They plodded slowly uphill on the north-east trail out of the village, heading for the Chinese border, leaving Langtang and all the other trekkers behind. The landscape was bleak and devoid of trees, and across the valley she could see the rice terraces cascading down the hillside and, randomly dotted amongst them, a hut topped off with the inevitable feathery plume of white smoke.
Sujay walked a step or two in front of her, leading her on, and, watching his back, she could not stop thinking about what he had said. My suffering? What does he mean? I’m not suffering. Maybe it was just a poor choice of words, the meaning lost in translation. She certainly had a lot on her mind but it centred mainly on whether she was doing the right thing and what she was trying to achieve, and that amounted to no more than a minor torment in the scheme of things. Natural reticence in the face of the unknown. Her trip may not achieve anything other than to put minds at rest. Whose?
Or was this diminutive Nepali simply demonstrating his innate perspicacity? His ability to see through the façade and focus on the core; identify the truth, the truth being that she felt an obligation. That she felt undeserving and privileged, especially here amongst some of the poorest people she had ever met, and she owed that privilege to someone she could never thank; someone to whom she could never repay the kindness in any way, other than to do what she was doing now. Seeking out the closest thing to Peter she could find, pour out her heart and express her gratitude; salve her conscience. Ease her suffering.
The sickness returned. It started with a distant, sporadic throb every minute or so, gradually increasing in frequency and severity until it became synchronous with every step, so that every time she put a foot down, a hammer struck in her forehead. He gave her an ibuprofen and she drank deeply from her bottle, but the boiled, sanitised water tasted rank and adulterated and merely exacerbated the nausea building inside her.
It was late afternoon and cold. The sky was a mass of grey and, without any direct sun, the temperature had dropped to just above freezing, so they were both wrapped up in fleeces and jackets, her thermal hat pulled down over her ears. They had been climbing steadily for over two hours, and after a particularly steep section, her thighs burnt from the build-up of lactic acid. She stopped for breath and let the pain in her legs subside. She leaned forward on her poles, resting her pounding forehead on the back of her gloved hands, the thump-thump of her heartbeat echoing in her ears, swallowing ominously, trying to suppress the inevitable.
“Sujay?”
“Yes, Jess?”
“Thank you – for making me – bring – a lighter bag.” She affected a grin despite her discomfort and he laughed. She’d remembered his comment back at Dwarika’s.
“How much further?” she gasped.
“Oh. Thirty minutes or so,” he said, and had she not felt so ill, she would have laughed out loud at the utter predictability of the answer. She looked up at him with a wry smile and snorted, but without warning, lost control of her stomach, projecting a stream of vomit over a clump of thorny shrubs that bordered the trail.
“Ugh!” She coughed and spluttered and vomited again; lunch, breakfast, last night’s dinner, she couldn’t tell, but it kept coming, and as it did, the pounding in her forehead and temples intensified to the point where she thought her head might explode. She dropped to her knees and let go of her poles, her body tipped forward, supported by both hands pressed flat onto the dirt. “Oh God!” she wailed and convulsed once more, but this time there was just bile. She was empty. She stayed there for a moment, head bursting, chest heaving, gasping for breath, and then flopped back on her bottom, head between her knees. After a few minutes, the breathing stabilised, the headache subsided to a manageable rhythmic throb and she wrapped her arms over her woolly hat in a futile attempt to stop her brains rattling.
“Are you okay?” He was crouching down in front of her and it sounded like the stupidest question she’d ever heard, but she had no energy to counter it and no desire to converse; she just wanted to die. But she found the strength to lift her head. Her neck muscles screamed in protest, and the pounding in her head briefly returned until she opened her eyes. “Look at me,” he said, pointing two fingers at his own eyes, and she obeyed, as best she could. He examined her pupils and she watched him intently for a moment until he smiled at her. “You’re okay,” he said, getting to his feet.
She looked at him, her jaw dropping open in amazement, and then put her head back between her legs and moaned.
“When you are ready.”
He helped her to her feet and handed her the discarded walking poles.
“Thank you,” she said, the weariness in her voice heavy and resigned. She noticed he had strapped her rucksack to his chest. She wanted to protest but knew it was futile. He put one hand on her back and helped her take the first step.
