The Card

The only thing I ever got off my old man was a birthday card when I was ten. He'd gone off when I was three and left me and mam and my sister to fend for ourselves. Mam never talks about him but my sister remembers him.
‘What was dad like?' I ask.
She looks at me through dark, sleepy eyes, pushes her hair back from her eyes. Her arms are scabbed like she's been shinning up a rusty drainpipe and accidentally slid back down and scraped herself. ‘Whu?'
‘I said, what was dad like?'
She smiles at me, and I suss that she's still trippin' and I should ask her later when she's straight.
Anyhow, the only thing I ever got from him was a birthday card when I was ten. It said Happy Birthday Mickey! And then there was a verse inside the card that went:

Now you're ten, and how you've grown
It really won't be long
‘Til you're a man, and fully grown
With arms both big and strong.


And on the front of the card was a picture, a cartoon, of a little boy wearing a hardhat and driving a tractor. But I mean, how would he know I'd grown? To be honest, I was surprised he knew where I was, we moved so often.

But the killer was, at the bottom of the card, below the rhyme, he'd added:

Remember, no one's got your back
XX. Dad.


I'd studied this card on more than one occasion, trying to work out some depth to what he was telling me. ‘Laura, what was dad like?'
Three hours later and she's washing up. The dutiful daughter. She looked up a little, thought about my question for a second or two. Then she said, ‘I love him. Still.'
‘Well I hate him. What was he like, though?'
And she said, ‘Stern.'
‘Stern, huh?'
‘I don't mean strict; more like serious. Like you, a bit, but smarter, taller and better looking.' Then she laughed and slapped me across the arm, ‘Dry the dishes,' she said.
It's funny, I learn a lot from my sister, mainly don't do drugs, which I should have written in capital letters instead of italics, but never mind, the thing is, when she's not high or shaking ‘cos she needs some stuff, she's really smart and, truth be told, she's the core of our family, the strength, believe it or not. Honest, she keeps us together. There's me, fifteen, bright, got a future, they tell me, though I haven't and I'll tell you about that later, and then there's my mam, as honest as, and working, and sensible (though not in her choice of boyfriends or anything) and all that stuff. And then there's Laura. Nineteen, and a junkie, but she holds the family together. Cos mam's a flake and useless, and I, basically, am at a loose end; financially, educationally, socially, morally… I won't go on.

Laura has one thing going for her; she's honest. And because she is honest she sees more than most, so she knows more than most, and she holds me and mam together.
Mam.
Hold on, I was told by my English teacher, Miss Wright, that I should show, not tell; ‘too much exposition,' she'll say to me (look it up). So maybe I should stop describing my life, start showing what happens instead, but I'll get to that bit in a bit, so to speak.
Ok, so mam. My mother. She is thirty seven years old and she is a flake. A total dribble. Weak as. They should do a reality TV show on my mam – "How Not To …"
"How Not To bring up your children."
"How Not To save for the future."
"How Not To get a good job."
"How Not To attract a nice boyfriend."
She did once. Attract a nice boyfriend, that is. And I've read all the women's magazines she buys and I knew from the off it wasn't going to last. From the moment she said to me, ‘He's kind, thoughtful, good looking. He's got a good job, Pete, and a lovely car' (a bloody good car, since you ask. You didn't? But you would have. A Kompressor. Which means Supercharger. Which also means money. Cool. German. Cool. And much more). But anyway, as she's telling me all this I'm thinking, Yeah, but mam, you're going to fall for a skinheaded nightclub doorman or a carpet salesman called Wayne and you're going to jack Pete in and tell me ‘there was no spark' which translates as, you think that love equals pain, and affection means distress and you think that being nice is the equivalent of being invisible. Which it kind of is. So just be honest. Please. So, as predicted, Pete went the journey. Kompressor and all. And in moved Marc. Fifteen years younger than mam. What a tosspot.
What a racket.
It was embarrassing. It was the crime that no parent should inflict upon their children! Making those noises. I was twelve, which made Laura sixteen; she'd just failed her exams and was working in Safeway. Very content. Regular money, dreaming about her own flat. Boyfriend. And the last thing that Laura wanted was mam and Marc doing that upstairs halfway through a Sunday afternoon. Go on mam; be a mam, not a flake. Don't be desperate, please. But no. And when Marc made a play for Laura one afternoon, just a suggestion you understand, she screamed the place down and mam came dashing downstairs half-dressed and slapped Laura to shut her up and then slapped her again when she heard what she was accusing Marc of doing.

I'm not tough, really, I'm not. And I'm not pretending to be not tough so you'll think that really I secretly am tough either. I'm just not. So when mam took his side against Laura I couldn't drop Marc with a right hook to the jaw or a knee in the family jewels, though I really, really wanted to, so I just went and sat on the front step and listened to them row.
It was one of those afternoons with dark and light grey clouds flying across the sky on the wind (scudding, as they say in really old novels). I sat on the step of our front door watching the seagulls wheel and fly and sail on the wind. I wished I could do that.

I have this theory that, to us the world is a flat thing we stand on, but to birds it is a cliff they cling to, a huge ball and they cling to the side and then fall off and fly and glide. I'm digressing here, but I can't remember what else happened, except I know how it ended. The next morning I waited until Marc went out and then I used mam's phone to call the police and grass Marc for the twenty grams of cocaine he had stashed in a haversack under the stairs.
Bingo.
Job done.
Like I say, I'm not tough. But I don't need to be when there's five polis and a German Shepherd dog breaking down the door and dragging Marc screaming down the path and into a van.

Anyhow, this card I got from my dad. It said, remember, no one's got your back, like this was some piece of information I'd known but had forgotten, or like I already had asked someone to get my back and then discovered they hadn't got it, or something. I mean, come on dad, I don't know who you are, or where you are or what you do or anything, but come on, be a dad for a minute. For as long as it takes not to write that sentence.
I was ten years old for Chrissake.
Write I miss you or We'll meet up when you're older or Stick in at school. In fact, here's an idea. Don't send me a card.

Go on.
Unsend it.
But the funny thing is, daft, one-off card with a stupid picture and a deranged verse it might have been.
But he was right.
No one's got your back.

James Ross

The Card

The Banana Season's Over

Jon Mallalieu

The Banana Season's Over

"Poison." It's one of the kibbutzniks that speaks, a large woman probably in her forties. "We poison the wildlife every now and again you know, to keep things under control."
She must have just finished her night shift because she is wearing work overalls: a pair of beige, stained dungarees. I gather by the smell that she works in the cowsheds.
"It's the pigeons mainly," she says; "they're a real pest, shit all over the dairy buildings, eat the cattle feed. Unfortunately some of the cats get it too but they're only strays."
I am incensed. "I don't think that's quite the point."
We all turn toward the cat which is now making a rasping choking sound as it tries to clear its blocked airways. Its tongue, cherry red, flashes desperately against the white spittle that fills its tiny mouth. I feel physically sick at the sight of its writhing body turning over the dead leaves. The others mutter in agreement, unhappy with her casual attitude. I continue, "And the pigeons, Jesus, look at the pigeons," all gathering in the same corner, huddled between the road and the yellow shower block. I can't work out why at first and then I figure that it's probably the wind gathering them, trapping them helplessly in a whirling eddy of feathers. Below us more pigeons have appeared on the corrugated roofs of the volunteer huts while others circle and fall from the sky as if the air is too thin to support their weight. Unhappy with her audience she waddles off towards the block of members' housing. We watch her fat rolling backside and her uneven heavy gait. Eddie mutters, "Bitch," under his breath and Tom says, "bloody Israelis," just loud enough to make her turn her head before disappearing from view.

That was kind of how it was on the kibbutz. When I mentioned the incident to Motti the next day in the banana fields he looked a little perplexed and motioned me to climb up onto the warm trailer. He pointed up over the top of the tattered banana leaves at the kibbutz.
"Look Blake, you see the kibbutz?" I nod courteously, shielding my eyes with my palm from the glare of the sun.
"When my parents arrived you know there were no buildings there? Just this bare hill and a row of white tents. Of course there was no running water, no power, no nothing. Well look now, eh? Isn't she beautiful? It's our home and we made it by working on the land. I don't know, maybe it's hard for you to understand, but we have to place things into some kind of order, and animals, well they come low down. You know the history, Blake, our history. Think about the history."

I jump down from the trailer and think about the history.

