by David Pugh
’One night four Chinese soldiers were pawing me all evening, trying to lift my chuba. I told Uncle I couldn’t stand anymore and went to my room. I had to go the toilet before bed; I used the only filthy cubicle next to the men’s trough. The door was kicked in; it was the four drunken soldiers. I knew enough Chinese to know what they were saying. “Look boys, we’ve caught her with her long pants down!”
’They pulled me out, one pinned me to his chest by my arms, while the others ripped my underclothing. One either side lifted my legs, while the fourth leered at my widespread thighs.
’“Very pretty indeed, but we’ll need condoms, these Tibetans are dirty animals!”
’He put one on and took me and I bled.
*‘“No need for condoms, boys, she’s a virgin!”* They passed me around, they all took me from both ends and threw me bleeding into the urinal when they finished. It was my first and only sexual experience of men; I couldn’t go home after that, I came here to India.’
I was in floods of tears, sickened by my lust, ‘I am so sorry for thinking about you the way I have, I am so, so ashamed of myself.’
‘Jeffrey, it not your fault,’ she was in tears too. ‘Your thinking is normal, healthy, I’m the one who is damaged,’ kneeling beside me. I still wanted to hold her and make love to her more than ever, but everything had changed because of some Chinese bastards. Both of us still sobbing, she held my hands and looked into my eyes. ‘I’ve been listening to that song you keep playing while I’m here; I know you wanted me to understand the message.’
‘I looked up the words on the internet, play it now.’
The music drifted around us, and Leonard Cohen’s healing voice soothed our aching hearts.
She stood up, dropped the towel, and I saw what I had been longing for and it was as beautiful as it had been when she was nineteen.
Chapter 21: Goodbye to Little Tibet
I’m in sombre mood, when I should feel joyous, I’m feeling guilty for having a relationship with this young Tibetan woman half my age, but I’m in love with her and she wants to leave for Europe. I’ve promised to help her all I can, though I’m worried for her safety.
Yesterday a power cut had forced an office break; Lobsang suggested we go to a café for a tea. The smallest note I had was a 100 rupees and the two teas only cost ten, as I brought the note out Lobsang insisted on paying, as the café wouldn’t have change. I felt really bad about this but even worse about the information he had just confided to me. I had offered to take him for a beer on the night before I left (okay, any excuse), but he said he didn’t drink anymore because of a kidney problem.
He struggled to find the name, I suggested, ‘Jaundice?’
’No, no, worse than that…hepatitis, the bad one that can kill you, hepatitis B.’
A lead weight hit the bottom of my stomach; this man was not having much luck. He guessed it had been sexually transmitted, as he’d never had a blood transfusion or used drugs. He was thirty-seven and only fairly recently married, so there’s no surprise that he’d had a few partners. He had been applying to various European and American Tibetan NGOs and was concerned that he might be refused entry into a country, even if he was offered a job. It must be really annoying for him, as most of these organisations were run by non-Tibetans, on really good salaries.
Sunday I visited the Church of St John in the Wilderness, on the edge of Forsyth Ganj. The weather was very overcast, a typical British grey day, very appropriate for visiting the graves of the mostly young people who came from the United Kingdom to claim a little piece of India. There are an alarming number of children’s memorials, so many died in the first year of life from various diseases, despite their parents settling here for the better climate, rather than the plains below. So much hope for adventure and better lives, so far from the loved ones who watched their ships depart.
That evening being engrossed working on a poster for the Cho office, I was vaguely aware of some movement to my right. This was my turn to scream, a really large monkey was creeping on all fours across my bed to get to the kitchen, drawn by the appetising smell of Rinzen’s cooking. We stared each other out as my shout of, ‘Get out!’ had only frozen it mid-creep; it obviously didn’t understand English. Rinzen rushed in to join in screaming in Tibetan, which made it bound for the open door, with Rinzen in hot pursuit shouting,
‘What have you got? Whatever it is give it back!’ The monkey took some protection behind the balcony railings and looked defiantly at Rinzen, who was still shouting at it,
‘You’ve got something behind your back, haven’t you? Now hand it over!’
