Kissing the Wind

by A. E. Hotchner

  “Should we call a taxi?”

  “Not necessary. It’s at the ceremonial palace just beyond the bend over there. An easy walk.”

  Oh, no, for God’s sake, I thought as a panicky chill attacked me. I’ll be a public spectacle. I had taken it for granted that Karki would perform his trance privately. But no, this was going to be a touristy show with this pathetic creature from New York on view.

  As we rounded the bend a burgeoning display confronted us. Camera-bearing tourists were already beginning to cluster. The domed stone ceremonial edifice had steps like shelves, on which Karki was placing large decorated idols. We walked over to him and I handed him Bhairav from his carrying bag.

  “Ah, mister, hello, good day. These are my own idols: Surya, sun; Agni, fire; Indra, rain. I bring them to join Bhairav when I do my trance in the rain of blood.” He indicated a tall standing sheet of thick clear plastic adjacent to the ledge on which the idols were arranged.

  “You should stand behind here when rain of blood comes.”

  I noticed he was wearing a special gold embossed tunic that I presumed was indicative of his impending trance.

  A little conclave of musicians now started to play. “They are here to help when I go to trance to find Bonnet syndrome spirits,” Karki said.

  The music was quite good—cymbals, hand drums, conch-shell horns, and bells strapped across the torsos and to the ankles of the musicians—but I was in no mood to enjoy it. A group of nine monks had assembled, along with a phalanx of priests. A stream of camera-bearing tourists was invading the area, snapping their hungry cameras at everything. I pulled the brim of my cap down to conceal my face as much as I could. The camera crowd now reluctantly parted for the white-clad butcher and his two assistants, who were leading an enormous water buffalo to an embedded post that was immediately in front of the four idols—and me. The butcher had an embossed silver-handled knife tucked in a scabbard in his waistband. The buffalo was at least seven feet in height across his flanks, and his two heavy horns jutted from the sides of his head. He was tied securely to the post. The music intensified. The butcher’s assistants began to pour buckets of water on the head of the buffalo, who stomped and protested. The tourists jockeyed each other for camera positions.

  “The ritual butchers pour the water,” Dr. Gopal explained to me, “to make the buffalo shake his head up and down: that is regarded as permission for the butcher to proceed.” The priests put a flame to a tall stack of pungent incense.

  The buffalo finally gave his horned head a monstrous shaking, spraying water all around, and the solemn butcher drew his silver knife from its scabbard and made his way to the buffalo. Karki started to perform a complicated, twirling, hopping dance, sounding his drums and emitting strange vocalizations. I presumed he was entering his trance.

  I was mesmerized, in fact paralyzed, by what was unfolding and felt powerless to interfere. I called out to Dr. Gopal but the noise of the tourists, the music, Karki’s intonations, the protesting buffalo, and the monks and priests with their lamentations completely drowned out my attempt to reach him. It was not unlike being blanketed under the influence of the Bonnet.

  While his assistants each held fast to a horn, the butcher plunged his knife into the side of the buffalo’s powerful neck, severing his jugular vein, blood spurting forward in a dense stream, like water going full blast from a garden hose. The butcher directed the streaming blood in the direction of the idols, where it bathed them in red, the spray also striking the plastic shield protecting me. I recoiled in shock and pulled my cap down over my eyes, steadying myself by pressing against the shield. There was a crescendo of tumultuous noise as the buffalo began to stagger. Karki had now assumed a set position, the drums cast aside as he uttered a flow of words I didn’t know.

  My eyes were mesmerized into watching the tragedy of the beleaguered buffalo, who, as the flow of blood waned, stumbled, and with a final surrendering cry catapulted onto his side, dying. The butchers immediately sprang into action, getting their paraphernalia from their cart and starting to dismember the buffalo, the chief butcher sawing off the horned head while the others began to carve up the rest of the body and fill their cart with the pieces.

  My tolerance was at a breaking point; this animal’s death was all my doing. A self-anger was rising in me. Too cowardly to face up to the strident threats to my life, I had sought this impossible escape without caring about its consequences. I had to get myself out of here. My sense of guilt was fueling my anger.

