Durbar Marg Intersection, Kathmandu, Nepal
June 5, 2009
11:26 a.m.
Pemba died not long after the third car hit him.
His new 150 cc Hero Honda, his pride and joy, was now little more than a twisted piece of metal blocking the road. A laptop computer, thrown from the Sherpa’s satchel, lay to one side of it. Shattered by cartwheeling down the tarmac before being crushed by the many car wheels that drove over it, the laptop had shared the same fate as its owner when the out-of-control motorcycle had reared up in the rain and flung them both into the path of oncoming traffic.
A crowd of onlookers on the pavement watched as the heavy rainfall pummeled the young Sherpa’s broken head, the cheap Chinese motorcycle helmet that surrounded it split cleanly in two like the shell of a walnut. His lifeless body was propped up against the high curb of the street, bright red blood flowing from his soaking T-shirt into the torrent of monsoon rain that cascaded along the side of the road. The crimson stream mixed with the dirty water and the refuse it carried, slowly dissolving into its filthy grey.
Fixated despite the driving rain, the bystanders stared at the scene, sharing the macabre fascination of yet another motorcycle accident. When the ambulance finally took the body away, they also drifted off, content in the collective observation that the number of motorcycle accidents always increased when the monsoon came. There would be more tomorrow and the day after. No other conclusion was necessary.
No one had seen what really occurred anyway. That first downpour of the day hid it all. Not a single person witnessed the car pulling alongside the small red and chrome motorcycle as it tried to accelerate its way home through the rapidly increasing rain. Nobody noticed the passenger door slam outward into the bike and its rider, causing him to lose control as the motorcycle bucked wildly into the oncoming traffic, handlebars flicking from lock to lock. No one had been watching anything until they stopped to watch Pemba die on the side of the road.
The stolen Maruti Suzuki car had vanished before the motorcycle even came to a rest, its two occupants satisfied that the nasty fall the Sherpa undoubtedly suffered was suitably within their orders from Sarron. It had been opportunistic, quick, and convenient. They had a busy afternoon and evening ahead with two more to deal with, particularly after missing the first one at his hotel that morning.
The car’s passenger handed the driver a photo of Dawa and shouted an address. The small car immediately turned to the left, across the oncoming traffic, to head for the other side of Kathmandu.