Looking for Kathmandu

A novel by

DAVID STUART RYAN

Looking for Kathmandu

A novel by

David Stuart Ryan

Copyright 2012 David Stuart Ryan

Smashwords Edition KOZMIK PRESS

LONDON AND WASHINGTON D.C.

ISBN 9781456471101

More information on Kozmik Press books

and David Stuart Ryan from

http://www.kozmikhoroscopes.com/kozmik.htm

Chapter One

The Traveller's Return

The young German teacher, followed by her two infant charges walked steadily along the forest path; the group had almost reached the edge of the woods, immaculate with the dense green foliage of spring when they were confronted by the spectacle of a man rising from his sleep, still swathed in his sleeping bag. This man had an unbelonging look. Although he could not be described as unkempt, his long brown hair, his bristling beard, the very fact of his sleeping in the thick woods, warned that he should be treated with caution and circumspection. Below in the valley lay the whitened houses of a Bavarian village, the buildings gave off an air of substance, whereas the man. in spite of his being of an average build and little above average height, gave off an air of wraith-like mystery, indeed he contained more than a little element of danger, perhaps physical danger, perhaps not, but danger certainly.

The schoolmistress quickly averted her gaze away from the man and whispered to her pupils to do likewise. The trio hurried on down the path into the village, not breaking into a run, but noticeably increasing their pace, the schoolmistress protectively bringing up the rear, not daring to turn round. The traveller meanwhile sat upright within his sleeping bag, a striped, fawn-coloured bag that merged with the woods. In a matter of two minutes the woods became as quiet and undisturbed as they had been during his sleep through the damp and chilly night. An occasional bird sang somewhere in the trees, the man became more awake rapidly, as is natural when one sleeps in the open and is present at the daily stirring into light and activity of the world. He quickly unzipped his bag and emerged clothed in jumper and jeans. Walking quickly over to the ferns beside the forest path he ran his hands through the heavily dewed leaves and dashed the cold moisture over his face, which responded with a sensation of well-being. The sun was already shining hazily through the partially white-clouded sky but as yet gave little warmth. After stretching his limbs in anticipation of a satisfactory day he was on his way continuing a journey through the most conservative part of Germany towards the destination of the powerfully charged centre, Nuremburg. At last, it was no more than a day's journey.The trauma seemed to have happened a long time ago, not in the passage of months perhaps, but in the passage of shaping experience, of events and their results. There was a picture in his mind, of two small rivers joining, a stone bridge across the flow, an island set in the waters' middle during the full flood of early summer when the days commenced bright and warm. The picture was as clear as when he had last seen the sight, eleven months before. It was inviting in its peacefulness, in its message of fresh beginnings, of the uninterrupted flow of life. After all that he passed through, finding some order in the steady procession of events was what he sought, as one would seek a miracle, for only this mental picture made perfect sense to him, only this joining of the rivers was purged, free of passion and turmoil, pure. But as his walk took him past the outlying buildings in the village he found himself in no hurry, now so near his goal and an answer or at least a possible answer. He entered a high, white-walled cafe which was reminiscent of a farmhouse, here in immaculate surroundings he carefreely ate his way through a full breakfast of ham and eggs, white bread layered with rich butter and finally drank some black coffee. A woman who was well-built without being unwholesome, she looked approximately 30, served the meal and looked on interestedly if discreetly while he ate. His German was limited to 'ein bitte' but she smiled as he gesticulated and looked approvingly on him, seeing him as a man, something he was happy to be seen as, if not as a gambler, crusader even, who had been prepared to lose all, no not lose but hazard himself in the permutations of evolving life.‎It was late in the morning by the time the traveller arrived at the roadside on the north of the village, Nuremberg lay only 120 miles further on. The routine of many weeks reasserted itself as he stood by the road, thumb importuning passing cars, country had blurred into country and climate into climate so that it was all one road which led to the destination. His chosen spot was on a bend so that cars slowed down to no more than 20 mph, opposite him construction workers came and went with dumper trucks full of bricks, a cloud of dust and powdered cement hung in the air. But as a backdrop to the activity were the densely grown hillsides rising up above the road. The woods were thick enough to form an impenetrable screen, even in the sunshine they hinted of the dark side. Had the traveller consulted his single map of the world, much folded and missing one sixteenth which would have shown South America, he might have established that he was near the site of the former concentration camp at Dachau, in fact a mere five kilometres away.‎The first dozen cars which drove past set the pattern for the day.

Unlike most of his road stops, the drivers made no acknowledgement of his requests for a lift, they either stared fixedly ahead or equally fixedly they stared at him. He found himself recognised as alien even without outward sign. Beginning to tire of the disapproval of the stiffly upright inhabitants, his spirits revived as a small Volkswagen car stopped thirty yards up the road from where he was standing in a self-contained patient way. Two men in buttoned mackintoshes got out of the car and came towards him, they had unremittingly intent faces, causing the traveller to stiffen as they advanced slowly shoulder to shoulder, almost daring him to run. He examined their expressions again and decided to stand his ground, attempting to hold the undoubted confrontation to a verbal level-the road teaches a quick appraisal of danger. Before the men spoke they came right up to him and demanded his passport. He produced a Canadian passport from a pouch attached to a money belt. As the men examined it their expressions changed from outright contempt for a vagrant to a more guarded look. Still saying nothing they went through all the pages with the numerous stamps, then smiling formally they handed back the passport and returned to their car. They looked more like army officers than police. The traveller continued to wait at the roadside, the sun steadily proceeding around the valley. By early afternoon he had removed his anorak and unbuttoned his jacket as he continued to importune the passing, openly disdainful motorists. Not until the sun was descending behind the hills, silhouetting the tall pines, did he obtain a lift. A bespectacled man with two dogs in the back of his unusually old car stopped and waved him inside the vehicle without asking his destination. The driver then turned off onto a side road which the traveller immediately recognised was not the Nuremberg road, they were heading north east, but it was at least in approximately the right direction and the Canadian was relieved to finally leave the village set in the Bavarian hills.

