In Places on the Run Ch. 05

"What the hell am I doing here," I heard myself asking those walls. "Chasing someone else's dream."

Or was it a dream?

Deb knocked on the door and she came in without waiting for a reply.

"Are you as tired as I am," she said as she sat on my bed, but she already knew the answer to that question. She always knew the answer, didn't she?

"I'm tired. And I'm ready to go home."

She nodded understanding. "Crossing that range," she said, pointing out my window. "Now that's going to be interesting."

"Interesting? That's an odd word."

"It's too late to turn back now, John."

"I can't do another India, Deborah. I can't stand it. That much suffering."

"It's not Disneyland, is it, John? The world isn't what you thought it was. Maybe what you hoped it was. The religions here, of all these people, evolved to help them cope with misery and suffering. I think what we saw is a constant. Human despair is the constant. What we, you and I lived through after the second world war was a great anomaly in human history. Material prosperity, overwhelming comfort extending out to huge numbers of people, all this was a freak occurrence, an accident of history. What you saw in India was what all the human race was, once, and where I assume we're headed now, back to the tooth and nail struggle for daily existence. You were just reminded of that. Scary, isn't it?"

"Scary? But that isn't the half of it, Deb. What bothers me now? Does it all come down to an accident of birth? I'm an American, so I get to live in the land of milk and honey? And some kid born into this endless enigma, this utterly futile existence, all he has to look forward to is dying in a ditch? Maybe when he's five?"

"A lot of people die in ditches in Los Angeles, John. Did you ever stop to help them?"

"I fly airplanes, Deb."

"Yes, you do. Why on earth would you feel anything but pride in that, too. Any one of those people you saw last week would willingly do anything to trade places with you. The world, this life, isn't fair and just, it's..."

"And why is that, Deb? After millennia, nothing's changed? We know what the problems are. We're not smart enough to fix this hell? Really? And sure, we can see the problem lying in the street, in every country on earth, yet we continue to ignore all this misery, push our way past it, all in the name of..."

"John? Why is this getting to you now? Right now?"

"I can't get their faces out of my mind, Deb."

"Faces? Who's faces, John?"

"Those children."

She came to me, held me. "Do you know what the difference is, John? Between those children, and us? And our children, John? Nothing. There is no difference. It wasn't an accident of birth. Their misery isn't chance."

"What are you saying? It's God? Destiny?"

"That, maybe, or just pure chance. Tell me. What did you expect to see out here, John? On a trip around the world? Scenery? Mountains and sunsets?"

"I don't know, Deb. Scenery? Yeah, sure. But I just didn't have any idea..."

"I guess that's an appropriate epitaph for our age. As good as any, I suppose."

I didn't know what to say to her. I didn't know how to respond to my own ignorance. "Maybe we should take a walk, huh?"

"There's no time like the present, is there, John? There's no place like home."

I looked at her and smiled. "Yeah, Toto, we're sure not in Kansas anymore."

She laughed too, then held out her hand. "Let's go."

And we did. In her inimitable way she led me into another ancient way of seeing. Buddha. The suffering and discontentment of Dukkha. The transformations of Dharma. The Four Noble Truths. Our life of becoming, always becoming, never the contentedness of being.

And we wandered ancient byways, alleyways that led us ever inward. Small temples, smaller shrines, people in unimaginable numbers seeking release from their suffering. Silent men in orange robes drifting through these masses of despair, always shielded by incense in the air. Two outsiders drifting along the edges of all this humanity, on the outside looking in. Always becoming, never being, forever consigned to look at our world through Faust's eyes.

We ran into Sam -- he wasn't hard to spot, not really -- and we found a place to eat, some grain, perhaps, but I didn't know and could not have cared less. Sam seemed as disoriented as either Deb or myself, like crossing into Nepal had marked a time in our lives where going on as before was not simply meaningless -- it was now impossible. He was a writer of sorts, I guess, so perhaps he was as attuned as I had become to the depths of despair we had seen, but there was something else in the air that afternoon. We were breathing a very different air now, yet our eyes were blind to impossible sight as we moved to these ancient rhythms, rhythms not our own. We were no longer in places in the run; no, we had arrived.

