Dzangpo
Here they came, the last of the season.
Dzangpo watched as the lights of the long jeep wound through the hillside, disappearing into blind turns and then returning, dots and dashes. The sun had already set over the hills around the town of Yuksom and yellow lights now beamed from the shops on the street. The jeep crawled up the last long stretch of the road and then its lights played over the gates of the monastery, picking out the prayer flags.
He pulled the zipper up on his jacket. It was getting cold now that the sun was gone. And if it was cold here, what was it going to be like up at 16,000 feet, he wondered, with one more herd of fools to shepherd through the cold?
The jeep pulled up before the Orchid Lodge and its passengers spilled out, disgorging themselves onto the road. With them came a squall of noise, little bursts of groans and complaints, little exclamations and questions. Standing up on the hill overlooking the street, he imagined he could hear the words themselves, Is this it? It’s cold! Oh, my back. Where’s my bag? Is this the only place? I’m hungry. Is it going to be this cold all the way?
Well, at least after this batch there would be a break.
Maybe he would not have to do another one till April. He could go home to Gangtok and spend the winter there. The children would be back for a while and Dorje’s son would be there. He could sit around for days with his grandson, while Dorje walked around with his cellphone in the front yard, acting busy.
This batch would mean one last payday for the winter, once they were all back in Yuksom next week. That would take care of the new fridge Tshering had bought and sent him a picture of.
Tshering was right—he was getting old for the mountains. One day, he would have to stop doing this and settle his bones into a little shop or something as sedentary. But for now, to run up Goecha La any number of times was no challenge. It was literally a walk in the park.
The new trekkers had pulled their bags off the top of the jeep. The driver came down the ladder at the back and lit a cigarette, stretching against the bonnet. Dzangpo watched Manish approach him. They spoke for a bit; then the driver got behind the wheel, started the engine and backed out of the driveway. The driver would be back in a week, but for tonight, he’d be looking for a bar somewhere in Yuksom to drink a few strong beers. Manish left to tend to the clients.
Dzangpo turned and walked down to the street. His own refuge was a small blue house run by an old widow. It stood at the edge of Yuksom, beyond the square and monastery, where the town gave way to farmland. She would have been done cooking by now and it might be his last good meal with meat in days.
He walked up the path toward her house, over the turnstiles. The wind was howling loudly down from the mountains, out of the canyon of the Rathong and into the town. In the windows of the main monastery building, lamps burned, dipping and wavering. In the monks’ quarters, a steady electric light shone much brighter. The wind blew through the old town, through the square where the old kings of Sikkim used to be crowned, whistling over the empty platform of the Norbugang throne. It passed through the prayer flags and trees, over the holy lake. It passed through the open windows of the monastery and the fingers of the abbot himself.
Dzangpo got to the blue house, with its smell of burning wood and meat curry; he shut the door firmly behind him. The sound of the wind vanished as if it had been cut with a knife.
Doma was stirring the pot over a wood stove. Next to her was a basket of onions, potatoes and garlic. The wooden chopping board for the meat ran with blood, dripping off the thick edge onto the stone counter. A lump of gristle and a white bone knuckle lay beside it. A thick black cleaver was propped against the board, its edge bitten and uneven from long use.
‘This is not a good time to go up,’ she said without turning.
‘True. It’s going to get cold.’
‘That’s not all.’
Dzangpo unlaced his boots and put them by the door. Doma set dishes on the table. Like old women beyond an age, it seemed to him as if her back and shoulders were frozen in place and only her lower arms moved as she wheeled around. She pulled the melamine plates down from the rack and put them on the small wooden table with the plastic cover on it.
‘Aunty, it’s just the normal trek. It goes every week of the year till now.’
‘Yes, but it’s not good to go after this moon. Things start changing up there.’
Dzangpo nodded, ‘We’ll be careful. If the weather is bad, we’ll turn them around early.’
She made an impatient grunting noise.
What else could he say? Doma was after all, the village wise woman, the elder who they all came to for advice before weddings, births and deaths. She had been old even when he was a young man coming to these parts for the first time. She knew the histories of all the families who lived in this tiny town on the edge of the national park. She made medicines from herbs that made everyone better. She knew the old ways and she had her beliefs, some of which made sense to him, and others that seemed like tiresome superstitions of the elderly.
She ladled the meat and yellow potatoes over a bowl of rice and handed it to him. It was delicious.
Extracted with permission from Redtooth: A Himalayan Horror Story by Satyajit Sarna, published by Simon & Schuster India.