Escape From Kathmandu Read online

  He formed the words with his lips.

  Perhaps he was hungry. What do you feed a hungry yeti? Was he vegetarian, carnivorous? I didn’t have much there in the room: some packages of curried chicken soup, some candy (would sugar be bad for him?), beef jerky, yeah, a possibility; Nebico malt biscuits, which were little cookielike wafers made in India that figured large in my diet.… I opened a package of these and one of jerky, and offered some to him.

  He sat back on the bed and crossed his legs in front of him. He tapped the bed as if to indicate my spot. I sat down on the bed across from him. He took a stick of jerky in his long fingers, sniffed it, stuck it between his toes. I ate mine for example. He looked at me as if I’d just used the wrong fork for the salad. He began with a Nebico wafer, chewing it slowly. I found I was hungry, and from the roundness of his eyes I think he felt the same. But he was cool; there was a procedure here, he had me know; he handled all the wafers carefully first, sniffed them, ate them very slowly; took the jerky from between his toes, tried half of it; looked around the room, or at me, chewing very slowly. So calm, so peaceful he was! I decided the candy would be okay, and offered him the bag of jelly beans. He tried one and his eyebrows lifted; he picked one of the same color (green) from the bag, and gave it to me.

  Pretty soon we had all the food I owned scattered out there on the bed between us, and we tried first one thing and then another, in silence, as slowly and solemnly as if it were all some sacred ritual. And you know, after a while I felt just like it was.

  XI

  ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER our meal Nathan, Sarah, and Freds all arrived at once. “You’re here!” they cried. “All right, George! Way to go!”

  “Thank Buddha,” I said. “He got us here.”

  Nathan and Buddha went through a little hand ritual with the fossil shell necklace. Freds and Sarah told me the story of their adventures. Sarah had fought with Adrakian, who escaped her and ran after us, and then with Valerie Budge, who stayed behind with Fitzgerald, to trade blows and accusations. “It was a joy to pound on her, she’s been coming on to Phil for months now—not that I care anymore, of course,” Sarah added quickly as Nathan eyed her. Anyway, she had pushed and shoved and denounced Budge and Fitzgerald and Adrakian, and by the time she was done no one at the Sheraton had the slightest idea what was going on. A couple of Secret Service men had gone after Adrakian; the rest contented themselves with shielding the Carters, who were being called on by both sides to judge the merits of the case. Naturally the Carters were reluctant to do this, uncertain as they were of what the case was. Fitzgerald and Budge didn’t want to come right out and say they had had a yeti stolen from them, so they were hamstrung; and when Freds returned to see what was up, Nathan and Sarah had already ordered a cab. “I think the Carters ended up on our side,” Sarah said with satisfaction.

  “All well and good,” added Freds, “but there I had old Jimmy right at hand, no yeti to keep me polite, and man I had a bone to pick with that guy! I was in San Diego in 1980 and along about six o’clock on election day me and a bunch of friends were going down to vote and I argued heavily with them that we should vote for Carter rather than Anderson, because Anderson would just be a gesture whereas I thought Carter might still have a chance to win, since I don’t believe in polls. I really went at it and I convinced every one of them, probably the peak of my political career, and then when we got home and turned on the TV we found out that Carter had already conceded the election a couple of hours before! My friends were so mad at me! John Drummond threw his beer at me and hit me right here. In fact they soaked me. So I had a bone to pick with old Jimmy, you bet, and I was going to go up to him and ask him why he had done such a thing. But he was looking kind of confused by all the ruckus, so I decided not to.”

  “The truth is I dragged him away before he could,” said Sarah.

  Nathan got us back to the problem at hand. “We’ve still got to get the yeti out of Kathmandu, and Adrakian knows we’ve got him—he’ll be searching for us. How are we going to do it?”

  “I’ve got a plan,” I said. Because after my meal with Buddha I had been thinking. “Now where is Buddha’s home? I need to know.”

  Nathan told me.

