Escape From Kathmandu by Kim Stanley Robinson

Author:Kim Stanley Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

PART 4

The Kingdom Underground

I

IT IS REMARKABLE HOW short a time the innocence of youth lasts.

Actually it lasted nearly forty years in my case, but I never noticed it until it was gone, and so of course it didn’t feel like I had had it long. A couple seconds at the most. And after that I was experienced. I knew. I walked the crowded streets of Kathmandu, which used to give me such joy—perverse joy, but joy nevertheless—and now all I saw was squalor and poverty and lame civic planning.

And you know whose fault it was.

So one night I was in my room at the Hotel Star kicked back on my bed with the Tribbie, wondering if it could really be telling the truth about the world; and knowing, now, that it probably was. And someone knocked at my door. I opened it and there stood Freds Fredericks, looking like he had just gotten out of the Himal.

Quickly I slammed the door and locked it. “Get out of here, Freds!” I said loudly. “I never want to see your face again!”

Muffled protests from outside. I ignored them and returned to the bed, picked up the paper and stuck my nose in it. “Go away!” I shouted at the door. Bang bang bang. “Get the fuck out of here!”

My door shares the front wall of the room with a window, and the window has three panes—one big one flanked by two narrow ones, which are mounted on swivel posts. These can be turned like little revolving doors if you want to open them, to encourage a breeze or let out smoke. Now as I tried to read I saw Freds’s hand rotate the narrow pane nearest the door, then reach in and find the doorknob. With a twist he had the door unlocked and opened.

Thus security at the Hotel Star.

It was hopeless anyway; no doubt Freds had already checked in, probably to the room next door, which was his regular. I wouldn’t be able to avoid him. “What do you want,” I said, throwing the paper down.

“Nothing, George. I just got back from the sacred valley, you know, and thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing.”

“I’m doing fine,” I said. “I’m almost back to my eighth grade weight.”

“That’s good, George, real good. You look good, too. Can’t hardly see those scars even.”

“Wonderful.”

Freds sat on the room’s only chair. “Listen, George, I got a little favor to ask—whoah—hey!—no!—hey! Real little, George! Real little!”

By this time we were out in the hallway, and I had him by the throat. I couldn’t remember exactly how we had got there. This was a tendency I had developed recently that gave me concern. Blank-outs. Periods of amnesia, or undue emotion. Insanity—yes, that’s what we’re talking about here.

I eased my grip on his throat and said carefully, “Do I have to do anything?”

“No! Nothing at all!”

“Good.” I trailed back into my room and sat heavily on my bed. Ever since my last encounter with Freds I found I tired easily.

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