The Trouble with the Truth

The Gurung of Bahadur allowed me to settle in a corner of the namghar, their communal hut. Nanda showed me where to gather bamboo and how to build a privacy screen of sorts. I was given a straw mattress, a bowl with which to beg food, and free run of the village. For the most part, the namghar was mine, having been built for the occasional wedding or village meeting. The Gurung rarely met as a group - most of them working until nightfall in the fields of corn they carefully cultivated in the rich nooks and crannies nestled in the mountains. They were a simple people, prone to bland foods and earth tones. Their skin was of a color and texture best compared with a dried riverbed, cracked and hardened by the sun. Their eyes were dark and impenetrably Asian, revealing whites only when excited or startled. Their hands were as gnarled as old roots. Their feet were wide and heavily callused, with black nails and flat soles. With the exception of Nanda, none of them spoke any English. Though they were kind, they rarely smiled when I was around, but I would often catch them when they thought they were alone, and in those rare moments I'd observe the love of a mother for her child, the laughter of siblings at play, the teasing of the men as they went out into their fields: emotions and actions as universal as man himself. They fed me without reproach, ridicule, or scorn, and never once asked where I'd come from or what I'd done. They did not care why I had fled civilization.

Clear-headed for the first time in years, it didn't take long for me to become bored, to begin to feel useless. I asked Nanda if there was something I could do around the village to help out.

"Men work the fields," he said.

I shook my head. I'd no interest in being a farmer, certainly not at an elevation in excess of ten thousand feet. I simply wasn't up to it. But not all the men worked as farmers; Nanda and Sri Mani were hunters. The forest was alive with wild goats, yaks, boars, hares and foxes and marmots. I'd been eating stews provided courtesy of Sri Mani's musket since my arrival.

"I could hunt," I ventured.

"Pholo smile on Sri Mani," said the Nepalese. "Pholo does not know Bahktur."

"You could introduce me to your forest god."

"Bahktur does not know how to pray to Pholo."

I'd seen the chorten, the shrine that they'd made to Pholo. Nanda and Sri Mani never left the village without making an offering. In as much as I'd long ago forsaken my own god, I saw no problem with accepting theirs. I touched Nanda's shoulder, startled to find his bare arm as hard and dry as rock. "Teach me, Nanda."

He searched my eyes. I've no idea what he was looking for, no idea what he found. His eyes were as deep and unreadable as always, a thousand years lost in the heavy creases of his wrinkled brow, his lips set like stone. There were old scars on his cheek, barely distinguishable from the less traumatic but equally hardened weathering of time. Finally, he blinked.

"We leave at dawn, Bahktur. If you not farmer, Pholo will see what kind of man you are."

#

I found them near the shrine, a chicken struggling its last in Sri Mani's strong hands. The breast of the chicken had been split open, the white downy mantle now slick with blood, its organs dangling from the gaping cavity ... like some morbid high school lab experiment, minus only the straight pins and paper labels.

Nanda gave a curt nod when he saw me. "Sri Mani say Pholo smile on us today. We will hunt."

The chicken was placed on the altar, still struggling feebly against the evisceration that had yielded Pholo's blessing. Sri Mani wiped his bloody hands on the grass, picked up his musket, and started off into the forest without a word. Nanda pointed to a massive bundle of bamboo fiber rope, several long bamboo poles, and a large wicker basket lined with goat hide.

"You carry," he said.

Before I could complain that the load would be too much, he shouldered his own load, a huge bundle of rope and bamboo that was at first a mystery, but as I studied it I saw that it was a long ladder, coiled about itself into a bundle some thirty inches in diameter. It must have weighed more than half as much as the man himself. With a strap that he looped over his forehead, Nanda braced the heavy load on his back, leaning far forward to balance the weight. He didn't watch to see if I would follow. He simply started off into the forest on the heels of Sri Mani, who carried nothing except the musket.

I gathered up the ropes, poles, and basket, strapping as much of it as I could on my back, gathering the rest in my arms, and struggled after them.

The day waxed hot and humid. The air grew thinner as we climbed higher. It was a struggle to breath. Twice I nearly lost sight of the Nepalese hunters, who did not slow their pace for me. In a rare moment when Nanda was within shouting range, I called out to him.

"Isn't there plenty of game below? Nearer the village?"

"Not the game we seek, Bahktur" he replied, without turning his head.

"And what game is that?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

We stopped for an afternoon meal of tsampa, a Tibetan staple of roasted barley flour, cheese, sugar, curd, and butter rolled into small balls. We washed it down with cool water from a nearby stream. I leaned against the coils of rope, my feet up and braced against the trunk of a tree because I seemed to remember reading somewhere, a million years ago, that it was good to keep the blood from flooding your feet while resting on a hike. I was still breathing heavily, a combination of the thin air and the exertion. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever catch my breath. Sri Mani stared at me openly, his gnarled, fastidious fingers stroking the long gray whiskers on his chin. Finally, he turned to Nanda and said something. Nanda just shook his head.

"What'd he say?"

"He say you are weak. Too weak to be hunter. But your baby face remind him of his son, so he like you."

"Oh?" I tried not to sound insulted. Sir Mani's remark was based on the fact that I had continued to shave each day, despite the fact the razor I had bought in Patna was long since dull, despite the fact that none of the Gurung men were so inclined to bare their faces. "How old is his son?"

"His son is dead," said Nanda.

I looked away, suddenly too exposed by their dark, unwavering eyes. I didn't want to hear about dead sons. I didn't want to know the truth.

Sri Mani huffed, shouldered his musket, and rose to his feet. Within seconds, he had disappeared into the forest.

"Not far now," Nanda said. No compassion. Just a simple statement of fact.

I gathered my load and set out after them, determined not to fall behind.