The monkey retained its right to silence, pulled a face and vanished over the side.
The time is coming to say my goodbyes and head to Nepal for three months and, hopefully, come back in September with a new Indian visa. Needless to say I’m going to miss Rinzen but she’s better off without an old backpacker like me. Whether or not she fulfils her dream and gets into Europe, she needs to find a caring young Tibetan man, who can help her find true physical love again, Tashi delek, my dear one.
Chapter 22: The Song of Suliman
Serrekunda, The Gambia
Let me introduce myself, my name is Suliman Manneh, educated in England and administrator at an international children’s charity in Serrekunda. I shall be your guide through the next part of this narrative, along with the occasional interjection from my friend Jeffrey. You may ask what qualifies me to take on this role, apart from my eloquence in the English language. Since my return to the Smiling Coast, it has been my habit to call into my friend, Remus Jallow’s palm wine bar, “Nature” as he refers to it. In the winter of 2002, he asked me to read to him a letter he had received from the woman who became the owner of the Happy Hippo Hostel Hotel. Having glanced through the four-page epistle, I suggested we withdraw to his boudoir. This was a shady spot reserved for his special guests, comprising of a plank of wood on two concrete blocks and two three-legged plastic chairs, also supported by concrete blocks on loan from the Impala Park Hotel, next door. The Impala, a South African-built hotel was now standing on the land once owned by Remus’ father. The only compensation my friend received was to retain the right to tap the palm trees and a free breakfast roll every morning.
‘Remus, my dear friend, this is hot stuff,’ speaking in Wolof, the common tongue in the Senegambia enclave, ‘do you really want me to read this aloud?’
‘Yes, yes!’ my friend was eager in anticipation.
As a gentleman I cannot divulge the nature of the content, other than to say it was extremely organic and dare I say rather erotic. Thus began my long and almost passionate relationship with Sylvia Dharma. This connection was deepened by the fact that I became her surrogate lover, transcribing my friend’s explicit replies into a lyrical and sensual use of the English language.
The new owner of the 4H blushed every time we met, as Remus had introduced me to her with the line,
‘This man, he write you my words, he know you very well.’
Chapter 23: Remus the Butler
Bakau, The Gambia
‘Ree-maas! Are you still fucking the Chinese twat?’ Bob Jatta sneered.
‘Twat, what twat?’ was the reply.
‘I like womans, Bob, she sensual womans, you want me stop?’ Remus looked downcast.
‘On the contrary, dear boy,’ he had been in England a long time, ‘I want you to marry the bitch!’
‘She married to my brother,’ said the now ex-palm tapper.
Remus, feeling his age, he was coming up to fifty, had moved into Bob’s mansion as caretaker, butler and body slave. ‘It just sex,’ as he was fond of saying.
‘Listen, I’ve had enough of the bitch fucking with me for nearly two years, I want the 4H and I want my Gregory back, understand?’
‘Marry her and then you own half the 4H and when she dies, you get it all,’ he continued, ‘Rather I get it, in return for this luxury life I’m giving you.’
‘Bu
t, my brother, no divorce, she no divorce,’ Remus protested, ‘they have arrangement, suit two of them.’
‘Who is talking divorce, Remus, not me?’ Bob was looking menacing, and Remus dreaded what he was going to hear next, ‘I want you to kill him!’
‘Keeell my brother? He in India and he nice man,’ Remus was in tears now.
‘Where in India? I’ll fly you there.’
‘She say Dar Es Salaam, I remember,’ Remus beamed.
‘Ah, Tanzania, Africa good,’ Bob smiled, ‘I think you can get there on your ECWOS card.’
‘No, bugger, it’s East Africa!’ he pondered a little, ‘I’ll get you fake passport, don’t worry!’
