Part One: Nepal, 2005
Get out, the email began, Kathmandu is crumbling.
Here we go, Ryan thought, more meddling—a ‘Leave Nepal’ message from Lance: I’m telling you, the Maoists are going to take Kathmandu. Ditch your ‘To Go or Not To Go’ spiel.
Ryan shook his head. Same Lance, still making Hamlet jibes.
Time to ditch Toronto, he wrote in reply. You’ve guzzled enough champagne. Get thee to Kathmandu.
Although he missed Lance’s snarky humour, his old smuggling partner was wrong. The city was safe; the countryside was in danger. The King had just announced plans to attack the Maoists’ western strongholds.
Ryan left his garden house and strode towards Swayambhu temple. The street gave way to a stone staircase. Up he rushed, overtaking a trio of monks. Chestnut trees rained wind-blown blossoms. Burning incense perfumed the air, mountain-clean, smelling of cedar. What a morning. He loved Kathmandu at dawn, but the city alone wasn’t holding him. Pema waited for him at the temple above.
Cresting the staircase, he scanned the Swayambhu crowd. No compelling jade eyes. He searched again. No Pema. Where was she? Was something wrong?
Supplicants spun rows of prayer wheels; pigeons and doves pecked at offerings of fruit and rice. He heard talk of rice fields and rain, the late spring harvest, the rising price of petrol. Ah, there was her older brother Chho strolling towards him. Chho’s demeanour was vigilant yet relaxed, the pose of a man who’d been waiting without waiting. He extended a forefinger—meet me at Venue Number One—then melted into the swarm circling the temple.
Ryan scanned the crowd again. No one tailing either of them. Chho was an unassuming Sherpa; he, a foreigner enjoying the local colour. He’d come back to Nepal to report, not smuggle medical aid to Maoists. Lance knew that he wasn’t in the trenches. However, Ryan had kept one thing hidden. He’d ‘gone political’ again and joined a secret group of centrists, the Snow Geese. Like them, he distrusted both the left and the right, both the Maoists and the King.
After circling the temple, he made his way to a busy chai house. Chho sat at an outside table for two. Ryan ignored him at first, then asked to share the table. Chho’s face looked more weathered than usual, the whites of his eyes were shot with red. They chatted in Nepali about the strange amount of rain.
“The gods are crying,” Chho concluded. “Please,” he said in English behind a raised chai glass, “stop writing about ceasefires and democracy. The Snow Geese aren’t ready for elections.” As if remembering instructions, he quickly added, “The country isn’t ready.”
Ryan’s mind was elsewhere. “Where’s Pema?”
“On a fact-finding mission. Shiva sent her to Pokhara.”
“Fact finding?” Shiva, the Geese’s scholarly leader, had all the facts he needed.
“OK, Shiva wants her out of the way. She’s getting too radical. And you,” Chho apologetically said, “he thinks that you’re attracting too much attention.”
Ryan’s current newspaper column called for the Maoists to lay down their weapons but he’d been endorsing a truce for weeks.
Chho bowed his head then looked up, a reluctant envoy. “Shiva said to disappear for a month.”
No surprise. Shiva the Silent was a fan of the vanishing act. A few Geese, including Ryan and Pema, wanted Shiva to speak out but he insisted on remaining hidden. Ryan sighed. No use confronting Chho, luckless emissary caught in the middle. Ryan felt for his friend. Like Chho, he too was conflicted. How hard should he push for change?
“OK,” he said, “I’ll shut myself down. Tell Shiva this: I’ll shelve my newspaper articles, both Nepalese and international.” He had a demand of his own. “But not my personal blog. The King doesn’t understand the Blogosphere; the Maoists don’t monitor it.”
“Alright. Rendezvous at the temple in an hour.” Chho winked. “By the way, Shiva said to keep moving. Circulate.”
Ryan grinned. Circulate. As if he and Chho didn’t know operational mores, as if they hadn’t been smuggling med-aid while Shiva circled a desk.
Joining the walkers, Ryan thought of Pema. Chho was right. She was getting more radical. Ryan had met her the previous morning at a pagoda on the far side of the temple hill.
As he’d sat next to her, he’d recognized the set of her lips: apprehensive but resolute.
“Ryan, I made a decision last night. Things need to happen now.” She searched his eyes. “I’ve been talking with a few Geese. Let’s work together. We’ll call for elections.”
Well, this was a new plan. He liked the idea but the timeline was aggressive. His activist past—Peru, the Balkans, Nepal—had taught him that democracy wouldn’t take root when bullets were flying. “What about a ceasefire?”
“We can’t wait.” She smiled. “Remember what you wrote about democracy? It doesn’t fall from heaven in full bloom, you need to push it along.”
