THE FOOTHILLS

From Chapter Twelve of Looking for Kathmandu

by David Stuart Ryan

---

The novel is set at the end of the 1960s and evokes that very special atmosphere.

Or you can mail your order and check to Kozmik Press, 134 Elsenham St, London SW18 5NP, UK

Whatever you do, make sure to read the full novel, it's out of this world!

A young Nepalese boy of about eight came up to them dressed in a dirty T-shirt and shorts. In perfect English he told thm he would take them to a cheap hotel. Birgit accepted, charmed by his loquacious self-confidence. The boy took them past the temples, looking exactly like temples on Chinese willow pattern plates, the over-hanging roofs building up to a pinnacle, the square full of temples, they were on all sides, all charged with colour and a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Nepalese traders sat on the ground beside piles of vegetables and fruits, cows rubbed flanks with the sometimes nattily dressed Nepalese who wore Western jackets over their nearly white Nepalese dress of tunic and jodhpurs and incongrously carried umbrellas. There was no sign of rain, the ground was perfectly dry, the sun hot but not excessively so in comparison with the hallucinatory power it had possessed in India.

The temperature was, however, in the ninety degree area. They passed open fountains, ornately carved with fine, curving, sensuous lines, their emotions carried on the surface. Women filled large earthenware pots, unheeding of the visitors, and obviously used to being free of the male domination as evinced in India's more rigid mores. The boy led them down alleyways lined with wooden houses, with carvings on the glassless windows, animals to be found on the ground floors through doorways. Sheep and goats, chickens and straw, the muck being emptied into the alleyways. The boy stopped outside the doors of a two storey house sheltered behind a wall and painted white. Birgit imagined she had returned to Bavaria, as it was in mediaeval times.

Inside the two gates in a tiny courtyard, the landlady and her small, wiry husband welcomed them solicitously and showed them up some steep stairs to a large, low-beamed room overlooking the alleyway and the small square it led into. Two pictures of Gurkha battles where the nation overcame the British in the 19th century hung upon the plastered wall by the open windows, mattresses lay upon the floor. Chas explained he would start looking for his own room in a few days when he had rested. Peter immediately left the two of them and went out in search of the Post Office, only to find it closed after half an hour's walk through the town, every street a fascination for him. He was again down to the end of his money almost, the balance of his account from Montreal had to be there, he was sure. He went back, told Birgit, she told him she was almost out of cash too. Chas offered to lend them some money. They politely deferred acceptance and went out into the gathering dusk to explore the town.

They had only just walked out of the wooden gates into the alleyway when they met a European, a Swedish girl, who told them to go to the 'Blue Tibetan'. They eventually found the eating house, filled almost entirely with Europeans who were seated about marble topped tables on small bench seats. The outlook was onto a small alleyway in the oldest part of the town's shopping area past the central market where vegetables and fruits were sold from mattressed stalls among the temples. The air in the cafe was thick with the acrid fumes of hashish, so much so that there was a fuggy twilight within the Blue Tibetan. Small Nepalese boys in singlets and shorts bustled between the tables from the dark infernal doorway leading to a subterranean - it appeared - kitchen. They walked quickly into the cafe. Peter immediately recognised an old familiar face. It was a Dane he had known in Amsterdam the previous year.

'Carl! What are you doing here?' he asked, sitting down at his table with Birgit.

'I've been here ten months,' said the tall, suave Dane, his face not revealing a glimmer of a smile, his brown eyes burning with intensity like a hawk.

'How was the journey?' 'Heavy, heavy, thought I'd never make it. This is Birgit, we travelled together.'

Carl nodded stiffly at Birgit, saying nothing to her at first, then holding out his hand.

'Hello, Carl Becher, you are from Germany I think, Birgit.'

She nodded. 'Hamburg'.

He smiled for the first time. 'I know it of old, you should come to my flat tonight, we have a party most nights, it will blow your minds.'

'OK,' said Peter, 'where are you?'

'First tell me where you are.'

'It's a boarding house run by a woman with two very attractive daughters.'

'The Dormitory! You're just across the road from me,' Carl said amused, 'just across the square, the corner house, you'll hear the music.'

