The taxi driver, still half-asleep, climbed forward and unlocked the doors.
Leo pulled open the back door of the taxi, pushed Allissa in and then fell in himself.
The world merged into a muddy scar of dark and light. Was the taxi moving? Or was the whole world like this? Leo didn’t know. He heard voices, but he was warm, and comfortable, and alive.
Chapter 70
Every city is full of people working as hard as they can. The whole idea of cities started with people coming together for work. These people make and operate and move, they repair and fix and watch.
There are few places where this is more obvious than Kathmandu. Nothing is hidden in the mountain city. The roads are choked with lorries piled higher than they are long, travelling for weeks through mountain passes to get something somewhere.
Sometimes these lorries don’t make it. A miscalculated corner or a lapse of concentration is all it takes on a cliff top road. Tau, Jem and Jack had seen painful reminders of this along the road from Pokhara. The carcasses of lorries, buses and cars hundreds of feet below where they had come to rest after a slipped wheel or an overshot corner.
These machines must also be manned by people, and to transport them an army of tattered pink and white taxis surge through the streets day and night.
There are two types of taxi drivers in the city. One lives locally and often works in pairs, brothers who have sunk family savings into buying the battered car. One driver works the first twelve hours of the day, the other the second, not missing a moment of service between them. The second are men who live further away. Their homes may be ten or more hours by car from Kathmandu. These men go to work for months without a break, eating, sleeping and existing only in the car.
Imay is the latter one of these taxi drivers. It’s been three months since he’s seen his family. He has a wife and two daughters who he assures himself he will see again soon. There’s a picture of them on the dashboard of his taxi. Looking at it, he reminds himself why he has to be away.
He’s just completed his final job of the night, taking a pair of tourists to the airport for an early morning flight. He knows there’s very little trade between two and four in the morning. Finding a quiet spot, he parks the taxi to get some rest.
Climbing into the back, he wishes goodnight to the photo of his family and imagines their voices saying it in return. He makes sure his money belt is secure. There are many stories of taxi drivers being robbed in the night while they sleep. The belt is getting fat – he should go to the bank soon.
Tucking a thin blanket around him, he drifts into a disturbed sleep. Dreaming of the smell of his village and the taste of the mist.
A crash against the car wakes him. He opens his eyes for a moment. It’s just a drunk tourist, stumbling from one place to the next. They’ll move on. He rearranges the blanket, twisting in the small rear seat to find the sweet spot.
Another bang. And another. He opens his eyes. A man presses against the glass above him, a girl leans on the car beside. The girl reaches into her pocket and pushes a handful of notes against the window. A lot of notes.
Imay looks at the picture of his wife and children, streaked by the shadows of the street. As much as he wants his sleep, this could get him home sooner.
Climbing into the front, he opens the back door.
The girl gets in first, the man follows. Before Imay has even started the car, they are both out cold. Heads flopping against the windows. Heavy, raspy breathing as though they’ve been running.
Then he sees, in his rear-view mirror, two men running towards the taxi. Tall men, one carrying something which looks like a weapon.
This is not good.
Whatever these guys are going to do, it won’t end well.
He snaps the taxi into gear and it lurches forward, out of the parking space and down the road.
The two men are left breathless in a skittering of dust.
Imay feels a sense of excitement as he sees them give up the chase in his rear-view mirror. They turn to each other, visibly out of breath. There are thousands of taxis which look just like his. He knows they’ll never catch up with him.
But this leaves him with a problem. He now has a passed-out pair of tourists in his taxi, who are obviously wanted by these two not very nice-looking men. Normally, if someone falls asleep in the back of his car, he’ll find a safe doorway or corner of a street and put them there, but these two are obviously in danger.
He decides, for their own good, to take them to the police station. He knows it’ll cost him, but he’s made a good amount from them, and the least he can do is make sure they’re somewhere safe.
The Kathmandu Central Police Station is less than ten minutes away. Pulling round the back of it, between two police cars, Imay goes inside to negotiate. He offers to split the fare with the policeman on duty, telling him the total was half what he was given. He leaves out the part with the two men chasing, that’ll double the price, and may cause trouble if the police look into it.
Two police officers walk out with Imay. First, they take the man from the back seat. He’s asleep, breathing heavily and muttering inaudible words. Then they come back for the girl. They carry her carefully as though she is their sister. Imay notices her tattoo, a small spider climbing up the inside of her arm.
He sits for a moment in the empty car and counts the notes before putting them securely in his money belt. That’s two extra days he will be able to spend with his family.
Reversing the small car out onto the street, Imay looks for another place to catch some sleep.
Chapter 71
Dawn broke over Kathmandu like a hangover. The sun forced itself above the highest clouds, lighting the city through gallons of threatening rain and leaving only a milky, grey, half-awake glow.
Allissa opened her eyes. Slowly.