‎'You are British,' the driver suddenly said to him in an unusual German accent which inspired confidence.

‎The man was probably fifty or more, grey hair swept smartly back, glasses fixed resolutely on the nose, an old grey checked jacket draping his strong build. The clothes and indeed the man seemed well-bred and expensive.‎'

Yes I know, the war you know,' he continued, my family ran things round here. We saw many of your kind, airmen, escapers, I too was lucky to survive, my brothers did not. Next time we will be allies of course, it was all a mistake we both know the enemy now, don t ^he dogs frisked in the back of the car while they talked intermittently, but mostly there was silence while they drove for about two hours with the road lit only by the car's headlights. The further they drove, the narrower the road became, and apart from occasional white houses with painted rural scenes upon their walls there was little sign of life.

'Where will you sleep tonight?'the man asked.

‘In the woods, probably,' the traveller laconically replied. Can you stop for nature?'

The German was unlike his fellow countrymen in his easygoingness, and he chuckled. He also had an almost imperial air of self-esteem.

‎'Of course, anywhere?'‎

His voice was quiet, not conspiratorial, but perfectly in control, for he appeared to know where he was so well that the traveller felt an almost mystical sense of belonging. On the other hand, to ask too many questions seemed futile, the man gave off an air of unexplainable happenings, there appeared to be large parts of his past, like his country's past, that could not be revealed. This was what moulded him and gave his present life meaning, a happily enjoyed interlude before other great enterprises, that was the stance he adopted, there was a sense of striving, of quietly contained visions that needed fleshing out. Even if his grand vision had failed there were the next generation's visions.‎The traveller, in his brilliant orange anorak, could be dimly discerned at the side of the road in the car's headlights as he relieved himself, the car seemed almost alive as it whirred in the darkness, there was not a light to be seen in even the furthest distance, not that the thick woods gave far-off chinks of light very much opportunity to be seen. Within ten minutes of the stop the car came to a halt again.

'This is as far as I can take you,' said the German very authoritatively, 'wait till daylight and you will soon be in Nuremberg.'

‎The traveller was shocked by the last statement but he left the car cheerily, he had not after all told the driver his destination, it had somehow been assumed, how it should be known that he was heading for the heartland of Germany was something he did not even reflect on unduly, people were being sent to aid him on his journey, and for whatever reasons they came, he was at least sure that some had a residing knowledge of his purposes, and indeed approved. He stood by the dark road, French army rucksack at his feet, watching the car's rear lights disappearing before they suddenly veered off to the right. An iron gate rattled then the car was driven away, the dogs yelped on being let out of the car, then only silence. Feeling pleasantly fatigued after the day, the traveller almost ignored his curiosity to find out in what style his benefactor lived-he debated whether he should simply walk twenty yards into the forest and retire into his sleeping bag and the enveloping night; in moments asleep until the heavy dews came. However, the incident became stranger in recollection and he made the hundred yard walk to the turning where he had seen the car disappear and could dimly discern the outlines of a high mansion, its ornate gothic superstructure lit by a few bright stars, the moon having waned. It was a rambling construction which flowed on in a series of disconnected buildings so that he was unable to see the end of the structure because of obscuring trees on the drive. With no lights within the house he could more palpably feel the brooding weight of the past contained within its form. He walked for more than three miles before stopping to sleep, as if he had only just passed out of the house's influence upon the district.‎The last day of his journey, following a scent always fresh but never fresher, a criss-crossing journey. He found the island, as brightly lit by the sun as when he had first seen it, almost a year before. He wondered if all the years would be like this last. If he had even suspected so much strangeness could invade his life and utterly control him so that all normal barriers to experience were removed then in the next moment he would have found such imaginings derisible. Yet fate had carried out flanking movements which left him floundering flat-footed facing the wrong direction. Why was he sitting on the island gazing at the stone bridge upstream, idly watching the blonde girl sitting at the water's edge playing a flute? He got up to fetch a sheet from his rucksack to write out his purposes to himself. 'I am here to discover in a discreet way if we did conceive a love child. I don't want to make this too direct an approach for the whole affair may be fevered imagination'. Were Turkey and Afghanistan, Iran and Nepal, India and Pakistan, countries which gave themselves to the furthest flung designs of man? Surely they were backwaters with no claim on experimentation, on new attitudes to life and its creating? Did the mediaeval world of Nepal-sacrifices, open acknowledgement of the overriding claims of the dark life forces-have something to teach the new Light Age?‎It was certainly the 20th Century on the island. Given over to the town's youth, games and music the order of a summer day, two policemen stood openly mocking the reluctant-to-obey jeunesse. The much bombed town, rebuilt in a cleansed version of itself, unerringly pursued the business of the day, at the shops customers were inspected for approval before being allowed to enter. The shops almost dominated the town, but a castle rising up above the buildings finally wrenched the visitor's gaze away.‎The Canadian looked up from writing his inchoate thoughts to find the blonde girl with the flute standing above him in her loose blouse and jeans asking him for some paper.

‎Yes, have this,' he said, handing her the paper his thoughts were on.