Work in the bananas is hard graft and by mid-morning I am already exhausted. The sun is high in the clear sky and the dappled shade under the trees is disappearing fast. To make things worse my bare arms are covered in the thin sticky residue of the banana trees and I am stood shin deep in a carpet of dead leaves. I am working with Egal, a grey haired kibbutz elder. He doesn't say much but we have an efficient working partnership. His faded T-shirt is pulled tight around his middle and on his bony hip hangs the blackened leather scabbard, home to his banana knife. It's a beauty: twelve inches long and a butcher's delight. I follow him to a particularly tall tree and watch while he lifts the heavy knife slowly above his head. He brings it swiftly down making a single deft slash in the moist trunk. The knife is stuck fast and he has to pull heavily with both hands on the wooden handle to release it. As it drags free, it emits a wet squeak like the sound of a finger down a wet bathroom mirror. Then the tree slips forward obediently, dutifully, dipping the hard green bananas to a height that can be reached by an expert arm. I grab the fat purple bud that hangs pendulously beneath the bunch with one sticky hand and, leaning forward, push it gently away until the fruit is slanted high above my right shoulder. Then I stand beneath with my knees bent in anticipation until another powerful blow slices through the woody stem and releases the weighty bunch down onto me. The trick is to dip with the falling fruit, to absorb the weight and only then to stand. I now have to find the trailer but it's often hard because the trees can be disorientating and the dusty track is the same colour as the dried fallen leaves. So I stand still momentarily and listen for the voices of other labourers.
When I arrive Tom is sitting on the tailgate of the dented trailer, right on the very edge so his skin doesn't touch the hot sunburned metal. I gasp as I dump my load heavily onto the trailer. Tom looks up, he is chewing gum whilst opening the lid on the polystyrene flask of cold water. He hands it to me and I raise it to my chapped lips. The water traces an icy path to my stomach and I realise then that I never really knew what water was, not until I worked the bananas.

From around the corner Motti appears driving the John Deer. He is pulling another open trailer and in it are the rest of the volunteers grimacing and huddled like weary cattle. They lift and thump with every pothole and cling tightly to the side of the vehicle. I can see Eddie and he raises a pale hand lazily in recognition.
"Typical," says Tom in a resigned drawl jumping to his feet. "Been working like a dog all morning and Motti sees me sitting on my arse, now I'll be for it." But Motti says nothing. He has stopped and is waiting patiently for us to jump up. Egal has appeared red-faced and spectacled at the edge of the track and we all amble silently toward the ticking tractor.
From here the road sweeps neatly along the edge of the wide fields and on past the Roman springs where the water is not only deep but clean and still. It is a favourite swimming spot after a hard hot day's work. Along the edge of the wide pools amongst the avocado trees Roman buildings are gradually disintegrating, giving up their history to the hungry water. In any other country they would be in museums but here it seems you can prop up your garden shed with a Roman column. We move on, wheels grinding over the bleached stone track until we see the square limestone hut. Within minutes we are drinking sweet black coffee flavoured with cardamom and fighting over the tasteless kibbutz biscuits. Sitting outside in the shade of the hut we light our cigarettes and rest our bare elbows on the grubby floor of the trailer, copper-coloured legs splayed out behind us.

The view from here is magnificent. To the west through the hazy shimmer of rising heat we can make out the Mediterranean Sea and the terracotta roofs of the houses in the coastal town of Naharia. It sparkles like a tiara with a hundred glinting solar panels. To the east through the fug the Golan Heights rise proudly like bony knuckles, lifting gently away from the fertile plains. Behind us, high above the tops of the stately avocado trees, is the kibbutz. It stands splendid and palatial amongst the heavily scented pine trees. The gentle slopes that form the ramparts of the community are, however, barren. Weed-less and rocky, they descend monotonously to the main road.

Eddie is smoking and sitting on the trailer swinging his large feet in a rhythmic motion. "Does it ever snow?" He speaks quietly looking up at me through his cherubic curls. I glance upwards. "What, you mean here on the kibbutz?"
"I mean in Israel, does it snow in the winter? That would be nice that would, picking bananas in the snow, not having these damn peeling shoulders" He plucks a flake of skin from one of his broad freckled shoulders and lets it fall gently like a spent leaf onto the dirt. He shifts position, leans back, and raises his legs so that his heavy boots rest in his cupped hands.
"Only up in the mountains," I say, "I think you can ski up there. Motti told me he fought up there in the war, up in the Golan Heights. It's always cold when you're high up."
"Right," he sounds enthused, "the wind I guess." But I look confused so he adds thoughtfully, "That's what makes it cold?"
"I guess," but now I'm off imagining snow falling quietly in Jerusalem capping the golden Dome of the Rock. Muting the honking traffic and settling gently, silently on the ancient twisted branches of the olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane.
"It reminds me of home," says Eddie, looking doleful, "makes me think of London in the winter. We used to have a laugh, when it snowed I mean." He jumps down from the trailer and stands with his legs slightly apart in the dust. His face has suddenly become animated. "You know I remember once," he pauses as a small bird flits past us and into the warm shade of the avocado trees, "I think I'd just finished a short stretch inside. Anyhow we'd had a few beers when we saw this Asian guy waltzing down the high street. He was walking slowly, carefully picking at a big soggy bag of chips. I could see the steam rising off them and smell the salt and vinegar in the cold air. And it was cold that night. We were spent up from drinking so we followed him quietly, stealthily. And all that I can remember is that I really wanted that warm bag in my freezing fingers. It was still snowing hard, you could see it when he passed under the street lights, big fat wet flakes." He holds his plump hand six inches from the floor of the trailer to illustrate its depth.

"The guy wore his woolly hat pulled down over his ears, probably off home after a hard day's work. Well, we crouched down low behind some oak trees, sniggering, and made snowballs, tight ones. We squeezed them hard as stones then crept up carefully behind him. We let him have it. The first one smacked him squarely on the head; he didn't know what hit him. He yelled out like a school girl, tried to run but we got him from every angle, the back, the side, the front, took his glasses clean off. His chips were splashed out in the snow, and he started screaming, you bastards, you bloody bastards, come back. I give you bloody hiding, bastards!" (He gets the intonation just right.)
"We could hear him minutes later still yelling looking for his specs in the snow whilst we were laughing, screaming, running through the park. Be great if it snowed here, bloody great."
I want to react. I want to make disapproving noises, to tut or draw my breath sharply over my teeth, but the longer I wait the more it seems unlikely. It's partly because the picture in my head is so damn clear, so beautifully intact, and partly that I enjoyed its clarity, how he took me effortlessly to the exact spot where the warm chips have sunk making dark holes in the fresh snow. And there's this guy, his ears still stinging, ringing, on his knees still looking helplessly for his glasses. I want to ponder on it, to turn the picture over in my head and examine how I feel. The silence is uncomfortable and I know we can all feel it but I can't help myself. I start to laugh, crouching down low, my palms on my bare dirty knees. Quietly at first but then I can't contain it. It's Tom, his laugh is infectious, a kind of high pitched hen-like cackle. And then we are all taken with the moment, and dancing with delight skipping over the dirt track. Eddie grabs a ripe banana from the trailer and lobs it to me; I catch it two handed. The exchange is part of the contract and Eddie, awash with confidence, bounces back, "We never did get any chips."

I spend the rest of the morning walking the pipes with Tom. The irrigation pipes meander along the narrow aisles of banana trees. They provide each tree at its wide base with an allotted dose of water and nutrients. We are checking for leaks and every now and then one of us stops abruptly, kneels on the dried banana leaves and studies a faulty joint in the line. Sometimes the droppers are simply blocked with dirt and it's an easy job to clear the eye with a needle, but other times the pipe needs cutting and reconnecting. While one of us busies ourselves dealing with the problem, the other leans lazily against a tree or patiently takes a drink of water from the flask. We walk for miles accompanied only by our soft voices and the soporific rustle of dead leaves. Sometimes we don't talk for hours and then neither of us wants to break the delicate silence. Other times we while a morning or afternoon away lobbing rotten bananas at each other or singing Simon and Garfunkel tunes.

Last week, where the pipe had split and left a wide puddle in the dirt, we came across a family of tortoises drinking gently at its ragged edge. Laying down quietly on our fronts, hands under our chins we watched them dip and raise their horny heads for an age. Tom eventually looked up at me. "Nature," he said grinning. "Bloody marvellous," and then we were up and off again.
I like Tom. Something about him makes me feel safe. It might be the neatness of his physical frame. He has the lithe, taut body of a rock climber and his skin is a deep chestnut tan. Sometimes, when we go jogging together in the early evening I watch the sweat running down the muscular ridges of his naked back. His posture is athletic, self assured. The way he comfortably plants his grey trainers in the loose dirt of the mud track, the natural rhythm of his pace, his breathing, all these things breed a kind of unspoken respect in me. There is a stillness about him too that holds your attention when he talks. And when he listens his blue eyes shine and behind them you can almost sense his thoughts. But above all these things, it is his smile that beguiles you. It is the natural easy smile of a child and it has the same innocent and honest quality.

