Chapter One

            The man whose turn preceded Jim’s was nearly finished talking about his climb of Everest.  The speech was long, and self-celebrating…but he had a pleasant voice and was handsome and at ease.  In the audience some smiled and nodded, knowingly, when the man liked their way.

            Jim was in Nepal as that team climbed, and he heard, then, that when a member got altitude sickness and needed to be brought down, they didn’t do that…and the fellow died.  And it was thought to be a desire for self-celebrating which caused the death.

            Jim told himself, now, that perhaps he didn’t know the truth of that matter.  He would applaud the man’s climb.

            He looked at the Eurasian girl in the front row to see if she were yet staring at him.  She smiled…so he did.  But he guessed that she attended this way only because of having been introduced to him, just an hour ago, by her father, an older man form the British Consulate here in New York.  Allan Thorne.

            Her name was Lin Thorne.  She would be in Nepal in a week or two...with an Everest expedition her boyfriend was part of.  She was a member of the team.  But…when he asked about her plans to climb it, she didn’t answer.

            Another friend in the audience was Ang Bubbha, a sherpa guide, who had climbed the mountain from the north, the Chinese side, and with whom Jim had spent several days walking in Nepal.  He had been brought here by the sponsor of Lin’s team, Sadhev Raj Dahal, a Nepali Hindu.

            Sitting with Dahal was his sister, Indira Manandhar.  She was the boss at the Southwest Airline office in Kathmandu.  Many times, there, he had talked with her.  She had lovely, deep eyes…and he assumed she had seen much in her life, and maybe was able to see more than others could, in the same thing.  And when he looked into her eyes, she seemed unwaveringly receptive.

            He wished she were not here; he wasn’t planning to speak about that mountain, but of something closer to the emotional center of her life…the Hindu caste system.  He was afraid he might hurt her feelings.

            The evening’s host now walked to the podium.

 “Thank you, Mr. Frontenac.  You certainly had an amazing time on the mountain.  For that speech you should get an award.  But, we can only give you applause…and here’s more of it.”  He began to clap, getting the audience to do it again.

            He quieted them.

            “Sagarmatha…the highest place.  It costs a lot of money to get above base camp…and the permit, for each person, will soon be ten thousand dollars.  Our next speaker may be the last to climb it at today’s conditions.  The price will be high for years, as they clear debris.”  He glanced back at Jim before continuing.  “Also, if you won’t see forty again…this is the time to do it.”

            “Jim is a New Hampshire man…who has lived in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands the past twenty six years.  A quiet man…I had to dig a bit to find that he attended Columbia University, long ago, and was several years in the military…the army.  He was a school teacher.  No he’s a carpenter and a fisherman.

            “Let’s welcome a man who had had to work for it…and is about to spend it.  Jim Bart.”

            Jim walked to the podium.

            “Thanks!” he said, glancing behind him, at the host.  “Good evening, everyone.”  Then he arranged the papers before him on the stand.  “Inside…most of us are the same.  I try to be kind…and just…and to be free of inappropriate forms of anger and desire.  I try to be like a mountain, resting in what I am…yet having an empty place on me able to be filled.  I love beauty; I go to be with it.  Also, I’m adventurous and enjoy pushing myself physically…as well as with the mind and the heart, trying to get to the empty places.

            “I’ll speak, now, about the Hindu caste system, with its fatal base…the belief in reincarnation, as the demands of it are presently defined.”

            He touched his papers on the podium, and listened.  The audience was silent…so he went on.

(At the end of the chapter, Jim goes to his hotel.)

            When Jim got to his hotel room door he was tired.  So, he nearly missed seeing the envelope on the floor.  He opened it and looked at the note.

                Mr. Bart:

                        If you make that speech in Kathmandu, I will have you killed.

                        Oh, what a waste!…for such a man as you to die!

Chapter Four

            After a superior lunch, Jim arrived at Tribhuvan Airport, Kathmandu.  He was tired so, once beyond customs, he let a driver carry his heavy packsack to a taxi.  He was weary because in addition to a twenty four hour flight from New York, he had sat overnight in Bangkok’s terminal.  But, he settled into the taxi with a feeling of disgust not caused by the physical…rather it was from having experienced the “privilege” of Executive Class travel.

            Travel was difficult because of renewed tension in the mid-east, between the United States and Iraq…this calling for luggage to be carefully checked.  But, being privileged, he hadn’t needed to get into that line and be bothered.  When he came to the inspectors they said “Go right through, Sir!”

            “Where to, Sir?” said the driver, with no apparent servility in his voice.

            The vehicle got moving.

            “Tibet Guest House, please.”

            The driver was about thirty five, Jim thought.  He was a thin man with a likeable face.  Now, he looked into the mirror at his passenger.

            “The Blue Diamond is better for you.”

            “Yes.  I’ve stayed there before.  And I liked it…but I need to sort of hide, this time.”

            “Are you famous?”

            “No.”  Now Jim began to relax.  “But some people will be looking for me.  Maybe one of them will be a big fat woman.”

            The driver laughed.

            “Your wife?”

            “No.  Actually, my girlfriend is skinny…but she can knock me down and sit on me.”

