House of Snow

by Sir Ranulph Fiennes Ed Douglas

  Pasang said something about playing cards, Ani Yangdol asked him to stay for lunch, her sister turned the VCR back on to play some video of praying monks, and young Jigdel followed him out the door. As he got on the motorcycle, Jigdel watched from the door. His face bore a large grin. His tukrimentok, his spiky hair, his desperation for life. Thupten wanted to tell him something – something to bring them both comfort, something about how life was full of possibilities:

  “Maybe you can come to the West, try for a visa, borrow some money and fill a bank account with it so you look convincing as a visiting tourist to America. Then if you get through, never return, not for four or five years at least, if then. Work in a Chinese or Indian restaurant in New York City; they will pay you cash. Send the money home to your parents. How they have suffered in this lifetime, suffering we will never know. And tell the lawyers and judges whatever you have to, whatever story of oppression you need to so they will let you stay. Work hard, work seven days a week if they let you, live in a one bedroom apartment in Jackson Heights with cockroaches and five other Tibetans who will always leave the apartment to work in places you never ask about. You will break each other’s hearts every day when you see the exhaustion build and wear each other away. But they will be there to make you laugh and they will be a kind of family.

  “And then if you are served papers to leave America, before you have even paid off the loans for the flights to America, then flee to Canada. Canada is the best country in the world. You won’t experience why it is the best country in the world, but you will read about it in the magazines and newspapers; the surveys come out each year. They will take you in and you will start over and, one day, you will become a citizen if you tell the right lies, lies that are the truth, because in the end, in this lifetime, we Tibetans are mere beggars in this world. Good people will help you and you will fall in love with a girl somewhere along the way. She will love Tibet; she will love Buddhism. Her heart will break for your people and you will always hate her a little because of this. White people will like you – her family especially. They will invite you to stay at their house on holidays and weekends; they will let you sleep in her room and they will want you to call them ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ because they think you could never break their daughter’s heart.

  “You will tell your ama and pala about her and they will tell you that you are a fool. Ignore them; you are on the other side of the planet. Try to ignore them. You will hear of relatives’ deaths, your uncle’s, your best friend from high school; you will hear of new cousins entering this world; you will know of these things as sounds through a phone and you will try to grieve and celebrate but the emotions will not stretch so far, not such long distances, not after so long. Then you will hear the worst thing yet, the thing you cried about indulgently once as a child when you fathomed its possibility for the first time. Your father is dead. You will be in Montreal with your girl at the time, visiting the old stone cities that look like they were out of children’s fairy tales. At the bar you will ask them for a beer but they will ignore you because you do not speak French. Your girl will be outside talking with old college friends, and you will try to find her so you can get a beer but you will not find her. The girl your father told you not to marry, not as long as he was alive. Never been so alone. You will slam your fist on the bar and say, “Monsur, one Heineken sil vu play!” Your finger pointing up. The bartender will look at you closely. You are on the verge of tears, a man with nothing to lose in a stony heaven. He will be kind enough to let you finish the beer before he kicks you out.

  “Back in Toronto, you will work for two weeks straight, driving the forklift from four in the morning until four at night. Take that paycheck and beg for an advance from your boss and send all of it home to your mother. Tell her you cannot come home because of work; tell her you are doing well, eating plenty, and you will send more in a month. The Canadian girl will call you, she will e-mail; she will ask your friends about you; her father will even call you. But you will not answer. In your free hours, you leave your basement studio apartment. Each time, standing at your door, about to choose a place in the world to go, you are struck by the realization that you have no direction, nowhere to go. To a restaurant, to your mother’s camp in Kathmandu, to that bar in Montreal. Nowhere is yours. The sad stupid shock at your door. And you realize, it will never leave you.”

  But instead of saying all this, Thupten put on his helmet and turned the key. At this, Jigdel pulled out his cell phone and turned up some song, loud. And as he drove away, his young cousin held the phone out so Thupten might hear.