I had arrived at kibbutz Briac on a warm September evening; I was tired. The taxi, a yellow Mercedes, dropped me off at the bottom of the hill and I could feel the heat rising from the pitted tarmac. The smell of the tar was reassuring. It reminded me of the summer I had just left behind a thousand miles away. I was eighteen and still a schoolboy fresh from the playing fields, plucked suddenly from the safety of a High School education. If I closed my eyes tightly I could even see my graffiti, bright and yellow, carved like a valley deep into the sloping wooden desk. I walked slowly, lost in my thoughts up the narrow winding road toward the checkpoint. Its red and white striped barrier was slung down low, forbiddingly, across the brow of the hill. My mind was buzzing with fatigue, for the journey had been exhausting and my backpack felt double the burden it had in the morning.

I remember the young man on duty because he was wearing creased army fatigues and smoking a large cheroot. He looked like a captain in some banana republic. Leaning back on his plastic stool, he jumped when he saw me and struck an official-looking pose as if he were being filmed for some documentary. Demanding to see my paperwork, he looked awkward and embarrassed when it was obvious that I had none. Clearly agitated, he picked up the black telephone at his side and pressed it to a greasy ear. He dialled three numbers in rapid succession and spoke briefly in Hebrew, the result of which was that he looked cross but nonetheless allowed me to pass. Then, pointing with a slender finger to a group of low buildings in the distance he sniffed, put his hands in his pockets and mumbled something which I failed to understand.
A few minutes later I was stood perfectly still, staring through a narrow gap between two tall pine trees. There was a fire spitting orange and yellow beads up into the evening sky. It was piled high with freshly cut logs and it gave off an incense of pine resin which hung heavily in the cool air about me. Around the fire there was a group of about six or seven shadowy figures, some sitting cross-legged others kneeling. They were talking and laughing, gently rocking back and forth as if they occupied a small boat which was bobbing on a sea of grass. Their chatter mingled with the crackle of the fire and disappeared with the plume of twisting smoke into the night. Darkness had fallen and above me the first stars were appearing. They looked like chinks of light in a theatre curtain, full of promise. On one of the walls of the yellow huts nearby I noticed that someone had scratched "God shave the Queen" into the thin plaster and I smiled and walked slowly over to meet them.

Standing like a pale castle on top of a rocky hill, the kibbutz was only a stone's throw away from the Lebanese border. Ironically, stones were never thrown, but periodically a shell would whistle angrily across the shapeless mountains only to thump innocuously into the soft brown mud. The craters large as busses filled slowly with tepid water, only to sprout months later with new life. Reeds as thick as broom handles and rangy wind-bent grasses all skirted the static water. In these little ‘manmade' pockets of wildlife coots nested on tiny floating islands and dragonflies hovered reflecting metallic greens and blues in the opaque water. Once or twice at dusk I even spotted terrapins bobbing gently like dark green apples under the gloomy surface.

The earth was a rich golden brown and the valley was blanketed green and yellow by banana plantations and lines of dull green avocado trees. There were fresh water springs which bubbled clear and blue and that ran like veins lazily curling across the patchwork of fields. Here and there the streams met and pooled, swirling in deep dark blots like eyes studying the tumbled-down remains of ancient sandstone buildings.
In the early mornings the sun rose sluggishly from behind the snow-capped Golan Heights, and in the evening it fell swiftly into the listless Mediterranean Sea. It was a fertile landscape in every sense of the word, not least because of the succulent fruit it provided, but also because it held securely in its generous palm this community rich in culture and diverse in origin, the wandering Jews, the Diaspora. The people who tilled and planted the earth did so because they were driven, because the land bound them as walls bind a prisoner. It was their sweat and their breath that gave life to the valley and their history which bound them to each other. It was a good place to be.

The single dusty track that swung gently up the incline from the main road met, at its summit, the high steel fence. The fence ran for a gleaming mile surrounding and ensnaring the community, its posts driven firmly into the stony ground and its rim topped angrily with razor wire. The fence both protected but simultaneously managed to create a feeling of siege among its occupants. There were pine trees, gangling and ungainly, leaning lazily into the slope. Their cones spread out like litter at the base of their rutted trunks and amongst them the members' housing was scattered like popcorn. There was grass too, wide watered lawns criss-crossed by rough concrete paths and dotted with freshly turned rose beds.
The paths all seem to converge like wheel spokes toward the dining room, which was at meal times as cavernous and busy as a train station. It was the hub of kibbutz life, where the workers grumbled over their morning coffee before taking the wagons and trailers down into the dew-covered valley. Where the dark-haired school kids copied out homework and ate their soft-boiled eggs, eggs that had been inside a chicken only the evening before, and that now dripped orange streaks down clean white T-shirts.

Kettles gleamed along one side, simmering and agitated, whilst fresh vegetables were set out in wide steel trays ready for the next meal. Deep, welcoming tubs of Schnitzel and couscous, fish and boiled new potatoes, artichoke hearts in olive oil and vats of buttermilk were all tended to fastidiously by women dressed neatly in dark blue dungarees. From the dining room one could sit and watch the ocean through the narrow windows which ran along one side. A thin strip of bright blue light against the grey-blue horizon. Often when I think back to my life here this is where I am at three in the morning. Alone in the dining room. Alone in the marbled darkness and leaning back on a hard wooden chair. I'm drinking sweet black tea and although it is night I can still make out the ocean because the moon is out and full and the water is fat and still.

I am in the dining room now, its lunchtime and I have just come in from the fields. Motti the banana boss has driven us up in the trailer, the bone-shaker all the way from the far side of the Jezreel valley. The room is a beehive, awash with noise. The banter of relieved hungry workers, the chink of cheap cutlery on cheap china. The chuckle of cool water being poured from glass jugs into white handle-less cups.
You can tell who works in the bananas by the stains on their clothes. The thin sticky sap that runs from the wounds in the fleshy trunks leaves deep brown welts on cloth. No amount of washing can remove it and anyway it is our mark, our badge, the banana logo. Tom and Eddie are already seated spooning down chicken and potato hungrily. Steffi is over at the urns making tea, tall and shapely. Her shorts are far too small and I can't help but gaze at the back of her pale dimpled thighs.
"I know what you're doing," Tom says with a wry smile.
Eddie looks up guiltily from his plate. "What?" A mop of curly blonde hair flops down over his blue eyes. There is a morsel of food lodged in the corner of his mouth.
"Not you, you fool. Blake, he's ogling Steffi again." He looks me in the eye almost apologetically. "You know you've not a hope. She's a tease. I've heard she scours the laundry room for clothes two sizes too small just to tantalise us all with those long legs." He smirks and glances over again as if to reaffirm his observation.

"Well she can tantalise all she likes as far as I'm concerned," I mutter and sit myself down opposite them. "Sometimes it's better to travel than to arrive, isn't that what they say?"
"Don't know what you all see in her myself," says Eddie, "I mean she's pretty and all but too precious for my liking." Tom and I exchange careful glances as she makes her way toward the table. He moves over to let her in. Smiling guiltily, Tom asks how her morning has been.
"Oh not too bad you know. Those damn chickens are a nightmare. I'm mean literally, I dreamt about them last night. I was choking on feathers."
"Don't tell me, when you woke up you'd eaten your pillow." Eddie, amused with his own wit, bangs his fist on the table.
"No," says Steffi looking confused. "I woke up crying, I think it's my asthma." Her eyes look moist, red rimmed. "Sometimes I just want to go home." She curls her hair delicately behind one ear. It's a habit that she has and one that Tom and I agree is a rather ‘knowing' one. It is nevertheless an attractive, somewhat delicate movement and it makes me feel protective of her.
"Never mind eh, it's Shabbat," I say soothingly, "nothing that a few cold beers won't fix."
"I suppose," she smiles at me and takes a sip of her tea. I feel something like butterflies inside; it's not that I want her or anything but something about her makes me feel, well, tender. Maybe it's because of the night she slept in the spare bed in our room. I woke early with the birds as the cold morning air was pouring down through my open window. When I glanced across the room her thin duvet had fallen onto the tiled floor. Tom was still sleeping but I lay there for an hour caressing her naked goose-bumped curves with my eyes. Do I feel guilty? I suppose I do but although she doesn't know it I think we bonded then. I smile to myself at the thought of it and stir my tea.
Steffi is talking to me but I'm no longer listening "Blake?" she says gently…
"Sorry, I was just thinking about… about those damn pigeons." I was always a good liar. She nods approvingly as she tears a piece of bread in two and dips a piece into her chicken soup.

