My name’s Jethro, as in Tull, and I’m a chronic alcoholic.’
The other fourteen volunteers
splurted in chuckles or simpering acknowledgement of what
must surely be a
joke. ‘I’m from England, but I’ve been
teaching in Japan this past year. I
hope to learn some new methods of teaching, then finish my university course
and start up
my own language school. I
love teaching young kids when their minds are still a clean slate.’
A teasing shocker by nature,
Jethro proved to be a chronic smoker by choice and a drunk by mischance.
That evening, following the
banquet dinner replete with a performance of traditional Nepalese stick dancing
- Denis tried not to dwell on the tele image from fifty years previously of a
cherubic Benny Hill spoof on Morris Dancing – several volunteers made their way
up to the roof garden terrace atop the Volunteers Guest House. The sparkling vista of the darkened city
with pin-prick incandescence was more memorable than the drab, gritty,
in-your-face and up-your-nostrils daytime view, but Denis’ eyes were smarting
nonetheless. In an attitude of quiet
reverence, Dashiel, the American beanpole, was setting up his tripod and
ultra-sophisticated digital camera in several trial-and-error vantage spots
behind the parapets to shoot the shadowy murk of Mt Ganesh and the dull glow
emanating from the gilded stupa, Swayambhunath, swelling like a bruised bump on
the city skyline.
Retiring early to his
third-storey single room to recharge his tablet and laptop, Denis was startled
by the shrieking party atmosphere still raging, the manic laughter intermingled
with the lonesome howling of wild dogs that roamed on the derelict scrub behind
the Guest House. Lying in bed after his
cold shower, he wondered how many of the recruits would be fit enough on the
morrow to face the challenge of an early start and long day’s sedentary travel.
Following an early breakfast of
omelette, toast and small pot of coffee, nine bubbly volunteers with luggage
assembled in the lane way that wound down through rubbish and overgrown weeds to
the main road, eager to get started. The half-dozen volunteers
remaining based in Kathmandu were doing the rounds of hugging, swigging from water bottles, exchanging
phone numbers.
‘We’re still waiting for Jethro,’
said a frowning Ranesh, the normally hospitable co-ordinator, through pinched
lips, checking his watch. ‘These
long-distance buses to Pokhara and Chitwan can take longer than their allotted
time of six and eight hours.’
As if suddenly emerging in the
grey light of dawn, a shadowy profile of Jethro abutted from the corner of the
side wall of the Guest House.
‘Jethro, you look like shit!’
cried Magsie shamelessly, one of the two volunteer nurses from New Zealand
bound for Chitwan. Deb kept a discreet
but anxious silence.
Denis too was appalled at the Englishman’s raw-red eyes, a
haggard, unshaven appearance
and miserable despair locking down a deadpan
facial expression, and hoped to god he
wouldn’t be sharing a room with such a
haunted visage.
‘Yeah, I feel like it,’ Jethro mumbled in a thick, nasal voice,
banging his head against the
wall two metres back from the non-smoking area,
snatching a drag on his cigarette.
‘Okay, let’s go!’ snapped Ranesh,
casting a covert glance at the latecomer.
‘Follow the path
to the main road and turn left. You’ll see the two buses parked there.
Denis set a cracking pace
trundling along with his wheels-down suitcase to seize an inside
window seat so
that he could put some distance between himself and Jethro languishing
behind. Also, he was determined to take
some rarefied photos of the long winding stretch
through the mountains.
When Setiawati, the diminutive
Indonesian lass now resident in Brisbane, climbed on board,
she leaned across
to Denis. ‘Magsie says: “Watch out for Jethro. He’s had a dreadful night.
She suspects he’s suicidally depressed.”’
Screwing up his eyes, Denis
slumped back in his seat, as if knocked cold. Heaven help me,
just what I
need!
When he opened them, he found himself looking up
into a whiskery face and purplish bags
beneath bloodshot eyes. ‘Excuse me, are you saving this seat for
anyone?’ the dull voice
croaked.
‘No, no,’ replied Denis, trying
to keep exasperation from the timbre of his own voice. ‘Please,’ he gestured,
before fishing for his tablet in the overhead locker. So relieved was he
to crawl out of Kathmandu, with its chaotic
traffic and suicidal dashes over pedestrian
crossings, petrol fumes that stung
your eyes and blocked your nose, the rubbish strewn and
dangling wires, street
sharps and kerb-crawling taxi drivers touting for business. You took
your life
in your own hands if you walked along a street with no pavements, as drivers
and
riders shot into every available skerrick of space to gain advantage of
roads with no markings
for lanes. He
imagined a sweaty, febrile Harrison Ford bursting from a dingy alley of
crumbling buildings in bad odour and dire straits.
‘Jethro from Worthing,’ said his
neighbour. ‘From the Old Dart. You’re Australian, aren’t
you?’
‘No, I’m English, but an
Australian resident.’
‘I thought you had a plummy
accent, cobber.’ With just a faint
smile.
‘I used to teach EFL in
Brighton. And attended Lancing College
as a kid years ago.’
‘Huh, that’s all changed. Lancing’s become the drug capital of the
south coast. You
wouldn’t recognise it
now.’
He might have been depressed,
this Jethro bod, but he could certainly talk the hind legs off a
donkey. It wasn’t long before it dawned on Denis
that he’d never be able to take shots of
the thickly wooded, steep-sided
escarpments because he’d found himself unwittingly placed
in a demanding duty
of care.
‘You had a big night last
night?’ Denis asked in all innocence,
though annoyed the diabolical
racket had kept him awake for so long.
‘Christ, you can say that again!’ A pause as long as Jethro’s yawn that
enabled Denis to open
his tablet and set up for a long-distance shot of a
farmer across the valley pacing over his
terraced steppes cultivated in the
side of the mountain. From its crest, a
fall of water nearby
had carved out its own niche into a fast-flowing river
with sand banks. But Denis dithered
over the perfect shot.
So a muffled Jethro: ‘I fucked up real bad. Don’t know why I did it. At two o’clock in
the morning, for Christ
sake. Never have I felt so heartsick.’
As warned by Setiawati, Denis had
already accepted that Jethro desperately needed to talk
with somebody - or at
somebody, as it turned out - so remained silent, waiting tactfully but
itching
to bury his thoughts in the landscape fleeting by outside. But one had to give this
stranger some
credit: he seemed disarmingly candid
about his mood swings;
unashamedly so.
‘I thought I could trust someone
. . . the most precious person in my life . . . I told her the
truth, but she’s
twisted it round . . . I was speaking about thoughts that suddenly come
fleeting into your mind . . . it doesn’t mean you’re encouraging such thoughts or going to
act on them. You know what I mean,
don’t you?’
A crease across his forehead
knitted up Denis’ eyebrows. What the
hell’s he prattling on
about? Will he
never shut up? Thought he was supposed
to be tuckered!
‘Hanako is confusing intrusive
thoughts and ideas. I can’t
control my own thoughts.
Thoughts
spring into your mind unbidden. Ideas I
can control. I enjoy discussing
ideas, but
Hana took me literally.
Claims she wants to help me, but I suspect she’ll stay in touch till
she
thinks I’ve recovered, then she’ll cut me free. Holy crap, that prospect will toss me
over the edge! Hana’s one half of who I am!
