The Waiting Land (17 page)

A week ago the more tiresome aspects of being possessed by a
Nepal-born
dog began to obtrude on the idyll. I am due home in December and a letter of enquiry to the Irish Embassy in Delhi brought a
fearsome
array of lengthy documents by return of post. These made it plain that our Department of Agriculture is allergic to alien
quadrupeds
, and the pages of grim regulations are clearly intended to eradicate all the imprudent affections indulged in by Irish citizens abroad. But
an Irish Government Department should know better than to attempt to thwart the desires of an Irish citizen. My determination to ‘import a domestic pet of the canine species [dog to you] into the State from a place abroad’ hardened rapidly as I read these formidable strictures; even had I actively disliked Tashi they would have inspired me to import her ‘separately confined in a suitable hamper, crate, box or other receptacle which must be nose and paw proof and must not contain any hay, straw or peat-moss litter’. It was in an aggressive mood that I completed the preliminary from and wrote the preliminary letters to ‘the approved quarantine premises’ and the ‘approved carrying agents’, while Tashi lay peacefully asleep by my feet, unaware that during the next few months a lot of people were going to make a very big fuss about a very little dog.

Two days ago I came to a Kathmandu where, outside the Embassy compounds and The Royal Hotel, no one would suspect our southern neighbours of being at war. The Royal has been completely deserted by the seasonal swarm of rich tourists who briefly visit Nepal on their Round-the-World-Air-Trips, and poor Boris is looking very dejected. Because of his own legendary soft-heartedness it costs a great deal just to keep that vast hotel ticking over; all other hoteliers have dismissed most of their staff, but Boris argues – ‘It’s not the servants’ fault that there’s a war on. They work hard and loyally when I need them so how can I turn them out now?’ No wonder they are loyal to him!

I spent three hours at the airport this morning excavating a consignment of Multi-Purpose Food from among the mountains of supplies that are now accumulating there. Ironically the present crisis has speeded up the arrival of goods from Calcutta; most
passenger-flights
have been cancelled so RNAC has taken to transporting the freight back-log instead of losing money on idle planes, and now the airport is crammed with bales, crates, chests and cartons of every description. The 150 tins of Multi-Purpose Food had been awaiting transportation at Calcutta Airport for the past seven weeks and might have been there for the next seven months had the more profitable passenger traffic not been stopped.

Today I spent over nine hours at the airport waiting for ‘a departure’
that never departed. Weather conditions were suitable for the Pokhara flight so there was a possibility, from 8 a.m. onwards, that we might take off at any moment – if this, that or t’other did not intervene. But they did intervene – apparently all three of them – and at 5.20 p.m. the Pokhara flight was cancelled.

Then came the struggle back to Jawalkhel with my usual elaborate refugee-luggage. The present consignment is made up of three boxes of dried milk weighing 60 lb. each, six tins of Multi-Purpose Food weighing 40 lb. each and two boxes of medical supplies weighing 20 lb. each – plus a
dokar
of fresh vegetables for the Shining Hospital, weighing 30 lb. and a cloth shoulder bag of personal luggage weighing 21⁄2 lb. Amidst the chaos of Kathmandu Airport it is not easy to guard so many separate pieces for nine hours; in fact this can only be done by building a pyramid and then sitting on it, like Patience on a monument, smiling at delay. It is even less easy to get it all back to base, while horribly aware that somehow it must be dragged to the airport again at dawn; the damnable thing is that no official Left Luggage Office exists either at the airport itself or at the RNAC Terminal in New Road.

At 5.30 I tried to scrounge a friend’s car, but the telephones in the relevant district were dead. Then, at 6.15, the airport bus wheezed along, my luggage was loaded up and by 7.50 I had got it all unloaded and brought into the Terminal office, where I attempted to telephone Sigrid. Having failed I called for a taxi, loaded up again and finally arrived back here at 8.15, feeling crabbed.

Life is getting easier; today I only spent six hours waiting at the airport.

Being Saturday this is Sigrid’s day off, yet she most nobly rose at dawn and drove me and my beastly luggage to New Road, where we were told that the departure of the airport bus had been postponed from 8 to 10 a.m. I then said another provisional goodbye to this most long-suffering of hostesses, whose stoical endurance of my comings and not-goings is beyond compare; when I arrived back at
Jawalkhel yesterday evening she at once soothed me by seeming so pleased that I
hadn’t
got to Pokhara!