We came to the Boudhanath Stupa and we stared at the domed structure for a long time. Prayer flags rippled in the breeze, incense filled the air, more men in orange robes drifted around us, like autumn leaves passing on errant breezes over the ground. An old man, a monk dressed in orange came up to me and stopped.

He was blind, his eyes red-rimmed and white, and at first he seemed to see right through me, then his head seemed to tilt quizzically to one side, and with a gentle smile he said "you must let go..." and then he too simply disappeared among the leaves.

"Let go?" Sam asked. "Is that what he said?"

I nodded. "Yup."

"That's what it sounded like to me," Deb said.

"Let go of what?" I asked no one in particular, but I thought of Deb's premonition in that moment. I think she did too.

+++++

We spent three days in Kathmandu, each day as lost as the one before. We washed our bikes and filled their tanks, checked tire pressures and fluids, but we were dull now, dull -- as in going through the motions. We did our laundry as we washed our souls in the ancient aires of the city: lost, not knowing where we belonged anymore. I found books on Buddhism and sat on sun drenched terraces and read, and I read because I was lost. I sipped tea, sank roots in soil so fertile I felt alive again, because I wanted to be alive again, then I would look up when a chill breeze washed across my eyes and I wanted to die, because that was, I felt, the only way I could live again. I had to turn away from what was, I had to embrace the way ahead. I had to be reborn, because I was already dead. My life was, I knew, a pointless waste. All life was a pointless waste without...without...without what?

We left, eastbound on the Araniko Highway bound first for Godam; there we turned north, bound for the G318, the road that would take us into China. The 'pavement' was now mostly rock and mud, water crept out of cracks in the rock wall that defined the left side of the track, and we began our climb up into the mountains with a roaring river off to the right. We saw steep terraced farms across the valley, brief stretches of pavement appeared, a modern bridge here and there, small villages, farmers carrying loads on their backs, then a really steep pitch of road lay ahead and Sam stopped. We stared in disbelief.

"Is THAT the road?" Deb asked, her voice incredulous.

"Damn," Sam said, "look at the rock. Wet, slippery as hell. I don't like the look of this." He got off, walked over and ran his boot over a stone, then looked at the thermometer on his instrument cluster: "Forty-two degrees now. Probably no snow up there, yet. We should just make it. Deb? What do you think?"

"I feel okay," she said, her voice strong now. "Tires are gripping well. If we don't go too fast we should be okay."

"John? You?"

"I'm good. Ready what you are."

He laughed. "Well, famous last words, right?" He turned and looked at the way ahead, shot me his 'thumbs up' and slipped his Beemer into gear -- and off we went.

The pitch was impossibly steep, and we crept along in first gear, our wheels slipping on wet stone every few yards, and after a mile Sam stopped -- when the road leveled off for a few hundred meters -- then we saw an even tougher pitch ahead. The drop off the right side of the road was now perhaps a thousand feet, maybe more, and my nuts crawled up into the safety of my gut when I looked over the edge at the river -- now far below. There were no guard rails on this road, no shoulder to pull off onto, just rocky scree and an impossible fall.

I saw Sam looking at the road ahead, saw his head shake from side to side as he slipped back into first gear, then he was off. Deb followed a moment later, then I too looked at the impossible road one more time and began my climb. We were evenly spaced, perhaps seven meters apart, our speed certainly no more than ten miles per hour, Deb's feet out to the side, paddling along as we hit an astonishingly stretch of steep road, and then...

...something was wrong...

...very wrong...

The earth is moving. Sideways. Up, and then violently down. Deb is rising through the air, straight up, her arms flailing. Sam's bike slams into the rocks, but I don't see him because I am tumbling through the air. I slam into the rock face, the breath knocked out of me, then I am face down on the ground, my helmet's visor shattered, and I can see pieces of plastic on the road, then I try to stand up -- as I look up. Deb is on her knees by the edge of the road, then the next tremor hits, and only then do I see Sam. Deb is falling again, sliding towards the edge, and Sam is running for her, then I am too. Another tremor, this one huge, dangerous, and I see Sam and Deb thrown through the air into the cliff, then as suddenly they are rolling, rolling towards me. One of them slams into me and I am down, then I am rolling too. We are rolling towards the edge of the infinite, to the cliff's edge, towards the end of time. Rocks and boulders are falling from the cliffs above, I hear Deb scream then she is over the edge. Sam is scrambling for her -- when he is flung into the air. Like a crab, I am scuttling for the edge, Sam's bike -- a twisted fragment of itself bounces past me and disappears over the edge. Dust is everywhere, I hear more rocks landing on the roadway, a great grinding sound, then I see Sam sliding for the edge -- and he is over, gone.