‘You see, Hana wants to know if
I’ve ever acted on this one particular thing, which I should
never have
confided. So . . . should I lie? Which isn’t me. Or do I tell the truth, which will
very likely end the
relationship? If that happens, I’ll put
a bullet through my brain. I
couldn’t
live without my better half. Well, I’ve
learned my lesson. Last night I belched
it
all up. But I’m never going to cough
up details to anyone else. I’ve tried
it once with the
one person I trusted and it blew up in my face.’
Denis was wriggling on his seat,
that was evidently hardening, itching with a sense of
entrapment and
irritation, desperate now to shut up this stranger. ‘Listen, Jethro. Tomorrow
morning you and Setiawati will be stepping into a classroom. You may need to have all your
wits about
you. None of us knows what we’ll have
to get our heads around quick smart
when assailed by thirty or fifty excitable
youngsters. Try to wrestle your mind
away from
this lady and concentrate on facing a brand new situation with no
chance to prepare. She’ll
get in touch
when she’s ready.’
When next Denis distracted
himself from the mountains, from the window view, he
observed that the
solipsist was asleep, his mouth slightly open, revealing a large set of
white molars, more serene than seared.
After eight hours of painfully
slow, traffic-jammed driving skirting close to parapets or soft
edges warning
of steep drops and recent landslides along twisting road, the bus from
Kathmandu finally wound down onto the plain approaching the city of Chitwan and
eventually pulled up in the car park of a large supermarket in the main
thoroughfare.
The five volunteers remained
stuck fast in their seats, physically tired, sore, apprehensive.
Until a short but well-built man bobbed
confidently aboard, observed a tall Caucasian
stretching his cramped legs in
the aisle. ‘Denis?’
‘Yes,’ replied the senior
volunteer with zest, as if surprised or relieved.
‘My name is Shardul. Where’s Setiawati? Oh and the others, I see.’
Noting all the white
faces. ‘I
will take you five volunteers to your home-stays. First you can do shopping here
in the supermarket.’
‘Where’s the nearest ATM?’ asked
Magsie.
‘Inside the entrance to this
supermarket. Remember, you must bring
toilet rolls, bottles of
water, anything you want. You can’t get these things in our village. Now I can’t park here,
but I’ll come back in
half an hour, so make sure you’re all here.’
‘Should we take our cases?’ asked
Deb, the quieter of the two Kiwi girls, who would later
advise Denis on his varicose
veins and fungal feet.
‘No, don’t worry about them.
I can take them with me.’
Jethro was generous to a fault,
buying up a large, beribboned box of chocolates for the
family, in spite of the
brief from Volunteers HQ not to be extravagant because creating high
expectations from host families raised the bar for successive volunteers. A simple hand
towel featuring a cuddly koala
from home or coffee mug from Piccadilly or wherever
would suffice for a
farewell gift.
On the third evening, Jethro
announced to Mama, ‘Can I cook dinner for your family,
Mummy?’
Perplexed, Mama, the busiest,
loudest and most vocal head of household operations Denis
had ever witnessed,
stuttered awkwardly.
‘Ke? Kina? She scurried off in
search of her son as if wounded. ‘Shardul?’
‘Is there a problem?’queried
Shardul, a very muscular but shortish man with chubby chops,
often rippling
about the yard in a towel round his waist and quietly spoken, an unusual trait
in Chitwan, but a regular unabashed hawker of phlegm into the communal sink
outside the
toilet door in the central yard.
The family’s plush living quarters were the other side of a
narrow stone
passage that led to the kitchen and modest dining room for volunteers.
‘Great Expectorations!’ thought
Denis to himself, whenever he heard Shardul’s ugly full-
throttle heaving-up or
later, even staff members gobbing openly into the ink-ingrained sink
in the
school’s staff room. No one batted an
eyelid. Mark it down to cultural
differences! And, to be fair, the
thick, white dust blown up from the surface of the lane ways.
‘I’d like to cook for your
family,’ beamed Jethro, having caught up on his sleep. ‘I don’t see why you should always have to
cook for us.’
‘No, no, that’s our job. We have our routine, you know,’ said the
head of the family, with
quiet restraint but obvious alarm at a stranger’s lack
of tact.
Denis, though, was
squirming. At the briefing in
Kathmandu, the volunteers had been
informed that the highest caste would never
allow anyone of a lower caste to cook or them.
This is not to imply that a citizen from dear old Worthing, Sussex
by-the-sea was not worthy
of serving up a healthy vegetarian meal, but could he
be trusted to follow the correct
procedure for touching the food by hand? And this, an old established Gurkha family,
who
relocated from the mountains after 1947 at the invitation of the
Government, which felled
vast acres of jungle forest to make available land for
the building of homes for new settlers.
Many Gurkhas had stayed in paramilitary service, namely as soldiers,
policemen or
customs and excise personnel.
But many had turned farmers and quickly adjusted to the
agrarian way of
life.
‘And can I ask you to not smoke?’
said Shardul bluntly. ‘Not on my
land. This is family home, so we don’t like
the smell of smoke to enter. Then
there’s a baby coming soon.’
‘Oh, no worries,’ breezed
Jethro. ‘Not a problem.’ But apparently oblivious of how much a
problem that might be for his host.
On their first Monday of school,
Denis was given a lift on the pillion of Shardul’s motor bike. Without a helmet, he was less nervous about
his initiation into the secondary school than losing his grip on his host’s
waist and toppling off on the bumpy ride as Shardul swayed around the ruts and
jutting rocks, even smooth white boulders, to find the safest course to the
school gates.
‘Excuse me, where’s the
staff room?’ Denis asked a couple of
likely teachers seated on an iron bench, chatting away while casting a glance
at students in uniform milling about and slowly joining ten lines of home
groups extending back down the sparsely grassed playing field. Pegged down were two cows chewing the cud.
‘Fourth floor,’ replied the
quizzical younger man, pointing at the tall building straight ahead with four
flights of concrete steps leading upwards through the central block.
Nor did any member of staff react
when Denis gingerly walked into the staff room and sought to deposit his bag on
an empty space. ‘Namaskar!’ he declared
politely and bowed his head. ‘Good
morning, everyone! Do any of you teach
English?’
Suddenly, a mighty clanging sound
was banging him about the ears, reverberating, blocking his eardrums. Later, he was to realise that a silent dwarf
of a man signified the changeover of each lesson with one mighty stroke of a
stick on a large, impressive metallic gong suspended just outside the staff room
door.
‘Bring your bag over here!’
called a man thumbing through a text book, with black horn rims
and thinning
black hair on his crown. Indicating the
adjacent chair, ‘My name is Hari. I’m
teaching English grammar now, Year
12.’ This slim fifty-something years
old man appeared
to take charge of the newcomer but garbled his speech through
buckled front teeth.
O Lord! If I can’t understand him, how can his students? ‘Right, I’ll come along then.’ Trying to strike the right note.
‘No, I don’t want you to come.’
Which affronted Denis, the
brusqueness of it. Wasn’t one of his
intended roles to act as adviser to the English staff? It was the first of several occasions when
the experienced pedagogue considered the attitude of saving face that some
proud but touchy Nepalese exhibit when striving to think English.
At the end of the day, though,
Hari treated him to a samosa and too sweet but delicious black tea in the shed
that served as staff canteen with small kitchen extension and invited him to
hop on the back of his motor bike to take further refreshment in his own home.