Carl had a presence which Birgit felt to be decadent and at the same time time commanding. He wore a Tibetan silk jacket, had a long drooping moustache, looked out from frameless glasses, most unnervingly of all, he sat perfectly upright, his tall figure fringed by blond hair.

'I don't know if I'll stay long,' she smiled weakly, 'I'm buggared. You know Peter well then?'

'Quite well, we were both on the scene in Amsterdam, share a lot of friends. It's where I decided to come East.'

'And me,' said Birgit quickly.

'Amsterdam,' said Carl, 'is the arts centre of Europe, the Danes can appreciate sculpture and pottery and yet not art I think, we are a practical people, all knowledge has to be applied.'

'Maybe,' said Birgit, reluctant to agree to his didacticism, which reminded her of her Hamburg philosophy lecturer.

'Well I must go,' he said suddenly, unwinding his legs from a cross-legged position on the bench. 'I'll see you tonight. Have the fried egg rice with vegetables, it's the speciality, the best you'll get for a couple of rupees.'

Arrived at the end of their travelling time and being able to sum up the journey as something past in a few words seemed by the very ease of dismissal to make the rigours drop away, together with the stresses and uncertainties. There was a primitive shower at the Dormitory, the clinging heat of the plains was left far behind, the old city of Kathmandu and its five hundred year old wooden houses was deserted by nightfall, instead of hubbub there was a calm silence relieved only by the sound of cymbals and drums from across the dusty ground that was the square. They walked slowly across, noting the fountain in the middle and behind it, an open-sided hut. Looking away from the town they could make out a distant hill on which rested the Monkey Temple of Swayambunath high up across the river reached by a footpath from the Dormitory. They walked through a narrow door, only five feet high, both the six foot Canadian and the five foot six German had to bend down as they made their way up some cramped dark stairs to the first floor, where pushing through some strips of plastic they came into Carl's room, a long open space flanked by a series of ornate fringed wooden frames with no glass in them which allowed a view out into the deepening blue of the night, the room being lit by a blaze of candles placed all over the rush mat covered floor. Along the walls on cushions and blankets sat about fifteen people, all in their twenties and thirties, while tapestries depicting the Tibetan pantheon of gods and goddesses hung glittering from the walls casting another-worldly glow from their fine threads. Carl sat at the far corner of the room by a window beside his girlfriend Tania, also Danish, and looking coquettish from the effect of her hair being gathered in bunches. Carl was stripped to the waist and wore a Tibetan string of beads about his neck, while directly behind him on the wall was a dazzling cape depicting, in finely worked detail of vividly coloured sequins, a man leaping out from the world, so that his face wore all the studied knowledge of a space traveller in ecstasy while the heavens glittered about him in silver sparks of light, against a rich midnight blue, the cape coloured a rich red, the earth a similarly rich red with added green.

They walked over to where Carl was sitting smoking a chilum with expert precision.

'Welcome, sit down,' was all he said, his eyes fixing them with a characteristic piercingness.

He passed the chilum on as the music came to a stop from the people in the room, and crossing to a small organ he began to play. Melodic, almost too rich notes, billowed out as if from a cathedral, cymbals began to clash, people to chant, drums to beat. Peter passed on the chilum to Birgit, picked up a hide covered drum and beat to the music. Carl on the organ swirled and wafted where the mood took him, the strangeness of the room, its old world aura, took hold of the Canadian, who without realising how or why beat perfect rhythm on the drum and followed the organ in its foray into an uncreated world.. He appeared to know where to strike the stretched hide of the drum to get the tone he wanted, he could hear every tone perfectly, his hands played while he looked on, his mind directing the music with no intercession from his personality.

The impromptu session went on for half an hour, perhaps more, a fury of sound building up until all the room's inhabitants were shouting and chanting as though they were in some remote Indian village in the jungle, the communication between the different nationalities in the room was complete. Carl stopped with a flourish and a slight rise of his eyebrows directed at Peter, then he prepared another chilum. He indicated the cape on the wall.

'This cape is from Tibet. It was worn by the Tantric dancers. They would dance for three days continuously in the dance of the planets, a bit like the dervishes, and would dance on air at the end. See how the man is leaping into space?'

