Kim Robinson - Escape from Kathmandu

Well, things were pretty subdued in the old expedition camp that night. We got up the tents by lantern light, and had some soup and sat there looking at the blue flames of the stove. I almost made a real fire to cheer myself up, but I didn’t feel like it.

Then Sarah said, with feeling, “I’m proud of you, Nathan,” and he began to do his Coleman lantern glow, he was so happy. I would be, too. In fact, when she said, “I’m proud of you too, George,” and gave me a peck on the cheek, it made me grin, and I felt a pang of… well, a lot of things. Pretty soon they were off to their tent. Fine for them, and I was happy for them, really, but I was also feeling a little like old Snideley Whiplash at the end of the Dudley Do-Right episode: left out in the cold, with Dudley getting the girl. Of course I had my fossil seashell, but it wasn’t quite the same.

I pulled the Coleman over, and looked at that stone shell for a while. Strange object. What had the yeti who drilled the little hole through it been thinking? What was it for ?

I remembered the meal on my bed, Buddha and me solemnly chomping on wafers and picking over the supply of jelly beans. And then I was all right; that was enough for me, and more than enough.

Back in Kathmandu we met Freds and found out what had happened to him, over schnitzel Parisienne and apple strudel at the Old Vienna. “By noon I figured you all were long gone, so when the bus stopped for a break at Lamosangu I hopped off and walked right up to these guys’ taxi. I did my Buddha thing and they almost died when they saw me coming. It was Adrakian and two of those Secret Service guys who chased us out of the Sheraton. When I took off the cap and shades they were fried, naturally. I said, ‘Man, I made a mistake! I wanted to go to Pokhara! This isn’t Pokhara!’ They were so mad they started yelling at each other. ‘What’s that?’ says I. ‘You all made some sort of mistake too? What a shame!’ And while they were screaming at each other and all I made a deal with the taxi driver to take me back to Kathmandu too. The others weren’t too happy about that, and they didn’t want to let me in, but the cabbie was already pissed at them for hiring him to take his car over that terrible road, no matter what the fare. So when I offered him a lot of rupes he was pleased to stick those guys somehow, and he put me in the front seat with him, and we turned around and drove back to Kathmandu.”

I said, “You drove back to Kathmandu with the Secret Service? How did you explain the fur taped to the baseball cap?”

“I didn’t! So anyway, on the way back it was silent city behind me, and it got pretty dull, so I asked them if they’d seen the latest musical disaster movie from Bombay.”

“What?” Nathan said. “What’s that?”

“Don’t you go see them? They’re showing all over town. We do it all the time, it’s great. You just smoke a few bowls of hash and go see one of these musicals they make, they last about three hours, no subtitles or anything, and they’re killers! Incredible! I told these guys that’s what they should do—”

“You told the Secret Service guys they should smoke bowls of hash ?”

“Sure! They’re Americans, aren’t they? Anyway, they didn’t seem too convinced, and we still had a hell of a long way to go to Kathmandu, so I told them the story of the last one I saw. It’s still in town, you sure you’re not going to see it? I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

We convinced him he wouldn’t.

“Well, it’s about this guy who falls in love with a gal he works with. But she’s engaged to their boss, a real crook who is contracted to build the town’s dam. The crook is building the dam with some kinda birdshit, it looked like, instead of cement, but while he was scamming that he fell into a mixer and was made part of the dam. So the guy and the gal get engaged, but she burns her face lighting a stove. She heals pretty good, but after that when he looks at her he sees through her to her skull and he can’t handle it, so he breaks the engagement and she sings a lot, and she disguises herself by pulling her hair over that side of her face and pretending to be someone else. He meets her and doesn’t recognize her and falls in love with her, and she reveals who she is and sings that he should fuck off. Heavy singing on all sides at that point, and he tries to win her back and she says no way, and all the time it’s raining cats and dogs, and finally she forgives him and they’re all happy again, but the dam breaks right where the crook was weakening it and the whole town is swept away singing like crazy. But these two both manage to grab hold of a stupa sticking up out of the water, and then the floods recede and there they are hanging there together, and they live happily ever after. Great, man. A classic.”

“How’d the Secret Service like it?” I asked.

“They didn’t say. I guess they didn’t like the ending.”

But I could tell, watching Nathan and Sarah grinning hand-in-hand across the table, that they liked the ending just fine.

Oh, one more thing: you must not tell ANYONE about this!!! Okay?