‘Don’t I need a helmet?’ asked
Denis, anxiously surveying the uneven terrain and the number of small boulders
perilously placed.
‘No, only driver. First, I settle the tab,’ he said, searching
for his wallet.
Denis clung on tight, embarrassed
to find himself sliding down the pillion into Hari’s black leathern back. ‘Sorry, it’s the bumps!’ yelled Denis into
his ear.
‘Move back!’ barked Hari into the breeze, fussed
by the restless twitching behind and the cannoning of his own helmet against
the peak of Denis’ cap.
The humble two-storey house,
shaded by the overhang of tall trees with leafy boughs, possessed cosy enclaves
on all four sides that invited outdoor living.
In a small shed open at the side, a pregnant cow that in the short term
could not give milk. Several trees around
the house did yield comestibles: one
bore a pyramidal hive of bees clumped high up in its fork; also delightful, a
mango tree, a banana tree with a small green cluster of fruit, a blackberry
tree so-called but a spreading evergreen with reddish berries, an avocado tree
with small fruits, a lemon tree and an orange tree. Beyond the ring of trees that kept the house cool, Hari owned an
extensive rice paddy, which had just been harvested in one day by a specialist
with a scythe. Its crop would supply
his family for several months as well as make a small profit in the market
place. As they sat there in the shade
drinking some home-made fruit juice, Denis sensed how laid-back Hari was in his
peaceful retreat, listening to the scrabbling egg-laying hens and keeping a
watchful eye on the sleek, grey hunting cat that he kept outdoors to prevent
messes within.
‘Do you still have your own
teeth?’ asked Hari, troubled by his own.
‘Of course,’ replied Denis, taken
by surprise, with a tinge of resentment and an exaggerated smile.
On the second afternoon, unsure
about his homeward direction at one of those serpentine bends along the dusty
road, Denis found a midget of a boy with straight black hair and dusky features
snatching at his left hand and clinging on tight with tiny fingers, a littlun
unknown, whose slightly older sister didn’t notice anything unnatural. At first flattered, then antsy about
appearances, he managed to unclench the stray hand when a van or scooter
joggled by in a plume of dust. But the
wheedling child sprang back to seize it again.
Alarmed, Denis’ brain recalled
that sickening sight at a café in Thamel, the tourist heart of Kathmandu, where
a beady-eyed scruff in grubby overcoat, balding but with stray wisps of greasy,
grey hair draggled over his collar, was lurking against the corner of side wall
behind him, waiting, watching but wary, taking in Anita and himself with a
fixed stare towards the tables at the front of the café, where a solitary man
thirty years younger was sitting street-side in smart casuals and looking
relaxed with ogling eyes and an amused expression.
At first Denis thought the older
man was a vagabond straight out of the Dickensian underworld, a shifty
pickpocket sneaking up to snatch their wallet or bag. ‘Keep an eye on that grub behind me,’ he murmured. ‘He looks sus.’
‘Doesn’t he just. He gives me the creeps,’ whispered Anita,
casting her gaze downward. ‘He’s still
staring at us. Obviously waiting for
something. Don’t look now, but he’s
moving this way.’
Denis didn’t need to look. His nostrils had already picked up the rank,
stale smell passing by.
Four young schoolboys, perhaps six or seven, in
smart school uniform, dark blue jacket, white-collar shirt, gamboled out of
the interior shadows of the café and sat at the other end of the table occupied
by the ogling man with fixed smile. The
lads bundled themselves down, two each side of the table, carefree, preoccupied
with their own larking about.
The younger man, the cornerstone,
more relaxed, a regular patron more like, made no secret of looking the boys
over, genuinely amused by their innocent antics, as if checking them out,
occasionally nodding at the scruff opposite.
‘They’re not interested in us,’
murmured Denis. ‘I’m afraid they might
be doing a spot of grooming.’
‘Let’s go,’ said Anita with a
shudder. ‘There’s nothing we can do. Though there’s a beautiful display of
fabrics six doors further on, silks and stuff.’
‘These two blokes haven’t
actually done anything, but when you remember the trafficking of
Nepalese children increased after the 2015 earthquake . . .’
‘And all those poor orphans,’
interposed Anita. ‘Apparently, some
were forced into sex slavery in India.’
It was only the fifth morning of
school when Denis suddenly felt what he always feared in Asia, the sudden
arousal of discomfort in the belly. The
revolting image of the two staff toilets aggravated the discomfort, the
anxiety. As well very dim light, there
was little room inside the cubicles to shuffle round the brown sludge on the
floor. He figured he should stand feet
apart on the porcelain sides of the primitive dark hole in between, but there
was no chain to flush water down. There
was a large container of very discoloured water, though, heavy and
awkward to lift, but he managed to pour a modest amount down the hole. It was only later that he realized he should
have washed his hands in it. The stench
was so sickening that in his fumbling desperation to escape, he banged his head
on the concrete section above the wooden door because there was no light
switch. That smell hung in the warm air
outside and wafted past the Headmaster’s open door and as far as the
staff room. In the far corner of that
nerve centre, hanging up on a rusty hook above the sink, was the remains of a
ragged and grubby hand towel.
But what if he was going to vomit
or in need of emptying his bowels? No,
there was nothing for it but bolt for it as quickly as possible back to the
home-stay, then sneak back before period 2.
In this, he succeeded, though it was a close-run thing to make the
home-stay in time. Walking up the
concrete steps to the staff-room on his return, he bumped into Hari.
‘Where have you come from?’
‘I had to rush back to the
home-stay. Stomach upset. I felt I was going to be sick and needed the
toilet.’
‘But there’s a toilet next to the
headmaster’s office.’
‘Yes, I know, Hari, but it’s not
hygienic.’
Hari was speechless, most likely
embarrassed, possibly ashamed. The
scungy apology for a hand towel would remain a fixture hung on a nail in the
staff room for the entire duration of Denis’ four-week stay.
Here in his new country retreat,
about an hour’s drive from the city of Chitwan, Denis sensed the best time was
early morning when the blindingly bright white orb of the early-morning sun
scintillated the blue mist and the dark brown sheaves of hay and the first
fresh green spikes of rice slowly emerging.
Fascinating patterns in the damp, deep brown soil and subtle shades of
autumnal colour unknown to him. In
these first few days he took to getting up early while it was still dark inside
and Jethro was sleeping in his earphones, and before the harrumphing of motor
bikes; then going for a stroll about the nearest lanes, very careful to note
the directions he might need to retrace his steps. Upon his return to Shardul’s property, he would place a chair out
front facing the T-junction and attempt to compose similar images of the
pastoral way of life in these small villages backed by extensive acres of
arable land.
grizzled old
man in green shorts sits on the lip of the trough
beneath the
hand-held pump, coughs and shivers
lathering
thin grey hair and hairless armpits with icy water
rubbing
bony rib-cage hard with a selvedge of cotton stuff
his
own sullied water recycled from the stone trough
Far distant, the faint grey
silhouette of The Terai’s upland hills that promise the earth, the granary of
Nepal; nearby, a lone woman, chequered in sari with blue sash about her waist,
bringing down the sickle with sharp, even strokes to sever a stave in two; the
steady stream of early-morning school-bound cyclists zig-zagging between ruts
and rocks; the chugging of tractors bumping over small, smoothly worn white
boulders awkward to walk on; the scratching of a curious red-combed rooster
bobbing its neck, then leaping with a flurry onto the rump of a squawking hen;
the beeping of swarming motorbikes and scooters spraying up that fine white
dust that invades your nose as they bobble close by ambling figures; a dozing
dog deadbeat to the world roadside; two goats tethered but tangled nibbling at
a cluster of low-lying leaves; the trumpeting blast of the yellow school bus
hailing students.