It took another hour, but she got there. The little stone house was much like the one they had been in the previous day. A wood fire burnt strongly in a brick fireplace built into a corner alcove, and a woman busied herself next to it, chopping vegetables on a wooden board with a large meat cleaver. A baby, barely one year old, sat on the floor on a goatskin rug, looking bewildered, sucking on a sugary stick, while Sujay sat on some cushions next to a man who puffed periodically on a clay pipe, filling the air with an acrid and curiously pungent aroma. The men seemed to be engaged in discussing important worldly matters, and although she couldn’t understand anything they said, she found the sound strangely comforting, curled up and dozing as she was on the threadbare mattress behind them.
The woman had given her lemon and ginger tea sweetened with lots of honey and she’d taken two full-strength paracetamol which seemed to have done the trick. To her astonishment, she actually felt hungry, and the smell of frying food wafted around the room, teasing her senses and making her salivate.
They sat cross-legged on the floor and ate from wooden bowls using chopsticks. Noodles, with shredded vegetables, doused in a thick black sauce that came out of a bottle. Sujay and the man topped theirs off with a virulent red sauce and it looked to her like a trial of strength as to who could eat the most chillies. They drank tea, their cups constantly refilled from a huge teapot, and it tasted different from the tea she had got used to.
“This is Chinese influence,” he explained.
After dinner, the men opened a plastic bottle and poured a clear liquid into two shot glasses before downing it in a single gulp.
“You like to try?” he said.
“What is it?” She was not at all sure she wanted try and was worried about the consequences for her recently consumed dinner.
“Rice wine. Home-made.” Their host poured out a measure and Sujay handed her the glass, which she sniffed tentatively.
“I hold you responsible for this,” she said, and they all watched as she put her lips to the glass and then threw her head back, swallowing in one. The fiery liquid burnt her throat and she gasped in pain, massaging her neck with her spare hand. The men slapped their thighs and bellowed in laughter, while the woman, sitting quietly, breast-feeding her baby, looked on in amusement.
“More?”
“No!” she said, and thrust the shot glass back at Sujay. “Thank you.” But as hideous as the rice wine tasted, she felt a glow of warmth inside her and a delicious drowsiness take hold. She looked around but could see no door other than the one through which they had originally entered. Nor had she noticed any other buildings, but then she’d been weak and tired at the time. “Er, Sujay, where do we sleep? Is there another room?” she asked, fearing she already knew the answer.
“We sleep here.”
“Where?”
“Here.” He gestured around the room.
“Where?” she persisted.
“You sleep here on this mattress and we pull this curtain across and we sleep over there.” He pointed to three wooden benches arranged on two sides at the other end of the room.
“But this is their bed,” she objected.
“That’s okay. You are their guest.” She felt bad about it but it was pointless arguing and she had other things on her mind. She leant close to his ear.
“Where’s the toilet?” she whispered, feeling stupid because, in all probability, the man and woman wouldn’t understand what she was saying. But the man immediately said something unintelligible and waved in the air. Sujay laughed.
“Come. I show you. Put your jacket on.” He grabbed a head torch, led her outside into the freezing night air and down the steps to the trail. On the opposite side of the path, a wooden structure like a tiny garden shed on stilts was built into the hillside. He shone the light on it. “Here.” He gave her the torch and she stepped onto a plank that bridged the gap between the path and the shed-like structure and onto the narrow walkway around it. She turned back to him, perplexed.
“The door’s around the other side,” he pointed. She stepped gingerly along the walkway and around to the opposite side. There was no door. The shed was open to the air, facing out across a valley that was invisible in the black of the night. The hut contained a wooden box topped with an inset black plastic toilet seat. She shone the torch over the seat, but there was nothing but a black hole, and twenty or thirty feet down, the torchlight revealed a swathe of accumulated effluent strewn across the rocks, grass and shrubbery below. She groaned but got herself organised and sat there, entranced by the millions of stars twinkling above her, imagining how spectacular the view might be in daylight.
She fished in her pocket and used a wet wipe but then was at a loss to know what to do with it, deciding eventually there was no other choice than to drop it down the hole.
Back inside the hut, the curtain had been hung around her bedroom area and the woman brought her a bowl of warm water and a white flannel. Behind the curtain, she stripped off to her underwear and rubbed herself all over with the warm flannel, leaving her feeling surprisingly refreshed and relatively fragrant. She put her thermals back on and peeked through a gap in the curtain. The man and woman were curled up on the benches, fast asleep, the baby snuggled up to the woman’s chest, her husband snoring loudly. Sujay was on the third bench, fully clothed, sleeping bag rolled up under his head, clearly still awake.
“We’re up at six,” he said. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Sujay.”
The fire continued to glow in the corner and the room was still warm as she wrestled herself into her sleeping bag and closed her eyes; as ever, alone with her thoughts.