The bus eventually decanted me and my baggage at the airport at 11.30 a.m. and, having reconstructed my pyramid, I perched hopefully on it until 5.30 p.m. when my patience was rewarded by an
announcement
that the Pokhara flight had again been cancelled for undisclosed reasons. I then repeated the luggage-shifting performance, which is now becoming merely another daily chore, and at the Terminal office I was advised to report there tomorrow morning at 6.30 and told that a seat was guaranteed for me – but there was no guarantee of a flight to Pokhara.

Perhaps a flight did go to Pokhara today, but this passenger was not among those present. By a painful coincidence I’ve done it again and fractured two ribs in a bus – though mercifully they are not the two that were cracked a couple of years ago in an Afghan bus. Yet I mustn’t let this become a habit …

The misadventure occurred yesterday on the way back from the airport but, as sometimes happens with rib injuries, the extent of the damage was not immediately apparent. This bus had distinct affinities with Afghan models, and all our luggage was piled high in the centre of the chassis, between the two narrow wooden benches. The driver was little short of a lunatic, and when a sacred bull suddenly ambled into view from behind a line of grass-carrying porters we were going far too fast to cope safely with this everday contingency. The sudden braking threw me violently against a tin of that dratted Multi-Purpose Food but, though the pain was momentarily severe, I thought no more of the incident until I woke in agony at midnight, about an hour after going to sleep.

Sigrid was still out a bridge-party – as usual not knowing whether her guest was here or there – but she came in soon afterwards, made calming noises, bound me tightly in sheeting and, by administering three codeine tablets and a glass of neat brandy, convinced me that this was the most minor of injuries. Then, after a slight battle about
the advisability of my annexing the bed upstairs, I again lay on my Tibetan rug, beside a most sympathetic Puchare, and was asleep within moments.

This morning Dr Gyr sent me to the Nepal TB Centre for an X-ray to confirm his diagnosis of two fractured ribs; but on arriving there, after a torturingly joltful car journey, I found no X-rays can be taken until tomorrow as this is a National Holiday. However, I hope to be fit to fly to Pokhara on Tuesday.

For about a week after The Event, simple rib-fractures have a way of feeling less simple each day; even had Dr Gyr not banned any travelling in the immediate future I would have cancelled my booking for today’s hypothetical Pokhara flight.

Yesterday morning I dutifully kept my appointment for 9.30 at the TB Centre, only to be told that the generator had just developed a weakness and couldn’t reasonably be expected to function before 1 p.m. Eventually, at 2.45, I was dealt with by a very pleasant but fascinatingly witless young radiologist who, when the picture had been developed, spent five minutes intently studying it – though even I could see at a glance that it didn’t happen to include the particular ribs specified by Dr Gyr.

Last night the pain was acute but by now it has diminished considerably, after a day spent reading and sunbathing in the garden.

During Sigrid’s office-hours her house becomes a sort of club where Donbahadur and his friends meet to sing and play on the long Nepalese drum, to teach each other curious versions of the English and German languages, to flirt blissfully with other people’s wives, to drink tea and gossip affectionately about their respective employers – or to spend hours in the garden preparing kites for competitions, as they were doing today.

The kite-flying season opens after the monsoon and now, all over the valley, one sees ‘defeated’ kites hanging sadly from tree-tops or electric cables. Yesterday I watched three duels being fought
simultaneously
in the blue sky far, far above. Usually the strings are invisible
and it’s utterly absorbing to follow the extremely skilful manoeuvrings of these soaring, swooping, fluttering protagonists – whose owners are never seen, so that one imagines each kite to have an alert little built-in brain.

Donbahadur is a local champion and today he was preparing his kite for an important contest due to take place tomorrow, if the present deliciously fresh breeze persists. His string is over one hundred yards long and every inch of it, above the first five or six yards, has now been coated with the powdered glass which will perhaps cut his opponents’ string tomorrow. This seemed to me a most tedious process, but clearly Donbahadur was loving every moment of it. His friend Tulbahadur, the milkman, helped him to extend the string to its full length, winding it tautly around trees and bushes, and then Donbahadur fetched from the kitchen Sigrid’s best saucepan, in which he had boiled a mixture of flour, water and not too finely ground glass. This paste was most meticulously applied to the string and, when the sun had quickly dried it, every inch was expertly tested to ensure that the caked flour was holding each tiny splinter in place. Then, while the precious string was being gingerly wound back onto its reel, I unobtrusively took the saucepan to the bathroom to remove all traces of its lethal contents.