  THE ROYAL PROCESSION

  Smriti Ravindra

  Smriti Ravindra is a Nepali writer based in Mumbai, where she teaches English to high-school students. Her full length book, co-authored with Annie Zaidi, A Bad Boy’s Guide to a Good Indian Girl was published by Zubaan, New Delhi, India in 2011. Her short stories have featured in several publications including La.Lit, 42 Magazines, The Westerly Magazine, and Out of Print. She is a regular contributor to a column in The Kathmandu Post.

  Only Preeti and Sachi had no fears. They sat at the edge of the gorge, the one that divided their neighbourhood from Chundevi, and dangled their feet into its abyss as though nothing could frighten them this morning – not the dark trees below their toes, nor the darker flowers. Between the gorge and the lane that rolled away from it, dipping and then rising into Ganesh Basti, lay a broad strip of land, soft and fat, woven and dappled with shamrocks. On mornings such as these women and men sat cross-legged upon the grass and planned weekends or talked politics. It was a perfect day for the royal procession that was soon to go down the Ringroad. The month was April and flowers were furious upon trees. The ground was green and marigolds grew accidentally along the lane, the flowers reappearing and disappearing as the path wickered amidst the houses and the fields. Wisps of clouds sailed the clean sky. The moon still floated, pale like china. There were people out on walks and some hinted at the possibility of democracy in Nepal in the distant future. Men agreed and disagreed, as discussions go, and others idled upon the meadow, but nobody, other than Preeti and Sachi, ventured too close to the gorge. There were stories, not only of human ghosts, but of animal spirits trapped at the bottom, and of creatures, who, unable to crawl out into the sunlight, had morphed into unrecognizable beings.

  The new school year had begun and the girls had their satchels with them. Sachi’s was new and brightly orange, and though Preeti’s was not, hers too was bulging with crisp textbooks and exercise copies still untainted by ink. The girls had decided to cover and label their books here and behind them, leaning on the shamrocks, was a roll of brown paper held together with a rubber band, a pair of scissors, a wad of cellophane sheets upon which the girls had placed a good-sized stone, and a band of Scotch-tape. In the gorge there were prehistoric animals and primaeval insects singing ancient songs but the girls were as oblivious to their antiquity as they were to the trees hissing like witches in the slight wind. They stared listlessly at the small wood that started where the gorge ended on the other side. And though they could not see Edna’s mother, they knew she was walking up the lane towards them, holding her head and complaining to her husband about the morning sickness. Now that Sachi had started her periods, now that her breasts itched and were sore, everyone was pregnant. Now that it was not very cold, all the pregnant women were walking all day.

  Sachi sighed. “Let’s jump down and kill ourselves,” she said.

  “Let’s,” said Preeti.

  And they sighed again and stared into the chasm. The gorge was bursting with morning glories and conefowers, and the bachelor buttons were intensely blue, like stars.

  “Our frocks will get caught in the trees and we will be hanging like kites from the branches,” said Sachi.

  “All torn.”

  “Completely tattered.”

  “No point jumping.”

  Behind them the cellophane rattled in the wind, the Scotch-tape, standing on its si
de, rolled an inch forward, and Preeti’s satchel, precariously balanced, fell on its back with a soft thump.

  “Let’s just cover the books,” said Preeti.

  So they crawled back onto the grass, took the books out of their bags, and stacked the textbooks into two piles. The taller one was Sachi’s because Sachi was in grade eight, two grades higher than Preeti. The girls had decided to be systematic this year. They would cover one of Sachi’s books, then one of Preeti’s, then one of Sachi’s, then one of Preeti’s. Whatever was left would be done the following week.

  They mulled over the stacks, scarcely moving till Preeti shuffed her pile and placed her favourite book, The History of Nepal, on the very top. It had the prettiest cover, one she wanted to preserve better than the unlaminated, black-and-white covers of the others.