  There was a beautifully carved temple in back of us: I slipped away from my blood-splattered shield and stole out the rear of this ceremonial structure and into the temple. It was completely deserted. Clusters of tall candles were burning. There were scores of idols in their niches scattered all over the temple. I had undertaken something without fully understanding it; I was still as much of a fraud as I had been as Lance Dixon’s prospective son-in-law. I sat down on a stone-carved bench feeling empty and deserted and compromised.

  chapter seventeen

  The following morning I went to Dr. Gopal’s studio to settle my account. My return flight for New York was scheduled for the next day.

  “That was one of the finest trance ceremonies I have ever witnessed,” Dr. Gopal said. “Karki was in great form. He will be here shortly.”

  I told him how upsetting the sacrifice of the buffalo was for me.

  “I can understand, but the gods demand sacrifice if we are to communicate successfully.” He picked up the sheet of paper that was spread in front of him. “I have not yet completed my analysis of your hand. You have a strange constellation I have not seen before.”

  “Favorable or unfavorable?”

  “That’s what I have to determine. Where it is leading you. It is a crossroad on top of a crossroad. There are some complicated things I must perform to make that determination. I will be sending you my findings.”

  He was handing me my accounting as the doorbell jingled, and with the sound of Karki’s drums preceding him, in he came. He bowed and shook hands with each of us, then took off his drums and laid them beside his chair.

  “Now, mister, that was a very, very good ceremony, wasn’t it, Dr. Gopal?”

  “Yes, my very words.”

  “I was impressed,” I said, “but did you make contact with the Bonnet syndrome forces?”

  “Ah, yes, your syndrome. I did make contact but with so many, many, many thousands of spirits out there, it is big problem to make sure I deal with single one I seek, you understand?”

  “Well, yes, but what do you think? Will they lay off me?”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. I go now to my idols, wipe off blood, see what they say. You go back U.S. today?”

  “No, tomorrow.”

  “I make Bhairav clean and bring to you at hotel to take to USA,” he said as Dr. Gopal handed him an envelope that I presume was his part of my payment. “I polish up his fangs and give him nice new hair and make face more mean. He take good care of you, drive away evil.”

  “Thank you, Karki.”

  “I wish you very nice everything.” He shook my hand, dipped his head, retrieved his drums, and made his way out the door.

  Dr. Gopal sat back in his chair, touched the tips of his fingers across his chest, and gave me a thoughtful look.

  “You are disappointed, yes? I see the look on your face, which is like the one I saw on the faces of my fellow Oxford students when we used to discuss the things Nepalis believe in, how important jhankri like Karki are for many who endure torment and painful suffering. It is a known fact that much painful suffering is mental, and the jhankri are really their psychotherapists, who through trances and the complicated use of idols are able to eradicate the illusion of pain and fear of imagined illness. So it is with jhankri like Karki who prepare their own medicines made from herbs and plants, perform physical treatments, exorcisms, relay
positive messages they induce from outlying spirits.”

  “Like he tried for me, but it’s not a sure thing, is it?”

  “No, but who else is there to intercede between the petitioners who say their prayers, full of need and sorrow and pain, and those who can answer those prayers? Just consider how many prayers fill the world every day. Christian prayers in churches, children at their bedsides, Muslims with their foreheads on mats, Jews lighting their candles, Catholics from their kneeling entreaties, on and on, thousands upon thousands filling the heavens with their invocations and appeals. Who’s to sort any one from any other? Here in Nepal, jhankri perform that very difficult function, and if they find they have to sacrifice a buffalo to do that, then that is how it must be. I hope Karki will help you. You are suffering and it is important to hope that things will improve for you. That Karki will be able to chase your bedevilers.”

  He poured two drinks from a crystal bottle.

  “May your cloud be lifted and the sun prevail.”

  We drank.

