no, wait, that really was “All Along the Watchtower” I was hearing in my sleep. I find I’ve not corrected the clock on my cell phone, so I can tell at a glance it is six a.m. in Bangkok.
“This is your katoey secretarial service. I hope you took plenty of clothes, I hear it’s freezing up there. I got a short list. Actually, there are only three agencies worth considering, only two of those do high-altitude locations—I’m assuming that’s what we’re talking about here—and only one really looks like the kind of outfit Charles would have used, I mean with fluent English speakers, contacts in LA, et cetera.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The agencies—the people who assist foreign film crews, especially Americans, to make a movie in a foreign location. Sorry, I am speaking to Detective Sonchai ‘Never Left a Case Unsolved’ Jitpleecheep of Bangkok and Kathmandu?”
I blink. Sarcasm and work are two different modes of consciousness, and I can only cope with one at a time right now.
“There’s only one agency?” I say with considerable relief. I was not looking forward to spending the day talking to wannabe Asian Hollywood producers in dark glasses and black T-shirts. “So, what are the details?”
“I’ve sent them by e-mail. I don’t trust you to get the details right this early in the morning. Have you been smoking?”
“No. I forgot to score. Too busy. I’ll try today, thank you for reminding me.”
“Sonchai?”
“Yes?”
“Master?”
“Yes?”
“Is there really no such thing as love?”
For a moment I’m tempted to spill bitterness all over the cell phone. Then I see the inherent irony in the question. You could say Lek has been chasing love all his life in his own way, lifting the rock every morning, watching it roll back down the hill every night, just so he can endure the full day. His martyrdom is immeasurably vaster than mine.
“Not for me, Lek, I don’t have your strength. I’ve retired permanently. They amputated my heart—nothing I can do.”
There’s a click as he closes his phone. When the guesthouse finally opens its business center at eight o’clock Kathmandu time, I have them print out the e-mail from Lek. It contains the address of the agency, which occupies a first-floor office over the commercial area leading to the Yak & Yeti Hotel. It seems I must find someone called Atman.
I eat breakfast in the garden of the guesthouse. It’s basic backpacker stuff: bacon and eggs, toast, fried tomatoes, as much yogurt and granola as you can put down, cheese by Firestone. The clientele here is frequently serious about mountains and trekking, but this is not the time of year to lay siege to Everest, for it is spring in the Himalayas: all over the country snows are melting and rhododendron blooming. I know from the guidebook what to do and where to go, so when I feel strong enough for the Thamel onslaught I walk to the taxi rank and take the first in line. As usual it has no handles for the windows in back so they are permanently open, enabling one to feel like a genuine participant in the honking, the jams, and the pollution. But it takes less than thirty minutes to reach a large tree shrine to Ganesh, the elephant god, in a forest next to a river. The rhododendron here are the forest. It’s like being in an oil painting that is all about abundance: a million mauve, crimson, and white blossoms, like bursts of awareness in a dark age.
That’s all I needed, ten minutes of sanity; or maybe it’s the most I can cope with? After I pay my respects to Ganesh with a bunch of marigolds, for which the shrine keeper charges like a wounded elephant, we drive back to town and the Yak & Yeti. When I get there they tell me that Atman is on location. The good news is that the location is Bhaktapur, which is no more than half an hour away. I sigh, find my second cab of the morning, and negotiate a day price.
Bhaktapur: I have been directed to Durbar Square, which is bigger than Kathmandu’s, with a charming Grecian atmosphere of deserted plinths on which black goats hang out to be fed and photographed by tourists. Not today, though; the whole square has been cordoned off with yellow plastic tape for the benefit of a film crew, and the goats have been moved on.
“It’s a murder mystery set in the fifteenth-century,” Atman explains. He nods at a group