Escape from Kathmandu

IV

In the blue of early evening Thamel was jumping as usual. Lights snapped on in the storefronts that opened on the street, and people were milling about. Big Land Rovers and little Toyota taxis forged through the crowd abusing their horns; cows in the street chewed their cud and stared at it all with expressions of faint surprise, as if they’d been magically zipped out of a pasture just seconds before.

Nathan and I walked single file against the storefronts, dodging bikes and jumping over the frequent puddles. We passed carpet shops, climbing outfitters, restaurants, used bookstores, trekking agents, hotels, and souvenir stands, and as we made our way we turned down a hundred offers from the young men of the street: “Change money?” “No.” “Smoke dope?” “No.” “Buy a nice carpet?” “No.” “Good hash!” “No.” “Change money?” “No.” Long ago I had simplified walking in the neighborhood, and just said “No” to everyone I passed. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Nathan had a different method that seemed to work just as well or better, because the hustlers didn’t think I was negative enough; he would nod politely with that straight-shooter look, and say “No, thank you,” and leave them open-mouthed in the street.

We passed K.C.’s, threaded our way through “Times Square,” a crooked intersection with a perpetual traffic jam, and started down the street that led out of Thamel into the rest of Kathmandu. Two merchants stood in the doorway of their shop, singing along with a cassette of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control.” I almost got run over by a bike. Where the street widened and the paving began, I pushed a black goat to one side, and we leaped over a giant puddle into a tunnellike hall that penetrated one of the ramshackle street-side buildings. In the hall, turn left up scuzzy concrete stairs. “Have you been here before?” I asked Nathan.

“No, I always go to K.C.’s or Red Square.” He looked as though he wasn’t sorry, either.

At the top of the stairs we opened the door, and stepped into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. White tablecloths, paneled partitions between deep booths, red wallpaper in a fleur-de-lis pattern, plush upholstery, tasteful kitschy lamps over every table; and, suffusing the air, the steamy pungent smell of sauerkraut and goulash. Strauss waltzes on the box. Except for the faint honking from the street below, it was absolutely the real item.

“My Lord,” Nathan said, “how did they get this here?”

“It’s mostly her doing.” The owner and resident culinary genius, a big plump friendly woman, came over and greeted me in stiff Germanic English.

“Hello, Eva. We’re looking for a friend—” But then Nathan was already past us, and rushing down toward a small booth at the back.

“I think he finds him,” Eva said with a smile.

By the time I got to the table Nathan was pumping the arm of a short, long-haired blond guy in his late thirties, slapping his back, babbling with relief—overwhelmed with relief, by the look of it. “Freds, thank God I found you!”

“Good to see you too, bud! Pretty lucky, actually—I was gonna split with some Brits for the hills this morning, but old Reliability Negative Airline bombed out again.” Freds had a faint southern or country accent, and talked as fast as anyone I’d ever heard, sometimes faster.

“I know,” Nathan said. He looked up and saw me. “Actually, my new friend here figured it out. George Fergusson, this is George Fredericks.”

We shook hands. “Nice name!” George said. “Call me Freds, everyone does.” We slid in around his table while Freds explained that the friends he was going to go climbing with were finding them rooms. “So what are you up to, Nathan? I didn’t even know you were in Nepal. I thought you were back in the States working, saving wildlife refuges or something.”

“I was,” Nathan said, and his grim do-or-die expression returned. “But I had to come back. Listen—you didn’t get my letter?”

“No, did you write me?” said Freds.

Nathan stared right at me, and I looked as innocent as I could. “I’m going to have to take you into my confidence,” he said to me. “I don’t know you very well, but you’ve been a big help today, and the way things are I can’t really be…”

“Fastidious?”

“No no no—I can’t be over-cautious, you see. I tend to be over-cautious, as Freds will tell you. But I need help, now.” And he was dead serious.

“Just giving you a hard time,” I reassured him, trying to look trustworthy, loyal, and all that; difficult, given the big grin on Freds’s face.

