Sleeping Tigers (28 page)

“He is here,” the man said solemnly. “Up the stairs you will find him, in the men’s loft. The ladies are across the hall from there.” He pointed at the center door leading out of the kitchen and went back to his cards.

The kitchen was separated from the rest of the house by a striped curtain hung in the doorway. I pushed the cloth aside and forced my aching legs to climb the steep wooden stairs.

I’d never felt so tired. There were probably twenty stairs, but it felt like two hundred. I dropped my pack in an empty corner in one loft room, where a pair of young women–both of them with short, spiky hair dyed the pink color of cotton candy–lay reading, legs tucked into sleeping bags.

The wooden platform bed was built to sleep six people but had no mattresses. One of the women smiled and greeted me—her accent was heavy and German–but quickly returned her eyes to her electronic reader.

I crossed the hall in my bare feet. The floor was warm up here because of the kitchen fire. The rain hammered on the tin roof, which leaked like a sieve into various metal pots placed in strategic spots along the floor. The pinging symphony drilled into my skull.

The second floor was even smokier than the kitchen, despite the curtain across the stairs. In the men’s loft, the only light emanated from a flickering kerosene lantern at the far end. There wasn’t even a platform bed here, only the wooden floor. It was nearly covered with sleeping bags and wool blankets.

A head protruded from inside a heap of blankets on the left side of the room. I recognized Cam’s tangled pale hair, the only part of him that I could see, and called his name from the doorway. He didn’t answer.

I approached slowly, watching my brother closely for signs of movement, suddenly terrified that he’d died up here without anybody noticing. But no: Cam’s hands were moving. He made shadows dart this way and that against the wall, the way he had when we were children entertaining ourselves at night:
This is a wolf eating a rabbit, this is a princess trapped in the jaws of a lion.
Preparing ourselves for epic lives, we giggled our way through preposterous shadow plays, using flashlights after our mother hushed us and told us to go to sleep.

“Cam?” I stood directly behind him. My brother faced the wall. He held something in one hand, a small plastic cube with an abstract metal sculpture inside it.

“Cam?” I repeated. The wool smelled like a combination of urine and wet goat. I moved to stand between my brother and the wall. “Cameron!” I said sharply.

He shifted his weight slightly and squinted up at me. “Ruth?”

Who was Ruth? I got down on my knees next to the lantern and touched his forehead. Cam’s skin was hot and dry, almost papery, and his blue eyes had lost their luster and were sunk deep into the sockets. He had a raging fever. His face was covered with a short, scraggly beard, and the slender stalk of his neck protruded from a deep valley of sharp collarbones.

How long had my brother been sick? I couldn’t remember what Jon had said; my own eyes were threatening to close and my muscles were on fire.

“Cam? It’s me, Jordan,” I said gently.

Cam stared at me without comprehension. I began to panic, my own breath coming in short, dry gasps. “Cam,” I said again. “It’s Jordy. I’m here.”

He rolled onto his back, offering up the plastic cube in the palm of his hand for my inspection. “Treasure,” he said.

I still didn’t know if he recognized me. “Cam, do you know who I am?”

My brother nodded, then turned his gaze back on the cube. “This pyramid lets the old souls come to you,” he said, his speech slightly slurred. “But be careful. If you hold it more than a few minutes, you get a headache.” He set the cube down on the floor and closed his eyes.

What the hell was he talking about? I studied the room, trying to calm myself. The only window was covered with plastic which rattled with rain. There were more books than gear, and a few t-shirts and bandanas were draped over a wash line.

Whose were they? Little in the room seemed to belong to Cam, other than a small heap of clothing next to his nest of holey blankets and a tin cup like a prisoner’s. The cup was empty. When did he last have anything to eat or drink?

I reached out and shook Cam’s shoulders. “How long have you been here?”

My brother opened his eyes again and grinned crookedly. I inhaled sharply at the sight of Paris’s face mirrored in her father’s. “Now, that’s an interesting question, isn’t it? How long we’ve been here?” He started humming an unrecognizable tune.