Then mid-morning, across the
wide-open flat fields lay an enduring numinous calm.
with dried-out hay heaped on a tarpaulin
four mute men each clasping a corner
sway in slow even rhythm together
wafting the chaff away
In the evenings after dinner, invariably Tarkari, a dish of curry,
rice and samey vegetables,
hot red or green chilli if you wished, Denis and his
room-mate lay on their beds in the dark.
‘I’m not going to last long
here,’ moaned Jethro. ‘There’s
absolutely nothing to do after six o’clock.
The pub, so-called, you couldn’t swing a cat in. Hardly room for four people to play
cards. Worse still, there’s no lighting
in our apartment in the evening.’
‘Yeah, I hate wasting time,’
sighed Denis, hands behind head, lying on top of his puffy blue sleeping bag.
‘How are we supposed to prepare lessons?’
‘I only have two ambitions in
life: to own my own school and to live
in Japan. But I’m conflicted between finishing
this four-week volunteer programme, then completing my degree soon
as. I should be able to knock over four
essays in a fortnight.’
‘That sounds positive, Jethro,’
Denis quickly added, but doubted its application.
‘It’s Business Studies, which I
can do off the top of my head, but it’s shit boring.’
‘Oh.’
‘But it’s a means to an end. I can teach in Japan again only if I have a
degree. At least in the Rising Sun I
was able to teach in my own way and got high, really high, on doing something useful,
meaningful.’ He added wryly, ‘I didn’t
need so much weed.’
Suddenly, everything switched
dark. The lamp above the toilet door
outside no longer threw out light over the central courtyard but cast a pale
smidgin through the thin curtains in the resident rooms. ‘No electricity!’ shouted Mama, bursting
into the yard. ‘Sorry! So sorry!
It come back soon!’
‘There was this four year old
boy.’ Jethro was speaking slowly in a
strangely subdued and meditative voice.
‘I’ll always remember him. His eyes,
a sort of hyacinth blue, would light up whenever I entered the classroom,
always eager to please, jumped to the task, proudly showed me his work. Always giving me a glowing smile, lifting my
mood, my energy levels. It was
brilliant. I’ve never experienced
anything like it in the classroom. So .
. . so transcendental.’
‘Seems a pity you left.’
‘The principal pissed me
off. He placed a kid in a higher grade
because his wealthy parents
insisted their precious son deserved something
better. Upshot was, the kid was
miserable
as. Just couldn’t understand
the basics. Nor could that jerk of a
principal. He got real
snarky with me.’
dogs lie
stoned where tigers once prowled
amid a roar of weaving, growling
motor bikes
some scabbed with ears torn, manged
or matted
many roam homeless, howling morn
through night
November, the busiest season for
farmers, as the temperature can suddenly fall from 30 degrees to chilly, misty
mornings for two or three months. But
that Sunday dawning the sun was blinding white, the first school day of the
week in Nepal. Mist lingered over the
bushy stacks of dark brown hay and sodden rice paddies. Dot figures of young girls bend over at the
waist to gather clumps of hay in armfuls to load up the carts; nowadays it is
not uncommon to see hired shiny red machines shooting shaggy arcs of hay from
chutes to erect stacks of higgledy contours.
Briskly walking along with a
stack of newly threshed hay hiding his head and shoulders with a matting down
his back: a birdman anonymous. Four large dogs in a row lying dead asleep
on the furrowed earth in spite of the cranky grumble of tooting tractors.
Hardly a village. Rather, variously shaped houses scattered
along narrow, dusty, rock-bobbled lanes over a vast area of low-lying
fields. Somewhat belatedly, Denis
discovered an example of folk art on the back wall of his own home-stay,
simplistically designed but vibrantly coloured. On the edge of the right side an elephant; inboard, a rhinoceros
featured in a swamp painted brown surrounded by fields or jungle in the dark,
dusty green of eucalyptus; a track over a wooden bridge spanning the sky blue
river leading up to a familiar house - of course, it was the front wall of his
home-stay with sky-blue window-frames and curtained windows in the posh family
rooms as well as the forecourt of compacted chocolate brown earth. Running along the top, not so vivid but in
black and white, simple, broken lines to convey the outline of the Himalayas,
as viewed from this spot.
her goats
munching green stuff on the bank
a willowy
waif, up to bare knees, her net she trawls back
for silvery sprats, bends deep to
inspect the catch:
clumps of filthy weed drip litter
and plastic trash
The bustle of country life begins
before first light, before the first home fires are lit - a few chopped sticks
of wood slanted crosswise and a scrap of paper in a clay pot. A frying pan with handles on two sides
quickly heats the dal bhat, vegetable oil, then thin slices of cabbage or small
cubes of pumpkin. The vegetable seller
ringing his bicycle bell on the corner of the T-junction to display from cane
baskets either side of his bike:
cauliflower, ginger, yellow marrow, pink tomatoes, green capsicums,
green peppers, weighing his commodities on scales balanced awkwardly at an
angle on the saddle of his bike.
on her black
mess of hair a faceless crone in shawl
bears a tarpaulin bunched and by
string bundled
the longest, lumpiest headgear,
least fashionable
yet propped by walking stick, she
sails upright still
A bullock dray of milk churns
ambles past, with a switch of thin sticks applied by the driver to the rump of
the weaker of two labouring, slavering beasts.
Every early morning the women
sweep the outside area of the house, compacted but very uneven and pockmarked
earth the colour of milk chocolate. An
old gaffer, hawking up phlegm with dust, squats very low on his haunches
overseeing the chickens, scurrying chicks that slow to a stutter the yellow School
Bus, and passers-by: women bearing pots
and bundles atop their scarfed heads, kiddies three or six gleefully yelling
‘Hi! in their best American accents to the new white-faced novelties and
pleading for selfies; a lorry rumbling along with a dozen farm workers standing
penned in the back.
schoolgirls smart in pale blue blouses, navy trousers,
black tights, cycling demurely between
ruts and boulders
a friend swaying side-saddle on the
rear mudguard
or two littlies behind and one
clinging to handlebars
‘You know what?’ Jethro was saying, ‘If I had my way, I’d
regularly take a ball into the classroom.’
Denis raised an eyebrow. ‘You
know, those balls with suction caps, so that the kids could throw them at the
correct answer on the board so they stick.
Worked a treat in Japan.’
‘Does the correct answer stick in
their memory?’
‘My theory is that it would make
more impact. Youngsters need a
distraction. If it doesn’t,
you throw
the ball at them.’ He flashed
those big front teeth. ‘Even
better: you know those
toy guns? I was thinking of buying up enough for the
whole class so they could all take a
pop shot at the answer simultaneously.’
‘Don’t get too carried away,
Jethro. Just waving guns around would
create sheer bedlam, not
to mention the probability of some kid being struck in
the eye and you struck off the staff
list.’