I am there, I lunge for him and I reach for his hand, but it is Deborah's I find. I have her in my right hand and she is grasping my jacket's sleeve as my hand grabs her's.

"Fuck, shit and goddamnit all to hell!"

That is vintage Sam, and he is to my left. My left hand goes out to the sound of his voice and we connect, his hand is in mine. They are both almost completely over the edge and as the dust settles somewhat I can see them both.

"I've got you!" I call out to them, but Deb is slipping from my grasp. I know it, she knows it, and Sam knows it, because he is looking at her now, and he understands what is happening. They are pulling me closer to the edge, and I can't pull either one up with just one arm.

Another tremor hits, more rocks fall from above, and something huge lands on my left leg. I am screaming, Deborah is screaming, and I see Sam looking at me, smiling, and then he shoots me that thumb's up of his again, just as he let's go, and then he is gone. My left hand goes to Deb and I pull on her arm just as I lose consciousness.

+++++

I wake up at one point. I hear someone tell me I am in a hospital and when I open my eyes I see the old monk, the blind man. His face is kind, I see, his manner fatherly, but I think this must be a dream. Nothing is real, the voice in my head is saying, because this life isn't real. Nothing can be real.

"You must let go."

Isn't that what he said, what he told me that day in the city?

Before I let go?

And then I let go, and was gone.

I am awake again, I think, but the earth is shaking again, roaring. I see words on brick, -- Tribhuvan International Airport -- the words seem to say, then I see a Turkish airliner, and then Orhan is there beside me. I am dreaming. I know I am dreaming, but then even the dream is gone.

+++++

A cheerful voice. Very encouraging. Very, what? British?

I am awake. Waking up. My head is clear, then the head of my bed is lifting, and I am too.

I am incredulous. A moment ago I was on a road in Nepal, and now? Where am I?

"Captain Anders?" there's that voice again. "Are you awake?"

I turn to the sound, blink my eyes several time, wondering what flavor of life this is?

"Where am I?"

"Oh, excellent, we are awake." Then this girl, this infant, really, is spooning ice into my mouth. I look out the window and the architecture is all wrong.

"This isn't Nepal," I manage to say.

"No, but you're alright now, Captain Anders. Let me go ring the doctor..."

I can not sleep now, but neither can I move. There are multiple IVs hanging from rails overhead, a plastic line full of urine leading from under the sheets to a bag somewhere out of sight. My nose itches, but my hands are tied to rails, and then...Deborah is there in the room, there by my side.

She is crying.

"Thank God. Finally," I hear her say, and I am confused.

"That's all you've got to say to me, really?"

Her arms are around me, then she is puzzled. She looks at my wrists and unties me, then my arms are around her, and she is crying still.

"Where are we?"

"London."

"What!?"

"You've been out, for weeks."

"What?"

"Since the earthquake."

"The what?!"

"Do you remember anything? What happened?"

"I remember dust. Reaching for Sam. Where's Sam?"

She shook her head, still crying. "He's gone, John."

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

"He's dead, John."

"What are you talking about!?"

And this, it turned out, was what she was talking about. The earthquake, at 6.8 a moderate quake by the region's standards, hit at 11:42 hours local time. We had not yet crossed into China, were still in fact a few miles short of the border. I had, apparently, reached out and somehow stopped Deb from falling over the edge. Sam's shattered body was recovered a week later, on the rocks down by the river. A boulder about half the size of an old VW Beetle landed on my left leg, essentially pulverizing my femur. I would have died but for a group of monks returning to their monastery. The old monk, the blind man, had been instrumental in saving my life, for getting me to the hospital. Amputation was inevitable, doctors told Deb, unless I could get back to a better equipped facility. She called people, Orhan among them, and he made things happen, then blood clots broke loose, a coma ensued. Now my left leg was a shattered mess of screws and pins, but Deb and her colleagues were confident I would walk again. My bike and Deb's now resided at a warehouse in Kathmandu; the wreckage of Sam's was worthless, and his insurance company settled.