‎The girl who was about eighteen or nineteen, he guessed, rushed back to her spot at the river's side and wrote quickly while he watched. After some minutes she picked up her flute again. He foraged in his pack and brought out a small drum he had carried back from Nepal, and went over smiling to join her. If she had read his thoughts she gave no sign of it, only motioning him to play along with her. Staring into the fast flowing water playing about the arches of the bridge downstream he beat a time to her soaring notes. Soon, in accord, quickening rhythms responded to by a bird-like sound, they flew in searching flight in the warming sun, the tempo was of a gambolling adventure seeking day, the music did away with any need to talk, would he like to visit the castle? it was mostly an invitation of non-words.

They walked up the rising road, explored about the sides of the castle walls only to find it closed. The girl, slim and sleek and eager for adventure suggested they climb over the walls. The Canadian noted her youth, her instant attraction to him, was that partly caused by the weak mescalin he had taken? The castle was looming over his mind, he was unable to resist its lure, the girl was pouring out her life story to him, she had an undeveloped womb, he was telling her he would awaken her womanly nature, and this day believed within the confines of the castle's grounds that this would in some way happen. He helped the girl to scramble up the twelve feet wall, she was as game as any commando, the gardens beyond offered a real protection from the world. He hauled himself up to sit with the girl on the top of the wall, there was no-one on the other side, only long grassed gardens and clean grey stone. They jumped and landed in grass, walked towards the furthest parts of the garden, it was completely quiet and forgotten within, the castle had been largely rebuilt after the bombings but it still overflowed with the long passage of people's imprints and in the garden there were welcoming spirits. Behind some shrubs they lay down, under some huge sheltering trees, a rose lay between their sight and the castle buildings, nothing moved, he took off her blouse and kissed her small breasts before they locked into an embrace that lasted for an hour or perhaps much more. He did not know if he awakened her but she awoke him, he felt his power breaking through, the power of a man who had thrown off the restraints of adolescence, it was as always a mutual exchange. An exchange that closed harshly as he lunged once more at her seeking even further into her jeans. She fought him off, he had suddenly returned to the passing stranger. They were tired, dusty. Within the confines of the castle they had escaped, success was ephemeral, only the gardens had withstood the armies of time.

Chapter Two

Europe

The group of five people had already had a much variegated journey through Europe even before they had driven frantically through the night into the woods and at an alarming speed down the backtracks until they were more than half a mile from the nearest road. They waited in nervous suspense to see if the police would be able to track them to their lair. Each day of the journey had brought a fresh permutation of the unexpected. In Belgium a fight. In Amsterdam a night out under the stars by the city's canals. But it was Germany which had surprised them most of all with its strange undercurrents of strictly controlled moods and secrets.‎Albert, with his one-eyed jaundiced view of mankind was expounding to the saturnine drinkers in the German tavern on the superiority of the English. Fortunately no-one appeared to understand him, instead they good humouredly laughed at him and even bought him drinks. Stella his girlfriend stayed mostly silent beside him, quietly revelling in the aggression he poured out. She had a peach complexion and cherubic lips, wore a bored expression of defence. Albert's skinny elongated frame capped with a mat of brown hair and reddening beard, attracted attention. As did the one good eye in the care-lined face. The other blinded eye stared glinting into space, giving him the look of a demented or at least drunken prophet, which indeed was what he affected to be, even sometimes became. He was a remorseless purveyor of half-truths and occasional flashes of insight, though Albert was prepared to fight for anything he said, no matter what the cost, he had an inner uncertainty that had to prove him right. On many occasions he had been proved right. This night he was determined to lay bare to the assembled representatives of the German people their shared guilt at what had happened so recently.

All the details he had gathered from those button-holing conversations in pubs came into his mind now, confronted for the first time by the old enemy. He watched these people quaff their beer with gusto, found himself joining in their songs, found himself enjoying their camaraderie. In spite of all, he realised with the perception the heavy lager gave him, they were still united and ready for fresh adventures. Their scoffing acceptance of him for an evening provoked an inevitable reaction; as he left the pub he spotted the light switch and immediately turned it off, shouting 'Adolf Hitler' into the blackness. There were outraged shouts, the sound of people in a ferment, glasses breaking, tables overturning, hastily the five visitors ran off down the street to the safety of the waiting Land Rover before the united herd of Germans should find them and exact vengeance for this verbal assault in their home territory. Even though Joanna was middle-aged she was only just in the rear, for she kept herself in slim, trim condition, only the folds about her face and particularly her jawline gave hint of her age, 50. In front of her ran Peter, who in the moment of danger had lost the limp he had had for four years from the stray Vietnamese bullet. Least ruffled was Daniel who had no reason to worry about his ability to defend himself, the reason Joanna had brought him along. A stud prizefighter was how she saw him, to an aging woman he was promise of lost days, she wished to live his devil-may-care ways and learn some ease of her own tortured condition. She wanted to relearn the pleasures of bed in addition, her wealthy but crippled husband was a constant affront to her self respect, she made herself act with a youthful vitality beyond her desire in an attempt to compensate; she did indeed have a physical bravery beyond what was expected of her generation. They were all extremely drunk, Albert more so than the others, he protested that he wanted to fight the German bastards as his companions tried to bundle into the back of the van his struggling, gesticulating form. He relished the brutality of life, the constant snarling competition for survival, the overcoming against the odds of a massed enemy. Enemies were everywhere. No Germans had appeared as they finally got the door shut on the vehement Albert. He turned his aggression on Stella. In the back of the Land Rover as Joanna looked on silently and fixedly like a caricature of a disgusted middle-class stalwart, he stripped Stella of her skirts and pants and began to slowly raise himself up and down between her opened knees, her plump behind being driven into the floor of the van by Albert's exertions. She cried copiously but did not try to wriggle as she passively accepted his attentions. But even Albert's performance did not stop the three onlookers from again panicking as the din of a crowd of Germans advancing down the hill towards the van reached their ears inside the gently rocking van. Joanna shrieked in terror, tried to grab the wheel from Daniel who pushed her away. A learner driver, he managed to set the van in motion with a great lurch, shouting that the Germans looked as though they wanted to tear them apart. Albert continued his penetration of the softly moaning Stella. Daniel pulled on the wheel of the van to spin it round the confined space at the bottom of the hill and, succeeding, drove accelerating at the mass of Germans, all carrying bottles, searching for their tormentor who was still otherwise engaged. Through the windscreen the ruck of people looked distant, the headlights caught them like transfixed rabbits; at the last moment they parted, shouts of terror, full wild shouts, mixed with the roar of the van in the narrow streets, the solid stone buildings forming a canyon, indistinctly seen, rebounding back the clamour of an enormously over-revving engine, at the most closed-in parts of the street the shriek of Joanna, the cries of Stella and the hoarse curses of the Germans were all drowned out, only to reassert themselves at the first gap in the houses.‎