  I consulted my maps. Buddha’s valley was pretty near the little airstrip at J—. I nodded. “Okay, here’s how we’ll do it.…”

  XII

  I SPENT MOST OF the next day through the looking glass, inside the big headquarters of the Royal Nepal Airline Corporation, getting four tickets for the following day’s flight to J—. Tough work, even though as far as I could tell the plane wasn’t even close to sold out. J— wasn’t near any trekking routes, and it wasn’t a popular destination. But that doesn’t mean anything at RNAC. Their purpose as a company, as far as I can tell, is not so much to fly people places as it is to make lists. Waiting lists. I would call it their secret agenda, only it’s no secret.

  Patience, a very low-keyed pigheadedness, and lots of baksheesh are the keys to getting from the lists to the status of ticket-holder; I managed it, and in one day too. So I was pleased, but I called my friend Bill, who works in one of the city’s travel agencies, to establish a little backup plan. He’s good at those, having a lot of experience with RNAC. Then I completed the rest of my purchases, at my favorite climbing outfitters in Thamel. The owner, a Tibetan woman, put down her copy of The Far Pavilions and stopped doing her arm aerobics, and got me all the clothes I asked for, in all the right colors. The only thing she couldn’t find me was another Dodgers cap, but I got a dark blue “ATOM” baseball cap instead.

  I pointed at it. “What is this ‘ATOM,’ anyway?” Because there were caps and jackets all over Nepal with that one word on them. Was it a company, and if so, what kind?

  She shrugged. “Nobody knows.”

  Extensive advertising for an unknown product: yet another Great Mystery of Nepal. I stuffed my new belongings into my backpack and left. I was on my way home when I noticed someone dodging around in the crowd behind me. Just a glance and I spotted him, nipping into a newsstand: Phil Adrakian.

  Now I couldn’t go home, not straight home. So I went to the Kathmandu Guest House, next door, and told one of the snooty clerks there that Jimmy Carter would be visiting in ten minutes and his secretary would be arriving very shortly. I walked through into the pretty garden that gives the Guest House so many of its pretensions, and hopped over a low spot in the back wall. Down an empty garbage alley, around the corner, over another wall, and past the Lodge Pleasant or Pheasant into the Star’s courtyard. I was feeling pretty covert and all when I saw one of the Carters’ Secret Service men, standing in front of the Tantric Used Book Store. Since I was already in the courtyard, I went ahead and hurried on up to my room.

  XIII

  “I THINK THEY MUST have followed you here,” I told our little group. “I suppose they might think we really were trying a kidnapping yesterday.”

  Nathan groaned. “Adrakian probably convinced them we’re part of that group that bombed the Hotel Annapurna this summer.”

  “That should reassure them,” I said. “When that happened the opposition group immediately wrote to the King and told him they were suspending all operations against the government until the criminal element among them was captured by the authorities.”

  “Hindu guerrillas are heavy, aren’t they?” said Freds.

  “Anyway,” I concluded, “all this means is that we have a damn good reason to put our plan into effect. Freds, are you sure you’re up for it?”

  “Sure I’m sure! It sounds like fun.”

  “All right. We’d better all stay here tonight, just in case. I’ll cook up some chicken soup.”

  So we had a spartan meal of curried chicken soup, Nebico wafers, Toblerone white chocolate, jelly beans, and iodinated Tang. When Nathan saw the way Buddha went for the jelly beans, he shook his head. “We’ve got to get him out of here fast.”

  When we settled down, Sarah took the bed, and Buddha immediately joined her,
with a completely innocent look in his eye, as if to say: Who, me? This is just where I sleep, right? I could see Nathan was a bit suspicious of this, worried about the old Fay Wray complex maybe, and in fact he curled up on the foot of the bed. I assume there weren’t any problems. Freds and I threw down the mildewed foam pads I owned and lay down on the floor.

  “Don’t you think Buddha is sure to get freaked by the flight tomorrow?” Sarah asked when the lights were off.

  “Nothing’s seemed to bother him much so far,” I said. But I wondered; I don’t like flying myself.

  “Yeah, but this isn’t remotely like anything he’s ever done before.”