Carl invited Peter to put on the cape and dance. No longer trying to follow any thread, no longer even attempting to think where he was, the Canadian did as he was bid. Carl went back to the organ, the drummers went back to drumming, the chanters to chanting, the cymbal players, the Tibetan gong players to their reverberating instruments. In his multi-coloured cape, the Canadian danced the dance of the spheres, inhabited by the spirit of the cloak which flew up and down as he jumped and whirled about the room making lunges at the seated audience at this feet as if he were seeking the vengeance of the gods and then relenting and spinning away, the audience shrieking the sounds of the living jungle, all the music they made could be contained in a vast hymn of praise to the creation which flooded out of them. Finally the organ slowed from its reaching imploring vibrant notes into the deep velvet night, the crescendos and climaxes fell away, as they must, to leave a purged atmosphere among the participants. The last notes carried off into the square and the surrounding ring of mountains in Kathmandu valley, Carl got off his seat at the organ to return to his cushions by the wall surrounded by great banks of candles. Tania sat upright and motionless beside him, low murmurs of appreciation echoed in the room as though everyone was surprised where they had been. Peter rejoined Birgit, noticing as he did, a dark haired girl in black T-shirt, jeans and high cowboy boots standing just inside the doorway.

She walked into the room addressing no one in particular.

'Hi, I'm Jeanie, say are all you guys on drugs? I've just flown in from LA. I heard about you at the Sotil Hotel.'

'What did you hear?' asked Carl sharply, fixing his eyes on her in an unremitting stare.

'It's blowing my mind, I get the feeling it's magic you're into man, isn't it right?'

Carl laughed mercilessly. 'Call it what you like, sit down, have a smoke, find out where it's at, it takes time, it took me two months when I flew in, a plane's too quick.'

Birgit started nodding off beside Peter, she was too tired to allow more energy to be drained away from her body into her mind, she felt the presence of the hill futher down the valley, she wanted to get out into the dark empty square and breath in the night air.

'I.m going back to crash,' she smiled at Peter, 'will you be long?'

'No, but I'll stay on for a bit, are you sure you can make it?'

It's only across the square man.'

As Birgit walked down the cluttered stairway smelling the age of the building from the deep darkened wood, she realised how intoxicated the hashish had made her.

Out in the still alleyway she stood looking at the heavily shadowed houses, their overhanging roofs, their open windows, she was overwhelmed by their age, she was back in mediaeval times, and their unresolved mysteries, she walked out into the square and observed the brilliant stars, looked again at the hill with its barely perceivable spire some two miles away, she looked at the high white walls of the Dormitory, perfectly contained behind its closed doors, she decided to walk down the pathway leading out from the town towards the temple on the hill, on one side were ancient houses, on the other side was a stone wall behind which was a house she was to come to know as the Matchbox, a lake could be seen in the grounds reflecting the stars in its waters, she continued walking down the pathway until she could hear the gentle flow of water, she entered another, larger, square containing a temple within its shaded surrounds, beyond she could see a river which looked approximately fifty yards wide. As she stopped to take in the still view an explosion of growls and yapping made her start and momentarily later a pack of dogs came at her from out of the shadows. She was furious at this interruption.

'Sweinhund, sweinhund,' she roared, kicking out with her feet in all directions at the mangy white teethed dogs, she ploughed through them as they snatched cowardedly at her ankles and scuttled off out of distance of her feet. Eventually she had cowered them all and left them to return to the shadows of a wall. Walking on she turned round to see that the dogs had slinked after her but preferred the shelter of the temple's perimeter walls to the open bank of the river where a fire was burning. She picked out a rope bridge across the river with a walkway of planks, it dipped out into the night like a washing line, the river gave flowing reflections of the partially clouded sky. She went up close to the fire; two thick set Nepalese men in vests and dhotis were piling more wood on the flames and then with a thrill of recognition she saw a leg sticking out from the logs. So unconcerned were the men that she stood in the shadows and watched the charnel men poke the obstinately unburnt leg into the consuming fire. They in turn regarded her with the professional eye of undertakers measuring her requirement in firewood. Renegotiating the wild dogs she eventually returned to the Dormitory.

Carl had decided the young visitor from America should be shocked into an awareness of where she was. Although temporarily seated on the cushions dotted about the edges of the room, she was unable to stop moving or, for that matter, to stop talking.