'How do I change gear? How do I change gear?' Daniel shouted at Peter who sat just behind him.

‎'Christ! What was that?

'‎A bottle smashed on the roof, then, still roaring, the van was away into the silences of the night. Daniel strove to get the machine out of first gear. His slender but unequivocably tough frame shuddered and pushed as Joanna leant across trying to wrench the wheel away from him. Albert was laughing as he lay on the floor between Stella's opened legs. Joanna gave up trying to grab the wheel, she could no longer bear looking out the windscreen at corners which the van managed to lurch round, she retreated screaming to the floor of the van, lying beside the still body of Stella. The tail of the van wagged violently.‎'How far are you going, cool it,' shouted Peter at Daniel who stared out of the windscreen like a short-sighted bird. Peter convinced they must crash retreated to the back of the van. They continued to trundle along country lanes, the alcohol taking over, everyone giving themselves over to the merriment of the relief of escape.‎'Fuck it!' Daniel cursed as the van came to a halt.‎'What's up, Dan?' asked Albert, a bottle of wine in his hand, draped across the van's bench seats.‎'We've stalled.'‎'Where?'‎'On the fucking autobahn.'‎There was silence as Daniel wrestled with the gears and ignition. Peter looked out of the side window into the blackness, the lights of a car were rapidly approaching, the fast lane of the autobahn was their resting place. With a feeling of detachment they watched the car approaching noiselessly, there was no sign the driver had spotted the Land Rover. Peter calculated the car would strike the van exactly where they were sitting. There was a screech, followed by smashing searing metal as the car plunged into the side of the van, pieces flew all over the silent road. The car had struck the back corner of the van, no one spoke, the van had risen up and down like a ship riding a great wave. Suddenly Albert leapt out of the van flinging open the back door.‎'

Quick!' he hollered.‎

He ran about the road, picking up hub caps among the debris.

'Get back in the car,' yelled Daniel.

‎The driver of the car sat nonplussed at the wheel of his Volkswagen staring at Albert.‎The Land Rover fired into life, Daniel began to drive off, Albert ran after the van and was hauled inside, the driver belatedly realised what was happening, he shouted, the front of his vehicle was badly crumpled, the Land Rover looked hardly dented.‎Daniel drove off into dense woods, trees looming up in the headlights, he swung the wheel back and forth, searching for a hiding place, the border no more than a hundred miles away. By the next morning they could be out of the country if they found a safe hideaway for the night before the police came looking.‎There were no checks at the German/Swiss border, it was hardly like passing into another country so easy were the formalities for entry to the German speaking area of Switzerland.‎For travellers in a new country there is an openness to the very essence of what that country and its people are. The wealth and cleanliness of the Switzerland they could see through the windows vast lakes, sweeping mountains, winding roads-brought a stability to all five within the Land Rover, much needed after the shocks that had waited for them within Germany. Daniel joined Joanna in a sleepy town buying tourist postcards and selected a view of a magical, multi-turretted castle to send to a girlfriend in England, pausing to reflect on the passage of time-as is so easy in mountains and on islands set in the vastnesses of the oceans but almost nowhere else.

Daniel predicted that he would see her again, not naming a time nor even preparing to alter his plans to travel the world and meet its most bizarre experiences. It was as if, now in Switzerland, the wealthiest nation of all, removed from the stresses of survival that afflicted the rest of the planet, he could observe the unfolding of time, see some pattern to all the events that would ensue, and even steer a course through this maelstrom. Having travelled he would return to pursue the perpetual need for the certainty of warmth, the return to the unconditional acceptance that a human being experienced on entering the world, the feeling that he was expected and indeed welcomed. Why did it need so much intervening space spent in justifying an existence, the drives found their expression, the man could only wonder and try to find a reason in retrospect for the actions. The fourteen year old daughter at the inn they stopped at for the night burned with curiosity on seeing the two young men and coquettishly served at their table. In the sobriety of the country it was left to the very young to revel in the unexpected. Soon, for the girl too, there would be the need to take on her country's attitude of cautious restraint in a dangerous world. Only now as she discovered her own uniqueness, her beauty of golden hair and abundant energy contained within a lithe form, was she prepared to throw herself open to the unpredictable. A funeral procession wound through the village the next morning, dwarfed by the mountains, its silence belied by the rush of a mountain river. Daniel whistled as the procession passed him, undaunted by the shocked looks of the villagers. A light rain fell in green fields.‎By the time they reached Yugoslavia, Joanna asked Albert to leave. Neither Peter or Daniel protested. Albert was joined by Stella, crying and at the same time looking accusingly at her fellow travellers; they moved away from the Land Rover and up a hill heading away from the seafront, it was a poetic gesture of defiance that neither turned back to even look at three people they had spend more than a fortnight with continuously.‎The Adriatic coast road soon revitalised the three remaining travellers. They arrived at a small beach resort towards the evening, some local people were diving off the jetty into clear blue water. A lithe sixteen year old apologetically brushed past Daniel and Peter as they made their way along the jetty. She dived into the water perfectly with an easy agility and broke out of the calm surface with a dazzling smile for both of them. They both dived in after her, she shyly and politely responded, the shyness an indication that the strangers had a fascination for her. The Land Rover was parked under the walkway made by the high shoreline, and while Daniel peeled off his shorts by the van he made no attempt to hide his body from the view of the young girl looking down at them from the walkway. She, seeing the slim proportions of the male fair skinned body, the dark thatch of hair and the neatly proportioned genitals hanging freely there, lost her inhibitions and came down to the beach again laughing and striking up a conversation in French, Daniel realised he had only to persuade her gently to come with him through the hills above the beach. He had just worked out the correct French to phrase his request to the beaming clear face of the girl in front of him, guileless and enchanted, when her parents called strictly from the other end of the beach. She scampered off like a young filly, high steps and a huge enjoyment in even talking with the stranger. It was a warm evening, groups of guitar playing youths sat around on walls and clearly sang into the summer night.‎They continued to endlessly drive further and further south. The only possible direction with the scent of lazier, warmer days still ahead, the land was opening out, the crowded densities of northern and central Europe were receding, Yugoslavia rolled on from one group of hills to another with no towns to interrupt. The air gave the mountains a clear, washed colour, the dawns were haunted, flooded with the strange colours of new life. They raced over long rolling tracts to the accompaniment of the stereo rock musicians, scattered trees on the plains the only mark of a frontier.

At the Greek border there was the happy portent of guards singing and positively welcoming them to the country. As they were waved through the customs in the warm night a Dormobile drew up full of young French people, nine of them in all, including four women who emerged from the van with giggles and a surplus of energy. Daniel immediately hooked into the new situation, another method for keeping his distance from Joanna, she now threatened him by her constant hovering about him as she sought to cut off his too easy rapport with Peter. Daniel went over to the van and suggested they rendezvous at the beach. The Land Rover followed the Dormobile through the town, they stopped to ask where the sea was, Daniel remembering some Greek from years before said 'thalassa' while making a wave-like motion, and they were pointed on down the street. They parked behind the dust cocooned Dormobile on the outskirts of Thessalonika, a deserted beach could be seen in the distance, the eerie phosphorescence of the breakers glowing somehow out in the night. The French people coming out of their van whooped, as if suddenly released from a prison after their three days of non-stop driving, in their hands they waved bottles of wine. They all spread out across the beach gathering pieces of wood and soon had a fire going. The cheap vinegarish wine flowed and flowed, the air was warm even without the fire, but its flames formed a centre. Guitars strummed out travelling songs with a Dylanesque flavour to them. To Daniel's left in the circle of people squatting down about the fire was a dark-haired glowing French girl; in spite of Joanna being on his right, he suggested they went for a swim. The girl nodded her agreement, stood up, unzipped her jeans, took off her blouse and ran after him in her pants to the sea they could hear beating unseen in the distance.

Joanna thought for a little, then crept off furtively away from the circle so that no-one appeared to have noticed. As she half ran, half walked down the beach she began to imagine she heard wild shrieks coming from the sea, she ran faster and was grimly aware that she was indeed hearing these shrieks, she ran faster still until she came to the edge of the sea and could only search for the couple. The shrieks died down, unaware that the cold of the sea had prevented Daniel penetrating the French woman, Joanna feared she had been too late, very well she would get revenge. She patiently waited for the couple to reappear, and spotting them wading out of the breakers some fifty yards away she followed the silent pair towards the sand dunes some way off from the two vans. She could make them out dimly as they settled behind some windbreaks formed by several dunes, and crept up on them, straining in the silence broken only by the distant breaking waves to hear the cries and sighs of a woman being loved. She heard indistinct whisperings and wormed her way with infinite care towards the top of the dunes to see what they were doing, she would take them when they were approaching climax she decided. Over the top of the dune she first saw the spreadeagled knees of the girl pointing at her, not more than a yard away, Daniel was crouched across her, the girl caressing him as he moaned and she sighed, pleaded, flattered.‎'Vite, vite, mon petit, vite, vite.'‎Joanna's mind flew away from her into the soft flesh the French woman was holding in her hands, her body followed her as she knocked the astonished French woman to the ground from her half raised position and Daniel with her. She kneed her between her open legs, sought her eyes with her nails, screeched at her like a cat left too long in the wild.

'You bitch, you fucking French bitch, you whore, you cow . . .