"What about Carl's dog, Blackie? He'd go crazy if it were poisoned." I say, warming to the theme.
"He'd probably shoot someone," she says, looking nervous. "Didn't he do that before?"
"I think he took a pot shot at some guy who cut him up at the lights once. Blew a couple of his tyres out. Well that's what I heard from Motti anyway."
Eddie, oblivious to the conversation, lights up a Noblesse, the cheapest of the Israeli cigarettes. We are allowed seven free packs a week as part of our allowance. He stands the soft green pack on its end and stares at it, elbows resting firmly on the plastic table. From a distance you would be forgiven for thinking that he had varicose veins, but close up as I am now you can see that his arms are covered in tattoos. The outline of the Pink Panther is sketched poorly on the inside of his thick white forearm. He has spent time in Maidstone prison and the letters HMP grace three of the red knuckles on each hand. At one time, he borrowed a friend's tattooing needle and most of his body now resembles my old school rough book, covered in a mixture of adolescent doodles and obscure graffiti. The cigarettes smell cheap and he smokes every last millimetre, taking the last drag deep into his lungs then stubbing it out into a mound of leftover mashed potato on Tom's plate.
Tom shoves the plate away across to the other side of the table and throws Eddie a withering look.
"You'd finished, hadn't you?" says Eddie defensively. "You're like a bloody old woman sometimes. Here, look, I'll take it away myself."
He stacks his tray hurriedly, untidily, and heads off for the slops bin. We all watch the flakes of mud from his suede boots trace his path across the polished floor.
"Me too, I guess," I say under my breath. "See you all back at the ghetto."

It's December now and although it's not cold, there is a chill in the air as I walk across the kibbutz towards the ghetto. Past the cowsheds and the tumbling stinking piles of rotting pomelos. Past the steaming laundry and the kolbo, the supermarket where we spend our hard earned vouchers on crates of Gold Star beer and cheap shampoo. There are rooks perched like sentries way up in the pine trees. A bird's eye view would certainly afford you a wonderful vision of the whole kibbutz. High above you would clearly see the metal fence that traps this community in a fat bubble on the landscape. The kibbutz is alive. It's a self-sufficient organism, swimming with vivid colours and movement. Right now as I'm walking I'm aware that hundreds of others are still busy at their work. Busy in the fruit fields and the glass factory, in the humid kitchens and the sprawling filthy cowsheds. There are kids playing basketball on the red clay court, their faces streaked with dirt and sweat; and there by the primary school is the swimming pool, green and stagnant during the cool winter months. There is no secondary school. The teenagers have to travel out of the kibbutz for that. It is there they learn about the world outside the fence and where they develop their unsavoury taste for another life. A life in which they can own their own house and wash their car quietly on a Saturday morning. The young yearn to escape from the confines of the kibbutz and dream constantly of leaving the unhealthy dark shadows of their forefathers. But the old, well you can see it in their yellow eyes that they are afraid. Afraid that they will be forgotten, but even more fearful that their history will forgotten with them.

I have reached the volunteer housing known amongst its inhabitants as the ghetto. It is scattered haphazardly across an acre of poor soil and pushed up aggressively against the tough wire meshed fence. And although the view across the valley is a fine one the ghetto feels like it is isolated from the rest of the kibbutz. Which I suppose it is and is meant to be. We are the outsiders, the untouchables, cheap labour that can be called upon in times of desperation and disposed of during the lean months. We are a transient population, the European Bedouin, and like them we appear and disappear bouncing from kibbutz to kibbutz and from job to monotonous job.
The huts in the ghetto, with their grey corrugated asbestos roofs, lie in a broad rectangle around an enclosed ramshackle plot. Clumps of dry grasses and untamed straggling bushes have invaded most of the space. There is, however, a small circle in the middle which has been lovingly cleared, and in which a fire still smoulders. A gentle reminder of the previous night when Tom, fuelled with alcohol, launched into the fire a bucket of blue paraffin. We were all rocked backwards by the flame burst and had, after a shocked pause, laughed hysterically. Only the week before he had disappeared for an hour and returned triumphantly, dragging a telegraph pole behind him. The damn thing burned for four straight days.
Outside each hut is a concrete veranda invariably strewn with muddy work boots and empty beer bottles. From one porch hangs a whole five-foot bunch of ripe bananas, and from another washing is strung out to dry along a sagging piece of orange twine. Inside, the rooms are basic. A cold tiled floor, a hand basin against one bare wall, and against another a cheap plywood wardrobe.
We live by easy rules in the ghetto. Under the corrugated gutter-less roofing and between the damp plaster walls we whisper and shout, dream of Marmite and of home. In winter we curse the draughts but nurse the yellow flame that warms our hands with the same delight, the same intensity. And when the walls of our room grow green with mould we stare at the glowing bars drying our damp socks, our faces chiselled in the shifting flickering shadows like Van Gogh's ‘Potato Eaters'. I always loved that picture.

Now I feel like an old hand in my kibbutz-issue ankle boots and torn blue work top. Making my way into the bare room I kick off my boots, fling my dirty shirt into the corner and lay myself prostrate on the low creaking bed. There is nothing like the deep sleep of a siesta.

In the late afternoon I wander down to the Refet, the cowsheds, plastic jug in hand and pour myself a few pints of cool creamy milk from the huge stainless steel cauldron. Uri, the dairy boss, raises an arm when he sees me and ambles over. He is wearing his trademark yellow Wellingtons. We chat about this and that over the pulsating drone of the milking machines. He has a son my age at university in Jerusalem, a daughter in high school. He worries about them both; there has been a spate of bombings recently on busses and in shopping malls. He often talks of leaving the country for Europe but as he always says, palms raised toward the heavens, "This is my homeland, where else would I go?"
Then, behind him I notice the pigeons, scattered over the roofs and the muddy grassless fields. They are eating the cattle feed, an unappetising mixture of pomelo rind and chicken shit. Out in one of the fields is the woman in the beige dungarees. She looks even heavier than I remember. She is cajoling the cattle, coaxing them aggressively into the aluminium corral with a large wooden stick. Glancing up at me as she enters the shed, her face remains expressionless, cold. Connecting up the cows to the machine, her movements seem graceless. I've seen Uri do it a hundred times and with the polished ease of a gymnast, but there is something awkward about her and I start to wonder then if the poisoning was her idea.

Now Christmas had crept up on us slowly and tapped our shoulders gently. The volunteer huts are festooned in gaudy decoration and on Christmas Eve we drive the minibus into Jerusalem. We all sing White Christmas at the top of our voices and Tom leans out of the small window shouting felicitations gleefully at passers by. The city is beautiful, glistening with the headlights of the evening traffic. It is as vibrant and as warming as a rum punch.

On we drive, along the narrow roads and through the golden sandstone gorges of the old city. The huge wooden gates to the city are open wide and people flow through them like melted butter, running softly, easily down the busy streets. Outside the city the street lights begin to disappear and the land falls away steeply on one side of the road. Yellow buildings give way to green coniferous forest and the air outside drops in temperature. It is dark in the bus and we talk excitedly about Christmas and home and family.
Bethlehem, when we arrive, is alive and thronging with hundreds of people and Manger Square is bedecked with cheap wooden tables and chairs. There are lights strung up overhead in brilliant gleaming rows whilst the church of the nativity looks graciously over the whole festive scene. We are all swept along willingly with the tide of religious fervour. Although none of us is a practising Christian it feels churlish to deny anything tonight, so we become believers for the evening and drink cheap red wine and sing carols with the mass of happy revellers. Later we even queue for an hour to get our passports stamped with Joyeux No'l and the crest of a black eagle. Then we dance late into the night holding hands with friends and strangers alike. I'm dancing with Steffi, whilst Tom dances with the new Danish girl Hanni. She arrived last week and is still fresh and pink from home. He winks at me. Eddie sits alone smoking black tobacco and drinking warm beer. Although Steffi and I don't talk I can feel our hands silently exchanging heat in the cool night. Later on as we walk down the hill she says "It's been a great evening, hasn't it?" She has eyes like a calf, large and curious and they kind of draw you in helplessly. I nod silently just as Tom starts to sing drunkenly in front of us at the top of his voice. I laugh and say to Steffi that it has indeed been a wonderful night. We stop, facing each other, and I touch her on the cheek with the back of my cold fingers. There is something between us but I don't think either of us really knows what it is. Her breath smells of cigarettes and wine.