His face fell into a wistful
gaze. With a hapless shrug: ‘Yeah, I s’pose.’
spreading a
watery mix of rich brown cow dung
a
young house-proud woman kneeling down
with
open palm evenly smoothing across the floor
warding
away evil spirits and carping neighbour
After two days of lessons at
junior levels in his striking beacon of a yellow-painted, double-storied school
ten minutes walk north of the home-stay, Jethro was immediately disillusioned;
over-run by animated spirits who didn’t understand English. ‘The education
system here is fucked up. In rural
Nepal the focus in English lessons seems to be reading and comprehension. The
kids are just copying out of the textbook.
Everyone is chattering away, not listening. For my style of teaching to work, classroom discipline is
essential. Of course, it’s important
for kids to have fun, but I need to be heard to give direction and lay down
expectations.’
Denis had also experienced a frustrating
day. Introduced to the staff by the
English co-ordinator as a seventy-four year old with a wealth of experience, he
groaned within as if Exhibit A in a court room or a misguided professor coming
out of retirement; or whenever he walked into a classroom on a wave of
deafening cheers, greeted like a rock star, ageless and jowly as a Rolling
Stone. Inevitably, the host teacher
would ask him to introduce himself (for as long as possible) and answer a few
questions that would ideally consume the rest of the forty-five minutes.
‘Do you like football?’
‘How many children you have?’
‘Do you like Nepal?’
‘Cristiano Ronaldo, you like?’
‘Do you like our school?’
But after ten minutes the novelty
was worn ragged.
‘Do you have any more questions?’
‘Are you married?’
Denis was inclined to agree with
Jethro that here in the countryside the emphasis was on learning new vocabulary
and copying out chunks of text. There
was no sign of personal or imaginative writing, or speaking whole sentences in
English to one another. Nor any sign of
homework being dished out or of teachers taking any correction home.
Pronunciation of English proved a
major problem for the teachers of English.
For her year 8 class, Palisha was reading a passage on Albert
Einstein, in which she clearly said four times ‘burn’ instead of ‘born’ and
another on The Cow, where she pronounced ‘shed’ as ‘sed’, the ‘h’
apparently silent in Nepali. In
addition, the level of the language seemed well beyond the capability of
thirteen year olds: a mouthful like the
multi-syllabic ‘deteriorating’ proved a hurdle too high for the class to repeat
in unison, while abstract concepts like ‘scientific matter’ eluded
definition. In addition, when the
brightest or keenest of these young students were called upon to read, they
stood up confidently and raced through the passage in a breathless monotone,
skating over full stops and flat-lining question marks, thereby mangling much
of the meaning and tone.
When Palisha, one of the two
female members of staff out of thirty, who wore a red jacket and baggy red
trousers beneath her turquoise sari, approached him for the second time with a
smile that gave way to a nervous but appealing flutter of eyelashes, stated in
a flat monotone, ‘I request you teach my class,’ it sounded like a
command. Where was the modulation, the
tone of politeness?
Of course,’ he replied. ‘What would you like me to teach?’
‘Anything you like. You are experienced teacher, Denis sir.’
Well, yes, but I do like time
to prepare. And I disapprove of this
‘Teach Anything’ approach when I don’t know the syllabus, the students’ names,
their level of ability, what you’ve been teaching them recently, what they need
to know…
two idle
fishers casting a line across a shoal
from the
bridge into the deeps back of Shardul’s
bumper crop of
mustard, a brilliant yellow show
‘In my life I have two major relationships,’ Jethro
was champing at the bit that first Friday
afternoon. ‘There’s Jocasta, who’s bags of fun, always taking the piss out
of me. We
hook up for casual sex. Jo’s autistic.’ He paused, as if waiting for a reaction. ‘You know,
sometimes I wonder if I have mild
autism myself.’ Jethro’s open-mouthed
gaze hung in the
silence for a moment.
‘Ah well, it is as it is. Then
there’s Hanako, whom I met when she was
on vacation in Japan. We had a whirlwind affair, but she’s an
American citizen now. Lives in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her husband
found out about us and turned snarky.
Threatens to
divorce her and keep hold of the child. Cites me as the guilty party and a very bad
influence,
but Hana doesn’t love him.
So she’s gone back to the US to sort out custody.’
The evening light was perceptibly darker after the
usual dinner of dal bhat (predominantly rice
and lentils or occasionally
chickpeas), perhaps small wedges of potato, red or green chilli
peppers. It had become the custom for Jethro to don
earphones and lie on his bed beneath the
bell tent of mosquito net.
‘There’s just nothing to do here in this
god-forsaken place!’ Jethro wailed.
‘How can you put
up with it?’
‘To be candid, I feel more alone when surrounded by
volunteers working their smart phones
than when I’m adrift in a mood of
reverie.’ There, it was out!
That quietened Jethro for several seconds. ‘I confess I’m the opposite. I come from a family
of six brothers and one
sister, so I’m used to company of different personalities and ages. A
sense of alienation gives me panic
attacks.’
More relaxed, Denis merely smiled, staring up at the
fan whirring round beneath the ceiling,
fascinated by the patience of three
green-skinned geckos, squat but all of five inches in
length, like brooches of
emerald caught by a shaft of light from the courtyard in frozen
posture, waiting to make a quick dart for a fly or moth or busy ant. ‘I really enjoy
wandering
the lane ways and byways, taking a few photos of the surrounding
fields. It makes me think
of what it must have been like before the Industrial Revolution in Europe, with men and
women
bending their backs in the fields, living close to their animals.’
‘Sentimental twaddle, Denis! Think Tess of the d’Urbervilles hoeing
turnips in a muddy field
at five o’clock on a frosty winter’s morning, not that
dreamer Rousseau drifting in his
rowboat while staring up at the stars on a
lazy summer evening. And I wouldn’t
waste time
taking photos of desolate shit-holes. You sound as if this is some sort of Arcadia.’
‘No, no, there’s an aesthetic appeal, autumnal
colours and patterns. All those
cut-back stems
and occasional green shoots anticipating next season’s harvest
already. I’m fascinated by the
rhythm
of the seasons here and the local people’s acceptance of this slower way of
life.’ Not
quite wilting.
‘It’s slow alright.
Nothing happens. Do the locals
really accept this slow way of life?
Look,
I’ll be frank. I just have
to ask Shardul if I can leave Chitwan.
It’s difficult to broach the
matter now, as he’s got too much on his
plate, what with his wife being seriously sick and
the baby due any moment, but
I can’t stand that madhouse of a school any longer. Besides,
I’m starving without some bread or chicken breast -
there’s not even a pizza palace, for god
sake! - becaus my stomach can’t cope with all this spicy food and I
can’t function without
some decent grog.’
Denis was lining up a shot, fussily as usual, of the
remote Himalayas, a mere smudge on the
southern horizon when he was hoping for
a gleaming rift of ultra-white snow that would have
a foreshortening
effect. A racket of blaring, discordant
music was heading his way, the same
short, repetitive cycle of ugly noise that
represented the Maoist party appealing to the workers,
its flags of red sickle
and hammer on white background flapping up the radio mast.
There came a sudden burst of coughing behind
him. ‘Hi, there, we meet again!’ It was a
watery-eyed Jethro in an aura of
smoke, puffing on a cigarette nonetheless, recently arrived
back from an
excursion to Chitwan city.
‘How was your trip?’
