26 August Monday Calcutta to Kathmandu
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| "Mister, buy hashish?" |
In Calcutta and Nepal there are odd young people with stringy yellow hair and skin as grey and transparent as rice paper. Faded clothes hang from their bodies like the heavy roots of a banyan tree. They wear old jeans, tank tops some, but most wear the scratchy cotton Indian shirt, its white faded to a dirty grey to match their faces. The skin clings to their hollow cheeks stretched over their bones as dried chamois. On their feet, grimy and cow-dunged, are sandals, leather molded by wear. But of all their strange features it is their eyes which are most commanding. Blue, the washed out muddied blue of an Indian river, and saucer-big, they peer from the hollows under their brows. These eyes are old and in what despite its decay can be recognized as a young body. They may be eyes that continue to see through endless incarnations, or perhaps in one brief half-life they have scanned enough for many lifetimes. But then, it may be that their strain is from too much turning inward, inside those heads. Because it is to look both within and without that these young people have seemed to come; have rejected other uniforms and the suffering of ennui for this. 27 August Tuesday through 29 August Thursday Patan to Kathmandu
29 August: I have somehow lost two more days of my life, as with the flight from LA to Tokyo. The 27th, our second day in Kathmandu began with a drizzle. We had breakfast, arranged our morning plan and set out. By the time we reached the Royal Nepal Airways office, it was raining hard. But we got our business done and, having driven away uncertainty, we gaily tromped through the puddles. Our plan was to find a book store, get a couple of novels, walk around a bit, then have lunch at the hotel and spend a cozy afternoon reading in bed. Tomorrow we will explore further. We felt as though we would like Kathmandu better than India. The air is much more tranquil, the surrounding mountains provide physical beauty and cooling. The beggars are few and more good-natured about their business; the tourist hustlers are better-mannered, less insistent. The place is not threatening.
The narrow, cobbled streets with building fronts of intricately carved wood with the many bicycles give the feeling of a small European mountain town. Bea bought a fez, like all the men wear, and we excitedly “discovered” Tibetan woven rugs, bargained but were unable to choose and to plunk down the money. We would go to other shops, decide later.
Bea had been suffering a mild case of “tummy” since Calcutta and now had the sniffles. On our first night in Kathmandu she had rushed to the restaurant head while I gleefully cleaned the plate of rice, curry, dal, nan, just as I had at lunch.
At the hotel, we stripped off our damp clothes and snuggled in our bed. It was raining steadily and I felt a chill and muscle ache. In an hour, I stripped the blanket. I shook down the thermometer. It read 100. I felt a slight swelling in my throat. I took aspirins, but by late afternoon, the thermometer read 101. For dinner I had toast and tea and more aspirins. Still, it climbed to 102. Other than chills, aches, and heat all over, I didn’t feel that bad. I decided not to worry unless it rose again. In an hour it was at 103.
We went back to our room and I took the medicine as ordered and went to sleep. I awoke in a chilled sweat with serious muscle cramps and buzzing in my head. It was 1 a.m. With great effort in the dark I poured water and took another dose. I could not sleep. My chills shook the bed. Time passed slowly. My moans woke Bea. She took my temperature. 103+.
Now we were scared again. I do not remember ever having a higher temperature, but I felt I could wait it out. Yet, in my fevered mind were melodramatic visions of convulsions, shock, coma. Didn’t my mother say that my brother had a fever of 105 that crossed his eyes for life! Bea was for going again to the hospital — or the “American hospital” in Patan that someone we met had mentioned. Shivering, I pointed out that it was pouring, near 2 a.m., I probably only had pharyngitis and the temperature would eventually break. But I was scared, too. We agreed that if it reached 104 we would go.
In an hour, my temperature had risen from 102 to 103. Now we watched as it edged up, minute by minute, to 104. It was like a movie where some decision or crisis forms the suspense, watching the water level in the dam rise, or the altimeter needle shakily move through the sound barrier or the wind level reach hurricane force so the rocket can’t be launched. 104!
Bea dressed quickly, eyes wide with concern. I dressed warmly, shaking with chills. Each movement was dizzying and painful. She went down the stairs in the dark and woke up the houseman, explained over and over what was wrong and what she wanted. Then she came up and we went down together. She spoke calmly, but with an edge of panic: “I got the American hospital. I spoke to a woman. She said we should come and gave the guy directions for the taxi. He’s out trying to find one.”
I was able to shudder: “He’ll never find one. Its 2 am and raining.” A steady drizzle fell. We waited in the dark, cramped lobby. My body was shivering uncontrollably now; cramps ripped across my stomach. I suspected my fever had risen still further. There was a loud ringing in my ears. Finally, Bea told another man to call an ambulance immediately. He did so. We waited. It came and directions were passed.