            “My wife is skinny,” said the driver, laughing.  “…but she can knock me down…easy. Where are you from?”

            “U.S.A. New Hampshire.  Way on the other side.  What’s your name?”

            “Raju.”  And he turned slightly, extending his arm.

            Jim shook the man’s hand.

            “My name is Jim…Bart.  Raju, will you please drive past the central bus station and Ratna Park.”

            “You’ve been here many times?”

            “Six times.  I’m looking for a fat woman…and can’t find her.”

            “None here!  Look! Raju answered, laughing, and pointing toward the side of the road at the hundreds of people walking along.  “All skinny!  Oh…wait!  There’s one!”  He referred to a woman who had stepped into the street and was approaching.

            To Jim she was mid-weight, maybe a hundred twenty pounds.

            “If you like her…I’ll snap my fingers, and she’s yours!”

            They both laughed.

            “Raju…in the morning I’ll be going to the Ministry of Tourism.”

            “I’ll come to your hotel.”

            “And in a couple days I’ll climb Phulchoki, maybe. South of here.  Do you know it?  Can you take me there?”

            Once, years ago, Jim had hiked that mountain to loosen his muscles, but now a different purpose could be served.  Always before, on the way to Everest, he had taken the bus to the end of the road, to Jiri, and walked eastward from there five or six days to Lukla, going above ten thousand feet at Lamjura Pass…thus being somewhat acclimatized when he turned north.  This time he might fly to Lukla, and because Phulchoki was higher than eight thousand feet, the climb would be helpful in that way.

            “Yes.  I can take you there,” said Raju.  Then he sighed.  “Fifteen…twenty years ago many people did trips like that, near Kathmandu.  But, no more.  They go to the big mountains, only.”

            The taxi had turned south, and was coming abreast of the central bus station, visible through the left window.  He saw dozens of buses being loaded, in and out, meaning also on top of, with baggage and people.  And he remembered the place being busy at five in the morning, each time he goat a ride to Jiri.

            “There seems to be more people, Raju…each time I come.”

            Raju pointed through the taxi’s right hand window, at Ratna Park, where hundreds were milling about a small clothing and houseware bazaar.

            “There are too many, now, Sir.  They come every day…from the villages."

            Jim knew there was also an excessive number from India…and that they didn’t need a visa to enter Nepal.  And he knew that when they came and remained, they fed the Hindu caste system, to the service and support if high-caste Nepalis.

            “And too many tourists,” Jim said.

            “Not here!”  Raju answered, looking left and right.  “But…too many.”

            They went clockwise around the area, and now headed north, with Ratna Park yet seen through the right window.

            “There will be speeches here, Raju.  In four days.  Saturday.  Did you know that?”

            “I heard that.  Yes.  Elections are coming.”

            “I’ll be speaking.”

            Raju looked into the mirror, and almost hit a pedestrian…although he didn’t seem to give import to that.

            “You are someone.  I knew it!  Do you speak for a candidate?  I’ll be there.”

            “I can’t openly support a candidate.  I’ve been invited to discuss the nature of democracy.”  As Raju shook his head in approval, Jim added “But I’ll only speak about it a little.”

            “You don’t like democracy?”

            “I love it!…if it is used properly…which it isn’t, in Nepal.  But, I’m going to speak about the caste system, and reincarnation.  Do you believe that the legless man sitting on the sidewalk…deserves to be there?”

            “He was bad before.  But…I don’t know.”  Raju paused a few seconds.  “No!  He shouldn’t be there.  I am a Hindu, but I don’t like it when people are poor.”

            When Jim didn’t immediately add to the conversation, Raju again looked into the mirror.  And now he became animated.

            “In what I can’t do, I’m poor.  But, I’m comfortable, now, compared to many.  Millions of Nepalis are sick of having almost nothing.  When you speak I will be there…and I’ll tell others.”

            The taxi had been traveling a road which was tarred and in good condition, and now it got a bit better as they approached the palace walls; it got darker and smoother and wider, and touched only high-class hotels, banks, trekking agencies, restaurants.  Durbar Marg, Kantipath…two roads that were very superior for a couple hundred yards.  But…when Raju turned left, westward, Jim could see another world, and although it was familiar to him, the difference from the one he was moving over seemed more startling than it had before.

            Beyond the Central Immigration office, there to his right, and the pile of garbage in the street, to his left, it all narrowed and turned to dirt.  The sidewalks ended.  A zoo of vehicles and pedestrians began.

            He looked away from it.

            Raju had stopped the taxi in order to avoid hitting a group of Newar women of the sweeper caste, carrying empty baskets…two each…strung to a pole on their shoulders.

            In the street near the left-hand sidewalk was a pile of garbage beside which a dozen children lay or sat…most of them on cardboard or blankets.

            Jim knew that many of the people of this town, with no water or toilets, and using tiny kerosene stove for cooking, had to dispose of garbage by throwing it into the street…to be put into small piles before being carried away to a bigger one such as this…which pile would soon be gone.  But it was always there…particularly so to these children who ate from it, and to visitors who hated it…or loved it, secretly, because it made them feel superior.