  The History of Nepal had Prithvi Narayan Shah, Nepal’s first Shah ruler, on the cover. He stood before the rectangular map of Nepal. In his left hand he held a sword, slanted to the ground. His right hand was raised and a ringed index finger pointed to the sky. He wore a crown frilled with emeralds and topped with the white plume of the bird of paradise. Behind him the throne, golden, thick and coiled upon itself, rose like fre. It was styled after the Shesh Nāg – the thousand-headed serpent upon which Lord Vishnu, the creator of cosmic destiny, reclined in the oceans of heaven.

  “Let’s cover this one first, please, please,” Preeti said and the girls settled down to cutting brown paper to size, to pressing down the paper upon the book, to Scotch taping the flaps into place.

  “If nobody marries us by the time we are twenty, let’s marry each other,” said Sachi.

  “Yes,” said Preeti and scotched a flap.

  They continued to cut and fold, to cover and stick, but it was obvious that their hearts were not in the task. All week they had spoken of nothing but the royal procession and now that the morning was here Sachi was having her periods again.

  “I am sick and tired of it,” Sachi said.

  “Me also,” said Preeti.

  Preeti was disappointed by Sachi’s history book too. The cover was drab, showing not the glamour of monarchs and maps, but the monotony of national symbols – a cow, a rhododendron, a danfé, all in beige, and badly photographed. So finally, after finishing only two textbooks each, the girls slid back to the edge of the gorge and once again dangled their feet.

  “But what if somebody does marry us?” asked Preeti, sucking on a tart candy. They swung their legs back and forth, their heels brushing against the small tufts of grass growing upon the walls of the gorge.

  “Do you think Prince Nirajan will be in the car with His Majesty today?” Preeti asked. She hesitated a second before adding, “I think I am in love with Prince Nirajan.” She looked at her friend but Sachi was gazing at the woods beyond the gorge. “I think it is all right to love Prince Nirajan. He is only fourteen, only three years older than I am.”

  “He is only one year older than me,” Sachi said.

  “That is not age difference enough,” said Preeti. “There should at least be three years between husband and wife. Besides, Prince Nirajan looks too much like Rajiv. Last month I saw the Prince playing football on TV and I had to look a long time to make sure it was Prince Nirajan and not Rajiv. You cannot fall in love with Prince Nirajan. That will be like falling in love with Rajiv.” Rajiv was Sachi’s older brother.

  Sachi pulled more candy out of her pocket and the girls sucked on the strips. When Preeti stretched back and lay on the ground there was a perfectly shaped cloud in the sky and a flock of swallows sweeping past it. “I could not fall in love with the Crown Prince,” she said. “The Crown Prince is all ten years older than me. My parents will never agree to our match. Or maybe they will. What do you think? It is not a joke to be married to the Crown Prince. If I marry the Crown Prince I will be the next Queen of Nepal. That is no joke. It already makes me nervous, even though we will not be getting married for quite a few years.”

  “Of course,” said Sachi.

  They stared again, Preeti at the sky, Sachi straight ahead, and so when Edna’s mother came close to them and yelled, they were startled.

  “Do you want me to get sick right here?” Edna’s mother yelled. “I have enough vomiting as it is with this endless morning sickness. Come right away, stupid girls. Just looking at you is making me dizzy. Do you want to fall into that hole, Miss Daredevils? Do you have no consideration for your mothers? Stupid girls.” Sachi ignored her. Preeti rolled on to her stomach and tried braiding the shamrocks she had collected. “Right away or I will vomit in a second,” yelled Edna’s mother. “Why don’t you go to the Ringroad and wait for the procession? You will miss it and pester everyone forever.” Then Edna’s mother turned around and took the lane back into Ganesh Basti. “I have had enough of this morning,” she said, her head disappearing as the lane dipped down, then reappearing again with the marigolds.

  The girls inched back to the grass and put away their books. They stuffed the brown paper into Preeti’s satchel. They put the scissors into Sachi’s. The Scotch-tape was a little further away and they forgot to pick it up. It stayed round and transparent on the ground. They rose, dusting their sleeves, dusting the grass-stained backs of their frocks.