We all drink hot sweet tea in an Arab café halfway down the hill, the owner insisting that Tom and I play backgammon with him. We teach him the backgammon chant that we yell as we throw the dice back in the ghetto, "Big doubles!" When he has mastered the chant and has soundly beaten both of us, he rips up the bill laughing loudly through his thick black moustache. As we walk out into the dawn the morning breeze is just beginning to kick up the yellow dust. It flicks it over the shop fronts and parked cars like icing sugar. At the bottom of the long hill, where the main road runs by like some dark river, there is a small park. It is surrounded by a high fence and fronted with a wide arched gate. It is locked; Tom rattles it angrily then starts to climb. The rest of the group, oblivious, walk on to meet up with the bus. I quickly follow Tom and in seconds we are both stood knee high in the thorny rose bushes, laughing. Wading to the centre of the garden, we find a patch of dry grass and sit down. I can hear the faint chatter of the group still walking slowly away towards the rising sun, crimson on the horizon. Its light is seeping between the branches of the eucalyptus trees and I can smell the perfumed leaves on the cool air. Hanging pendulously above us is a beautiful rose, its flowers dark red and just tantalisingly half open. Tom says that we should take one each for the girls and before I can reply he has leapt ferociously on the plant. I join him, twisting the wiry stems till the tight buds are released and our fingers are raw and stained green. We clamber gecko-like back over the thick iron railings and catch up with the group. I pass my rose to Steffi and Tom hands his to Hanni, chuckling as we realise that they are crawling with green fly. They take the flowers gratefully, gracefully, like athletes at a medal ceremony. Steffi smiles at me and climbs quietly, wearily onto the bus.

It's Christmas day and without lifting my head from the pillow I can see the weak shaft of light that has cut its way through the crack in my door and into my room. In it are a million flecks of dust sparkling like bubbles in champagne, rising in the thermals and bursting in the hushed darkness. I am still half asleep, aware of my breathing although separate from its hissing rise and fall. Across the room I can see my work clothes heaped and blue on the back of the wooden chair. I won't need them today. Eyes closed and lead-heavy, feet exposed at the end of the short bunk, I curl into a ball cupping my hands between my warm legs. It makes me feel safe.

Tom wakes later and we wish each other a happy Christmas. Sitting up in bed we look like an old married couple as we eat dried apricots wrapped around warm blocks of milk chocolate.
We spend the day in Jerusalem. First visiting the Garden of Gethsemane then walking the Stations of the Cross ending up in the beautiful church of the Holy Sepulchre. Tom has a fit of giggles when the silence and solemnity of the place gets too much for him. We have to leave the church quickly for fear of being accosted by one of the priests.
It is a beautiful day outside. The skies are clear and blue and it's a day which I never forget.

During the next few weeks there is a perceptible change of atmosphere on the kibbutz. Down in the bananas, Motti has taken to drinking his morning coffee alone and the friendly banter amongst the crew has subsided a little. There is talk in the papers of a Palestinian uprising and the road blocks and recent police presence around Naharia all seem to confirm the stories. Last week I watched a small group of elderly women clearing out one of the air-raid shelters. They had laid out the dusty gas masks on the grass in small bundles and were struggling into the shelter with large plastic packs of bottled water.
There is a rumour going round that there are no gas masks for volunteers but when I ask Motti if this is true, he laughs so loud that even Egal grins softly. It is the first time I have seen Motti smile since last week when I complained about the freezing dew on the banana leaves. "Blake my friend, I never promised you a rose garden, eh?" Then he had slapped me on the back and turned back toward the tractor, cigarette in hand.

Then it happens; later that month, after a frugal supper of vegetables and cottage cheese, I go to bed early only to be woken hours later. It is black, moonless. So dark in fact, that I'm unable to see my hand in front of my face. I'm aware however that something has woken me, aware that there is someone else in the room. I can feel a presence, a band of heat that one would expect from the bar of an electric fire. Then without warning there is a silent explosion of light, as intense and as blinding as a flash bulb. The mesh mosquito netting at the window scatters the white light across the walls of the room; it's chequered like graph paper. As my eyes adjust I can make out a figure. Steffi is standing in the centre of the room. She is barefoot, frozen on the cold tiles. All the while I'm expecting the light to suddenly vanish so I find myself studying the room, memorising the location of all objects in readiness to be plunged back into vulnerable blindness. It doesn't happen. Instead the light begins to shift slowly and the shadows start to move around the room. I'm still waking, disorientated, confused, and then there is a cold hand on my shoulder and an earnest voice, "Blake, wake up, there's fighting down in the valley."

Almost immediately I hear a soft "phut phut phut" from across the valley. The sound of a moped misfiring. I know what it is immediately: gunfire. Outside in the ghetto others are appearing from their doorways; Tom has moved gingerly out onto the road to get a better view. More gunfire now; it's rapid, getting louder as I clamber shakily onto the wooden pallets stacked up against my hut. From the roof I can see clearly into the valley below. The scene is incredible. High in the night sky is a star so brilliant that it has lit up the countryside as far as the eye can see. The light is hanging, perhaps falling slowly: a flare? It is so beautifully white that it has drained the landscape of any colour. The view is monochromatic, a moonscape, and the light is so powerful that it has penetrated into every crevice, every hollow in the countryside. There is shouting but it's too far away to be intelligible. Leaning over the edge of the thin roof I reach down and pull up Steffi who is still struggling vainly on the pallets. We sit down now and watch the scene together. The action is some miles away and we are in no immediate danger, but it nonetheless feels exciting. It reminds me of a black and white photograph I once saw in a school history book about the American Civil War. It showed a family perched on a grassy hillside picnicking, whilst below in the valley a bloody battle raged between the forces of the North and South. At the time something about it profoundly shocked me. And there is no doubt that there is something shocking, but at the same time slightly titillating about this scene, the uncomfortable mixture of danger and security.
The "star" is lower in the sky now and its light, although bright, is waning just slightly, but the voices seem to be louder, more intense. I wonder if she is thinking the same thing. This "star", radiant, alluring in the night sky over towards Bethlehem. It feels as if there is two thousand years of history spread out there in front of us.
Then, because it feels like a film and for no other reason, I lean forward and kiss the nape of her neck. It is perfumed and warm. For a split second I feel like a child again, driven by the same impulse that makes one reach out for the electric fence on a country ramble, just to see. She responds by rolling back gently into my arms and for a minute we sit in silence as the flare dips softly into the trees on the far side of the valley and then there is darkness.

The incident makes all the morning papers. A Palestinian attack on an Israeli home in Naharia. They came in from the Lebanon by boat and have left a family devastated, a boy motherless, a husband alone with his grief. By the evening there is the inevitable retaliation. The Israeli army have bulldozed a row of whitewashed homes down one dusty street in Gaza. Helicopter gun ships have taken out the car of a Hamas leader. Tit for tat, an eye for an eye… God knows who they killed; God knows if they cared, it's just a mess. There is no right and wrong anymore it seems, just an exponential anger.
Strangely, however, what stays in my mind even more clearly about that winter is my visit weeks later to Steffi's old room. She has since departed, returned to Denmark and the nursing career she always talked of. Behind her bed and above her thin pillow, pinned to the wall, is the rose I gave her that night in Bethlehem. It is dried and dark, like some Chinese herbal remedy, and something about it makes me feel empty.

It's raining. I can hear it rattling on the roof like tin tacks. Outside on the veranda I lace my work boots and kick the stanchion, loosening the dried mud from their treads. There is a low cold mist and the rainwater is beginning to run down the walls of the hut, collecting in puddles and running rivulets over the dusty earth. I'm leaving in a week so I'm trying to savour these moments. I breathe in deeply and the air smells of vegetation.
Eddie left last month, disappeared one night taking with him the wallets of several volunteers, a camera, and Tom's twelve-string guitar. I don't think anyone was surprised and something about it even amuses me. I wonder if I'll ever see him again? But Tom is staying on, he's found a nice Jewish girl and it all looks hunky-dory. I'll miss them both.
Sometimes in my quieter moments I find myself wishing I could stay here, wishing I belonged. I'm jealous; the Jews have an identity, they belong and they are something and I, I kind of feel a little lost sometimes, a little aimless. But I know it's not easy, only last week the Palestinians attacked again, blew up a night club in Tel Aviv. The kids' phones were ringing as they cleared up the bodies. Jesus Christ, I've queued outside those clubs.

