by Linda Neil
He caught up with me further up the road, where I was spooning my curd out from its unglazed bowl. He glanced at my collarbones and at my shoulders, which were uncovered in a thin-strapped camisole.
You know you really shouldn’t walk around like that.
Like what? I answered, feigning innocence.
You should cover yourself up.
Who are you, my father? The question wasn’t intended to be rude; I said it with the smile that was starting to feel familiar as it spread across my face again. Sorry, I said immediately, licking the sweet curd off my spoon. Sorry.
No … I’m not your father. But women who don’t cover up get themselves into a lot of trouble in … in … in … in … in …
I spooned the curd into my mouth as I waited while his stutter worked itself out in his brain then his mouth.
… in India.
I know about the dress code there, I replied cheekily. I’ve been covering up there for five months. I thought Nepal was different. I mean, it’s Kathmandu!
It was different here in Kathmandu. We were standing in Freak Street after all, the street made famous by the hippies and stoners who arrived in the ’70s, when it was possible for a dropout from the west to live on dope, hash and Nepali food for years without ever having to go home.
Some of them had never left; the street was still full of freaks. They gathered down the road at the Snowcap Café, just the Snowcap to locals, or ‘the Snow, man’ to the hard drug users, eating fresh cakes and pies just like the travellers who’d journeyed overland through Europe and the Middle East in the ’60s and ’70s. Marijuana was freely available then in Nepal and you could still see the consequences of this largesse in the psychedelic paintings that hung on the café’s walls. They were faded and covered in layers of grime now, much like the ageing western junkies and hippies who’d had their peak years back in the ’70s. Some of them still hung around Freak Street hoping to reclaim those times by holding court with the young travellers. To these modern kids, the shared joints and hookahs on the footpath outside the Snowcap were part of a much safer rite of passage, and you could tell by their motorbikes and iPods that the trek to Nepal had been a whole lot easier for them; that they had mostly bypassed countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria, through which relatively safe travel was still possible ‘back in the day’.
I didn’t particularly like the Snowcap. It had that smell of decay and worn-out brains that I found depressing in a country as impoverished as Nepal. There always seemed something unseemly about dropouts in a place where the roads were never properly paved and where most of the young people listened to western pop, loved rock’n’roll and would’ve given anything for a good pair of designer jeans – where the dream was to drop in rather than out. I had done the mandatory thing the day I first arrived in Freak Street, though, and strolled over to the Snowcap to eat some freshly baked apple pie and sip a glass of Nepali tea and watch the tribes of travellers stroll up and down the street.
The place seemed quieter now. The locals had probably realised there was more money to be made from the affluent tourists, especially the mountain climbers, for whom the more fashionable Thamel area, with its gift stores and music shops pumping out the latest CDs onto the crowded street, had become too pricey. They had started to come to this part of old Kathmandu to rest in one of the cheap but clean lodges, engage their sherpas in Durbar Square and wait for the climb upwards to begin.
I vaguely recalled seeing Gabriel the night I arrived at the Annapurna Guest House, remembering how I had averted my eyes, as I had learned to, from his gaze. Now I accepted his gaze fully for the first time as I tugged my top up a little. I knew what he meant. The decorum of travel, I called it. It struck you in the strangest places and you found yourself saying the most unexpected things, like the time in Rishikesh when I had primly lectured a young Australian girl on wearing a bra to cover her cleavage and not wearing shorts so short you could see her bottom. I might have dressed like this back home, at the beach, for example, but I felt it impolite, and even a bit dangerous, to do so in India. Travelling surprised me in ways that even I found surprising. I became prim where once I was open-minded, free where I might have felt more cautious.
Can … can … can I show you something really beautiful? Gabriel suddenly asked me.
I had heard that line before, but not stuttered. The stutter made it seem more intriguing than it might have normally.
Okay, I said, shrugging, as I spooned out the last of the curd from its brown bowl.
It’s just this way … He held out his arm and pointed up Freak Street towards Durbar Square.
You’re not going to take me to that temple full of monkeys, are you? I asked, now suspicious. A Nepali man had offered to show me this for a fee the day I had first arrived in Kathmandu.
Oh, no … though that is very interesting and beautiful too.
He had stopped stuttering: it came like a break in a storm. I wondered vaguely about this anomaly, about the things that made a man stutter and stumble and the things that didn’t.
Then what? I asked. Where?
Come with me and I’ll show you. He turned to go, noticed I hadn’t moved and turned back to me, held out his hand and smiled. Come.
He said it so simply and matter-of-factly. It wasn’t an order; it was an invitation. I didn’t take his offered hand. I was too cautious, too independent for that. But I followed him the same way he had invited me – simply and matter-of-factly, as if it was something I always did.
Those who knew me well knew I didn’t follow easily. I thought about this as I walked, slightly behind him, picking my way around the potholes and breakages, past the Snowcap Café, and up along the road that led away from Freak Street into the congested heart of Kathmandu.
