving a new coat of fine dust to settle on centuries of old, stopping once for gas cranked by hand from a broken-gauged pump by a girl with white, unseeing eyes.
Twenty-three days, Paul. Easter in Paris. Le Serpent d'Etoiles. I'll get there – will you? From Paris just a hop across the ocean to 293 Fulton Street. Kohler Import-Export. We're running from them now, Paul. But not forever.
It was dark when he reached New Delhi. A few lights glimmered, giving the streets a Chaldean air. The airport was poorly lit. He parked the motorcycle as the last dirty mauve of day turned charcoal in the west.
THE AIR FRANCE flight to Paris would leave in two hours. Stowe's money would get him to Athens with a few dollars left for food. I can hide out there till it's time to meet Paul in Paris. Or maybe Yugoslavia, somewhere out of the way? From an airport telephone he made a reservation for three people in a false name, then bought bandages, iodine, a razor, toothbrush, shoes, and clothes in airport shops. In the men's room he cleaned and inspected his knee; the cut was long and when he pulled it apart the kneecap showed whitely. He soaked it in iodine, dressed it, washed quickly with paper towels, changed, shaved, and tossed Paul's clothes in the trash. A flushing toilet startled him, an alien sound. Hobbling to the motorcycle he emptied its saddlebags into a rubbish can, tore up Stowe's licenses and passport and the three photographs and scattered them in the wind, and left the Suzuki with the key in its lock in long term parking. “You won't be here long,” he said, patting its fuel tank.
Twenty-five minutes before takeoff he bought a ticket to Athens. The plane was half empty. He took his seat by a window at the rear and collapsed against the headrest. The plane picked up speed, sucking him down a whirlwind of exhaustion.
KIM LAY BESIDE HIM, still his friend's lover but also his own wife.
And also my sister? Or are you Seral? She did not answer; as she turned away he saw the jagged gash crossing her throat from jawbone to jawbone, her flesh peeling in yellow-green chunks from her cheekbones, Seral's glossy black braids falling away in his hands. He jumped agonized to his feet but the awful pain in his knee forced him down. I should have made you go, Kim; I murdered you. I'm no different than I was. No one will ever believe me. He stared astounded at his surroundings. The few passengers near him slept slumped across their seats in the semi-dark cabin; the black ridges of Afghanistan crept by under the stars.
WHEN THE PLANE SHUDDERED and slowed he woke quickly to a spray of lights; low desert huts swept under the wing as the plane descended to Teheran. Few passengers descended; five Shiites boarded, talking animatedly and holding the hems of their striped robes free of the steps; amid the Shiites was a tall, lean man with rimless spectacles, a black moustache, and a tan scarf over his blue wool suit.
The engines caught; the plane inched from the ramp. Cohen eased down in his seat. The plane lurched and halted; the engines died. Four uniformed men rolled a mobile ramp to the plane. He unclipped his seat belt and stood. The nearest Emergency Exit was forward, over the wing, the rear door directly behind him.
A terminal door flashed. A tall woman in a gray suit banged a suitcase through it and across the tarmac. Her auburn hair gleamed in the landing lights as she trotted up the ramp. He removed his glasses and closed his eyes.
Again Paul was close enough to touch. After Sylvie was gone there were times I could almost reach her. Now I've deserted you. I couldn't wait in K'du, Paul, they were hunting me everywhere – and then outside K'du, the Gurkhas – I was leading them to you so I turned south, went by Bhutwal, got them away, got away. Didn't I?
You'll never see the football. You'll be dead before you get there. And I killed the monkey man. For nothing. He'd been given the photos by the Gurkhas. Cohen shivered wearily. Bullshit. Two driver's licenses, with different names, a different passport. I mustn't wear myself down with doubt.
He rubbed his face in his hands. It's true, the monkey man was hunting me. Why didn't he kill me? Where are his friends? 293 Fulton Street, that's where they are. If they aren't there maybe I'll go after the CIA in D.C. or wherever and kill them all. Every killer there. Twenty-three days.
The woman in the gray suit was in the next row of seats, tugging her skirt down over crossed knees. When he noticed her again she had fallen asleep, a pale finger poised against her cheek, her skin luminescent marble under the yellow cabin lights, her hair fine and fully glissading down her shoulder and breast.