  “Standing on a high ridge is kind of like flying. Compared to our bike ride it should be easy.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Nathan said, worried again. “Sarah may be right—flying can be upsetting even for people who know what it is.”

  “That’s usually the heart of the problem,” I said, with feeling.

  Freds cut through the debate: “I say we should get him stoned before the flight. Get a hash pipe going good and just get him wasted.”

  “You’re crazy!” Nathan said. “That’d just freak him out more!”

  “Nah.”

  “He wouldn’t know what to make of it,” Sarah said.

  “Oh yeah?” Freds propped himself up on one arm. “You really think those yetis have lived all this time up there among all those pot plants, and haven’t figured them out? No way! In fact that’s probably why no one ever sees them! Man, the pot plants up there are as big as pine trees. They probably use the buds for food.”

  Nathan and Sarah doubted that, and they further doubted that we should do any experimenting about it at such a crucial time.

  “You got any hash?” I asked Freds with interest.

  “Nope. Before this Ama Dablam climb came through I was going to fly to Malaysia to join a jungle mountain expedition that Doug Scott put together, you know? So I got rid of it all. I mean, do you fly drugs into Malaysia is not one of the harder questions on the IQ test, you know? In fact I had too much to smoke in the time I had left, and when I was hiking down from Namche to Lukla I was loading my pipe and dropped this chunk on the ground, a really monster chunk, about ten grams. And I just left it there! Just left it lying on the ground! I’ve always wanted to do that.

  “Anyway, I’m out. I could fix that in about fifteen minutes down on the street if you want me to, though—”

  “No, no. That’s okay.” I could already hear the steady breathing of Buddha, fast asleep above me. “He’ll be more relaxed than any of us tomorrow.” And that was true.

  XIV

  WE GOT UP BEFORE dawn, and Freds dressed in the clothes that Buddha had worn the day before. We pasted some swatches of Buddha’s back fur onto Freds’s face to serve as a beard. We even had some of the russet fur taped to the inside of the Dodgers cap, so it hung down behind. With mittens on, and a big pair of snow boots, he was covered; slip the shades onto his nose and he looked at least as weird as Buddha had in the Sheraton. Freds walked around the room a bit, trying it out. Buddha watched him with that surprised look, and it cracked Freds up. “I look like your long-lost brother, hey Buddha?”

  Nathan collapsed on the bed despondently. “This just isn’t going to work.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” I objected.

  “Exactly! And look what happened! You call that working? Are you telling me that things worked yesterday?”

  “Well, it depends on what you mean when you say worked. I mean here we are, right?” I began packing my gear. “Relax, Nathan.” I put a hand on his shoulder, and Sarah put both her hands on his other shoulder. He bucked up a bit, and I smiled at Sarah. That woman was tough; she had saved our ass at the Sheraton, and she kept her nerve well during the waiting, too. I wouldn’t have minded asking her on a long trek into the Himal myself, really, and she saw that and gave me a brief smile of appreciation that also said, no chance. Besides, double-crossing old Nathan would have been like the Dodgers giving away Steve Garvey. People like that you can’t double-cross, not if you want to look yourself in the mirror.

  Freds finished getting pointers in carriage from Buddha, and he and I walked out of the room. Freds stopped and looked back inside mournfully, and I tugged him along, irritated at the Method acting; we wouldn’t be visible to anyone outside the Star until we got downstairs.

  But I must say that overall Freds did an amazing job. He hadn’t seen all that much of Buddha, and yet when he walked across that courtyard and into the street, he caught the yeti’s gait exactly: a bit stiff-hipped and bowlegged, a rolling sailor’s walk from which he could drop to all fours instantly, or so it seemed. I could hardly believe it.

  The streets were nearly empty: a bread truck, scavenging dogs (they passed Freds without even a glance—would that give us away?), the old beggar and his young daughter, a few coffee freaks outside the German Pumpernickel Bakery, shopkeepers opening up.… Near the Star we passed a parked taxi with three men in it, carefully looking the other way. Westerners. I hurried on. “Contact,” I muttered to Freds. He just whistled a little.