‘No Daressalaam, India!’ Remus protested.
‘Look, I don’t know nothing about no India,’ venom rising as his English dropped, ‘go fuck the Chink right now and find out exactly where the bastard is.’
‘She no fuck me every day,’ Remus looked sheepish.
‘What, she rings a little bell for you and you come? Are you a man or her servant?’ Bob continued.
Remus looked at the buzzer next to Bob’s chair and quietly withdrew.
Chapter 24: Foreplay at the 4H
Happy Hippo Hostel Hotel, The Gambia
Sylvia woke to find Remus was working on her vagina with two figures stimulating her g-spot, she let him continue. The truth had to be faced, he could give her a better orgasm with his fingers than with his spectacular penis. She needed pressure on her clitoris to make her cum. Jeffrey’s penis had fitted her exactly, allowing him to put his full weight on her retracted button. Remus was so long that his body remained three or four inches away from it and try as she may, vaginal orgasm, for the most part, eluded her. His tongue and fingers were his best tools toward her road to ecstasy, which meant she didn’t see a lot of him during lovemaking. Remus made her feel good about herself, more womanly and confident about her body. She had hated gym classes at the convent school; the nuns made everyone strip naked, line up and wait for their turn to run through the one shower. At fifteen she had no pubic hair growth, all the other girls had big bushes by then, so she felt an object of ridicule. She was seventeen before some sparse hair appeared and only on her mound, her labia remained bare. She gave up on her pubes and kept her pudenda shaved.
‘Where you husband?’ he asked in-between licking her smooth labia.
‘I told you, India!’ she jerked, ‘Dharamsala, in the mountains…’
‘I never see mountains, I like mountains, I go India.’
The erotic mood was broken, ‘What was the idiot talking about?’ Why did she allow him to do what he did to her?
‘Two questions, Remus, one why do you want to go to India?’ she quizzed, ‘They have mountains in Senegal, and where is the money going to come from?’
‘You give money, I ask my brother to divorce you,’ he answered, ‘I marry you and I have money.’
‘Simple as that, Remus? I like you but I don’t want to marry you,’ Sylvia looked aghast, ‘I couldn’t trust you, you just want a British passport! What’s behind this?’
‘No, no, no! I like 4H, it good place, good business,’ he was looking shifty.
‘Well, you are not much help to me now,’ Sylvia was growing suspicious, ‘Bob Jatta put you up this, didn’t he?’
‘No, no, no! I love you, I want you be my womanses,’ he smiled at her.
Sylvia guessed there was some truth behind those eyes; basically, he was a kind man and a good gardener, something they had in common. They had worked together on the kitchen garden at the 4H and everything he had suggested planting, in the right place, had flourished. Jeffrey had been a complicated man; too many hang ups, too clever for his own good and not achieving his full potential. She was probably better suited to this simple man, but as Madge Robinson kept repeating, ‘Never trust a Gambian man!’
Sylvia had seen too many disappointed women her age, betrayed by roguish but beautiful black men. When the money ran out so did they, along with their new passport and any few coins that might remain. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that Bob Jatta was motivating the now ex-palm tapper. Remus was living with the man doing God knows what with him. Something was up but she was too busy on the 4H to pursue it further. Things were taking off at the Happy Hippo; Edgar would come over occasionally, bringing groups of friends with him. Gradually, word was spreading that the 4H was a cool place. Jack, Remus’ oldest son, was the same age as Edgar and together they had bought an old, beat-up 4x4 that could carry up to eight people. They would ferry quite a few expeditions to the village in Guinea Bissau, organising wild beach parties on Varela’s deserted beach. Sylvia did not see where Remus could fit into her life, common sense told her to have no more to do with Remus, but she was addicted to his chocolate voice. One snap of those strong fingers and her skirt was up, she was in her mid-fifties but he could make her feel like a teenager. Her teens had been miserable but right now, life was good and she didn’t want to change that. Many good-looking Gambian men had tried to seduce her but Remus had a special quality. The former palm tapper knew everybody and everybody loved him.