This date will be remembered as my most horrible day in Nepal.

I had just sat down to breakfast when an odd exclamation came from upstairs and then a dead-pale Sigrid appeared through the little mock-cupboard door. ‘I’ve been robbed,’ she said. ‘Everything has gone – jewellery, cameras, films – everything.’ Immediately I felt a cold sickness at the centre of me, caused not only by natural distress on her behalf but by the immediate, devastating realisation that the burglar’s success was entirely
my
fault.

Yesterday evening I was writing at the living-room table when a not very helpful section of my brain registered footsteps directly overhead. I thought vaguely, ‘Sigrid must have come home while I was in the loo’ – and went on writing. Moments later I heard bangings against
the outside wall of the house directly behind my chair; but I was registering these sounds only superficially, and was automatically rejecting them, as one does all disturbances to concentration. My animal sense of hearing had assured me that they were either directly overhead or directly behind me; yet when Sigrid came in my malfunctioning human reason contradicted the evidence of my senses simply because it did not seem possible that anyone could have been upstairs. There is no valid excuse for this moronic behaviour but Sigrid, being Sigrid, now says ‘not to worry’, and claims that it is her own fault for always leaving cupboards unlocked and windows wide open. I might feel better this evening had she shown less magnanimity and given me my deserts.

When Donbahadur heard the news he was almost as upset as we were. Tulbahadur was in the kitchen (he seems to breakfast here more often than not) and immediately we all went to Patan in Sigrid’s car.

The police station is among the oldest and loveliest of Patan’s Newari buildings. In a wall-niche on one side of the main entrance stands a statue of Hanuman, the Monkey God, and this ancient sculpture is regularly smeared by the devout with red and yellow powder and paint. The eaves of the building are supported and the lintels decorated by very detailed carvings of naked gods and goddesses being no better than they should be – a form of art often alleged to be obscene, though to me it seems more witty than smutty. One can understand that it might not be considered the most apt sort of embellishment for a European police station; but if the Nepalese have retained enough balance to see the humour in sex this is surely a matter for congratulation rather than criticism.

Inside the building a rickety stairway led to the top-floor office of the Chief of Police; his unstable desk occupied one corner beside the small windows, the exquisitely carved shutters of which were lifted inwards and hooked to the low rafters during the day. The officer himself was fat, elderly and badly pock-marked, with a shaven head and steel-rimmed spectacles. On our arrival he gazed silently at us, his expression conveying some deep-rooted dislike for robbed
memsahibs
, and after a moment told us through Donbahadur that we
would have to await the appearance of the police interpreter – who might or might not report for duty before lunch-time.

The four of us then sat on a bench near the window, and an hour later we were surprised by the arrival of Lal Rana, the young interpreter, whose relative punctuality made me suspect that the Chief’s pessimism on this point had been a ruse to drive us impatient foreigners away. Lal Rana was amiable but inept; when Sigrid attempted to make her
statement
he – and all his colleagues – showed far less interest in the crime than they did in her and my ages, occupations, passport numbers, home addresses and next-of-kin. Then the interpreter proudly announced that the police had ‘a panel of local thieves’ whom they would now proceed to question – whereupon Sigrid suggested, a trifle acidly, that were they to pay just a little attention to her description of the stolen articles their investigations might prove more fruitful. At once it was generally agreed that a list of the missing goods would indeed be helpful; then Lal Rana suddenly got very excited, said that of course they could take fingerprints too and dashed off to collect the relevant apparatus. This was bought last month from the Lucknow police, who had decided to replace it by some rather more up-to-date equipment; and when I saw it I realised that the Lucknow police had not made their decision prematurely.

Four other police officers followed us back here on foot – two clad in shabby uniforms and two in vivaciously striped pyjamas. It was not clear to me which pair were the senior officers; one could interpret the wearing of pyjamas while on duty either as a privilege reserved for higher ranks or as a mark of lowliness in the force – and none of these five men seemed to have any authority over the other four. However, they all revelled in the crime and went prowling around Sigrid’s
bedroom
with preposterously exaggerated caution, taking great care to wrap towels around their hands before touching the woollen curtains; but in the end it was Sigrid who observed the many burnt matches on the cupboard shelves and the floor, though neither she nor I – much less the police – was able to make any astute deduction from this clue.