The van went through the empty streets of the city and onto a highway and then to the hospital gate. We were let in by a watchman who had a bad cough. By this time, I was becoming less conscious of my surroundings. Burning up, head buzzing, each step dizzying and painful. We walked down a dark long corridor which faced a central plaza to an “emergency” sign. It was locked and dark. The whole place seemed to be deserted. One of the drivers left and after a long time a Nepali nurse came, unlocked the door and sat me on a table.
She took my temp, pulse and blood pressure. Then a doctor came. It was like a dream. He looked just like one of my clients. My last trial, in fact. Carlos Godoy, a Guatemalan, brown face, black curly hair, thin black mustache over a long, thin tight lipped mouth and black rimmed glasses. The doctor, a Nepali, was a dead ringer for Carlos Godoy. In my fevered state I wondered if I imagined the resemblance because of my guilt at having left for my long-planned trip before the final court date. I had won the case, really, he had been found not guilty of the felony of bouncing a tire iron off the heads of his wife and her lover, and had been convicted of a misdemeanor assault, for which I was sure he would simply be fined.
The doctor examined me carefully and slowly. Finally he said “Pharyngitis is correct. A bacterial infection. We will keep you tonight. Penicillin for the fever and glucose for strength. Rest.” His voice was reassuringly calm but his face was inscrutable. Is there anyone more inscrutable than an Eastern doctor?
We were led through the cold corridors upstairs and into a room. There was one old fashioned hospital bed, a sink, a naked bulb and a low cot near the door. The walls were hospital yellow but drab. The powerful odor of disinfectant was annoying, yet also reassuring. I stripped and was put into loose fitting pajamas and under a cover. I was still cold. Soon two nurses came in. In their faces was mixed the round delicate Nepali beauty and the competent nurse’s detachment. One carried the glucose bottle and tube. I had feared this, having seen it many times. People in hospitals with needles in their veins. I imagined the annoying pain of the needle continuing, nagging hour after hour. The other nurse carried a syringe which seemed to me — looking through fever weighted eyes — to be the size of a tube of blood and a rich red color. She rolled me to one side and gave me the penicillin injection.
I do not remember whether pain is supposed to be beyond description or beyond memory. I will always remember this pain, though I am unsure that I can describe it so as to give a “feel” for its impact. My dentist has often marveled at how I can take deep drilling without a wince. In the month before we left I took nine shots, including Cholera, almost laughing. In Bangkok I took one in each cheek, 14 cc’s, with mild annoyance. But when this needle sunk into my muscle, I writhed in such torment and for so long that I scared myself as well as Bea who knows — and kept repeating to the nurses — about how well I take shots. My right leg felt paralyzed! I bit the pillow and Bea told me later, I cried: “I want to go home!”
In my agony I asked the nurse what they had given me. Even as a child I had gotten many penicillin shots without such pain. Their answer was so shocking that even in my agony, it made me laugh. “Christian penicillin,” I thought I heard them say. This was a mission hospital, and later when my wit returned I thought that my bad reaction was because I am Jewish and should have asked for Jewish penicillin, which everyone knows is chicken soup!
When the pain subsided, I was almost too exhausted and relieved to feel the jab of the needle into a vein in the back of my hand. It was taped securely and a gauze pad tied to keep my hand and arm in place so the glucose would drip into the bottle and the blood would not drip out of my vein. Finally I was left. Bea stood by me a while, then dragged herself to the low cot. The next four hours dragged by. Like life, sometimes, the only thought making it bearable — as the minutes of writhing agony before it — was the lesson I had learned well on this trip: this too shall pass.
The hours were spent in stuporous sleep, pain, awareness of the steady plodding rain, sounds of crying and moans of pain from other rooms, sweating coldly and shivering. When I finally awoke, I was bathed in clammy sweat, the heat in my ears lessened. Nurses arrived. Temperature down to 102. They toweled my body and changed my pajama top and the sheets. They were sweet and lovely in their starched white uniforms which were saris, starched and belted. They smiled at me. One said to the other that I looked Nepali. I imagined that with my week old scraggly whiskers, unshaven, unwashed and odorous, I must have looked more like a nomad who lives with camels.
Bea had gone to get some food, looking ghastly after her brave and traumatic night. When she returned she explained that she had arranged to take her meals in the hospital dining hall and inquired of the cost, which was incredibly small compared to a US hospital.
At nine, two English doctors arrived. One in his thirties looked like Victor Spinetti (the actor who played the t.v director in “A Hard Day’s Night”); the other was young and wore a red beard. The older one spoke, read the chart, and said: “If you are jumping about tomorrow morning, maybe you can go.” He asked if I could take liquids. I said yes. I had no appetite, but I wanted no more food dripping in my veins. He promised that when the bottle was dry to feed me orally. He murmured something about another shot. I told him of the excruciating pain. “Oh, yes, we have to mix with saline which is many times more painful than water because the pharmaceutical firms don’t find it profitable to sell us those with water solutions.” He said this matter-of-factly, then consented to oral doses.