‘Oh, it was so bloody good to get away from
Dullsville. We climbed up this 3,000
stepway to
the most prominent temple in Chitwan. If I’d been by myself I would’ve spent no more than
ten minutes
gawking at the pagodas, then choofed off to grab a beer, but Magsie insisted on
hanging around for half an hour, staring into the middle distance. Likewise Deb and
Setiawati. Another dud experience! Then we trailed around looking for gauzes,
bandages
and hospitalstuff, then the girls wanted to try on the silk scarves.
‘Have you noticed that
Commie van never broadcasts any speeches, but only dishes up raving
pop music
as loud as possible? Even at seven
o’clock in the morning! Don’t they have
any
policies?’
‘How did you sleep last night, Jethro? ’
‘Christ, I look like shit and my back teeth are
aching like hell. All that nicotine
eating into the
gums. Must remember to
quit smoking,’ he beamed. ‘So, in
answer to your question, I didn’t.
I’ve
heard from Cambridge at last, though, but it solved nothing. Hana’s emailed, not texted as
we usually do,
so the signs are ominous. I fucked-up
big-time when I refused to give her any
details about my intrusive thoughts, so
she fears the worst. I thought I could
trust her, but she
seems to believe that I consciously choose to have such
thoughts when the truth is they simply
invade my brain-box willy-nilly. She’s not really said anything about our
relationship. Just
polite comments
about my teaching. Non-committal stuff. I have only two real friends. She’s
one of them, the most vital, half of
my life, my identity. If I’ve lost
Hanuko, I’m a raving nutter, incomplete, a piece of shit.’
Denis had found himself besieged at the same
crossroads as before. Several times, in
fact, and
was beginning to sound tetchy.
How come Jethro was continually repeating the same narrative,
as if for
the first time? Why was he so
impatient, so obsessive? ‘I don’t think
you should
expect her to declare her feelings about your relationship when
you’ve obviously disturbed
her. She’s giving you breathing space. Why should
she commit herself? I don’t know the
lady, but she may not fully realise for several days yet how she feels about
your revelation.
She’s still keeping in
touch, remember.’
‘I must know.
I can’t abide all this not-knowing.’
‘I understand your anguish, but didn’t you say she
urged you before to go and see a
psychiatrist?’
'Exactly.
She wants me to see a therapist or psychiatrist. She’s right on the knocker there. I
admit I’ve done some terrible things in my
twenty-four years. Things which I
shouldn’t be
telling anyone, which I’m very ashamed of. I don’t respect myself. But who can escape
whipping? Not even a millennial. But as for seeing a psychiatrist . . . well,
that throws up
another curve ball?’
‘Oh, what’s that?’
Hunched over, hands in his jacket, Jethro was biting
his lip, brooding, stubbing his toe
mechanically on a smooth, white boulder on
the side of the lane.
His voice dropped.
‘Look, I really do have to see a psychiatrist as soon as I return to
Worthing,
no joking. But I suspect Hana
is saying that only so she’ll be free to cut me loose once I’ve
complied.’
‘Any which
way, she’s still trying to protect you.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
The staff room was deserted for
the canteen. Save for a maths teacher,
Yardav, a dapper man in his thirties with short black hair and the uniform
pin-striped blue and white shirt and grey and
white-striped trousers financed
by the government. ‘Come, sit here,’ he
gestured and nodded.
He asked the usual
questions, ‘How long you stay here in Chitwan?’ etc. Then: ‘Are you
married?’
‘Not now,’ said Denis, trying to
repress the irrits. ‘But I have been,’
he added to reassure.
‘Why not you marry again?’ Yadav looked perplexed, extended a crooked
arm over his desk,
as if there was so much choice out there.
‘As a senior English teacher, I worked most evenings, marking books, preparing lessons . . .’
‘But now you retired. You should get married.’
Denis scoffed with a sharp
laugh. ‘I’m seventy-four.’ As if that were answer enough.
‘Besides, I am capable of doing my own
cooking, my own housework.’ He made to
wipe his
brow in mock relief.
‘That does not matter. In Nepal men and women stick fast like
glue. Divorce rate very low.
How is it in Australia?’
‘Mm, probably much higher.’
‘I’m serious.
You should get married.’
That evening Denis googled Divorce
rates in Nepal and learned they are rising quickly,
particularly among the
younger generation.
Even at home, the soon-to-be
grandmother, Mama, with black plaited hair streaked with grey,
is up and about
at the crack of dawn, before the crowing of the cockerel sometimes, sweeping
away at the dust with one of her half-dozen switches of home-made canes,
pumping up the
water, heating the dal in a pan over the fire of sticks placed
in a clay pot, chopping up vegie
scraps for the chickens, shooing the goats
with a raised cane, calling in that loud, raucous voice
across to neighbours,
that voice of bustling determination to maintain the daily ritual of
running her son’s house; that deep-throated laugh which crackles when she notices Denis
slicing up those red-hot chillies where other westerners turn up their nose.
in thongs, no helmets, no work &
safety, no worries
climbing iron cubes, three bronzed
bare-chested brickies
hulling the inside walls of mounting
chimneys
Denis was woken by a motor-bike
coughing and spluttering into the yard.
It could only be
Shardul returning from the hospital in Chitwan
city. He was parking his heavy bike
under
shelter.
‘Setiawati! Denis!’ came the urgent cry from Shardul,
removing his helmet. ‘Is Jethro with
either of you?’
‘No,’ replied Setiawati, as she
opened her door. ‘He left school at
lunch-time. Said he was
sick.’
‘He wasn’t here for dinner
either,’ added Denis, walking out onto his balcony.
‘The other night I came home from
the hospital on my bike at 1.30 in the morning,’ murmured
Shardul in very steady intonation, walking towards their adjacent verandahs. ‘Jethro was
outside, sitting on the front
wall, smoking a cigarette and listening to music on his
headphones. I’m worried about him. He’s got a problem in his heart.’
‘No need to worry about him, Shardul,’
said Setiawati. ‘He will catch a taxi.’
‘But I do worry about
him. We are all family here. I responsible if anythings happen to
him.
Why does he not tell me he going
to city late? It’s not safe at night
wandering round the city.’
‘He does have a very good sense
of direction,’ said Denis.
‘But no buses come this way. And he doesn’t know safe taxi drivers.’ Shardul’s voice was
becoming more
heated. ‘Taxi drivers, you know, can
take the long way round, which is
very expensive, leave you in middle of
nowhere, rob your passport.’
The two volunteers looked at each
other with growing anxiety.
‘I’ll phone Jethro and ask him to
identify where he is. Then I’ll phone a
reliable driver I
know.’
When a vehicle one hour later
pulled up out the front of Shardul’s place, the three of them
stopped talking,
held their breath and looked at one another with concern. Then Jethro
bounded out from the shadows
into the central yard in a long, loping but unnatural stride, a
twisted smirk
on the shadows of his face, leaving Shardul in his wake.
My god, he looks strangely goofy, thought Denis. What's he on now?'
'You alright, Jethro?' Setiawati, most concerned, tentatively aked
‘I’m brilliant, Sati Wati Sunshine!’ But these last words gushed out slurred. A woozy
whiff would be detected in his apartment.
He was at it again, Jethro,
giving tongue, cigarette in hand unlit but waving it around in
sweeping
gestures.
‘What would you do if someone
you loved wouldn’t give you a straight
answer, yes or no?
Is our relationship still on?’
‘Give her time, Jethro. Don’t rush her.’
‘But she’s had seven days
already. How much time does she need?’