He nodded wryly. How did she remember that? He’d written it months ago. “Armistice first,” he insisted.
She stared at him with dismay. The sun filtered in through the branches of a pipal tree. Her skin shone like burnished cinnabar; her sea-green eyes were steady.
Those eyes, how did they do it? They made him—an ex-smuggler, a so-called radical—feel timid and irrelevant.
Head aslant, she scrutinized him. She swept a wave of hair off her forehead. He sensed her probing his commitment, prying open his soul. A few weeks back he'd mentioned that his ex-wife Carrie, who’d left him the previous year, had filed for divorce. When Pema asked what he felt, he immediately replied “It’s time to move on.” She’d seemed preoccupied for the rest of their chat, as if the news had triggered a wave of private thoughts.
Now, still gazing at him, she wrapped her arms around him and tenderly kissed his cheek. They’d only ever hugged as friends. Although she wasn’t a typical shy Sherpina—she’d lived with an Indian guy until they’d decided not to marry—Ryan felt bashful. He studied his hands, unable to look up. When he did, she was gone.
At the appointed time Ryan spotted Chho across the temple crowd. His friend extended two fingers—use the second venue—and disappeared into the throng. When Ryan reached the venue, a remote auxiliary shrine, he found Chho kneeling alone in front of a holy tapestry bordered in blue, for Nepalis, the colour of peace. Ryan knelt beside him.
“I want you to know something,” Chho said out of the side of his mouth, “I understand your message. But I … I’m with Shiva.”
Ryan heard the inner conflict in Chho’s voice and decided to make light of the situation. “Hey, no one will miss my columns. I’m just a foreign hack.”
“Walk back to the temple. Apparently you’re in danger.”
Ryan started up the path. Half way there his friend slotted in next to him. “I just met with Shiva. He claims the Maoists hate your ceasefire message and want you silenced.”
“What do you think?” Ryan asked.
“I’m not sure. When I asked for proof, he said to wait. Bottom line, you better get out of the city. Why don’t you stay in Lamabagar?”
Chho’s village lay well to the northeast, far from army posts, far from Maoist centers. If Ryan had to leave, Lama was a good refuge.
“Pema will be there next weekend,” Chho added.
Ah, that sealed the deal. “Alright,” Ryan said.
“I’ll take you to the trailhead tomorrow. Keep alert.”
As Chho merged with the crowd, Ryan slowly descended the temple staircase, fighting to retrieve a covert skill, to see all and hear all, without appearing to look or listen. The air thickened; the smell of incense gave way to burnt sugar. A few steps ahead, two boys hawked sweet buns, regaling passers-by with teasing brashness. He joked with them and bought a large bag for tomorrow’s journey, then cut through the city centre, a wild fusion of concrete and ancient brick, of modern buildings and medieval warrens. Sure, he’d tell Western visitors, Kathmandu can be dangerous, but don’t run away. Stop and look. Throw out your camera, really look.
Ryan knew how Nepal’s ex-pat community saw him: outgoing, some said reckless, yet also baffling. He’d seen more of Nepal than any of them but rarely spoke of it. He occupied a large house set amidst sprawling grounds yet disavowed servants. Charming but misguided. He mixed with everyone, be they dirty chai wallah or lofty nabob.
Strolling through Dilli Bazaar, Ryan noticed two men on his heel. Were they tailing him? Mind churning, he edged into a kiosk. The pair paid him no heed, heading straight to Charkhal Road. Keep going, fellas, he inwardly suggested. Yes, that’s it. Enjoy your walk. As they receded from view, he set off, antennae up, reading the crowd’s mood: calm, almost buoyant. In Kathmandu, like nowhere else he’d been, civil unrest existed simultaneously with serenity.
The market oozed soot and spices, cheap petrol and cheaper tobacco. Zig-zagging through the lanes, he picked up packets of raisins, ten kilos of rice and ten of flour, then hunted for barley seeds, the best spring sowers to be had. Gifts for Chho’s family. Despite the market’s upbeat aura he arrived home anxious, drained from being constantly on his toes. He hadn’t been truly operational in years. Keeping things close to the vest for The Geese was simply second nature. Standing on his balcony, he scented the azalea flowers below. To smell them was a coming into harbour, a refuge he loved, a refuge he had to leave.
Later that night he loaded the gifts for Lamabagar into a faded backpack, followed by warm clothes and a notebook PC and satellite phone, his connection to cyberspace. Pulling out his old smuggling handgun, a Glock 26, he began field-stripping the pistol. Eyes closed to test himself, he released the slide then separated the firing pin, extractor and plunger. Parts fit together like puzzle pieces—one and only one home. After cleaning the gun, he stashed it in a hidden compartment between the pack’s shoulder straps.