  There was one taxi in Times Square, the driver asleep. We hopped in and woke him, and asked him to take us to the Central Bus Stop. The taxi we had passed followed us. “Hooked,” I said to Freds, who was sniffing the ashtrays, tasting the upholstery, leaning out the window to eat the wind like a dog. “Try not to overdo it,” I said, worried about my Dodgers cap with all that hair taped in it flying away.

  We passed the big clock tower and stopped, got out and paid the cabbie. Our tail stopped farther up the block, I was pleased to see. Freds and I walked down the broad, mashed-mud driveway into the Central Bus Stop.

  The bus stop was a big yard of mud, about five or eight feet lower than the level of the street. Scores of buses were parked at all angles in the yard, and their tires had torn the mud up until the yard looked like a vehicular Verdun. All of the buses were owned by private companies—one bus per company, usually, with a single route to run—and all of their agents at the wood-and-cloth booths at the entrance clamored for our attention, as if we might have come in without a particular destination in mind, and would pick the agent that made the loudest offer.

  Actually, this time it was almost true. But I spotted the agent for the Jiri bus, which is where I had thought to send Freds, and I bought two tickets, in a crowd of all the other agents, who criticized my choice. Freds hunkered down a little, looking suitably distressed. A big hubbub arose; one of the companies had established its right to leave the yard next, and now its bus was trying to make it up the driveway, which was the one and only exit from the yard.

  Each departure was a complete test of the driver, the bus’s clutch and tires, and the advisory abilities of the agents standing around. After a lot of clutching and coaching this brightly painted bus squirted up the incline, and the scheduling debate began anew. Only three buses had unblocked access to the driveway, and the argument among their agents was fierce.

  I took Freds in hand and we wandered around the track-torn mud, looking for the Jiri bus. Eventually we found it: gaily painted in yellow, blue, green and red, like all the rest, ours also had about forty decals of Ganesh stuck all over the windshield, to help the driver see. As usual, the company’s “other bus” was absent, and this one was double-booked. We shoved our way on board and through the tightly packed crowd in the aisle, then found empty seats at the back. The Nepalis like to ride near the front. After more boardings, the crowd engulfed us even in the back. But we had Freds at a window, which is what I wanted.

  Through the mud-flecked glass I could just see our tail: Phil Adrakian, and two men who might have been Secret Service agents, though I wasn’t sure about that. They were fending off the bus agents and trying to get into the yard at the same time, a tough combination. As they sidestepped the bus agents they got in the driveway and almost got run over by the bus currently sliding up and down the slope; one slipped in the mud sc
rambling away, and fell on his ass. The bus agents thought this was great. Adrakian and the other two hurried off, and squished from bus to bus trying to look like they weren’t looking for anything. They were pursued by the most persistent agents, and got mired in the mud from time to time, and I worried after a while that they wouldn’t be able to find us. In fact it took them about twenty minutes. But then one saw Freds at the window, and they ducked behind a bus hulk that had sunk axle-deep, waving off the agents in desperate sign language. “Hooked for good,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Freds replied without moving his lips.

  The bus was now completely packed; an old woman had even been insinuated between Freds and me, which suited me fine. But it was going to be another miserable trip. “You’re really doing your part for the cause,” I said to Freds as I prepared to depart, thinking of the cramped day ahead of him.

  “No hroblem!” he said liplessly. “I like these ‘us trits!”

  Somehow I believed him. I weaseled my way upright in the aisle and said good-bye. Our tails were watching the bus’s only door, but that wasn’t really much of a problem. I just squirmed between the Nepalis, whose concept of personal “body space” is pretty much exactly confined to the space their bodies are actually occupying—none of this eighteen-inch bullshit for them—and got to a window on the other side of the bus. There was no way our watchers could have seen across the interior of that bus, so I was free to act. I apologized to the Sherpa I was sitting on, worked the window open, and started to climb out. The Sherpa very politely helped me, without the slightest suggestion I was going anything out of the ordinary, and I jumped down into the mud. Hardly anyone on the bus even noticed my departure. I snuck through the no-man’s-land of the back buses. Quickly enough I was back on Durbar Marg and in a cab on my way to the Star.