I climb the cold stone steps, hands deep in my coat pockets. There is a pigeon lying in the road in front of me; one of its wings is still twitching but I think it's dead. I flick it with the toe of my muddy boot and watch it settle in the long wet grass. I can hear the hollow rattle of the diesel engine in the distance, and as I stand and wait for the wagon to take me down to the valley I think about the poison. There is so much of it in this small country I wonder how it will ever survive.

The Blockade

Sushma Joshi

The Blockade



The blockade started quietly enough, on a rainy day in mid-March. It was the first rain of the year. People breathed in the smell of wet earth as if it was a long-forgotten blessing. In the bushes, the last remaining springs of yellow winter forsythia bloomed side by side with dusty spring jasmine. This flowering was troublesome, highlighting the nature of a world in which time had lost its moorings – spring had arrived early, too early, two months before winter's end.
The Maoists had called the blockade. The idea was to choke off the landlocked country, slowly choke off its food, medicine and other essential goods until the people, hungry and full of rage, would come out on the streets and stage a mass protest that would bring the absolute monarchy on its knees.
The Democrats, cornered by the King, imprisoned, bullied, and made to flee, were desperate to prove they still had a constituency. There was nothing to be gained from holding more talks between the infinite bifurcations, divisions, diversions, ruptures, fissures and splinters of the political parties. Unable to agree between themselves, the Democrats did the next best thing – they decided to agree with the rebels. This 12 Point Agreement between the two sides was marvelous, showing solidarity between the democratic and revolutionary impulses of Nepal. People as far away as New York and London applauded this coalition of the people's forces. The agreement only had one minor flaw – the Democrats had forgotten to lay out exactly how and when the Maoists would lay down their guns.
Petition-writers in the West, who had not lived through five years of absolute monarchy, ten years of the People's War, and fifteen years of democratic anarchy, wondered if that small and minor point –violence – could be overlooked to support this historic breakthrough. While they wondered, a young boy named Ram Bahadur Bomjom, who had been meditating beneath a tree for half a year without food or water, decided to get up. He got up because the white cloth that covered his body was on fire.
"I am not a Buddha," Ram Bahadur said. His face was troubled, and he appeared to be slightly feverish. People who had hoped that this young man might bring peace to a troubled land watched agape as the cloth turned to charred ash and floated from his young body. The birth of a new Buddha would have solved the conflict, but instead here he was, on fire.

He asked his young assistant to take the blackened cloth off his back. "I don't want white cloth anymore. Give me red cloth from now on," he said. Expatriates living in Nepal, gathering in lush garden Holi parties, talked about the press conference they had just attended, the video of Bomjom they had just seen. The press conference, called by a self-appointed committee that had moved into the area to start regulating the throng of pilgrims, aimed to explain the miracle of cloth combusting from internal heat. "He took the cloth off and added it to the fire. It burnt for a remarkably long time. Well, he figured he would make the bonfire burn for a while, right?" The journalist joking was a long-term resident, used to the freaky phenomena of Nepal, but also skeptical and wary about the seeming magic realism of this unexplainable country. Exposing the boy as a fraud, he had decided, was going to be his contribution in this ongoing saga.
Ram Bahadur became a national and international sensation after making a decision to meditate for six years. Curiosity seekers flooded down where he sat. The crowd swelled from ten to ten thousand. Before long, the meditator had to battle not just his hunger and the spontaneous combustion of his clothes, but also thousands of gawking spectators. Reporters wrote stories about him. He appeared with a perfectly manicured head of curly hair on websites, on DVDs with bad sound, and on the BBC. Observers said he sat for sixteen hours every day, and that he didn't eat or drink at all. The most asked question about him was: does he piss? Medical doctors dealt with this apparent paradox of modern science by claiming he seemed to have lost a bit of weight. Others said his face had a red glow around it. Others, who knew the Maoists on intimate levels, said that the young rebels who sat guard were blinded by sensations of brightness at midnight, and were unable to see what Ram Bahadur did after he got up from his seat.
One of the people who came to see the meditator was a young man from Kalikot. Hastabahadur Kathaya was seventeen – a young man on a life or death mission. "How can a man a year younger than me sit like that for six months without food and water?" he said to the woman next to him, as he peered through the thick crowd.

The young woman looked around and saw the speaker — a young man with burning, intense eyes. She told him that her own uncle had walked through the woods at night to see Bomjom. He had walked through the darkened undergrowth and brush, through the thick branches and the sibilant whispers of hidden animals, before they reached the gigantic tangle of roots which blocked their path. "The roots are so enmeshed a fat man thinks he can't pass through. But they all pass through," she said in hushed awe. "My uncle did too."
"What made him want to sit for six years?"
"I heard his sister came home one day with a chicken to sacrifice for the festival, she wanted to celebrate. They are Tamangs, after all. They love chicken and alcohol," she said as tactfully as possible, trying to denude this statement of ignominy. "He was so disturbed by the sacrifice he argued with his sister, but she wouldn't listen to him. So he rushed out of the house."
Hastabahadur had come with one specific purpose – to find out if the young boy was indeed not drinking or eating, as the reports claimed. If a sixteen year old boy could do that, then he held the key to the suffering that plagued Hasta's village in Kalikot. Then all he had to do was ask Bomjom to reveal the secret. The people of his village, facing a famine, would be saved. People would no longer die from hunger because they would no longer need to eat.
Hasta craned his neck. A cordon held off the people from the charmed figure of the boy. All around him was a sea of people – old men counting beads, old women chanting hymns in internal rapture. Young mothers with infants in tow came to be blessed by his presence. Young men held motorcycle helmets — many of them had ridden for hours on dusty tracks to witness the miracle. Some were reposeful as they waited, some dubious and derisive. A hum of commerce rose in the air. Committees of various genres, and businesses of various species, had set up shop. They were busy offering water to the pilgrims, hawking religious literature, selling popcorn and soya beans, and asking for donations.

"I don't see him," Hastabahadur said. He turned and saw that the young woman was no longer besides him. She had left without saying goodbye.
Hasta looked around till he spied an important looking monk. This monk was sitting on the side, counting his beads in a yellow silk outfit. He had a beneficent look on his face, and, as he counted, he seemed to chant powerful mantras.
"Rimpoche, is it possible to have a personal meeting with the meditator? I have an urgent question." The monk looked up to see a young and wild-looking man, disturbed by something beyond the ordinary.
"I am sorry. The boy is sitting for world peace. He cannot be disturbed."
"But my question is very urgent!" Hasta felt the benefit he would get from meeting the meditator far outweighed any bad karma he might acquire arguing with a monk.
"It is not possible." The monk, counting his beads, walked away.
Hasta ran after him. He had now joined a group of other monks, wearing large hats that blossomed on their heads like tea-cosies. They were holding colorful flags and were walking around a circle. "This is a ritual for long life, don't push me," an ancient, wizened woman muttered to Hasta as he tried to push her aside. The monk was now seated underneath a glittering yellow satin umbrella.
"Rimpoche!" Hasta implored. "My village is dying of a famine. Can you please ask the meditator how he survives without food? How does he manage to stay alive? Maybe he can teach them how to live without eating! All they need to do is survive for the winter. We grow enough for the rest of the year!" Two monks, brawny, young, and with beautiful, compassionate eyes, dragged him away so that he couldn't disturb the ceremony.

Hastabahadur threw himself down on the ground in supplication. Perhaps the gods would help me meet this boy, he thought. As his cheek touched the dust, he smelt wetness and realized he was crying. Nothing could redeem him now. He had spent a year in India and only had seventeen thousand rupees to show for it. The phone call from his brother had warned him that the circumstances were dire. "Hasta, the whole village is dying," he had said in a quiet voice. The blockades of food had slowed down the food delivery. But more damaging had been the demolition of the food depot, which the state used to run. Once upon a time. But then the Maoists had come and blown that up, and now, in the lean season, there wasn't even a sack of rice to beg from the depot. His brother's voice held the echo of prophecy.