“You need a doctor.” By now, I was talking more to myself than to Cam. “How long have you had this fever? When was the last time you ate?”

Cam stared at me, his gaze nearly vacant but for the reflection of the flickering lamplight. “My fever’s going down again now. Before, I was shaking so bad, it felt like my bones were going to fly out of my skin. Weird stuff. I was, like, hallucinating and shitting blood.” He shuddered. “I can’t eat until I’ve starved the bugs out of my body. Fasting’s the only way to drive them out. I’m staying up here to avoid temptation.” He sighed. “Did you know they make apple pancakes here? That’s the first thing I’ll have when I’m cured.”

“You’re not going to cure yourself this way. You’ll just dry out like a locust shell.”

Cam shook a bony finger at me. “Don’t take care of me. I’m on a mission. I have to take care of the world before it will take care of me.”

I reached out and touched his forehead again. His fever must be 103, at least. Between that and fasting, Cam could very well be hallucinating, drifting in and out of a trance state. It was nearly dark now; I would have to wait until morning to descend the mountain again into Pokhara. There must be a clinic there, and I could get cell service, call my mother. I had to let her know that I’d found Cam. I could call David, too. He would know how to help my brother.

Cam had fallen asleep. I needed a bathroom desperately. I made my way back down to the kitchen. The Spaniard was still playing cards. I decided to try my own luck rather than ask him, and passed through the curtain covering the door to the right. The long room behind the striped cotton was furnished with several chairs, a small table occupied by a battered Scrabble game, and a platform bed.

Domingo and Melody were lying on the bed side-by-side without touching. Domingo snored with the uneven, guttural sounds of a faulty lawnmower. Melody heard me enter and sat up slowly, straight-backed as a zombie rising in a coffin. She looked like the living dead, too, with black circles beneath her eyes and a cauliflower complexion. She stared at me as if I were a ghost.

“You’re Cam’s sister,” she said.

I wanted to ask her questions, but first things first. “I’m looking for a bathroom,” I said.

Melody nodded slowly, as if there were nothing surprising at all about me jetting all the way to the Himalayas to find a bathroom. “There isn’t one,” she said.

This was not good news. “So what do I do?”

She pointed through the kitchen door. “You have to go outside. Head for the stone wall near the river. There’s an outhouse, but don’t try it. It’s overflowing because of the rains. Everyone just goes behind the wall. Left side of the wall for pissing, right side for everything else. Watch your step. Not everybody follows the rules.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Welcome to the Kingdom of Nepal.” Melody granted me the shadow of a smile.

With a wince, I slid my feet back into my cold, sodden hiking boots and ventured forth. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but by now it was completely dark. The river crashed angrily against its banks nearby. With my luck, I’d probably fall in and be dashed against the rocks before I even had a chance to pee.

The outhouse appeared suddenly in the mist, a crooked gray shack with a metal roof. I sidestepped to the right of it and squatted behind the stone wall, taking in the outlines of the village houses huddled on either side of the river. The water glinted a metallic gray, occasionally sending up a white plume. Something stank of sulfur and minerals. The hot springs, maybe. A couple of water buffalo wandered along the river banks, snorting and then breaking into a trot, tossing their heads.

Back inside, Melody was in the kitchen. I took off my boots again and set them near the fire. Melody handed me a cup of tea, but her eyes wandered and I knew that she was looking for Jon.

I cradled the mug in my hands, hoping the water had been boiled, and glanced at the Spaniard. He was softly cursing over his hand of cards. Apparently he’d failed to beat himself at his own rigged game. “What’s wrong with Cam?” I asked Melody.

Melody wore a gray sari that had come partly unwound and dragged on the floor. She hoisted herself onto the edge of the table and perched there with her broad flanks nearly on top of the cards scattered on the table. The Spaniard gave her rear a push, but she ignored him. “I don’t know. Domingo and I have been helping Jon in the orchard, but Cam’s been sleeping for like five days. When he’s not puking, that is.”