Without moving, she checked the feeling in all her limbs. All appeared to be as it should. Then, still without sitting up, she attempted to work out where she was. It certainly wasn’t her bedroom – the thin mattress beneath her gave little protection from a hard surface. The ceiling, an authoritarian grey, was striped with shadows and footsteps some way off echoed down what sounded like a long, bare corridor. And voices. There were voices too. Voices she could neither understand nor hear properly.
She was going to have to sit up and see where she was, but something told her it wouldn’t be good.
Then, from somewhere close by, Allissa heard heavy breathing, heavy gasps of breath, desperate ragged intakes of breath, each one heavier than the last.
Sitting up, Allissa looked around. Solid concrete walls, iron bars. A cell.
Leo sat on a bunk on the other side of the room, his head between his legs, gasping for air. One desperate breath after another.
Allissa watched him, letting the pain that thumped in her head, caused by the movement of sitting up, subside.
Standing on shaky legs, she crossed the cell and sat beside Leo on the thin rubber mattress. Each of his breaths was just a snatch of air.
“You’re going to be alright. You’re safe.”
He looked up towards her, unable to speak.
“I… I…” he muttered.
“No, don’t speak just yet,” Allissa said, recognising the symptoms of panic.
On a flight the year before, a woman next to her had suffered a pretty intense panic attack just before landing. Never experiencing it before, Allissa had instinctively tried to calm her through speaking to her, reassuring that her panic soon would pass, the plane would land and everything would be fine.
“I just want you to concentrate on your breathing for a minute,” she said to Leo, trying to be as calming as possible. “You’re having some kind of panic attack, but that will pass soon, you will be okay.”
Allissa continued to talk to him softly, her voice echoing from the bare concrete walls.
“We are both safe, we are going to be okay, we will get out of here soon.”
In a cou
ple of minutes Allissa heard Leo’s breathing begin to slow and the muscles which had been held rigid in his back, neck and arms relaxed.
“I think we’ve seen,” he said quietly, “we’ve seen a murder.”
It was the first time Allissa had thought back over the events of the previous evening. Sitting back, she tried to tie them together, to understand. Stitching fragments of memory, she hoped to link them with the situation and come up with something.
Then she remembered. It only came back in parts, like an overplayed video.
Jack’s limp body on the floor. Spiralling pools of blood. The dish moving through the air.
They had seen, Allissa thought, unable to finish the sentence. They had seen…
“A murder!” Leo shouted, getting to his feet and running to the bars of the cell. “We’ve seen a murder, you need to help us. Somebody help us!” he shouted, banging and screaming through the bars.
Leo was right, they had seen a murder – two murders. Two people killed.
Leo’s voice echoed against the bare walls.
“We’ve seen a murder! Help! We need help!”
Allissa heard Leo’s breathing become frantic as he tried to shake the bars of the cell.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor, followed by a pair of policemen staring in surprise.
Leo continued to pant and shout, each breath becoming lighter.
Allissa watched as he dropped to his knees, still holding the bars of the cell.
One of the policemen shouted to another further back in the station, while the other unlocked the door.
“Murder, there’s been a murder,” Leo continued to yell between gasps.
Allissa watched. Although she could see clearly what was happening in front of her, she felt detached from it all, as though it was happening behind glass. It was like a hazy memory of something that could have been a dream.
The two police officers looked at each other, neither understanding Leo’s cries. Their shift was over in half an hour, and these two would need to be out by then. If the new officers saw them, they would want a cut of the payment too. The driver hadn’t given them enough to share.
One of the men helped Leo to his feet, the other approached Allissa. She was calm and found her way up with only the outstretched hand of the policeman, unlike Leo who was lifted from the floor.
“Murder, we’ve seen a murder. You have to help,” Leo managed to whisper between breaths.
Leo and Allissa were shown to another room of the same authoritarian grey and sat on metal chairs in the centre. Allissa watched as Leo continued to try to speak, to explain, to tell them what they had seen. One officer stood next to Leo with a hand on his shoulder while the other fetched two cups of hot, sweet chai from an urn at the side of the room.
Allissa doubted the policemen understood a word Leo was saying as she gulped the sweet liquid.
Without warning, the images of Jack and Miles again pooled across Allissa’s mind like blood across the floor. Although they were shocking, they felt like someone else’s memories, as if she hadn’t been there at all, like life behind glass.
Within a few minutes, more officers arrived. One of them knelt down in front of Leo who was still being held upright. Although he’d become quiet, Allissa could tell he was still struggling for breath.
“You have good night, yes?” the officer said, smiling at Leo and then at Allissa.
“We’ve seen a murder. There were men chasing us, you have to help,” Leo whispered between gasps.
“Say again, my English not good.”
“I’ve seen a murder! Murder, killing!”
The officer thought intently for a few seconds, then stood to face the group of policemen circling them. He said two words, a moment of silence followed.
Allissa watched as laughter broke around the circle. It was the sort of hearty, throaty, genuine laughter that couldn’t be controlled. One man acted out smoking and then going weak at the knees while another mimed the playful stabbing of a colleague. One even slapped Leo on the back.
“You need to take this seriously!” Leo shouted as he was bundled up between two men and led down another grey corridor. Allissa was helped to walk behind.