I can’t remember where we walked: even if I had a map, I would never be able to retrace the route we took that day. I know we were lost several times, walking down alleyways in the back lanes of Kathmandu, emerging into squares teeming with bicycles and rickshaws, or marketplaces where rows of brightly clothed Nepali women sold fresh chillies, dried beans and piles of pomegranates. I also remember we passed outdoor butchers selling slabs of meat, cured orange and covered in flies, and rotting carcasses hanging on hooks.
If it had been anyone else I would have been too impatient to keep following him. Once or twice I got angry with Gabriel as he stood at yet another intersection trying to figure out where to go. He didn’t exactly scratch his head, in that clichéd signal to mean he was lost. But he did look right and left, forwards and backwards, again and again. I guess I stuck with him because of his easy physical energy, the slow way he ambled through the crowds, the amusing confidence with which he guided me this way – down here – and that.
His philosophy right from the beginning seemed to be it doesn’t matter how long it takes as long as you enjoy the journey to get there. Since arriving in India five months before, I’d heard enough people say that to be sick of how trite it sounded. But from Gabriel, with whom the journey was enjoyable, even though it was so full of flaws, failures, backtracking and circling, it seemed refreshingly original and completely true.
We stopped at one of the marketplaces that seemed to spring up around every corner. Gabriel insisted on buying me something to eat, a pastry so thick with glassy sugar that it shone. I could feel the will beneath his casual ease and felt cautious about putting myself in his hands, but this feeling soon passed in the excitement of the encounter and the stimulation of our expedition into the heart of old Kathmandu.
We sat on two old crates as we ate, tearing the pastry into strips and sharing them between us. As we did, a Nepali man approached us and began to talk to me.
I have the money to take you anywhere you want to go, he said, surprising us both with his audacity. He seemed a humble man, slightly desperate in his loose white shirt and too-long flared pants.
I have save
d money for ten years hoping to meet a great lady like you, he told me, bowing slightly as he spoke.
Gabriel winked at me.
If he can afford to take you places I can’t, perhaps you should go with him, he said, amused rather than irritated by my suitor.
I think it was my floppy black hat, which I had bought the day I arrived in an overcast yet sultry Kathmandu, that made me seem more sophisticated than I was. I wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the most ordinary Nepali or Indian woman, but my pale skin and green eyes made me exotic to the locals.
Made bolder by my friendly smiles, the Nepali man pulled up a seat right next to mine.
Gabriel stood up, laughing, and said: Wait here if you like.
Hey, I called out as he walked away. Weren’t you going to show me something beautiful?
Wait here and I’ll bring it to you, he called back. I’m not going to compete for you. I’ll be back when you’re free.
I’m free now. And I don’t know how to get back.
I can show you the way, my new companion said. Where are you staying?
Freak Street, I told him, perturbed by Gabriel’s abrupt departure. The man didn’t recognise the western name.
Near Durbar Square, I added. I felt too sorry for him to get up and walk away myself, so I let him buy me a tea and offer his services to me. He was already planning our trip in his new car to the Kathmandu Valley when Gabriel returned, smiling. He was holding an envelope of photographs in his hands.
Here it is, he said, ignoring the Nepali man.
Where is what? I asked, now a little haughty.
He waved the photographs in front of my face. Something really beautiful.
I wasn’t surprised. Or deflated. Not by the photographs anyway. I was surprised that I was so interested in them and also that I didn’t feel deflated at all that he had led me all this way to show me some holiday snaps.
He stood silently as he waited for his rival to take off.
Um … ah … I stammered in the broken language I had recently picked up from Gabriel. Sorry, I managed to say to the Nepali man, whose name I realised I had not even bothered to ask, that’s not going to work out for me.
This man is your husband? he asked mournfully.
Oh no, I told him, laughing just like Gabriel was laughing. We only just met.
Gabriel pulled up a chair and sat down close to me, not even bothering to pretend for the sake of the sad-eyed Nepali that he hadn’t won their contest for my attention.
Good luck, I said to my conquered suitor. You should still take that trip.
A man like this is not good enough for a great lady like you, he said unexpectedly.
I looked up at him, stricken as he was stricken by his outburst.
This Israeli … I’ve seen them come here for years.
How can you tell? I asked him, suddenly oblivious to Gabriel next to me. I mean, how can you tell he’s from Israel?
He’s ugly enough to be a Jew, he whispered to me.
Gabriel laughed again. I felt defensive.
I’m sorry, I said coldly to the Nepali. I can’t help you but I wish you luck.
He withdrew, stumbling into the crowds of shoppers as I watched. I felt ill, as if someone had told my fortune and I hadn’t liked what they had seen.
Gabriel shrugged. Don’t worry about it. We have problems like this all the time.
It doesn’t bother you?
Not any problem, he said. Now let me show you something beautiful … just like I promised you.
It was difficult to understand what had just happened. What was happening at that moment and what was going to happen.