“Ouch. Poor guy. What does he have?”

“Probably the same parasites we’ve all got, only worse,” she said. “Jon wanted to check out another government volunteer program near Chitwan, something to do with orchids, so we stopped there for a while. The mosquitoes are bad in the lowlands at this time of year, and the water is even worse. We purified the water but every one of us got sick anyway. Except Jon, of course,” she added. “He drinks right out of the rivers, and look at him. Amazing.”

Pretty hard to look at a guy who’s never around, I thought, but there was no need to belabor the obvious to Melody. At least Jon didn’t leave her behind with Val. Where Jon was concerned, that probably counted as a major life commitment.

“Has Cam seen a doctor?”

Melody shook her head. “He’s fasting to rid himself of the parasites.” She pinched a handful of her own sari-covered stomach in disgust. “We all fasted, but I’m the only one who still managed to gain weight.”

I couldn’t see how parasites would be driven out by fasting, but maybe they knew something I didn’t. “Why didn’t any of you take Cam to the doctor, if he’s so much worse than you are?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “Cam has no interest in doctors. He wants to beat this thing on his own.”

“What is
wrong
with you?” I asked, exasperated. “That’s idiotic and cruel. You don’t just let somebody lie around with a 103-degree fever for five days!”

Melody bristled. “What did you expect me to do? Carry Cam down the mountain when he’d just fight me the whole way? Don’t start giving me shit just because your brother is so fucking determined to make things harder for the rest of us! If it were up to me, I would have made him stay in Berkeley to deal with things there. Jon’s the one who insisted that Cam needed to do this, too, to prove that he was worthwhile or something. I think Jon was afraid to leave him on his own.”

“Sorry. You’re right. This isn’t your problem.” I set my mug down on the table. The Spaniard immediately picked up my tea and drank it, slurping noisily.

“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” I flicked the man’s hairy cheating wrist with two fingers so hard that the tea splashed out of the cup and onto his hand.

“
Putana
!” the man yelped, setting the mug down. He narrowed his eyes at me, then lost interest and picked up his cards again.

Melody grinned. “Meet Fernando, our resident bastard,” she said. “He’s hanging out here until it’s cool enough to go back to the beach in Goa.”

Without taking his eyes off the cards, Fernando reached over and pinched Melody’s hip. “You,” he said solemnly, “are a big pest whore.”

Melody rolled her eyes.

“So how do I go about renting a room in this place?” I asked. “Or do I have to volunteer?”

“You pay either way.”

“You pay to volunteer?” I was incredulous.

She shrugged. “Nepal needs the money. Ostensibly, the money is supposed to go to the lodge and the people in the village, but I have my doubts. Anyway, you pay the girl who works in the kitchen. It’s the equivalent of ten dollars a day for all meals included and a bed in the loft. Everyone calls her ‘Didi.’ Domingo and I are sleeping downstairs, but there’s room in the women’s loft. You can wash at the pump outside, in the courtyard, or bathe in the hot springs along the river.”

I thanked her and climbed upstairs again to check on Cam before I settled in for the night.

Cam heard my footsteps and stirred to a half-sitting position. “Jordy? How’s Mom?” he croaked.

I sat down beside him and studied his face, surprised that he would ask about our mother. Maybe Cam knew how much she worried about him and felt guilty despite his own best efforts to forget that he even had parents.

“She’s on the outs with Dad.” I hesitated, thinking I might add something about Mom taking care of Paris right now, then decided against it when a deep cough rattled Cam’s chest. We could talk about Paris when Cam felt better.

“Mom is always on the outs with Dad,” he wheezed then. “That’s her M.O.”

“This is serious. She left him this time,” I said. “She’s with me in San Francisco.”

I thought of my mother, and of Paris, too, who at this hour was probably in her high chair, happily gumming a bagel or scooping up oatmeal with her fingers. I turned the knob on Cam’s lantern slightly to see Cam’s face better. The raindrops sounded as big as golf balls on the metal roof above us.