Chapter 25: Remus the Adventurer
‘D-H-A-R-A-M-S-A-L-A,’ Remus spelled out the name Sylvia had written down for him. ‘Where the fuck is that?’ not that Bob Jatta would be going there but he would be sending Remus.
The hairless Chink had become an obsession with him; she had insulted him, threatened his authority and made him change his plans. He would enjoy seeing her raped by his men and her body buried alive in the concrete of the foundation of his short-time boutique hotel. He was relying on this idiot boyhood friend to sort things out.
‘I know where,’ answered the idiot, ‘Dalai Lama live there, he good man. I see him in Marie’s Pub.’
‘The Dalai Lama in a bar in The Gambia, I like it!’ smirked Jatta.
‘TV in bar, you make fun me, Bob,’ Remus said hurtfully.
‘No, my dear friend, not at all,’ Bob smiled as sincerely as he was capable of, ‘I’m going to send you to India, to meet the Dalai Lama personally if you are lucky.’
‘I like that,’ Remus always wanted to fly in an aeroplane, ‘but I no have passport.’
‘Bob Jatta can arrange that, no problem, my dearest friend,’ he grinned ‘and I’ll get you a VISA card with your own bank account.’
Almost all of Remus’ dreams were coming true; he was seeing himself in a shiny Indian suit, like in the Bollywood films in Marie’s Pub. He was dancing around the room, Bob wondered if he’d made an expensive mistake. Why not kill the bitch and her son, who had shown up on the scene and was working with this idiot’s boys. Kill them all, he thought, but she had his Gregory and the exploding device. He was worrying foolishly, his rational Western self was thinking, but he had convinced himself if the gris-gris was destroyed his beloved mother would die. Better Remus marry the bitch, get half shares in the 4H, find his Gregory and then he could slowly kill her.
‘Not an African,’ she had said, she’d die for that, along with this foolish friend of his but for now he might be useful. Remus knew her husband well and was a good tracker, jungle, city or mountain, what was the difference? Remus had many faults but he did have something special, a charisma that made people open to him, a useful skill. It worked for him in Africa, would it work in India? Trusting him with the money was a problem; he once gave the man a year’s money for Jack to finish his college. Remus spent most of it on presents for his family; he turned to the Chink’s husband to make up the shortfall. It meant that he, Bob, didn’t get the praise he deserved, Jack turned to this Jeffrey to give his thanks.
Remus had actually said to the boy, ‘This man, Jeffrey, he now your father.’
Bob wished he could see this Jeffrey Dharma dead, his corpse floating bloated in the River Ganges. Despite professing to be a good Muslim for his mother’s benefit and for the cache it brought you in his backward country, he believed in the power of juju, the ancient ances
tral magic, a power which existed long before the Christians and Muslims came. Maybe he could defy death and carry on his existence in the afterlife, a powerful spirit being that would bring terror into the hearts of the mere mortals he now lived amongst.
Chapter 26: An Eye for Nepal
Jeffrey’s Journal: India/Nepal Border
Haridwar bus station, I was about to board the bus to Banbasa, I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulder and my right eye went pop. I was looking at the world through a swirling swarm of ants, beads of blood. I spent the next nine hours feeling sorry for myself, reaching Banbasa around midnight I found only one hotel which still had its lights on. The next morning I made my way by local bus to the border crossing, there was only one seat free, as someone had vomited on floor beneath it. Indians and Nepalese do not need visas to enter each other’s countries, there’s not a lot for immigration officials to do.
‘Sir, sir come this way,’ a uniformed Indian officer called to me, ‘please to come into the office and have a cup of tea with us.’
This was a first but my bag was heavy and the ground made of loose rubble, I slipped and two officers rushed to my assistance,
‘Please to be careful, we do not have many foreign visitors coming through this checkpoint, it would not look good on our books if we lost one.’