The only thing Hasta could do now was gorge, and forget hunger. In a roadside stall, smoky and squalid, Hasta found a woman with bouncy breasts and a loud laugh selling quail eggs, roasted chicken and fermented radishes. The chicken was so spicy it made his nose run. In his hand, she put a glass of rakshi. He downed it lightly, one after the other, like lemon sherbet. Two hours and two hundred rupees later, Hasta stumbled down the road. He had to buy a bus ticket to Kathmandu.
An ascetic was sitting below a tree as Hasta walked by. "Do you know where I can find a bus office, Babaji?" Hasta asked. He was slurring his words but was excessively polite.
"No bhaiya." The Babaji, with dreadlocks and grey ash on his body, seemed to be the figure of an unknown apostle.
"Do you know how to get rid of famine?" Hasta asked in drunken hopefulness.
"No, I don't know how to stave off famine. But here, have a sweet," the apostle said, rifling through his cloth bag. "Experience dissolution. Hunger won't touch you then."
The green square of sugar and bhang grass crumbled in his mouth like a sweet blessing. The Baba seemed to feel sympathy for him, so Hasta asked for more. A strong sensation of life floated up through his body and into his head. The sound of flutes, the ringing of bells, the burning of incense, and the lilac spread of twilight entered him like a benediction. He felt like he was seeing the world with a clarity that he never had before. As he walked off into the woods, the darkness felt interminable.
Hasta lay down on the ground and tried to sleep. As he watched the vines twist around the trees, and the leaves shift in the wind, and stags jump through the creepers, he saw the unsubstantial figure of a young man come floating down the jungle. He seemed to dissolve; he shook and shivered. There were no seams in his cloth, and it flapped in the wind like the riggings of a ship. Hasta leant up on his elbow, wondering why he felt so slow. But before he could get up and verify if the figure was real, or just the figment of imagination, the figure vanished in spectral stillness.

Hasta went to sleep, awoke, saw sunlight, fell asleep again for what felt like an endless string of time. He saw corpses lining the ground of his village. Shrouded in white, the bodies lay on the ground – his entire clan. There was his grandmother, shrunken in death. There was his mother, small and empty. And there – wait, no, was that his child… Time seemed to pass - although the same bird twittered the same note over and over, and the same motorcycle revved up behind him, with the same sequence of sounds, repeatedly.
A hummingbird hummed near his ears. It was a different sound from the twitters he had heard before. Hasta opened his eyes and noticed that the constellations on the sky had gotten brighter. Now there were many stars, all seemingly joined to one another in endless patterns. He went to sleep again. The next time he awoke, he realized that he was sleeping under a large banyan tree. Just like the Buddha, he thought. Then he smelt the fetid smell, looked down, and saw vomit all over his the ground. His gullet burnt from the taste of regurgitated alcohol. He remembered the big plate of chicken and the glasses of rakshi, and couldn't suppress a rumble of laughter in his belly.
"Why are you laughing?" The voice came from the tangle of undergrowth. Hastabahadur looked up and realized he was staring at the faces of five policemen. They were carrying guns.
"Because I am not the Buddha," Hastabahadur said.
"Oh? Are you sure?" His confusion made them curiouser.
"Never been more certain in my life." Hasta's humble voice preempted derision.
"How long have you been here under the tree?" The policeman's bluster, threat and reverence confused Hasta.
"It's the full moon. Isn't it?"
"No, Bhai. That was a week ago," the policeman said. "We are searching for a young man who was meditating under a tree. He has disappeared. Is it you?"
"The meditator has disappeared!" Hasta was surprised at the solace these words brought him. Now that the young man was out of the cordon, perhaps Hasta could find him and ask him about his secret.

"Did you see him anywhere?"
"I saw a young man in white walking that way. He was shivering."
"How long ago?"
"Last night."
"Bhai, the boy disappeared a week ago."
"But I was with the crowd when he was sitting under the tree yesterday!" Hasta realized his mistake. The policemen looked at him strangely. He had compromised his claims to sanity. Then he realized what it was – the old ascetic had given him something so potent it had put him to sleep for an entire week.
"Where are you from?"
"Kalikot."
"You're not a Maoist, are you?"
"No, sir. I just got back from Gharwal."
"Doing what?"
"Construction."
"Well, if you're lying and you're really Bomjom, you better go back. Business is suffering. People collected millions of rupees in the seven months you sat, you know?"
"But I am not Bomjom." Hasta panicked. The police in Nepal never took the time to ensure they had the right culprit. What if they took him back and made him sit under a tree for sixteen hours every day? "Dai, please believe me."
"Maoists may have abducted the boy so they can set him up and collect cash that way," another policeman said. "Heard anything about this?"
"No." Hasta was at a loss for words. He had spent the last year building houses for rich Indian businessmen. He had no idea about Nepal's complicated politics. The image of timber, lime, the smoothness of beams, returned to him with a visceral pang. He wished he was feeling mortar beneath his fingers.
"Well, young man, looks like you're the only suspect we got for the missing meditator." The policeman, who looked just a bit older than him, smiled with satisfaction. "Right age, right ethnicity."

"How can I convince you I am not him?"
"Got any money for us?"
"Not much." Hasta fished in his pockets and came up with a dirty fifty rupee note. The rest of his savings – seventeen thousand rupees - was tucked inside a sweaty belt around his waist.
"Are you carrying anything else? Gold? Drugs?" The youngest policeman asked.
"Nothing of value." A trickle of sweat fell down Hasta's face. He felt nauseous. All of a sudden, he remembered that he was indeed carrying something that the policemen would love to get their hands on. He leaned over the side, and vomited. A stream of green grass mixed with chicken came out of his mouth.
The young policeman stretched down, grabbed the note, then kicked him on the side of his body. "Go, drunk, go." He's drunk, one of them said as they walked away. Some men return to Nepal, get drunk and sleep for days.

Hastabahadur had left his employer's home in India, ostensibly to go see Bomjom. But an equally urgent mission awaited him at Kathmandu. Hasta had lied – or at least, not told the whole truth - to the policemen. At Gharwal, he had not just worked in construction, but had also been a security guard of an Indian politician, at whose house one of the historic meetings between grumpy Girija Koirala and the fabled Prachanda had been held. Girija Prasad, the bald-headed flag-bearer of democracy, had been instrumental in calling thousands of strikes over fifteen years. Most of his eighty years as leader of the Nepali Congress party had been spent berating the king for being an autocrat – and ignoring protests from young leaders who protested his lifetime stranglehold over the party. Prachanda, the father of Maoist revolution, had called his fair share of blockades. The two found common ground when they met and agreed on this final blockade.
Combined, the two had effectively destroyed the Nepali economy, and had given an inadvertent hand to the King in keeping Nepal chained to an older and more autocratic time. The evil trinity – the King, the Career Democrats, and the Maoists – all benefited from a low intensity conflict that hurt no one but the poor. The never ending conflict was turning into Nepal's begging bowl – there were rumors Army officials had built mansions paved with marble, politicians drove around in SUVs, and Maoists had bought penthouses for their daughters in Bombay. All were paying out of pocket to educate their children in expensive schools as close as the Philippines, and as far away as England and the United States.

Hasta had heard rumors about all this. But when his employer asked him if he would drop off the first version of the 12 Point Agreement, handwritten and with tea-stains on it, he had agreed without hesitation. This would be his ticket to the den of leaders. Hasta had a secret agenda - his own Three Point Demand, which he aimed to put in front of the leaders as soon as he got in front of them. He would ask them to start relief efforts in famine-stricken Kalikot. He would request them to reconstruct the food depot the Maoists had bombed in the district headquarters, and he would plead with them to ask the rebel cadres not to take the meager rations.
"Be careful, Bahadur. You are carrying a historic document." His employer, an old man with a Nehru cap, handed over the white envelope and patted him on the arm.
Hasta took the white envelope, and smiled.
Hasta arrived in Kathmandu just as the rains stopped. The two days of cold rain been enough to put the few remaining trees of the city in verdant greenery. Flora climbed up dead-looking trees. Ivy, with the fullness of monsoon growth, suddenly covered decrepit buildings. Young women were riding pillion on motorcycles through dense traffic.
"I've never been in Kathmandu before," he said to the owner of Himchuli Restaurent, a few minutes' walk from Ratna Bus Park. The Restaurent had chicken chilli, Chinese chow mein, burgers and pizzas. Hasta, who had decided to practice eating very little in order to prepare for food shortage, felt a rumble in his stomach as he got off the bus.
"First time?" The man had facial hair that would have warmed the heart of Genghis Khan, and a warm smile.
"A plate of momo, Dai. Then I have to find the house of Girija Prasad Koirala," Hasta said.
"All seven parties are meeting there today, the newspaper says."
"They are?"

