28

RICKSHAW RACE

Sukhra Path, Kathmandu, Nepal

Balkumar, the newsagent, resembled an aged owl. Huge black-framed bottle-bottomed glasses dominated his wizened triangular face to look out from within the fan of newspapers and magazines that surrounded his tiny hole-in-the-wall shop. The moment Henrietta exited the front door of her building and looked across at him, the magnified eyes blinked in return and slowly lifted a copy of the Kathmandu Times to his left where he clipped it to his display frame with three binder clips.

She saw them immediately. Three Asians sat at a front table of the café two doors down. Each was wearing mirrored glasses. Henrietta tutted at the cliché and looked instead to the already busy roadway as one of the men saw her. He spoke to the others then got up as another began tapping into his smartphone. Somewhat theatrically, Henrietta just raised a hand to hail a bicycle rickshaw despite a number of faster taxis passing by. Stepping up onto the ripped bench seat behind the skinny rider, she took in the man’s sticklike legs, totally at odds with his faded green T-shirt that showed an image of the Incredible Hulk. She told herself he was perfect as he set off with all the force of a broken-shelled snail rather than a green man-mountain, his thin body straining, the pedals clanking, one back wheel squeaking with every slow revolution. In her makeup mirror Henrietta watched as a second rickshaw bearing the Asian who had got to his feet settled in some distance behind. She tried to amuse herself with the absurdity of the chase even if she couldn’t deny a concern that the Chinese must have already picked up her contact with the masked figure. She quickly focused her attention on asking a question of the rickshaw man, and when he replied affirmatively, she wrote a note on a piece of paper as the contraption clattered on, to the thought that she really did miss the old days. Things had gotten so quick, however much she might try to slow them down.

Arriving in the narrower streets of the Thamel tourist district, Henrietta was relieved to see that, despite the early hour, they were already busy. Young backpackers, white-haired boomers, delivery boys, street kids, touts, and shop owners all crowded the roads and pavements as the bright store lights burned and competing loud music thumped. When the rider turned a tight corner into another equally crowded road that momentarily separated the two rickshaws, Henrietta quickly leaned forward and told him to stop. The man did so with immediate relief as Henrietta paid with a single five-hundred rupee bill tightly folded around the small note she had written. Without waiting for any change, she stepped down quickly into the bustle of the Mandala Street market. The rickshaw man glanced at the note, smiled at the money, and wrenched up what remained of the fabric roof of his rickshaw despite the clear, powder-blue sky overhead. Ignoring another tourist seeking a ride, he slowly peddled away.

Henrietta ducked down slightly and walked directly into a melee of people as she put on a purple paisley silk headscarf she took from within her sleeve. With a glimpse backward, she saw the Asian man now standing up on the back of his rickshaw trying to locate the other rickshaw. Before she had even entered the more crowded Sagarmatha Bazaar she knew she had lost him.

Amateur.

Not looking back again, she quickly turned another corner and stepped into the Sunrise Café with a nod to the manager. She had known Kami Sherpa since he was a boy and his father had been one of the leading Everest Sherpa alongside the place’s owner, Temba Chering. “The usual, Kami,” she said as he grinned at her in welcome.

Together they briskly walked past the crowded tables of the dining area and through a swing door into the equally crowded kitchen. There, Kami offered her a flask of tea as they squeezed between busy cooks and waiters to arrive at a side door that the Sherpa took out a big bunch of keys to unlock. The door swung open onto an embroidery sweatshop lined with young men and women hunched over big gray sewing machines. With a quick thank-you to the Sherpa, Henrietta walked down the center of the long room, many pairs of brown eyes looking up from the multicolored ones they were sewing into T-shirts as they watched her pass. Over the clatter of their machines, she knocked on another door at the very end, three times.

It opened immediately.

“Miss Richards,” a welcoming voice said.

Sangeev Gupta read Henrietta’s handwritten memorandum of her meeting with the climber Lady Huang Hsu carefully. The report was long but the copperplate conclusion brief:

Attempt unsuccessful.

The Indian had worked with Henrietta long enough to immediately understand the significance of this rejection. There were few records left in Himalayan mountaineering that really caught the media’s attention. Huang, as potentially the first woman to climb all fourteen eight-thousand-meter peaks, was laying claim to one of the biggest. This was going to be a tricky one.

Opening the laptop to log on and begin the expedition write-up, Gupta reminded himself to first find out where the Snowdonia Ascents team would be staying to get that task out of the way. It was usually the Khumbu Hotel, but as he looked for his cellphone to call and verify, he fell temptation to first open his own email. Seeing only junk, he quickly switched to the daily news and clicked on the lead story about the Durbar Square immolation. Before his finger had even released pressure from the mouse, he sensed he had made a mistake.

The screen froze and turned black.

The black changed to scarlet.

Cats began to multiply across the screen in a golden wildfire.

“Shit!” Gupta cursed as he stabbed at the computer’s power button, holding it down until its chorus of “I should be so lucky” was silenced, the screen dead.

Recovering his breath, he hoped to Shiva that the Lucky Cat virus was just being run as interference on the immolation story rather than complete infection. He had too much work to do to lose a day sorting it out. Anxious, he prepared to turn the laptop back on, readying himself to switch it to safe mode as fast as he could. He took a deep breath and lifted his finger but hesitated at the sound of a knocking on the front door. With a sigh, Gupta got up from his desk to see who it was.

Walking toward the front door he wondered if Henrietta had changed her mind about not needing her phone. He slowed, faintly panicked at the thought that she might need him to look up something on his frozen computer.

