Holy Water (36 page)

For instance, the fact that slavery was not abolished in this part of the country until 1979. Or that in the 1990s, tens of thousands of Nepali-speaking Hindus, many of whom had entered the country through a narrow pass to the north and had lived here for decades, were forcibly expelled, and hundreds were killed during pro-democracy demonstrations.

Closer to the river, the land begins to show signs of life. A man on an empty horse-pulled cart shares the road with them. An old woman in a straw hat
plows
a field of dark soil with yoked bullocks. A flock of black-necked cranes banks low above the valley floor and soars overhead, casting a shadow that passes through the road like an arrowhead.

As if sensing that Henry is taking pleasure in, or at least is less depressed by, the more favorable conditions, Maya counters with more words and stories.
“
At this small stone farmhouse on the left
”
—she points as she slows the truck—
”
the one with the frayed prayer flags near the kindling pile, a lifelong girlfriend of mine was bludgeoned to death with field stones by her in-laws, for the capital offense of bringing an insufficient dowry to her marriage.
”

Henry stares at the farmhouse. Wood smoke
discolors
the sky from a tin elbow pipe punched through the roof.

“
Her in-laws,
”
Maya adds,
“
still live there.
”

“
No wonder this place has such strict limits on tourism.
”

“
They claim it
’
s in order to protect our culture and our natural resources, but really it
’
s to keep outsiders from discovering the truth. And not just now. For decades. Every generation has an entirely new type of truth it wants to keep the outside world from discovering.
”

Madison Ellison, he thinks, before adding,
“
Both absurd and brutal.
”

And Maya answers,
“
Exactly.
”

~ * ~

Several minutes before noon they reach the river. Maya stops the truck at a small, seemingly uninhabited village. But as soon as they open the truck doors, brindle mutts waddle from behind tin-roofed shacks to greet them. Mountains hover on the other side of the tar-black water, larger than anything he
’
s ever seen. Beneath them the living world is diminished, reduced to a humbling dollhouse size.

Noting his astonishment, Maya lifts her chin toward the peaks.
“
The only way to live in a place like this,
”
she offers,
“
is to trust them, respect them, and then hopefully forget about them. Otherwise you would become completely intimidated. Overcome by feelings of insignificance compared to something so enormous, and paralyzed with fear that one day they will smash down and crush you.
”

“
Does that actually help?
”

She smiles.
“
Oh, no. We are merely specks compared to them, and eventually they may come down and crush us either way.
”

“I
see.
”

“
But at least until then we will have been able to live in relative peace.
”

~ * ~

They walk to a rectangular slab of granite that forms a natural bench and sit facing the river. When the dogs see that they have no food scraps to hand out, they skulk away. Three wooden dories in various stages of disrepair are flipped over on the gravel low-tide bank, and a row of iron chains looped through iron hooks embedded in anchor stones indicate that perhaps a dozen working boats are out on the water. At an eddy at the water
’
s edge, foaming clumps of waste float like cotton, piling high and swirling with the ebb against a rotting piling.

Maya points at the toxic cluster.
“
Cyanide, arsenic, and factory lye. On the rare occasion that the water in the river appears clear, it
’
s a sure sign that there are going to be inspections from some global watchdog. Amnesty. UNICEF. Or, more importantly, a visit from a corporate dignitary. For them, they shut down the factories far in advance. Same thing with the highways. Days before this next conference, they
’
ll pull all the cars off the roads to the
capital and douse the stacks and everyone will leave impressed with the quirks of our magical, spiritual mountain kingdom.
”

As Maya is speaking, children appear. Many of them know her. One by one they approach, smile and bow at Maya, then give Henry a tentative, skeptical nod. One, a boy often wearing American blue jeans and a rugby-style shirt, kisses her cheek. His face is blotched burgundy with chemical burn and the visible skin on his forearms bulges with more gray tumors than Henry can count.

“
This is my nephew Sanjay,
”
Maya explains.
“
My brother
’
s son.
”
After Henry shakes the boy
’
s hand, Maya stands and for several minutes speaks rapidly in Galadonian to the group. The children
listen intently, and when she is done they all laugh before scrambling back to the small shacks along the dirt path.
“
I told them we
’
re hungry,
”
she says.

“
Don
’
t they go to school?
”

Maya laughs.
“
In the new Galado they boast that health care and education are free! But the reality is, they are almost completely unattainable, particularly in rural areas, where there is rampant illness and illiteracy.
”

~ * ~

While lunch is being prepared, Henry gets up to watch the children. They are playing a makeshift game of cricket on the hardscrabble lot near the river. At one point Maya
’
s nephew calls something to her.
“
He wants to know if you want to play,
”
she tells Henry.

