The Wishing Trees (10 page)

Ian watched Mattie as they walked around a sleeping cow. Her brown Mickey and Minnie Mouse T-shirt made her freckles even more pronounced. A pair of blue shorts revealed slender legs that seemed to have recently sprouted from her tennis shoes. Her braids weren’t as tightly woven as they’d been when Kate had worked her magic. Unfortunately, try as he might, Ian had never mastered Kate’s skill of plaiting three strands of hair. And Mattie didn’t seem to want to learn.

To Ian, Mattie looked so vulnerable. She was young and thin and innocent. What right did Kate have to ask her to travel to Nepal? Was Kate’s mind clear at the end, with so many drugs swirling within her? How could it have been clear? If it had been she wouldn’t have asked them to come here, where they were so far from help.

Though Ian and Kate had rarely fought, their few arguments had tended to be about risk taking. Kate had always pushed him, sometimes too hard. It was she who wanted to climb mountains, to travel like nomads, to move to New York without jobs. He’d always been more cautious. He didn’t mind a degree of risk, but many of her desires seemed too perilous. And while some peril might have been fine when it was just the two of them, Ian wasn’t pleased that he and Mattie had been led to Nepal, a place with few doctors and many dangers.

As they walked closer to the center of Kathmandu, the streets narrowed. Hundreds of black electrical wires ran from building to building, as if an immense spider’s web had been dropped on top of the city. Ian glanced down an alley and saw a pile of trash the size of a minivan. Children were sifting through the pile. Ian started to turn away, but Mattie tugged on his hand. “What, Roo?” he asked, pulling her closer as honking cars maneuvered through the foot traffic.

“What are those children doing?”

“I don’t know. Probably sorting through all that rubbish for food.”

“For food?”

“Yeah, luv,” he replied, bending lower so that he was at her level. “I reckon we’re going to see a heap of that on this walkabout. A heap of suffering.”

Mattie looked at the children again and shook her head. “But why?”

“Because the world isn’t always a fair place. And those children might not have parents. They might not have homes. They’re doing what’s necessary to survive.”

She bit her bottom lip, thinking about how it felt to be alone. “Can we help them, Daddy?”

“How do you want to help them?”

“I don’t know how. But I want to.”

Ian nodded. Since Kate’s death he had wanted to help others, to share his wealth, to generate some good from the rewards of his work, which had kept him away from his family. Holding Mattie’s hand, he led her into the stinking, closed-in alley. Three children stood atop the trash pile—two girls and a boy—sorting through the most recent additions. Their clothes were stained and ragged. They moved like little robots, tossing trash aside with economical, practiced motions. Ian guessed them to be about Mattie’s age, maybe a bit younger.

“G’day,” he said, stepping to the edge of the pile.

The dark-skinned boy paused in his work, then climbed down. “You lost?”

Ian started to say no but changed his mind, trying not to gaze at the boy’s thinness, which made it appear as if nothing resided within his tattered shirt. “That’s right, mate. We’re looking for . . . for Thamel Street. We want to have a gander at the Rum Doodle.”

“The Rum Doodle?” the boy asked, grinning.

“Might you show us how to get there?”

“Me?”

“All of you. You three.”

The boy spoke in Nepali to the girls, who smiled and climbed down the trash pile. Ian was glad that they could still smile. He’d seen children who couldn’t. Still holding Mattie’s hand, he followed the children back to Thamel Street. They took a left, walking alongside battered cars stuck in traffic. The boy drifted back, closer to Ian and Mattie. “Your first time to Kathmandu?” he asked, pointing out a pile of cow dung that they should avoid.

“Not for me,” Ian answered. “But for my daughter, Mattie.”

Mattie glanced at the boy, smiled, but said nothing.

“Be careful of brown piles on the street,” the boy said. “Stepping on one will destroy your day.” Pretending to beep like a car, he passed a broken motorcycle and its passenger. “You need guide for mountains? I could take you. I could carry your pack.”