Come on, he repeated encouragingly. It’s really not any problem. Not for you anyway. Look at you. Like he said, you are an angel. But I can show you somewhere beautiful that I have been. Here – he held out his hand towards me again; this time it held the envelope of photographs. Let me show you.
There were snow-capped mountains and skies as blue as the sea. There were clouds in shapes I had never seen and faces of brown-skinned women radiant in the high altitude. There were goats and sheep and pictures of tiny flowers almost crushed under a climbing boot. There were shots of young Nepali boys hauling white bags on their backs and children walking barefoot on icy stones. And there was Gabriel with the peaks of Mount Everest in the background, his arms raised either side of him as if he were embracing the whole world, his long brown face distorted into a kind of smiling ecstasy.
Everest base camp, he stammered to me as I examined the photos one by one. When I had turned all of them over I pushed them into a little pile and looked at them again. They always say the mountain can change your life.
Roland Barthes, one of my favourite writers, calls a photograph a text. There are ways of reading a photograph the same way you would a poem or a book. You can also read photographs as the story of the photographer: the person who chooses those specific moments, those images and those faces on which to settle his or her attention. All of their decisions matter in the story the image will tell: the route they take in their travels, the sidesteps, the pauses, the stumbles and the falls, every minute contingency of their lives that leads them to arrive at that exact moment when the photograph is there, perfectly composed, ready to be taken. A minute later or earlier and the photograph, and the story it tells, would be altered irrevocably.
To follow the view of the photographer, some say, is to follow their mind and their heart and, for those who believe in it, their soul. Gabriel’s photographs conversed with me in ways he couldn’t verbally. And as I looked, I could hear a little of the man that he had been and perhaps would become.
His photographs told me the story of a man who had been reborn from climbing up the foothills of a high mountain. They told me of someone who saw beauty in the smallest thing, even the pats of cow dung with which the Nepalis insulated their huts in the cold – Gabriel had photographed these with the same reverence he might have had for the beauty of a young woman. There were also shots of the gnarled face of an old woman looking up pensively into the eye of the camera, her back made crooked by the years she had carried burdens up and down the Himalayan slopes. Underneath this face in the pile of images was a picture of an old man with eyes buried deep inside folds of skin, peering intently as if he knew the stories hidden inside those black slits would forever tantalise the viewers of a photograph that might travel miles and miles around the world – but only those who had lived his hard cold years of toil could ever know his secrets. He tantalised me then, as I sat beside Gabriel, and I felt a little of what explorers into unknown terrains must have felt when they came across things they had never seen or even heard about: the shock of recognition, awestruck by the strange and unfamiliar.
Even if I couldn’t read between the lines of all the stories these photographs told, Gabriel’s stuttered comments in his broken English filled in subtexts.
So beauty … he would mutter, shaking his head in wonder. So beauty.
I didn’t want to correct his faulty grammar. Or adjust his wonky syntax. I didn’t even want to turn to look at him. I just wanted to stare at the photos, and study them as I might the images of the great painters of the world, because I felt his reverence too, felt how his eye must have taken in all the details of the world around him as he lifted the camera and clicked; it filled my body with wonderment.
Wonderment: I had loved this word as a child. I remembered the moment I had first heard it. As soon as I could, I had run to my father’s library underneath the house and found his copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. In the dusty pages of what would become a dog-eared paperback covered in stains and grubby fingerprints, I found wonderment and other delectable words such as astonishment, surprise, bewilderment, stupefaction. All these words might one day, I hoped, lead me somewhere truly mysterious and undiscovered.
It had come upon me unexpectedly,
this wonderment. It only lasted a few moments and then I was the same adventurous but fundamentally cautious traveller I had been before I met Gabriel two hours ago. But during those moments I could see and feel what he saw and felt: the beauty of the simple faces, the tenderness of the tiny alpine flower wavering between ragged rocks, the almost surreal formation of clouds through which the distant peaks jutted. And there and then I wanted to know what had led him to see things the way he did. To know the story behind his long brown face smiling at the camera. And his eyes and the history of their gaze.
He leaned close to me as he spoke.
I did it, you know. It is unbelievable to think. Two years ago I was a fat sick man. I turned fifty and decided to climb the mountain and there I am.
And there he was. It was a simple fact. Indisputable. There was the photographic evidence on the grimy table in front of me. But I understood as I looked at a picture of him standing at the top of a low peak, a picture that somehow had stuck to the bottom of the pile so that it had to be peeled away from another photograph in order to be seen, that it must have taken him thousands and thousands of steps to get there.
We were quiet as we began our walk back to Freak Street. Neither of us had a clue where we were going, or how we would find our way back to our hotel. But neither of us seemed to care. As we walked, we spoke a little, exchanging details about our lives. He told me he lived half the year in Haifa in Israel and the other half ‘in the east’. The names of the places where he had travelled seemed to roll off his tongue with little effort. I was beginning to recognise a pattern in what caused his voice to tremble and what didn’t.