He shakes his head.
“
Tell him I don
’
t know how.
”
He takes the level swing of a baseball player.
“
Tell him my game is baseball.
”

After relaying this to her nephew, she says,
“
He wants you to teach him.
”

Henry smiles and starts to walk toward the boy. Sanjay holds out the handmade bat, made not of willow but of plywood. Looking at the bat
’
s warped striking face and rough edges, Henry pauses. He looks at the other children, then back at Maya.
“
I have a better idea.
”
As he speaks he points at the bat, at Sanjay, and then at himself.
“
Why doesn
’
t Sanjay . . .
”
Here he takes an intentionally pathetic downward cricket swing with a phantom bat, which already has the children laughing.
“
Why doesn
’
t Sanjay teach me?
”

~ * ~

After he makes a fool of himself to the delight of the children for fifteen minutes, Maya says that lunch is ready. When he sits down beside her, she
passes him her cup of butter tea. He senses that she is pleased with him, but she won
’
t say it. Instead she says,
“
While we eat, how would you like to hear my thoughts on a possible agenda?
”

He shrugs, nods, still looking at the mountains, thinking how strange it is that talking shop in a place like this can feel like the most normal thing in the world, still not quite grasping how a seemingly random transfer from a parity job in Underarm Research
could possibly have brought him here.
“
An agenda for Pat and Audrey
’
s visit?
”

“
Uh-huh,
”
Maya says. Then she extends her right arm and waves her hand over the foaming river, up the base of the humbling mountains, then back toward the leaning shacks, the hungry dogs, and the toxic children, as if issuing a blessing, a decree.
“
And for this too.
”

~ * ~

Divining Purpose

Henry listens.

He eats. Good stuff. Chile-spiced rice, some kind of fried taro patty. He thanks the kids and shakes their hands and even pets the goddamn brindle dogs, and then brings food to his mouth with the same hands, without Purell, without fear of catching rabies or fleas or whatever horrible condition Sanjay has. This, he realizes, has nothing whatsoever to do with personal growth, or selfless bravery, or resurgent nihilism. It has nothing to do with anything and much to do with Maya.

He keeps his mouth shut.

He stares at the mountains, still listening to Maya, but also trying to imagine their insane and explosive rise from the earth. In his mind it happens in minutes, or seconds, like a Hollywood CGI special effect, sharp peaks piercing the crust of an unsuspecting planet replete with
snowcaps
, mythological legends, and harrowing tales of alpine tragedies.

He listens, falling in love and falling to pieces at the same time. He knows it. Knows that in all likelihood the falling-in-love part will not be reciprocated. Shouldn
’
t be, really, because who can blame her?

And also knowing,
no, feeling
more than he
’
s ever felt anything that the falling-to-pieces scenario, that is an absolute. A sure thing. A matter not simply of if, but of when.

And how completely.

In small part this rush of feeling and purpose and fatalism is happening and will happen because of Maya
’
s proposed agenda. Because of the way she is laying it out. Simply. Rationally. Selflessly.

But mostly it
’
s happening because of who she is.

And that is someone who is infinitely better than he will ever be.

He listens and forces himself to keep his mouth shut to the extent that every time he senses the urge to blurt out words that have the potential to make him appear less than serious, or frivolous, or shallow, or crazy, he devotes some of his substantial continuous partial attention skills to things like the Hollywood-style rise of the Himalaya mountains or the hundreds of priceless playlists that he
’
s lost, perhaps through the same hole in the bottom of the lake sought by the diviner.

He listens because he loves her now, he
’
s sure of that. Not that he
’
s going to tell her or anything, because that would totally blow it, but yeah, these past five, six, seven minutes have clinched it.

He loves her.

Which is all the more reason to keep his mouth shut, because the last thing he needs is to get himself double-face-smacked again.

Or is it?

Because to get a Buddhist so frustrated that she smacks you in the face a
third
time in one beautiful, brutal, absurd, and
lie
-changing day must mean that, at least to a degree, she digs you.

Right?

~ * ~

What Henry finds so impressive about Maya
’
s plan isn
’
t that she wants to initiate a coup or violently overthrow the government or break so much as a parking law. She doesn
’
t want to close the borders to development, undermine centuries of cultural traditions, or even write a sharply worded letter back to the home office.

What she wants to do is give a few hundred people access to clean water.

~ * ~

Here, in succinctly reasoned,
Princetonian
, MBA-style bullet points is how: