The Business

'Do they export much?  I've never heard of Thulahnese.'

'Na, me neither.  For consumption on the premises only.' He studied the joint before handing it back to me. 'Maybe just as well.  Prices might go up.'

We smoked in silence for a while.

'It true they have opium poppies in some of the lower valleys?' I asked.

'Yeah, some.  That leaves the country, but it's minimal.' He sucked smoke and handed the J back. 'Compared to other places.  Tried that stuff once,' he said, pronouncing the words as he sucked more air in.  Then he grinned and shook his head until he blew out a cloud of fragrant smoke. 'Just the once, though.  Toooo nice.  Faaar too nice.'

I shivered. 'Absolutely.  Moderation in all things.  Here.'

'Couldn't agree more.  Thanks.' Silence. 'What you looking at?'

'Can you see the old palace from here?'

'Na.  Further round the valley there, higher, too.'

'Right.' Silence. 'Breeze.'

'Yup.'

'Wind getting up.'

'She'll be fine until the east wind blows.'

'What?'

'Nuthin'.'

Silence. 'Jeez, the stars.'

'Cool, huh?  Hey, you look cold.'

'I am absolutely fucking freezing.'

'Better get back in.  People will talk.'

'Indeed.  Good grief, my teeth are chattering.  I didn't think that really happened.'

A stiff vodka martini gave the impression that it was counteracting the effects of the joint.  Probably doing nothing of the sort, but I felt like I needed it anyway.  I didn't entirely trust myself not to slur my words, or babble, so I circulated in Minimum Speech Mode for a while, standing on the outskirts of groups and listening, or just nodding knowledgeably/sympathetically as somebody else sounded off.  I narrowly escaped being collared a second time by the boring Austrian with the factory, but in the course of this manoeuvre bumped into the Prince.

'Kathryn, you are enjoying yourself?'

'Having a total hoot of a time, Suvinder.  What a swell party this is.  How about you, Princey baby?' Ah, well, Kathryn.  Still in Potential Babble Mode, then.  Just shut up, you idiot.

'Ha ha!  You are a scream, Kathryn.  Oh, yes, it is good to be back.  And I am enjoying this party very much.  Now, listen, as I was saying, I would love to show you more of the country.  Langtuhn Hemblu is keen to take a four-wheel-drive and take us all over the place.  We might need a week.  It is such a beautiful country, Kathryn.  Can you spare us that long?' He put his hands together in a beseeching sort of way. 'Oh, Kathryn, please say you can!'

'Ah, what the hell, why not?' I heard myself say.  My, that grass was strong.

'Ah, you wonderful girl!  You have made me so happy!' Suvinder went as though to take my face in his hands, but then changed his mind and just grasped my hands — they'd more or less warmed up by now, with no visible signs of frostbite — and shook them together until I thought my teeth would start chattering again.

That night I slept very, very well indeed.  I had half thought that I might not be spending it alone.  There had been a few attractive possibles in the crowd at the reception, which had had a pretty good social, conducive buzz about it, plus I was feeling pleasantly, mellowly receptive and sort of generally well disposed to men, which always helped…but in the end, well, I was just too tired, I guess.  It had been a good party, I'd met lots of people, encountered an only slightly smaller number of interesting people, gathered a lot of information and over-all just had a fine old time.

I didn't even feel I'd made a mistake accepting Suvinder's offer to show me round the country.  I was aware I might, come the chill light of morning, but not then, not right at that moment, not yet.

Here, too, was a mostly unseen rainbow of animals: grey langurs, red pandas, blue sheep, black bears and yellow-throated martens, their presence — like the leopards, tahrs, gorals, musk deer, muntjacs, pikas and serows that shared the mountains with them — usually witnessed only by their droppings, prints or bones.

The Prince and I visited the towns of Joitem, Khruhset, Sangamanu and Kamalu and Gerrosakain.  Langtuhn Hemblu trundled the old Land Cruiser slowly through dozens of huddled villages where people stopped and grinned and nodded formally, children ran away laughing, goats limped hobbled, sheep wandered indifferently and chickens pecked at dirt.  In the ruins of the great monastery of Trisuhl we took tea.

The rhododendron bushes flourished everywhere in the lower valleys, their leaves glossy, thick and so deeply green they were nearly black.  The valleys had once been much more heavily forested, and here and there mixed woods still lay across the folded hills and lined the steeper slopes.  Where the forests had been, now farms were strewn across the undulating countryside, their terraces looping along the pitched gradients of the land like contour lines made solid.

Relatives, noble families, lamas and government officials greeted the Prince with a variety of reactions that ranged through polite affection, restrained respect, simple friendliness and what certainly looked like unalloyed joy.  There were no great crowds of people brandishing the national flag and shouting hip-hurrah, but no cloaked anarchists lobbing bombs either.  People waved a lot and smiled.

We visited one hospital.  It was clean but sparse, just a building with many beds in many rooms, with little of the equipment the average Westerner associates with institutional medicine.  Suvinder took little presents for the patients.  I felt rudely healthy, as though my own constitution — which felt pretty sturdy and glowing — was an insult to these sick people.

We went round a couple of schools, too, which were much more fun.  We visited the yak market in Kamalu, saw a Hindu marriage near Gerrosakain and a Buddhist funeral in Khruhset.

We took short hikes into the hills to visit half-frozen waterfalls, abandoned forts, picturesquely ancient monasteries and picturesquely ancient monks.  In the lower valleys, we crossed the milky rush of rivers by open wicker-work tube bridges.  The Prince puffed and panted up the trails, using a couple of tall walking sticks, perspiring freely and apologising profusely for it, but he always made it and we never had to stop and wait for him.  Langtuhn carried whatever picnic or other stuff he thought we might need and wouldn't let me carry anything other than the pair of binoculars and the Canon Sureshot I'd bought in Joitem.

I was pleased to be able to keep up with Langtuhn, even though he was loaded down with all the gear, had ten years on me at least and — I suspected — was throttling his pace way back to make life easier for us.

It was on one of these walks I lost the little artificial flower Dulsung had given me.

Kkatjats were snacks.  We nibbled on a lot of Kkatjats.  Pancakes featured strongly.  Jherdu was roast millet flour, pi'kho roasted wheat flour.  I'd been studying my guidebook and knew words like pha for village, thakle for innkeeper, kug for crow, muhr for death, that sort of thing.  Some words were easy to remember because they bore a similarity to their English, Indian or Nepalese equivalents, like thay for tea, rupe which was the local currency, and namst, which was the everyday form of hello.

We stayed in two Thulahnese stately homes (one warm and unfriendly, the other the opposite), a government rest-house (minimalist; big rooms but a padded hammock, for goodness' sake.  Still, very good night's sleep), the Gerrosakain Grand Hotel, Guest, Tea and Bunk House (long on sign, short on grandness) and a monastery, where I had to sleep in a special annex hung out over the walls because I was female.

Somewhat to my surprise, and much to my relief, Suvinder was a perfect gentleman: no flirting, no hands on knees, no tappings on my door at midnight.  All in all it was a very restful and relaxing holiday in a pleasantly tiring sort of way.  I'd deliberately left my lap-top and both phones back in Thuhn (the ordinary mobile was totally useless here anyway).  It was like a sabbatical within a holiday within a sabbatical.  Or something.  Anyway, I felt very good.  I thought of Stephen a few times, and took out the two discs I had, the CD-ROM with the Business's plans for Thulahn and the DVD with the evidence of my beloved's spouse cheating on him, and held them up to whatever light was available and watched their rainbow surfaces shimmer for a while, before putting them both back in my pocket.