When they left, Bea finally broke down. She explained that part of her fear was that she had discovered that her previous assumption that we would always be only a plane flight away from civilization and home was shaken. When she thought I might be seriously ill, she had inquired about flights and discovered that obtaining a quick return would have been impossible.
She cried uncontrollably and for several minutes. I kept telling her that I was sorry. I wanted to say how proud of her I had been during the crisis, how I needed her to be there and looked for her each moment like a child looks for its mother for reassurance. I wanted to say that to her. I was sure she knew it but was equally sure that she would want it said. But I left it largely unsaid. I held her hand. She smiled through red eyes: “You gave me quite a scare.” She herself had developed a cute cough and sniffle independent of her tears. I joked to her that after what she had seen me go through, there was no way that she would even look sideways at a doctor.
I spent the day dozing, watching the bottle empty drip by drip and getting my pills and a urine bottle which a boy thrust into my shorts while I was lying down, expecting me to pee at will in that position. I tried, then sat up, finally stood up and filled the bottle and half the water carafe besides. I was later jabbed for a blood test and given more pills. My fever went down but by the end of the day had risen again and I knew that I would have to spend another night. It rained all day. And all night.
Finally the next morning I awoke feeling like a specie akin to human. My temp was near normal and I convinced the young doctor to angle for my pardon. By midmorning it was done. The rain had stopped with the sunrise and the nurse had opened the window to a framed view of Oz-like magnificence. A large fern tree hung in the foreground over a garden of roses and a purple coleus between the hospital buildings. Beyond was a farm, a worker walking in the green textured paddies. In the distance, all the varying shades of green made of terraced farmlands rose to a village of brown- topped white walled houses. Two mountains, fog clinging to their low folds and clouds tipping their lush ridges edged the horizon. The sky was a deep and cloudy blue. It was like a Cezanne and my room being so rough and primitive, I imagined what the Impressionists must have seen and lived was not much different from this view. The day was bright and clear as our taxi took us to our hotel which was like a Catskills resort on a rainy weekend in May or June. Deserted, dampened, and somewhat melancholy. We spent the day in bed, Bea sleeping a drugged and relieved sleep, I enjoying my convalescence reading a biography of Freud.
Awaking, I took inventory. I slept well. Muscles no longer sore. Throat still a little tight. Temperature normal. It was amazing how quickly the body recovers. Was it only two days ago that I was so feverish that I was near delirious?
Bea awoke wheezing, sneezing and snorting. Her cold was making her miserable but had not caused any fever. We both ate. It was raining steadily again. We decided what to do. We toyed with the idea of staying a few more days and seeing the sights. But after the one clear day — which we were forced to spend in bed — the rain had begun. This was really the rainy season and it would continue, probably for days without letup. We had gone to Japan without seeing Fuji. Now we would leave Nepal without seeing Everest. A certain distinction for world travelers, you must admit. We went to the RNAC office and reconfirmed our flight for 31 August and had them telex reservations in New Delhi. We then flagged a taxi and went back to Patan (no pun intended on the war movie of a similar sounding name) to the village of Tibetan refugees. Surrounded by idyllically beautiful mountains and lush valleys, the Tibetans who fled the Chinese takeover of their country have made a home and thriving business of their woven goods. There is a factory where the Tibetan goat’s wool was spun, dyed and woven on looms into the meticulous, beautiful and vibrantly colored rugs. We chose one. It was too expensive for us but we loved it and Bea assured me that it would cost twice the price in the States.
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| School's Out! |
We saw many young westerners here, so lonely and so morose in appearance, so much into their heads that they are unable to see outward. They miss so much.
31 August Kathmandu to New Delhi
The last day of our first month of the trip and fittingly, spent as the first day, traveling — to the airport, weighing in, waiting, flying, waiting, making our way from airport to hotel, checking in. Fatiguing it certainly was as always, and also melancholy and a bit saddening to leave Nepal which we instinctively liked despite the illness and the rain and which we hardly got the chance to know; and going back to ominous, unknowable India.
From the glimpse of our bus ride and our dinner at a modern restaurant, New Delhi seems to be in a different century than Calcutta — that is, in the present one instead of some primitive age of horrifying want (maybe in the near future rather than the past!)
But that impression was at night. The darkness covers many things that the Indian sun exposes. And the sun does shine and scald (99̊ at landing, 6 p.m.) Our hotel reservation did not precede us, but we found a room at our chosen hotel. It is a suite which means an extra useless room and too much money. Tomorrow we will seek out the “Y”. Having made our attack plan for the city, we sleep a little easier, though our sniffles will not be aided by our fan and central air conditioning which are too chill but without which we would suffocate in the airless suite.
We have vowed in blood not to miss the Taj Mahal as we missed Fuji and Everest.