“Oh, no worries. If you can just get us to the Rum Doodle, we’ll be happy.”

“You be happier after the Rum Doodle.”

Ian followed the children, wondering if he should be taking Mattie to a pub, even if it was famous. “Will you do me a favor, mate?” Ian asked the boy. “Will you tell my daughter here about the Rum Doodle?”

“I never go inside before. I try once, but . . . but that was not so smart.”

“That doesn’t matter. I reckon you know all about it, and we might as well chew the fat a bit.”

The boy picked at a bug bite on his arm. “People tell me Sir Hillary sign his name there. On the wall. So do Uemura, Tabei, Rob Hall. Many of the people who climb Everest. They have wall for them to sign. Even Jimmy Carter go there. But his name not on Everest wall. Jimmy Carter fly over Everest in his golden plane, but he not climb up it.”

Ian looked at Mattie. “Tabei was the first woman who climbed Everest. She wasn’t even five feet tall, but she climbed that bloody beast.” He shook his head, remembering the story, which their guide had told as Kate and he had approached the world’s highest pass. “She was Japanese,” he added.

“Was she from Tokyo?” Mattie asked.

“No, luv. A small town to the north. When she was a little girl, people said she was weak. Quite weak, really. And so she began to climb mountains.”

“And they still thought she was weak?”

“I reckon they changed their tune after she topped Everest.”

She smiled and he squeezed her hand.

Their guides turned a corner, eased their way past a group of backpackers, and pointed to a nondescript door. “The Rum Doodle,” the boy said. “You have good day, and no get lost on mountain. Then they have to rescue you, and everyone know, and you never get to go into the Rum Doodle again.”

“Wait,” Ian replied, reaching for his wallet, pulling out some Nepalese bills. He gave two thousand rupees, roughly twenty-five dollars, to each child. Their eyes widened at such wealth. “You’re top-notch guides,” Ian added. “And we’d like to thank you for showing us the way.”

The boy glanced around, closing his fist quickly, hiding the money. “Thank you, mister,” he said, shaking his head, not fully understanding how such luck had befallen him. “My friends thank you too.”

“Good-bye, then,” Ian said.

“Good-bye, mister. Thank you. So much. I will pray, every day, that you and your daughter have the long and happy life.”

Ian watched the children hurry away, chatting excitedly. “That was a great idea, Roo,” he said, playfully tugging one of her braids. “A real stroke of genius.”

“We helped them, didn’t we, Daddy?”

“Aye, my first mate. I’m dead cert of that.”

“I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

He leaned down and lifted her up, hugging her tight. “Are you ready to go into that waterhole? Into a real pub? Do you want to see where Sir Edmund Hillary and Tabei wrote their names?”

“Can I get a Sprite? I’m thirsty.”

“Sure, luv.” He kissed her cheek. “We’ll get two Sprites. But before we do that, might I ask you one more little question?”

“What?”

“Are you glad that you’re here? In Nepal?”

Mattie glanced around. “I want to see the mountains. Where you and Mommy went. I want to draw something and leave it for her in another tree.”

“You do?”

“In a tall tree. On a tall mountain.”

He kissed her other cheek, loving her more than himself, wanting to show her the mountains but afraid of what the mountains might do to her. “Just don’t get sick, luv. Or hurt. You stay hopping like the little roo you are, and we’ll find a tall tree on a tall mountain.”

THE BUS RIDE OUT OF KATHMANDU WAS exactly as Ian had feared, and without question it placed Mattie in danger. The interior of the bus was crammed with eighty or ninety people. Only the elderly were allowed to sit. Everyone else stood, shoulder to shoulder, swaying with the movement of the vehicle. People were so close to one another that they might as well have been the colored pencils bundled together in Mattie’s art kit. Ian had taken one look at the compact mass of humanity and decided that Mattie wouldn’t fare well. She’d only rise to the bellies of the passengers, most of whom were men. And he hadn’t wanted to make her endure such an experience for the hour it would take to drive to Kakani, the starting point of their four-day trek.