The knocking resumed, growing impatient.

“Hold on. I’m coming,” he said aloud as he reached for the lock.

The second he opened it, the door slammed back into his face. The square edge of heavy wood struck his cheek, the force flinging him to the floor. Sangeev Gupta’s world immediately went dark just as if someone had hit his “off” switch.

“Morning tea?” Henrietta asked as she entered the small and simple barbershop.

“Of course. I have just shut up shop as your rickshaw man’s note suggested,” Pashi replied while he finished turning down the grimy venetian blinds on his street-facing windows and glass door.

He returned to switch on a single fluorescent strip-light that reluctantly buzzed and clicked into life to harshly illuminate the small shop.

At its center a single chrome and black-leather barber’s chair looked into a large cracked mirror over an ancient basin. To each side, the wooden shelves were scattered with narrow bladed scissors, cut-throat razors, shaving soap, and shampoos. Around the mirror were several photographs of ridiculous men’s hairstyles from the 1970s. All the shop’s remaining wall space was covered with postcards, stickers, pennants, and other mementos from nearly forty years of Himalayan mountaineering.

Pashi Bol, the barber, was a legend amongst the climbers who came through the city, and had been cutting their hair and massaging sense back into their heads after big climbs for longer than even Henrietta had been checking their facts. A charming gossip worthy of his trade, the little man knew as much about what was going on in the mountains and on the streets of Kathmandu as did Henrietta. They would often compare notes over cups of milky chai from Kami Sherpa’s ever-ready flask, particularly at times of crisis. As usual, Henrietta poured and they each took a cup to sit on the row of waiting chairs that lined the shop’s back wall, conspiratorially side by side.

“So, Pashi, what are you hearing?”

“That Lady Huang Hsu is very mad at you, Miss Richards,” the little barber replied.

“Of course she is, but we all know the rules. To claim a summit you have to both set foot on it and also prove to me that you did. She did neither.”

Henrietta sipped her tea as if nothing more needed be discussed on that subject but Pashi continued, “I know, but she is crazy woman, Miss Richards. All the Sherpa say it.”

“They say that of me also,” Henrietta replied with a smile.

“They do not. You have done much for them and they love you very much. You are their White Tara, their protector spirit in Kathmandu. It is Huang that is the mad, angry one. I know you have heard also the stories of how she treats them.

“The world record for first woman to climb all the eight-thousand-
meter peaks is very important to her. It would make her a famous
celebrity in Taiwan. Her country would get behind it much more than others just to be poking the finger at China if you see what I mean. You need to be careful with her, Miss Richards.”

“I note what you say, Pashi. Now what about what happened last night at the Kumari Jatra?”

“With that you should be even more careful.”

“Why?”

“I understand that you met the man before he burned.”

Pashi’s answer shocked Henrietta.

“Who told you that? Have the Chinese been asking after me already?”

“Yes, Miss Richards. I am told that they are furious about what happened and are using all their sources in the city, putting pressure on everyone, to find out who was involved. A detective I know—a good man—called and said that someone from Lhasa is now handling the matter. He said it was the one known in Tibet as ‘Yama.’”

Henrietta had heard the Sherpa mention such a man in the past. “Really?”

“Yes. The detective told me that Yama was following the man,” Pashi continued, “and that they have film of him meeting you in Durbar Square.”

“Do they indeed. Did this Yama say who it was?”

“No, only that it was a ghost he was following. Do you know who it was?” Pashi asked directly.

“Possibly, but it makes absolutely no sense. Did anyone recognize the man after the fire?”

“No. He disappeared.”

“Sorry, but what did you say?”

“In the chaos after, the burner vanished. Maybe he really was a spirit, a tulpa as some people are saying.”

“Hmm,” Henrietta said trying to process what she was hearing. “What did you make of the moth symbol on the banner, Pashi?”

Unusually for the most talkative man in Kathmandu, Pashi paused before he answered and, angling his head, looked back at her with a faint smile as if spotting a bluff in a poker game.

“Ghost moth sign, Miss Richards. I only ever hear about a long time ago. Not now.”

“And?”

“Secret persons that help Tibet when we were both young . . .” He hesitated before adding, “To be honest I am little surprised that you ask me.”

“Why would that be, Pashi?”

“Well . . . you know.”

“No, Pashi, I don’t know. What?”

“Your friend Christopher Anderson.”

“Go on.”

“Was he not a Ghost Moth?”

The truth in the answer to his question made Henrietta shiver. “What are you talking about?”

“Yes, I once heard that Christopher Anderson and some other climbers work to help the Tibetans against Chinese. They call themselves the Ghost Moths. All dead now. I always think you must know because he your very good friend, but old days, private stuff, so I not mention then or now. But please be careful, Miss Richards.” Pashi Bol gave Henrietta another long yet kindly look that was etched with concern. “Sometimes the past can also be a ghost that returns to haunt us.”

“Indeed it can, Pashi,” Henrietta said, getting up and walking to one of the walls from which she unpinned an old faded postcard. Taking a pen from her handbag, she wrote something on the back of the postcard and then pinned it back.

“Please be sure to give that card to Mr. Neil Quinn when he comes in for his next haircut. You are always his first stop when he gets back from a climb and I need to see him. Can you also call me a taxi?”

“I will.”

“And, Pashi, for his eyes only. No peeking. I am a great believer that we can’t be hurt by what we don’t know.”

The parting comment made Pashi quickly change his mind about reading the back of the card the second she left. Instead he just looked at the pinned image of the mountain of Makalu and wondered what she was up to.