‘But didn’t you say you had to
see a psychiatrist as soon as you got back to Worthing?’
‘Yes, I really have to. I’m not good at processing my emotions. I’m very rational. But there is something I have to be very wary of.’ He paused, took a deep breath then gave a
long, weary, drawn-out sigh. ‘Problem
is . . . a psychiatrist isn’t obliged to keep a patient’s confidentiality . . .
if he suspects that patient can cause harm.’
Oh, give me a break! But Denis was still mulling over
Jethro’s claim that supposedly rational people couldn’t understand their own
emotional state.
Up with a spring in his step that
second Saturday morning, a more ebullient Jethro. ‘Jeez, I can’t wait to hop on that bus to Pokhara. It should have some decent pubs for a tourist
city. I’ve learnt how to pack efficiently. Just tightly roll clothes, don’t fold
them. There, see?’ he said, holding up
a sausage-shaped shirt. ‘It’s
brilliant. I’ll be packed in five
minutes.’ And he was, way before the
Magic Bus had shuddered to a standstill in the forecourt.
Strange thing was, although Denis
was about to release a sigh of relief, yearning for peace and quiet, he was
rendered almost speechless by a lump in his throat when Jethro embraced him.
‘Thanks for being a good sounding
board, Old Sobersides,’ Jethro said, ever generous, patting Denis’ back as if
he were offering consolation, then knocking his fist against Denis’ fist, as
if they were baseball buddies.
Almost gargling, Denis got out,
‘I do hope everything works out well for you, Jeth.’
The latter shrugged. ‘It is as it is.’
With Jethro’s departure and the
return to the family home of his wife, still sick and needing the physical
support of her husband to make her slow, painful way across the yard to the
toilet or shower, Shardul was able to spend more time at home and was in better
spirits with his companionable duties.
And Mama loved rocking the
new-born ‘babu’ on her lap, practically a surrogate mother. After pinching her grandson’s nose into
acceptable shape, Mama exposed his puckered pale face to the early-morning rays
of sunshine for a first dose of vitamin D ahead of his initial bathing, down at
her bared knees below her hoisted skirts with gurgling chuckles of her own.
‘You can come closer,’ said
Shardul. ‘But if you want to see baby’s
face, you must give some money.’
At first bewildered by that
statement, Denis sniggered.
‘No, I’m serious. This is tradition in Nepal. You put it in his hand.’
Setiawati was already rummaging
in her bag for a 500-rupee note. ‘I’m
so lucky to be part of this ceremony.
Especially as I leave tomorrow morning for Pokhara.’
‘I want you stay with us,’
pleaded Mama, pulling a long face, almost grieving.
Hardly able to refuse, Denis
slowly reached for his wallet. Since
the curve of babu’s hand was flexed open, he was advised to tuck the 500-rupee
note gently into the cuff of the infant’s swaddling sleeve.
‘You must be a very happy
father,’ said Setiawati.
‘Now yes, I love my baby. I always wish for a son, not daughter, so
our home stays in our own family. I was very worried, that I will have daughter
but I was lucky. I had a son. At first I didn’t love him. If I choose my wife die in Caesarian section
or my son die, I choose my son die. My
wife not die. She still very
weak, but she not die. Now I love him. I love him very much. I see him becoming human now every day
slowly.’
Denis was frustrated that the
teachers of English didn’t seek his advice or teaching skills. Why were all the teachers wary of him,
whereas the pupils overwhelmed him with greetings, questions, even a fat, juicy
cucumber in the shape of a sweet potato following pronunciation practice of
this word the day before: cu cum
ber. Regrettably, he dared not eat
it: two pairs of kiddies’ unwashed
hands had presented it and there was a large brown scar that looked
rotten. Even three or four year olds
called out ‘Hi!’ and threatened hi-fives with a swinging fist. What on earth was he doing here?
Instead, Palisha and Bhairab
would huddle conspiratorially over an English grammar book to decide what was
wrong with Nobody but I . . . or Everyone of us were . . . or An
amount of students without seeking his expertise. Bhairab, in particular, studiously ignored
Denis, but when his own students agitated for the white man wearing the
American baseball cap to come to class, he reluctantly complied, asking Denis
for details of what exactly he was going to say about the poem. ‘You must speak slowly,’ he said
solemnly. ‘How will you explain the
theme? Please write it on the
board. How will you explain what is
‘daffodil?’ ‘You must explain them what
is Wordsworth’s feelings about daffodils.’
‘Just relax,’ said Hari,
when none of the five 12 Eng Lit class failed to materialise for the second day
in a row. ‘They just want to sit in the
sun.’
‘But what about their exams?’
queried Denis, who had enjoyed leading the discussion on The Great Gatsby.
‘They four months away. Plenty of time. Relax. No students. So we can’t teach. Let’s take chairs out on the balcony and sit in nice sunshine.’
Even the portly headmaster,
Kamal, dilating those grey, staring, round eyes, who took Denis by the hand and
held it for ten minutes, as they sauntered toward the shed of a canteen said,
‘My friend, relax. You seventy-four,
no? I have seen you rush like a rhino. You have too much stress.’
Mr Headmaster had a point. When two naughty 8th form boys
were brought into the staff room, Denis was keen to observe how this head
honcho would treat the culprits. He
recognised one of them as an attention-seeker and non-stop chatterbox of the
first order, with an insolent grin and woolly mop of hair, unlike the straight
black convention, always hogging the limelight.
Kamal never took his piercing
eyes from the prime offender that Denis had himself stumbled across as cheekily
rude and witnessed being struck by another master and thrown out of class, but
as soon as he tried to restore order, this nuisance bounded back in with a huge
grin, only to flee from the flailing hand, disappear, then immediately rebound
back, daring the teacher to strike at him again, raising gales of laughter from
the floor. Trying to remain calm, Denis
found this was an embarrassing scene, awkwardly standing there in front of the
class waiting for silence to introduce himself. The frantic clown of a teacher could not restore order, while the
revolving door situation echoed a silent Charlie Chaplin routine.
So now Denis was intrigued by how
the Head would react. Ushered to the
staffroom, the two culprits were instructed to stand facing each other, take
the other’s hands, then bend their knees quick-time right down to the floor in
sync. While the feckless teacher
counted, the Head remained fixedly staring at the main offender from three feet
away.
‘This is old yoga practice,’
whispered Palisha.
With the sudden turning of the
seasons, the mist thickened and hung close in the air so that the sun found it
impenetrable till mid-morning. The
processional army of ants no longer marched round outside walls of the
home-stay block through the cracked window frame down the inside wall and into
Denis’ suitcase, then burrowed into the security pouch for a sweet snack of
protein nut bar brought from Australia in case of emergency.
Drops of dew ran down the sloping
metal rooves of the two small blocks of volunteer rooms – not a spit of rain
for two months.
Straightening out Jethro’s covers
– Mama declined to disturb their privacy till both volunteers had departed for
good – Denis uncovered beneath the rich-red sheepskin blanket the bodies of
half a dozen bed bugs and stains of dried blood on the pillow.
Towards the end of week four
Denis was surprised to receive an email from Jethro: Hi, fellow ambivert!
Pokhara’s a joke! The so-called
tourist area comprises only one street!!
Dash, my drinking mate, the American photo fanatic, shares the same
digs. Caught up with Setiawati before
she heads off for the three-day trek to Annapurna Base Camp. She’s jittery about doing it on her
lonesome. See yer sometime, maybe. J.