“Well, here goes,” Nathan said, speaking to both of us. “I’ve got to tell you what happened to me on the expedition I helped in the spring. It still isn’t easy to talk about, but…”

And ducking his head, leaning forward, lowering his voice, he told us the tale I had read about in his lost letter. Freds and I leaned forward as well, so that our heads practically knocked over the table. I did all I could to indicate my shocked surprise at the high points of the story, but I didn’t have to worry about that too much, because Freds supplied all the amazement necessary. “You’re kidding,” he’d say. “No. Incredible. I can’t believe it. Yetis are usually so skittish! And this one just stood there? You’re kidding! In-fucking-credible, man! I can’t believe it! How great! What?—oh, no! You didn’t!” And when Nathan told about the yeti giving him the necklace, sure enough, just as Nathan had predicted, Freds jumped up out of the booth and leaned back in and shouted, “YOU’RE KIDDING!!”

“Shh!” Nathan hissed, putting his face down on the tablecloth. “No! Get back down here, Freds! Please!”

So he sat down and Nathan went on, to the same sort of response (“You tore the fucking BRIDGE DOWN!?!” “Shhhh!!”); and when he was done we all leaned back in the booth, exhausted. Slowly the other customers stopped staring at us. I cleared my throat: “But then today, you um, you indicated that there was still a problem, or some new problem… ?”

Nathan nodded, lips pursed. “Adrakian went back and got money from a rich old guy in the States whose hobby used to be big game hunting . J. Reeves Fitzgerald. Now he keeps a kind of a photo zoo on a big estate. He came over here with Adrakian, and Valerie, and Sarah too even, and they went right back up to the camp we had in the spring. I found out about it from Armaat and came here quick as I could. Right after I arrived, they checked into a suite at the Sheraton. A bellboy told me they came in a Land Rover with its windows draped, and he saw someone funny hustled upstairs, and now they’re locked into that suite like it’s a fort. And I’m afraid—I think—I think they’ve got one up there.”

Freds and I looked at each other. “How long ago was this?” I asked.

“Just two days ago! I’ve been hunting for Freds ever since, I didn’t know what else to do!”

Freds said, “What about that Sarah? Is she still with them?”

“Yes,” Nathan said, looking at the table. “I can’t believe it, but she is.” He shook his head. “If they’re hiding a yeti up there—if they’ve got one—then, well, it’s all over for the yetis. It’ll just be a disaster for them.”

I supposed that was true enough. Freds was nodding automatically, agreeing just because Nathan had said it. “It would be a zoo up there, ha ha.”

“So you’ll help?” Nathan asked.

“Of course, man! Naturally!” Freds looked surprised Nathan would even ask.

“I’d like to,” I said. And that was the truth, too. The guy brought it out in you, somehow.

“Thanks,” said Nathan. He looked very relieved. “But what about this climb you were going on, Freds?”

“No prob. I was a late add-on anyway, just for fun. They’ll be fine. I was beginning to wonder about going with them this time anyway. They got themselves a Trivial Pursuit game for this climb, to keep them from going bonkers in their tents. We tried it out yesterday and you know I’m real good at Trivial Pursuit, except for the history, literature and entertainment categories, but this here game was the British version. So we get a buzz on and start to playing and suddenly I’m part of a Monty Python routine, I mean they just don’t play it the same! You know how when we play it and you don’t know the answer everyone says ‘Ha, too bad’—but here I take my turn and go for sports and leisure which is my natural forte, and they pull the card and ask me, ‘Who was it bowled three hundred and sixty-five consecutive sticky wickets at the West Indian cricket match of 1956,’ or whatever, and they like to died they were laughing so hard. They jumped up and danced around me and howled. ‘Yew don’t know, dew yew! Yew don’t have the slightest fookin’ idear who bowled those sticky wickets, dew yew!’ It was really hard to concentrate on my answer. So. Going with them this time might have been a mistake anyway. Better to stay here and help you.”

Nathan and I could only agree.

Then Eva came by with our food, which we had ordered after Nathan’s epic. The amazing thing about the Old Vienna Inn is that the food is even better than the decor. It would be good anywhere, and in Kathmandu, where almost everything tastes a little like cardboard, it’s simply unbelievable. “Look at this steak!” Freds said. “Where the hell do they get the meat?”

“Didn’t you ever wonder how they keep the street cow population under control?” I asked.

Freds liked that. “I can just imagine them sneaking one of them big honkers into the back here. Wham!”

Nathan began to prod dubiously at his schnitzel. And then, over a perfect meal, we discussed the problem facing us. As usual in situations like this, I had a plan.