Joanna felt kicks hitting her somewhere far off unconnected with her, hands pulling at a neck, she felt herself choking as she pummelled the French woman. Suddenly the girl was gone, tears flooding from her, knickers in her hand, Daniel's enraged face was pressed against her, he was telling her he was going to break her neck if she moved. She stopped moving, coldly triumphant. They slept their solitary sleeps far separate among the dunes.‎The early morning found them dust covered and brooding while the French people were already breakfasting at an open air cafe at the edge of the beach, the air had a lilt to it, first Peter arrived, and then a quiet Daniel, looking still battered after his exertions of the night. He muttered to Peter that he had been unable to make it because of the sea's cold, now seeing the ironical side from a day's distance. Having been told this Peter immediately searched the faces of the four French girls at the table and deciding after some thought that it was the girl beside him who had disappeared the previous night he turned his presence towards her. The French had already eaten their rolls and were pulling at their guitars singing, strumming in a free ranging way. Peter beat time on the table's edge with the two rings he wore, one on each hand. He followed with these sounds the time set by the guitars and then introduced running rhythms that dominated the guitars. The satisfying dark-skinned, clear-faced French woman beside him watched his hands and listened with complete attention to this musical talk and message, she did not move as she watched his automatically moving hands that had taken control of him and had a life of their own, she got no message from his blankly staring face, no hint of a smile, he looked at her and through her to some place he was conjuring up in his mind, he was at the same time baring hints of himself, she too felt bare in her bikini, the black of it contrasting with the white of the plaster on her arm over the smallpox injection she had received shortly before leaving Paris. The plaster seemed the only thing out of place in the open landscape of Greek beach and, beyond, blue inviting sea. At length the surge of rhythm subsided back into Dylanesque tunes. Peter, looking muscular in his trunks of dark blue, emblazoned with the maple leaf, leaned across to her and in his Canadian French asked if she wanted to swim.‎

Non,' she announced unconvincingly.‎

'Cinq minutes, c'est tout, vrai.'‎

She got up saying nothing and walked slowly beside him towards the sea. Four or five inches taller, the Canadian was thinner by far than the compact rounded girl and felt himself powerful. She entered the waves first, walking with some hesitation while he rushed on ahead, threw himself into the clear water immediately waking his body to the life of the morning. He urged the girl to plunge in, she did, smiling as she re-emerged and then striking out to sea with a fast crawl stroke, he pursued her, she laughed and struck even faster into the warm sea. At last he caught her, held on to her by the waist, advanced his hands onto her full breasts, she made no resistance, continued swimming with him on her back like a mating toad, both of them giggling. They came to an unspoken stop about fifty yards from the shore; unable to stand on the bottom, and so treading water, he wordlessly and, with concentration on the girl's sea-washed face with its swept back short hair, felt inside her bikini bottom and stroked the wet clinging curly hair; taking her cue the girl likewise felt inside his trunks and fondled him gently. They could hear a whistle blowing somewhere far off where a jetty ran out into the sea parallel to them; still treading water, their faces sometimes disappearing beneath the waves, they pulled off the trunks in a quick unspoken agreement. The French woman pulled herself up round the Canadian's waist with her legs, kissing wet kisses, eventually he found the right position and pushed up into her but could not penetrate her, he felt the woman's warmer, hotter moisture penetrating him and with a last surge in time with waves he entered her.

‎’C'est la,' he announced quietly and triumphantly.‎He advanced fully into the warm sensations of her interior while a whistle shrilled a long way off, they were, they knew, unreachable for the moment, he plunged up and down in time with the waves, she clung onto him and disappeared with him as he sank beneath the more choppy breakers. He was going up and down in her with an abandon the sea welcomed, she groaned with him, he felt himself coming, the woman appeared to be trying to bear down more on him and at the same time sink him, when they did climax it was in a feeling of unlimited water feeling beneath the waves. They emerged spluttering and ecstatic.‎It became very quiet, the whistle had stopped, the chatter of the beach was far off, they were dimly aware that a cluster of people were standing on the edge of the sea looking towards them, but like the crowd on the jetty they were in another older world which knew little of the infinite fecundity of the sea. Among the crowd on the jetty was the whistle blowing policeman. They began looking for their trunks. Peter found his hanging onto his ankle. Nicole's bikini bottom was only retrieved after a minute of diving down to the sea's bottom. She and he laughed delightedly at the prospect of emerging naked from the sea. They could feel elevated and more knowing than the bemused spectators. During their slow progression side by side to the shore Nicole resisted Peter's suggestions of more love making, only saying that the occasion had been like magic. Her dark laughing eyes said all there was to say, they both knew that when they returned to the shore they would immediately lose their link. On emerging the earthly forces did take over. An American of about thirty five persuaded Nicole to lay as though she had been swept up by the sea over the black rocks, she obliged with a pose of languid abandon. Peter went to the Land Rover and dried off, the heat was already becoming intense, but he stayed in the van to compose a note of thanks to the girl in his most elegant French. He realised the Frenchwoman had a boyfriend more clearly when he spotted the same white sticking plaster over the upper arm on a bearded Frenchman who looked gloweringly at him yet did not want to know exactly how or what had happened in the sea. He gave the note to a member of the French party sitting in the Dormobile, it was received gruffly. A small Greek boy came up to him at the open window of the Land Rover and inexplicably gave him a silver Canadian coin, he took it as a gift from the beneficient forces they had both unlocked. He wandered away from the van and an English couple came up to him. In no time they were talking about travelling the world, the man was telling Peter he would survive in any country as the man himself had because he was able to project his personality. As if to prove this point the man's English girlfriend came with Peter to a tap as he explained that he was going to wash his hair, and then lovingly washed and rubbed at his hair. Nicole, meanwhile, continued to attract men to herself as she lay on the beach, not even looking towards the van where Peter waited for Joanna and Daniel to return so that they could drive on towards Athens. Finally he waved as they drove off from the car park, Joanna whispering to Daniel that Peter was suddenly speaking and acting with the bravura of a Frenchman. Peter, behind the wheel, smiled, reflected on the washing, cleansing, fertilizing forces of the world's oceans, Nicole looked on serenely as he drove off, the traveller become free.‎Two days later, early in the evening, the Land Rover drove into the tumult of Athens. Two days of clear roads, warmed hillsides with shepherds tending their flocks, a current of life that arose from the land and permeated even the middle-aged couple he had followed for hours the previous day while Daniel and Joanna slept in the back of the van. He had been certain they had pulled into a lay-by so that he could talk to the eighteen year old daughter who waved to him from the back of the family saloon, he had slowed down, observed the passive faces of the parents who seemed to be urging him to stop, but the sleeping couple in the back of the van mocked his reading of the situation, all was possible now he knew, the build up of anticipation began to cause a euphoric belief that he was on his way, only the remaining goodbyes had to be made. Joanna suggested they find a restaurant as soon as they were in the city, Daniel steered them towards the broken-backed temple atop the Acropolis, they found an open air restaurant which was astride a smaller hill and looked out across the city to the temple dominating the skyline. While they ate the sun quickly set, Daniel claimed that how you first saw a city was the closest it was possible to come to its essence. In this case the hue lines of the temple mocked the 20th Century disorder that tilled the valley Without the storers of gunpowder laying low the structure it would have been impossible to not proceed immediately to the temple in veneration, it had been built by men with knowledge which occasionally announces itself in history, with outpourings like the late mediaeval cathedrals as at Chartres, calling the pilgrims all the way from Paris. The meal also had an atmosphere of the last supper. Darnel joked to Peter about how he was enjoying Athens' finest on only his pittance as a photographer and driver for the party. Joanna intimated the journey was coming to an end for her. She spoke to Daniel of how she was going to book into the Hilton and rediscover the joys or a comfortable bed, it was certain she had come as far as she safely telt able to go Daniel, looking like a man who had been worn down by his adversary, let her go to her hotel, and went with Peter to a cheap boarding house where they rented the roof along with halt a dozen other nationalities, including an American who claimed he had just smuggled back pounds of hashish from India, he spoke bravely of running the border checks, with the possible horrors of imprisonment in an Asian jail; the customs men were becoming sophisticated, they would put their hand on your heart to see if a person was lying you had to be very cool, the American said. Sitting on the open roof they watched the dusk descend and with it the wraith of old Athens, every building in the old part of the town cast in rich blue, the dusty hanging heat and faded stone buildings giving a sense of great permanence. Above the old town the great rock of the Acropolis stood solid and enduring. The two men decided to visit the temple that evening.