She turned to talk to a heavily bearded Italian beside her.

'Tbis isn't a black magic place is it?' she asked. 'I'm getting the weirdest vibrations.'

'What is black magic?' Carl asked from the far side of the room illuminated by the banks of candles.

'Hell, you just know, getting people in your power, I'm so stoned man, what is that stuff you gave me?'

'Best Nepalese, fresh from the mountains, porters are just bringing the first of this year's crop down, they grow it at 9,000 feet.'

'No kid, how many feet are we here?'

'You're as high as you feel man,' Carl laughed, his body moving up and down, his eyes casting about the room as all the occupants watched this visitor from another time zone with fascination. She in turn looked at them nervously, seeking reassurance.

'How many of you are Americans?' she asked, turning from face to face.

'Yeah man.'

'Over here babe, smile.'

'Fine, I was starting to think you were all Europeans.'

'Aren't you European?'

'No, I'm sixth generation American with one third Indian blood.'

'Not long by Nepalese standards.'

'It's long enough man, hey, why no music, no dope?'

'We're coming to that, do you want to dance for us first?'

'What strip?'

'Dance, any kind of dance.'

'Give us some more dope, play some music, and I'll dance.'

'Let's have a spell,' said Carl quietly and coldly, still sitting upright in his yoga position.

He leaned across to a shelf full of books, pulled out a thick heavy brown leather-bound copy, turned through the pages thoughtfully and then slowly chanted some words that made no sense to Jeanie. Yet when he had finished speaking the atmosphere was cold and absolutely silent, he was burning into her consciousness, as though only she and he were in the room and all the rest mere witnesses.

Carl looked steadily at her. 'Live spelt backwards is evil. Tonight you and I will go out to rob and rape.'

'What me rape men? ' Jeanie asked, fearful, feeling what he had said was indisputably true. 'What happens if I don't want to?'

'You do want to.'

'Maybe some fella here,' she answered thoughtfully, unable not to be truthful about her desires.

'An American,' Carl suggested.

'Maybe an American,' she answered feeling that whatever she said would happen.

'You dance, I'll play the music, see who you attract.'

'OK man, I'll dance.'

She rose, took off her T-shirt to reveal a small pair of breasts, almost hidden by her long black hair, she had an olive complexion that did not completely originate from the candlelight. As Carl began to play she kicked off her sandals and swept back her hair in her trembling hands as she slowly paced to the music. The drums and cymbals quietly joined in, she whirled about the room, her movements athletic and savage, finally Lorenzo the bearded Italian she had first spoken to, got up and took off her jeans as she allowed him to slide them off her gently swaying legs, then he took off his own jeans and shirts and in his underpants danced with the delerious American, bending with her, moving with her, until the dance became a mating ritual between two birds of prey.They paraded proudly, promising delights with their bodies' movements, Carl sending the organ off into a paroxysm of hard driving music, the couple writhed about each other, Lorenzo hanging onto her around the waist, relieving her of even her pants, shaking all the while in svelte time to the demanding rhythms of the drums and organ and cymbals and pipes. Jeanie looked into his bearded face and could only hear music, see flashes of candlelight behind his head, he looked like a god with his fiercely suntanned features behind the bush of his beard. He lay her gently down upon the floor and then stood between her legs as she slowly opened them. He chanted louder and louder, waved his head around in a fury, the music became deafening, there were cries and shrieks, Lorenzo knelt down and put his arm under Jeanie's buttocks and raised her up and then down on his penis, she screamed as all the room screamed and a great shudder went through the Italian. He stayed kneeling looking into her transfixed face.

'Is that it?' she whispered to him.

He picked her upwards again and then lay her on the floor, her knees still raised up.

She lay there frozen in the position, then after a break of a minute she bounded up, her old self.

'My God, what are you people doing to me, I've never even seen the guy, it wasn't a great lay, no sir, hey damn it where's me clothes? Call a taxi for the Sotil will you?'

'There's no taxis, no phones here, sleep on the floor or walk baby.'

'Shit. I'll stay I guess. It's magic, the whole thing, magic.'

You can order the first edition of the novel (cost $50) by e-mail. quoting your credit card number.