"Yes. They failed to agree."
"So what's going to happen?"
"The 12 Point didn't work, so they are working on a sequel."
"A sequel!" Hasta said. "But they haven't agreed on the original document yet, have they?"
"Don't ask me. Nobody seems to know what is going on."
"What does the newspaper say? Can you read it?"
The owner picked up the newspaper in front of him and read:
"‘There is a need to make several corrections in the document we are about to publicize. Moreover, complications are arising out of a stampede to use each other in meeting selfish interests.'"
"I have an urgent request for the leaders of our country." Hasta made the Restaurent owner smile. He pointed to the front page.
"See this?" Two photographs, of two impassioned men giving speeches, were printed on the front. "This man is the Home Minister. This man is the leader of an Opposition party. They are calling each other criminals. This is the state of leadership in our country."
"Can you tell me where Koirala-ji's house is located?" Hasta said. He felt a sinking in his stomach, as if he could tell at once what he could expect from his trip. At the same time, he had to try.
Hasta ate the dumplings slowly, feeling them open in his mouth in spurts of juicy delight. "Up in my village, people are starving," he said as he put another momo in his mouth. It felt like his last meal. He would go to meet the political leaders, urge them to meet his Three Point Demand. That would be his last hope. He had no other plans to fight a famine.
How did Ram Bahadur Bomjom not eat for almost seven months? "He must have been lying," Hasta said aloud.
"Who?" the Restaurent owner asked.

"Ram Bahadur Bomjom."
"The Buddha?"
"He said he wasn't one."
"That trickster, then."

On the tenth year of the People's War, the only certainty was that an indefinite blockade had been called by the Maoists from April onwards. The Democrats seemed to be in an uneasy alliance with the Maoists. Because they were Democrats who specialized in ambiguity, some of their statements appeared to say they were in alliance, some of them appeared to say they were not. There were accusations of fabrications, deceptions and inventions from all sides. To be fair, there was no conspiracy. Even the ones at the top would were unable to say what was going on, because they themselves did not know. Helicopters sent by the King droned overhead, making it difficult to think.
Hasta arrived at Koirala's residence at noon. "They're in a meeting, Bhai," the party activist, a young man in grey pants, blue shirt and an obsequious manner. "Is it urgent?"
"I am carrying an old version of the 12 Point Agreement," Hasta said. "It's a historic document."
"I am sorry, but the leaders are working on a sequel of that Agreement. They can't be disturbed." The young man gave him a stack of newspapers and seated him at a desk. "Please wait."
"I also have a Three Point Demand," Hasta blurted.
"Of course," the young man soothed. He walked to the door and greeted a large, bearish man with a great deal of beard with an extravagant "Ramesh-ji! How wonderful to see you! Everything going well? Come in, come in. Neta-ji will be out soon."
Hasta waited. Inside, a roomful of Brahmin men and a few others debated the finer points of a document whose particularities seemed to shift, moment to moment. Even leaders adept in slippery statements could not keep track. A constituent assembly? A constitutional monarchy? A republic without the king? A republic with the Maoists? A constitutional, constituent… One of them leaned over and whispered to his neighbor: what would the republic be constituted of, exactly? The neighbor muttered at him to be quiet. The original questioner felt that his neighbor was just as much in the dark as he was. After a while, they rubbed their eyes and asked for sweet, hot tea.

The Restaurent owner, after hearing his story of hardship and sorrow, had kindly told Hasta that a plane for Jumla was leaving tomorrow morning. If he could deliver the letter and his Three Point Demand, the Restaurent owner could ask his brother to book Hasta a seat to Jumla. The flight was overbooked, but the brother was a travel agent, and he was entitled to complimentary seats as a member of the Travel and Tourism Industry. Hasta waited for the next twelve hours, but none of the leaders came out.
Hasta returned to the residence at six the next morning. The same young man seated him by the newspapers. Hasta picked up the newspaper and pretended to read. By this time, the King had sacked three judges, Maoists killed two people in Surajpura Bazzar, students locked the principal's office in Tribhuwan University because the administrators refused to implement the student-authored 14 Point Agreement, two children aged five and eight were hurt playing with socket bombs, and a teacher whose property had been grabbed by his partner threatened self-immolation. But Hasta did not know all this, because he had never learnt to read. He had slept at the Restaurent at night, where the owner had kindly left a red and portable electric light on to fight the blackout. The machine had a FM radio, which the owner had left on – but Hasta had not understood, because the news was read in the Newari language.
Hasta pleaded with the young man: "Dai, I need to see the leaders."
"They are at a meeting right now, Dai." The young man was apparently used to fending off desperate supplicants. He exuded a large and empty smile, filled with sympathy and understanding.
"There's a famine in my village. My mother says my family has not eaten in a month. I have to go see them – my plane leaves at ten."
"Why don't you leave the letter with me, Dai? I will deliver it, and also your Three Point Demand."
"Will you remember all three points?" Hasta asked.

"I will," the young man promised, taking the letter and stuffing it in his back pocket. "Now hurry, you don't want to miss your plane."
"Be careful with that document. It's historic," Hasta admonished.
"Yes, yes," said the young man, edging him towards the door. "I will take care of it, don't worry."

The plane was a small Twin Otter, seating ten people. Hasta sat in by the window, carrying two nylon bags filled with Wai-Wai noodles, powdered milk, sugar, salt, flour, spices and oil. In his coat pocket, he had a small bar of Cadbury chocolate he had bought for his one-year-old son.
The plane seemed to drop straight out of the sky into the airport in Jumla in a heart-stopping landing. Hasta almost dropped his bag in panic. "I am dead," he thought, as he watched the plane drop straight through the surrounding cliffs.
In Jumla Bazzar, he was surrounded by what he had forgotten – men in tattered, smoke-blackened clothing, holding jute straps, with sullen looks on their faces. The anger in their faces shocked him. One of the men detached from a group of observers and came towards him. He tried to grab one of the nylon bags. Hasta resisted.
"That's all you got?"
Hasta gasped. It was his brother – bone-thin, with scars on his face, wearing a smoke-blackened coat.
"Mother's in bad shape," Resham, his brother, said. "It's good I joined the People's War, or else they wouldn't let us through with these rations."
As he climbed through the hills, Hasta told his brother about the sixteen-year-old boy who had sat for months without food and water. The story itself was the only sustenance he could offer, besides his two small bags of food, to his hungry brother. "Imagine! Months and months without food. Or even water. People kept asking if he pissed, but apparently he sits for sixteen hours every day," Hasta chattered gaily, desperately, trying to break through his brother's morose silence. Resham walked ahead, coughing every once in a while, lost in his own world.

He broke his silence when they were stopped by three young men dressed in fatigues and carrying rifles. "It's for my mother, comrades," Resham explained. The rebels walked in twos and threes – hardened by tough mountain terrain, proud as bandits.
"You are back from India, are you? What are you going to donate to the People's War?" one asked. He looked at Hasta with a calculating look. The young men were carrying rusty rifles. Hasta took one look at them and took out his money belt. By the time they reached home, it was eleven at night and all the packets of instant noodles had been appropriated by the rebels. Hasta's seventeen thousand rupees had gone down to sixteen thousand. He had a receipt printed in red ink, showing he had contributed a thousand rupees to the People's War. Hasta felt tired.
Then, as he climbed up the final slope to the village, he saw the scene he had dreamt in his jungle stupor. Outside his wooden house, there were three corpses, lined up. They were covered in ragged sheets. A rug, black and white, smelling of mountain goats, and covered with flies, was laid out outside the door. He put his two nylon bags on that old and familiar rug.
Resham sat down on a ledge. "They're dead."
Hasta knelt down and threw back a sheet. Below was his grandmother, dried and shrunken. He threw back another sheet. It was his mother. She too, looked empty, as if all the sawdust had come out of a ragged doll. Then, drawing an unsteady breath, he threw back the other rag. It was a small body. His son.
"Where's my wife?" The world seemed to ring with an echo of sounds that repeated mockingly. Hasta heard a motorcycle reverse. Then a hummingbird hummed, along with the uneven whine of a helicopter. But there were no motorcycles or helicopters in this remote part of the world. He shook his head, but the sounds did not disappear.
"She ran away with a trader. He said he would take her to India and they could live there together," Resham said. "She left a month ago."

"Why didn't she take him?" Hasta pointed to the corpse of the baby.
"Food was running low," Resham said. "She could barely walk."
Hasta took out the chocolate. He walked up to the doorway of his house, and looked up. Festooning the lintel was a number of dried herbs and tiny pouches of grain, that their father, the village shaman, had put off to ward evil. Inside was a hearth full of spirits. He put the chocolate down as an offering in front of the spirits, then came out.
"Where will you go now?"
Hasta shrugged. He watched a dung beetle roll a neat ball of dung down the broken granite rocks. A giant mushroom grew in red splendor in the cracks. "Maybe I will stay here," he answered.