Soon afterwards they were climbing the outer slopes eagerly, almost at a run, they came to the tops of an amphitheatre cut into the rock, the sounds of opera singers carrying through the quiet night. Peeping over the tops of the bare rock they saw far below a full cast of opera performers in fine, mediaeval silks picked out by the lights around the open stage. There was no-one to observe their work, the many rows of rock cut seats were empty. This vast deserted amphitheatre was charged with the presences of the past, it was as though they had looked on a forgotten tragedy from the old Athens that secretly continued. The two men shortly afterwards lost contact with one another. Peter had spotted a sentry at the pathway leading to the temple and quickly fallen back to warn Daniel, then disappeared into the night again, they agreed that even if one were caught the other would still carry on to reach the temple. Peter next came upon Daniel standing motionless between the pillars of the Parthenon, they were tall, upright, massive. He walked up wordlessly and stood staring ahead at the star filled sky framed between the pillars, feeling immensely strong. Daniel blew through his teeth in astonishment, unable to formulate any words to express the feelings of awe, knowledge and ease with creation that he felt. Peter beside him also made no attempt to speak, it was as if the stars were equalled by the symmetry of the building and that they could justifiably take their place in the galaxy with no feelings of inferiority.

The parting from Athens was swift and inevitable. Joanna refused to pay for any more food for Daniel or Peter. Peter then met an American he had known in Vietnam, he was heading for India in a party of three in an old Volkswagen. Joanna tried to persuade first Daniel to return home with her, then Peter. Daniel instead persuaded her to give him the money to get to South America in exchange for a farewell night at the Hilton. Daniel suggested Peter have a word with Joanna about his plan to go on to India, she wanted to be impressed by his artistic ability, to be persuaded that he should be financed on his trip East. At first she hedged about the subject saying how they had all had a great month, wouldn't he be better off returning to London? When she saw he was going to head East even with no money whatever, she gave him a £100. She was glad to have been in on the beginnings of their great adventures, these pursuits into the unknown. First Daniel, then Peter kissed her goodbye in the final way of travellers.

Chapter Three

Istanbul

Istanbul was a whirl of noise. Men bent double were carrying huge loads upon their heavily padded backs, keeping up a steady motion that looked as if each leg movement would be the last before collapse under the weight of the piece of furniture or load of vegetables, yet the leg steadied itself enough to thrust the force of gravity onto the other leg, and so the progress of the porter continued. Intermingled with their grunting, sweating sound was the cacophony of the choked roads' cars, ubiquitous aging American taxis, occasional gleaming Cadillacs, Plymouth Dusters, Buicks, Fords, and the frequent wail of the mosque loudspeakers calling the faithful to prayer, the boom of the ships' sirens in the harbour, the shouts of street pedlars and wayside stallholders. After the long open spaces of Greece and European Turkey when only an occasional dusty village interrupted, the change of scene was electrifying, the sudden profusion of humanity overwhelming in its impact. The people could be instantly graded. The majority still living an ancient lifestyle, sneaking furtive glances at visiting Europeans and the few rich Turks who had built a citadel for themselves around the Taxim area of town. They sauntered about in the open-air cafes, idly watching the street life not more than twenty yards from them, yet insulated from this life by their elegant manners, dress and Westernised women. The whole city was permeated with the throb of hectic bartering, at the very latest 19th Century in style, for so many of the city's inhabitants gained their livelihoods on the edge of economic collapse and plied their trades with desperation. Many sullen faces could be detected behind masks of two day stubble, there was an air of omnivorous poverty which consumed the people and allowed no escape. But for the Canadian, newly freed by Joanna's parting gift from this very state, the reality could be observed at several removes. The strangeness of the city excited, the teeming people gave the chance to try any outrageous lifestyle: his very ordinary Western leisure clothing-jacket, shirt, anorak-made him stand out if only because of the clothes' relative newness. Everywhere it was easy to find patched clothes, a vista of shapeless trousers and jackets, all in sombre grey, impregnated with dirt.