  “There is one last thing I wish to do for you, Mr. Tremaine. It is something I have not been able to perform for anyone else, but I am very impressed with your need. There is a Nepali woman who receives very few people, especially foreigners, but she has consented to see you today if you are willing.”

  “A woman?”

  “In fact, a self-declared goddess.”

  “You mean another carved figure like Bhairav?”

  “No, a real-life figure. Let me explain: The power to destroy evil is wielded by the goddess Durga, who has been worshipped for centuries. She is the goddess of war, the protector against demonic forces. To remind people of the presence of Durga, a council of high priests selects young girls who measure up to certain qualifications, such as ‘legs like a deer, chest like a lion, neck like a conch shell, eyelashes like a cow,’ and so forth. They finally choose one girl whom they put in an isolated room that is scattered with the severed heads of water buffaloes that are dripping blood, like the one at your ceremony. If the girl survives this ordeal she is considered ready to become Kathmandu’s Royal Kumari. In a second procedure at the Taleju Temple, the spirit of the Durga goddess takes hold of her body. While a goddess, she is established in the beautiful Kumari Ghar with people who treat her royally, and she presides over a shrine in her honor. She comes to an end of her being a Royal Kumari before she has her period and sheds menstrual blood. That brings me to this woman. Her name is Kishani. When her menstruation ended her life as a Kumari goddess and the high priests found a successor, Kishani refused to return to being a girl and proclaimed herself a continuing goddess. She went to live in a secluded temple in the forest, where she only sees those who have status and come with gifts to pay her homage. It is considered a great feat to get her blessing. She has consented to see you, if you so desire. What do you say?”

  * * *

  —

  We trekked through the forest in the late afternoon and Gopal led us expertly to her half-hidden temple, small in scale with two steeples. It was on an abrupt rise with carved stone figures lining the path up to the temple’s entrance, a golden bell with a knocker hanging beside the carved door. Dr. Gopal struck the bell three times, and a servant opened the door and led us inside to a terrace on the opposite side, where a woman in a long, stark black dress sat on a high thronelike chair reading.

  Upon seeing us she rose and greeted Dr. Gopal. She was quite beautiful. Her indigo hair set off the ivory color of her skin. She was tall and very thin, with striking necklaces of various seeds and gems wound around her neck. In perfect English she asked if our trek had been pleasant.

  “Very,” I said. I complimented her on her English.

  “Dr. Gopal arranged lessons for me all through my Royal Kumari goddess years at the Kumari Ghar.”

  Gopal introduced me. She studied me with her penetrating painted eyes set deep in her ivory face, a third eye painted on her forehead.

  “You are beset by a syndrome that attacks you?”

  “Yes, it has a severe hold on me, ever since my eye—”

  “I know. Dr. Gopal has told me all about you.”

  “I am most grateful,” I said.

  Dr. Gopal said, “Mr. Tremaine has sent a generous contribution that I will leave with your attendant. Now I must go back to serve my clients.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Gopal. I will return Mr. Tremaine in my carriage with my attendant.”

  They shook hands, he left, and she returned her attention to me. She picked up a small fipple flute with her left hand and a tabor drum with her right. “I will send a message about you to goddess Durga, who is my mentor.”

  She sat down and started to play the fipple flute with her left hand while sustaining the rhythm with her right. She often interrupted the flute to sing snatches of a song in Nepali, which, I suppose, was directed to Durga.

  “Look to the sky, Mr. Tremaine,” Kishani said, “and find your star, your personal star, the one that stands out, that captures your eye. Bathe in the light of that star and kiss the gentle wind caressing your face. From now on you must follow that star, wherever it goes. You will remember this song and you let it lead your way.”

  She played the song with feeling, her eyes closed, her body swaying, and I closed mine and felt a rapture I had never felt before.

  “Now, we will enter my personal chamber and try to make contact.”