I learned it was mid-November, and now I understood I would remain in hospital for another month. At least.

Rhea came later that evening, and she was showing now. I put my hand on her belly, our baby, and I smiled at her tears, as she smiled at mine. Lucy came a few minutes later, my daughter coming into the room with her mother, my best friend.

Rhea and I married Christmas Day, our boy, Sam, came into this world not quite two months later. Rhea continued on at the School of Clinical Medicine at Cambridge. I remained in Cambridge, never flying commercially again, though I did get a chance to take Luce flying a few times. I settled Sam's estate, gave everything to Brigit, who was devastated -- and grateful. Deb remained by my side the rest of her year off, until my cancer came back, this time with a vengeance.

Almost a year after the end of our first trip to Nepal, Deb and I returned to Kathmandu. We arranged to have the bikes shipped back to Istanbul, to Orhan, as we were both sure he would enjoy them, and put them to good use.

After a week there, after another week of unendurable pain, we engaged a truck to carry us high into the mountains, to the monastery, to the old blind monk, and he greeted us warmly. We, Deb and I, moved in on them, pushed our way into their lives, and Deb and the old man cared for me, made me tea, fed me soup, while the world closed in on me. I spoke of my life, the life I found in Cambridge at the end. I talked of my love for Rhea, of how unexpected my love for Lucy was, but most of all, I told the old man about Deborah. How she was the glue that had fashioned some semblance of life from the ragged fragments she'd found. How she was the last love of my life.

But now, after recounting our journey, I have come full circle. I spoke of memory when we started, the warmth they lend on our way. I hold many such moments close, but none closer than the memories we, Sam, Deb and I found that autumn. One afternoon my friend, the blind man, told me his take on life, the Buddhist understanding of life and rebirth, and all that sounded quite nice until I remembered the old man dying of thirst in the ditch, and we talked about that. About misery and suffering, about being and becoming.

Deb was with me, holding my hand, when my friend told me once again that it was time to let go. Death is not, you understand, a noble and handsome friend; no, death is a tyrant, and you live your life in his shadow. You ignore him as best you can, and perhaps he ignores you -- for a time. Yet death holds no dominion over memory; no, we hold on to those precious bits of time, we hold them close for the journey. We remember the most important points along the way, we see ourselves as we were, yet it becomes ever more difficult to reconcile being and becoming as the last journey grows near. Time is our miracle, after all, the chalice of memory, yet there is no fear like our fear of time.

And do you know, when you die it's a lot like sitting in the middle of a vast theater? The lights dim, the show starts and there they are, all your memories up there on the stage flashing by, the soundtrack of your life holding you in the light one more time, caressing you with all your life's exuberant embraces. Maybe as the performance draws to a close the light fades a bit, but the memories keep playing, keep flickering away as that darkness pushes in. They play and play until the world finally grows quiet -- like a star, collapsing in on itself -- until your memories have nothing left to say, and then you sit there in the darkness, waiting, waiting, until the only thing left in all the universe -- at long last and lighting your way -- is love.

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(C)2015-16 Adrian Leverkühn | ABW

[note: for those with an interest in Mann, this was an atypical bildungsroman, more a riff on der Zauberberg than his Faustus, more about dis-ease and dis-representation than 'resolution'; perhaps, and I say perhaps advisedly, more about dissolution than absolution, but that seems to be the way of our world, our lives. And this was, of course, a work of fiction (as always) where, like Zauberberg characterization equals paradigm. There may be traces of 'Stairway' in here too, but more 'Tod und Verklärung' (Strauss), and of course -- In Places on the Run. Any traces of a happy ending you might have stumbled upon were purely unintentional (sigh) -- or maybe not (grin). Depends which road you're on, I reckon, if it makes you wonder. Anyway, the comments and emails have been wonderful company; they're very welcome, and so appreciated. So...Thanks for coming along.]