The Canadian walked along the street beside the spreading symmetrical lines of Blue Mosque with its intricate towers. The street was wide and bordered on one side by a park which led across to the mosque. Many patches of bare ground intervened in the grass. On the other side of the road lay the Pudding Shop which sold all manner of milk shakes and milk puddings, he crossed over and came upon a crowd of European travellers. They created a familiar atmosphere in which he could relax, listen to the Western juke box music, punctuated frequently with the wailing, lamenting sounds of a Turkish song. The music reminded him emotionally of his two thousand mile distance from London and five thousand mile distance from his native Montreal. The incongruity of being surrounded by Europeans quickly faded and he let go his guard acquired from the journey, now back among his own kind. There were Western women to take in, talk to, some of whom appeared to be travelling without men, perhaps in the coachloads of overland voyagers who poured into the town everyday and then breathlessly prepared to leave the next morning, bound for India within ten days.

He recognised this was the first place he should pause, the first intimation of what lay beyond the Bosphorus on the far side could be sensed. The colours had brightened dazzlingly in the fabulous handicrafts and sequinned jackets, while the furious bartering found among the stalls foretold of the arbitrariness of the laws in Asia. A person possessing money, any money, could be sure of being treated royally and made welcome, he was a man of rare substance. After a leisurely milk shake he passed among the tables in the crisply clean bar with its marble floor and metal legged tables. He nodded back the greetings of a group of young women who looked north European, the nods of hitch hikers relieved, like himself, to have arrived in the big city. The three Americans he had travelled with from Athens in an old Volkswagen car had already firmly settled into a cheap hotel, but Peter Anscombe saw no need to start returning to his more comfortable Western ways, the arduous and earth communing manner of Eastern life welcomed him with its breath of freedom; he decided to sleep rough, the evenings were already warm and his metallic insulating blanket kept out the cold. He walked off down the street towards a huge bazaar, famous for hundreds of years. As far as he could see in any direction stretched stalls lit with silver and darkly gleaming wooden artefacts. But before he could enter one of the cavernous entrances to the bazaar he stopped in response to a young Turk, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, although he was slight and only about five feet tall. He jabbered at the traveller in fluent, fast English.

'Hey man! You want a shoe shine? Come on, we do some business, sure, change money, I can fix a best deal.'

The Canadian indicated by slowing his pace and turning towards the youth that he would at least like to have his dusty, leather boots shone. The Turk immediately set to work with a panoply of brushes, one in each hand for each side of the shoe, these brushes being quickly dropped for two more brushes with softer bristles. As he worked he looked at his customer rapidly weighing him up, and grinning all the time.

'What's your name? Where do you stay?'

Peter Anscombe told him.

'Hi. I'm Ahmed. All my life I live in Istanbul, no bullshit mister, I'll show you round, you'll like that, sure, I've got the afternoon free if I want, my own boss I am, come on, do you want to smoke, hashish? I know a beautiful place for hashish. What do you say?' 'I could do with a bath,' Peter told him coolly, treating the shoe boy fairly he thought as he assumed the role of master.

'I'll have to change some money first though.'

'How much do you want to change, really?' Ahmed's face was now extremely serious and greedily hungry, the street battles shone through the beaming charm, he was programmed to pursue money with a worthy determination.

'About fifteen pounds perhaps.'

'No problem.' There was a pause while the shoes were shone into a dazzling shine. Then Ahmed put his brushes away and stood up close to the Canadian's far taller frame. 'Where do you live here, Peter?' 'Nowhere, just arrived.'

'You should not live in this area, not with all those dirty people, you are clean Peter. I can show some good hotels in Taxim.' 'Too expensive.'

The Canadian was fascinated by the quick appraisal of himself. For he was less than sure of his own position in such a melting pot of ages and lifestyles, money was an all powerful determinant of position and power. He was fascinated by the street wiseness of Ahmed, it was altogether outside his own juvenile experience, having learned to survive in a very unsentimental school. Even in Vietnam the occasional sojourn into town on a furlough got little further than the downtown bar where the women were so execrably worn-out and diseased that there was little incentive to do more than drink with fellow marines and occasionally fight a rival platoon. The intense sense of camaraderie of men in a war and the need to be ready for attack even from a population they were supposed to be defending meant that there was precious little reason to explore the ways of the country, or even to talk to the Vietnamese.

Ahmed now walked down the street constantly brushing against Peter, his arms waving in the air, proud to walk in the tourist's shadow. He suddenly turned a corner and stopped in a doorway. ‘Give me the fifteen pounds and I change it here,' he whispered conspiratorially.

'No deal unless I come in sunshine.'

'But people will notice. The police are very hard on tourists, they have many in prison, think, no money no food, you bribe to get cigarette, you live in straw, you can get two years if you cannot buy free.'

This description came jumping back to him the next day as he was crossing the Galata bridge. A weary grey man of fifty was being led across the bridge handcuffed to two anonymous faced police. The man was obviously panic stricken and yet the crowds on the bridge simply parted to let them through as if it were an everyday event. There were too many poor. The city had a cruel taste by its waterside, so many races had fought their way ashore paying staggeringly high prices.