  She led me over to a magnificently carved cabinet with a mother-of-pearl interior and gold strands crisscrossing the ceiling. There was just enough room for the two of us. She took one of the jeweled necklaces from around her neck, garnets I think, and put it around mine. She lit a small stick of floral incense and poured two crystal glasses of red wine. “Enter into my spiritual vein, Chet Tremaine, pledging yourself with this commitment.” We touched glasses and drank to each other. “When I was a Kumari goddess, this likeness was made of me.” She took a small statue from an overhead shelf and handed it to me. It did resemble her. She also handed me a CD that contained her love song to the star. “Whenever you have to overcome some problem, let me sing to you on this disc in front of my likeness. I will hear you and help you with your problem, even pass it along to goddess Durga.”

  She sat me down and tattooed a little turtle on one of my feet. “He is my symbol,” she said. She repeated the turtle at the base of my thumb. “Please do not leave me. I have many followers. I will pray for you at night, under the stars, with spirits I know.”

  She put her goddess likeness and my CD in a traveling sack and escorted me out the door, where a small horse-drawn carriage was waiting. She put her arms around me and kissed me on my lips, holding the kiss as her attendant opened the carriage’s door. She pulled back and smiled at me.

  “This is Samandori. He knows the way through the forest and will take you to the Y and Y. I wish you great good happenings.”

  “And I return the wish to you,” I said.

  The carriage rumbled away. I stretched out in the backseat and tried to straighten out my whirling senses. I inspected the reality of the thumb turtle to try to authenticate my encounter with the goddess. It wasn’t a genuine tattoo, only a transfer with a heavily gummed adhesive.

  The following day, when I packed my bag, I put Bhairav and goddess Kishani side by side. To my eyes, they made a nice-looking couple.

  Part Three

  chapter eighteen

  My journey back to the United States was an uplifting taste of freedom, a salute to Karki, a life without molestation. My last meal at the hotel had no sprinkling of fake green sprigs, the toilet in the airplane did not have a grid over the surface of the water as it had on my flight to Nepal, and by the time we touched down at Kennedy and a cab deposited me at my apartment, there was no sign of Bonnet’s menace.

  I tested my right eye to determine if perhaps my eyesight had miraculously returned, but it
hadn’t, so this respite had to be credited to the ministrations in Nepal. Quite possibly Karki had made some kind of contact, but that was hard for me to believe, although the great universal belief in redeeming spirits was something that had to be acknowledged.

  Thanks to Lois, my office had functioned very well in my absence, although there were a few prickly items that needed my attention—not to mention the looming specter of the Tee case, though the trial was still a couple months out. So I dealt first with the most crucial matter at hand: a letter from an illustrious publisher interested in speaking to me about representing his firm on retainer. With my head clear of the syndrome’s interference, I was inclined to take on this prestigious new client. I sent him a letter to that effect and invited him to lunch.

  I went out to my place in Connecticut for the weekend and was elated to find no trace of the dread syndrome. The despicable high blocking fence was gone, and once more I had my open vista of sky and uninterrupted greenery. The floor of the bathroom was unmarked and the water in the toilet bowl was not covered.

  That evening I had a lighthearted dinner at Pane e Bene with Charlie and Lydia, enjoying the jocularity of Alessandro, our philosophical waiter. We toasted my liberation from Bonnet syndrome with a good bottle of Valpolicella (Lydia refrained maternally), and the road home was unmolested.

  We had a nice chat on my moon-flooded terrace, and I went to bed with an abundance of benign feeling as a result of my reinstated enjoyment of my Connecticut retreat.

  But in the dead of night a familiar jolt woke me from my sleep and deposited me in the cramped overhead section of a speeding passenger train. I was on my back, my face close to the pitching ceiling of pipes and wires.

  The seats below me were filled with passengers whom I immediately recognized as the people I had encountered in that dreadful syndrome episode where I was on the sidewalk on my back and no one would give me a hand to help me up. I now yelled over the train’s noise to get someone’s attention, but as before no one looked up, not even the conductor, who was collecting tickets. I started to ease myself forward, pushing with my hands in back of me, hoping to find an exit from this imprisonment. But it was endless, a continuing push into an area of darkness—punishment, as I saw it, for my attempted Nepali foray into freedom.