“I’m not joking! I can show you where it happened!” Leo continued, as the officers’ laughter subsided. They seemed to be increasingly irritated with the noise and quickened their pace towards the police station’s exit.
Each flanked by two of the younger men, Leo and Allissa were carried out into the sunlight. The daylight hurt Allissa’s eyes and her weak legs tumbled down the stairs but the officers on either side held her tight.
Down at the road side, one of the policemen hailed a taxi.
Leo and Allissa were pushed into the backseat. One officer, having taken the card for the Best Kathmandu Guesthouse from Leo’s wallet, gave it to the taxi driver with barked instructions.
As the taxi pulled away from the police station, Leo and Allissa looked at each other. They both knew what they’d seen, although neither could yet make sense of it.
Past the dust-streaked windows of the taxi, Kathmandu seemed different, distant and cruel. People were stirring into life, but instead of setting up work in front of the shops as they had the day before, they pulled large plastic sheets between suspended cables and cleared drainage ditches. They were preparing for the storm.
Chapter 72
Seeing a timeless photo of the Taj Mahal as a child, Leo had always wanted to visit. Each grainy black and white pixel hinted at exciting undiscovered lands, stories of passion and pride, of hope and opportunity.
Now, as he and Mya get ready for an evening of food and drinks, with their plan to get up early to see the Taj at sunrise, his excitement builds.
He is here. They are here.
The greatest memorial to love and loss, less than a mile away. A day that he knows will be unforgettable, especially with what he has planned. What could be better than asking the most important question of his life outside the monument which signifies love like no other in the world? He envisions it now, bent to one knee, the eminent marble domes of the Taj in the background as he presents Mya with the ring, the ring he’s been hiding for the entire trip.
Will you… the words stutter in the turbulent anxiety of his mind… will you…
With Mya in the shower, Leo rummages deep in his bag for the square box which has been carefully buried for almost a month. He’ll need to hide it close tonight, so without Mya noticing, he can take it in the morning.
Finding it and pulling it from his bag, he opens the black felt-covered box.
Perhaps take it without the box, Leo thinks, looking at the slender band of silver crowned with three angrily glinting diamonds. They may have metal detectors and bag searches on the way in. Leo doesn’t want her seeing it before the moment is right.
“Shower’s free,” Mya says, opening the bathroom door, the shower still running. Walking into the bedroom wrapped in a towel, she stops and turns at the mirror to dry her hair. “It’s warm, get in now.”
“Thanks,” Leo says, checking she can’t see him before snapping the box closed and stuffing it in the backpack.
Tomorrow, he thinks, tomorrow will be perfect.
Leaving the hotel, they walk side-by-side through the hurried streets of the city. The smells, colours and vibrancy of India surround them. It’s a city like many others, throbbing traffic, spices, gabbling conversation. Up ahead, a long-horned cow saunters across the stream of tourists, causing those new to Indian life to reach for their cameras, the others sigh and wait for the unique delay to pass.
“Look at that,” Mya says, pointing out a sign on a building to the left. Rooftop bar and restaurant, views of Taj Mahal.
“Shall we?” she says, crossing the road before waiting for a reply.
They climb a dusty stairwell. On each floor is an opening to a different guesthouse or residence. On the final flight a strip of sky appears above, growing larger with each step.
Then, standing on the skyline, amid the jumble and tussle of Agra, the Taj reveals herself. Domes and minarets in ivory white take on the changing hue of the glowing air. Dazzling, shining, as they have every day for five hundred years.
The day is almost up, the oranges of the evening start to glow from the horizon and long streaks of cloud spread like bunting.
Devoid of the crowds who will mill around the Taj’s gardens tomorrow, they are the only two in the roof top bar. The noise of cutlery, distant chatter, and the growl of the city are the only interruptions.
Mya turns to look at the Taj on the skyline, Leo looks at her. Despite his lifelong desire to see it, he knows it’s just a building. Buildings don’t give people hope, or optimism or love; they can inspire it, but those feelings come from others. Watching the pinks of the sky glow over Mya’s face, the last of the sun shimmering in her deep, unblinking eyes, Leo loses focus on the marble mausoleum completely.
Why do we need to travel at all? It can’t be because of the sights and sounds and smells of the place, because you can see or smell things anywhere. Is it the people? Not really, because the world is full of people. You can meet new and interesting people every day.
Watching Mya blink away the dry evening and smile towards him, Leo knows it’s because of the feeling. When you travel you leave your own feelings behind and open your heart and mind to the raw struggles of others. Whether that’s the people you meet, or those you travel beside.
He knows what to do.
“I’ve… I’ve left my phone back in the room,” he says, touching Mya on the arm, “I’d really like to get a picture of this.”
“Use mine if you…”
“Order me a beer,” Leo says, already backing towards the stairs. “I’ll be ten minutes.”
Ten minutes later he’s climbing the stairs two at a time, the excitement prickling his neck and the ring tucked into his wallet.
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