With some reservation, Ian had decided to sit atop the bus, along with about thirty other travelers. A two-foot-high metal railing had been welded to the roof, providing passengers with a pretense of safety. Thinking that the railing was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike, Ian had been the first to climb up and had positioned his backpack at the front of the roof, directly over the driver. He’d strapped his pack to the railing and had let Mattie sit with her belly against it, almost as if she were hugging it. His pack contained all of their possessions and was about three feet long and two feet wide. Most of it was filled with clothes. If they were in a wreck, he figured, the backpack would protect her, acting like an air bag. He’d taken her much smaller backpack, as well as his day pack, strapped them to the railing, and sat behind them.

Many of the rooftop passengers had copied Ian’s tactics, and soon the railing was padded with an assortment of packs, suitcases, bundles of wool, and rolls of carpets. Most people sat in the middle of the roof, spreading out on blankets. The Nepalese drank tea as the bus idled, filling the air with the scent of diesel fuel. The foreigners took pictures and tried to get comfortable. Three Western women sat near Ian and Mattie, applying sunscreen to one another as the bus finally got going.

Though Ian had continued to fret about the safety of the drive, Mattie’s face brightened as they left Kathmandu. She’d never ridden on top of any vehicle, and the sensation of the bus moving beneath her was liberating. From fifteen feet up, the streets of Kathmandu had taken on a new perspective. She told her father that she felt like an adventurer, and feeling invulnerable as only a child might, she smiled as the bus dipped and rose amid the city’s hills.

It had taken about twenty minutes to leave Kathmandu behind them. Now, as they started to climb into a low range of mountains, Mattie repositioned herself against the pack, holding on to its straps as her father had asked. The road began to wind its way up, following the contours of a river far below. The nearby vegetation was thick and unruly, dominating hillsides. Occasionally, parts of the forest had been cleared and were peppered with roadside stalls. Scooters and motorcycles tended to congregate at these stalls as people sipped on sodas or shared cigarettes.

The traffic on the road was an odd collection of smoke-belching vehicles. Ancient buses tried to pass one another on the descents, casting cars, tractors, and scooters aside. The buses were inevitably filled far beyond capacity and carried passengers on their rooftops. Some were occupied mainly by tourists. Others ferried Nepalese to and from Kathmandu. At one point, Mattie looked far below, toward the bottom of the valley, and saw the carcass of a bus that had careened down a cliff. Suddenly aware of how close their bus came to the edge of the road, she grabbed her father’s hand.

Though the scenery continued to mesmerize Mattie, she was equally intrigued by the three young Western women who sat near her. They seemed at ease on top of the bus, moving in rhythm with it, the way they might ride a horse. The women wore shorts and tank tops, as well as a variety of rings and necklaces. Two had blond hair that they’d pulled back into ponytails. The other’s dreadlocks bounced whenever the bus hit a pothole.

Pretending to study the landscape, Mattie watched the women. She was impressed that they didn’t seem scared or uncomfortable. They were covered in mosquito bites, yet they hardly scratched them. Wearing oversized sunglasses, they laughed, studied a map, and spoke about their time in Nepal. Mattie listened intently, trying to follow their conversation despite the frequent honks of the bus or passing cars.

Mattie wondered if any of them had seen their father or mother die. They seemed so happy and confident. So strong. Though she tried not to be, she was envious of their smiles and laughter. If the nearby cliffs made them nervous, they didn’t show it. If someone they loved had died, they had somehow managed to not feel older than they were. The women were everything Mattie wanted to be.

Finally, as the bus swooped down a mountain, the woman in dreadlocks saw Mattie looking at her. “Hi, there,” she said. “Like it up here?”

Mattie glanced at her father, thinking that he might respond. But he only smiled, and so she answered, “I feel like a bird.”

“A bird? How so?”

“Well, we’re flying through these mountains.”

The woman smiled, her white teeth contrasting with her black skin. “I’m Leslie. And you?”

“Mattie.”

“Where are you from, Mattie?”