P.S. Bit more relaxed about the Hana scenario, but the stars are not
yet in alignment. It is as it is.
With the noonday sun still in its
zenith, those final days were in danger of leaving Denis running on empty. A late announcement of the death of one of
its board members had caused the school to abandon classes for the following
day, then on his last Friday it was obvious that very few students had turned
up, only juniors: there was a political
rally and strike held by the Communists through the centre of Chitwan city
prior to the forthcoming general election.
So the school was closed for two more days.
Returning to his home-stay on one
of these blank mornings, Denis was shocked by the noisy excitement of a large
group of strangers, presumably family.
Neither Shardul nor Mama had reminded him of the baby’s naming day. Feeling like a gate-crasher, he took his
tablet and bottled water from his carry-all and started out on a long walk in a
fresh direction, the jagged, faint blue silhouette of the Himalayas running
parallel on his right flank.
Agonising over which angle at a
lonely crossroad to photograph an old-established banana tree with elephant
ears for leaves, he was distracted by the horn of a 4-wheel drive. Which he ignored, partly because his reserves
of energy were running low in the gathering heat, partly because he sensed an
inner boredom.
‘Hey, Denis!’ When the shiny black bruiser of a vehicle
stopped, a smiling, moustachioed man stepped out. ‘Denis, remember me?
Sahil.’
There was something vaguely
familiar about this genial man in the loud, short-sleeved, calypso-styled
shirt, about forty-five years of age, with a hearty manner and ready
smile. ‘I’m on your school board.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognise you.’ The late-morning sun had blurred his vision;
also, his seventy-four year old memory had gone walkabout.
‘That’s okay. What are you doing out this way?’
‘Not much, to be honest. Taking a few last photos. There’s a family day at Shardul’s place and
I didn’t want to intrude.’
‘Look, I’m the co-ordinator of
the Democrats in this region. Shardul’s
opposite number. I’m going to Chitwan’s
Community Park to meet up with my party members, have a coffee. You’re welcome to join me.’
It was a bumpy ride on the narrow
lane, even for a four-wheel drive with all the gear shifts. But the jovial Sahil, both confident and
apologetic about his English conversation, lifted his spirits, especially
during the stroll through the woodland that was formerly dense jungle to the
look-out way above the valley through which the river Rapti flowed.
‘Now if you look down there,
through the trees, those wide sandbanks, you can see half-a-dozen crocodiles
sun-bathing. And over there,’ he
pointed, ‘on the far bank, do you see those three black animals running along? They’re wild pigs.’
‘They’re ginormous! Yes, trotting along.’
At the water’s edge, they came
across some deep, almost oblong holes in the mud. ‘They footprints of a rhino.
They cross the river in summer to feed on leaves. Like you, they vegetarian.. And look here! See this skin of a snake stretched out on a thorn bush?’
‘Must have been a big snake!’
said Denis, bending slightly, holding out his arms to span the slightly
undulating length. ‘The skin is some
three metres long.’
‘That’s a cobra. But we better go on to the look-out, in case
there are some tigers hiding in the bushes, maybe.’
Just then the two wanderers
started at a rustling sound behind a clump of bushes lining the side of the
narrow track. Then Sahil burst into a laugh as a
large bird flapped its wings and took off with a mewling screech, climbing.
‘It’s only a peacock.’
‘Are there really tigers on this
side of the river?’
‘Of course! They can leave the national park and swim
over here. Every so often you hear that
a big cat has taken a village man. The
local council are building more defence works around the villages near here.’
Suddenly, ‘There’s a rhino,
look!’ Sahil’s right hand was pointing
along the line of Denis’ nose to a spot in the forest on the far bank. ‘Can you see?’ Almost pleading in desperation or excitement.
Denis teetered on the edge
of ‘Oh, yes’, but could not manage the
lie. ‘I think so,’ he murmured
unconvincingly. But there was an arching
shadow on the beach that might have signified an opening of the track the rhino
was slowly plodding along through the forest.
Sahil grabbed him by the
shoulders and pointed vigorously with outstretched hand over the teacher’s
shoulder.
‘I’ll take a shot anyhow,’ Denis
said in hope, tracking his tablet towards the distant bushy green cluster of
upper boughs that created a thick canopy of cover.
Click went the shutter.
‘Did you get him?’ asked Sahil
eagerly. ‘What a magnificent beast!’
‘I hope so.’
Suddenly, Sahil yelled out some
command across the river, then repeated the urgent message. ‘Two police,’ he said, turning back toward
Denis. I told them about the rhino’s
position.’ The policemen stepped up the
pace, one along the sand, the second over the scrub.
Denis spied the two stick figures
clad in dark uniforms striding towards the likely opening to the rhino’s trail,
the arch of shadow hinting at a tunnel of over-arching, densely packed
trees. ‘Why are they carrying rifles
towards the rhino?’
‘To make sure there aren’t
poachers hunting in that area. If they
see any, the police will shoot on sight.’
It was only when Sahil led Denis
back towards the safety of more widely dispersed bushes and trees that they
found an outcrop from which to look back over the river.
‘Oh great!’ exclaimed Denis. ‘I can spot the rhino’s rump at last . . . I
think. There’s a greyish half-moon in
among those trees. Now his head is
turning sideways to reach a higher branch . . . O, yes, I’ll shoot him now!’
‘Good one. Now let’s go and visit a working elephant.’
Last morning, the colder temperature
and mist encouraged the locals to burn their rubbish on the side of the road or
in a ditch on the muddy edge of some water-logged paddy, the smoke fusing with
the mist in anticipation of winter, casting a mantle of stillness over
Shardul’s property. Ashes scattered
over blackened patches on scrubby verges dotted the lanes.
At lunch-time Hari escorted Denis
to the canteen, where most of the staff were gathered, he assumed, for his
farewell but virtually ignored him by speaking in Nepali about subjects unknown
to him when he was expecting at any moment to make a speech in his native
tongue. He felt decidedly uncomfortable
when anyone gazed at him, occasionally smiling, wondering if he was the subject
of conversation.
The inevitable happened during
the last two periods of the afternoon.
Mr Headmaster spoke far too generously of his commitment and
considerable assistance to the English teachers, before draping a white silk
scarf around his shoulders. Next, the
staff were asked to walk out to the playing field, where a procession of year 8
and 9 students issuing from classrooms presented him with two more scarves, red
and green. Every student handed him a
handful of thin twigs with palmy green leaves that he gathered and bunched up
in his arms with some clumsiness.
‘This old Nepalese custom,’
explained Hari to the overwhelmed retiree.
Walking slowly back to the
home-stay followed by twenty-odd students straggling behind and picking up
stray branches that had slipped from his grasp and adjusting the three silk
scarves that acted as a kind of blessing, red, white and green, around his
shoulders, he fancied himself for a brief moment as another Pied Piper of
Hamelin, but in reality he knew himself as something of a charlatan. He’d obviously been under-used in the
classroom by the school. Upon later
reflection, though, he realised that he had enjoyed the experience best when
students would freely, warmly approach him out in the yard and start with
eagerness and good humour to practise their English conversation and get to
know this mysterious white-faced elder.
In that grey light the unruly
heaps, stacks and scattered straws of hay throughout the village took on a warm
golden resonance.
Michael Small
November 5, 2017-January 29, 2018