She scratched unconsciously at one knee. How apart we are, he thought. Her voluptuous world, its sleek silks and shimmering nylons, seemed polarized to his. A mahogany-colored leather handbag lay tucked in her lap; he stared at it and at her as if they were omens of another incarnation, as a Nepali peasant might. Bitch, she has no cares.
He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, stepped back to the lavatory, washed his face with a miniature pink bar of Air France soap, cleaned his glasses, and combed his hair with his fingers. To kill the pain in his knee, he cut some of the tall Tibetan's Eternal Snow into the clay pipe and smoked it, sitting on the toilet flap, feet propped against the door.
In his hand a box of Tiger matches. Kim held these. She lit her stove with them, in the mornings, thinking of Paul, wanting him home. Now he'll never come home, and she'll never be there. Oh God, to have things as they were. They were so fine and I never knew it.
Don't. Don't think of Seral or Kim or anyone. Just do. A time to kill and a time to die – that's how it should go. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Fuck you, Lord. Now I'm vengeance, Lord, I shall repay.
Going crazy. Crazy and don't realize. Concentrate. What next? Making no mistakes on the hitch from Athens to Paris, that's next. Salonika, Skopje, Belgrade, Trieste, Milano, Lausanne, Dijon – I've done it before, the other way. How soon will the police, or the CIA, track me to this flight? He lowered his jeans and watched the red-yellow stain advancing through the bandages. Can't hitch with this. Hole up in Athens? Crete? Yugoslavia? Three weeks till Easter – plenty time for Paris. Should get it stitched but don't dare.
He waited for the air to clear, snapped back the lock, and stepped into the corridor. The woman halted before him, pinned him with her green eyes. “We were already high enough.”
He did not respond; she went in and shut the door. He stood momentarily in her French scent, hearing the swish of her garments through the thin panel.
THE PLANE WAS QUIET, cabin lights extinguished. Under the gold orb of her lamp the woman read Der Spiegel, her head tilted slightly in concentration, long legs tucked beneath her. The lamp gilded her hair with sunset reds; fr
om time to time she would weave a loose strand behind her ear and pat it down with her fingertips.
Where are you now, Paul? Today – no, yesterday – you'd have reached Phu Dorje's. Was that yesterday, the Tibetan camp?
If you came in from Pokhara you'd go first to Phu Dorje's. Seeing that horror. Then Kim. Have they taken her body? In Cohen's mind Paul stood before her corpse – jaw muscles rippling under the black skin, eyes knowing yet unbelieving, the turning away into darkness, conscious of punishment meted again to the union of black and white. How many ancient wounds, Paul? Since the beginning of time?
In a penumbra of cabin lights he limped the sticky carpet, watching through the galley window a slender moon on crystal clouds, returning to the lavatory to urinate into the chemical toilet, breath held against the stink. How much better to pee in the open air. A bit perilous, though, at thirtyfive thousand feet. His hollow face glowered from the mirror. Six nights and so little sleep.
Back in his seat he eyed the woman. Fuck her. Never known pain. Never known hunger. All dressed up like a turd in a rainbow. Better the ones Alex and I used to screw in Bangkok, ratty water slapping bamboo branches against the pilings, small tight cunts, brown little nipples, eyes that never turn away. Licking the clitoris up through its silky black forest.
If only Alex had married the whore in Bangkok. Can't remember her. Fat little slant-eyed Alex babies running barefoot, round little baby buns brown in the sunlight.
A whisper of silks and nylons as the woman changed position. So cold. No fire underneath waiting to be lit. Nothing sunny. Glacier Face. Chiseled cheeks sheer and dangerous as the south wall of Macha Pucchare. Such a farce, life. The beautiful stink when they're dead, too. He scowled at his reflection in the window.
What goes on in her head? Thinking of humping some guy who's got a Mercedes and a hundred-foot yacht. Two years I haven't seen a well-dressed western woman. Thai women look better. What's it like to be her, inside that pearly skin, those soft hands with their delicate fingernails, those avocado tits, those long long thighs, that vacuous western brain?