  “Should we leave our bags here? We could come back and finish,” said Preeti.

  “Thank you very much but no,” said Sachi, rolling her eyes, so they wore their bags. Sachi pulled out two blocks of Fruitburst and the girls chewed on the gum as they made their way to the Ringroad.

  They did not stay long upon the lane. Instead, they cut into the felds, balancing upon the dike. The fields were heavy, scented and deliberate with ripe panicles, and the air smelled of raw rice and raw leaves. The girls were similarly dressed in frocks with contrasting bodices and patterned slippers, but Preeti was untidy in her longish skirt and her flying hair, and Sachi was very neat. They were mindful upon the small, low walls. Sachi stepped accurately, Preeti tried to hop, but both were like tightrope walkers, aware of the dangers of falling into the waterlogged paddy.

  “Does everyone have periods at thirteen?” Preeti asked.

  Sachi plucked a grain and gnawed out a single seed of rice with her teeth. “You are too thin. Yours will probably come at fifteen.”

  “Oh,” said Preeti.

  “Does it hurt badly?”

  “It is just very eww,” said Sachi.

  Then Edna’s mother, who was still on the lane, saw them in the fields, half hidden by the thick paddy.

  “Do you girls want to die today?” she yelled. “Get out of the fields. There are frogs there, and toads, and probably snakes.”

  “Pregnant women are tedious,” Sachi said and the girls continued to walk, but from the corners of their eyes they could see Edna’s mother waving her arms so they got out of the fields.

  “I hope we see Princess Shruti,” Preeti said, “even though I have heard mean things about her.”

  “What things?”

  “When Princess Shruti was in St. Mary’s School she forced her dorm-mates to drink a whole glass of water out of peanut shells. That is mean.”

  “That is not even possible,” said Sachi. “That is just stupid rumours.”

  They walked quietly after that till they came to the Deep Dimples Video Store and Sachi started talking again. “Last week,” she said, “I was on the terrace and I saw some guys on the other side, you know, where that dirty stream from the meat market gets into the gorge, and I was like eww, that is disgusting, you know? There were like six of them. I wasn’t looking or anything, or even really thinking about them. They were pretty far off, you know, but I could see them. I guess I was kind of blank in the head, you know?”

  “What about the boys?” Preeti asked.

  They looked around for Edna’s mother and cut through a small feld and emerged at the Ganesh Temple. They did their Namaskar without stopping or turning fully towards the god. “Nothing much,” Sachi said. “They were there and I was watching them,
just like that, just to have something to do while hanging the clothes out. Then these guys started going into the bushes, and I was like eww, why don’t you just pee in the sewer? I mean, what is the point of going into the bushes if there is a river of pee flowing right in front of you? But then I noticed they weren’t going into the bushes to pee.”

  “You could see all this from your terrace?” Preeti asked.

  “Believe it or not, your wish,” said Sachi.

  “What happened then?”

  “They were not peeing. They were plucking leaves,” Sachi continued. “I was just watching them casually. The boys plucked leaves, crushed the leaves upon their palms and ate them, like tobacco. You know how it is? I figured I could see them from my terrace but they could not see me.”

  They stopped before Thapa Baje’s house, the oldest slant-roofed house in the area, and looked at the bougainvillea arching over the main gate. Thapa Baje’s house had the best flowers in Ganesh Basti. “Sure they could not see you,” Preeti said. “Not clearly at least.”

  “Yeah,” said Sachi, walking on. “Besides, they were a bunch of cheapsters and what did I care if they saw me or not?” She spat out her gum and pushed her hand into her pocket, fiddling for another piece.

  “Must be doing drugs,” Preeti said.

  “Rajiv says there is poppy growing by that sewer. Isn’t it disgusting to be eating anything by the sewer? I wouldn’t eat anything from there, not for a million bucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You remember when Udip broke his arm and he said I pushed him?” Sachi asked.